move alongside his foot, coming out away from the base of the cliff where it must have been holed up in a crack between the rocks. He stood absolutely still in his terror and watched it. The scorpion stopped, one tiny leg pressed against the knuckle of his little toe, and he thought perhaps it was licking up the blood by his foot. The curled stinger twitched back and forth.
His mouth twisted with the irony of it. Stretch the scorpion out straight and it might not measure three inches from antennae to stinger but it was deadlier than Duggai’s two hundred-odd pounds or Duggai’s engine-block- busting Magnum.
It was one of Duggai’s demons. Mackenzie knew that without thinking anything through. Nothing mystical about it. Sheer logic. Duggai had posted the scorpion here as a sentry.
He wanted to laugh.
The scorpion leaned momentarily away from his foot, following the trace of the blood Mackenzie had left. Mackenzie whipped his foot away, hopped mightily away along the face of the cliff-more than a yard in the single jump and then he kept retreating until he saw that the scorpion had scuttled back into its hole, startled by his sudden movement. When Mackenzie stopped he felt the pain flood up through his feet but it wasn’t the pain of a poison sting, it was only the same pain as before; anyhow he’d been watching the scorpion when he fled and he was sure it hadn’t had time to whip him.
Frozen against the cliff he waited: had he made noise?
The water rippled once or twice. Then he heard nuzzling snorts: Duggai playing in the water. So he hadn’t heard anything.
Mackenzie watched the scorpion’s hole with abiding suspicion but the creature didn’t reappear for a while and finally he switched his attention to the truck again, the truck and the rifle locked inaccessibly within it.
He stood there for a very long time filled with nagging frustration because his mind had gone blank.
Duggai’s voice startled him: his heart seemed to stop. Then he realized Duggai was only singing. Chanting a Navajo song softly to himself. The voice was too soft for the words to reach Mackenzie but he knew the song. It was a young boys’ campfire song of no particular consequence. White Painted Woman and Coyote and legends from faraway times-a sort of nursery-rhyme song.
Perhaps it was the song that drew the scorpion out of its hole. Mackenzie saw it venture into sight and stand just outside its rock crack, tail up over its back, little claws opening and closing like lobster appendages. When it moved it moved quickly but not very far-across the game trail in front of the truck, claws rattling audibly like a crab’s. After some insect, probably, but Mackenzie couldn’t see the prey. The scorpion disappeared into leaf shadows under a ball of scrub.
Sluggishly Mackenzie’s brain began to work. He had one advantage although it wasn’t much: Duggai wouldn’t be expecting him here. Duggai wouldn’t credit Mackenzie with the strength to get this far and probably he wouldn’t believe Mackenzie still had the presence of mind to think ahead of him. Duggai had it all mapped out and knew his victim’s limitations and knew he was safe here: this was R amp;R, not a combat zone. Therefore Duggai would be just a shade slower to react than he’d have been if Mackenzie had come at him last night in his hilltop lair where Duggai had been expecting it.
But it wasn’t enough of an advantage to be reassuring. It was a factor but there were plenty of factors in this and most of them were set dead against Mackenzie. And above them all loomed the simple fact that Duggai could get his wet hand on that Magnum faster than anything Mackenzie could do by way of getting near the rifle.
He thought, half panicked, of getting back up onto the cliff and somehow dragging a boulder up there with him and dropping the boulder on Duggai’s head in the water but he knew that was no good because it was too chancy-he was so weak he certainly couldn’t trust his aim and anyway Duggai would probably hear him struggling with a rock long before he got into position to launch it.
He thought of trying to disconnect the brakes from underneath the truck, then pushing the truck over the lip so it would roll down and crush Duggai in the water but that was a fevered pipedream: even if he knew some way to disengage the gears and cut the brakes from underneath the truck, Duggai would hear the noise.
He thought of trying to pick the lock but he didn’t know how; anyhow he had no implement.
He kept watching the ball of brush where the scorpion had disappeared because he didn’t want it taking him by surprise. And that gave him an idea.
It was a slim chance, perhaps no better than some that he’d discarded, but he had to do something quickly before Duggai got tired of the pool and decided to come back to the truck for lunch or a towel or a look around.
He backed away painfully toward the half-dead mesquite he’d passed on his way up. Under it lay half a dozen dead branches and he selected one. It was the size of a broom handle, gray and gnarled and brittle; he tested it gently to make sure it wasn’t broken. All the time he kept watching the ball of brush for the scorpion to reappear. He saw a spider run out across the clay. It disappeared under a catclaw. Something had frightened the spider; it meant the scorpion was still under there. Mackenzie hefted the stick and quickly searched the ground nearby until he found a loose rock twice the size of his fist. He picked it up but it was stratum-cracked shale and that was no good; he needed a rock that wouldn’t shatter. He kept half his attention on the ball of brush while he continued to seek a suitable rock and finally he found one that satisfied him: it appeared to be honest hard stone and it would have to do.
Mackenzie padded forward, feet curling in agony; he had the rock in his left hand and the stick in his right, holding it by the butt-end like a saber. He worked his way past the ball of brush until he was crouched in the trail with his back nakedly exposed to the truck and whatever might come up behind the truck; he was facing the ball of brush, as far away from it as he could get and still remain within stick’s-length of it. Then he began to prod silently.
Finally the provocation succeeded. The scorpion came out of hiding, lashing at the offending stick with its tail. When it was out in the open Mackenzie poked the stick under the scorpion, resting the point on the ground. Predictably the scorpion grabbed hold of the stick in a tight-clenched grip and went to work at it, nailing away overhead with its stinger. Mackenzie whipped the stick into the air, holding onto the butt-end, flipping it hard when the tip reached its apex-like a fisherman casting with a fly. The scorpion flew off. He watched it sail over the top of the camper and disappear.
Mackenzie put the stick down soundlessly and moved as fast as he could. He transferred the rock to his right hand and gripped it securely and went up alongside the truck, dropping to his knees as he went past the right-side front wheel; he was in shadow here, between the truck arid the cliff, and unless Duggai was looking right at the spot and expecting to see him probably he’d go unseen if he didn’t move too abruptly. Mackenzie slowed and moved forward until he could see the edge of the pool below him; he kept pushing his head forward an inch at a time until more of the water came in view and Duggai finally appeared.
Duggai was staring narrowly at something Mackenzie couldn’t see on the rock face to the right. It had to be the scorpion. Mackenzie saw Duggai paddle back through the water toward the pile of clothing. Never looking behind him, Duggai reached the edge of the pool and his hand groped along the rock behind him while he kept his eyes unblinkingly on the scorpion. Mackenzie moved his foot and leaned forward six inches farther; now he could see the scorpion, crawling on the rock to one side of the pool. Probably it had been shaken up by its flight but Duggai wouldn’t know that; Duggai would know only that it was deadly and alive and he would think it was after him-a personal thing, just as Mackenzie had automatically tagged it at first as one of Duggai’s deliberately conjured demons. In Duggai’s mind there would be no question but that the scorpion was after him.
Behind Duggai the big brown hand reached the pile of clothing and patted it blindly until it found the Magnum. Mackenzie lifted his arm and cocked the heavy stone in readiness.
Duggai brought the Magnum around overhead and settled it in both hands. Mackenzie saw him cock the hammer and take careful aim across the quarter of the pool to the point where the scorpion made its slow scuttling way across the bare rock.
Mackenzie tensed. He saw the flesh of Duggai’s finger whiten slightly on the trigger. All his fibers twanging, Mackenzie watched and clenched his muscles.
When the revolver went off Mackenzie smashed the truck’s window.
29
