'I'll freelance,' I said.
'I sort of guessed that,' Hawk said. 'We already have water and ammunition stashed at each firing position.'
He had forgotten his jive accent again.
'Drink a lot of water,' I said.
'That way,' Chollo said, 'we run out of ammunition we can piss on them.'
'What you gonna do freelancing?' Vinnie said.
'I thought I'd hide under the bed until you guys won,' I said.
'We'll let you know,' V'mnie said.
'But in case I'm not under the bed,' I said, 'I'll be down below the house, behind them if they come in.'
'And?' Sapp said.
'And I want to be the first one to shoot.'
'If possible,' Hawk said.
'If possible.'
I turned and started down the hill. After ten steps I turned and said to Hawk, 'Good hunting.'
To my ear I sounded amazingly like Stewart Granger.
Hawk grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.
'Gringos watch too many movies,' Chollo said.
'African Americans, too,' Hawk said.
'Si.'
I went on down the hill.
Chapter 60
THEY CAME IN a long, relentless line of trucks and motorcycles. As they moved past me onto the dirt road to the house, dust lingered behind them, kicked up by their passage.
Mongol hordes.
I lay behind my rock in a clump of cactus as they passed, with the sun pressing down on my back and the Winchester laid across the rock. I had a bag of ammunition and some water. I wore a Browning 9mm on my right hip, and the Smith Wesson.38 butt forward on my left side. The line pulled up in front of the house and spread into a wide semicircle, the motors still running. The thick smell of exhaust fouled the intense desert air. They were so used to intimidating people, and they had arrived in such numbers, that they were arrogant, and arrogance made them stupid. They put out no scouts, and paid no attention to the possibility of ambush. Their only concession to the possibility that we might put up a fight was to dismount their vehicles and stay behind them, except The Preacher. He sat upright and almost regal in the passenger seat beside the Mexican driver, while Pony threw a leg over the side, and climbed out of the back seat of the Scout, and waddled fearsomely to the front door, carrying an assault rifle. The collective motors grumbled in the silence.
'Spenser,' Pony said loudly.
Nothing.
'Preacher's here,' Pony said.
Nothing.
The Preacher gestured and nine men moved out from behind the vehicles and clustered behind Pony. All of them had long guns.
'You come out or we come in,' Pony blared.
We didn't come out. Pony jacked a shell up into the chamber of the assault rifle, kicked open the door and went in. The other nine guys crowded in behind them, bumping into each other and jamming up in the door before they got through. It didn't appear that they'd given this a lot of planning. In three or four minutes they came back out, this time taking turns through the door.
'Looks like they run,' Pony said.
The Preacher began to look up the hill.
'They didn't run far,' he said. 'Spread out. Look for them.'
I levered a round into the chamber of the Winchester. The Mexican driver heard the sound and jumped from the Scout with a long-barreled revolver in his hand, in a half crouch, looking toward my rock. I eased the rifle over the rock, aiming so that the Mexican driver was sitting on my front sight. He saw the movement, and snapped off a shot that spanged off the rock. I shot him in the middle of the chest and he fell straight backward and lay on the ground beside the Scout. The remainder of the Dell surged toward my rock, and my colleagues opened up from the hillside. The Preacher sat bolt upright in the Scout.
'Pony,' he said, 'take five men and clean up behind the rock. The rest of you spread out up the hill. Don't bunch up.'
With my ammo and my water I moved down from behind my rock, and crossed the road behind them and took new shelter in a small wash behind the house.
The gunfire from the hill badly damaged the center of the Dell advance. Stalled, the survivors pinned down behind whatever cover they could find. I could hear the fast boom boom of Bernard's street sweeper. Then the firing
