Sam will take measures. So they’ve got to put this over this time. Their strategy is obvious. They’re going to make an example of us so frightful that no American mobile home would dream of coming to Mexico, and those already here are going to make a beeline for the border and never return.”
“You’re insane!”
“I hope so,” Bat growled.
Several score of the men, guns in hand, had gathered around to watch after Smith and Castro who had by now met the delegation from the other side.
Bat said to them, “We’ve got one thing in our favor. They’ve got to finish us quickly. Somehow they’ve blocked the road both in front and behind but they can’t keep that up indefinitely. A police patrol or someone else will stumble on what’s happening. If we can stick it out until morning, we’ll have it made.”
Art Clarke said, “Great, but when night comes they’re going to bring that bazooka into range, and then we’ve had it.”
Bat said, half angrily, “That’ll be all, Clarke. Don’t put the damper on morale. They probably only have a few rounds for it. The thing’s an antique. It’s unlikely they could have rounded up more than few charges.”
“We hope,” Luke Robertson muttered.
Jeff Smith and Al Castro were on their way back. All stood in silence, waiting. More of those who had been in the foxholes came crowding up.
The two reentered the perimeter of mobile homes. Both of their faces were strained.
Bat said, “Well?”
Jeff Smith looked him in the face. He took a deep breath and said, “They’ll grant no terms. They wouldn’t even allow the women and children to come out under a truce flag. The old one said it was less brutal, in the long run, to make this example so crushing a one that it would be done once and for all.” Smith snorted his disgust. “He sent his apologies, but said there was no alternative.”
XVI
“So,” Bat said. “A massacre.” He turned to the assembled men. “Return to your positions. So long as they’re still at this distance, restrain your fire. Only veterans and highly experienced marksmen with long-range rifles are to fire at all. Hold your small arms and shotguns until they’re at point-blank range, which possibly won’t come until nightfall.”
Dean Armanruder shrilled, “No. No, don’t listen to him! Don’t shoot back at them! We’ll all surrender. We’ll go out with our hands up, in a body. They’ll accept our surrender!”
“Like hell they will,” Bat said in disgust. “Get back to your positions, men.”
“Shut up, Hardin!” the former magnate yelled at him. “You’re removed from your position as town police officer. I’m in command here!” He began going from group to group, yelling at the men, some of whom looked sheepish now.
Somebody grumbled, “Maybe he’s right. If we all went out with our hands up…”
Jeff Smith looked at Bat Hardin.
Bat said, “Sergeant, put him under arrest and take him into the inner circle. Post a guard over him, one of the older men we can spare from the firing line. If he attempts further to destroy morale, shoot him.”
Smith said, “Yes, sir.” He turned and grabbed Armanruder by the arm and hustled him away, jerking at the restraint and protesting hysterically.
The vigilantes were firing again, beginning to edge in again, dashing from one clump of cactus, or other cover, to the next. The circle about the mobile town was slowly narrowing.
Bat began making the rounds again, encouraging the marksmen, continually urging the conservation of ammunition. “You’ll get your chance soon enough,” he snapped to those with short-range weapons.
He came to Ferd Zogbaum who was seated nonchalantly in a foxhole, looking out over the field. He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hands but wasn’t firing it.
Bat said, “See you got yourself a gun.” He began to go on, to resume his constant patrol.
But Ferd looked at him strangely and said, “Bat, I’ve got a funny feeling.”
Bat Hardin stopped and squinted at him.
“How do you mean?”
Ferd looked out over the field again and said, choosing his words carefully, “I have a premonition that that scrambler, or whatever you called it, is awfully nearby. Well, say within a couple of hundred yards or so.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. I just have that feeling.”
Bat went on again, crouching, going from one foxhole to the next.
He came to Sam Prager who was crouched in a comfortably deep one-man entrenchment. Bat hunkered down on his heels and said, “Sam, tell me something about scramblers.”
“Not much to tell,” Sam said. “You wouldn’t understand the workings unless you had some background in electronics.”
“I haven’t. How wide a range does one have?”
Sam scowled. “According to what kind you have. The military have some real doozies, blanket a wide, wide area.”
“But would our pals out there be apt to have anything like that?”
Sam looked up into the sky, scowling still. “Well, no, now that you mention it. And they don’t even have a helicopter.”
“Why would they need a helicopter?”
“It’d give them more range. As it is, they’ve probably got it mounted on some high spot out there.”
Bat took a deep breath. “Aren’t they portable? Can’t they be moving it around?”
“I wouldn’t think so. They’re pretty delicate mechanisms, Bat. They’d have to get it all set up. If they had to move it, it would be off for the time of moving and until they got it rigged up again.”
Bat Hardin hissed between his teeth. Then, “Do I understand you that’s it’s got to be within sight of the area that it is blanketing?”
“Well, more or less. Part of it has to be. The antenna.”
“So out there, somewhere, within sight, is our scrambler?”
“It’s got to be.”
Bat got up. The firing was growing slowly more intense from the other side, falling off on the part of the defenders who were becoming increasingly conscious of their depleted store of ammunition. New Woodstock had not been proceeding with any idea at all of a need for large stocks of cartridges and shells. Some weapons had only a score or so rounds available which was the reason that Bat had pooled their supply. It was now being doled out grudgingly to the best shots.
Bat Hardin, again bent almost double as he scurried across the open space between the outer ring of vehicles and the inner, sought out Jeff Smith, who was busy supervising the digging of the trench that was to be their last stand, if it came to that.
Bat said, “Sergeant.”
The Southerner came over and looked at him questioningly.
Bat pointed with his finger, swept it around the horizon. He said, “According to Sam Prager, the scrambler is somewhere out there in an elevated position. Probably on one of those knolls. We could make a sortie and destroy it.”
“Yeah,” the other said disgustedly. “But which knoll?”
Bat called over to Luke Robertson, “Luke, locate us a couple of pair of the strongest binoculars in town.” Then he turned back to Jeff Smith.
“It seems that it takes a bit of time to set a scrambler up. Very delicate. And if you want to keep it in action, you can’t move it. It’s got to just sit there. Now our friend, Don Caesar, is no fool. He’s figured out this raid to the last detail. He knows that our only chance is to get that scrambler and wreck it. He also knows that we have some four hundred armed and desperate men on hand for a sortie. So what does he do?”
