It had taken very little time to defeat his hopes that the ruins would offer a point of ambush. Along the narrow pathway which followed the lip of the shelf, the walls were too crumbled to provide a place of concealment from which he could attack. Under the cliff itself the ruins were better preserved-some still standing in two stories-but they offered only a hiding place, no place from which to launch an attack. At the end of the shelf, where a massive geologic fault had shifted the earth's crust eons ago and split the cliff, there was no effective cover at all. McKee edged his way carefully past the dwelling's final crumbled corner.
Here the path was buried under tumbled stones. A misstep meant a plunge into the crevasse left by the fault.
McKee looked at his watch. He had used thirteen minutes and accomplished nothing. Here at its mouth the crevasse was about fifteen feet across. Beyond it the shelf continued. It was slightly lower and after a few yards tapered away to nothing.
From where he stood it was impossible to see what the crevasse in the cliff offered. The Anasazis had built their structure to the very base of the cliff wall. The exterior wall had fallen outward over the precipice, but the spreading limbs of pinon screened the narrow opening.
He moved carefully over what remained of partition walls, pausing once to look down into the crack. The split was sheer, and although the narrow slot was partly filled with broken slabs of rock flaked off the walls above, it was much too far to jump.
McKee hurt his hand again climbing what remained of the back wall. He had forgotten the finger for a moment in the overpowering need to know if the crevasse held some possibility for him, and had shifted his weight to it. He was still sick with the pain when he lowered himself into the darkness behind the wall. A minute ticked away as he sat in the dust, holding his hand stiffly in front of him, letting the throbbing diminish and his eyes adjust to the darkness. What he saw both disappointed and encouraged him.
There was no natural pathway into the crevasse as he had hoped. The shelf did not extend into it. But the Anasazis had cut foot and hand holds into the sandstone, making it possible for a person to work his way back into the slot. Somewhere back in the darkness where the crack narrowed, where a man could brace himself between the opposing walls, there would be a way to the top. If he could dispose of Eddie, he could make it. But what about Eddie?
McKee studied his position. There were two ways into this dark cul-de-sac where he now sat between wall and crevasse-over the crumbled wall as he had come, or by pushing past the out-thrusting branches of the pinon. Eddie would probably come over the wall for exactly the same reason he had done so. The pinon had angled outward toward the sunlight. One could force his way past it, but bending by the heavy branches would require a tightrope walk along the very lip of the crevasse. Not knowing where McKee would be, Eddie wasn't likely to risk that. He would choose the wall.
McKee thought about it. If Eddie came over the wall fast-moving from the bright morning light on the shelf into this darkness-then there would be a chance. But that wasn't likely to happen. Eddie would be taking no risks. He would climb the tumbled rocks of the wall slowly, pistol ready. He would pause at the top, studying the gloom. And, if he did, McKee would be a mouse in a trap.
He tested the extending main branch of the pinon. If he could pull it back enough and tie it to something, the route past the tree would be inviting. He could use his shirt as a rope, and tie one end well out on the branch. By putting his full weight against it, he could bend the tree well back from the lip of the cliff-opening an easy walkway. But where could he tie it?
A second after the ideas came to him, he heard Ellen.
Her voice was high, almost hysterical. He heard Eddie, an angry sound, and Ellen again-shouting now. And then the shot. A single crack of noise which released a rumble of echoes to bounce up and down the canyon.
'And now she is dead,' McKee thought. 'Canfield is dead and she is dead.'
He bit the corner of the khaki shirt collar between his front teeth, pulled it taut with his left hand and split it gingerly with the knife. The pain was there when he held the knife, but he could tolerate it. He ripped the shirt down the back, twisted the two sections, and knotted them to his makeshift rope. Then he pulled out his belt and looped it around an outcrop of stone beside the wall.
Now it would reach. He pulled against the tree, thinking numbly that Eddie had not given him thirty minutes and that Ellen had chosen to shout a warning in the face of Eddie's pistol. He strained against the rope of shirt, pulled it through the looped belt, and wrapped it twice. His right hand was no help with this heavy work and he used his teeth to pull the knot tight. In a moment he would confront Eddie.
He was almost ready. He laid the knife on a rock protruding from the wall, sorted through stones in the dust at his feet and chose one which fit well in his left hand. In a very few minutes it would be over. Eddie would come. If Eddie walked past the tree, he would cut the shirt and the limb would slash at Eddie. And, as he cut the rope, he would come over the wall with the rock. If Eddie had been blinded by the whipping limb, or hurt, or even confused, he would kill Eddie. Either way, it would be over then. McKee thought of that. It was better than thinking of Ellen's voice and the sound of the pistol.
Eddie came almost too soon. McKee settled himself high on the rubble and looked over the top and Eddie was there. He was standing on the pathway at the corner, where the shelf was cut by the crevasse, studying the ruins. McKee shrank back behind the screen of pinon limbs as Eddie turned toward him. The gunman's vest was unbuttoned now and he held the pistol in his right hand, close to the body. The barrel, McKee noticed, always pointed with his eyes, like the flashlight of a man searching in the dark.
McKee felt a pressure in his chest and became aware he was holding his breath. He released it and gripped the rock.
Eddie moved now. He walked directly along the edge of the crevasse, just as McKee had done, stepping carefully over the tumbled partition walls.
Twenty feet away he stopped and stood in a half crouch, studying the tree and the wall.
'McKee,' he said, 'I had to shoot your woman.' Eddie's tone was conversational. He stood for a moment listening-no more than the polite pause for reply.
'Killing you is going to cost me thirty thousand dollars,' Eddie said. 'It's going to cost George twice that much.' He paused again. 'Are you going to make me do it?'
McKee found he was holding his breath again. Eddie was examining the wall, making his choice.
McKee looked at the rock in his hand. He turned his body, braced himself, and threw it in a high arching toss up
