right, seeking a way down into that steep narrow valley. These people seemed to have little stomach for risk, and perhaps they really did prefer not to whack him out, given their druthers. But with several men surrounding him, he would soon be flushed without a safe exit.
A long sliver of shadow swept up over Quantrill, and with sudden clarity he realized what he would've known before if not for this skull-splitting headache and sun-induced fever. His pursuers were looking more or less into the sun and might not see a stealthy low form crawling to the lip of the ravine. In another minute or so the sun would be gone, and moments later their vision would be much improved. He might have a better chance later — but this was the only one he'd had yet, with any appeal.
He took it. Slowly, sliding backward, feeling with his toes as he went. If someone did see him and take a shot, at worst he would be hit in the leg.
He did not hear the pop but saw his world lit from behind with an artificial crimson glow; remained perfectly still as the red flare, fired from somewhere down in the ravine, spent its fury overhead and died in the air. He began his slow progress again now, moving as an angler moves near a trout pool, each motion so drawn out that it seemed no motion at all. He paused, hearing a single rifle report, then realized that the round had struck his cycle. At least one sniper was looking in his direction but shooting several meters wide. He hoped it meant that no one had seen him sliding out on his belly in a sunset that was now the color of blood, feet first into the open, pulling the Nelson rifle behind him.
Now he lay completely exposed, turning the rifle so that it lay mostly under him, its muzzle safely beyond his nose. If he could haul the rifle down into the ravine with him, he just might liberate himself a hovercycle with it.
Then, horrifyingly near, another loud-hailer: 'He's goin' over the lip, Longo!' Someone had moved far to Quantrill's left, almost to the ravine. He probably had a weapon as well, and he had finally seen his quarry's stealthy movements.
No time to consider it. Quantrill burst into a backward crawl, feeling his feet and legs protrude out into nothingness, and let go of the rifle as he braced his arms to take his weight. The man who'd seen him obviously saw that he couldn't shoot back after committing to the lip of the bluff. No question about it now: the bluff was a ragged drop-off.
Quantrill heard footsteps pounding toward, him, looked over his right shoulder, saw that he hung over a vertical drop as high as a two-story house. Below that, stony ground angled away at a forty-five-degree angle toward thick brush in the throat of the ravine. He found a foothold; lowered himself enough to get his head below the ravine lip; located crevices for his hands and lowered himself two meters before the footsteps paused above him. The man was too cautious to poke his head over the edge.
'He's gone,' called the man, not using the loud-hailer and not needing to. Someone called a reply. Another green flare hurtled up over the ravine, and Quantrill, looking down into the shadowy depths, saw a ledge of caliche which the flare had tinted a ghastly shade of bile green. The ledge was the width of his hand. Standing on that ledge, a man might drop to the slope and then into cover without breaking every bone in his employ. He found two more footholds, heard someone shout from below, and dropped onto the ledge.
Caliche is rotten stuff for compression loads. The ledge crumbled instantly, and Quantrill smashed both elbows against what was left of it on his way past. The impacts checked his fall but turned him slightly, and then he struck the steep slope at a hopeless angle, cartwheeling, hands outthrust to protect his head. He never saw the ragged hunk of caliche that powdered against his skull just above his left eye. and after that gigantic white flare burst inside his head he saw nothing at all.
Chapter Forty
Familiar pain… faint pressures of hands exploring his body… blankness… splash of lovely cool wet stuff. Vaguely, Quantrill knew he was swallowing water.
Bits of talk from several male voices.
'Nothin' broke that I can tell.'
'Beats me why the sumbitch ain't in more pieces than a china doll.'
A deep low voice: 'He will be, if I know Jer.'
'I seen this one someplace, Billy Ray. Rocksprings, maybe.'
'Well, take his feet, goddammit; you expect me to tote him thru this brush and shit all by myself?'
Rough handling then, not vicious but clumsy, and a slow passage through foliage as tough as an acre of wire brush. Then curses, grunts, and cushions under his butt. The aft cockpit of a cycle, perhaps. A wave of nausea, then blank-ness again.
Later, Quantrill realized he was trussed and in a safety harness as a diesel thrummed in the chassis; headlights swept across him from time to time from a following cycle, and a cool wind fanned his face as they proceeded in darkness. When they stopped for a break, he managed with a struggle to sit up. They gave him more water, and a strip of salt jerked meat to chew. Against all odds, he still had teeth to chew it with.
'I think you're gonna make it,
Quantrill nodded, and thought his head would roll off onto the ground.
'What do they call you?'
Quantrill croaked the first thing that came into his head: 'Sam Coulter. More water…'
From nearby, the strong deep voice: 'Watch the fucker, L. J., he might sandbag you.'
'And him hogtaped like this? Ease up, Longo, I'm just givin' him water.' Quantrill took the canteen, his wrists taped together, and savored a full quart of it.
From what little he could see in the multiple glows of running lights, Quantrill estimated there were five of them; taciturn hired hands, men he had perhaps nodded to at Saturday dances or on the streets of Rocksprings. At least, none of them seemed to know his name.
'Gettin' on to eight o'clock,' said the leader, the one others called Longo. 'If that radio of yours is fixed, Billy Ray, call Concannon. Tell him we're an hour out.' He mashed a cigarette underfoot, drew on his gloves, and swung into the forward cockpit of the lead cycle. Quantrill kept the canteen and managed during the next ten minutes to empty it without heaving any water up. He had been thoroughly bound with the modern cowpoke's standby, filament tape, his upper arms bound to his sides. He could not get his wrists anywhere near his teeth, and the effort was exhausting. He tried to stay awake but eventually slept again.
He woke in a modern, well-lit equipment barn as his captors were stowing their cycles. His driver, the wiry young man they called L. J., freed him from the harness, cut the tape at his ankles, and helped him stagger onto a cement floor. Then they prodded him forward, out the folding doors into a packed-earth yard bathed by an overhead sodium-yellow light. Standing alone, fists on his hips as he studied the latecomers. Cam Concannon shook his head as he looked into Quantrill's face.
Longo, the one with the resonant basso and a barrel chest to push it, jerked a thumb toward the captive. 'Says his name's Sam Coulter. Poking around where that S & R crew picked up the limey.'
Concannon's eyes flickered. 'Coulter, huh? That's a good name, I reckon. Well, Mr. Coulter, you got some explaining to do.' He turned to the other men, considering his words carefully. 'You boys find fencecutters on him? Any brush-popper hardware?'
Quantrill stood there, weaving a bit, shaking the kinks from his legs as the men made their report. They'd found very little to suggest more than simple trespass. It seemed they had taken a careful look around his cycle. Billy Ray, it turned out, had brought the vet kit and the Nelson rifle along as evidence.
'This damn rifle of his sounded like a twelve-gauge, but it's just one of them vet guns. He coulda been tryin' to knock over a few beeves,' Longo rumbled.
'Oh, sure,' Concannon said, running a hand through his hair as he considered the idea. 'Nothing to skin a beef, not even a balisong or fencecutters; how the hell was he gonna dress out anything more than a few steaks and get over a Garner fence with it?'
'I could've told them,' Quantrill began, 'but the first warning I had—'
