Caroline bit down hard on the man’s hand—it tasted like ashes and grease—and he jerked it away suddenly.
“Behind you!” she called.
The man turned in time to see Old Mother rising from her resting spot to stare at him with disbelieving eyes. Her mouth opened, and a cry began to well up from somewhere inside her. He released Caroline and sprang across the cave to deliver a punch to Old Mother’s face that dropped her back on her ass, where she began a wailing that echoed and re-echoed off the cave’s walls.
He moved to grab her, and the old bitch spider-walked away on heels and palms toward the cave opening, growling like a cat. She picked up a rock as she scuttled away. Dwayne struck his head a glancing blow on the ceiling of the cave rushing in pursuit.
Old Mother was up on her feet and flung the stone, striking him hard in the chest. He grunted and moved after her. She backed almost to the cave opening on the way to rouse the whole village when her feet were suddenly yanked off the cave floor and an arm drawn under her chin in an expert chokehold. She goggled and stretched her lips wide over her few remaining teeth, but no sound escaped. Her struggling slowed and then stopped, and her body went limp.
Jimbo carried her into the cave and dropped her still form to the dirt.
“Move your ass, Dwayne,” he said. “The skinnies are making noise moving around down there.”
Dwayne bent down by Caroline and began sawing with a long-bladed knife at the leather thongs that bound her to the imprisoning log.
“Get outside and work that bow like a good Indian,” Dwayne grunted as he cut her bonds. Jimbo ducked out of the cave and into the dark.
The man named Dwayne cut the thongs at Caroline’s wrist, and she looked at him like he was something from a dream.
“Can you stand?” he demanded as he kicked dirt over the fire and plunged the cave into blackness.
“I can run the mile in three minutes if you have someplace to run to,” she said and stood and rubbed her wrists. Her hands were pins and needles and ached as blood rushed back into them.
“You’ll stay here until I’m sure we have a clear route,” he said.
“But—” she began.
“Reach out your hand,” the man said. Her eyes were adjusting, and she could see his silhouette in the hazy moonlight from outside.
She stretched her hand out, and he took it in one of his own. He pressed something rounded and metallic into her palm.
“This is a two-shot derringer,” he said in a slow instructive tone. “No safety. Pull the trigger and barrel one fires. Pull again and fire one last time. It’s the best I can do.”
She understood and took the derringer in both hands, feeling the smooth plastic grip and the cold steel of the frame and barrels. One way or another, she had a way out.
“Watch the trigger. It’s sensitive. You understand me?”
“Yes,” she croaked. Her throat was suddenly dry.
He exited the cave and left her there in the deep dark with raspy breathing coming from Old Mother sprawled unmoving against the wall.
The kids and dogs were the first to arrive. The old hag’s howling was enough to rouse some of the camp out of their slumber. The dogs yapped and growled, and the kids began lobbing rocks like the first day of Little League. Dwayne was forced back into the cave mouth. Jimbo took shelter under an overhang of rock that ran along one side of the cliff face. It formed a natural bunker.
Dwayne gripped his spear and weighed their shrinking options. They could only hold the cave opening for so long. The constant storm of stones would keep them pinned down here. The brats didn’t even need to be accurate, the sheer number of missiles made leaving the cave an unforgiving choice. They fell like hail, thudding to the sand and shattering on the cliff face. And a few of the little bastards had an arm on them. The bruises on Dwayne’s legs and arms multiplied. A blow to the head or an arm or leg bone broken and he’d drop. Then the dogs would rush in.
He was almost glad when Fred and Barney burst through the mob of kids, leading some of the other skinny males behind them. The war chiefs held stout clubs with sharpened flint heads and swung them at the kids and dogs to disperse them. An ax blade neatly beheaded one of the mongrels, and it lay twitching as its lifeblood sprayed out.
The grown-ups were here now, and if there was any killing to be done, it would be them doing it. For now, the rock-throwing was on hold.
Dwayne stepped from the cave to meet the challenge. Fred and Barney rushed forward to flank him left and right. Barney straightened up to stare at the thin shaft that suddenly appeared in his chest. It was buried up to its black feathers between two ribs. He staggered a few more paces before falling to his knees, pink foam spraying from his lips. Jimbo sent a second arrow through the eye socket of another male, forcing the rest of the pack to slow their progress forward.
Fred kept coming, unaware that his partner lay dead on the shale behind him. He swung the war club wildly, and Dwayne ducked aside. The little man was strong out of all proportion to his size and put everything behind the swing.
His momentum carried him stumbling past Dwayne, who turned and jabbed with his spear. Fred took two inches of the fire-hardened point in the small of the back. He shrugged free with a deep grunt. The wound torn in his flank was bleeding freely. Dwayne stepped back and thrust out the spear again, going for the eyes to keep his opponent at a distance.
The white-painted shaman muscled his way through the packed
