‘I’m not being sexist, man, but this won’t be any party for a lady. Nobody’s going to be eating sausage-on-a-stick and drinking Californian white. There won’t be nice dresses and urbane conversation. It’s going to be expletives and explosives, and that’s pretty much all. What if she freezes? What if she chokes, man? What then?’
I hadn’t an answer for him. It was a question, really, that had to be put to Bel.
Bel put Springsteen on the hi-fi, which met with a roar of approval from the chef. It was early Bruce, and even I knew the record. We sang along where we could, and Spike even sang along where he couldn’t. Bel disappeared back into the bedroom and reappeared wearing jeans and boots. Spike had worked up a sweat in the kitchen, and guzzled from a bottle of red wine. He saw me looking at him.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘not a touch after this, okay?’
‘That’s okay,’ I said, ‘we’re not going out there tonight.’
‘Why not, Wild West?’
‘Lots of reasons. They’re almost certainly expecting us, we’re not ready, we’re still all a bit zonked or a bit hyper. Lots of reasons.’
‘Not ready? Man, how ready can we be?’
‘Readier than this. We want to be fully rested. Tomorrow is better.’
‘What? Tomorrow at dawn?’
‘Tomorrow night.’
‘Why wait, man?’
‘Because Jeremiah Provost’s supposed to be visiting HQ tomorrow.’
Bel sat down beside me. ‘You think he still will?’
‘I don’t know, maybe.’ Spike had come out of the kitchen. He handed round glasses and poured wine into them from the bottle he’d been swigging from.
‘It’s safe, Wild West, no cooties on me.’
‘He means germs,’ I told Bel.
‘I knew that,’ she said coolly.
‘Spike,’ I said, ‘we need this extra time. You’ve still got to show us how to use that arsenal you’ve provided.’
‘Yeah,’ he conceded, ‘that’s true. I was just itching to do it tonight.’
‘Relax, calm down. Take a slow drink and we’ll eat a lazy meal. Tomorrow we’ll fire off some guns, check their action.’
Bel shook her head. ‘If we’re going to the peninsula tomorrow night, surely it makes more sense to try out the guns tonight, when conditions are the same?’
Spike whistled through his teeth. ‘That is a good point.’
‘I do have my good points,’ Bel said, accepting more wine.
Twenty minutes later, we sat down to the meatless chili. We ate it with rice and nothing else. It was fine, but Spike kept complaining about how tame it was and splashing pepper sauce over his. His forehead was all perspiration as we talked.
‘That Commando is pretty good,’ I said. ‘Kicks a bit.’
‘You’re using it one-handed, of course it kicks. Wait’ll you try the Ingram, that thing is like somebody’s standing there jostling your arm all the time. We are not talking pinpoint accuracy, but it’s a nine-point-five on the mayhem scale.’ He scooped up another spoonful of beans. ‘Have you tried the Varmint yet?’
‘Haven’t needed to.’
‘Been one of those weeks, huh? Well, here’s my plan. I’ll fire an Ingram up into the air and flush them out, then spray the fuckers, while you sit up a tree and pick off the clever ones who’re hiding in the cabins. How does that sound?’
‘Lousy,’ I said, reading Bel’s mind. Me, I didn’t think it was such a bad plan.
But Bel threw her spoon into her bowl. ‘You could be shooting innocent people. We don’t know that they’re all involved. So far as the cult goes, we don’t know that any of them are involved.’
‘That’s true, Spike,’ I said quickly. I didn’t want to give him a chance to say something that would really get Bel angry. ‘From what I heard and saw of Provost’s conversation with Kline, they’re not exactly buddies. Kline couldn’t have been treated worse if he’d been selling Bibles in hell.’
‘Hell’s full of Bible salesmen,’ Spike said, and I smiled a wide smile at his joke. Bel was still stony-faced, but he had one weapon to throw at her.
‘Bel,’ he said, lobbing it without looking, ‘now don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want you along tomorrow night.’
‘Tough,’ she said. Spike looked to me for support, but I was busy trying to get the last few beans on to my spoon.
‘See,’ he went on, ‘Wild West and me, we’ve been there before in our different ways. Never as a team exactly, but we know the situation and we know the ground.’
‘No,’ she said to him, ‘you don’t, I do. I’ve been out there, I’ve been in the fucking compound! And you expect me to sit here knitting you scarves for winter while you go scurrying off to play your little game? No way.’
‘Bel,’ he said, ‛I know you know about guns, but can you actually use one?’
There was a silent stare between them. Bel was first to speak. ‘You son of a bitch.’ She turned it back into four words, where for most Americans it was one. Not sumbitch but son of a bitch. Then she stood up, left the table, and went outside.
I followed, curious to see what she’d do. What she did was find a switch on the wall outside. I suppose she’d noticed it before. Bright white light filled the clearing. I thought I caught a glimpse of a young deer melting back into the woods. There were lamps at ground level and up in the trees. It was like watching a stage-set. Spike joined me on the porch, handing me my wine glass. Bel got into the pick-up and started its engine.
‘What’s she up to?’ he said.
‘I think I’ve got an idea.’
She drove the pick-up to the far edge of the clearing and parked it. Then she started looking around her. I took the empty wine bottle from Spike and headed down the stairs. By the time I reached her, she’d found a couple of large stones and an empty Coke can. I handed her the wine bottle. She smiled and placed it on the bonnet of the pick-up. Then she reached into the cab and emerged with some weapons.
Spike had come down the stairs too. Even he knew what was going on. Bel walked back towards the house and turned to face the pick-up. It was standing side-on to her, the targets all in a row along its bonnet. She chose a handgun first. Expertly she checked and reloaded the clip, then held it out one-handed, closed her left eye, and let off three shots. She hit the can and two of the stones, sending them sliding across the bonnet. I replaced the stones and the can, by which time she’d got to know the small service-style revolver. Three more shots from that, all finding their target.
Spike started clapping, spilling wine from his glass. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘another good point. Message received.’
But she wasn’t about to take that. She got the Varmint from the camper and loaded it, then fired off six elegant shots, each one on target. She hadn’t nicked the pick-up’s paintwork. For her final shot, she smashed the wine bottle to pieces.
Spike was clapping and whistling again. She turned to face him.
‘I can shoot,’ she said. ‘I just don’t like it. And I especially don’t like it when innocent people get hurt.’
‘Okay,’ said Spike, arms open in conciliation. ‘Give us another plan.’
‘I’ve got a plan for you,’ I said. ‘It’s in the form of a question. How do you sort out the good guys from the bad?’
They both shook their heads, so I supplied the answer. ‘You see who runs away. Now come on, the next drink is on the house.’
But we had coffee instead of wine, and we sat on the ground outside while Spike spread out his wares. He laid everything out on a couple of old blankets.