He said, “We contact Washington just as fast as we can, but the first priority is to reach daylight — so save your breath for now.”
The air grew fresher as they closed the distance to the entrance. Soon after leaving the body behind Shaw found the headroom increasing and a little later they were able to stand up. Merely to stand again was exhilarating; and from then on it was dead easy. Nevertheless, Shaw didn’t rush things. They moved ahead cautiously and Shaw had the dead man’s gun ready for quick shooting if necessary; but all was clear, at least as far as the entrance.
Shaw said, “Keep hidden and I’ll go out and have a look around.” He went ahead and, at the entrance, once again flattened. He was well concealed from the direction of Tucker’s headquarters and he could see no signs of life in the surrounding country. Crawling farther out, he still drew a blank. After studying the lie of the land carefully he went back in. He told Flame, “This is where the risk comes but it’s one we have to face. We could possibly be spotted by Tucker’s lookout — the man who gave Sanderson the all clear when we drove out in the truck, remember? — but on the other hand time’s absolutely vital. I can’t risk hanging around till dark and that’s all about it.”
“So?”
“So we get the hell out — now. And we don’t go the nearest way.”
“Mean not for the highway?” She tossed bedraggled ash-blonde hair from her eyes.
“Right in one, Flame! That way we’d pick up a lift, given time, I know, but we’d never make the highway in one piece — it’d take us too near Tucker. So — we skirt around this hill and go the other way… we crawl out flat as snakes and we make for the side away from Tucker’s headquarters — keeping the hill between us and Tucker. After that, we get as far away from these parts as we can, and hope to hit a road before too long. And we bear in mind that even if we’re not seen the search starts when that telephone watchman doesn’t report back to base and they come along here and find his corpse in the tunnel. That’s the longest we’ve got.”
Shaw pushed the Colt into his waistband and the torch into a pocket and once again reconnoitred the entrance. Finding it all clear outside he beckoned to Flame and they went out on their stomachs. They moved slowly, keeping whenever possible in the cover provided by the bigger boulders and the scrubby growth of bushes and stunted trees. They had to make a detour where a crevasse-like opening showed, an opening that had a fresh look about its lips which suggested it hadn’t been there before the earth tremors had occurred. Looking up at the high hill that had been above their prison, Shaw noticed that some of it seemed to have slipped. There was a bare, gaunt patch of rock where the topsoil had disappeared and by the contours he fancied that up there as well new gaps might have appeared during the night.
There was no-one around; the landscape was utterly deserted — so far as Shaw could see at any rate. Once they had crawled far enough to put a jut of rock between themselves and Tucker’s mountain-top spy post, they got thankfully to their feet and moved fast around the far side of the hill.
“Where now?” Flame pushed again at her hair. She was dishevelled — her clothing torn, her skin gashed and bruised — and the pallor of her face indicated the near exhaustion that was threatening to put her right out. Shaw halted and said, “Down there.” He pointed. “See where I mean?”
On the safe side of the hill range the ground sloped down to a wooded valley, with a rise to another range of hills beyond, stretching westwards towards Colorado. There was no sign of a road yet but there might well be another highway on the other side of that range.
“We’ll just have to hope there is, anyway,” Shaw said. “That’s the only safe way to go.”
“And not too safe at that?” She grimaced, pulling a strip of clothing across her breasts.
He shrugged. “Don’t let’s cross our bridges. We’ll be dropping down into that valley, and we’ll still have the hill between us and Tucker’s lookout.” He added, “Flame, I know you’re dead on your feet, and hungry too, but we just have to press on and that’s all there is about it.”
“Sure. I’m as anxious for out as you are.” She looked at him with a half smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep right on going!”
He squeezed her arm and grinned and they moved on again. They moved fast now, with no further halts until they had reached the shelter of the trees in the valley, where the ground was softer and kinder on their feet. Here Shaw changed his mind and allowed Flame half an hour’s sleep; this would pay dividends later. He kept awake and on the move himself, fearful that if once he let up he would fall dead asleep and then maybe neither of them would wake for hours. After that half-hour they went on at once, straight through the forest section and out the other side for the stiff climb up the high hills, but it was only around five hundred yards clear of the trees that Tucker’s mob caught up with them.
They came at them from the forest fringe and they came on horseback with Sanderson in the lead. They came silently to begin with, moving their horses at a walk over the soft ground. There was no more silence once they were in full view. After that they came on at the gallop with whoops and yells and with revolvers firing into the air. This was rodeo stuff and probably Sanderson’s own idea of fun. Shaw had a suspicion Tucker wouldn’t have approved of the publicity, even though there was no one around to see.
Flame gave a gasp and started running but Shaw grabbed her arm. “Don’t be a fool!” he snapped. “That way we haven’t a chance!” He pulled her down behind a boulder and brought out the Colt. Then he waited. Sanderson, now within some fifty yards, yelled to his Negro riders to stop. Peering round the boulder, Shaw watched the man detailing his hands, who, a moment later, began to spread out. It was hopeless from the start, of course, but Shaw had six shots in the chambers of the Colt and he wasn’t going to take them back to Tucker. As the riders fanned out to encircle him, the shooting started. Chips flew from the boulder, bullets thudded into the ground near by. Shaw took aim on a big Negro galloping round to his right and squeezed the trigger. The man sagged in the saddle and fell, his foot catching in the stirrup. The horse dragged him to his death. One gone… Shaw winged two more and killed another two. Sanderson, keeping just out of range without making it too obvious to the Negroes that he was chickening, lived on. Shaw missed him with his last slug.
Shaw spun the empty chambers and said, “So that’s that.”
Flame started to run again.
She came out from behind the boulder and ran for the still distant hillside, her hair streaming out along the wind, torn clothing flapping round her slim young body. A shoe came off and she stumbled and almost fell, but recovered and ran on. Shaw was behind her now, trying to stop her. This was exactly what Sanderson wanted. Now he could hunt them, ride them down as if they were beeves, like the trail boss his Western heart seemed to long to be.
Sanderson did.
He yelled orders to the Negroes, who pulled in their horses. The men on the flanks turned back and joined Sanderson, forming a bunch in rear of Shaw and Flame. Sanderson stood in his stirrups, cupped hands around his mouth, and yelled, “Okay, run! We’ll give you a start.”
Shaw had caught up with Flame now. She was wide-eyed, panting like a young doe. He snapped. “Don’t give him what he wants to see!” Putting an arm around her he called back to Sanderson, “All right, you bastard, you win. We’re not running.”