I dug a grenade out of the pack. I did not pull the pin. I lobbed it with a slow sidearm so that it would arch over her head and fall on the roadside beyond her. The moment it was in the air, I was on my feet, weapon on the ground. The grenade hit and she spun toward the sound, and I charged her. She heard me coming, but she was caught for a frozen moment in a dilemma of choice. Run from the grenade or turn and cut me down. She ran several steps down the road, tumbled and rolled in expert fashion, and ended up in the prone firing position, getting off one wild shot before I kicked the Uzi out of her hands to turn in the air and land in the shallow wet ditch. I grabbed her, and she came up popping me under the chin with her head so hard the world was full of stars and lights. I turned and took a hard kick on the thigh that could have disabled me. Then she tripped me, somehow, and got loose and went scrambling away, running in a strange fashion on her hands and her feet with her rump high in the air. She had registered that the ring was still affixed to the grenade, and she went after it instead of the Uzi. I tried too fast a start and slipped and went down again. She snatched up the grenade, standing and turning as she did so, yanking the pin, releasing the handle. I saw her lips moving as she counted. Her face was screwed up by the intensity of thought, like a child with a puzzle.
I couldn't get to her. She was moving backward quite rapidly, up the hill. She held her arm back, ready to throw. Whichever way I went, she would lead me, and she was nearing her count. I feinted
The Green Ripper one way to draw the throw and ran the other way. Just as she tried to throw it underhand, both feet went out from under her and she sat down hard in the slush. She had thrown it and I couldn't see it anywhere. She had a dazed look. I saw it suddenly, coming down. The fall had made her throw it straight up in the air. It hit behind her and bounced off stone, almost as high as her head, before it went off. I weaved my way over to the other ditch, crossed it, and held onto a small tree. It was a good time for Alvor to have happened along, had he only known it. I found my weapon and picked it up, checked it out. I wondered if I was going to be sick. I knew I was not going to look at what was left of Sister Nena. Not now.
How much luck remained to me? I had needed it more with Nena than with any of the others. Her timing had been perfect. A very accurate count. She was planning on an air burst right in my face.
I had the feeling that this had been a warning to me. This is the way They had used up the very last of my luck. All at once. Good-bye, John Wayne. I went around the side of the plateau, around the end, through very difficult country, staying well below the level of the plateau, moving as quietly as I could. Chuck's complicated wristwatch said it was ten o'clock. I had thought it was at least three in the afternoon. I had lived through more bad hours than the watch would admit. Cover and concealment. The day was overcast, and the misty rain be gan. I had muddied my face. I worked my way up the slope behind the warehouse, walking my forearms along, digging with the toes, watching everything, listening to the dripping eaves, the rain, the silence. It seemed strange to me that I had never heard any birds up here. There should be birds.
Now what would I do if I were old Alvor Brother Alvor with the broad meaty shoulders, the square gray face? Why, I would set up in a good place. I would set up on a high place. I would, by God, set up on a roof, not necessarily the highest roof around, but one where I could lie doggo, and then pop up suddenly and blow the fisherman to fishbait bits. I looked around very carefully. I backed down the slope and came up in a new place and looked around some more.
Finally I had an idea where I might find him. Persival's motor home had one of those ladders that go up to a depression on top that forms a luggage receptacle, with a little chrome fence around it for the tie-downs. It was a handy place for Alvor. He could have climbed the ladder out of sight of the road area. Yes, it would be a very wise choice. But how to check it out and remain alive? I moved again, back down the slope and up again to where I could come out behind one of the little cementblock structures, out of his sight if he were on top of the motor home. I was beginning to get very ragged in the nerve department. I was certain my
The Green Ripper luck was gone, and so it took just about all I had to stand up and move in close to the wall of the little building. I leaned against it, feeling sweat run out of an armpit and tickle my ribs as it ran down. My hands were shaky. Sammy was waiting in one direc lion to blow me apart' Stella in another,~and Alvor on the high ground. find of the saga Twilight of the great John Wayne day.
I did not want to leave the shelter of my nice solid little building. It can get to be like when you were a kid, standing on a high place. Wait too long and you can't jump.
Check the weapon. Breathe deeply. Where had all that zest gone? Who stole the gusto? It went when somebody blew the head off Sister Nena.
One way to go at it I put an eye around the corner of the building. The motor home was right there, about forty feet away. A hide of very thin alloy with an enamel coating. If he was elsewhere, I would be taking the risk of letting him know I was close. But that was acceptable.
I leaned against the building, aimed, let it go on full automatic, cartridge cases dancing away, slugs smacking into the metal, punching holes, making creases in the roundness, making a lot of metallic banging, screech of ricochets, quackety roar of the very rapid cycle of fire. There was an answering roar and something leaped off the roof, out of the depression, and down on the other side of the incongrnous vehicle. Have fun on the road. Drive me to Yellowstone. Plug in the water, the electric, and the phone, and adjust the TV aerial.
I had to make my run. But I had a spot right in the middle of my back, right where Sammy or Stella was going to drive it home. I had used the ne~ct-to-the-last clip to drive Alvor off the roof, and I put in the last clip when I went hunting him. The silence after all that great rackety clatter was astonishing. I braced my back against the motor home, snapping my head from side to side, wondering if he were already runningout across the plateau.
I eased myself down and looked under the vehicle. No feet. I stood up and felt a faint movement of the whole vehicle, not unlike the slight movement of a heavy boat when somebody steps aboard. Okay, so he had eased the door open and gone in. It moved again. So he was creeping around in there. And might have a shot out of the right window at a steep enough angle to knock off a piece of my head or shoulder. I dropped again and eased under Brother Persival's house.~It was a close fit, but I pulled myself slowly, on my back, over to the other side. Now he was in there, peering out the windows, trying to spot me. And I had no idea what in hell I was going to do. All I knew was that I was in a spot where he couldn't see me.
I felt more movement, heard a creak. And then, twenty inches from my head, a muddy shoe came down, stealthily. And the second one as he stepped out of the vehicle. I was dragging the Uzi along by
The Green Ripper the muzzle, still hot from the long burst, and I knew I had not the time nor the room to pull it to position, aim, and fire it. He stood there, and I reached out and snatched his ankles and pulled them out from under him and tried to snake myself out from under that thing in the same motion. I was halfway out when he kicked me loose. He tHedto bring the barrel of his rifle down to bear on me, but I got inside the arc of the muzzle and swarmed onto him, hitting him once in the face. He bucked me off and rolled over and over, but I had hold of the rifle and tore it away from him. I tried to turn it on him, but he came inside the arc just as I had done and butted me up against the side of the vehicle. He was a very powerful man, and a very quick man. I saw the gleam of metal, dropped the rifle, and went for his wrist. We rolled over and over, and I could see that from somewhere he had come up with a stubby, broad-bladed, evil-looking knife. I hate a knife. Then I was on my back and his weight was on me, and with all his strength he was slowly forcing the blade down, bending my arms in the process. I got my feet under me and bucked him off over my head. I snatched his ride by the barrel and swung the stock at him as he was rolling to his feet. It took him squarely in his thick throat