She was quite a girl. I watched her go off toward the open meadow. Holz had taken the only horse that was tied. The rest had been hobbled and turned loose, and you'd be surprised at how well an experienced wilderness horse can get around with his forelegs roped together. Well, that was her problem.
I went back to mine, which was very simple. The big Magnum rifle held three cartridges in the magazine. It could have held a fourth in the chamber, but Jack hadn't put one in. He'd been riding, and you don't carry a rifle in a saddle scabbard with a live round under the firing pin unless you're stupid, optimistic, or suicidal. Nor do you chamber a round in camp unless you're planning to shoot something right away. Apparently, he hadn't really expected trouble.
Three cartridges ought to be enough, with a properly sighted-in rifle. The question I had to answer was: Had Holz sighted in this gun carefully, and was it still on target? Presumably he had his number-one weapon with him. This was just his spare rifle, lent to Jack. Just how careful had he, or Jack, been about seeing that it shot where it looked? If I made the stalk and found a mark to aim at, would the bullet go where the cross hairs indicated?
I sighed. I was just kidding myself, trying to convince myself that I didn't have to waste any of my precious three cartridges. There's only one way to find out if a rifle is shooting right for you, and that is to shoot it, no matter what kind of a genius-marksman fired it before you. To go hunting a fellow specialist like Holz without first checking my weapon would be sheer lunacy on my part.
Waiting, I cooked some breakfast and listened absently to the wheedling and abuse put out by Libby, on the floor. It didn't bother me, now that I knew what I had to do. When there was clear daylight at the tent door, I bent down and kissed her.
She said, "Damn you, Matt."
"You're a lovely thing," I said. "You just talk too much. Be good."
I took the rifle and went out, cut a round white blaze in the bark of a nearby tree, and paced off one hundred yards. I lay down and adjusted the rifle sling to my measurements, chambered one third of my ammunition supply, and took careful aim. When the cross hairs were absolutely steady on the improvised target, I let the piece fire. Then I walked over there and looked at the result: a little black hole just three inches above my point of aim, exactly where it should have been to keep the bullet on a man-sized target out to roughly three hundred yards. Well,, now I knew.
I pulled the bolt to eject the empty case, worked a fresh cartridge into the chamber, and set the safety carefully, as Davis came running up with Pat right behind him.
"What is it?" Davis panted. "What's the matter? Did you see Mr. Wood? Why did you shoot?"
"I was just checking the gun," I said. "It shoots fine."
"Just checking… but you only had three cartridges!"
"And now I have two, but I know what they'll do when I fire them," I said. "Well, it's about time I was on my way."
"Where are you going?"
"Up there." I pointed. "That spot up there on the mountainside above the little lake we passed. You crossed the rockslide if you were following our trail. Mr. Wood is sitting right above it this minute. He's got to be. From there he can watch this camp-he's probably got his scope on us right now, and he's wishing we were about a mile closer. But he's not going to come after us, because we're doing him no harm here. What he's got to make sure of is that none of us gets back to civilization in time to pass the word about the plane that's coming in this afternoon."
Pat said, "You're sure there'll be a plane?"
"He was sure," I said. "And that's why he's not going to play Indian in the brush; one of us might slip out while he was doing it. He's just going to sit tight at the head of the rockslide where he can watch the camp and cover the only trail out of here-the only trail we know. From there, he can keep us from leaving, and at the same time he can pick us off if we try to interfere when the plane does come. At the last minute, he'll scramble down the rocks, jump aboard, and fly off with the NCS material in his shirt pocket."
Pat was watching me closely. She said, "So you're standing in the open arid waving your arms to tell him exactly what you're going to do."
I grinned. "He knows what I'm going to do, Skinny. He knows I'm coming after him. That is, he's almost sure. But if I'm real obvious about it-sighting in my gun where he can see me, and pointing out my objective dramatically-he may get a few doubts. He may just start wondering if I'm being tricky, and if so, how. The suspense will do him good." I looked at the two of them. "Stay here. Don't take any chances with Mr. Wood. You can't do a thing to help me with those damn little hundred-and-fifty-yard carbines, so don't try. And don't take any chances with the lady in the tent, either. She may just be the greatest, sweetest person in the world, but… wait a minute. Les, how well do you know your chief?"
"Mr. Ryerson? Ronnie's dad? Well, he's not the palsywalsy type of boss. I wouldn't say any of us really knows him, even Ronnie."
"Ryerson, eh?" At last I could stop thinking of them as Smith, Junior, and Senior. "Then you wouldn't be really startled to learn that he was running another organization parallel with yours, only much more secretive and uninhibited?"
Lester Davis frowned. "You mean… you mean you think he's just using us as a screen, a cover, for another…?" He stopped, and considered the proposition. Then he shrugged. "I really couldn't say, Mr. Helm. Of course if he were doing that, we'd be the last to know, wouldn't we?"
"That's right," I said. "Well, Libby Meredith claims to be one of his super-secret, lower-level operatives. Or upper-level, depending on how you look at it. A colleague of yours, no less. Maybe she is. It remains to be proved. In the meantime, she stays tied. You get the horses rounded up and wait for me."
Pat Bellman hesitated. "How long do we wait?"
I said, "Until you hear some shooting up there, and about half an hour longer. If I'm not back by then, I won't be back, and you'll be on your own…"
33
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL MORNING, which was too bad. Yesterday's rain and mist would have been useful, but what I had was a clear blue sky, bright sunshine, and endless visibility. Since I had it, there was nothing to do but make use of it. With my nose to the ground, like Hiawatha on the trail of his winter venison, I let myself be seen marching off on foot in the direction up the valley that Holz had taken on horseback some hours earlier.
If Holz was where I thought, watching from high above and far away, and if he wanted to think I was tracking him, that was all right. It was more or less what I was doing, and I couldn't prevent him from anticipating it. But if he wanted to think I just wanted him to think I was tracking him, that was all right, too.
For instance, if he remembered the part of my dossier that said I was pretty good in the boondocks, he might start worrying about whether or not I could be trying to get back to civilization for official help by way of a different trail or no trail at all. A worried man can't sit still nearly as well as an unworried one; and a moving man is easier to spot than one who holes up in a bunch of rocks and stays there. I'd rather play mountain tag with the man than try to dig him out of hiding.
It was pleasant to be walking, working the soreness out of the riding muscles that had taken a beating yesterday. I could have been better dressed for the work, particularly in the matter of footgear-the cowboy boots of my Nystrom role were a bit slick-soled for climbing and a bit noisy for stalking-but on the whole I didn't feel that I was operating under any serious handicaps. At least I didn't have a bullet in me, and Holz did. And I wasn't brooding heavily about what a sad and lonely job I had, either, even though I'd once been a sucker for a dog in trouble.