Paulus said, “I’m going tonight, and I’m going with my piece of the score.”
Parker and Wycza looked at each other. It was Wycza who said it: “You’re staying here, Paulus, and we’re making the split the day after tomorrow. Now shut your trap about it.”
Paulus shut his trap, but he looked mutinous.
Grofield guessed Littlefield’s charade: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Phillips took the next pot. Raking it in, he said, “All things come to him who waits.”
“That’s the tough part,” Parker told him.
3
Parker came awake all at once to find Wycza’s hand on his shoulder. Wycza whispered, “Paulus.”
Parker nodded and got to his feet. The shed was full of the hushes of sleeping breath. Cots were placed every which way around the room, and men were sleeping on all of them.
Wycza whispered, “Salsa, too?”
Parker nodded.
They moved forward, and Wycza touched Salsa’s shoulder. Salsa too came straight awake and sat up. Wycza whispered Paulus’s name, and then the three of them went outside and shut the shed door behind them.
It was cool at night here, and tonight there was a dampness in the air that hadn’t been present before. The stars were obscured, the sky heavy and black.
Parker whispered, “Where?”
“I heard him when he started the car. He took it down below.”
“Gone to get his share.”
“Yeah.”
Salsa said, “He may start up before we can get down. He’ll be tough to get hold of, in his car.”
Parker said, “Is there any other way out of there?”
Wycza shook his head. “Just this one road. Chambers and I looked that over when we first come out.”
“We can block it at the top with one car.”
“Okay, good.”
They went to the shed where they’d stashed the wagon, and pulled the corrugated sections of wall away, moving as silently as they could. The darkness was almost complete. Parker backed the wagon out, turning the parking lights on, and with that small illumination drove over to the dropoff and the beginning of the road down to the bottom. He left the wagon parked across the road at the very top, pointing out into space. He switched the lights off and climbed out, and rejoined Wycza and Salsa, a little way off, standing at the edge over the road. They stood there and waited.
“Here he comes,” said Salsa.
Wycza said, “The damn fool’s using his parking lights.”
Salsa said, “I wouldn’t try to come up that without light.”
They waited. The car crept slowly upward and was almost to the wagon before it stopped. The parking lights went out immediately. Paulus didn’t make a sound.
Whispering, Wycza asked, “What do we do with him?”
“I don’t want to have to bury him,” said Parker.
“We tie him and leave him on one of the cots,” said Salsa. “Grofield’s girl can feed him.”
“I don’t work with him again,” said Wycza. “That much I know.”
Paulus’ voice came up to them suddenly, with startling loudness: “Get that car out of the way!”
“Forget it, Paulus.”
“I’ll ram it!”
Salsa squatted down on his heels and called softly down to Paulus: “Don’t make things so difficult for yourself. Come back to the shed and we’ll tie you up a few days.”
“There’ll be law here by tomorrow! Edgars set us up to be collared, don’t you damn fools seethat?”
Salsa said, “You’re all excited, Paulus. Don’t they know we have rifles, machine guns? Don’t they know how many of us there are? If they thought we were in here, would that helicopter pilot come back two three times all by himself, and down so low?”
“Why’d he come back, then?”
“Paulus, you don’t know anything about search patterns, do you?”
“This place is naked, we stick out like boils. I want to be away from here, a thousand miles away from here.”
Parker was tired, and a little chilly. He wanted to be back asleep. He said, “Quit screwing around, Paulus, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“God damn you, Parker!”
The headlights of Paulus’ car came on all at once, on high beam, flooding the station wagon with light, light reflecting away on all sides to show Parker and Wycza standing big and heavy by the edge, Salsa hunkered down like a bandit beside them, the three looking down over the edge at the car just below them. Paulus’ car was so close, they could have stepped down onto the roof.
The car began to back, Paulus gunning the engine. Salsa called something to him, but the roaring of the engine drowned it out. The car backed downward, and then they could see Paulus at the steering wheel, facing backward, twisted around and straining to see. There was only darkness behind the car, tinged with red by the taillights.
Paulus was excited, so maybe he forgot to reverse the turning direction on the steering wheel when going backward. Or maybe he just couldn’t see well enough back there. His left rear wheel went off the edge.
Salsa hollered, “Jump!”
Parker dropped down to the road surface, landing on his hands and feet, going down to his knees and getting up again.
But Paulus was on the wrong side of the car to jump. And the engine was still roaring, so his foot was still heavily on the accelerator. The car seemed to tremble a minute, while Parker ran down toward its headlights, and then it swung sharp left, the front of the car with its blinding headlights snapping out into space to stare out over the ravine, and then it dropped.
Parker was running back up the other way long before they heard the crashing sound down below. He ran up to the wagon, and Wycza and Salsa were there. He said, “Wycza, get Phillips. Have him show you the shovels. Get Elkins and come down, bring a car. Salsa, let’s go.”
They got into the wagon, and Parker backed it away from the edge, then turned the wheel hard and they started down. Parker had the parking lights on again and went as fast as he could.
Salsa, sitting on the outside near the cliff, said, “It’s burning.”
“We got to put it out.”
“That Paulus was a real chancy type.”
“He always tensed up, always.”
“I guess none of us works with him again, huh?” Salsa grinned. “You sure get the interesting jobs, Parker.”
“Crap.”
At the bottom they made the U-turn. Paulus’s wreck was ahead of them, outlined by flames; it looked like a mound of black spare parts.
It wasn’t much of a fire; by the time Parker and Salsa got there the only things left burning were the upholstery and the roof padding and the body hanging halfway out the front seat.
“He’s taking it with him,” said Salsa. “His split, you know?”
Parker was down on one knee, feeling the ground, trying to find loose sand. “We got to get that fire out.”
“Wait, Parker. Here they come with the shovels.”
The other car was coming. Wycza and Elkins climbed out and passed out shovels. The four of them started digging, throwing dirt generally on the wreck and especially on the parts that were still burning. When the fire was put out, they brought the two cars closer in and switched on their parking lights to see by. Then they kept shoveling.
They moved around, not taking too much dirt from any one place, spreading it out so the ground wouldn’t look more than usually uneven. When they were done, the mound of earth over the wreck was nearly waist-high, but it would look all right from the air.
“One thing,” said Elkins, “Now it’s a nine-way split.”
“He took his with him,” said Salsa. He seemed pleased by the remark.
4
The stink of sulphur was everywhere. In the dimness of twilight, the red waters of the stream looked a dark maroon, and velvety. Parker threw a machine gun into the stream and watched the bubbles rise, then turned back to the station wagon.