Jed’s face was all twisted up, either in fear or anger (I could not decide which, but, strangely, in the midst of all that was going on, I found the time to wonder). His mouth was open, as if he might be yelling, but he wasn’t yelling. His teeth were yellowed fangs and his breath was foul. He wasn’t as big as I was, nor as heavy, but he was a wiry customer, quick and tough and full of fight, and I knew, even as I fought for it, that he’d finally get that gun away from me.
Big Brute had tottered to his feet and was backing slowly away from the fire, staring with horrified fascination at Cynthia, who pointed his rifle at him.
It all seemed to have gone on for a long while, although I don’t imagine it had been more than a few seconds, and it seemed as if it might keep on forever. Then, quite suddenly, Jed buckled in the middle. He loosed his grip on the gun and slid sidewise, tumbling to the floor, and I saw then the slow seep of red that stained his back.
Cynthia yelled at me, “Fletch, let’s get away! They are shooting at us!”
But they were, I saw, not shooting any longer. They were fleeing for their lives, small dark figures of leaping, dodging men scrambling up the hillside. Two or three of them, I saw, were busily climbing trees. Up the hill, after them, flashed a steel machine and as I watched, it caught one of them in its sharp, steel jaws and shook the body for an instant before it tossed it to one side.
There was no sign of Big Brute. He had gotten clean away.
“Fletch, we can’t stay here,” said Cynthia, and I quite agreed with her. It was no place to stay, with the ghouls snapping at our heels. Now, while Wolf had them on the run, was the time to get away.
She already had reached one corner of the cave and was scrambling down the hillside, and I followed her. I lost my footing on the steepness of the rubble and, flat upon my back, skidded almost to the creek before I could gain my feet again. When I fell I dropped the gun and was turning back to get it when something went buzzing past my ear and threw up a small spurt of earth and rock on the inclined bank not more than three feet ahead of me. I rolled over rapidly and looked up to the ridge. A pnff of blue smoke was floating up from a tree where a scarecrow figure crouched.
I forgot about the gun.
Cynthia was running down the narrow hollow that carried the creek and I ran after her. Behind me a couple of guns went off, but the balls must have flown far wide of us, for I didn’t hear them hum nor did I see them strike. In a few more seconds, I told myself, we’d be out of range. Homemade guns carrying balls of lead powered by homemade powder could not have had much carrying power.
The narrow valley was tortuous traveling. The hills came down steeply on either side, in a sharp V formation, and there was no level ground. The surface was cluttered by massive boulders that through the ages had come rolling down the hillsides. In some places gigantic trees grew in the narrowness of the notch between the hills. There was no sort of trail to follow; nothing in its right mind would travel down this valley short of sheer necessity. It was a matter of finding the best path that one could, dodging around the rocks and trees, leaping the brook when it swung across one’s path.
I caught up with Cynthia when she was slowed down by an enormous pile of boulders, and after that we went together. I saw that she didn’t have Big Brute’s gun.
“I dropped it,” she said. “It was heavy. It kept getting in my way.”
“It’s just as well,” I said. And it was just as well. Each of the guns carried a single charge and we had no balls or powder to reload (even if we’d known how to reload) once that charge was fired. They were awkward things to handle and I had a hunch a man would have to do a lot of shooting with them before he could come anywhere near hitting what he was aiming at.
We came to a place where another little V-shaped valley came into the one we had been following.
“Let’s go up that one,” Cynthia said. “They know we came down this one.”
I nodded. If they followed, they might suspect we had chosen the easier course, continuing down the hollow from the cave.
“Fletch,” she said, “we haven’t got a thing. We ran off without our packs.”
I hesitated. “I could go back,” I said. “You go on up the hollow. I’ll catch up with you.”
“We can’t separate again,” she said. “We have to stick together. None of this would have happened if we’d stayed with Elmer.”
“Wolf has got them treed,” I said. “Either treed or running.”
“No,” she said. “Some of them up the trees have guns. And there are too many of them for Wolf to handle. They’ll scatter. He can’t chase them all.”
“You saw them,” I said. “That’s why you hit the big one with the pan.”
“I saw them,” she said, “slithering down the hillside. But I might have hit him anyhow. We couldn’t trust them, Fletch. And you aren’t going back. I’d have to go with you and I am scared to go.”
I gave in. I couldn’t honestly decide whether it was giving in or not wanting to go back, myself.
“Later on,” I said. “Later on, when this is all over, we can come back and get the stuff.” Knowing that we probably never would. Or that it might not be there if we did go back.
We started up the hollow. It was as bad as the one we had come down; worse because now we were climbing.
I let Cynthia go ahead and I did some worrying. We must have been in a real panic, both of us, when we left the cave. It would have been simple, using no more than a minute’s time, to have grabbed up the packs. But we hadn’t
done it and now we were without food and blankets, without anything at all. Except fire, I thought. I had the lighter in my pocket. I felt a little better, although not much, when I realized we still had fire.
The way was grueling and there were times when we had to stop to rest. Listening for some sound back at the cave, I heard nothing and began to wonder, rather dazedly, if what I remembered had really happened there. I knew, of course, it had.
We were nearing the top of the ridge and the valley petered out. We clambered to the crest. The ridge was heavily wooded and when we reached the top, we were in a fairyland of beauty. The trees were massive blocks of red and yellow and in some of them were climbing vines that provided slashes of deep gold and brilliant crimson. The day was clear and warm. Looking at the color, I remembered that first day-only a few days ago, but seeming more like weeks-when we had left the Cemetery and gone down the hill to the first autumn-painted forest I had ever seen.
We stood, watching back the way that we had come.
“Why should they be hunting us?” asked Cynthia. “Sure, we took their horses, but if that is all it is, they should be hunting the horses and not us.”
“Revenge, maybe,” I said. “A twisted idea of getting even with us. Probably only a part of them are after us. The others must be following the horses.”
“That may be it,” she said, “but I can’t bring myself to think so. There is something more than that.”
“It’s Cemetery,” I said and I wasn’t entirely clear what I meant by saying it, although it did seem that Cemetery was somehow involved in everything that happened. But as soon as 1 said it, the whole pattern formed inside my mind.
“Don’t you see,” I said. “Cemetery has a finger in everything that happens. They can bring certain pressures. Back at the setdement someone got a case of whiskey for trying to blow up Bronco. And here are the ghouls …”
“But the ghouls,” she said, “are different. They’re stealing from Cemetery. Cemetery is setting traps for them. They’d make no deals with Cemetery.”
“Look,” I said, “it may be they’re only trying to curry 1 some favor with Cemetery. They found the wolves were af- I ter us and who but Cemetery would set the wolves on us. And the wolves had failed. To the kinds of minds the ghouls have it must have seemed a rather simple thing, an opportunity. If, the wolves having failed, they could bring in our heads there might be something in it for them. It’s as simple as all that.”