I caught the motion out of the corner of my eye and leaped to my feet, but there was nothing I could do about it except stand there and stare into the muzzles of the guns. Holding the guns were two men and one of them I recognized as the big brute who had stood in the forefront of the mob that Cynthia and I had faced, futile clubs in hand, back at the campsite of the ghouls just before Elmer had come bursting in to break up the confrontation. I was a bit surprised that I recognized him, for at the time I had been too busy watching all the others that made up the mob who had left off their attack on Bronco to zero in on us. But now I found that I did know him-the leering half-smile pasted on his face, the droopy eye, that ragged scar that ran across one cheek. The other one I did not recognize.
They had crept up to one corner of the cave and now they stood there, with their rifles pointed at us.
I heard Cynthia gasp in surprise and I said sharply to her, “Stay down: Don’t move.”
With a scratch of metal claws on rock, something came up to me and stood beside me, pressing hard against my leg. I didn’t look to see what it might be. I knew. It was Wolf, lining up with me against the guns.
The two with the guns apparently had not seen him, lying off to one side of us. And now that he moved into their view, the leering smile came off Big Brute’s face and his jaw sagged just a little. A nervous tic ran across the face of the other man. But they stood their ground.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “it appears to me a stand-off. You could kill us easy, but you wouldn’t live to get a hundred feet.”
They kept their guns pointed at us, but finally Big Brute lifted his and let the butt slide to the ground.
“Jed,” he said, “put up your shooting iron. These folks have outsmarted us.”
Jed lowered his gun.
“It seems to me,” said Big Brute, “that we have to cipher out a way for all of us to get out of this scrape without losing any hide.”
“Come on in,” I said, “but be careful of the guns.”
They came up to the fire, walking slowly and somewhat sheepishly.
I took a quick glance at Cynthia. She still was crouched upon the floor, but she wasn’t scared. She was hard as nails.
“Fletch,” she said, “the gentlemen must be hungry, coming all this way. Why don’t you ask them to sit down while I open up a can or two. We haven’t too much, traveling light, but I put in some stew.”
The two of them looked at me and I nodded rather curtly.
“Please do,” I said.
They sat down and laid their guns beside them.
Wolf didn’t stir; he stood and looked at them.
Big Brute made a questioning gesture at him. ,
“He’s all right,” I said. “Just don’t make any sudden moves.”
I hoped that I was right. I couldn’t quite be sure.
Cynthia, digging into one of the packs, had a stew pan out. I poked the fire together and it blazed up brightly.
“Now,” I said, “suppose you tell me what this is all about?”
“You stole our horses,” Big Brute said.
Jed said, “We were hunting them.”
I shook my head. “You could have followed the trail blindfolded. You should have had no trouble. There were a lot of horses.”
“Well,” said Big Brute, “we found the place where you hid out and we found the note. Jed here, he was able to get it puzzled out. And we knew about this cave.”
“It’s a camping place,” said Jed. “We camp here ourselves, every now and then.”
It still didn’t make too much sense, but I didn’t press it. Big Brute, however, went on to explain. “We figured you weren’t alone. Someone must have been with you. Someone who knew the country. People like you wouldn’t strike out on your own. And this place here is a hard day’s march.”
Jed said, “What I can’t figure is the wolf. We never counted on no wolf. We thought by this time he’d be halfway home.”
“You knew about the wolves?”
“We saw the tracks. Three of them. And we found what was left of the other two.”
“Not you,” I said. “You came straight from the place where we slept. You had to. You wouldn’t have had the time . . .”
“Not us,” said Jed. “We didn’t see it. Some of the rest of us. They let us know.”
“They let you know?”
“Sure,” said Big Brute. “We keep one another posted.”
“Telepathy,” said Cynthia, softly. “It has to be telepathy.”
“But telepathy . . .”
“A survival factor,” she said. “The people who were left on Earth after the war would have needed survival factors. And with mutations, there might have been a lot of factors. Fine things to have if they didn’t kill you first. Telepathy would have been good to have and it would not have killed you.”
“Tell me,” I said to Big Brute, “what happened to Elmer-to the other two who were with us?”
“The metal things,” said Jed.
“That’s right. The metal things.”
Big Brute shook his head.
“You mean that you don’t know?”
“We can find out.”
“Well, then, you find out.”
“Look, mister,” said Jed, “we need a bargaining point. This is our bargaining point.”
“The wolf is ours,” I said. “And the wolfs right here.” ; “Maybe we shouldn’t be sitting here dickering,” said Big Brute. “Maybe we should throw in together.”
“That’s why you came sneaking up on us, to throw in with us?”
“Well, no,” said Jed. “Not exactly. We had blood in our eye, for sure. You busted up our camp and run us off and then you took our horses. There ain’t nothing more low-down ‘than running off a man’s horses. We weren’t feeling it very friendly, to tell the truth.”
“But things have changed now. You are willing to be friendly?”
“Look at it this way,” said Big Brute. “Someone set the wolves on you and the only ones who could have sent out the wolves was Cemetery and we sort of calculate anyone Cemetery doesn’t like has to be a friend of ours.”
“What have you got against Cemetery?” Cynthia asked. She had moved over to the fire, standing beside Big Brute, with the stew pan in her hand. “You’ve been stealing from Cemetery. You’ve been digging up the graves. Seems to me you would be out of business if it wasn’t for Cemetery.”
“They don’t play fair,” Jed whined. “They set traps for us. All sorts of wicked traps. They cause us all sorts of trouble.”
Big Brute was still bewildered. “How come you made up with that wolf?” he asked. “Those things aren’t supposed to make friends with anyone. They’re man-killers, every one of them.”
Cynthia was still standing beside Big Brute, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking across the creek to the hill. I wondered rather idly what she was looking at, but it was only a passing thought.
“If you want to throw in with us,” I said, “how about beginning by telling us where to find the metal beings.”
I didn’t really trust them; I knew we couldn’t trust them. But I thought it was worth going along with them a ways if they could give us some idea of Elmer and -Bronco’s whereabouts.
“I don’t know,” said Big Brute. “I honestly don’t know if we should tell you that or not.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cynthia move. Her arm came up and I saw what she meant to do, although I couldn’t understand, for the life of me, why she was doing it. There was no way for me to stop her, and even if there were, I would not have done it, for I knew she must have good reason. There was only one thing for me to do and I did it. I lunged for Jed’s rifle, which lay on the rocky floor beside him and as I moved, Cynthia brought the stew pan down as hard as she could manage, on top of Big Brute’s head.
Jed snatched at his gun, both of us grabbing hold of it. We rose to our feet, both of us hanging onto it, wrestling for it, trying to jerk it from the other’s grasp.
Events were happening much too fast for me to take any lasting notice of them. I saw Cynthia, Big Brute’s rifle clutched in her hands and at the ready. Big Brute was crawling around the floor on his hands and knees, shaking his head, as if he were attempting to rattle his brains back together into a solid mass, and a little way beyond him the stew pan lay canted on its side, battered out of shape. Wolf was a streak of churning silver, racing across the cave, heading for the entrance, and out on the opposite hillside dark figures were running. And somewhere out there, too, dull pops were sounding and humming bees came into the cave to thud against its walls.