Hobart escorted them out of the house, saying to Art as they left, “If you
get back, tell McCracken that Aunt Dinah is resting peacefully.”
“Okay.”
“Give us two minutes, then go in. Good luck.”
Cleve took the outside; Art went in. The back door was locked, but the
upper panel was glass. He broke it with the hilt of his knife, reached in
and unbolted the door. He was inside when Moyland showed up to investigate
the noise.
Art kicked him in the belly, then let him have the point in the neck as he
went down. Art stopped just long enough to insure that Moyland would stay
dead, then went looking for the room where Benz had been when the shade was
drawn.
He found Benz in it. The man blinked his eyes and tried to focus them, as
if he found it impossible to believe what he saw. “Art!” he got out at
last. “Jeez boy! Am I glad to see you! Let’s get out of here — this place
is ‘hot’.”
Art advanced, knife out.
Benz looked amazed. “Hey, Art! Art! You’re making a mistake, Art. You can’t
do this — ” Art let him have the first one in the soft tissues under the
breast bone, then cut his throat to be sure. After that he got out quickly.
Thirty-five minutes later he was emerging from the country end of the
chute. His throat was burning from exertion and his left arm was useless —
he could not tell whether it was broken or simply wounded.
Cleve lay dead in the alley behind Moyland’s house, having done a good job
of covering Art’s rear.
It took Art all night and part of the next morning to get back near the
mine. He had to go through the hills the entire way; the highway was, he
judged, too warm at the moment.
He did not expect that the Company would still be there. He was reasonably
sure that Morgan would have carried out the evacuation pending certain
evidence that Benz’s mouth had been shut. He hurried.
But he did not expect what he did find — a helicopter hovering over the
neighborhood of the mine.
He stopped to consider the matter. If Morgan had got them out safely, he
knew where to rejoin. If they were still inside, he had to figure out some
way to help them. The futility of his position depressed him — one man,
with a knife and a bad arm, against a helicopter.
Somewhere a bluejay screamed and cursed. Without much hope he chirped his
own identification. The bluejay shut up and a mockingbird answered him —
Ted.
Art signaled that he would wait where he was. He considered himself well
hidden; he expected to have to signal again when Ted got closer, but he
underestimated Ted’s ability. A hand was laid on his shoulder.
He rolled over, knife out, and hurt his shoulder as he did so. “Ted! Man,
do you look good to me!”
“Same here. Did you get him?”
“Benz? Yes, but maybe not in time. Where’s the gang?”
“A quarter mile north of back door. We’re pinned down. Were’s Cleve?”
“Cleve’s not coming back. What do you mean ‘pinned down’?”
“That damned ‘copter can see right down the draw we’re in. Dad’s got ’em
under an overhang and they’re safe enough for the moment, but we can’t
move.”
“What do you mean ‘Dad’s got ’em’?” demanded Art. “Where’s the Boss?”
“He ain’t in such good shape, Art. Got a machine gun slug in the ribs. We
had a dust up. Cathleen’s dead.”
“The hell you say!”
“That’s right. Margie and Maw Carter have got her baby. But that’s one
reason why we’re pinned down — the Boss and the kid, I mean.”
A mockingbird’s call sounded far away. “There’s Dad,” Ted announced. “We
got to get back.”
“Can we?”
“Sure. Just keep behind me. I’ll watch out that I don’t get too far ahead.”
Art followed Ted in, by a circuitous and, at one point, almost
perpendicular route. He found the Company huddled under a shelf of rock
which had been undercut by a stream, now dry. Against the wall Morgan was