P Deutermann - Spider mountain

Mingo was shouting some more trash out front, and I was beginning to wonder if he had any more ammo for that M4. Just then one of the Big brothers popped off three more rounds at the cruiser from the other side porch and received an impressive blast of automatic fire in response. It sounded like the rounds were chain-sawing the corner-overlap logs out on the front porch. And the answer is-why, yes, he does. The world’s supply, apparently.

Hayes had stopped crawling across the floor and was pulling the edges of the front-hall rug back, revealing a trapdoor in the floor. He looked over at me and jerked his head toward the kitchen. Carrie was already halfway there, so I cradled my rifle and started moving back. I had to leave the spotting scope. Hayes was disappearing down into the crawl space below the cabin as Carrie and I made it to the back door. Mingo fired another burst at the front of the cabin and yelled more obscenities. By the time the rounds reached the kitchen area they were flying high, but the air was still pretty thick with bullets. They’re not big bullets-. 223 Remington-but they are propelled by a powder cartridge that’s about a half mile long, so when they come, they come seriously energized.

Carrie and the shepherds slipped out the back door and down the back steps, putting as much of the stone foundation between them and the nutcase out front as they could. I went sideways along the back porch until I could signal the deputies, who backed away from their positions at the porch corners. I was really glad they were along for this little adventure, both as witnesses and shooters. We gathered at the back steps, staying down at the level of the foundation, trying to keep the stone steps between us and the hillside where Mingo had put shooters earlier.

Using the rifle scope, I began to scan the tree lines behind us, looking for his backup, although I didn’t think he’d brought any this time. His little posse of assassins might still be waiting down on the dirt road for the gunfight at the OK Corral to be done with. We could hear Mingo still ranting away on the loudspeaker, but nothing from Sheriff Hayes. I told the Bigs that Hayes had gone down a hole into the crawl space.

“What’s the plan, Stan?” Carrie asked me, taking her own nervous look around at the surrounding hills. This cabin had not exactly been situated in a defensive position. The woods came down to within a hundred feet of the steps, directly behind us, and that was the obvious way out.

“I’ve got the rifle,” I said. “You guys and the dogs make a run for that tree line. If there’s a black hat up there, I’ll deal with him. Keep the cabin between you and Mingo’s sight line.”

Then we heard the cruiser’s engine crank up. It sounded like he was backing up. “Change one,” I said, and the four of us bolted around to the left side of the cabin as we heard Mingo put it in drive and gun the cruiser around to the right side of the cabin, where he proceeded to let go a blast of enfilading automatic weapons fire through the side windows this time. We gathered at the left front corner of the cabin, still trying to keep as much of the structure as possible between us and that Bushmaster. Then he gunned the cruiser again, swerving it around to the back of the cabin.

“The dam!” I yelled, and we took off on a dead run down the front yard, tripping over all the tire ruts in the lawn, until we made it to the dam and slid down the grassy face. We could hear Mingo yelling over that damned loudspeaker and then firing some more into the house as he drove around it like an enraged Apache. I felt naked out there on that exposed face of the dam, especially if Mingo’s guys were down there in the trees below us, but at the moment there was nowhere else to hide. As long as Mingo stayed focused on the cabin, we’d be relatively safe. I glanced at the deputies, who were calmly reloading their clips. Big Luke saw me looking and grinned; the big galoot was enjoying all this. Then we finally heard Hayes yell something from inside the cabin. I crawled back up to the top edge of the embankment.

Mingo had somehow managed to turn the cruiser around so that it was facing the backyard on what from our current position was the right side of the cabin. He had the Bushmaster stuck out the window, and I could hear him slam another magazine into it as I watched. He yelled back at Hayes, and then I saw, down low on the ground and behind some shrubbery, the double barrels of Hayes’s shotgun sliding slowly out a hole in the foundation, pointing up at about a ten-degree angle. Mingo couldn’t see it because he was busy leaning out the driver’s window and firing another burst into the side windows of the cabin. Those black barrels kept emerging, now pushing through the bush itself. Mingo stopped firing and was reaching for the speaker mike when the shotgun let go.

At a range of no more than twenty feet, I could see the loads punch two big, dimpled, dinner-plate-sized holes in the door. Mingo was knocked sideways back into the car, taking the carbine with him. The shotgun barrels tipped momentarily, leveled, and then Hayes fired again, lower this time, punching two more lethal-looking, multiple-holed indentations into the door panel. I actually saw upholstery explode inside the cruiser. Something dark sprayed all over the inside of the windshield.

The other three had poked their heads up when they heard the shotgun. Hayes pulled the shotgun back into the crawl space, and the sudden silence made me nervous. We could smell the gunsmoke drifting down across the front lawn. Mingo still had that Bushmaster in there, even if he was probably wounded. I became aware that we were clustered very close together. The last light of evening was dwindling fast, but our little band made much too good a target.

“Spread out,” I said. “In fact, why don’t you guys move across the dam and into those trees in case he’s got a rifleman down there behind us.” The deputies moved immediately, probably glad to head for some cover.

Carrie stayed put. “What are you going to do?” she asked. Damned woman just couldn’t take orders.

“I’m going to keep this rifle on the car until Hayes shows himself,” I said. “Mingo may be playing possum.”

“Why?” she asked. “A little while ago you were ready to help Hayes kill himself.”

“Still am,” I said, watching carefully for any signs of Hayes. It was getting hard to see anything up by the cabin. “But I think he wants to take his ex-partner there with him, and I’m in favor of that.”

“Cam,” she began, but I cut her off.

“Hey, Carrie: What we need now is not to get surprised from behind-that’s where Mingo’s people went, remember? Let me work this situation, and you make sure no one is setting up on us.”

“You shoot either one of those duly elected sheriffs, it’ll be a whole new ball game,” she warned.

“I know that,” I said. “Now, please-get back under cover. Look: Hayes is coming out.”

She peeped over the rim of the dam and saw the sheriff crouching by the corner nearest the back porch, which put him in front of the cruiser. I couldn’t see anyone in the cruiser, and obviously neither could he. He carried the shotgun low and pointed at the car. Carrie slid back down to make sure she was out of the possible line of fire and duckwalked across the face of the dam to join the deputies. I moved left to the swale where the dam intersected the front lawn and then set myself down into the prone position. I made sure my rifle barrel went up into the air before settling in on the cruiser, so that Hayes would know I was out there. He stopped for a moment when I made the move, but then continued his creep toward Mingo’s cruiser. There was a long cone of shadow in front of the cabin.

I scanned the vehicle through my rifle scope. It was getting dark fast, but that definitely looked like blood on the windshield. There was no visible sign of Mingo. I assumed he was either down in the front seat or perhaps in the space between the seat and the dashboard.