Bill Pronzini - Beyond the Grave

Ah, Sabina. He should have been thinking about her all along. Money was a warming thought, a certain consolation, but a woman of Sabina's-

Something slashed by his head, making noise like a disturbed hornet, and ricocheted off the rock with a hollow ringing whine. Stone chips flew, stinging his cheek as he lunged sideways, propelled by reflex and instinct, and sprawled out face-down in the high grass. The not-so-distant thunder roll of that first shot reached his ears just before the second bullet plowed a furrow in the turf a few inches beyond his outflung left arm.

He hauled the arm in and scrabbled and rolled forward, downhill toward the creek, tugging frantically at the glove on his right hand. A rock gouged him in the side with such sharpness that for an instant he thought he had been shot; realized he hadn't been when he heard the third bullet, riding the echoes of the second, spang into another rock behind and away from him. He fetched up at a tangle of brush and deadfall limbs and crawled into it, fumbling the Remington out of the holster at his belt. He lay there panting, not moving, trying to pinpoint the location of the shots as the echoes of the third one died away.

It was quiet for a time-a breathless, electric quiet broken only by the ragged murmur of his breathing. Then he heard sounds, wary shuffling movement in the grass not far off. He listened, turning his head in quadrants, trying to see out through the brush. His assailant-and there was only one, he was certain of that-was invisible to him, but now he knew the man's approximate location: over on the north side of the knoll, moving uphill along its shoulder on a course parallel to where he lay.

There was nothing for him to do but lie still and wait. The sniper hadn't seen him burrow up in the brush; if he had, there would have been more shots. For all the man knew, one of his bullets had found its mark, and his target was already dead or mortally wounded. As long as the assailant maintained a high opinion of his own marksmanship, Quincannon had a chance. And how long he maintained it depended on how well Quincannon played possum.

The sounds of movement stopped somewhere above-on top of the knoll, he thought, by one of the oaks. A rotting log blocked his view, and he didn't dare shift position to gain a better vantage point; as quiet as it was, and as close as the sniper was, the slightest noise would betray the fact that he was still alive. He forced himself to remain motionless. There was cold sweat on his body now; the skin along his back rippled and crawled. If the man up there saw him and decided to fire again, to make sure of his kill….

A long, agonizing minute crept away. Then, mercifully, the shuffling movements started again-slow, measured steps coming downhill toward the deadfall. No more than thirty feet away… no more than twenty-five … no more than twenty-

There was a sudden sharp crack as the man's foot came down on a piece of brittle wood, a sound as loud in that electric stillness as a pistol shot. Quincannon reacted without thinking, again on reflex and instinct; he had one move, one chance, and there would be no better time for it. He shoved off the ground with his left hand, reared up on his knees with the Remington jabbing through the brush in front of him. The assailant had startled himself by stepping on the stick or twig, had looked down automatically at his feet; and that made him vulnerable. By the time he heard and saw Quincannon, brought his rifle to bear, it was too late for him to do anything but die.

Quincannon shot him twice. Would have shot him three times except that the third bullet hit the rifle just as it discharged, sent it spinning free, and rendered the return shot harmless. The man twisted, toppled, skidded downward on his face to within a few feet of the deadfall-a dead fall of his own.

Shakily Quincannon gained his feet. The Remington felt heavy and slippery in his fingers; there was a brassy taste in his mouth. He took several deep breaths, extricated himself from the brush, moved up to where the sniper lay. He turned the man over with his foot, looked down into blank staring eyes and a familiar countenance. He was not surprised at the sniper's identity. He should have been, at least a little, but he wasn't. The only emotion he felt was a dull, smoldering anger.

The man who had tried to kill him was Pablo, the other guard on the hacienda gate.

Quincannon holstered his revolver, stepped around the body of the dead mestizo, and climbed to the crest of the knoll. The anger continued to smolder in him; he used it like fuel to burn away the cold and the aftermath of sudden violence.

The claybank horse, frightened by the shooting, had pulled loose of its picket and run off into the marsh, where it had come close to getting itself mired. He went down there, spoke gently to the animal to keep it still, finally succeeded in catching the reins and leading it out to firmer ground. Then he mounted, turned to the north, forded the creek, and veered overland through the orchard. When he reached the main road, he kicked the horse into a hard gallop all the way uphill to the hacienda.

There were no guards on the gate when he clattered through. He drew sharp rein, swung down. The door to one of the house's ground-floor rooms opened and Barnaby O'Hare appeared, drawn by the noise of his arrival. O'Hare came out into the courtyard. And the expression on Quincannon's face, the damp and grass-stained condition of his clothing, seemed to startle him.

“Mr. Quincannon, what on earth-”

“Where is Velasquez?”

“Why… I don't know. I haven't seen him for the past hour. Has something happened? You look-”

Quincannon pivoted away from him, hurried up the stairs to the second-floor gallery. There was no one in the parlor when he entered; the house seemed unnaturally quiet. He drew his revolver again, went to the closed door to Velasquez's study, and threw it open-standing back and to one side as he did so, out of the line of fire from within.

But there seemed to be no need for his caution or his weapon. Velasquez sat unarmed in the chair before the fire, his hands on his knees; he turned his head at the sudden opening of the door but made no other movement. His posture was that of an old man, a cripple incapable of movement without assistance. Firelight flickered over his face, creating shadows and highlights that gave his skin the look of tallow about to melt.

“So,” he said in a thin, dead voice. “Pablo did not succeed.”

Quincannon entered the study, shut the door behind him. He might have holstered his pistol then, but he didn't; he let it hang down at his side instead. There was no trust left in him today, not even of his own perceptions.

“Pablo is dead. You should have sent more than one man.”

“It does not matter now.”

“No? Why doesn't it?”

“Time,” Velasquez said. “Time.”

“It has run out for you, if that's what you mean.”

“Run out. Yes.”

“But you didn't think so earlier, when you gave Pablo his orders.”

Velasquez lifted one hand, let it fall again to his knee. “I believed then that your death would give me a little more of it-a little more time.”

“Because I was close to the truth,” Quincannon said bitterly. “And the truth is you killed Luis Cordova and stole the document his father wrote. No one has ever been after Don Esteban's artifacts but you.”

“Stole the document? No, senor. It is rightfully mine, as the artifacts are rightfully mine.”

“Was it also your right to take Cordova's life?”

“I did not mean to kill him. I went to talk to him, nothing more. I was afraid your way would be too slow. But he was very frightened, and I was very angry. He told what his father had done; he gave me the traitor's letter-all but the last page. He said the last page had been lost years ago. I didn't believe him then. I struck him. He fought me in his fear; it must have been then that he tore off the scrap you found. It was only after I returned to the St. Charles that I noticed it was missing. But I did not think it was in his hand; I thought it had also been lost years ago.”