Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

He lay quiet and didn’t say or do anything. I stood up and looked down at him. I said, ‘The killing starts with you, Charlie, if you try anything.’ I picked up the shotgun and walked away from him without glancing back. I could feel his eyes on my back and it gave me a prickly feeling, not knowing what he was doing. He could be aiming at my back with his gun right at that moment and it took all the will-power I had not to break into a run.

But I had to take a chance on the reasonableness of men some time. I had come to the conclusion that sheer raw violence wouldn’t get me out of this jam — that it only produced counter-violence in its turn. I hoped I had put a maggot of doubt in one man’s mind, the ‘reasonable doubt’ that every jury is asked to consider.

I walked on up the hill until I knew I was out of range and the tension eased suddenly. At last I turned and looked back. Way down the hill Blunt was standing, a minuscule figure looking up at me. There was no gun in his hands and he had made no move for or against me. I waved at him and, after a long pause, he waved back. I went on — up and over the hill.

The weather cleared up again, and I had broken out of Howard’s magic circle. I had no doubt that they would come after me again. To think that a man like Blunt could have any lasting restraint was to fool myself, but at least I had a temporary respite. When, after a whole day, I saw no one and heard no one, I took a chance and killed a deer, hoping there was no one there to hear the shot.

I gralloched it and, being hungry for meat, made a small fire to cook the liver, that being the quickest to cook and most easily digested. Then I quartered the beast and roasted strips of flesh before the fire and stuffed the half-raw pieces into my pack. I didn’t stay long in that place but hid the rest of the carcase and moved on, afraid of being cornered. But no one came after me.

I bedded down that night by a stream, something I had never done since this whole chase had started. It was the natural thing to do and I had not done the natural thing ever, out of fear. But I was tired of being unnatural and I didn’t care a damn about what happened. I suppose the strain was telling and that I had just about given up. All I wanted was a good night’s sleep and I was determined to get it, even though I might be wakened by looking into a gun barrel in the middle of the night.

I cut spruce boughs for my bed, something I hadn’t done because the traces could put men on my trail, and even built a fire, not caring whether I was seen or not. I didn’t go to the extreme length of stripping before I turned in, but I did spread the blankets, and as I lay there before the fire, full of meat and with the coffee-pot to hand, everything looked cheerful just as most of my camps looked cheerful in better times.

I had made camp early, being wearied to the bone of moving continually, and by dusk I was on the point of falling asleep. Through my drowsiness I heard the throb of an engine and the whir of blades cutting through the air overhead and I jerked myself into wakefulness. It was the goddam helicopter still chasing me — and they must have seen the light of the fire. That blaze would stand out like a beacon in the blackness of the woods.

I think I groaned in despair but I moved my bones stubbornly and got to my feet as the sound died away suddenly in the north. I stretched, and looked round the camp. It was a pity to leave it and go on the run again but it looked as though I had to. Then I thought again. Why had I to run? Why shouldn’t I stop right here and fight it out?

Still, there was no reason to be taken like a sitting bird, so I figured out a rough plan. It didn’t take long to find a log nearly as tall as myself to put under the blankets, and by the time I had finished it looked very like a sleeping man. To add to the illusion I rigged a line to the log so I could move it from a distance to give the appearance of a man stirring in his sleep. I found a convenient place where I could lie down behind a stump and tested it. It would have fooled me if I didn’t know the trick.

If anything was to happen that night I would need plenty of light, so I built up the fire again into a good blaze — and I was almost caught by surprise. It was only by a snapping twig in the distance that I realized I had much less time than I thought. I ducked into my hiding-place and checked the shotgun, seeing that it was loaded and I had spare shells. I was quite near the fire so I rubbed some damp earth on the barrel so that it wouldn’t gleam in the light and then pushed the gun forward so that it would handle more conveniently.

The suddenness of the impending attack meant one of two things. That the helicopter was scouting just ahead of a main party, or that it had dropped a single load of men — and that meant not more than four. They’d already found out what happened when they did stupid things like that and I wondered if they would try it again.

A twig cracked again in the forest much closer and I tensed, looking from side to side and trying to figure out from which side the attack would come. Just because a twig had cracked to the west didn’t mean there wasn’t a much smarter guy coming in from the east — or maybe the south. The hair on the nape of my neck prickled; I was to the south and maybe someone was standing right behind me ready to blow my brains out. It hadn’t been too smart of me to lie flat on my belly — it’s an awkward position to move from, but it was the only way I could stay close in to the camp and still not stick out like a sore thumb.

I was about to take a cautious glance behind me when I saw someone — or something — move out of the corner of my eye, and I froze rigid. The figure came into the firelight and I held my breath as I saw it was Howard Matterson. At last I had drawn the fox.

He came forward as though he were walking on eggshells and stooped over my pack. He wouldn’t have any difficulty in identifying it because my name was stencilled on the back. Cautiously I gathered in the slack of my fishing-line and tugged. The log rolled over a little and Howard straightened quickly.

The next thing that happened was that he put the gun he was carrying to his shoulder and the dark night was split by the flash and roar as he put four shotgun shells into the blanket from a distance of less than eight feet as fast as he could operate the action.

I jumped and started sweating. I had all the evidence I needed that Howard wanted me out of the way in the worst way possible. He put his foot to the blanket and kicked it and stubbed his toe on the log. I yelled, ‘Howard, you bastard, I’ve got you covered. Put down tha—’

I didn’t get it all out because Howard whirled and let rip again and the blast dazzled my eyes against the darkness of the wood. Someone yelled and gurgled horribly and a body crashed down and rolled forward. I had been right about a smarter guy coming in from behind me. Jimmy Waystrand must have been standing not six feet away from me and Howard had been too goddam quick on the trigger. Young Jimmy had got a bellyful.

I jumped to my feet and took a shot at Howard, but my eyes were still dazzled by the flash of his discharge and I missed. Howard looked at me incredulously and shot blindly in my direction, but he’d forgotten that his automatic shotgun held only five shells and all there was was the dry snap of the hammer.

I must say he moved fast. With one jump he had cleared the fire, going in an unexpected direction, and I heard the splashing as he forded the stream. I took another shot at him into the darkness and must have missed again because I heard him crashing away through the undergrowth on the other side, and gradually the noises became fainter.