Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers

“So,” Smitty said, “they’re not so dumb.”

“I don’t get it,” Danskin said. “I thought you had this place doped out. Don’t you have any information? Isn’t there a file on these people?”

“Look,” Antheil said, “every cornpone cop down here knows the way in. All these wetbacks know the way. Of course there’s a file.” He put his map away. “We had to be discreet. We didn’t want to make it official until certain things were taken care of. I thought we could improvise a little. It seemed reasonable enough.”

Smitty looked patiently from Danskin’s face to Antheil’s.

“Maybe it’s a bummer,” he suggested finally. “Maybe we should just drop it.”

Everyone turned to look at Converse.

“No,” Antheil said.

“It’s getting dark. While we’re fucking around looking for a trail, they’ll come down here and zap us.”

“I’ll back you up,” Antheil told him.

“Yeah?” He looked at Antheil with something close to contempt. “You really went for this one, huh?” Antheil stared back at him, stony-faced. “If they can’t get to a car, they can’t get out. Angel’s got

the road covered and he’s as good as they come. They can’t leave the house without being seen. If they try to walk out we’ll run them down.”

Danskin gnawed his finger in silence. “You get yourselves where you have a clear shot at the house. Talk to them. Tell them you’ll waste Asshole here.”

“Oh, man,” Danskin said, “what do they care? They’ll laugh at us.”

“Tell them you’ve got the little girl.”

“They know fucking well we got no little girl.”

“Try it, I’m telling you.” He turned on Converse in fury. “You talk, Asshole. Use your influence with your wife.”

Smitty laughed.

“Because goddamn it,” Antheil told Converse, “I’m gonna kill you if you don’t produce.”

“I think he realizes that,” Danskin said.

They watched Antheil climb quickly up the bank and walk into the woods looking over his shoulder.

Danskin’s dark eyes were bright with anger. “He’s uncomfortable turning his back, you notice that? He’s got a bad conscience.”

“He’s flipping,” Converse told them. “He’s obsessed.”

“He flips,” Smitty said, “and our balls get busted.”

Danskin took Converse by the sleeve and pushed him against the bank. “Up,” he said. “One thing at a time.”

They went back into the woods and wandered among the trees for a while, trying to find where the Mexican had gone. After a few minutes, they gave up and followed a trail that led through the edge of the woods, following the line of the bluff.

“Let’s try it here,” Danskin said, when they had gone a short way. “It’s gonna get dark on us.”

They went crouching through the brush; Danskin kept one hand on Converse’s arm and carried his air marshal’s pistol in the other. Smitty came behind with the rifle.

Just below them was another ledge with a rise of dark rock behind which they could shelter. The stone house was directly across the way and from their new point of vantage they could see the top of its bell tower and a corral against its wall in which a white horse stood.

“Now we play the game,” Danskin said when they were lying in the rocks’ shelter. “Now we play The Lady or the Tiger.” He still held Converse by the arm; he tightened his grip. “What do you think, Converse? You think she’ll come through for you?”

“I don’t know,” Converse said.

Smitty watched the opposite mesa with his binoculars for a while and broke into laughter.

“Hey, man.” he said. “I’m gonna shoot that horse.” He turned to Danskin, excited and pleading. “Can I?”

Danskin chuckled tolerantly. “What an idiot,” he said to Converse.

“Sure,” he told Smitty, “go ahead.”

There were three shots, one following another, dogged, obsessive. After the second they heard a grunt and after the third a deep bellow, loud and explosive as the shot itself. Kjell screamed in the bell tower.

Marge jumped to her feet.

Hicks was already on the ladder when Kjell came stumbling down. His eyes were wild and he was so pale that Hicks thought at first that he had been shot. He pressed past Hicks and started for the front door. Marge and Galindez intercepted him.

Peering through the slot, Hicks saw the dappled horse on its side in the corral, striking the ground before it with a fore-hoof like a circus horse counting to music. The horse’s teeth were bared and its nostrils bloody, its flank was awash with bright arterial blood.

“For shit’s sake,” Hicks said.

He had a look through the glasses and noted that the pickup had moved out of sight. There were no signs of life on the opposite hillside but it was plain that the shots had come from that direction. The sun was almost gone behind the pinnacle to the west, shadows moved up the higher slopes. He set the glasses on the rail and went be low.

“Would you believe they shot the horse?”

“I believe it,” Kjell shouted at him. “I saw it.”

“They’re crazy,” Hicks said disgustedly. “They’ll be shooting out the windows next. We ought to put mattresses up.”

“Are we going to stay here?” Marge asked. “Won’t they come up?”

“If they knew how,” Dieter said, “they’d be here.”

“How’d you lose them?” Hicks asked Galindez.

Galindez answered him in Spanish, something about a galeria .

“I was thinking,” Kjell said, “we could hide out in there. That’s what it’s for.”

“Might be the place for you, K-jell. I don’t care for holes much myself.”

“Look,” Dieter said, “it isn’t necessary. We can get to Elpidio’s place without even crossing the road. There are other people there.”

“Maybe we’re better off up here, Dieter. Down in the valley they got us in their pocket. It’s kind of our game up here.”

“But there are all these people down there,” Marge said. “They’re your friends, aren’t they? Won’t they help us?”

“Yes and no,” Dieter said. “Their heads are in a curious place. If they see there’s trouble they’ll go away. They’re pacifists. And they have a very detached view of the world.”

A man’s voice echoed over the valley.

“ Hello ,” the voice wailed. “ Hello .”

“Hello, yourself,” Hicks said.

The voice called again.

“ Marge ! It’s John !”

She stared at Hicks in panic.

“It is,” she said. “It’s him.”

Hicks went up the ladder, picked up the glasses, and scanned the opposite hillside. Their heads were visible over a rock ledge — Converse, and beside him a blond man squinting down the sight of a hunting rifle. Hicks looked at the rifle barrel long enough to remember that the corner of sun to the left of the pinnacle was strong enough to reflect the lenses of his binoculars. He ducked before the shot and the bullet hit the rail and ricocheted dreadfully against the bell.

“It tolls for thee, motherfucker,” someone cried, and there was echoing, half-hysterical laughter.

Hicks ducked back through the trap and went below

“Yes, it is,” he told Marge. “They got him.”

“Oh my God,” Marge said. She started toward the lad der.

“Stay off there,” Hicks told her. “Listen through the door, they don’t have a shot at it.”

He opened the front door and stood by it.

“ Marge !” Converse called to them. “ Let them have it !”

“I can’t stand it,” she said.

“Marge! They have Janey!”

She put her hands to her ears.

“That’s a lie, Marge,” Hicks said. He took her by the wrists. “If they had they’d have her in sight.”