Duggai reacted with blinding speed. He pushed himself backward and slid into the water and ducked under. Mackenzie worked the rifle bolt. The empty cartridge case flipped out and rolled down the rock with a tinkle like something they rang at the altar between incantations, and Mackenzie watching it had time to think: it was one of those that started all this.
Duggai had a big chest and stayed under for a long time but then he came up, sputtered, raked hair from his eyes, stared at Mackenzie and finally went still, his head above water, looking like nothing Mackenzie had ever seen but something crossed the mind crazily:
John the Baptist on a silver tray.
The water reflected silver barbs all around Duggai’s decapitated face. He said nothing-only stared into the muzzle of the rifle. Mackenzie put his eye to the scope and he could count the bloodshot veins in the eyes.
Mackenzie did not speak or move. He wanted terror to reach into Duggai and spread through every fiber.
After a long motionless time Duggai finally turned to the shallow side of the pool and climbed onto the slope of rock. Then without even looking toward Mackenzie he began to walk up the salt lick toward the revolver.
Mackenzie spoke.
“Both kneecaps if I have to. You’ll never walk again.”
It stopped Duggai in his tracks. He turned to face Mackenzie and his face lifted, jaw jutting-Get it over with.
“You don’t think I’m going to make it that easy, you rancid bastard son of a bitch.”
Duggai’s eyes closed down as if he was bored. Insolence settled over his features. He merely waited, demonstrating his courage.
“Come up here. Bring the truck keys. Never mind the clothes, you won’t need them.”
Naked and powerful Duggai climbed the switchback rock trail. Mackenzie backed away, never letting him come in jumping distance: he had no reserves left but it didn’t take much strength to pull a trigger and Duggai knew that and Mackenzie kept the rifle aimed at his privates so that Duggai knew he couldn’t be panicked into a hasty kill shot. Even if it missed it would tear up his pelvis or his abdomen and he’d be a long agonizing time dying. No: Duggai’s illness of the mind wasn’t that kind. He hadn’t forsaken his shrewdness. Like his victims he would bide his time and wait for an opening-he wouldn’t fight the drop.
Mackenzie said, “You knew I was Navajo. You should have thought about that.”
“Half Navajo. Beligano.”
“White man hell. I put myself in your moccasins, Calvin. I knew what you’d do. I got here ahead of you. We played your game and I won. You hear me?”
“I hear you, Captain.” Duggai stood dripping, all hard dark musculature-mammoth and unbowed. He gaped at Mackenzie in that maddening way of his. “You can kill me now.”
The rifle was so heavy he could hardly hold it. He stopped Duggai at the tailgate and shuffled painfully around him in a wide circle. He got the truck open and found the pieces of wire where Duggai had tossed them inside. He threw two of them at Duggai and got his hand back on the rifle.
Mackenzie’s lips peeled back viciously. It came out in a whisper of rage: “You know the drill.”
Duggai’s eyes went a little wider. He bent down and picked up the wire. While he was bent he hesitated a moment and Mackenzie knew he was thinking about making a try-throwing dirt in Mackenzie’s eyes-but it was too far for that and finally Duggai twisted the wire around his wrist and sat down on his naked butt and wired his own ankles together. Then rolled over on his belly and put both hands behind his rump.
Mackenzie approached him very slowly and put the muzzle of the rifle against the crotch between the buttocks and held his right hand on the trigger. With his left hand he wired the hands together behind the small of Duggai’s back.
He had trouble standing up after that but he made it. “Get in the truck.”
“How?”
“Hobble it.”
Duggai hopped like a farmer’s kid in a potato-sack race. Then he sat on the tailboard and lifted his legs and swiveled himself up inside.
“On the bunk now.”
He wired Duggai’s feet to the floor cleat as his own had been wired. He jammed the rifle against Duggai’s hip and again held the trigger at arm’s length while he leaned behind Duggai and wired his hands to the steel crossbrace of the wall.
“You fixin’ to leave me out in that desert, Captain?”
Mackenzie slammed the door in his face.
30
The truck came strenuously across the ravaged earth. Approaching the camp it tipped clumsily through a gully that almost rolled it over. It righted itself and advanced, gears snarling.
Shirley came out of her hole hollow-eyed and hesitant. She stood with her arms folded as if she were cold and stared at the truck with the face of a prisoner awaiting execution against a wall.
Drawn by the hated sound, Jay arose from the grave and sidled toward Shirley. He touched her hand and they stood together, watching.
The truck whined slowly up the slope and finally stopped. Mackenzie in shirt and shorts and boots opened the door and stepped out, all his muscles twitching. He had to keep a grip on the door to keep from felling over on his face but he managed a grotesque smile.
They stood behind the truck watching while Mackenzie opened the camper door. Inside Duggai sat wired on the bunk. He gaped at them with that idiot vacancy he used to mask the ceaseless wild hatred that filled his soul.
Jay coughed horribly and found his voice. “I’m glad you didn’t kill him.”
“It would have been too easy.”
“Yes. Better to leave him the way he left us.”
“No,” Mackenzie said.
“What?”
“We’re taking him back.” All the fury of the desert climbed to a screaming pitch in him. “We’re taking the son of a bitch all the way back.”
Jay slumped against the truck, terrorized by Mackenzie’s sudden venom. Shirley reached for Mackenzie’s arm, her face alarmed, but he veered toward the truck: he took a canteen off the bunk and tottered past them toward Earle’s trench.
Earle blinked up at him.
“You’re still alive, then.”
“I never doubted I would be,” Earle said. He even smiled. “Providence, Sam.”
Mackenzie lowered the canteen to him. “That’s all yours. There’s plenty more. We’ve got the truck-we’ll leave as soon as it cools down. By midnight we’ll be on the highway. Have you in a hospital before you know it.”
“God be praised.”
“God and Samuel Mackenzie.”
“That too. I won’t begrudge your strength. It’s God-given.”
Earle’s God or the silversmith’s gods. One or another-Mackenzie believed it.
Shirley brushed past him with the first-aid kit. Jay lurched behind her, his arms flapping as if broken. He’d put a hat on his head but he stood stark naked under it-an awe-inspiring scarecrow. “What do you mean, take him back? For God’s sake, take him back?”
Mackenzie felt too weak to stand. He stumbled toward the truck. Jay chased him with comic alacrity; caught him at the truck, hauled him around. “What did you mean, take him back?”
Mackenzie felt the pinch of Jay’s weak grip on his arm. He didn’t push Jay away. He put both hands on Jay’s shoulders and gripped them hard, feeling the strength surge into his hands.