With nothing in his surroundings offering any hope, Longarm turned his attention to the thing closest to him: the log.
The tree had been well over a hundred feet tall when it was alive, and he was lying near the base of it. Craning his neck, he looked along the length of the fallen tree and saw that the far end was rotten and collapsed on itself. Disease had claimed this giant, not the woodsman's ax. That was why it had been left lying here. No doubt it was rotten clear through, useless for lumber. In fact, there was a good-sized hole in the trunk a few feet from him, and as Longarm looked at it, an idea began to form in his head. He crawled over to the hole, wincing as the squirming motion made his wounded back spasm in agony. The opening in the trunk was only about a foot wide. Longarm grasped the edges of it and crumbled them away in fist-sized pieces. As he had thought, the tree was mostly rotten. When he had widened the hole enough for him to stick his head into it, he took a deep breath and did so, twisting his neck so that he could look toward the far end of the deadfall. Light. He saw light. Small animals had gotten into the tree and hollowed it out at some time in the past, making a den of it. Longarm could still smell a faint, gamy odor, a legacy of whatever creature had made its home here. The varmint could still be up in there, he supposed, but with all the shooting going on, that was doubtful. Any critter with sense would have already headed for the tall and uncut. No, there was probably nothing in that log except grub worms and other crawling varmints. The thought of joining them made the skin on the back of Longarm's neck prickle uncomfortably. He might not have any choice, however. If those bushwhackers had a lick of sense, they would be working their way around behind him even now.
He dug his clasp knife out of his pants pocket and unfolded the blade. Then, with the knife and with his bare hand, he began enlarging the hole in the log. It would have to be pretty big to accommodate his broad shoulders. Ignoring the pain in his back, he worked feverishly. The hidden riflemen wouldn't have as much time as he had first thought, he realized. Those shots might be heard at the logging camp, and some of Aurora's men might come to investigate.
Unless those bushwhackers worked for Aurora Mcentire.
Longarm didn't want to think about that possibility. It was never pleasant to ponder that a woman he had recently bedded with such pleasing results for both of them would try to have him killed, but it had happened before and could again. Suspicion was just an occupational hazard, like getting shot at, but that didn't mean he had to like either one of them.
When he judged that the opening was large enough, he wiggled his head and shoulders inside. His shoulders scraped a little on the sides, but they made it. Using his hands and his toes to push himself along, he began making his laborious way toward the irregular circle of light that marked the far end of the log.
He wasn't the only thing crawling in this log, as he had expected. Gritting his teeth, Longarm ignored the many-legged touches of the insects that scampered over him. Ants stung him until he thought he was going to bellow in a combination of anger and fiery pain. His wounded back dragged against the top of the log, and he knew he was damaging it even worse.
The price he was paying might well be worth it, though, because when he was a little more than halfway to the far end of the log, he heard a voice yell, "Hold your fire! He ain't over here!"
A grim smile plucked at Longarm's mouth. As he had expected, at least one of the bushwhackers had circled the deadfall and come at it from the other direction, from the clearing. And as far as they could tell, their intended quarry had vanished.
Longarm had scattered the chunks of rotten wood he'd cut away and torn from the hole in the log, and there was enough litter on the forest floor that he hoped the signs of what he had done would not be too readily apparent.
"What do you mean he's not there?" came another voice. "The star-packin' bastard's got to be there! We saw him run behind that deadfall, and he never came out!"
"I don't care, he's gone."
The hollowed-out passage inside the log suddenly narrowed down, and Longarm felt his shoulders pinched. No matter how hard he shoved with his toes, he couldn't make any progress. What if he got stuck in here? That was a chilling thought.
His face was bathed in sweat as he pushed himself backward a few inches. Exploring with his hands, he found the place where the tunnel grew smaller. His fingers dug into the rotten wood and tore pieces of it away. Worms were burrowing there, and his fingers grew slick with the juices of the ones he crushed. At the moment, he didn't care. If some worm guts helped him ease his way through the narrow passage, then he was glad for the sacrifice they were making in his behalf.
He pushed forward again. For a second he thought his shoulders were going to stick again, but then they slipped through. His hips were smaller, and they cleared the bottleneck easily.
"Shit! I can't figure this out. You sure he didn't get past you, Durkin?"
"Damn right he didn't get past me! What do you take me for, Avery, a fool?"
"Keep your suspenders on! Hell, I didn't mean no offense. It's just that I know the boss wanted this badge-totin' sidewinder dead, and we were supposed to go along when the rest of the boys hit that lumber camp too."
"We'll be done here in plenty of time for the raid. I know that jasper was wounded--I saw the blood on his shirt when he fell off his horse. He can't have gotten very far. We just have to find him."
The words "raid" and "lumber camp" echoed in Longarm's head with a sound just as hollow as this tree he was crawling through. Whoever these bushwhackers were, no matter what the identity of the mysterious boss they worked for, one thing was crystal clear to Longarm. There was going to be an attack on the Mcentire lumber camp--and that would likely mean that Aurora's life would be in danger.
Now more than ever, it was vitally important for him to get out of there. He wasn't sure when the raid was planned, but the men he had heard talking had sounded as if it wasn't too far off. He had to get away from these men and make it to the camp so that he could warn Aurora of the impending attack.
Suddenly, there was a thump behind him. Someone had struck the log with a gun butt, or a clenched fist, or something. What it was didn't really matter. What was important was the echo that resounded from inside the fallen tree.
Longarm pushed himself harder, faster. The seconds were slipping away.
"Hey! This tree's hollow. You don't think-"
"Son of a bitch! He's inside the tree!" Time was up.
CHAPTER 8
Longarm wasn't far from the end of the tree now, and this was where the disease had been the worst, where the wood was the most rotten. He pushed himself onto hands and knees, arching his injured back against the trunk. Pain washed through him, a red-tinged agony that might have made him pass out had his effort not been fueled by desperation. With a splintering sound that he hoped was from the tree, he emerged with pieces of rotten wood showering around him.
Dizzy from the pain, he threw himself to the side as guns began to bang. The shots came from the other end of the tree, however, where he had crawled into it. He twisted, catching his balance, and yanked his Colt from the cross-draw rig. Firing as much from instinct as anything else, he snapped a couple of shots toward the bushwhackers, and was rewarded by the sight of one of the men doubling over and collapsing. Longarm stumbled toward the trees.
The edge of the pine forest was only a few feet away here, and in a matter of seconds, Longarm was among the towering trees. He careened along in a staggering run, hoping that he wouldn't run into one of the pines and dash his brains out on its trunk. Shots still rang out behind him, but now they sounded slightly muffled. He didn't know if that was because the thick growth deadened the reports, or because his hearing was going. Either way, he had to keep moving.