"Just what I'd do, if it was me down below there. Pulling back around the shoulder, where I can't see 'em."
"But they can't see us either, can they?"
"No. But they can cut up the other side of the hump and get above us. Or split up, one come at us from the shoulder, the other one from below. That'd catch us in a cross fire."
Longarm wasted no time making up his mind. While he shoved fresh shells into the Winchester's magazine, he told Flo, "Now you do exactly what I tell you to." She nodded, her eyes wide. "I'm going to take a sneak up that shoulder. Here." He handed her his Colt. "You keep watch down below, there where they were before. If you see one of 'em coming around the shoulder, let go one shot at him. Just one, you understand?"
"Custis, I've never shot a pistol in my life."
"That don't matter. The rurale won't know that. And I don't expect you to hit anything. I couldn't myself, with a pistol at that kind of range. All I want to do is keep him down there."
"What if he doesn't stay there, though?"
"Shoot again. But watch your shots, mind? Only one at a time; you only got five. If he keeps coming, you wait till he's close enough for you to count his whiskers. Then just point the gun at his belly, like you would your finger, and pull the trigger."
"Is that this little lever here? And don't I have to do something called cocking it?"
"No. Just pull." He placed the gun in her hands and showed her how to hold it. "Now. Think you can do it?"
"I can sure as hell try." She shook her head determindly. "No. I'll do better than try. I'll hit him!"
"Good girl! Now duck down and stay down except when you raise up for a quick look."
Longarm started up the ridge. He was pretty sure the two remaining rurales would waste a little time discussing what to do, and he figured he had an edge of two or three minutes on them. He didn't slow himself down by crawling, but ran up the slope and toward the hump, his boot soles slipping now and then on the baked earth.
When he neared the crest of the shoulder, Longarm slowed down. He dropped flat and began snaking forward. At the top of the rising ground he moved even more cautiously, holding his rifle as ready as he could and edging ahead by inches. The ridge wasn't sharply defined. Its top was rounded, not angular, and when he reached the end of the rise, inches from the slope on the other side, Longarm took time to adjust his rifle in his hands so that he could fire instantly. Then he raised himself to his knees and looked.
He and the rurale saw each other at the same time. The Mexican was crawling up the opposite slope, just as Longarm had climbed up his side. The difference was that the rurale had chosen to sling his rifle across his shoulders and crawl up on hands and knees. The difference cost him his life. Longarm's Winchester was ready. His slug shattered the rurale's face while he was still trying to get his rifle free. The man lurched forward and lay still.
A shot from below kicked up dust inches from Longarm's side. He dropped flat and peered cautiously over the hump. The rurale trio had stopped in the shelter of the shoulder as soon as they'd gotten out of sight of the free trunks where Flo and Longarm had holed up. Then the man Longarm had just killed had started up the ridge to get above the free trunk bastion. Longarm's shot had wounded the man he'd hit, but hadn't killed him. The injured man lay on the ground, the third of the rurales bending over him, bandaging him. When they'd heard the shot that finished their companion, the unwounded rurale had started shooting, using his pistol. Now, Longarm saw, he was going after his rifle.
Before Longarm could get off a shot, the wounded rurale clawed his pistol out and began shooting. The range was too great for his slugs to carry, and they fell short. By now, the unwounded rurale had his rifle in his hands. Longarm snapshotted without aiming, and though he missed, both men rolled behind the protection of their horses.
Longarm held his fire when his targets disappeared. The slope rose too abruptly for the rurales to fire from below the bellies of their mounts, but as long as they stayed behind the horses, Longarm couldn't put a slug into them. It was a standoff, but Longarm had been in standoffs before, situations where the first man who moved or exposed himself became an automatic target for his enemy's shot. Keeping his Winchester ready, Longarm studied the layout.
There wasn't much time for decision, he knew that. In just a few seconds the rurales would take advantage of their numbers.
On count, both of them would step around the ends of the horses and present Longarm with two targets, giving him a choice of one, leaving him a target for the other man. The thought of retreating behind the ridge didn't enter Longarm's mind. He saw his only chance, and took it without hesitation.
Allowing for the change somebody'd made in the Winchester's sights, Longarm aimed at the rump of one of the horses and fired. Before the wounded animal had stopped bucking and started running, he'd levered a fresh round into the chamber and pumped lead into the hindquarters of another of the beasts. The third horse saved him the trouble of wounding it. When its companions began rearing and whinnying, it bolted, with the wounded ones close behind.
Longarm used the shell he'd pumped in the chamber to knock down the rurale who was raising his rifle. The wounded man had just bent down to pick his rifle up from the ground when Longarm's next slug knocked him the rest of the way. Neither of the men gave any sign of movement, but Longarm waited with his rifle ready until he was sure they wouldn't. Then he reloaded.
His face grim, Longarm took careful aim at one of the prone men and squeezed off the shot. The body twitched when the slug hit. He stooped carefully, slowly, keeping his eyes on the other rurale, and picked up a cartridge case from the ground. Using it as a screwdriver, he adjusted the Winchester's rear sight. He lined up the buck-horn and the front sight on the form of the rurale who'd been wounded and saw the lead hit true. It wasn't a job he enjoyed doing, but he couldn't risk one of the men playing possum until he'd picked his way down the slope and surprising him with a belly-shot at point-blank range. He watched the two figures for a long moment. When neither of them moved, he started back to the windfall and Flo.
She was waiting, trying to look calm and hide her apprehension. "What happened?" she asked. "I heard the shooting, and then it stopped, and after a while there were some more shots, and I imagined all sorts of terrible things. I was afraid you might be~" She couldn't get the last word out.
"Dead?" Longarm asked her gently. She began trembling in delayed reaction to the strain she'd been under. He took her in his arms and held her for a moment until her shaking stopped. He kissed her before pulling out his soiled and wadded bandanna and wiping away the tears that were welling from her eyes.
"Come on. Let's sit down a minute. Everything's all finished.
Don't fret yourself about it anymore." He led her to one of the free trunks and they sat side by side, Flo leaning on Longarm, his arms holding her. After a while she sighed and pulled a little away from him. But when she turned her face to him, she'd started to smile.
"I thought I was a pretty hard-boiled dame," she said. "I guess you've figured by now that my life hasn't been a lot of cream puffs and talcum powder. Most of the time I can take a man or leave him alone. If I want something bad enough, I can even put up with a man I don't much like. And even if I like him, I can kiss him good-bye without it bothering me. But damn you, Custis Long! You're different!"
"Now, you're just all upset, in a place that's pretty rough and strange to you. From what you've let on, you must've had a real rough time lately, too. After you get used to me, you'll find I'm just as ornery as any other man that wears britches."
"Like hell you are." Flo kissed him hard. "You're not like any man I've ever met before."