"Good shot, Eggie!" Drumm shouted.
Perhaps low on ammunition in their mountain fastness, the raiders hoped to slaughter them with knife and club and hatchet. But this time Drumm and his valet were prepared. Together they laid down a blistering fire, forcing the Apaches to retort in kind. Though the big Sharp's rifle was a single-shot weapon, Eggleston had his pistol, and Drumm covered him with carbine fire while the valet reloaded. The survivors quickly took cover and for a moment the din ceased. Drumm peered over the parpet but withdrew when a bullet ricocheted from a flat boulder and caromed off, singing wickedly. In the first rays of the rising sun he saw a puff of smoke from the reed hut, a flash of orange; an attacker running toward the reed hut suddenly bent over, as if struck by an immense wind, and crumpled. Phoebe Larkin and Mrs. Glore were defending themselves. He hoped they would save the last cartridges for each other.
In the brief lull he swung to scan the perimeter of the trench, fearing that a new attack was planned from another quarter. He was just in time to see the Union Jack, his own Union Jack, fluttering high over the far side of the parapet. Now they were attacking from that side.
"They are coming, Eggie!" he shouted. "Be ready!"
The flag was carried by the man in the ornamented leather hat—surely Agustín himself—whom Jack remembered from the first raid. Bone whistle between his teeth, keening like the call of a wild animal, Agustín leaped into the trench. Behind him swarmed the rest of the attackers.
The chieftain swung a gleaming machete, as it was called. Drumm blocked it with the barrel of his carbine. Iron clanged against iron. Agustín dropped the swordlike weapon, cursing an Apache curse. As he danced in pain, Drumm caught Agustín's brown hand in his and twisted hard, bending the wrist backward in a jujitsu maneuver he remembered from Kurushiki, in Japan. Agustín dropped the flag. They both scrabbled on the ground for it.
Wrenching at the staff, Jack tore the flag from Agustín's grasp but the wily Apache kicked him in the groin. Giddy with pain, he doubled over, hearing at the same time a woman's scream. It seemed very far away, distant, almost like a voice from beyond the Styx.
Aware of a sudden shadow, he rolled away in panic. But it was Eggleston standing over him, swinging the big Sharp's like a club. The weapon spun in a deadly arc, the steel buttplate crashing into a rag-bound skull.
"Get back there!" the valet snarled, and broke a man's bones with another vicious swipe of the butt. "Ho, sirrah, stand back! Mr. Jack, are you all right?"
Someone leaped on the valet, bearing him down. The trench filled with smoke, confusion, wolfish snarls, the report of firearms. Drumm tried to get to his feet but could only writhe in agony, clutching his groin. He was dimly aware of Agustín snatching up the maltreated banner, holding it triumphantly aloft where it caught the rays of the rising sun.
Almost resignedly Drumm closed his eyes, waiting for the end. This was his last sunrise. Lieutenant George Dunaway had been right. He should have—how was it the lieutenant had put it? Shuck off all this junk and ride as fast as you can to Prescott before you get bushwhacked. Interesting word, bushwhacked! Now he had been bushwhacked. Never again would he look on green grass and blooming roses, never again see Clarendon Hall, never again see Andrew and Cornelia Newton-Barrett and—
Impatient at death's delaying, he finally opened his eyes. That was when he saw Phoebe Larkin. Like an avenging fury, she stood on the parapet, pistol in each hand, squinting along the barrels with such professionalism that he knew instantly the derringer in her bosom was a well-known tool, her familiarity with weapons a matter of custom. Probably she was a professional murderess, though this category of employment was not one he had previously come on. But murderess or not, he did not want her to die.
"Run!" he yelled. "Run away, Phoebe! Save yourself!"
Propping his body on outstretched arms, he tried to rise. But a last bullet from the fleeing Apaches struck him heavily in the shoulder. The force of the impact spun him sideways so that he fell with face pressed against the dew-wet earth. He became very tired. Curious, he tried to touch his wounded shoulder. The effort was painful, and his fingers came away warm and wet. Blood—his blood, Drumm blood.
He continued to lie in that strange position, cheek pressed against the ground and buttocks in the air, hearing the sounds of battle grow fainter and ever fainter.
Chapter Five
When he awoke Jack Drumm did not know where he was, even less where he had been. He seemed swimming in some nameless void, a fathomless pool where there was no up or down, no now or then—only the cloying blackness. From time to time he caught a glimpse of light, perhaps a lamp burning in a window a long way across the moors. At times there was a face lit by the lamp glow, but so faint and blurred that he could not recognize it. Too, at times he heard sounds: voices, small rustlings, footfalls. When he cried out, tried to reach these evidences of humanity, the dark enveloped him again and he sank again into the void.
Finally, with the tenacity of the Drumms, he decided that this business of the darkness was very silly. If he was alive, then a black void was no place to waste time. If he was dead, there must be something beyond the void; pearly gates, perhaps, and a waiting harp—or fiery furnaces. In either case it seemed best to find out immediately.
Opening his eyes, he stared dazedly about. It took a long time to identify the splash of color on the back of a folding canvas chair near the bed. Finally he identified it as a China silk kerchief—a woman's kerchief, such as females used to bind their hair or secure in place a bonnet. Exhausted by the concentration, he lay back; the familiar void once again engulfed him.
He did not know how long it was before he opened his eyes again. With a start he realized that he lay in Eggleston's reed hut. The movement lanced his shoulder with spasms of pain. He lay quietly again, feeling the awkward bulk of bandage. Recollection flooded back—the Apache attack, Agustín in his leather hat waving the Union Jack, the numbing impact of the bullet, the final sight of Phoebe Larkin standing on the parapet like an avenging angel, firing down into the trench with his Tatham pistols, one in each hand.
Run! Run away, Phoebe! Save yourself! Dimly he remembered the words, remembered shouting to Phoebe Larkin. Then he had collapsed on his face, knew no more.
But he was here. He was alive. From outside the hut came reassuring sounds: the bray of a mule, a woman's voice, someone laughing, the rippling of wind in the reeds along the river. He was alive!
Gritting his teeth, he rolled to the edge of the crude bed and swung his naked legs over. The whole world reeled, tipped upside down. Desperately he grasped at the chair. Finally his equilibrium returned, though he seemed out of breath and very tired.
Dressed scantily in his shirt, he staggered upright, the earth floor cool and damp under his feet. Still holding on to the chair, he stared unbelievingly at the scarecrow regarding him from the fragment of mirror fastened to the wall. The apparition was surely a fugitive from Dartmoor prison, a gaunt hollow-eyed ruffian with scruffy red beard. Even the slatted light from the sun, filtering through the reeds, painted the sorry figure in stripes appropriate to a convict. His mouth opened in wonder; he saw a gap where a tooth should be. Remembering the fight with George Dunaway, he was now certain that the apparition was he, John Peter Christian Drumm, of the Clarendon Hall Drumms. In spite of himself, he came close to grinning. The bearded ragamuffin leered back at him. What changes the Arizona Territory had wrought!