"If I drop flat, that means things are about to get really tough, and you're supposed to open up to distract her from me. But watch what you're doing. That.30-06 packs a respectable wallop. We don't want her dead, or me either. Okay?"
"Okay." She looked down at the rifle in her hands. After a moment she looked up. "Be careful, darling."
"Sure," I said. "I'll give you hail an hour. On your way."
As she turned from me, I realized that maybe I'd been supposed to kiss her or something. After all, we'd made love and shared some fairly intimate conversation. However, I was too busy thinking about the problem ahead to keep track of what sentimental gestures might be expected of me. It was kind of like going into the bush after a man-eating tigress that, although dangerous, was worth a lot of money if it could be delivered alive to the zoo.
I moved away from the car a reasonable distance and settled down in the mesquite to watch. After all, Catherine could have heard us coming. That little air-cooled engine isn't the most silent mill in the world. She might not wait for us to come to her.
Nothing moved in the mesquite or along the road. The sky was clear and blue and the sun was bright and hot and there was no sign of life on the desert. Up ahead the saw-toothed silhouette of the Naciinientos was visible now, low on the horizon. Behind, in the direction of Antelope Wells, there was nothing but the endless ruts of the road in the barren plain.
I gave Sheila the full half hour I'd promised her. Then I got back into the Volkswagen, started it up, and drove slowly forward along the road, such as it was. At a guess, this had once been the main north-south Indian trail through this region, later followed by ox-drawn Mexican carretar cutting deep tracks that had been elaborated by the rubber-tired vehicles of more modern times. When the old tracks got too deep in a given spot, the next guy coming along had just moved the thoroughfare off into the desert a few yards and started making new ones. In places I had a choice of three or four different routes, all terrible.
Presently I reached the edge of the arroyo. I stopped on the bank, looking at the station wagon out there. She'd really got it dug in. Coming too fast, she'd apparently been caught unawares by the sudden drop and plunged down the bank to hit the rough crossing below much too hard. She'd lost control and swerved out into the soft sand. Trying to back out, she'd buried the rear wheels to the hubcaps.
There was nobody in the station wagon. Nothing moved in the low brush along the bank. I got out of the VW, taking the keys with me. I walked down the bank and across the sand to the white car. There was chewed-up brush around the rear wheels where she'd tried to get traction and failed. I bent over to pick up a handful of sand at the rear of the wagon. It smelled strongly of gasoline. She'd not only managed to get herself stuck, she'd apparently put a rock through the gas tank as well.
Still bending, in the most helpless and tempting position possible, I heard her rise from the mesquite on the bank above and behind me.
"When you straighten up, Mr. Evans," she said, "I want to see your hands above your head. Don't turn until I tell you."
XIX
STANDING MOTIONLESS with my hands in the air, I heard Catherine jump lightly from the bank and come across the sand towards me. She undoubtedly had a gun, probably the little automatic pistol I'd seen before, but it didn't really worry me, not yet. Even if she wasn't a very good back-road driver, she was still a pro. Her gun wouldn't go off until she wanted it to go off.
I was actually more uneasy over the fact that Sheila-by this time established some hundred-odd yards away on the ridge, I hoped-was presumably watching for my signal through the telescopic sight, which meant that the damn rifle was aimed straight at me. I still wasn't quite sure about Sheila. I hoped she wouldn't get nervous or careless out there.
"All right," Catherine said behind me. '1'urn around slowly, Mr. Evans. Very slowly and carefully."
I turned and looked at the little automatic in her hand. I noted that her hand was dirty. In fact, the whole girl looked kind of generally mussed and sweaty from working on her car and waiting in the mesquite under the hot desert sun.
I said, "You're a lousy driver, honey. Just because there are ruts doesn't mean you have to drive in them, you know. That's a differential housing between the rear wheels, not a plow. I could have tracked you from Antelope Wells by the furrow you cut down the high center of the road."
"Road!" she said indignantly. "You call this a road? I am a very good driver on a real road, but this obstacle course! I thought you said it was in good shape."
"I did say that, didn't I?" I grinned. "Just like you said Ernest Head was the man with the information we wanted."
After a moment she smiled faintly. "I see. So you were being clever also."
"I'm a very clever guy," I said. "Good with a gun, too. Max sends his regards, honey. From hell."
It was meant to shake her and it did. She stared at me, and there was sudden murder in her blue eyes. Her grubby hand even tightened a bit on the little pistol-all except the trigger finger. After several seconds she let her breath go out softly.
"So? What happened?'
I said, "He was careless or tired; he let me get the drop on him. And then, well, he must have been reading some of this quick-draw bunk. He thought he could outdraw a gun that was already covering him. Or, silly boy, he thought I wouldn't shoot."
"I was fond of Max," she murmured. "You run a big risk telling me this."
I shook my head. "No. It would have been a bigger risk not telling you. I don't know what your arrangements were, but as long as you could hope for other help eventually, you could afford to shoot me. But without Max you need me. You can't possibly take von Sachs alone unless you're willing to take him dead and die doing it. I don't think you're that much of a fanatic. If you're going to get out alive, you'll need assistance. So you might as well tell me: what did you and Max get out of Gerda Landwehr about the location of our general's hideout?"
She laughed shortly. "You don't really think I'll tell you that!"
"I really think so," I mid.
"You are at my mercy," she said.
"Let's not talk utter nonsense," I said. "You haven't got any mercy for me to be at. And you're covered from behind by a heavy-caliber rifle."
There was a little silence. A wry smile touched Catherine's 11ps briefly. "I see," she murmured. "I see. That is very good. You have restored my faith in you, Mr. Evans. I thought you walked into the trap just a little too readily. So you did not come down here into Mexico alone? The little girl is behind me?"
"Yes. Up on that ridge to the west."
"Prove it to me."
"Sure." I closed my right hand, still raised, into a fist. There was a moment's pause, long enough for doubt to go through my mind; then sand sprayed up suddenly a few yards away from us and the sound of the rifle reached us, flat and hard. "Okay?" I said to Catherine.
"Okay," she mid. She grimaced and put her pistol away inside her blouse. "Well, that throws an altogether different light on the situation, doesn't it? I accept your offer of assistance, Mr. Evans. I can certainly use the help of a man who is clever and good with a gun. The place we want, according to Gerda Landwehr, is known as the Caves of Copala…"
When Sheila reached us, she seemed shocked to find us sitting on the bank side by side with our legs dangling, talking like old friends. She was really a rather naive and inexperienced little girl. She apparently still believed in things like love and hate and gratitude and vengeance, not realizing that they had no place in this work, where your enemy one minute is your ally the next-and maybe your enemy again a few minutes later. I wasn't forgetting that possibility, of course.