Eddie moved swiftly into the gap between tree and crevasse and McKee slashed downward with the knife. He knew even as the rope parted that Eddie had stopped again. He had underestimated the gunman's caution.
Coming over the wall, McKee saw only part of what happened. There was the blast of Eddie's pistol, fired into the swinging mass of the limb. Then the blond man, with lightning reflexes, leaped backward in a spinning crouch—swinging the pistol barrel toward him.
Eddie, suddenly, was no longer there. There was a cry—a sound mixed of surprise and anger and fear—and a crashing thump. Eddie's reflexive leap had carried him off the edge of the cliff into the crevasse.
When McKee first looked into the crevasse he presumed Eddie was dead. The man had apparently struck a sloping slab of sandstone about twenty feet below the shelf, bounced from that against a block-shaped mass of black rock, which jammed the center of the crack, and then fallen another ten feet. He was caught in an awkward jackknifed sitting position between rocks about fifteen feet above the sandy floor of the crevasse. Eddie's pistol lay on the sand, about forty-five feet down. McKee stared at it longingly. It was as unreachable as the moon.
And then he saw Eddie's head move. Eddie was looking up at him. His nose was bleeding, McKee noticed, and he was breathing through his mouth. McKee stared at the man, feeling a mixture of embarrassment and pity.
"I fell off," Eddie said.
"Yeh," McKee said. "When you jumped back from that tree."
He started to say he was sorry, but caught himself.
"Can you get down here to me? I got to have help."
"I don't know," McKee said. "George took the ladder down. You know any other way?"
"I was going to draw forty-five thousand dollars," Eddie said. "They had it written up so I'd get fifteen thousand when they were finished and then thirty thousand if nobody knew about it a year from now. That's why we had to have you write that letter."
The blood from Eddie's nose ran across his chin. He coughed. "I can't feel anything in my arms."
"Who are they?" McKee asked. "What are you doing in here?"
"George was getting more because he made the contract and it was up to him," Eddie said. "After this one, if we got it all, I'd of had almost two hundred thousand dollars saved up." He coughed again. "You don't pay taxes on it."
Eddie's head tilted forward. He seemed to be staring at the rock in front of him. McKee knew he was looking at death. If Eddie had been Navajo, soon his ghost would have been escaping to wander eternally, combining all that was weak, and evil, and unnatural in the man, and leaving behind all that was natural and good. Only the Dinee who died before their first cry at birth, or of a natural old age, escaped this fate and enjoyed simple oblivion. Eddie's ghost would be a greedy one, McKee thought, always coveting material possessions—the Navajo ultimate of unnatural wickedness.
Eddie coughed.
"Eddie, where's George now? How long will it be before he comes back?"
It took Eddie a moment to raise his head. "Today's when they were trying to get it finished. George had to go out and uncover the sets and after that…" Eddie paused to cough again. "Then we were going to pull out of here. One more day for George to clean up and then we'd be finished."
"But when will George be back?"
"I—I don't know," Eddie said.
"Please," McKee said. "I have to know."
"No. It wouldn't help. He works out of Los Angeles, but I heard about him all the way back East. They say he never broke a contract." Eddie coughed again. "Never screwed up a job. He'll kill you and your woman and then he'll go on away."
McKee felt a sudden surge of hope. It lasted only a second.
"Didn't you kill her?"
"Oh," Eddie said. His voice was weak. "I forgot for a minute."
He peered up at McKee, frowning. "Told her not to yell," he said. "Maybe it didn't kill her."
McKee left him talking. He ran, hurdling the crumbled walls, back to where Ellen would be.
She was lying almost out of the crawl hole. She had apparently been emerging on hands and knees when Eddie shot her. McKee stood a long moment looking at her, feeling infinitely lonely and terribly tired. It wasn't until he lifted her that he realized she was still alive.
The bullet had cut through her cheek, deflected past her jawbone, struck the top of her shoulder, and torn out through.the back of her shirt. McKee brought water, canned food, the first-aid kit, and one of the sleeping bags from the campsite. He laid her on the bed roll and examined the wounds. The slug apparently had hit her right shoulder blade, breaking it. It had deflected out through the back muscle, leaving a hole around which a seep of blood was beginning to clot. He rinsed the wounds, powdered them with disinfectant from the kit, bandaged her face, and applied a pad of gauze to the ragged tear where the bullet had finally emerged.
There was nothing else to do. He trotted back to the crevasse. Maybe Eddie could tell him something useful. Eddie was still staring at the rock in front of him, but now Eddie would answer no more questions.
McKee stared down at the body, thinking of what the blond man had told him. The Big Navajo was from Los Angeles. Probably, McKee thought, a "Relocation Navajo"—a child of one of those unfortunate families moved off the drought-stricken Reservation to urban centers during the 1930's. It had been one of the most disastrous experiments of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, turning hungry sheepherders into hungry city alcoholics. If George had been raised in Los Angeles, it would explain his weak command of the Navajo gutturals, and why what he knew of witches came from books. And maybe it would explain an Indian with the underworld connections which Eddie had seemed to imply. But it didn't explain why George and Eddie had been assigned to scare sheepherders out of this canyon country. Or why it was so important that no one learned they had been here.
The metal of Eddie's pistol reflected the early-morning sun. With that, McKee thought, he could simply wait for the Big Navajo to return, shoot him, carry Ellen down the ladder and take her to the hospital in the Land-Rover. But the pistol was beyond recovery. No way down into the crevasse and no way up if he got down.
He thought about it. Without the pistol he could probably keep the Big Navajo off the cliff. There were food and water at the camp. He could wait the big man out. But Ellen would be dying.
McKee chewed on his lip, trying desperately to think of the best solution. It was then he remembered the truck. Old Woman Gray Rocks had said it was parked in Hard Goods Canyon, nine miles up from the mouth of Many Ruins. That must be close—within two miles at the most. He made his decision.
It took him only a few minutes to hide Ellen Leon where the Big Navajo might not be able to find her. He carried her on the sleeping bag back into the ruins under the cuff. He put her in a room, with food and water beside her, and readjusted the bandage on her face. He saw then that her eyes were open.
" Bergen." She held out her hand and he took it—conscious of how small and fragile it felt.
"Lie very still," he said. "I'm going to climb out and get help."
" Bergen," she said again. "Be careful."
He ran back to the fissure in the cliff. He would climb out and find the truck. Somehow he would find the truck. If he didn't it would take a day and a night to walk to Shoemaker's. Eighteen or twenty hours, he guessed, which was about twelve more than he could spare.
He pushed past the piсon tree into the dark fissure, swallowing his dread of the climb. She had said Hall was smart—brilliant. If he could find Jim Hall, maybe Hall would be smart enough to save the girl he was engaged to marry.
Chapter 17