Ottar must have realized that this kind of fun could end only in his enemy’s death by bleeding, because he ran in suddenly and hit the man on the back, pushing him face downward into the frothing water. Then, with one foot on the Viking’s ax hand, he seized the man’s head in both hands and ground his face down into the sand and gravel, holding it there despite the frantic writhings until his enemy perished. Drowned in the few inches of bubbling sea. All the men on the beach and in the ship cheered.
On the hill above there was only a shocked silence, broken by Ruf Hawk, who stumbled away to throw up. Barney noticed for the first time that Gino was back at the camera. “Did you get the fight?” he asked, painfully aware that his voice cracked as he said it.
“All in here,” Gino said, slapping the film container. “Though from this far away I’m not sure I got all the details.”
“That’s all for the best,” Barney said. “Let’s wind up the shooting for the day, the light will be going soon and I don’t think anyone wants to work with that around…” He nodded toward the grisly scene on the beach below.
“Doesn’t bother me,” Slithey said. “Reminds me of the slaugherhouse where my father worked when we lived in Chicago. I used to bring him his lunch every day.”
“Not all of us have your advantage,” Barney said. “Seven-thirty tomorrow on the dot, we’ll pick up where we left off today.” He started down the hill toward the noisy mob scene below.
The dead and wounded from both groups had been pulled into a heap above the line of the waves, and the victors were already looting the ship of its supplies, starting with the ale. The surviving attackers had been grouped together under guard and were being harangued by Ottar, who strode back and forth before them, shouting and waving his fists for punctuation. Whatever he said seemed to do the job because, before Barney reached the foot of the hill, the northmen, invaders and defenders both, turned and started toward the house. Only one man remained behind and Ottar struck him a wicked blow on the head with his fist, stretching him on the ground, and two of the housecarls carried him off. Ottar was groping in the sea for his ax when Barney came up.
“Would you mind telling me what all that was about?” Barney said.
“Did you see how I hit the leg?” Ottar said; brandishing the retrieved ax over his head. “Hit him. Krasc! Leg next to off.”
“Very well played, I saw it all. My congratulations. But who was he—and what were they doing here?”
“He was called Torfi. Whiskey?” The last was added in an exultant shout as Tex dropped the freed cable into the sand and dug a pint bottle out from under the jeep’s seat.
“Whiskey,” Tex said. “Not your favorite brand, but it’ll do. That’s a great backhand you got with that thing.”
Ottar rolled his eyes with pleasure, then closed them tight as he raised the pint bottle to his lips and drained it.
“Wish I could do that,” Tex said enviously.
Barney waited until the bottle was empty and Ottar had hurled it into the sea with a happy cry before he asked, “This Torfi. What was the trouble with him?”
The aftereffects of the battle—and the whiskey—hit Ottar at the same time and he sat down suddenly on the pebbles, shaking his great head. “Torfi, the son of Valbrand,” he said as he got his breath back, “the son of Valthjof, the son of Orlyg came to Sviney… Torfi killed the men of Kropp twelve of them together. He also made the killing of the Holesmen, and he was at Hellisfitar, with Hlugi the Black and Sturii the Godi when eighteen cave-living people were killed there. They also burned, in his own house, Audun the son of Smidkel at Bergen.” He stopped and nodded his head sagely as though he felt he had communicated vital information.
“Well?” Barney asked, puzzled. “What does all that mean?”
Ottar looked at him and frowned. “Smidkel married Thorodda, my sister.”
“Of course,” Barney said. “How could I have forgotten that. So this Torfi has been in trouble with your brother-in-law and this means trouble with you, and it all ends up when he tries a bit of manslaughter here. What a way to live. Who were the men with him?”
Ottar shrugged and climbed to his feet, pulling himself up on the jeep’s front wheel. “Vikings, raiders. Go to raid England. They don’t like Torfi now because he comes here first instead of raiding England. Now they go with me to raid England. They go in my new longship.” He pointed the ax at the dragon ship and roared with laughter.
“And that one man who didn’t want to join you?”
“One Haki, brother of Torfi. I make him a slave. Sell him back to his family.”
“I gotta give these guys credit,” Tex said. “No beating about the bush.”
“You can say that again,” Barney said, looking in open wonder at the Viking, who at that moment seemed a giant of a man in every way. “Climb into the jeep, Ottar, we’ll drive you back to the house.”
“Ottar ride the cheap,” he said enthusiastically, throwing his ax and shield in, then climbing over the side.
“Not in the driver’s seat,” Tex told him. “That comes much later.”
The supplies looted from the longship had included a dozen kegs of ale, most of which had been broached in front of the house, where a victory celebration was already in progress. There seemed to be no ill will held toward the former invaders, who mixed with the victors and matched them drink for drink. Haki, who had been tied hand and foot and flung under a bench, seemed to be the only one who wasn’t enjoying himself. A hubbub of welcoming shouts heralded Ottar’s appearance, and he went at once to the nearest barrel that had a knocked-in head, plunging his cupped hands into the ale and drinking from them. As the shouting died away a rumbling exhaust could be heard and Barney turned to see one of the film company pickups come bouncing along the beach. It skidded to a stop in a rain of fine gravel and Dallas leaned out.
“We been trying to contact you on the radio for ten minutes, maybe more,” he said.
Barney looked down at the radio and saw that all the power had been turned off. “There’s nothing wrong here,” he said. “I just made a mistake and switched this thing off.”
“Well there’s plenty wrong at the camp, that’s why we’ve been trying to call you—”
“What! What do you mean?”
“It’s Ruf Hawk. He came back all excited, wasn’t looking where he was going. He tripped over a sheep, you know them dirty gray ones, they look just like rocks. Anyway he fell over it and broke his leg.”
“Are you trying to tell me that—on the third day of shooting this picture—that my leading man has broken his leg?”
Dallas looked him straight in the eyes, not without a certain sympathy, and slowly nodded his head.
9
There was a crowd around the door of Ruf Hawk’s trailer and Barney had to push his way through it. “Break it up,” he called out. “This is no side show. Let me through.”
Ruf lay on the bed, his skin grayish and beaded with sweat, still wearing the Viking costume. His right leg was wrapped below the knee with white bandages, now stained red with blood. The nurse stood by the head of the bed, uniformed and efficient.
“How is he?” Barney asked. “Is it serious?”
“About as serious as a broken leg can be,” the nurse told him. “Mr. Hawk has suffered a compound fracture of his tibia, that is to say that his lower leg has been broken below the knee and the end of the bone has come through the skin.”
Ruf, with his eyes closed, moaned histrionically at this description.