It was still the amiable warning shot because by now he could have made it come pretty close if he’d wanted to. With luck he could have made a hit.
Watchman saw why Joe had chosen that spot to stop. The rim of the plateau was just behind Joe.
Did that mean he was trapped with his back against an open precipice?
No. Joe’s run had been too purposeful for that. He had a destination in mind: probably the Land Cruiser, parked below the rim somewhere.
Six hundred, judged by a hunter’s eye. Watchman made an abrupt quarter turn to the left and dodged among the little scattered trees. With the blood slamming in his ears he pounded from clump to clump, zigzagging sharply.
The magnum roared again and this one came closer. He didn’t hear the bullet but he saw it crash through a juniper maybe fifteen feet ahead. Pieces and twigs fell off the plant where the big leaden projectile had severed them.
Joe’s shot was a five-hundred-yard one now but the target was moving erratically and the field of fire was interrupted by all the clumped junipers and scrub oaks; they dotted the plain like tufts on a bedspread. It made for unlikely shooter’s luck and no hunter would try that shot on a running deer at that range in this terrain.
Still there was the possibility of luck and if Joe fired enough bullets he’d hit Watchman.
But Joe wasn’t blazing away. He was taking his time and after a while Watchman began to realize that Joe was not shooting to kill. Joe was still trying to scare him away or at least force him to keep his distance. An earnest kill-try would have come a lot closer than any of Joe’s bullets had.
Watchman made the circle a little wider because he didn’t want to corner Joe against a panic. For a little while he was actually running away from Joe on a tangent; but the darting vectors of his route were taking him closer to the rim all the time and that was what he wanted, a chance to spot the Land Cruiser and beat Joe to it.
He was still a quarter of a mile from Joe, making a ragged quarter-circle; he had the sunset spectacle ahead of him.
A bullet made a spout in the earth ahead of him. He jazzed to the left.
The ankles were wobbling now and he wasn’t sure how much he had left in him but he wasn’t going to give it up before the legs did. He was fighting for oxygen; the altitude was probably seven thousand feet. The earth began to buckle as it approached the top of the escarpment and he watched for pitfalls. Off to his right Joe’s rifle was stirring; Watchman dodged to the side. He heard the shot but not the bullet. Possibly it had gone behind him.
Joe had fired seven. Watchman had handled that rifle, he had unloaded it himself, but he couldn’t remember how many the tube-magazine held and that irritated him. Right now it didn’t matter because Joe had had plenty of time to reload between shots but the time might come when that was important.
His left ankle tipped and he stumbled but he got his footing and went on. Only a hundred yards to the rim now, the length of a football field; he was going to make it that far at least.
Joe discerned the same thing and when Watchman glanced that way he saw Joe on his feet, turning. Watchman instantly abandoned his tacking and made a straight run for the nearest point on the rim but Joe was already going over, dropping from sight; he’d seen he wasn’t going to dissuade his pursuer so he was taking advantage of what lead he had left.
Watchman’s legs weren’t going to handle an abrupt stop. He slowed down like a train approaching the yards and when he walked the last two paces to the rim his legs felt absolutely boneless under him.
He swayed drunkenly and gulped like a landed trout. Blood-haze made a red film over his eyes that turned the sunset colors into a blinding crimson that suffused the world of his vision.
He willed his eyes to clear: he looked down from the rim into the Reservation.
7.
It was nothing like a sheer cliff but it was steep enough to deter a casual stroller. It dropped away to a whorled contour of ridges and hills three miles below.
He was surprised to see a habitation there, and a dirt road.
The road was a switchbacking shelf that zigzagged up from the ridge-canyons like a cartoon illustration of a lightning bolt with the hillside dropping away on the open side.
The earth was mostly grass and the dark spots on it were whiteface cattle grazing. The road came up at least two thirds the height of the escarpment and ended in the yard of a wickiup cluster. Several horses were penned in the corral and a rider in a high-domed black hat was trotting across the hillside toward the wickiups, chousing a calf ahead of him, swinging a rope at his side.
Joe Threepersons was scrabbling his way down the slope a quarter of a mile to Watchman’s right, angling toward the wickiups.
The Land Cruiser was parked next to the pickup truck just beside the nearest corral fence.
The triangle of approach made the distance shorter for Watchman than for Joe. Watchman went over the rim and skittered down the slippery grass on his bootheels.
He had the better part of a mile to cover and his legs were troublesome and he still didn’t have his wind but Joe was in no better condition and he was lugging twelve pounds of big-game rifle.
Watchman kept a steady eye on him and when Joe decided to stop and snap a shot at him, Watchman sprawled belly-flat in the grass and Joe lost his target.
He watched until Joe gave it up. It gave him a chance to catch his breath. As soon as Joe moved, Watchman moved.
There was a crease of ground that would give some cover. Once inside it there was no more of him than his bobbing head for Joe to see. The crease ran down, fanning wider and getting shallower until it bled itself flat into the slope but it afforded him two hundred yards of protection and he went through it fast, half running and half sliding. When the shoulder faded away at his right Joe was windmilling desperately, running too fast for the slope, trying to get ahead of him. Watchman just kept moving, concentrating on his balance.
Now he was less than a hundred yards from the wickiups and the rider in the black hat had stopped, dismounted, and was standing by the corral watching all this with baffled interest. Joe was still three hundred yards out, upslope a little way, coming along awkwardly.
Then Joe settled down to shoot and this time he meant it. Watchman skidded prone into the grass and the bullet whacked the air overhead.
He gave it ten seconds before he even lifted his head to look.
Joe had used the time to get closer to the wickiups. As soon as Watchman’s head appeared Joe whipped up the rifle and Watchman slid back down into the grass.
Joe was moving but still watching; this close to escape he wasn’t going to let Watchman stop him even if it meant a killing. Watchman put himself forward on his elbows and knees, sculling through the wet grass but Joe was getting there ahead of him.
Watchman scoured the automatic out of the holster. It was a two-hundred-yard shot and conceivably you could make that kind of shot with a pistol if you held it in both hands with your elbows braced but neither his eyes nor his nerves were in good enough shape to make it count and anyhow he wasn’t ready to kill Joe. That wasn’t the point of all this.
He put his eyes up high enough to catch the vague movement of Joe’s shadow against the farther hills; he poked the pistol out in front of him and snapped off the safety and pumped two bullets off, shooting well behind Joe.
It only made Joe run faster. Watchman scrabbled forward.
Joe was in line with the wickiups now and he quit shooting. He had the inside track to the Land Cruiser and it was all he had wanted. He ran straight down toward it while Watchman got up clumsily, wavered on rubber knees and then stumbled downhill after him.
Joe dodged past the wickiups and Watchman pumped his protesting legs. He knew he wasn’t going to make it but there was always the chance that the starter wouldn’t catch on the first push.…
The Indian in the hat made a motion toward Joe but Joe waved him back, waggling his free hand; Joe yanked the Land Cruiser door open, threw the rifle inside and climbed in.