Smith-deal wouldn't be convinced easily. Alcoholics didn't like change. The most important constant in their lives was threatened — liquor.
Still, Carter urged him toward the Ford. And Smith-deal, whose will had long ago evaporated in an alcoholic haze, went.
The bullet streaked through the sunlight.
Instantly the AXE agent dived. He yanked Smith-deal down and pulled out Wilhelmina.
The bullet bit into the ground five inches from Carter.
Carter dragged Smith-deal with him to shelter behind the rented car.
Smith-deal quaked. His teeth chattered as he gripped the plastic bottle of booze to his chest.
The whining of two more bullets split the air. They were high-pitched screamers from a long-range rifle. The sharpshooter — or sharpshooters — were trying to draw Carter and Smith-deal out from the car.
"W-what's going on now?" Smith-deal yelled.
"You got a gun in your jeep?" Carter asked.
"An old hunting rifle, but…"
"Back seat? Front seat?"
"Under the front seat, but…"
"Don't move," Carter ordered, "or you're dead!"
Smith-deal nodded solemnly, his ashen face registering that once more he'd had a foot in the grave.
Carter looked across at the battered, muddy jeep. It was twenty feet away. The air was silent, the rifleman or riflemen saving bullets, waiting for targets.
As Smith-deal unscrewed his bottle, Carter dashed for the jeep.
A bullet ripped through the jeep's hood.
"Hey!" Smith-deal yelled. "That's my jeep!"
It was dirty and banged up, but — unlike the shack — it was his. Ownership was more important than safety.
"Smith-deal! Get down!" Carter shouted.
Confused, the mechanic ducked as another bullet whistled over the Ford where Smith-deal's head had been a moment before.
Because of the time between shots, Carter knew it was one rifleman. Before the sharpshooter could resight, Carter vaulted into the jeep's front seat. He pulled out the old rifle and a cardboard box of bullets. Now he had to get out again.
"Smith-deal!" Carter called. "You still got that jug?"
"Yeah!"
"Take a drink and hold it high so I can see it!"
Obediently, the mechanic swigged deeply and lifted the big white bottle above his head, above the hood of the Ford. "Steady!" Carter urged.
"How come?"
The answer came in the whine of a well placed bullet.
It burst the big plastic bottle. Liquor sprayed into the air, dousing the lord and Smith-deal's face. Pieces of plastic fell to the ground.
"No!" cried Smith-deal.
He pulled the handle down and stared at it as if by his needs he could reassemble the bottle. Tears ran down his checks, and he licked the inside of the handle.
Again using the brief time before resighting, Carter leaped over the jeep's door and sprinted to the Ford.
"Why'd you have me do that?" Smith-deal complained. "I oughta knock your head off!"
Angry, the drunk wiped his arm across his eyes. Anger was what Carter needed, not submersion in the immobility of self-pity. An angry Smith-deal was useful, perhaps useful enough to save his own life and help Carter capture the sharpshooter.
"Here," Carter said, and he shoved the rifle and ammunition at Smith-deal. "There's only one over there. Behind the trees on that knoll. Keep him occupied, but don't gel yourself shot."
Smith-deal frowned. His eyes narrowed. He was beginning to get the idea.
"Can you handle it?" Carter said, checking Wilhelmina's chambers.
"You're going after him?"
"You have a better idea?"
"We could just drive out of here."
"He'd get the tires, the gas tank."
"It'd be safer."
Carter laughed. "You mean it might get you closer to another drink."
Smith-deal drew himself up where he squatted in the dirt. "Nothing wrong with a man having a drink now and then."
"Nothing wrong at all," Carter agreed. "Afterward, I'll buy you one myself. Whatever you want."
"I want a bottle. The best Irish."
"You can count on it."
Carter slapped Smith-deal on the back and crawled to the end of the car. "It'd been a long time since the last shot.
"He may move," Carter warned Smith-deal over his shoulder. "Be careful."
Smith-deal raised his baseball cap, scratched his scalp, and flopped the cap back onto his head.
"Got it," he said, and lifted the barrel of the rifle over the hood of the car.
Instantly another shot rang out, landing in a blast of dust a few feet behind the car.
"Guess he's watching me," the drunk said worriedly.
"Good," Carter said, and ran.
Slowly Carter made his way around the gently rolling, sparsely settled plain. In a country where hunting was one way a family kept from starving, there wasn't any noticeable excitement about the rifleman on the low knoll who kept Smith-deal pinned down and tried to stop Carter in his speedy dashes from one shelter to the next.
The rifleman had lost the advantage that came with surprise. He was a good shot, though, and persistent. Eventually, if he wasn't caught or didn't give up or didn't run out of ammunition, he'd get one or both of his targets.
But he wasn't a professional killer.
A professional would have disappeared after the first miss. He would have escaped — unnamed — to succeed the next time.
Carter needed to get in range for his 9mm Luger. He would wing the rifleman, rush him, and capture him. He hoped.
Once again Carter scrambled to his feet and tore across the hard plain.
Two bullets sang past.
He dived into a scrubby stand of oaks. Dry leaf dust puffed into the air.
He raised Wilhelmina. He was on the edge of being in range. He studied the hillock where the rifleman was hidden.
There a variety of trees presided over dry grass and downed logs. In the winter, the logs would be dragged away for firewood. But now they provided good shields for the rifleman.
Between Carter and the rifleman were no more shelters for Carter. Only the sun and the dirt of the open plain waited. If Carter couldn't get a good shot here, he'd have a long, dangerous run ahead. A run long enough to give the rifleman time to aim accurately for a kill.
Again Carter observed the knoll. The last place the man had fired from was to the left of a big maple, just above a thick log.
Carter lay still, watching.
Suddenly there was a shot from the Ford.
Charlie Smith-deal had remembered to use his hunting rifle. The bullet thudded harmlessly between two trees on the low hill.
A rifle barrel appeared on the hillock, in the place where Carter expected it. Quickly he aimed and fired.
The bullet was short, the distance still too great.
Carter ducked.
Immediately a bullet streaked past him.
Smith-deal fired again, his whiskey-riddled mind fixed on the promised bottle.
Again the rifleman shot at Smith-deal behind the Ford, and Carter raced away from the stand of trees into the open plain, shelterless and dangerous.
The voice was hollow, almost like a cough. It seemed to be calling Carter's name.
The bullets blasted from the hillock, one at a time, steady, now ignoring Smith-deal behind the Ford.
Carter weaved. The voice coughed again.
The sharpshooter's shots were closing in. Carter zigzagged.
The bullet ripped through Carter's sleeve, burning his skin.
The next one might kill him, and yet he was almost at the knoll.
"Carter!" the voice said.
As the rifle on the hillock barked again, Carter rolled.
The bullet sang into the dirt.
"Over here, Carter!"
Carter rolled again, this time into a narrow trench, invisible from any distance on the gently rolling plain.
"Colonel ffolkes," Carter said and grinned. "I was just on my way to call you."