Counterplay

18

The first sign of trouble for the young lovers had appeared as a growing cloud of dust beyond where the gravel road leading to the cabin disappeared over a hill five miles distant. Ned stood up in his stirrups to gain a few inches, the westering sun casting a bronze glow on his angular face.

He was such a picture of an Old West cowboy that Lucy felt like she should swoon or do something else ladylike. However, what she really wanted to do was to knock him out of his saddle and have at him on the prairie. Her conversion from vestal virgin to wanton woman shortly after meeting Ned, who’d also been a first-timer, had been sudden and complete. That was a year ago, she thought, and we’re stronger than ever. I wonder what that means?

“Someone’s in an awful big hurry,” he said sounding miffed. “They better have a good reason to be haulin’ ass like that on a private ranch road, stirring up the dust and risking hitting a steer. Guess we better wait here and see what’s up.”

Run! Lucy recognized the voice in her head as that of a martyred sixteenth-century saint named Teresa de Alhuma. Ever since childhood, St. Teresa had appeared to her in times of stress and danger with warnings and sage advice. The fact that she now no longer saw the saint but only sometimes heard her in her head, had convinced Lucy what she had suspected all along-and that was that the apparition was a figment of her imagination, a psychological response to traumatic events.

Run! The voice pleaded.

Why? Lucy asked herself. Ned doesn’t seem to be alarmed. She’d come to trust the rock steadiness of her lover, who when times got iffy remained as unperturbed as the rugged land he loved.

He doesn’t understand the danger, St. Teresa or her mind replied. And he won’t until it’s too late, unless you RUN!

“Ned,” Lucy said aloud, “I’d rather not meet whoever this is.”

Ned turned to her with a puzzled look. “Any particular reason, pardner?”

Lucy smiled. She loved it when he called her his pardner. It sounded so…together. Still, she didn’t want to sound crazy, even though she’d told him about her imaginary friend I’ve had since childhood…this sort of saint who got shot full of arrows in the fifteenth century. She’d appreciated that he listened without rolling his eyes or laughing out loud. She realized that tolerance came from living in a land where the native people, like their friend John Jojola, believed that the spirit world was just as real and part of their lives as the rising and setting of the sun. And Ned had been raised on a ranch where his playmates had mostly been Indian children in whose homes he’d spent a great deal of time, learning as much of their culture as the secretive Taos Pueblo Indians would allow.

“Just a feeling.” She shrugged.

Ned studied her with his steel-blue eyes. Life with Lucy was like riding a bucking bronc at the rodeo; one moment you’re sitting on top of the animal, all nice and peaceful in the chute, then the gate flies open and all hell breaks loose. Ever since he’d asked the stranger visiting from New York City to dance with him at the Sagebrush Inn bar, there’d been one adventure after another. If it wasn’t fighting what he thought of as the Morlocks, straight out of H. G. Wells’s Time Machine, one of the many books he’d read during the long winters he’d spent alone in the cabin, he was rescuing Lucy and her mother from a corrupt and murderous sheriff, or shooting it out with international terrorists. He’d once heard that love wasn’t easy, but this was ridiculous.

Especially after Kane’s escape, he took his role as Lucy’s protector seriously. He’d regularly carried a Winchester 30/30 rifle for varmints and “shooting stuff” as he rode the range, caring for the cattle. But only since Kane’s escape had he regularly carried his grandfather’s Colt.45 Peacemaker, the gun he used in his quick-draw contests, either on his hip, under a coat in a shoulder holster, or at the very least in the glove box of his truck.

Ned looked back in the direction of the dust cloud. “They must have stopped,” he said. “The dust is settling. Probably just some lost tourists. The Men in Black will get them turned around.”

Lucy giggled. Men in Black. Secret Agent Men. Dumb and Dumber. They were all pet names the couple had come up with for the federal agents who had obviously been assigned to watch out for them. Whenever Lucy and Ned were staying at the cabin, the feds had regularly parked on the road about five miles up the road. Or, if the couple was staying in Lucy’s room at the Sagebrush, they actually checked in and stayed at the same hotel, lurking around the bar and restaurant. They made no attempt to talk to Lucy or Ned, who returned the favor.

“The Secret Agent Men will get them even more lost,” Lucy said. “They’ll probably end up here-” Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by the distant crackling of gunfire. The shots were rapid and over quickly, but there was no denying what they were. Then in the distance, two vehicles appeared on the road heading for them at a high rate of speed as the rust-red dust again billowed into the shimmering New Mexican air.

Ned reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a pair of binoculars and trained them on the trucks. “I think we should go to the cabin,” he said.

“Why?” Lucy asked, fighting the fear that was rising like bile in her throat.

“Those are pickups with a bunch of guys in the back hanging on for dear life. They’re armed and something tells me they ain’t out here huntin’ coyotes. Now, no more jawin’ about it. Ride!” He leaned over and gave her horse a slap on the rear to jump-start her.

One of the benefits of having a ranchhand for a boyfriend was that Lucy had become a passable horsewoman and now leaned forward, her legs back and grabbed as much of the horse’s mane with her right hand as she could-a sure way, Ned had once told her, to stay in the saddle of a running horse. She knew Amos, the big bay gelding Ned had given her, would head for the barn behind the cabin, so she didn’t worry about trying to guide him.

Behind her, Ned rode in perfect harmony with his horse, turning every once in a while to judge the distance between themselves and the trucks, and themselves and the cabin. It was a half mile to the cabin and the trucks had four to go on a bumpy, rutted road; he figured they’d make it if they hurried. But two hundred yards from the cabin, Lucy’s horse planted a leg in a prairie dog hole and tumbled, throwing Lucy, who rolled like a denim-clad ball across the alkali flats.

Ned yanked his horse around to go back for her when the first bullet from the trucks kicked up a geyser of dirt ten yards from Lucy, who was already up and sprinting toward him.

“Keep running,” he yelled as he thundered past her heading for the trucks, which were now only a half mile away. His first thought had been to pick Lucy up, but he didn’t think there’d be time unless he could slow the pursuit down.

Placing the reins in his teeth, he pulled the Winchester from its scabbard and stood forward in the stirrups, his legs pumping like shock absorbers and his horse responding to the pressure of his knees. His upper body hardly moved as he aimed at the first truck, fired, and missed. The men in the trucks fired back, bullets sending up geysers of dirt all around him but generally inaccurate due to the bouncing of the trucks until something hummed by his head like a giant bee.

They were only separated by a hundred yards. He fired again and saw the windshield of the truck shatter. The truck swerved, then veered off the road until it flipped and rolled, throwing the men in the back. The second truck braked to a stop, the men piling out to run to their fallen comrades, some shooting in his direction but ineffectively.

Ned reined his horse in. The men from the second truck were shouting in a foreign language. Some helped pull the remaining passenger, who appeared shaken but otherwise all right, from the cab but made no attempt to retrieve the driver. Others went to check on the men thrown from the truck. One was standing, though he appeared to be favoring a leg; two others were apparently beyond help as no one stopped long to assist them; the fourth man was alive and trying to crawl. The others held a short conference around him, and then one pointed his rifle and shot the man.

Ned didn’t need any more encouragement to spur his horse back to the cabin. He hoped that the attackers would lose heart and leave, but they were well armed and had come to do a job that wasn’t finished.

Riding back toward the cabin, Ned came upon Lucy’s horse, which he’d picked out especially for her because of its gentle gait and patience with an inexperienced rider. The horse was thrashing about, trying to get up on a broken leg. Cursing the men in the trucks and promising revenge for what he had to do, Ned drew his Colt and put the animal out of its misery.

Reaching the cabin, Ned dismounted and removed the saddle from his mare. He gave her a whack and sent her scampering off, kicking and bucking in delight at what she thought was a day off to spend on the prairie. He took another look at the men with the trucks, who confirmed his fears that they weren’t finished as they had jumped into the remaining truck and were approaching the cabin, although at a more circumspect pace.

Ned started to reach for the handle of the cabin door when he was slammed against the wood. Realizing he’d been hit and that other bullets were striking the logs of the cabin near him, he flung himself through the door as Lucy opened it.

Lucy saw the blood on his denim shirt and screamed. “Ned!” she cried. “You’ve been shot.”

Reaching down to feel his side and then looking at the hand now covered with blood, he winced. “I don’t think it’s bad.”

Ned got to his feet and took a quick look out the window. The truck was stopped fifty yards away, partly behind a large cottonwood. The men were standing around talking and gesturing toward the cabin, which lay across a fairly flat expanse of dirt and rock without much cover, except the occasional knee-high bit of sagebrush. He broke out the glass of the window with the barrel of his rifle and fired off a quick shot. It missed but had the effect of sending the attackers scrambling for cover behind the tree and truck.

Ned ducked back as they returned fire with their automatic rifles. Soon the windows were shot out, but the stout ponderosa pine logs absorbed the bullets like rain drops into a sponge.

Lucy crawled over to where he leaned against the cabin wall. She insisted on lifting his shirt-to her relief, the bullet appeared to have struck him in the lower ribs and exited clean out the other side. He wasn’t even bleeding as profusely as she would have thought, but she still felt she ought to bind the wound and get pressure on it.

“Hold on a sec,” he said. He figured he was up against eight men and wanted to try to even the odds a bit and make them think twice about rushing the cabin.

John Jojola had told him about a trick he’d used when outnumbered in Vietnam. The trick, Jojola had explained, was to expose yourself while taking a picture in your mind of where your adversary is before you duck back, drawing their fire. When they stop shooting, good chance whoever you picked out will still be standing there looking to see if he hit anything. Just keep that picture in your mind, then stand and shoot without thinking about it.

Ned stood next to the window then jumped into view before jumping back as the bullets flew. As soon as the others stopped shooting, he turned with the rifle already on his shoulder and eye sighted down the barrel. He pulled the trigger when the scene outside matched the one in his head.

Lucy who’d peeked out of the other front window, yelled, “Got one! And the others are staying low.”

Ned hoped he’d live long enough to tell Jojola that the trick worked. He risked a quick glimpse and saw his target trying to crawl back to the truck. There was a shot and the target lay still. “Guess these guys don’t think too much of each other,” Ned said.

“Or they don’t want anybody left behind to answer questions,” Lucy replied as she crawled back to where Ned was again resting against the wall. “Pretty soon, they’ll figure out that they can surround us.” She pulled her shirt off and started ripping it in strips to make a bandage.

“Who cares as long as I can look at those puppies,” he said, his eyes on her breasts as they jiggled in her bra, a little red push-up number she’d bought at Victoria’s Secret in Santa Fe, hoping to entice him into a little lovemaking under the stars later.

“Get serious, idiot,” Lucy said. “I swear, one look at a tit and men lose their minds. You’re bleeding and all you can think about is getting your grubby hands on my mammary glands. Now, let me get this wrapped around your ribs…and keep your mitts off the merchandise.”

“Yes’m,” Ned pouted, then his face got serious. “They don’t seem to be in a hurry, so maybe they know we don’t have a way of calling out. The good news is there’s only one way to come at us, through the front door and the front windows; the bad news is that’s the only way out of here, too, so they don’t have to watch a back door. They might try to burn us out, but that could be tough with the tin roof and these old treated logs. So I ’spect they’ll wait until dark before they try to rush us.”

An accented voice taunted outside. “Hey, cowboy, why do you hide behind a woman’s skirt. Come out and play!”

“Why don’t you come in and get us, you son of a bitch!” Lucy yelled. “The cops are on the way.”

A chorus of derisive hoots and laughter followed. “The woman speaks for him,” the voice shouted. “There are no cops…except two dead ones on the road.” Someone shouted in Arabic.

“Guess no one told them I speak the lingo,” Lucy said.

“What did he say?” Ned asked.

“He was telling the others that I’m not to be harmed, if possible,” she said.

“What?”

“Yeah, for some reason they’d prefer not to shoot me,” Lucy said. “Probably so they can take me alive and do all sorts of unspeakable things to my body.”

“You wish, you strumpet.” Ned grinned.

“Watch this,” Lucy said, jumping up suddenly and flinging the door open, standing in full view as Ned shouted for her to get down. Lucy stuck her tongue out at the men and calmly shut the door.

“What in the hell did you do that for?” Ned yelled at her.

“Calm down, cowboy,” she smiled. “I was just testing my theory. They’d like to shoot you, but they want me alive, warm, and wiggling.”

The man outside shouted again, this time in English. “You see, the girl is safe,” he said. “We only want you, cowboy. Come out and she lives.”

Ned thought for a moment, then got up painfully. He leaned the rifle against the wall and started to reach for the door, but Lucy pushed him back. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled.

“Giving myself up,” he said. “At least you’ll be alive and maybe John or somebody will be able to rescue you. If we wait until dark, they might shoot you whether they mean to or not.”

“Like hell you are,” she said and burst into tears. “I don’t want to live if you’re not here with me.”

“My choice, Lucy,” he said and pushed her to the side. He opened the door and stepped out with his hands up. Two of the attackers stood up when they saw he was unarmed. Grinning, one of the men raised his rifle…and was blown two feet backward as the bullet from the 30/30 crashed into his chest.

The others ducked as Lucy fired wildly in their direction, which gave Ned the opportunity to jump back inside the cabin. “What in the hell did you do that for?” he yelled as a fusillade of bullets splintered the door, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“Keeping your ass alive,” Lucy said grimly, wiping at the tears on her face. “I mean it, Ned, I’m in love with you, and I don’t want to grow up to be an old lady unless you’re my old man.”

Ned blushed. “I love you, too, Lucy. I’ve had more happiness in the past year than I expected to have in my entire life.”

“Then quit the brave cowboy shit. Besides, what do you think these assholes are keeping me alive for?” she said.

“Carnal desires?” he said, purposefully letting his eyes fall to her breasts again.

“Raise the gaze, buster,” Lucy said. “I realize this body is to die for, but that’s not why they want me.” Her face grew serious. “If they capture me, Ned, it’s to take me to Andrew Kane. I’d rather be dead ten times over than be in the clutches of that man.”

Suddenly, the cruel, leering face of Felix Tighe, a homicidal wacko who tortured her until she was rescued by David Grale and company, flashed in her mind and she shuddered with fear and revulsion. Kane would be much worse. “I can’t go through something like that again, do you understand, Ned?”

Ned Blanchet, high school dropout, steady ranchhand, a cowboy straight out of the pages of American mythology, looked at the woman he loved, realized what she was saying-what she expects you to do, if it comes to that, pardner-and nodded. “I understand,” he answered.

Lucy smiled. “Oooh, you know when you do that Western man thing it gets me all hot and bothered.”

Ned touched his index finger to his straw hat and threw an extra heaping of country on his twang, “Well, ma’am, you’re jist gonna haf-ta rein in that lil’ mare in heat and pay attention,” he drawled. “I’ve been trying to conjure up a way to save our hides, and I might just have come up with something.”

When darkness had fallen, the sliver of the moon still behind the mesa, Ned slipped from the cabin. Squirming forward like a snake, he dragged along a milk gallon jug full of kerosene he’d siphoned from the cabin’s lanterns. Every couple of feet, he stopped to listen; he didn’t hear anything, which made him think there wasn’t much time left.

He doused the hay bales with kerosene and started to turn back for the cabin when he spotted the other man crawling toward the house. Ned had been obscured by the bales or the man might have seen him as he wormed his way past only fifteen feet away.

Drawing his gun, Ned picked up a pebble and tossed it so that it struck the man on his head. “Pssst,” he whispered, not wanting to shoot a man in the back. Faster than he’d anticipated, the terrorist tried to turn and bring his rifle to bear. But the heavy slug from Ned’s Colt knocked him into the next world.

Ned sprang up and bolted for the cabin. Fortunately for him, the other attackers were surprised by the sudden shooting and didn’t know if it was their man or one of the defenders who pulled the trigger. Their aim was off by the time they figured it out and tried to stop Ned from reaching the door.

Ned burst through the door and rolled across the floor as bullets slammed into the wood. Jumping up, he yelled to Lucy, who was standing over by the window directly opposite the hay bales, “Wait until I give the word.” He tossed her his Colt, grabbed his old rifle, and moved into position next to the window on the other side of the door. “Okay, now,” he said.

Lucy stepped in front of the window and aimed the flare gun he’d given her earlier from his emergency gear at the spot she thought would be right for the hay bales. She pulled the trigger. The flare streaked across the yard and, skipping once off the ground, struck the bales, which went up with a whoosh.

The sudden explosion of light caught two of the terrorists halfway across the yard to the cabin. Blinded by the intensity of the fire, which caused their night-vision goggles to overload momentarily, they were sitting ducks for Ned, who shot them both before ducking back.

Ned looked out and saw two more terrorists running from the shadows toward the house, their guns winking red flashes as bullets crashed into the logs on the front of the cabin and came in through the window striking the back wall. Lucy dropped the flare gun and fired the Colt.45 over and over, attempting to hit anyone trying to make his way to the door.

Trying to jack another bullet into the chamber, the old rifle jammed. Ned looked up just as one of the terrorists started to throw something. The man stumbled but still managed to toss whatever he was throwing forward. Ned heard it bounce off the cabin just before it exploded with a deafening clap and a flash of brilliant light, knocking him against the back wall.

Stunned and half-blind from the blast, Ned looked over at Lucy who was frantically trying to reload the revolver, just as the door of the cabin was kicked in. One of the attackers stood there with his rifle aimed at Lucy. He held his fire and instead swung his gun over to Ned.

At the exact moment Ned expected a bullet to end his life, the man lurched forward a step, dropping his rifle. He looked down, as if in amazement, at the razor-tipped arrowhead and six inches of shaft that protruded from his chest. Dropping to his knees, the man murmured, “Allah akbar. Allah akbar. Allah-” and collapsed.

Ned and Lucy looked at the dead man, not comprehending. But they were grinning a moment later when they heard a familiar voice from just outside the cabin door. “Ned, Lucy…don’t shoot. It’s John Jojola.”

“Yahoo!” Ned shouted. “It’s the cavalry!”

“Don’t be insulting,” Jojola answered stepping into the cabin. “It’s the Indians who are saving your pale butt.”

“One of them is a Vietcong Indian,” Tran added, slipping in behind him.

“Okay, yahoo, it’s the Indians and Vietcong,” Ned laughed.

“If you guys are finished talking nonsense, I’d like to get out of here,” Lucy said. “It’s been a really long day.”

Jojola turned on his flashlight, the beam of which caught Lucy standing half-naked in her bra.

Ned whistled. “Yeehaw! Now, that’s what I call a nice pair of hooters.”

“Hooters?” Lucy hissed. “Ned Blanchet, you’re a dead man.”

The room went dark again as Jojola turned off the flashlight. The door opened and a dark figure ran out of the cabin. “Not if you can’t catch me,” Ned shouted over his shoulder.

“Here’s my jacket,” Jojola said, holding it out in the direction he’d last seen Lucy.

Lucy’s angry face loomed out of the dark and into the partial light from the moon and stars outside. She glared at Jojola. “Men,” she muttered, then left the cabin yelling, “Ned, you cowardly piece of shit, you get your ass back here so I can kick it.”

Over by the cottonwood tree a “coyote” yipped with glee. Then laughed. Then Ned howled in pain. “Damn, getting shot hurts.”