Landslide

I

I was on the move by sunrise next morning and heading north. I reckoned I was twelve miles west of Fort Farrell and so was moving parallel to the road that had been driven up to the Kinoxi Valley, but far enough away from it to be out of the net of Matterson’s searchers — I hoped. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at my gut but not so much as to weaken — I could go, maybe, another day and a half before food became a real problem, and I might have to.

I plugged away hour after hour, keeping up a steady pace, travelling faster than I normally did when on the move. I reckon I was keeping up a steady speed of two and a half miles an hour over the ground, which wasn’t at all bad across this kind of country. I kept looking back to check the landscape, not so much to see if I was being followed but to make sure I was travelling in a straight line. It’s awfully easy to veer and most people do quite unconsciously. That’s why, in bad conditions such as fog or thick snow, you find guys getting lost and wandering in circles. I’ve been told that it’s due to differences in the length of your legs and the resulting slight difference in stride. Long ago I’d checked up on my own propensity to veer and figured I tended to swerve about 4° from the straight line and to the right; after I knew that it didn’t take much practice to be able to correct it consciously.

But it’s always a good idea to check on theory and I like to know what the landscape looks like behind me; such knowledge could be useful if I had to make a run for it. There was, of course, always the possibility of seeing someone else, and I had already figured that in country where the average population was one person to three square miles, then anyone I saw was unlikely to pop up accidentally and was therefore to be regarded with suspicion.

I was able to find food of a sort while still on the move. I picked up and pocketed maybe a couple of pounds of mushrooms. I knew they were good eating but I’d never eaten them raw and I wouldn’t experiment. I doubted if they’d kill me but I didn’t want to be put out of action with possible stomach cramps, so I just kept them by me although my mouth was drooling.

I rested up frequently but not for long each time — about five minutes in the hour. More than that would have tightened my leg muscles and I needed to keep limber. I didn’t even stop for long at midday, just enough to change my socks, wash the others in a stream and pin them to the top of my pack to dry out while I was on the move. I filled my water canteen and pressed on north.

Two hours before sunset I began to look round for a place to camp — a nice secluded place — and found one on top of a rise where I had a good view into valleys on both sides. I shucked my pack and spent half an hour just looking, making sure there was no one around, then I undid the pack and produced from the bottom my own personal survival kit.

In the North-West Territories I had been in the wilderness for months at a time, and since rifle ammunition is heavy to carry, I had tended to conserve it and find other ways of getting fresh meat. The little kit which I carried in an old chocolate tin was the result of years of experience and it always lived in the bottom of my pack ready for use.

The jack-rabbits come out and play around just before sunset, so I selected three wire snares, carefully avoiding the fish-hooks in the tin. I once stuck a fish-hook in my finger just at the start of a season and ignored the wound. It festered and I had to come into a trading-post before the season was halfway through with a blood-poisoned finger the size of a banana. That little prick with a hook cost me over a thousand dollars and nearly cost me my right hand so I’ve been careful of fish-hooks ever since.

I had seen rabbit trails in plenty so I staked out the three snares, then collected some wood for a fire, selecting small dead larch twigs and making sure they were bone dry. I took them back to camp and arranged them so as to make a small fire, but did not put a match to it. It would be time for that after sunset when the smoke would not be noticeable, little though it would be. I found a small birch tree and cut a cylinder of bark with my hunting knife, and arranged it around the fire as a shield, propping it up with small stones so as to allow a bottom draught.

Half an hour after sunset I lit the fire and retreated a hundred yards to see the effect. I could see it because I knew it was there, but it would take a man as good as me or better to find it otherwise. Satisfied about that, I went back, poured some water into a pannikin and set the mushrooms to boil. While they were cooking I went to see if I had any luck with the snares. Two of them were empty but in one I had caught a half-grown doe rabbit. She didn’t have more than a couple of mouthfuls of flesh on her but she’d have to satisfy me that night.

After supper I did a circuit of the camp, then came back and risked a cigarette. I reckoned I’d come nearly thirty miles heading due north. If I angled north-west from here I should strike the Kinoxi Valley in about fifteen miles, hitting it about a third of the way up just where Matterson’s logging camp was. That could be dangerous but I had to start hitting back. Prowling around the edges of this thing was all very well but it would get me nowhere at all; I had to go smack into the centre and cause some trouble.

After a while I made sure the fire was out and went to sleep.

II

I topped a rise and looked over the Kinoxi Valley at just about two o’clock next afternoon. The new Matterson Lake had spread considerably since I had seen it last, and now covered about one-third of its designed extent, drowning out the wasteland caused by the logging. I was just about level with the northernmost point it had reached. The logged area extended considerably farther and stretched way up the valley, almost, I reckoned, to the Trinavant land. Matterson had just about stripped his land bare.

As the logging had proceeded the camp had been shifted up-valley and I couldn’t see it from where I was standing, so I dipped behind the ridge again and headed north, keeping the ridge between me and the valley bottom. Possibly I was now on dangerous ground, but I didn’t think so. All my activities so far had been centred on Fort Farrell and on the dam which was to the south at the bottom of the valley.

I put myself in Howard Matterson’s place and tried to think his thoughts — a morbid exercise. Boyd had caused trouble in Fort Farrell, so watch it — we nearly caught him there and he might try for it again. Boyd was interested in the dam, he was drilling there — so watch it because he might go back. But Boyd had never shown much interest in the Kinoxi Valley itself, so why should he go there?

I knew what I was going to do there — I was going to raise hell! It was ground I had prospected and I knew all the twists and turns of the streams, all the draws and ravines, all the rises and falls of the land. I was going to stick to the thick forest in the north of the valley, draw in Howard’s hunters and then punish them so much that they’d be afraid to push it further. I had to break this deadlock and get Howard in the open.

And I thought the best place to start raising hell was the Matterson logging camp.

I went north for four miles and finally located the camp. It was situated on flat ground in the valley bottom and set right in the middle of the ruined forest. There was too much open ground around it for my liking but that couldn’t be helped, and I saw that I could only move about down there at night. So I used the remaining hours of daylight in studying the problem.

There didn’t seem to be much doing down there, nor could I hear any sounds of activity from farther up the valley where the loggers should have been felling. It looked as though Howard had pulled most of the men away from the job to look for me and I hoped they were still sitting on their butts around Fort Farrell. There was a plume of smoke rising from what 1 judged was the cookhouse and my belly rumbled at the thought of food. That was another good reason for going down to the camp.

I watched the camp steadily for the next three hours and didn’t see more than six men. It was too far to judge really properly but I guessed these were old-timers, the cooks and bottle-washers employed around the camp who were too old or not fit enough to be of use, either in logging or in chasing Bob Boyd. I didn’t see I’d have much trouble there.

I rubbed my chin as I thought of the consequences of Howard’s action and the conclusions to be drawn from them. He’d pulled off his loggers at full pay to search for me, and that was wasting him an awful lot of time and money. If he didn’t get them back on the job it might be too late to save the trees — unless he’d opened the sluices on the dam to prevent the lake encroaching any farther up the valley. But even then he’d be running into financial trouble; the sawmill must have been geared to this operation and the cutting off of the flow of raw lumber from the valley would have its repercussions there — if he didn’t get his loggers back to work pretty soon the sawmill would have to close down.

It seemed to me that Howard wanted me very badly — this was another added brick in the structure of evidence I was building. It wasn’t evidence in the legal sense, but it was good enough for me.

Towards dusk I made my preparations. I took the blankets from the pack and strapped them on the outside and, when it was dark enough, I began my descent to the valley floor. I knew of a reasonably easy way and it didn’t take long before I was approaching the edge of the camp. There were lights burning in two of the prefabricated huts, but otherwise there was no sign of life beyond the wheezing of a badly played harmonica. I ghosted through the camp, treading easily, and headed for the cookhouse. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t stock up on supplies at Howard’s expense.

The cookhouse had a light burning and the door was ajar. I peered through a window and saw there was no one in sight so I slipped through the doorway and closed the door behind me. A big cooking-pot was steaming on the stove and the smell of hash nearly sent me crazy, but I had no time for luxuries — what I wanted was the stock-room.

I found it at the end of the cookhouse; a small room, shelved all round and filled with canned goods. I began to load cans into my pack, taking great care not to knock them together. I used shirts to separate them in the pack and added a small sack of flour on top. I was about to emerge when someone came into the cookhouse and I closed the door again quickly.

There was only one door from the stock-room and that led into the cookhouse — a natural precaution against the healthy appetites of thieving loggers. For the same reason there was no window, so I had to stay in the stock-room until the cookhouse was vacated or I had to take violent action to get out...

I opened the door a crack and saw a man at the stove stirring the pot with a wooden spoon. He tasted, put the spoon back in the pot, and walked to a table to pick up a pack of salt. I saw that he was an elderly man who walked with a limp and knew that violence was out of the question. This man had never done me any harm nor had he set out to hurt me, and I couldn’t see myself taking Howard’s sins out on him.

He stayed in the cookhouse for an eternity — not more than twenty minutes in reality — and I thought he’d never go. He puttered around in a pestiferous way; he washed a couple of dishes, wrung out a dishrag and set it to dry near the stove, headed towards the stock-room as though he were going to get something, changed his mind in mid-limp just as I thought I’d have to hit him after all, and finally tasted the contents of his pot again, shrugged, and left the cookhouse.

I crept out, checked that all was clear outside, and slid from the cookhouse with my booty. Already an idea had occurred to me. I had decided to raise hell, and raise hell I would. The camp was lit by electricity and I had heard the deep throb of a diesel generator coming from the edge of the camp. It was no trick to find it, guided by the noise it made, and the only difficulty I had was in keeping to the shadows.

The generator chugged away in its own hut. For safety’s sake, I explored around before I did anything desperate, and found that the next hut was the saw doctor’s shop. In between the two huts was a thousand-gallon tank of diesel oil which, on inspection of the simple tube gauge, proved to be half full. To top it off, there was a felling axe conveniently to hand in the saw shop which, when swung hard against the oil tank, bit through the thin-gauge sheet metal quite easily.

It made quite a noise and I was glad to hear the splash of the oil as it spurted from the jagged hole. I was able to get in another couple of swings before 1 heard a shout of alarm and by that time I could feel the oil slippery underfoot. I retreated quickly and ignited the paper torch I had prepared and tossed it at the tank, then ran for the darkness.

At first I thought my torch must have gone out, but suddenly there came a great flare and flames shot skyward. I could see the figure of a man hovering uncertainly on the edge of the fire and then I went away, making the best speed I could in spite of my conviction that no one would follow me.

III

By dawn I was comfortably ensconced in the fork of a tree well into the thick forest of the north of the valley. I had eaten well, if coldly, of corned beef and beans and had had a few hours’ sleep. The food did me a power of good and I felt ready for anything Matterson could throw at me. As I got myself ready for the day’s mayhem I wondered how he would begin.

I soon found out, even before I left that tree. I heard the whirr of slow-moving blades and a helicopter passed overhead not far above treetop level. The downdraught of the rotor blew cold on my face and a few pine needles showered to the ground. The whirlybird departed north but I stayed where I was, and sure enough, it came back a few minutes later but a little to the west.

I dropped out of the tree, brushed myself down, and hoisted the pack. Howard had deduced what I wanted him to deduce and the helicopter reconnaissance was his first move. It was still too early for him to have moved any shock troops into the valley, but it wouldn’t be long before they arrived and I speculated how to spend my time.

I could hear the helicopter bumbling down the valley and thought that pretty soon it would be on its way back on a second sweep, so I positioned myself in a good place to see it. It came back flying up the valley dead centre, and I strained my eyes and figured it contained only two men, the pilot and one passenger. I also figured that, if they saw me, they wouldn’t come down because the pilot would have to stick with his craft and his passenger wouldn’t care to tangle with me alone. That gave me some leeway.

It was a simple enough plan I evolved but it depended on psychology mostly and I wondered if my assessment of Howard’s boys was good enough. The only way to find out was to try it and see. It also depended on some primitive technology and I would have to see if the wiles I had learned in the north would work as well on men as on animals.

I went through the forest for half a mile to a game trail I knew of, and there set about the construction of a deadfall. A snare may have been all right for catching a rabbit but you need something bigger for a deer — or a man. There was another thing, too; a deer has no idea of geometry or mechanics and wouldn’t understand a deadfall even if you took the trouble to explain. All that was necessary was to avoid man scent and the deer would walk right into it. But a man would recognize a deadfall at first sight, so this one had to be very cleverly constructed.

There was a place where the trail skirted a bank about four feet high and on the other side was a six-foot drop. Anyone going along the trail would of necessity have to pass that point. I manhandled a two-foot boulder to the edge of the bank and checked it with small stones so that it teetered on the edge and would need only a slight touch to send it falling. Then I got out the survival kit and set a snare for a man’s foot, using fishing-line run through forked twigs to connect to a single pebble which held the boulder.

The trap took me nearly half an hour to prepare and from time to time I heard the helicopter as it patrolled the other side of the valley. I camouflaged the snare and walked about the deadfall, making sure that it looked innocent to the eye. It was the best I could do, so I walked up the trail about four hundred yards to where it ran through a marshy area. Deliberately I ploughed through the marsh to the dry ground on the other side leaving much evidence of my passage — freshly broken grasses, footprints and gouts of wet mud on the dry land. I went still farther up the trail then struck off to the side and in a wide circle came back to my man-trap.

That was half of the plan. The second half consisted of going down the trail to a clearing through which ran a stream. I dumped my pack by the trail and figured out when the helicopter would be coming over again. I thought it would be coming over that clearing on to the next pass so I sauntered down to the stream and filled my canteen.

I was right, and it came over so unexpectedly it surprised even me. The tall firs muffled the sound until it was roaring overhead. 1 looked up in surprise and saw the white blob of a face looking down at me. Then I ran for cover as though the devil was at my heels. The ‘copter wheeled in the air and made a second pass over the clearing, and then a wider circle and finally it headed down valley going fast. Matterson had found Boyd at last.

I went back to the clearing and regretfully ripped a piece of my shirt and stuck it on a thorn not far up the game trail. I’d see these guys did the right thing even if I had to lead them by the nose. I humped the pack to a convenient place from where I could get a good view of my trap and settled down to wait and used the time to whittle a club with my hunting knife.

By my figuring the helicopter would be back pretty soon. I didn’t think it would have to go farther south than the dam, say, ten miles in eight minutes. Give them fifteen minutes to decide the right thing to do, and another eight minutes to get back, and that was a total of about a half-hour. It would come back loaded with men, but it couldn’t carry more than four, apart from the pilot. Those it would drop and go back for another load — say, another twenty minutes.

So I had twenty minutes to dispose of four men. Not too long, but enough, I hoped.

It was nearer three-quarters of an hour before I heard it coming back, and by the lower note I knew it had landed in the clearing. Then it rose and began to circle and I wondered how long it was going to do that. If it didn’t go away according to my schedule it would wreck everything. It was with relief that I heard it head south again and I kept my eye on the trail to the clearing, hoping that my bait had been taken.

Pretty soon I heard a faint shout which seemed to have a triumphant ring to it — the bait had been swallowed whole. I looked through the screen of leaves and saw them coming up the trail fast. Three of them were armed — two shotguns and one rifle — and I didn’t like that much, but I reflected that it wouldn’t make any difference because this particular operation depended on surprise.

They came up that trail almost at a run. They were young and fresh and, like a modern army, had been transported to the scene of operations in luxury. If I had to depend on out-running them I’d be caught in a mile, but that wasn’t the intention. I had run the first time because I’d been caught by surprise but now everything had changed. These guys didn’t know it but they weren’t hunting me — they were victims.

They came along the trail two abreast but were forced into single file where the trail narrowed with the bank on one side and the drop on the other. I held my breath as they came to the trap. The first man avoided the snare and I cursed under my breath; but the second man put his foot right in it and tripped out the pebble. The boulder toppled on to number three catching him in the hip. In his surprise he grabbed hold of the guy in front and they both went over the drop followed by the boulder which weighed the best part of a hundred and fifty pounds.

There was a flurry of shouting and cursing and when all the excitement had died down one man was sitting on the ground looking stupidly at his broken leg and the other was yowling that his hip hurt like hell.

The leader was Novak, the big man I had had words with before. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re putting your big feet?’

‘It just fell on me, Novak,’ the man with the hurt hip expostulated. ‘I didn’t do a damn’ thing.’

I lay in the bushes not more than twenty feet away and grinned. It had not been a bad estimate that if a big rock pushes a man over a six-foot drop then he’s liable to break a bone. The odds had dropped some — it was now three to one.

‘I’ve got a busted leg,’ the man on the ground wailed.

Novak climbed down and examined it while I held my breath. If any trace of that snare remained they would know that this was no chance accident. I was lucky — either the fishing-line had broken or Novak didn’t see the loop. He stood up and cursed. ‘Jesus! We’re not here five minutes and there’s a man out of action — maybe two. How’s your hip?’

‘Goddam sore. Maybe I fractured my pelvis.’

Novak did some more grumbling, then said, ‘The others will be along soon. You’d better stay here with Banks — splint that leg if you can. Me and Scottie’ll get on. Boyd is getting farther away every goddam minute.’

He climbed up on the trail and after a few well-chosen remarks about Banks and his club-footed ancestry, he said, ‘Come on, Scottie,’ and moved off.

I had to do this fast. I watched them out of sight, then flicked my gaze to Banks. He was bending over the other man and looking at the broken leg and he had his back to me. I broke cover, ran the twenty feet at a crouch and clubbed him before he had time to turn.

He collapsed over the other man, who looked up with frightened eyes. Before he had time to yell I had grabbed a shotgun and was pushing the muzzle in his face. ‘One cheep and you’ll get worse than a broken leg,’ I threatened.

He shut his mouth and his eyes crossed as they tried to focus on that big round iron hole. I said curtly, ‘Turn your head.’

‘Huh?’

‘Turn your head, dammit! I haven’t all day.’

Reluctantly he turned his head away. I groped for the club I had dropped and hit him. I was soft, I guess; I didn’t relish hitting a man with a broken leg, but I couldn’t afford to have him start yelling. Anyway, I didn’t hit him hard enough. He sagged a bit and shook his head dizzily and I had to hit him again a bit harder and he flopped out.

I hauled Banks off him and felt a bit dizzy myself. It occurred to me that if I kept thumping people on the skull, sooner or later I’d come across someone with thin bones and I’d kill him. Yet it was a risk I had to run. I had to impress these guys somehow and utter ruthlessness was one way to do it — the only way I could think of.

I took off Banks’s belt and hog-tied him quickly, then took off with the shotgun after Novak and Scottie. I don’t think more than four minutes had elapsed since they had left. I had to get to the place where the trail crossed the marsh before they did and, because the trail took a wide curve, I had only half the distance to go to get there. I ran like a hare through the trees and arrived breathless and panting just in time to hide behind the tall reeds by the marsh and at the edge of the trail.

I heard them coming, not moving as quickly as they had done at first. I suppose that four men hunting a fugitive have more confidence than two — even if they are armed. Anyway, Novak and Scottie were not coming too fast. Novak was in the lead and caught sight of the trail I had made in the marsh. ‘Hey, we’re going right,’ he shouted. ‘Come on, Scottie.’

He plunged past me into the marshy ground, his speed quickening, and Scottie followed a little more slowly, not having seen what all the excitement was about. He never did see, either, because I bounced the butt of the shotgun on the back of his head and he went flat on his face in the mud.

Novak heard him fall and whirled round, but I had already reversed the shotgun and held it on him. ‘Drop the rifle, Novak.’

He hesitated. I patted the shotgun. ‘I don’t know what’s in here — birdshot or buckshot — but you’re going to find out the hard way if you don’t drop that rifle.’

He opened his hands and the rifle fell into the mud. I stepped out of the reeds. ‘Okay, come here — real slow.’

He stepped out of the mud on to dry land, his feet making sucking noises. I said, ‘Where’s Waystrand?’

Novak grinned. ‘He’s coming — he’ll be along.’

‘I hope so,’ I said, and a puzzled look came over Novak’s face. I jerked the gun, indicating the prostrate Scottie. ‘Pick him up — and don’t put a finger near that shotgun lying there, or I’ll blow your head off.’

I stepped off the trail and watched him hoist Scottie on to his back. He was a big man, nearly as big as I am, and Scottie wasn’t too much of a load. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Back the way you came, Novak.’

I picked up the other shotgun and kept him going at a fast clip down the trail, harrying him unmercifully. By the time we reached the others he was very much out of breath, which was just the way I wanted him. Banks had recovered. He looked up, saw Novak and opened his mouth to yell. Then he saw me and had a shotgun pointing at him and shut his mouth with a snap. The guy with the broken leg was still unconscious.

I said, ‘Dump Scottie over the edge.’

Novak turned and gave me a glare but did as I said. He wasn’t too careful about it and Scottie would have a right to complain, but I supposed I’d be blamed for everything. I said, ‘Now you go over — and do it real slow.’

He lowered himself over the edge and I told him to walk away and keep turned round with his back to me. It was awkward lowering myself but I managed it. Novak tried something, though; as he heard the thump of my heels he whirled round but subsided when he saw I still had him covered.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now take off Scottie’s belt and tie him — heels to ankles, hog fashion. But, first, take off your own belt and drop it.’

He unbuckled his belt and withdrew it from the loops of his pants and for a moment I thought he was going to throw it at me, but a steadying of the shotgun on his belly made him think otherwise. ‘Now drop your pants.’

He swore violently but again did as I said. A guy with his pants around his ankles is in no shape to start a roughhouse; it’s a very hampering position to be in, as a lot of guys have found out when surprised with other men’s wives. But I will say that Novak was a game one — he tried.

He had just finished tying Scottie when he threw himself at my legs in an attempt to bring me down. He ought to have known better because I was trying to get into position to thump him from behind. His jaw ran into the butt of the shotgun just as it was descending on him and that put him out.

I examined Scottie’s bonds and, sure enough, Novak had tried to pull a fast one there, too. I made sure of him, then fastened up Novak hurriedly. There wasn’t a deal of time left and the helicopter would be coming back any moment. I took a shotgun and splintered the butt against a rock and then filled my pocket with shotgun shells for the other gun. On impulse I searched Novak’s pockets and found a blackjack — a small, handy, leather-bound club, lead-weighted and with a wrist loop. I smiled. If I was going to go on skull-bashing I might as well do it with the proper implement.

I put it in my pocket, confiscated a pair of binoculars Scottie carried and grabbed the shotgun. In the distance I could hear the helicopter returning, later than I thought it would.

On impulse I pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled a message which I left in Novak’s open mouth. It read: IF ANYONE WANTS THE SAME JUST KEEP ON FOLLOWING ME — BOYD.

Then I took off for the high ground.

No one followed me. I got a reasonably safe distance away, then lay in some bushes and watched the discovery through the glasses. It was too far to hear what was being said, but by the action I could guess at it. The helicopter landed out of sight and presently another four men came up the trail and stumbled across my little quartet. There was a great deal of arm-waving and one guy ran back to stop the helicopter taking off.

Novak was roused and sat up holding his jaw. He didn’t seem to be able to speak very well. He spat out the paper in his mouth and someone picked it up and read it. He passed it round the group and I saw one man look over his shoulder nervously; they had made a count of the guns and knew I was now armed.

After a lot of jabber they made a rough stretcher and carried the guy with the broken leg back to the clearing. No one came back, and I didn’t blame them. I had disposed of four men in under the half-hour and that must have been unnerving for the others; they didn’t relish plunging into the forest with the chance of receiving the same treatment — or worse.

Not that I was in danger of blowing myself up like a bullfrog about what I had done. It had been a combination of skill and luck and was probably unrepeatable. I don’t go for this bunk about ‘His arm was strong because his cause was just.’ In my experience the bad guys of this world usually have the strongest arms — look at Hitler, for instance. But Napoleon did say that the moral is to the physical as three is to one, and he was talking out of hard experience. If you can take the other guys by surprise, get them off balance and split them up, then you can get away with an awful lot.

I put away the glasses and looked at the shotgun, then broke it open to see what would have happened to Novak’s belly if I’d pulled the trigger. My blood ran cold when I withdrew the cartridges — these were worse than buckshot. A heavy buckshot load in a 12-gauge carries nine pellets which don’t spread too much at short range, but these cartridges held rifled slugs — one to a cartridge.

Some hunting authorities don’t allow deer-hunting with rifles, especially in the States, so the arms manufacturers came up with this solution for the shotgunner. You take a slug of soft lead nearly three-quarters of an inch in diameter to fit a 12-gauge barrel and grooved to give it spin in the smooth bore. The damn’ thing weighs an ounce and enough powder is packed behind it to give it a muzzle velocity of 1600 feet per second. When a thing like that hits flesh it blows a hole out the other side big enough to put both your fists into. If I had twitched the trigger down at the marsh Novak’s belly would have been spattered all over the Kinoxi Valley. No wonder he had dropped his rifle.

I looked at the slug cartridge with distaste and hunted through my booty until I found some small buckshot to reload the shotgun. Fired at not too close a range that would discourage a man without killing him, which was what I wanted. No matter what the other guys did, I had no intention of looking at a noose in a rope one dark morning.

I looked out at the empty landscape, then withdrew to head up valley.

IV

For two days I dodged about the North Kinoxi Valley. Howard Matterson must have talked to his boys, putting some stuffing back into them, because they came looking for me again, but never, I noticed, in teams of less than six. I played tag with them for those two days, always edging over to the east when I could. They never caught sight of me, not even once, because while one man can move quietly, six men moving in a bunch make more than six times the racket. And they took care to move in a bunch. Novak must have told them exactly what happened and they were warned about splitting up.

I made half a dozen deadfalls during those two days but only one was sprung. Still, that resulted in a broken arm for someone, who was taken out by helicopter. Once I heard a barrage of shots from a little ravine I had just left and wondered what was happening. If you get a lot of men wandering about the woods armed with guns some fool is going to pull the trigger at the wrong time, but that’s no excuse for the rest of them loosing off. I discovered afterwards that someone had to be taken out with a gunshot wound — someone had shot at him in error, he had shot back and the rest of the boys had let fly. Too bad for him.

The looted food supply was running out and I had to replenish. It was dangerous to go back to the logging camp — Matterson would have it sealed off tight — so I was heading east to Clare’s cabin. I knew I could stock up there and I hoped to find Clare. I had to get news to Gibbons about what Howard was doing; he wouldn’t look kindly on a manhunt in his territory and he’d move in fast. In any case, I wanted to find out what had happened to Clare.

Twice I made a break to the east, only to find a gang of Matterson’s loggers in the way so that I had to fade back and try to circle them. The third time I was lucky and when I got to the cabin I was very tired but not too tired to approach with extreme caution. I had not had much sleep in the last forty-eight hours, mostly restricting myself to catnapping an hour at a time. That’s when the loner comes off worst: he’s always under pressure while the other guys can take it easy.

It was dusk when I came to the cabin and I lay on the hillside looking down at it for some time. Everything seemed to be quiet and I noted with disappointment that there were no lights in the big cabin, so evidently Clare was absent. Still, it seemed old Waystrand was around because a bright and welcome gleam shone from his place.

I came in to the cabin on a spiral, checking carefully, and was not too stupid to look through the window of Waystrand’s cabin to make sure he was alone. He was sitting before the stove, the air about his head blue with pipesmoke, so I went round to the door and tried to walk in. To my surprise it was locked, something very unusual.

Waystrand’s voice rumbled, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Boyd.’

I heard his footsteps on the wooden floor as he came to the door. ‘Who did you say?’

‘Bob Boyd. Open up, Matthew.’

The door opened a crack after bolts were drawn and a light shone on me. Then he flung the door wide open. ‘Come in. Come in, quick.’

I stumbled over the threshold and he slammed the door behind me and shot the bolts. I turned to see him replace a shotgun on the rack on the wall. ‘Have they been bothering you, too, Matthew?’

He swung round and I saw his face. He had a shiner — the ripest black eye I’ve ever seen — and his face was cut about. ‘Yeah,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ve been bothered. What the hell’s going on, Boyd?’

I said, ‘Howard Matterson’s gone wild and he’s after my blood. He’s got his boys worked up, too — told them I hammered the daylights out of old Bull.’

‘Did you?’

I stared at him. ‘What would I want to hit an old man for? Right now I want to massacre Howard, but that’s different. Old Bull had a heart-attack — I saw it and McDougall saw it. So did Howard, but he’s lying about it.’

Matthew nodded. ‘I believe you.’

I said, ‘Who gave you the shiner, Matthew?’

He looked down at the floor. ‘I had a fight with my own son,’ he said. His hands curled up into fists. ‘He whipped me — I always thought I could handle him, but he whipped me.’

I said, ‘I’ll take care of Jimmy, Mr Waystrand. He’s second on my list. What happened?’

‘He came up here with Howard three days ago,’ said Matthew. ‘In that ‘copter. Wanted to know if you were around. I told him I hadn’t seen you, and Howard said that if I did I was to let him know. Then Howard said he wanted to search Miss Trinavant’s cabin, and I said he couldn’t do that. He said that maybe you were hiding out in there, so I asked him if he was calling me a liar.’ Matthew shrugged. ‘One thing led to another and my boy hit me — and there was a fight.’

He raised his head. ‘He whipped me, Mr Boyd, but they didn’t get into the cabin. I came right in here and took that shotgun and told them to get the hell off the place.’

I watched him sink dejectedly into the chair before the stove and felt very sorry for him. ‘Did they go without any more trouble?’

He nodded. ‘Not much trouble. I thought at one time I’d have to shoot Jimmy. I’d have pulled the trigger, too, and he knew it.’ He looked up with grief in his eyes. ‘He’s gone real bad. I knew it was happening but I never thought the time would come when I’d be ready to shoot my own son.’

‘I feel sorry about that,’ I said. ‘Did Howard cause any ructions?’

‘No,’ said Matthew with contempt. ‘He just stood back and laughed like a hyena while the fight was going on — but he stopped laughing when I pointed the shotgun at his gut.’

That sounded like Howard. I took off my pack and dumped it on the floor. ‘Seen anything of Cl — Miss Trinavant?’

‘Not seen her for a week,’ he said.

I sighed and sat down. Clare hadn’t been back to her cabin since this whole thing started and I wondered where she was and what she was doing.

Matthew looked at me in concern. ‘You look beat,’ he said. ‘I’ve been going on about my own troubles, but you sure got more.’

I said, ‘I’ve been on the run for six days. These woods are crawling with guys hoping for a chance to beat my brains in. If you want to earn a thousand dollars, Matthew, all you have to do is to turn me in to Howard.’

He grunted. ‘What would I do with a thousand bucks? You hungry?’

I smiled faintly. ‘I couldn’t eat more than three moose — my appetite’s given out on me.’

‘I got a stew that just needs heating up. Won’t be more’n fifteen minutes. Why don’t you get cleaned up.’ He took some keys looped on a string from a box, and tossed them to me. ‘Those will open the big cabin. Go get yourself a bath.’

I tossed the keys in my hand. ‘You wouldn’t let Howard have these.’

‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘He ain’t a friend of Miss Trinavant.’

I had a hot bath and shaved off a week’s growth of beard and then looked and felt more human. When I got back to Matthew’s cabin he had a steaming plate of stew waiting for me which I got on the outside of at top speed and then asked for more. He smiled and said, ‘Outdoor life agrees with you.’

‘Not this kind of life,’ I said. I reached over to my coat and took from a pocket one of the rifled slug cartridges which I laid on the table. ‘They’re loaded for bear, Matthew.’

He picked up the cartridge and, for the first and last time in my experience, he swore profusely, ‘Good Christ in heaven!’ he said. ‘The goddam sons of bitches — I wouldn’t use one of those on a deer.’ He looked up. ‘Old Bull must have died.’

I hadn’t thought of that and felt a chill. ‘I hope not,’ I said sincerely. ‘I’ve been hoping he recovers. He’s the only man who can get me out of this hole. He can stand up and tell those loggers that I didn’t hammer him — that he had a heart-attack. He can get Howard off my back.’

‘Isn’t it funny,’ said Matthew in a very unfunny and sad voice, ‘I’ve never liked Bull but he and I have a lot in common. Both our boys have gone bad.’

I said nothing to that; there wasn’t much I could say. I finished eating and had some coffee and felt a lot better after this first hot meal I’d had in days. Matthew said, ‘There’s a bed for you all made up. You can sleep well tonight.’ He stood up and took down the shotgun. ‘I’ll have a look around — we don’t want your sleep disturbed.’

I turned in to a soft bed and was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow and I slept right through until daybreak and only woke with the sun shining into my eyes. I got up and dressed then went into the main room. There was no sign of Matthew, but there was coffee steaming on the stove and a frypan already laid out with eggs and bacon near by waiting to be fried.

I had a cup of coffee and began to fry up half a dozen eggs. I had just got them ready when I heard someone running outside. I jumped to the window, one hand grabbing the shotgun, and saw Matthew making good time towards the cabin. He crashed open the door and said breathlessly, ‘A lot of guys... heading for here... not more’n ten minutes... behind me.’

I took my coat, put it on, and hoisted my pack which felt heavy. ‘I put some grub in your pack,’ said Matthew. ‘Sorry it’s all I could do.’

I said quickly, ‘You can do something else. Get into Fort Farrell, get hold of Gibbons and tell him what’s going on up here. And see if you can find out what’s happened to McDougall and Clare. Will you do that?’

‘I’ll be on my way as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘But you’d better get out of here. Those boys were coming fast.’

I stepped out of the cabin and made for the trees, slanting my way up the hill to the place from which I had looked down the previous night. When I got there I unslung the glasses and looked down at the cabin.

There were at least six of them that I could see when I sorted out their comings and goings. They were walking in and out of Matthew’s cabin as though they owned the place and had broken into Clare’s cabin. I presumed they were searching it. I wondered how they had known I was there and concluded that they must have had a watcher staked out, and it was the lights in Clare’s cabin when I had a bath that had been the tip-off.

I cursed myself for that piece of stupidity but it was too late for recriminations. When a man gets hungry and tired he begins to slip up like that, to make silly little mistakes he wouldn’t make normally. It’s by errors like that that a hunted man is usually nailed down, and I thought I’d better watch it in future.

I bit my lips as I focused the glasses on a man delving into the engine of Matthew’s pick-up truck. He rooted around under the hood and pulled out a handful of spaghetti — most of the electrical wiring, judging by how much of it there was.

Matthew wouldn’t be going to Fort Farrell — or anywhere else — for quite a while.