Potshot

Chapter 58

IT WAS JUST after sunrise. We were at breakfast. Like our ancestors. No television. No night life. We went to bed early and got up early. Bernard had cooked up hash and eggs. Sapp was already on his third coffee.

"When you think the Dell will come?" Sapp said.

He didn't sound apprehensive. He seemed simply curious.

"They come before we're through solving this murder," Hawk said, "we got something to think about. There about forty of them and about seven of us."

"Which is about six to one," I said.

"I'da never figured that out," Hawk said.

"Is it a genetic thing?" I said.

"Yeah. We good at tap dancing, though."

"I figure we need to find a way to make it more even," I said.

"Try to force them to split up?"

"Something like that. So we can end up, say, seven on six, our favor."

"I been thinking the same thing," Chollo said. " 'Cept for the numbers. We no good at numbers either."

"So what are you good at?" I said.

"Playing the guitar, singing sad songs."

"Just what we need."

"Si."

"That's what cavalry is for," Sapp said.

"Cavalry," Bernard said from the stove. "I can't ride no fucking horse."

"Get you a pony," Sapp said.

He looked at me.

"You get what I mean?"

"Yes," I said. "Bring a lot of force to bear on a small section of the enemy by moving a small force around rapidly."

Sapp shot me with his forefinger and thumb. He nodded several times.

"Mobility," he said.

"That what you meant whyn't you say so?" Bernard said. "Stead of that pony shit."

"Who we got for cavalry?" Vinnie said.

"Us," Chollo said.

"So," Hawk said, "we don't figure out what to do with them. We figure out what to do with us."

I put some more ketchup on the hash. You can't have too much ketchup on hash. I ate some and had a bite of toast and a swallow of coffee. Balance is important. I didn't say anything. One of the things I'd learned from Susan was the creative use of silence.

"How about you, Kemo Sabe?" Chollo said to Bobby Horse. "You got any Kiowa battle secrets?"

"Get them to circle the wagons," Bobby Horse said. "And ride around and around them."

"I got firing points laid out," Vinnie said. "So the field of fire covers all the approaches to the house."

"But we stay in the house we still back to six on one," Hawk said.

Vinnie nodded. My breakfast wasn't coming out even. I took another piece of toast from the platter Bernard had put on the table.

"So we need to get out of the house," Chollo said.

"We probably in better shape than they are," Hawk said. "We get higher than them, they going to be laboring they have to chase us uphill."

"Especially," I said, "if they have to chase us a lot."