Relentless

5

Shards of sunlight began to stream through apertures in the clouds. On the uphill slope little trickles ran down past them, cutting through the snow. There was a smell of pine resin and the woods echoed with the tiny cracklings of breaking ice.

When they stopped and dismounted Baraclough made a methodical inspection of the money sacks to make sure they had not worked loose of their packsaddle lashings. “Walker did a good job tying these down.”

Eddie Burt said, “I wonder if he’s still alive.”

“Not a chance,” Baraclough said.

They wormed to the top and made a slow circuit of the perimeter on their bellies, scouting the surrounding slopes a sector at a time with the Zeiss glasses the Major had liberated from the ranch house forty hours ago.

Baraclough took his turn and let the lenses ride slowly up and down, covering the district in a checkerboard sweep. Abruptly the binoculars steadied in his grip and he fixed the point in his vision and handed the glasses to the Major. “That little patch of open snow between the pine groves. Eleven o’clock-down a little lower now. Got it?”

“Yes. It could be their tracks. You’ve got good eyes, Steve-I missed that.”

Baraclough took pride in the Major’s compliment: he smiled a little.

Burt said, “Okay, what do we do?”

The Major looked at Baraclough. “How many grenades have we got?”

“Two.”

“That should be enough. We’re going to set up an ambush a fly couldn’t get through.”

They went back down toward the horses. Burt said, “What do we use him for?” He meant Hanratty’s corpse, belly-down across the saddle.

“Bait,” the Major said, and mounted his horse.

Baraclough smiled.