The Ambushers

XIX

STANDING MOTIONLESS with my hands in the air, I heard Catherine jump lightly from the bank and come across the sand towards me. She undoubtedly had a gun, probably the little automatic pistol I'd seen before, but it didn't really worry me, not yet. Even if she wasn't a very good back-road driver, she was still a pro. Her gun wouldn't go off until she wanted it to go off.

I was actually more uneasy over the fact that Sheila-by this time established some hundred-odd yards away on the ridge, I hoped-was presumably watching for my signal through the telescopic sight, which meant that the damn rifle was aimed straight at me. I still wasn't quite sure about Sheila. I hoped she wouldn't get nervous or careless out there.

"All right," Catherine said behind me. '1'urn around slowly, Mr. Evans. Very slowly and carefully."

I turned and looked at the little automatic in her hand. I noted that her hand was dirty. In fact, the whole girl looked kind of generally mussed and sweaty from working on her car and waiting in the mesquite under the hot desert sun.

I said, "You're a lousy driver, honey. Just because there are ruts doesn't mean you have to drive in them, you know. That's a differential housing between the rear wheels, not a plow. I could have tracked you from Antelope Wells by the furrow you cut down the high center of the road."

"Road!" she said indignantly. "You call this a road? I am a very good driver on a real road, but this obstacle course! I thought you said it was in good shape."

"I did say that, didn't I?" I grinned. "Just like you said Ernest Head was the man with the information we wanted."

After a moment she smiled faintly. "I see. So you were being clever also."

"I'm a very clever guy," I said. "Good with a gun, too. Max sends his regards, honey. From hell."

It was meant to shake her and it did. She stared at me, and there was sudden murder in her blue eyes. Her grubby hand even tightened a bit on the little pistol-all except the trigger finger. After several seconds she let her breath go out softly.

"So? What happened?'

I said, "He was careless or tired; he let me get the drop on him. And then, well, he must have been reading some of this quick-draw bunk. He thought he could outdraw a gun that was already covering him. Or, silly boy, he thought I wouldn't shoot."

"I was fond of Max," she murmured. "You run a big risk telling me this."

I shook my head. "No. It would have been a bigger risk not telling you. I don't know what your arrangements were, but as long as you could hope for other help eventually, you could afford to shoot me. But without Max you need me. You can't possibly take von Sachs alone unless you're willing to take him dead and die doing it. I don't think you're that much of a fanatic. If you're going to get out alive, you'll need assistance. So you might as well tell me: what did you and Max get out of Gerda Landwehr about the location of our general's hideout?"

She laughed shortly. "You don't really think I'll tell you that!"

"I really think so," I mid.

"You are at my mercy," she said.

"Let's not talk utter nonsense," I said. "You haven't got any mercy for me to be at. And you're covered from behind by a heavy-caliber rifle."

There was a little silence. A wry smile touched Catherine's 11ps briefly. "I see," she murmured. "I see. That is very good. You have restored my faith in you, Mr. Evans. I thought you walked into the trap just a little too readily. So you did not come down here into Mexico alone? The little girl is behind me?"

"Yes. Up on that ridge to the west."

"Prove it to me."

"Sure." I closed my right hand, still raised, into a fist. There was a moment's pause, long enough for doubt to go through my mind; then sand sprayed up suddenly a few yards away from us and the sound of the rifle reached us, flat and hard. "Okay?" I said to Catherine.

"Okay," she mid. She grimaced and put her pistol away inside her blouse. "Well, that throws an altogether different light on the situation, doesn't it? I accept your offer of assistance, Mr. Evans. I can certainly use the help of a man who is clever and good with a gun. The place we want, according to Gerda Landwehr, is known as the Caves of Copala…"

When Sheila reached us, she seemed shocked to find us sitting on the bank side by side with our legs dangling, talking like old friends. She was really a rather naive and inexperienced little girl. She apparently still believed in things like love and hate and gratitude and vengeance, not realizing that they had no place in this work, where your enemy one minute is your ally the next-and maybe your enemy again a few minutes later. I wasn't forgetting that possibility, of course.

Sheila stopped in front of us, flushed from the sun, with the Winchester slung over one shoulder. I reminded myself that whether she knew it or not I owed her an apology for the doubts I'd had about her. Whatever had happened in El Fuerte's hut in Costa Verde, she'd handled Ernest Head beautifully in Tucson, and she'd been right on the job here.

But this wasn't the time to set the record straight. I just grinned at her approvingly.

"Good show, Skinny, as the British say," I told her. "Sit down. I want you to hear this, too."

Catherine was drawing pictures in the dirt. "We've come about fifty miles already," she said. "We turn off about twenty miles ahead. The Landwehr woman wasn't too sure about the exact distances, but she gave me a landmark, a red butte. From there we climb some forty miles back into the Nacimientos. Copala Canyon runs east and west. It is deep and very narrow for a couple of miles from the entrance. Then it widens and there are many old cliff dwellings in the south wall. Von Sachs is pretending to investigate them scientifically: the Caves of Copala. Actually he is gathering a force of armed men there." Catherine looked up. "Now you can shoot me. I have told you all I know. You do not need me any longer."

I said, "We need you to get in there."

She was smiling. "Yes, there is that, is there not? I will get my things out of my car."

We watched her move away across the sand. Her white shorts were smudged behind. It didn't make her walk look any less provocative. I heard Sheila make an indignant little sound.

"Relax, Skinny," J said. "You did swell. Let's not get temperamental now, huh?"

"I was hoping you'd signal with your left hand," Sheila whispered fiercely. "I can't stand her. I'd just love to shoot her."

"Sure. Don't give up hope. The job isn't over yet."

We had a little trouble getting the Volkswagen across the wash, and we had more trouble further on, as the road left the open desert and started winding through great slanting fields of broken rock that sloped up to the west into the Nacimiento foothills. We didn't reach Gerda Landwehr's red butte until well past noon.

Ironically, after the trouble we'd had to find it, the frail into the mountains was unmistakable. Apparently somebody, either von Sachs or some Mexican mining or ranching outfit, had brought in some heavy equipment from the south, which was now the direction of the nearest real road going anywhere. You couldn't miss where the big truck tires had swung westward. The wind had erased the pattern of the treads, but the depressions remained, leading back into the hills.

From there it was uphill work, with the little Volkswagen engine screaming in the low gears hour after hour, steadily, except for an occasional stop to roll a boulder out of the way or find a passable route around an immovable obstacle. The afternoon was well along when we finally came within sight of the mouth of Copala Canyon. It was a narrow cleft in a cliff of funny-looking rock that seemed to be pockmarked with holes. I didn't know enough geology to tell whether they were the gas pockets of an old lava flow or the results of later erosion, and it didn't really matter. What counted was that there'd be plenty of caves in the stuff big enough for prehistoric Indians to have lived in, which seemed to confirm Catherine's story.

I stopped the car where the tracks started across an open valley towards the cliff. I got out and put my glasses on the entrance. No guards or sentries were visible but that didn't mean they weren't there. I pulled the car door wide and spoke to Sheila, in the cramped rear seat. Ostensibly she'd been put there because she was the smallest; actually I'd preferred not to have Catherine sitting behind me where I couldn't see her.

"Okay, doll," I said to Sheila. "We'll take the rifle and ammo, the canteen, and a couple of those big chocolate bars. Also, we've got to get all our personal belongings out of this heap. We'll cache them somewhere. Catherine doesn't want anything aboard to indicate that she didn't come alone."

Sheila's small face had a rebellious look, but she'd already made her argument against the plan and been overruled; she decided against further protests. Catherine came around to help, and shortly we had the gear in a pile by the roadside. I took the car keys from my pocket, regarded the blonde girl for a moment, and dropped them into her hand.

"It's all yours," I said.

"I appreciate your trust," she said, smiling faintly.

"Trust, hell," I said. "Sheila and I have enough food and water here to make civilization on foot without your help, but once you're in that rat-trap you'll never get out without us, car or no car. Who's trusting whom?"

She didn't answer. She looked hot and wilted and dusty like the rest of us: it had been a long, rough ride. I reached out and deliberately yanked off the topmost button of her blouse and threw it away.

"That improves the view," I said, eyeing her judiciously.

"A little brassiere show never hurts. As I recall his record, von Sachs isn't exactly a monk."

Catherine said dryly, "There's a saying: teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I never really understood it, but I believe it's appropriate here, Mr. Evans."

"Sure. You're a genius and you don't need any advice, but don't forget to muss up your hair some more before you get there. Smear a little dirt on your face, maybe. You're an Argentine Nazi and you've gone through terrible hardships to reach von Sachs and warn him of danger, remember?"

"I'll remember." Her voice was cool.

"I'll be along presently to play the supporting role," I said. "There's no use trying to write the dialogue in advance. We've covered the main points. The rest we'll have to improvise and hope for the best."

"Just so you come," she said, watching me closely.

"You'd be in kind of a spot if I didn't, wouldn't you?" I grinned. "Well, that's the chance you take, honey. Once I'm in, I'll be depending on you, so it comes out even."

I hesitated. There are times when deceit is necessary, but there are also times when a certain amount of honesty, judiciously applied, can create a valuable atmosphere of confidence in the midst of suspicion. I said, "Before you start, let's put all the cards on the table. You know damn well we can't get him out of that hole alive, don't you? Not if he's got as many men in there as Mrs. Head indicated. We're going to have trouble enough getting ourselves out afterward, so let's not kid around any more about taking von Sachs anywhere for trial. It just isn't practical."

Catherine was silent for a second or two. Then she sighed and said reluctantly, "You are right, of course. Just so I can report him dead, that will have to be enough. I will have to disregard my instructions to that extent. I am permitted a certain amount of discretion. Well, I had better go."

"Hasta la vista, as we say in this part of the country."

"And auf Widersehen to you, Mr. Evans."

She got into the car and drove off without looking back. I couldn't help thinking that she'd yielded her point of principle a little too easily. I didn't kid myself for a moment that I knew everything that went on in her mind. Standing there, watching the VW making its bouncy way across the valley towards the opening in the pockmarked cliff, I felt Sheila come up beside me. She'd been waiting a little distance off, obviously dissociating herself from the whole affair. I turned to look at her.

"You still no like, eh?"

She mid, "It's an absolutely crazy plan! You know you can't trust her!"

I didn't like doing it, but it was no time for personal differences. I said deliberately, "She's a pro. I can trust her to act like a pro, not like a sentimental kid full of likes and dislikes that have nothing to do with the job at hand. You're out of line, Skinny."

Sheila's face got quite pale. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I'm sorry you think my attitude is unprofessional, and I certainly didn't mean to intrude my childish opinions… She stopped and turned abruptly away. After a moment she asked in a choked voice, "Where do you want to hide all this stuff?"

We hauled our luggage some distance off the trail and concealed it in a mess of brush and boulders after first making sure we weren't disturbing any rattlesnakes at their afternoon siestas. It looked like that kind of a place. Then, with the rifle and supplies, we hunted up a place where we could climb to the top of the cliff, unseen from the entrance to the canyon. The purpose of the operation was, if possible, to establish a marksman on the canyon rim above von Sachs' camp: an outside man-or girl-to support the two inside agents at the critical moment.

The approach reminded me, somehow, of Costa Verde. There was the hostile company, the danger ahead, the rifle banging my back as I climbed and hiked, and the wild, unfamiliar landscape. I found that my leg was giving me much less trouble; otherwise, the only real difference was in the humidity, and in the fact that instead of being accompanied by a score of trained fighting men, I had with me only one small, resentful girl.

"Well, that should be about it," I said at last, stopping to catch my breath. "If Gerda Landwehr's dope was correct, and Catherine transmitted it accurately, and the damn canyon doesn't wiggle around too much, we should be just about opposite those cliff dwellings. The canyon edge should be right up ahead. Wait here." I glanced at her. "Go easy on that water. It's all we have."

She gave me a look of annoyance, capped the canteen, and moved over to sit sulkily in the shade of a rock. Well, I hadn't come down into Mexico for love and affection. I moved ahead slowly toward where the canyon ought to be if I hadn't lost my bearings completely during the climb. One moment I was looking at what seemed to be just a continuous rocky mountainside, but when I took another step forward, the ground opened up practically at my feet.

I got down and crawled to the canyon edge and looked at the Caves of Copala as a hostile Indian scout might have, centuries before. But it wasn't the caves across the way that caught my attention first. It was the thing standing in the cottonwood grove upstream with a camouflage net over it to hide it from aerial observation: a thing that looked like a gigantic.300 Magnum cartridge.

I'd been wondering just what kind of heavy equipment von Sachs had been dragging up into his mountain stronghold. Now I knew.