Fifty-Fifty O'Brien Read Online Free Page B

Smith gripped his stock and lay very still. It was impossible to strike up at the native’s head. Maybe … maybe …
    Smith laid the gun aside and reached slowly out with his hands. Seeing something dark move along the ground before him, the goonie paused, muttered something under his breath and, not yet afraid, moved back to better study this thing.
    Smith reached out and gripped the bare ankles. The man screamed, snatching at the machete. Smith tried to throw his captive over his head and to the ravine floor below.
    Scrambling back, doubled up and clawing at the rocks, the native tried to slash at the unknown shape and hold on at the same time.
    Smith reared up and the native jumped straight at him.
    They skidded out into space, hit the trail, holding hard to each other. They struck again and fell apart. Smith, with only one thought in his tired head, clutched the native once more as they struck the bottom. The goonie was underneath, lying still.
    A hot, salty stickiness ran out from under the woolly hair. Smith fumbled all about him for his rifle. He could hear the calls along the ridge, he could hear the slap, slap, slap of bare feet over the path.
    He cut his fingers on the sharp lava and knew it not. He banged his head against a boulder and merely shook the sudden dullness out of his brain. He scrambled in a widening circle, striving to find his Springfield.
    And then he remembered that he had laid it aside higher up the path. Heedless of the noise he made, he scrambled partway up the trail. The rifle tripped him and he rolled back, clutching its sling.
    A large rock offered ready protection from sniping above. He braced himself against the rough face and watched, breathing hard from his struggle and search.
    Men stopped against the sky, staring down.
    A man called, “ ¡Oye! ¿Que pasa? ”
    Men muttered to one another for several seconds. Then, “¡ Oye, Ramón ! ¿ Donde estás ?”
    But Ramón was lying quietly in the wash, staring up at the moon, eyes flinty and wide open.
    Bare feet pattered briefly, then, “ ¡Mira! ¡Mira! ¡Yanquis! ”
    Win Smith leaned hard against the boulder, waiting. They had found his hat up there.
    Metal clinked, and a creak and snap told of a gun being cocked. But still nothing happened. Smith momentarily considered backtracking, but when he thought of two nights and a day with nothing but silence, and when he remembered that horses could catch him easily enough, he pressed against the boulder and waited.
    In a few moments a light appeared at the top of the trail—a torch. It came through the air like a comet with its trail of sparks and landed in the middle of the wash not ten feet from Ramón, still burning.
    They could see the dead man in the glare—and they saw something else.
    â€œÂ¡Solo!” It went up with a roar. Shadows danced along the crest. A rifle crashed a ribboned line of sparks. The slug yowled out of the wash like a broken banjo string.
    Win Smith watched the flare of powder above him and thought about a row of gas candles which could be put out with the whisper of a bullet. You got a baybee dawl if you hit fifteen, fifteen.
    He began to put out the candles, moving along his boulder to keep them from pulling the same trick. The Springfield’s jar was soothing to his weariness, its noise a balm to his silence-outraged ears.
    One candle, two candles, three candles—and they didn’t light again. One came tumbling over the edge, long and white and screaming. Win Smith knew then that it was steep everywhere but on the trail. That was lucky until they got into the wash some other way.
    Rock splinters slashed into his eyes. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead and drew it wetly away. Then he took what remained of his tie and put it about his brow.
    How many of the devils were there? That Guardia captain had been very, very right. These men were too close to Company K for a holiday. He wondered