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He shot at Teasle, but the light was bad and the trees were too thick, and anyway, Shingleton grabbed the rifle so that the bullet jerked low. Shingleton ought to have been dead. He had been shot in the skull. He should not have been able to get back off the ground and grab the rifle to throw off its aim. Rambo really had to admire him as he shot him again, through one eye now, and this time Shingleton was dead for sure.
Without a pause he set off ru
He just missed him. He came hurrying through the woods, able to see the cliff edge now and the top of the niche, and he dropped to his knees, hiding for Teasle. But then he heard chips of stone rattling down the cliff and the sound of heavy breathing down there, and he rushed over just in time to see Teasle jump the last few feet down the niche, ducking around the side of the cliff wall. He saw too the bodies of the four deputies where he had shot them at the bottom of the cliff, and he didn't like the position he was in. Now Teasle had the advantage. To climb down the niche after him, he would be as easy a target for Teasle as the four deputies had been for himself.
He knew damn well that Teasle was not going to stand down there all night waiting for him. Shortly Teasle was going to take his chance and clear out, and he would be left up on top, suspecting that Teasle was gone but not willing to risk that he was still there. To be safe he had to find another way down off this bluff, and that way had to be in the direction Teasle would take for home.
He raced back toward where he had killed Shingleton, and passed his body, and continued racing toward where he hoped the bluff would slope down into the draw, and it did slope down, and in half an hour he was into the draw, ru
There.
But he had to take a handicap, give Teasle a headstart.
Because in spite of his temptation to rush across the open grass after him, he had to wait until the night was fully black: Teasle might not be ru
He set out after it, stopped and listened, corrected his direction toward the noise, then set on again. He expected that fairly soon Teasle would give up ru
The chase went up a slope of trees, over a spine of rock and down a patch of shale to a stream, then along the bank of the stream, across the stream into more woods, across a ravine. The pain in his chest cut sharply as he jumped across, and he almost slipped down into the ravine, but he pulled himself up, listened for Teasle, heard him and chased after him. Each time his right foot hit the ground, the jolt went all the way up his right side, grating his ribs. Twice he was sick.
15
Up and down, the pattern of the country repeated itself. Stumbling up a slope of rocks and brush, Teasle felt like he was back on the ledge, trying to get up the rise to the woods. In the dark he couldn't see the top; he wished he knew how far it was; he couldn't keep on climbing much longer. The rain was making the rocks slippery, and he was losing his balance, falling hard. He took to crawling up, and the rocks tore at his pants, cut into his knees, while behind him, down in the trees at the bottom, he heard the kid breaking through the undergrowth.
He scrambled faster. If he could just see the top and know how far he had to go. The kid must be out of the woods now and starting up the slope, and Teasle thought of shooting blindly down to hold him back. He couldn't: the flashes from his pistol would give the kid a target, but Christ, he had to do something.
In one desperate lunge he reached the top but didn't know it was the top until he tripped and barely grabbed a rock in time to stop from rolling down the other side. Now. Now he could shoot. He stretched out and listened to where the kid was rushing up the slope, and he fired six times in a line across the noises. Then he hugged the ground in case he had missed, and a shot came from below, zinging over him. He heard the kid climbing off to the left, and he fired once more at the noise before he started racing down the other side of the slope. Again he tripped, and now he struck his shoulder solidly against a rock and couldn't keep from rolling as he grabbed his shoulder and tumbled to the bottom.
He lay there dazed. The wind was knocked out of him, and he fought to breathe but he couldn't. He gasped and pushed his stomach muscles in, but they wanted to push out, and then he managed to suck in a little air and a little more, and he was almost breathing normally again when he heard the kid clambering on the rocks above. He groped to his knees, then to his feet — and discovered that in his fall he had lost hold of his pistol. It was somewhere up on the slope. No time to go back for it. No light to find it.
He staggered through woods, circling he guessed, going nowhere, winding around and around until he'd be brought to bay. Already his knees were buckling. His direction was wobbly. He was bumping against trees, a crazy vision in his head of him in his office, bare feet on the desk, head tilted sipping hot soup. Tomato soup. No, bean with bacon. The rich expensive kind where the label said don't add water.