Fever Dream

With desperate movements, she followed Pendergast as he crawled through the muck and then wedged himself up behind a tangle of roots, pulling her next to him. More shots came, this time from both forward and behind, tearing through the roots in two directions.

"This cover's no good," gasped Hayward.

"No, it isn't. We can't stay here--it's only a matter of time until one of those bullets finds its mark."

"But what can we do?"

"I'm going to take out the shooter behind us. When I leave, I want you to count ninety seconds, fire, count another ninety, then fire again. Don't bother aiming--it's the noise I require. Take care your muzzle flash is concealed... and then, only then, after the first two fake shots, shoot out the light. And then charge him--and kill."

"Got it."

With a flash Pendergast disappeared into the swamp. A fresh burst of gunfire rang out in response.

Hayward counted to ninety and then, keeping the rifle muzzle low, fired. The .45-70 roared and kicked back, surprising her with its noise, the sound echoing and scattering through the swamp. In answer, a fusillade of bullets tore through the roots just above her head and she burrowed down in the muck, and then she heard Pendergast's answering fire to her left, his .45 blasting into the night. The fire shifted away from her. The light bobbed but did not advance.

She counted again, pulled the trigger, and a second roar from the heavy-caliber rifle split the air.

Once again, the fire came her way and was answered by a rapid tattoo of shots from Pendergast, this time from a different place. The light had still not moved.

Hayward turned, crouched in the muck, and took aim at the light with exquisite care. Slowly, she squeezed the trigger, the gun roared, and the light dissolved in a shower of sparks.

Immediately she was up and moving as fast as she could through the heavy, sucking mud toward where the light had been. She could hear Pendergast firing furiously behind her, pi

A pair of shots clipped through a stand of ferns next to her; she charged ahead, rifle at the ready, and then burst through the ferns to find the shooter crouching in a shallow-draft boat. He turned toward her in surprise and she threw herself into the water, aiming and firing as she did so. The man fired simultaneously and she felt a sharp blow to her leg, followed by a sudden numbness. She gasped and tried to rise to her feet, but her leg refused to move.

She worked the action frantically, expecting at any moment to be hit by a second, fatal shot. But none came and she realized she must have hit the shooter. With a supreme effort she half crawled, half stumbled into the shallow water and grabbed the gunwale, aiming the rifle within.

The shooter lay on the floor of the boat, blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder. His rifle lay in two pieces--the round had evidently struck it--and he was fumbling with one hand trying to pull out a handgun. He was not one of the swampers--in fact, she had never seen him before.

"Don't move!" she barked, aiming the rifle at him and trying not to gasp with pain. She reached over, snatched away the handgun, pointed it at him. "Stand up, nice and slow. Keep your hands in sight."

The man groaned, raised one hand. The other hung uselessly at his side.

Remembering the second shooter, Hayward kept as low as possible. She checked the handgun, saw it had a full magazine, took it and tossed the heavy rifle into the water.

The man groaned, a patch of moonlight draping his torso, the dark stain of blood slowly spreading downward from his shoulder. "I'm hit," he groaned. "I need help."

"It's not fatal," said Hayward. Her own wound was throbbing, her leg felt like a piece of lead. She hoped she wasn't bleeding to death. Because she was half immersed in water, the shooter didn't know she'd been shot. She could feel the slither and bump of things against her wounded leg--probably fish, attracted to the blood.

More shots rang out behind her, the massive sound of Pendergast's .45 interspersed with the sharper crack of the second shooter's rifle. The firing became sporadic, and then there was silence. A long silence.

"What's your name?" Hayward asked.

"Ventura," the man said. "Mike--"

A single crack. The man named Ventura jerked backward and, with a single grunt, collapsed heavily into the bottom of the boat, twitched, and was still.

Hayward, in sudden panic, dropped down low into the water, clinging to the gunwale with one hand. Vile water creatures were worrying at her wound, and she could feel the wriggling of countless leeches.

She heard a splash, swung around with the gun--only to see Pendergast moving toward her through the water, low and slow. He gestured at her to remain silent, then grasped the gunwale, looked around intently for a moment, and in one swift movement swung himself into the boat. She heard him moving about, then he was back over the side, sinking back into the water next to her.

"You all right?" he whispered.

"No. I'm hit."

"Where?"

"Leg."

"We've got to get you out of the water." The agent grasped her arm and began to tow her to shore. The silence was profound; the shooting had frightened all life in the swamp into a standstill. There were no splashes, no croaks or chirps and rustlings.

She felt a faint current, and then something hard and scaly brushed her underwater. She stifled a scream. The surface of the water dimpled in the moonlight, and two reptilian eyes rose, along with a pair of scaly nostrils. With a terrifying explosion of water it lunged at her; Pendergast simultaneously fired his gun; she felt something sharp and massive and inexorable clamp down on her injured leg and she was yanked underwater, the pain spiking excruciatingly.

Struggling, Pendergast still gripping her arm, she tried to twist away, but the huge alligator was pulling her down into the mud at the bed of the cha

A huge report; the concussion of the shot and the violent, spastic reaction of the alligator combining into a single huge explosion. The terrible biting pressure was released and she clawed her way out of the muck, gasping.

With an almost violent motion Pendergast hauled her to shore, pulling her into the shallow water and onto a bed of ferns. She felt him tear up her pant leg, rinse the wounds as best he could, and bind them with the strips of cloth.

"The other shooter," she said, feeling dizzy. "Did you get him?"

"No. It's possible I winged him--I routed him from his hiding place and saw his shadow flitting back into the swamp."

"Why hasn't he started shooting again?"

"He may be looking for a new spot from which to improve his fire discipline. The fellow in the boat was killed by a .30-30 round. Not one of ours."

"An accident?" she gasped, trying to keep her mind off the pain.

"Probably not."

He slung her arm around his shoulders and hauled her to her feet. "There's only one thing we can do--get you to Spanish Island. Now."

"But the other shooter. He's still out there, somewhere."

"I know." Pendergast nodded at her leg. "But that wound can't wait."

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