Relentless

… She hit on her main gear: hit and bounced, nose-high, tailskid flicking off a bush. For an instant she was airborne again and then she settled in, main wheels snagging thickly into the soft clay of the earth, bringing the nosewheel down with a blow that slammed them all forward against their seatbelts. Greasewood rushed toward them and around them and against them. The starboard nacelle was fully on fire now and the wheels snagged against roots and rocks, rivets sprang loose in the airframe, a branch scratched the length of the fuselage with a wicked chatter. The gully was dead ahead and coming toward them too fast and so Walker did a groundloop by hitting the right footbrake and putting her into a spin. She whipped around in twice her own length and tried to stand up on her wingtip and there was a moment when he knew they were going over backwards.… And she settled back down, right side up on her gear, with a jarring crash that crumpled the port oleo and left her sitting in her own dust cloud on one main wheel and one wingtip.

He sat suspended, breathing in and breathing out. Finally he reached for the extinguisher handle and started the pump. Foam smothered the flames on the starboard nacelle and covered the windows on that side like lather out of a pushbutton shaving-cream can.

Baraclough said hoarsely, “Holy Mother of God.”

15

He unstrapped his seat belt and made an inventory of his bones.

The Major said mildly, “That was a shitty landing, Mister.”

“Tough tit,” he said absurdly, and found himself gri

Baraclough stared at him out of bleak hooded eyes. “Walk away to where?”

CHAPTER

3

1

A town cop sat cross-legged in the corner analyzing the rope they’d picked up on the highway by the cut power lines. There was an array of objects on the floor around him. Clues.

Buck Stevens said, “Time’s it?”

“Twenty to four,” Sam Watchman told him. About an hour and a half since they’d discovered the abandoned Buick.

“Christ.”

“Patience, white man.”

Stevens’ rookie eyes flashed at him. “You don’t care much.”

He thought of old Jasper Simalie. “I care. Just take it easy, Buck.”

Radio microphone wires were tangled on the cluttered desk. Watchman stood near the front window, leaning a crook’d elbow across the top of the brown metal filing cabinet. Jace Cu

The radio speaker crackled—the Highway Patrol dispatcher in Kingman. Because of the approaching storm the signal was weak and pulsing. Watchman walked over to the desk and picked up a microphone, pushed its Send button and talked and listened. There was no news. The Civil Air Patrol had planes in the air in three states and there had been a report from Nellis AFB radar that a blip had appeared briefly and then disappeared again somewhere near the mountains eighty miles west of San Miguel. Probably an ionized cloud; the storm was playing hell with radars.

“That FBI agent get there yet?” the radio asked.

“Negative,” Watchman said.

“Keep a lookout for him. He should have landed in Kanab by now—he went up from Phoenix by Lear jet and he’ll be coming down to San Miguel by helicopter.”

“I don’t know what he thinks he can do that we haven’t already done.”

“Just cooperate with him, Sam. We don’t need to make enemies in that quarter.”

“Well I wasn’t pla

“Just do what he wants. Hold it—Ben just handed me this, we’ve got a make on that Buick. Belongs to a fellow named Sweeney runs a café up in Fredonia. He didn’t even know it’d been swiped until Ben called him.”

A fat lot of help. “What about Baraclough?”

“Nothing from Washington. We’ve sent a telex to the Military Records people in St. Louis, maybe get a set of prints on him if he was ever in the arm service.”

It might come to that—the long slow hard way: trace Baraclough back, trace his known associates, gradually build a picture through the FBI’s resources. But that could take months. Here it was hardly ninety minutes since the bandits had fled the bank.

“Ten four.”

Watchman put the mike down and went back to the window.

Stevens leveled a pugnacious finger at him. “We ought to be out there doing something.”

At the desk Cu

Or it could be they’d decided to take a chance and flown right into that advancing blizzard. Not much chance of coming through that in one piece—but it did offer perfect concealment for an airplane, if you could keep it flying.…

Too many ifs, too many maybes. There was nothing for it but to wait, chained to the end of their prime umbilical, the radio-microphone cord.

The phone rang and Buck Stevens jerked. Cu

It was a small blessing. Watchman said, “Mind if I use it to call Flag?”

“Official call?”

“Personal. I’ll pay the charges.”

“Help ’self.” Cu

“Mogollon Gift Shop, may I help you?”

Watchman’s face changed with disappointment. “Hello, Phyllis, it’s Sam.”

The woman’s voice turned chilly. “Lisa’s not here right now.”

He’d known that already. If Lisa had been there she’d have answered the phone herself. Her sister-in-law only filled in now and then at the shop. “She be back soon?”

“Well she went up the street to buy a sweater. I’m minding the store for her. I don’t know how long she’ll be.” The voice was cool with habitual disapproval.

Watchman said, “Tell her I probably won’t make it back to Flag tonight. We’ve had a little ruction up here.…”

“I just heard about the robbery. On the radio.”

He didn’t want to talk about that. Not with her. “I’ll probably get in tomorrow sometime.”

“I’ll tell Lisa you called.” There was a beat of silence and then Phyllis said politely, “Be careful, Sam,” and hung up. Phyllis was always polite and rarely said what she meant: I hope you get your red hide in a wringer. It was going to be an interesting clan to marry into.