The Threepersons Hunt

“I’m just as tired of this as you are,” Stevens said. “Name it.”

“Let me have that jacket you’re wearing.”

“Hold on a minute. You know he’ll never buy that. You’re too thin, you’re too dark. You don’t look anything like Rand.”

“Outside in the rain he’ll never spot the difference.” Watchman took one of Rand’s white cowboy hats off the rack and settled it above his ears. “Come on.” He beckoned and Stevens reluctantly shrugged out of the jacket and handed it over. It hung a little loose on Watchman’s shoulders. There was a transparent plastic rain-slicker hanging on the peg and he put that on. “Get Victorio in here.”

“You sure about this, Sam?”

“It’ll smoke him out if he’s around here, I’m sure about that.”

Stevens left the room with a brooding face. Watchman checked the loads in the .30-’06 and worked the bolt to slide the top cartridge into the chamber. He left the safety off.

When Victorio followed Stevens into the room Watchman handed the rifle to the lawyer. “It’s ready to go, the safety’s off. Can you handle it?”

“I’m fair, that’s all. Just fair.”

“Don’t kill him if you can help it.”

Stevens said, “What’s the script?”

“You take the window on the porch at the corner out in the front room there. Tom takes the window on the side of the house, same corner. No lights in the room behind you. Between you you’ll cover that whole quarter from the house. Keep your eyes on the trees between here and the bunkhouse because that’s where he’ll show himself.”

“He will?” Victorio said. “Why should he?”

“It’s a rotten light for shooting. That ’scope won’t be any good to him. He’ll have to get in close to make sure he doesn’t miss.”

“And you’re just going to stand out there and wait for him to pick you off?”

“I don’t know about you no-account Apaches,” Watchman drawled, “but up where I come from we don’t believe in suicide. No, I’m not going to stand there and let him pot me.”

There was a Western Horseman magazine on the table by the office door. He picked it up and folded it open. “This’ll do. Some papers in my hand, that’s what I want him to see.”

He led them forward through the house. At the end of the hall he reached around through the doorway and hit the wall switch inside the front room. It plunged the room into near blackness.

Rand’s voice came out of the dark television room. “How the hell long do I sit in here?”

“It won’t be long now,” Watchman said. “Just stay put ten minutes.”

He went into the front room with Stevens and Victorio and posted them at the corner windows. Slowly they raised the sashes. Rain sprayed in, bouncing on the sills.

Watchman said, “I’m going to make a run for the bunk-house with this paper in my hand. I’ll go inside and pass the time of day with whoever I find in there. That should give Joe time enough to work his way down in the trees here. Right now he’s probably up behind the house someplace, looking for a way in, but he’ll see me run across and he’ll come down and wait for me to come out of the bunkhouse and back to the house here. That’s when he’ll make his play.”

Stevens said, “Jesus. He’ll nail you cold.”

“I won’t give him the chance.”

“Shouldn’t one of us be out there in the trees, wait for him to come down and get in behind him when he shows up?”

“He won’t show himself. He’s careful. And if anybody leaves the house right now he’ll spot it. This’ll have to do.”

“You better zig and zag like a son of a bitch.”

“Bet your bottom.”

4.

Moving as if he had lead in his shoes he dropped off the porch and jogged toward the fountain, the plastic oilskin flapping around him. With the hat pulled low over his face it was hard to see much of the trees but there wasn’t much chance Joe was anywhere near here yet.

He skirted the grass by the fountain and made an abrupt turn; just in case. Ran on toward the bunkhouse, then stopped suddenly as if he had forgotten something; shook his head in exasperation and ran on. The performance was designed merely to destroy Joe’s timing if in fact Joe was close enough to be aiming at him.

The rain seemed to be letting up a little but the light hadn’t improved yet. He kept his shoulders back the way Rand always did; he had the automatic pistol clenched in his right hand out of sight and the open magazine in his left, visible but covered by the transparent plastic poncho. Twice as he trotted up to the bunkhouse porch he swept the line of trees than ran from the side of the bunkhouse along to the back of the house but nothing moved in the rain except the wind-tousled treetops. He crossed the last corner of lawn and went up the steps two at a time, fumbled for the door latch and almost dropped the magazine; and twisted inside.

He slammed the door behind him with his foot. Two card players bounced to their feet like soldiers and showed their surprise when Watchman took his hat off and wasn’t Charlie Rand.

He said, “Highway Patrol.” His eyes picked out the locations of the windows and he stepped into the corner where the only visible windows were on the far side of the building, the far front corner; Joe wouldn’t expose himself outside by going around to those windows.

He flashed the badge in his wallet. The two men just stared: at Watchman and at each other.

He said, “There may be a man out there with a rifle. Be a little safer if you two went in the back of the place for a while.”

He dropped the magazine on the seat of the chair behind him. One of the cowhands said, “Who’s got a rifle?”

“Just a fugitive. We think he’s around here. Best to keep your heads down until we’ve arrested him.”

“Mr. Rand know about this?”

“He’s cooperating.”

The second cowhand said, “You need a hand maybe? I got a rifle in my kit.”

“Thanks for the offer. But we’ll handle him.” He didn’t want trigger-happy cowboys killing Joe. “Go on now,” he said, making it gentle.

They went.

The air, even inside, was sticky and close. Rain battered the bunkhouse and suddenly a white flare winked in through the windows; three seconds and then the thunder exploded like racks of billiard balls. He placed it somewhere to the northeast and that meant the center of the rainstorm had passed. The room had the steamy odor of damp-swelled wood. Watchman had to guess how long it would take Joe to get down here from the higher slopes; probably Joe would hurry it because he couldn’t know how much time Rand pla

It would be best to give Joe time to come close but not time enough to get settled in too well; but there was no way to guess where the dividing line was and so Watchman just waited until fear began to pump the sweat out of him. Then he made his move.

5.

The edge of the timber made an arc from the side of the bunkhouse to the back corner of the main house; it left a curved patch of open lawn clear as a field of fire.

Two-foot piñons and junipers squatted here and there along the crescent of grass, haphazardly spotted. They weren’t much protection but they would conceal a prone man well enough in this poor light; he was counting on that for safety but if Joe was there it was still a matter of avoiding the impact of Joe’s first shot.

It would take a certain fraction of time for Joe to see him come out of the building and another fraction for him to react and steady his aim. Then Joe would have to judge the speed at which Watchman was moving, and the range, which would tell the hunter how much of a lead to give his moving target. There would be hesitation because things were hard to see in the dark shimmer of slanted rain and that would be countered by urgency because Watchman was only going to be in the open for a short time.

So Joe would have to take his first shot before Watchman reached the midway point between the two buildings. If the shot missed he would still have time to work the bolt of the .375 and squeeze off another shot before Watchman could reach the house. There might even be time for three tries. That was the way Joe had to figure it.