The Threepersons Hunt

He swayed drunkenly and gulped like a landed trout. Blood-haze made a red film over his eyes that turned the sunset colors into a blinding crimson that suffused the world of his vision.

He willed his eyes to clear: he looked down from the rim into the Reservation.

7.

It was nothing like a sheer cliff but it was steep enough to deter a casual stroller. It dropped away to a whorled contour of ridges and hills three miles below.

He was surprised to see a habitation there, and a dirt road.

The road was a switchbacking shelf that zigzagged up from the ridge-canyons like a cartoon illustration of a lightning bolt with the hillside dropping away on the open side.

The earth was mostly grass and the dark spots on it were whiteface cattle grazing. The road came up at least two thirds the height of the escarpment and ended in the yard of a wickiup cluster. Several horses were pe

Joe Threepersons was scrabbling his way down the slope a quarter of a mile to Watchman’s right, angling toward the wickiups.

The Land Cruiser was parked next to the pickup truck just beside the nearest corral fence.

The triangle of approach made the distance shorter for Watchman than for Joe. Watchman went over the rim and skittered down the slippery grass on his bootheels.

He had the better part of a mile to cover and his legs were troublesome and he still didn’t have his wind but Joe was in no better condition and he was lugging twelve pounds of big-game rifle.

Watchman kept a steady eye on him and when Joe decided to stop and snap a shot at him, Watchman sprawled belly-flat in the grass and Joe lost his target.

He watched until Joe gave it up. It gave him a chance to catch his breath. As soon as Joe moved, Watchman moved.

There was a crease of ground that would give some cover. Once inside it there was no more of him than his bobbing head for Joe to see. The crease ran down, fa

Now he was less than a hundred yards from the wickiups and the rider in the black hat had stopped, dismounted, and was standing by the corral watching all this with baffled interest. Joe was still three hundred yards out, upslope a little way, coming along awkwardly.

Then Joe settled down to shoot and this time he meant it. Watchman skidded prone into the grass and the bullet whacked the air overhead.

He gave it ten seconds before he even lifted his head to look.

Joe had used the time to get closer to the wickiups. As soon as Watchman’s head appeared Joe whipped up the rifle and Watchman slid back down into the grass.

Joe was moving but still watching; this close to escape he wasn’t going to let Watchman stop him even if it meant a killing. Watchman put himself forward on his elbows and knees, sculling through the wet grass but Joe was getting there ahead of him.

Watchman scoured the automatic out of the holster. It was a two-hundred-yard shot and conceivably you could make that kind of shot with a pistol if you held it in both hands with your elbows braced but neither his eyes nor his nerves were in good enough shape to make it count and anyhow he wasn’t ready to kill Joe. That wasn’t the point of all this.

He put his eyes up high enough to catch the vague movement of Joe’s shadow against the farther hills; he poked the pistol out in front of him and snapped off the safety and pumped two bullets off, shooting well behind Joe.

It only made Joe run faster. Watchman scrabbled forward.

Joe was in line with the wickiups now and he quit shooting. He had the inside track to the Land Cruiser and it was all he had wanted. He ran straight down toward it while Watchman got up clumsily, wavered on rubber knees and then stumbled downhill after him.

Joe dodged past the wickiups and Watchman pumped his protesting legs. He knew he wasn’t going to make it but there was always the chance that the starter wouldn’t catch on the first push.…

The Indian in the hat made a motion toward Joe but Joe waved him back, waggling his free hand; Joe yanked the Land Cruiser door open, threw the rifle inside and climbed in.

Watchman was close enough to see Joe’s terror. The starter was grinding and Joe’s shoulders moved with stress, willing it to turn over. Watchman reached the side of the wickiup and panted along it.

The engine caught. There was the grind of gears and the Land Cruiser lurched, almost stalled, revved up with the clutch in; it bucked and pitched and got itself rolling and when Watchman reached the road it was gathering speed away from him.

8.

Watchman jerked the door of the pickup truck open. Then he wheeled toward the black-hatted Indian.

“Where’s the keys to this thing?”

The Indian only watched him gravely.

Watchman strode to him and plucked the reins right out of the man’s hand. “I’ll bring him back.” He hauled himself into the saddle, using his arms because his legs wouldn’t lift him any more, and he put his heels to the horse’s flanks and neckreined savagely around.

The Land Cruiser had reached the first switchback and was coming back across below him. Watchman had wasted too much time getting on the horse and the Land Cruiser beat him to the point where their paths intersected: the road zigzagged along half-mile loops and Watchman was cutting straight across; he had to cover only a fraction of the Land Cruiser’s distance to reach the same points. There was a chance to intercept Joe on the third switchback unless the horse broke a leg first.

The Land Cruiser was four-wheel-drive. Joe could get off the road and make a straight run for it but his speed would be cut down both by the gearing and by the terrain, and on humpy slopes like this a horse could outrun the Land Cruiser. So Joe had to stick to the road where he could do fifty on the straightaways and hope to beat the horse to the bottom.

The wind slitted Watchman’s eyes and put tears in them. He leaned well back in the saddle to help balance the roan against the steep downward rush of the earth. He gripped the horse with what strength remained in his legs; he laced the reins around the fingers of his left hand and brought out the pistol.

The Land Cruiser flashed across in front of him and he was sure he saw the glisten of Joe’s eyes.

The Land Cruiser rushed away to the right and Watchman drummed across the road and kept going straight down toward the next piece of road. A patch of loose rock; the horse skidded a little and pebbles rattled downhill. The speed was too reckless but if he didn’t make that next switchback the game was lost because the road didn’t turn back this way again.

The Land Cruiser’s brake-lights flashed angrily as Joe went into the hairpin bend and the thing began to sway on its wheels; Watchman thought for a moment that Joe was going over but the Land Cruiser righted itself and he saw the spurt of exhaust smoke. The machine lurched precariously around the last of the turn, rumbled up on the rim of the road and then straightened out. Watchman heard the high whine of gears as Joe speed-shifted, flooring the accelerator; clots flew up from the back wheels and the Land Cruiser slid in the rain-muddled road, wheels bouncing side to side in the ruts.

Watchman flogged the pony with the pistol, yelling a cowboy’s “Hey-yaah!”