Hot Springs (45 page)

But next they heard a terrible groaning sound, and two figures spilled into the hollow just behind them. It was D. A., blood on his face, supported pitifully by the husky Slim.

“They done kilt us!” said Slim, and at that moment he made the mistake of rising too high out of the hollow as he addressed Earl, for three bullets popped dust, blood and hair off his head and he pitched forward.

Johnny watched them come, wondered briefly if he should try and hit the leader first but then decided they would scatter at the first shot and that he’d get more of them by going from right to left, He watched the man furthest from him come, settled into his rhythm, tracked him.

It was dead quiet.

He squeezed the trigger and a three-round burst pierced the night. The muzzle spewed burning gas brilliantly but on the scope the flashes registered only as interference across the bottom; he pivoted slightly and in less than half a second fired another squirt, then another, and then another.

It was not like killing.

It seemed to have nothing to do with killing. It was like some kind of ghastly fun, a game, to put the reticle of the sight on forms that had been reduced only to the green light of their heat, squirt them, feel the gende shudder of the weapon and watch as they seemed to collapse into themselves.

By the time he got to the leader, that fellow had figured out what was going on. It couldn’t have been but a second or two. He fired, and the bullets were off mark, one out of three hitting, he knew, by the way the man fell. He was about to squirt him again when another man came into the scope; he diverted and fired again. A hero. Running to his fallen boss! Johnny liked that loyalty in a man, any man, even this man, as he killed him.

Now it was mopping up.

The living had fallen to the ground, presumably confused over the weird accuracy of their antagonist, but still believing themselves to be safe in the dark. They didn’t know they were flanked on two sides, or that two more gunners from the train would be moving on them, with instructions to circle around behind, trapping them completely in the hollow behind the switching shed, toward which their own instincts would dictate that they retreat.

He hunted and found a crawler in the dark.

The three-bullet burst centered the boy perfecdy, kicking a spray of dust from his coat as the bullets skewered him. Another was intelligently moving not to the rear but to the extreme right, having figured that gunmen would cover the rear. Another good man; with pity in his heart, but not mercy, Johnny took this lad too.

“Are you getting them?” asked Owney, an idiot who wanted a report in the middle of a battle.

“In spades, bloody spades, boyo,” he said, and veered back to the center, where the fallen, wounded leader must be. Another boy was now attending to the leader, one he’d probably missed.

Ah, now you two and the night’s work is done, thought Johnny.

But detonations suddenly erupted too near them, with the sprang of bullets on metal, and worse, the spray of spattered lead, which lashed out and made them wince.

“By Jesus!” said Johnny.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Owney said. “I think he hit me.”

“Nah, he’s shootin’ from far off, you just felt a whisper of tiny fragments. Stay cool, buster.”

The rounds had hit on the flatcar bed a good twenty feet from them, but enough to distract.

Johnny looked into the gloom and through the darkness could only see the flashes far off, in the lee of the switching shed. These seven rounds, however, hit a bit closer, kicking up their nasty commotion but ten feet away.

“He sees us!” said Owney.

“Not a bit of it! He’s shootin’ blind, the bastard,” said Johnny, returning to the scope. He put the reticle on the last flash and tripped a six-round burst. The bullets struck dead on, lifting dust from the ground, pulling puffs of debris from the wood of the house.

“I may have got him,” he crowed. “Right in the gizzard.”

But he reasoned that the boy, if not hit, would move to the other side of the switching house, so he pivoted slightly, found that locality in his sight. The image was not so distinct as it was at the very limits of the infrared lamp, but he knew it was good enough to shoot. But the next seven shots came from the same side as the first fourteen, and he knew the fella had outguessed him. He pivoted back, saw nothing, but then a flash of motion. Something had slithered into the hollow behind the switching house and in a second, as if on cue, a boy rose, and Johnny potted him, three-round burst, head shots all.

“By Jesus, got another!”

“Is that all of ‘em?”

“No, there’s one, maybe two more at the shed. They don’t even suspect that where they are now there’s men all about them, ready to open up on command.”

“Let’s finish it.”

“Give ‘em a moment to think. They’ll realize they’re fooked, then they’ll make a break and me boys will do them good and it’ll be over. There’s no place for them to go, except into the ground.”

“You can’t hit them from here?”

“From this range I doubt these little carbine bullets can carry into that shed. Herman’s Browning rifle will make Swiss cheese of it, though, and de Palmo’s Thompson should write an exclamation point to the night’s fun.”

The three men lay on the bottom of the switching shed, curled around the big levers that controlled the track linkages, breathing heavily.

“Oh, Christ,” said D. A. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ, they had us nailed. They ambushed us perfectly, the bastards. Oh, Christ, all those boys, Earl, Earl, I lost all those boys, oh, Jesus forgive me, all those poor boys, such good boys, oh—”

“Shut up, Mr. Parker,” said Earl. “Think about here and now!”

“He’s hit bad,” said Carlo. “He’s losing blood fast. We’ve got to get him to a hospital or he’ll bleed out.”

“There’s always a lot of blood. Stanch the wound. Apply pressure. It’ll coagulate. If he’s still kicking and he ain’t in shock, he’s got some time yet.”

“Yes sir.”

“Earl, they had us.”

“Yes sir, I know they had you.”

“What’re we going to do?” asked the boy.

“Hell if I know.”

“We could fall back on the low crawl.”

“Nah. This old man can’t crawl none. And they got boys on each side of us, and probably behind us by now. He ain’t no dummy, whoever done put this thing together. The bastard.”

“Earl, I am so sorry for getting all them boys killed.”

“It’s a war. War ain’t no fun at all, sir,” said Earl.

Carlo said, “We low on firepower too.”

“Yes I know,” said Earl, and reached to see if the old man still had his .45 but he didn’t. He did have two full magazines in his coat pocket, however.

Earl calculated quickly. He’d fired three magazines, meaning twenty-one rounds were gone. He had one left, the boy had two left, and the old man two. That’s thirty-five rounds in five magazines, with two pistols.

Shit, he thought. We are cooked.

“What’re we going to do, Earl?”

“I don’t know! Goddammit, I am thinking on it.”

We could split up, go in two ways. One of us ought to make it. We get cops and—”

“They ain’t no cops coming,” said Earl. “Don’t you get that? They’d be here by now. This is it. This is all there is. And don’t you get it yet? He can see in the dark.”

“Earl, I am so sorry about them boys I—”

“Shut up, the two of you, and let me think.”

Above them, the wall on the left-hand side of the shed exploded, spewing fragments, high-velocity dust, and twenty .30 caliber bullets in a kick-ass blast, which went clean through and blew twenty neater holes in the right-hand side of the wall. The noise banged on their eardrums till they rang like firebells. The smell of pulverized wood filled the air, mingling with the kerosene and the oil.

“Browning,” said Earl. “He’s about twenty-five yards away over on the left. He can cut us to ribbons if he’s got enough ammo.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Carlo. “I think we bought it.”

“Not yet,” said Earl. “Not—”

Another BAR magazine riddled the wall, this time six inches lower. A few of its shots spanged off the potbellied stove.

Then a voice called out.

“Say chums, we can finish you anytime.” It was Owney, not far away, with that little twist of fake English gent in his words. “You throw your guns out, come on out hands high, and you can leave. Just get out of town and don’t ever come back, eh? That’s all I’m asking.”

“You step out,” said Earl to his companions, “and a second later you’re dead.”

“I’ll give you a minute,” said Owney. “Then I’ll finish you. Make the choice, you bold fellows, or die where you stand.”

But Earl was rummaging around in the shed. To Carlo he seemed a man obsessed. He cursed and ranted, pushing aside lanterns and crowbars and gloves, standing even, because he knew the BAR man wouldn’t fire as the minute ticked onward until at last—

“Ah!” he said, sinking back down to the ground with a handful of something indeterminate in the dark.

“Now you listen up and you listen up good. Henderson, load up them .45s and get ‘em cocked and locked.”

Johnny dumped a magazine, even though it had a few rounds left, and snapped in a fresh one so he’d have plenty of ammo.

He went back to the scope.

In the green murk, he saw nothing except the outline of the switching shed sitting atop the little hollow. Some dust seemed to float in the air on the side where Herman had hammered two BAR magazines into it, but otherwise it was motionless.

“Maybe they’re all dead,” Owney said.

“They ain’t dead,” said Johnny. “That I guarantee you. No, they’re in there like rats in a trap, snarling and trying to figure how to flee.”

Owney checked his watch.

“You said a minute. You gave ‘em two.”

“I did,” said Owney. “But I want ‘em out. I want ‘em found outside, not inside.”

Once again he rose and yelled.

“I’m telling you for the last time. Come out and surrender or get shot to pieces in that shed.”

The gunfire had provoked the dogs all through the Negro district and their barking filled the air. But no sirens screamed and it seemed as if the universe had stalled out, turned to stone. It seemed darker too, as if the townspeople, hearing the firing, had done the wise thing, turned out their lights, and gone into cellars. No yard bulls or brakemen showed; they too conceded the yard to the shooters, and presumably had fallen back on the control tower or the roundhouse for shelter from the bullets.

“I’m going to give the order to fire,” Owney screamed.

“We’re coming out!” came a voice.

“Now there’s a helpful fella,” said Johnny.

He bent into the scope and saw two men emerge, one supporting the other, their hands up. Then a third. The third would be the dangerous one. He put the scope on him, and his finger went against the trigger and—

Exploding green stars!

Brightness, intense and burning!

The hugeness of fire!

He blinked as the scope seemed to blossom in green, green everywhere, destroying his vision, and he looked up from it blinking, to see nothing but bright balls popping in his eyes as his optic nerves fired off, and heard the sound of gunfire.

“He’s got night vision, see?” Earl said.

“Earl, ain’t nobody got night vision,” said D. A. “Talk some sense.”

“No, he’s got a thing called infrared. Some new government thing. They used it on Okinawa. I heard all about it. You can see in the dark. That’s how he makes them good shots. That’s how come he head-shoots Slim from a hundred yards in pitch dark. He can see us.”

“Shit,” said Carlo.

“Now, way that stuff works, it sees heat. Your heat. It shines a light that only he can see. A heat light. But it sees all heat, or all light.”

“Yeah?”

“So here’s the deal. I give the signal, I’m going to light this batch of flares. In his scope, it’s all going to white. He ain’t going to see nothing for a few seconds. Then I’m going to lean around the back and keep that BAR boy down with a gun in each hand, fast as I can shoot.”

“Earl—”

“You shut up and listen. You take the old man and you run to the sound of the water. You hear that water?”

Yes: the faint tinkle of water, not too far off.

“That water. That’s where Hot Springs Creek goes underground. It runs the whole length of Central Avenue underground, about two miles’ worth. You and the old man, you get in there and you keep going till you find a door. It’s the secret get-out for a lot of places, and the bathhouses drain into it too. You get in there, you get in public and you get the hell out of here.”

“What about you, Earl?”

“Don’t you no nevermind about me. You do what I say. Here, I want you to take this crowbar too.”

He held up a crowbar he’d scrounged.

“There’ll be a boy out there, waiting for you. You should see him, his eyes should be blinded by the flares. You have about a second, you throw this bar and you smash him down, then you run on by to the culvert and you are out of here.”

“Earl, how do you know about that culvert?”

“Goddammit! You don’t worry about that, you do what I say.”

Owney cried again.

“I’m telling you for the last time. Come out and surrender or get shot to pieces in that shed.”

The two of them got the old man to his feet, keeping well away from the window. They came to lodge against the doorway, just a second from spilling out.

“Now are you ready? You ready, old man? I’m going to light these flares and —”

“I’m going to give the order to fire,” Owney said.

“We’re coming out!” screamed Carlo.

“Good,” said Earl. “Look away, don’t look into the flares. I’m going to light these things, then you hand me the guns and—”

“He hands the guns to me, Earl,” said D. A. “I can’t rim nowhere. I got nowhere to rim. Give me them pistols, boy.”

“No!” said Earl.

“I’m ordering you, Henderson. Earl, light them damn things. Son, give me the pistols ‘afore I pass out. You go, goddamn you, and don’t you look back.”

Carlo didn’t think twice. He handed the two pistols to D. A., who lunged a little away from him and halfway out the door and seemed to find his feet, however wobbly.