The Fracas Factor (3 page)

He looked up ahead, hoping for some indication of a place where they could elude the gunmen, at least some area where the ground would be hard enough that it wouldn’t show footprints. He doubted that the enemy was up on trailing. But no. Ahead was no sign of gullies, broken ground, or arroyos. In all directions spread the same semi-desert.

He looked back over his shoulder, past the heavily panting Max Mainz. The others were at approximately the same distance, just out of effective handgun range. He might as well conserve his ammo. The machine-gunner fired again, and again missed. Had he been a better shot he would have nailed the two fleeing men. He was probably not well acquainted with his light automatic. But it was just a matter of time before he succeeded, particularly if he closed the gap between them. Joe Mauser wondered if the killer had more than one clip for the gun. As he recalled, those World War Two submachine guns usually carried a clip of twenty rounds. If the funker had only the one clip, he’d soon have a worthless gun on his hands. He was expending bursts of four or five slugs at a time.

Joe considered going to ground and shooting it out. He suspected that he was a better, more experienced shot than any of them. But no. There was always the Sten gun to consider. And, besides, he had no way of knowing whether or not they had more bombs on hand. Even if he could find a protective hole for him and Max, one of them might crawl near enough to lob a grenade, or whatever kind of bomb they were using, into their shelter.

He looked back at Max.

The little man tried to grin, but he was obviously having a hard go of it. Sweat was pouring down his wizened face, and his shirt was sopping. He had long since shed the light jacket he had been wearing.

If it hadn’t been for Max, Joe could have increased his pace and perhaps have pulled away from the others, eventually to shake them entirely.

But he had to think of something. He couldn’t let the others get near enough that his pistol could be used, due to the Sten gun. Besides, shooting it out with four men, all armed at least as well as him, didn’t make sense. Joe Mauser hadn’t survived fifteen years of combat by thinking of himself as a bulletproof hero.

Four to one! He had to cut those odds down some way or the other.

He slowed a bit so that Max could come up abreast of him. His own breath was coming more laboredly now, but he said, “Max, this is what we’re going to have to do. We’re going to have to split. You go one way, I go the other.”

His companion’s eyes widened. “Joe! You’re not going to leave me! I don’t even have no gun.”

Joe said, “Two’ll most likely follow me and two’ll follow you. It’ll give me a chance to finish off my two, then we’ll get together again and see what we can do with the remaining.”

“Get together again! Where? I’m lost already. Even if I got away from these funkers, I’d die of thirst out here. My tongue’s already swollen up like cotton.”

Joe Mauser suppressed a sigh. “No, you’re not lost. We’ve been going very slightly up hill since we left the car. If you look back, you can see the San Miguel de Allende-Queretaro road. And you can see two spots on it that are the two cars. Now what we do is this. You head for the right, I’ll head for the left. The machine-gunner is the one far to the left, so he’ll undoubtedly follow me. Two of the pistol men will be after you.”

“What’ll I do? Where’ll I meet you, Joe?”

“You’ll slowly circle around, completely circle the cars, and meet me on the other side of them. I’ll be able to find you. I fought in this country.”

“If you say so,” the other panted in resignation. “But I’m just about pooped, Joe. I can’t keep going much longer.”

Joe said, trying to keep impatience from his voice, “So are they. By the looks of them, they aren’t any more familiar with this kind of country than you are. And I suspect that you’re a bit younger than any of them. Damned if I know why they’ve kept coming after us this long. They must have one hell of a reason.” He took two or three deep breaths. “Like lots of money.”

“Okay, Joe,” Max said. But he obviously didn’t like it.

Joe said, “Keep ahead of them, just about as far as you are now. You’re out of pistol range. If they slow down a bit, you can slow down too. If they stop to rest, you can stop to rest. You’re not trying to completely escape from them. I doubt if you could. All you’re trying to do is stay far enough ahead that they can’t hit you. Somehow or other, I’ll get rid of my two and then, when we get together again, we’ll take on yours.”

“Okay, Joe,” the little man repeated.

They headed right and left.

Joe had been correct. Their pursuers divided two and two to continue the chase. In actuality, he thought, that was foolish. They should have divided three for him and one for Max. They must have discovered by now that Max had no gun. In the hour or so that had passed since first the pursuit had begun, there had been no fire from the little man. And Joe suspected that because he himself had fired only three times they believed he had only the six rounds that his gun would hold. They didn’t know about his extra shells. Well, that was one small advantage. Let them think that. He’d started with twenty-six cartridges. He doubted that he’d need them all.

He could speed up now that his semi-exhausted companion was headed off in the other direction. In spite of his chosen profession, Joe Mauser had never liked combat, unlike other mercenaries, including his long-time sidekick, Jim Hawkins. But he did experience a certain exhilaration in it. A quickening of the emotions, a tensing of muscles, a sharpening of wits. And that was upon him now.

He put a little more distance between himself and the two still following, but didn’t attempt to shake them entirely. He might have been able to do so and even bring himself to eventual safety. But that would leave Max to take care of himself.

Joe Mauser didn’t have any plan. He couldn’t figure out any way of getting to that machine-gunner without exposing himself. The area was almost flat, only a slight continuing rise. He was in open sight. There was no way he could ambush and bushwhack the others.

He continued on, slowly circling, as he had instructed Max to do, a circling that would eventually end in their meeting on the other side of the road, and on the other side of the cars. But damn little would be accomplished unless he could come up with something by that time. Something to eliminate his two men, especially the one who bore the submachine gun.

He was nearly back to the road, the others doggedly plodding along behind, the one with the Sten gun occasionally letting off a burst at him. Then he suddenly froze.

There to the right of him and not more than ten feet off was a diamondback rattlesnake. He had never seen a larger one. The deep-pitted head was drawing back into the beautiful coils and the tail, so fast moving, was not quite visible. It was making an exotic blur in the hot, still Mexican air. The skirling of the rattle was that which man, even though he has never heard it before, instantly recognizes.

Since Eden, here was man’s enemy. Though the one in Eden was reputedly soft-spoken, this one was not soft-spoken.

Old pro Joe Mauser had made a point, in his studies, usually in hospitals, or in barracks between fracases, of learning every aspect of his trade that might possibly apply to him. He had learned as much of the medic’s profession as he could assimilate that applied to a man in the field. He had studied assiduously the field stripping of any weapon that he might ever use. He had studied the engineering of combat; the building of entrenchments, the sappers’ know-how, the destruction of, and repair of, bridges. On vacation, between fracases, he had learned the art of climbing mountains, of swimming in rushing rivers and frozen lakes, of enduring extended hikes, without food or water. And he had studied up on running into other enemies, such as Gila monsters, large cats, wolves, bears and … rattlesnakes. His studies made the difference between living a year or so in the fracases and living the fifteen years that had been his.

Thus it was that Joe Mauser knew that the diamondback could only strike one third of its length, that it could only strike when in coil, and that it could only hit low. Those who customarily wore heavy high boots in rattlesnake country were going beyond need. He also knew another thing. The rattlesnake’s attention span is short. If he can’t strike you, very shortly he gets bored with you and forgets about it. Joe was hoping for that.

Out of immediate striking range, he froze. He looked carefully about. He spotted another snake under an outcropping of rock. And then another. And suddenly he knew where he was, what he had stumbled into. Too much of his attention had been diverted to his pursuers. He was in the middle of a desert rattlesnake den. Even as he winced at that thought, he saw still another snake, a considerably smaller one slither into a hole.

His beady-eyed confronter had gone out of coil and was not coming toward him, the rattles still proclaiming their music of war. It was getting into a position where it could go into another coil and make its try at this intruder.

Joe Mauser brought up the gun and shot it into the middle of the snake’s body. It writhed, it turned over and over, it thrashed, and it showed its obscene belly, a contrast to its beautiful back. It rattled hopelessly, desperately before it died.

Joe Mauser, his lips dry, continued onward, his gun at the ready, his eyes darting. In the next few minutes he must have seen a score of snakes, but none quite as large as the one he had killed. He emerged into more of the semi-desert beyond. After fifty or sixty feet, he came to a depression, possibly half as deep as a standard combat foxhole. He took a deep breath and took his stand in it. He brought out a handful of his cartridges and stuck them head first into the sand above him, and reloaded. Then he waited, until the two gunmen came within pistol range. He fired once, and twice, and they took cover. He reloaded again.

Joe could imagine how satisfied they were with the situation. They were undoubtedly crawling forward with the utmost care. They would probably decide to come in on him from opposite sides. And when he exposed himself, the Sten gun would cut him down.

He heard the first scream in about five minutes, and the second immediately afterwards. And then the others. City hoodlums are seldom acquainted with diamondheads. Joe Mauser shuddered in compassion for them.

Chapter Three

He forced himself to go in fifteen minutes later. There were no snakes in sight. As he reconstructed it, they had been alarmed and enraged at the intrusion of the two crawling men into their domain and at least several must have struck. But then they had crawled into their holes.

The two were still alive, but in a complete state of shock. Joe shot them both in the head, mercifully, and took up their weapons and carefully left. He left slowly and quietly and respectful of the area through which he was traveling—and hence made it. He headed directly for the cars.

After a short distance, he stopped and sat on a boulder and examined the Sten gun. He had never held such a weapon in his hands before. He had seen the equivalent in military museums, made inoperative so as to subscribe to the Universal Disarmament Pact, firing pin removed, or whatever, but he had never held one. However, Joe Mauser was well acquainted with the world of firearms. He took his time and figured this one out.

In actuality, the Sten gun was easy to use. He had read that literally hundreds of thousands of them had been produced on a mass production basis. Many of these had been turned out with the intention of parachuting them down to the guerrillas in the Nazi rear areas, ranging from Norway to Yugoslavia and Greece. They were ultra-simple in their construction because the men who were to wield them were often peasants or factory workers without knowledge of advanced firearms.

Joe detached the clip and figured out how to extract the round currently in the chamber. He checked the clip and then cursed himself inwardly. He should have searched the body of the man who had been carrying the weapon for additional clips. There were only eight rounds left, including the one which had been in the barrel chamber.

He wasn’t going to go back into that rattlesnake den. He figured out the cocking lever, the safety, and swung the gun about, dry firing, getting the feeling, the heft of it. He wasn’t going to be able to actually try it. Not with only eight rounds. However, it was not complicated. He reloaded and started back again in the direction of the cars. He knew he was in no particular hurry. Max and his pursuers, plodding more slowly over the circuitous route, wouldn’t be on the scene as yet. For the first time, Joe was conscious of his thirst. The Mexican sun at that altitude of eight thousand feet was not exactly kindly.

When he got to the road, not too far from his blasted-out sports model and the black sedan of the gunmen, he spent five minutes looking up and down it, listening carefully. Then, bent double, he sped across and into the cactus and maguey beyond. He went on back to approximately the stand he and Max had taken, and settled in.

In his day, Joe Mauser had spent many an hour under cover, waiting for his quarry, many an hour in a foxhole of a trench awaiting an opportunity to fire at a foe. Every infantryman has done the same. He waited now.

Before long, Max Mainz, stumbling slowly but determinedly along, could be made out coming across the plain. And then, not too far behind, the two gunmen, also barely able to walk from weariness. They had been damn fools, Joe thought, not to have left a guard at the car. He could have stolen it and taken off, had he been willing to desert Max.

By this time, Joe Mauser had rested enough to have regained control of his breathing and steadiness of hand. He cocked the Sten gun and waited.

Max wavered across the road. Even at this distance, Joe could make out the agony in his face.

Joe Mauser leveled the gun.

The two pursuers came to the road in their turn and started across. Joe gently touched the trigger of the submachine gun and, remembering to hold the barrel down, shot a four round burst to each of them.

He came to his feet, drew his.44, and walked down to them. One was still breathing in gasps. He died as Joe came up.