Way Down on the High Lonely (32 page)

“I just want the boy,” Neal answered. He shifted his weight to his back foot and let his shoe dig into the crusty snow.

“That’s the problem. I would just shoot you, but the bullet might go right through you and hit the Son of God there. Besides, I want the pleasure of gutting you, Neal buddy.”

“It’s over, Cal. Get away while you have the chance.”

“Oh, I’ll get away, Neal buddy. And it ain’t over. It ain’t over until we win.”

“You’ve lost! Don’t you understand that?”

There’s no time for this, Neal thought. He kept his eyes on Cal’s face but used his peripheral vision to see the twelve-foot drop off to his left. Then it was a steep slope down into the draw where Jory had left the horse.

Cal inched forward. “You’ll never beat us,” he said. “You’re weak. That’s why you’ve let the niggers run wild in the cities and the Jews take over the government. They know you’re weak. That’s why we’ll win. It’s like tonight, Neal, you just can’t pull the trigger.”

Neal’s left arm slowly moved upward and outward, hand open in the knife position. Obliquely Tame Tiger. Three years of practice on his Chinese knoll and he had never really mastered it.

It’s time I did, he thought.

He slowly raised his right leg and pivoted on his left foot. He spun just as Cal sprang forward, giving him only the boy as a target. Cal pulled up for a split second.

Neal finished a complete revolution and shifted his weight forward as he brought his right foot down, his left hand raised in front of his face, his right hand open behind his head.

He struck like a viper, putting all of the momentum from the spin, all of his weight, and all of his concentration into his right hand as its edge smashed into Cal’s neck.

The blow snapped Cal’s head to the left and took him off his feet just enough to slip on the snow. He kept his balance for half a second and then slipped off the rock.

“Okay, Cody, hold on,” Neal said. He sat down, looked for the flattest spot, and jumped for it. He landed hard but kept his feet, and then skidded, fell, and slid down the slope. He grabbed cedars on the way down to keep his balance and finally landed in the draw. A couple of minutes of scrambling got him to where Midnight was haltered. He untied the reins and the horse started to rear and buck. Cody started to scream again as Neal managed to get a foot in the spinning stirrup and haul himself into the saddle. Midnight reared on his hind legs and Neal almost pitched off backward, but his right foot caught the stirrup and he dug his knees into the horse’s flank.

“Go, you son of a bitch!” Neal yelled. He turned the horse’s head and spurred him down the draw. Right toward the edge of the cliff.

Hansen was carrying Jory’s body and working his way down the diagonal shelf of rock when he heard the hooves coming. He turned to his right and saw a black horse coming straight at him out of the darkness.

“Stop,
you son of a bitch!” Neal yelled. He pulled up on the reins and the horse reared again, kicking out his front hooves and slashing them at the man who blocked his path. Neal and Hansen exchanged startled looks, then Neal flipped over the reins and started the horse down the slick rock ramp toward the canyon.

Craig raised his rifle and sighted it on Neal’s back.

Hansen screamed, “Don’t shoot! He has the boy!”

Craig lowered his rifle. Hansen set Jory’s body down in the draw. Then the three men raced down the rock shelf for their horses.

Bill McCurdy heard the yelling. He grabbed his rifle from the back of his horse and positioned himself at the bottom of the shelf.

Neal knew they were going to die. Midnight was galloping full stride down the narrow shelf of rock. The only reason he didn’t slip and plunge off the side was that his hooves never seemed to touch the slick ground. Neal leaned low over the horse’s neck. He gripped the reins in one hand and the saddle horn in the other. Behind him, Cody McCall was screaming. With laughter.

Then Neal saw a human form rise up just below them and raise his rifle.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Billy yelled.

“I can’t stop, you asshole!” Neal yelled back.

Billy took aim.

Midnight saw Billy, turned, and without breaking stride, jumped off the cliff.

They seemed to be in the air for the longest damn time as Neal plunged forward with the horse. His nose was even with Midnight’s shoulder and he felt as if he were looking straight down at the ground. Cody’s weight was about to somersault him over the horse’s neck.

They landed with a heavy thud that knocked Neal back in the saddle. Cody giggled with delight as the horse slowed to a canter and headed down the canyon.

Neal heard the sound of hoofbeats coming after him. He kicked Midnight back into a gallop.

Karen laughed as Steve made a big show of lining them up in the yard.

“Okay,” he yelled. “Ready?”

“Ready!” they all yelled back.

“Are you
really
ready?”

“Yes!”

Steve paused dramatically, then said, “Close your eyes!”

Karen groaned in rhythm with her two friends. She was having a great time. She closed her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and felt the snowflakes melt.

“I’m going to start the countdown!” Steve yelled.

They all groaned again.

Ed had to rest but knew he couldn’t. Graham was unconscious, maybe in shock. Any delay might kill him. But where the hell were they? Had they passed by the house and not known it? Were they headed in the wrong direction? Walking in circles?

His legs felt like concrete pillars and his arms felt like wood, if wood could ache the way his arms did. His feet were freezing and he was starting to worry about frostbite now.

Where in hell were they?

Lost. Lost in the middle of the middle of nowhere.

Neal reined Midnight to a stop at the western crest of the ridge. The valley below looked like a bowl of steam, all white and swirling and indistinct. He couldn’t figure out where he was and the gang was gaining on him. He could pick out the sound of individual horses now and voices and he had to make the plunge down into the valley. But where? It wouldn’t do a hell of a lot of good to go galloping back to the Hansen ranch.

The Mills place should be northeast somewhere, but something that small wouldn’t be easy to find on the vast sagebrush plain below, at night, in the snow.

He couldn’t wait any longer, he had to go. They were right behind him now. A couple more seconds to let Midnight get his breath …

“Five, four, three, two, one,” Steve counted and threw the electric switch.

Karen Hawley looked up and saw the most amazing damn thing …

… A Star of David shining through the snow! Neal blinked in disbelief. Way out there, way down on The High Lonely, a Star of David pierced through the night sky like a beacon. A six-pointed star made up of dozens of lights, a star as big as a house … the Mills house.

Neal jigged the reins and Midnight dove over the crest.

Hansen about fell off his horse when he saw it. It had come out of nowhere. Just all of a sudden a Jewish star appeared in the sky and hung there like one of them UFOs. The three other riders clumped behind him, all of them looking at the damn thing.

Then it hit Hansen. “It’s Mills’ place. He strung them lights on his roof!

“That Jew bastard,” Bill McCurdy spat.

“Carey’s headed
there!”
Hansen yelled. “Let’s go!”

They pointed their horses at the star and crashed down the slope.

To Ed Levine it was like Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve on Times Square, Mardi Gras, and—what the hell—Christmas all at once. It was a goddamn miracle, that’s what it was, a sign sent from God. And the best thing about it was that it couldn’t have been more than a hundred yards away.

He lifted Graham a little higher and broke into a trot.

“You like it?” Steve asked proudly.

“It’s … big,” Peggy answered.

“I love it, Dad.”

Peggy said, “I’m surprised it didn’t blow every light in the house.”

“I rigged it to the generator.”

Karen put her arm around Steve and said, “I notice you pointed it right at Hansen’s place.”

Steve nodded happily. “That oughta fry his
cajones,
I’d expect.”

“You’re asking for trouble,” Karen added.

Steve grinned. “Mmm.”

Bob Hansen watched the star as he rode, Jory’s body bouncing behind him with the rocking of the horse.

It was that goddamn Jew Mills, contaminating the whole valley.

Mills was laughing at him, laughing at his defeat, laughing at the destruction of his dream, lording it over him. Mills had been behind it all. Mills knew about the sabotage … Mills knew that Carey was a ZOG agent … Mills knew the robbery was a fake, the arms shipment a setup. It was Mills’ daughter who filled Jory’s head with lies, Mills who sent Neal Carey, Mills who caused the death of his son.

My dreams are over, he thought. But I won’t stop until Mills is dead.

Back up on the mountain slope Cal Strekker licked his wounds and watched the kike star pollute the sky. He cut a sleeve off his shirt, cut that into strips, and wrapped it tightly around his ankle. He didn’t think it was busted, just sprained, but it hurt like all get out. It hurt worse when he pulled his boot back on, but the tight leather helped to keep the ankle from folding.

The side of his neck bore a deep purple splotch where Carey had tried to decapitate him with that sneaky gook shit, and the shoulder he had landed on was bruised up pretty good.

And now that friggin’ star was blinking on and off like some kind of all-night kosher diner for Jewboys.

Well, Steve Mills might just as well wave a red flag in Hansen’s nose, he thought. There’s going to be one hell of a fight over by that star.

He grabbed a cedar limb, lifted himself up, and started working his way down the mountain.

For Neal it had all come down to a horse race.

It was flat out across the sagebrush, his black horse galloping, kicking plumes of snow behind him, cutting through the crisp air like a sleek, sharp ebony knife.

Neal bent low over his neck like he’d seen the jockeys do to cut down on the resistance, his knees high behind the horse’s shoulders, his calves gripping Midnight’s flanks.

It was desperate, terrifying, and lovely. The sounds of the hooves crashing on the snow, and the horse snorting, and his own heart pounding, all in rhythm, all in sync. And the musty horse smell in his nostrils, and the sweet sagebrush, and the snow. And the heat of the horse against the chill air, and his own sweaty skin beneath his clothes, and the damp warmth of the little body clinging to his back, and
goddamn, he was alive!

He risked a glance over his shoulder and could see them coming. Bill McCurdy ahead of the rest. The best rider, the most reckless on the fastest horse, and Neal knew, just knew, that Bill was smiling. Then the three others clumped behind. Hansen on that big bay, coming fast but not too fast, steady so his horse would not get blown. And John’s little gelding chopping away with its clipped gait on its short legs, but still coming, coming. And then Craig on that tall roan that cut the cows so well and never let one get around the corner. And they were all coming on, coming on, flying. Wild men on wild horses.

Neal kicked Midnight and leaned farther over his neck. He felt the horse surge a little more, and he would need that little more, because McCurdy was gaining. Heedless of the gopher holes that could snap a horse’s foreleg in an agonizing instant, heedless of the sudden gullies that could pitch him over the horse’s head and break his own neck, heedless of the patches of icy grass that could send the horse rolling over him, crushing his legs and rib cage and bursting his lungs, the cowboy was racing up, just winging on the tops of the rabbit brush, and he was only six, now five, now four horse lengths behind.

And Neal was just trying to hold on, just trying to stay in the saddle on the plunging, surging horse, and he knew that McCurdy was cowboy enough to ride beside him, reach out one arm, and take him off the saddle as if he were a rodeo rider and the buzzer had sounded. And that’s all it would take, because the other three would be on them and Vetter’s strong arms would take Cody from him and that would be the end.

He dug his feet into the stirrups and gripped the reins and kicked again, asking for a little more, please horse, just a little more. I know you don’t have it, but find it. Please, you have to beat this other horse, because it’s all come down to a horse race now and you’re my horse. And Midnight found it somewhere and reached a little farther and pushed a little more, and Neal heard him grunt with pain as flecks of foam flew back from his mouth and Neal felt Midnight’s heart pound at a literally heartbreaking pace.

I know I’m killing you, horse. I know I’m killing you and I’m sorry, but we have this child with us, you see, and you and I don’t matter, and he felt Midnight surge again. Unbelievably to him, the horse took it up another notch, stretched it out, and they were flying. Flying like wild, sweating, heaving, gasping, living angels through the night sky.

Then Neal could see the lights in front of them, the silver lights of a star. He’d never loved an animal before and he’d never loved a child, and now he loved both and they weren’t going to make it. Not any of them, because Bill McCurdy was right behind them now. Right behind them and angling to come up alongside.

Neal kicked Midnight to see if there was anything left, but the horse was smarter. The horse simply shifted to the right and got in front of his pursuer. Billy was a hell of a horseman. Without breaking stride he leaned left and took his pony with him and then started to pull even again. Midnight pulled left on his next stride and blocked that lane too, but this game couldn’t go on forever, because the other horse was younger and faster and had by far the better rider. So when Billy jerked his horse out to the right again he came up so fast that suddenly they were riding side by side, saddle to saddle, boots almost touching, horses in stride.

Neal felt Billy’s hand grab at his sleeve and he flipped the right rein over and tried to pull his horse away, but Midnight leaned
in,
laying his bulk against the other horse’s shoulder and pushing him away and damn near bouncing Billy off his saddle.