The Frighteners by Donald Hamilton Page B

remonstrating with him. It was hard to tell through the little scope, but I guessed that the bossman was the typical kind of paranoid big shot who isn’t comfortable without at least one gun at his side in addition to his own. With a couple of hostiles on the loose, El Jefe wanted his protection sticking close and paying attention to his job instead of wandering around looking at the ground.
    “Shouldn’t we be running?” Gloria whispered.
    I shook my head. “How fast can you run, dressed like that? And how far? How fast can I run in these damn boots? We’d just leave them a clear trail to follow. Those guys look pretty durable; I don’t think either of us is in good enough shape to outdistance them. We may as well just keep an eye on them from here and see if they fall for the phony trail we laid for them. If they don’t, if they spread their search pattern wide enough to find us here, well, it’s a better spot for a fight than some I’ve seen.” I grimaced. “Hell, I’ve got five in the gun and a couple of five-shot refills. There are only eight of them. No sweat.” Gloria gave me a glance of annoyance; apparently she didn’t appreciate gallows humor, if that’s what it was.
    She licked her lips. “If they catch us, they . . . they’ll kill us like they did Papa and Millie Charles, won’t they? Both of us?”
    “I would judge that to be the object of the exercise, yes, ma’am.”
    “Oh, God, they’re coming across the highway now!”
    She sounded as if it was the end of the world; actually I was happy that Big Boy had talked his southpaw boss into letting him continue his researches. They crossed the highway together. After a littie, they discovered the tracks I’d had Gloria make by the edge of the pavement. The big man was suspicious of the dainty footprints and started to look farther, but he was called back impatiently. El Jefe had decided to buy the scenario I’d sketched out for him: the beautiful young gringa and her elderly husband, after leaving their fancy car in a breathless hurry, not even stopping to lock it, had stood by the roadside and flagged down a bus or other vehicle and ridden it back east the way they’d come, crouching down so they wouldn’t be seen from the brown van that soon passed them from the other direction. It was too bad, que lastima, but they were obviously miles back down the highway by this time. Further search was clearly futile; and with a lot of illegal arms showing and the demolished Cadillac sitting there to incriminate him, the man in khaki was suddenly hot to evacuate the premises and gave sharp orders to that effect.
    Big Boy Blue was obviously not so certain that the answer they’d found was the right one. Heading for the vehicles, he paused at the far side of the highway. Somehow I knew what was coming next, and even though I was lying in the shade and feeing north, so there could hardly be any reflections, I lowered the little telescope hastily and checked to make sure that Gloria and my big white hat were out of sight. Then he’d turned to look straight at me. The distance was about a quarter of a mile and without the scope I had no chance of reading his expression, but I knew that he knew I was there, not from footprints or other evidence, just because that’s where he’d have been if our situations had been reversed.
    He stood there for a moment, obviously debating whether or not to make a final attempt to persuade his nervous chieftain to delay long enough to throw a few men across the ravine and have them scout the ridge. Then he shrugged resignedly, swung away, and hiked up to the van parked in the clearing behind the wrecked Cadillac. A few minutes later, all aboard, they were driving away, back toward Cananea and points east.
    I heard Gloria’s breath go out in a long sigh as the van disappeared from sight. She lay beside me for quite a while with her face buried in her arms.
    “Are you okay?” I asked at last.
    She raised her head to