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Culhane looked behind him as he stopped. The Uruente warriors were less than a
hundred yards back.
Culhane grabbed a vine. "Edgar Rice Burroughs I hope you knew what you were
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talking about!" On the last word Culhane jumped, hurtling himself out over the
cut, swinging from the vine.
He couldn't resist it. He did his best Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan yell. The
ground on the far side of the cut was coming up fast, and it was lower than
the height of the opposite side from which he had come. Culhane let go as he
swung over it, falling to his knees, rolling facedown.
His motion stopped. He looked up and smiled. "Hot damn I did it!" Culhane
pushed himself to his feet and started running, Uruente darts peppering the
ground near him, arrows springing into tree trunks as he ran past. He turned
once. The Uruentes were storming up the near side of the cut.
The river couldn't be too far, he told himself, and the chase he had led the
Uruentes on would have given Fanny Mulrooney, Sebastiao and the girl a chance
to get to the river ahead of him.
Culhane kept running, spotting a large clearing up ahead. The Uruente
warriors bowmen, spearmen, blowgunners were almost at his heels, and he knew
he'd be an easy target there. As he drew closer, he could see a massive
deadfall log, the tree trunk enormous.
He propelled himself toward it. If he could jump the log, then hide behind it
and fire at his pursuers, it would give him a chance to catch his breath for
the final run to the riverbank.
If the boat were not there and close to the bank, he was a dead man.
He kept running, seeing something for an instant behind a tree to his left.
But there was no time to worry about it. If it were some new danger, he'd meet
it when it met him.
Culhane looked back, the leading wedge of the Uruentes into the clearing now.
The log was coming fast, Culhane pouring on his last speed, using his last
strength, jumping up and over the log, rolling onto the ground.
He looked up. "Hi, Josh. What's happening?"
Stunned, he looked into Fanny Mulrooney's face, but then she turned away.
Her revolver discharged, and from Culhane's right he heard the sound of a
rifle. He looked to his right, behind that tree. Sebastiao.
A bow twanged, and he rolled onto his back, stabbing the 629 Smith skyward,
but it was no Uruente. It was an impossibly beautiful, impossibly tall girl,
naked except for a breechcloth. She was firing an Uruente bow as rapidly as
most experienced shooters could handle a turnbolt rifle.
He shook his head. Bellying closer to the log, Culhane shifted the four-inch
revolver to his left hand and snatched the six-inch from the holster at his
hip.
"Hold your ears!" he shouted to Fanny Mulrooney as he opened fire.
The Uruentes were charging, their spears filling the air, the air already
thick with arrows and poisoned darts from their blowguns.
But Uruente warriors were falling now, the hail of lead from the .44 Magnum
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revolvers in each of Culhane's hands hammering at them. He kept shooting,
Mulrooney beside him reloading her revolver. Both 629s empty, Culhane set them
onto the log and hauled the rifle from the machete sheath. His left hand
already had what remained of the box of Federal .44s, and he started loading
the rifle, rasping to Fanny Mulrooney, "Take some of this ammo and load up my
revolvers fast, kid!"
The Uruente charge was close now, very close. Culhane rammed the last round
into the tubular magazine, and he stood up, working the lever of the B-92 down
and up, down and up, swinging the muzzle from left to right, firing at the
leading edge of the Uruente charge.
Sebastiao's rifle boomed again and again.
Arrows felled Uruente warriors from the girl up in the tree.
And then Mulrooney was kneeling beside Culhane, her revolver firing again and
again.
Culhane's rifle was empty.
He put it down and snatched a revolver with each hand, emptying the gleaming
stainless .44 Magnums into the Uruente charge.
Most of those who were still standing turned back, but a few kept coming.
Culhane's revolvers were empty now, and he put them down, drawing the Gerber
fighting knife with his left hand, flicking open the Bali-Song with his right.
The Uruentes closed in. Culhane blocked a spear thrust with his left forearm,
knifing the Bali-Song forward into his attacker's abdomen. He hacked with the
Gerber, practically gutting him.
Mulrooney had his empty rifle and was swinging it like a baseball bat. She'd
seen too many John Wayne films, he thought, but so had he.
There was a blur of motion to Culhane's left as two Uruente warriors closed in
on him, then one of the Uruentes ripped away. It was the nearly naked girl,
the spear in her hands used more like a rifle with a fixed bayonet, her
glistening body moving like a dancer's, the point of the spear hacking at her
opponents, the base of the shaft pounding at their bodies and heads.
Another shot exploded from Sebastiao's rifle, and then Sebastiao was beside
him, his knife in one hand, his revolver firing from the other.
Mulrooney was holding Culhane's six-inch .44 Magnum and suddenly Culhane's
ears rang and Mulrooney screamed and the Uruente nearest Culhane was done.
Culhane hacked at another. The boom of the .44 Magnum sounded again, and
another Uruente went down.
And suddenly there was no one left.
Culhane looked at Fanny Mulrooney. They would have to run for the river. The
Uruente warriors would return and soon.
Mulrooney held the 629 in both hands. She smiled. "You always said the recoil
with this thing was such a big deal. Ha!" And the revolver almost fell from
her hands as she sagged to her knees beside the body of one of the defeated
Uruente warriors. "It's a good thing I don't have any loose fillings, though."
Culhane pulled her to her feet, using his Speedloaders to recharge both
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revolvers. Mulrooney had only gotten two rounds into the 629.
He could no longer reload the rifle. There was no more ammunition.
Sebastiao reloaded his rifle. The nearly naked girl was gathering up arrows
and spears, and she had two knives compressed between the breechcloth's waist
and her abdomen.
"We should run, senhor!"
Culhane nodded to Sebastiao. Then he looked at Mulrooney. Still holding his
revolvers, he drew her into his arms and kissed her harder than he had ever
kissed her.
As the kiss broke, he looked into her face dirt-stained, dripping sweat,
streaks of what looked like black and red paint. She looked all set for a
Georgia Bulldogs game, he thought absently, or at least the colors were right.
"Did I ever tell you that you're beautiful?"
She laughed. "You're pretty beautiful, too." And she punched his chest
lightly.
Culhane just shook his head. But Mulrooney was calling to the stunning girl,
and Culhane couldn't really understand her. "Fred Fred, Me-em-ef run!"
"Fred Me-em-ef run!"
The girl festooned with bows and quivers taken from the dead, spears in each
hand started to run, Sebastiao beside her, the girl outdistancing him almost
instantly.
Mulrooney looked at Culhane. "Josh Me-em-ef run!"
Side by side, Culhane's empty rifle in the machete sheath across his back, a
revolver in each hand, they ran. And behind them, Culhane could already hear
Uruente war cries. They were coming....
* * *
The density of the rain-forest canopy was increasing now, the light dimming. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]