As she rides by

that one of the boys had neatly laid out three lines of them, maybe some thirty in all, and staggered them unevenly to make sure there was no way through them. Well, at least I now knew why they were those couple of minutes late showing up for our beach party.
    I straightened up, thinking OK, now what, smoothy? From somewhere too close for comfort a cannon went off—well, a Colt Magnum, at least. The car’s windshield exploded into tiny fragments, as did the rear window. I ducked down, or was it fell. Lucky for me the car had come to a stop more or less canted across the road, so I had some protection. Ahead of me the road ran for a good hundred yards without one bend, also slightly uphill. No way out there, at least not one I wanted to try with Big Bertha well sighted in. The hill on one side of the road looked impossible, the rock fall on the other only almost impossible. I eased open the door on my side, grabbed my bag and their junk, fumbled my gun out, stuck it around the front of the car, let off a couple of shots to keep their heads down, duck-walked to the rear of the car, then went mountain climbing for the first and last time. One-handed, too, remember, as the other was carrying a bag, a bundle, and a gun, none of which I wanted to sacrifice.
    I was halfway up to the cluster of boulders I had one eye on before they opened up again. A rock splinter from a ricochet opened up a gash on one cheek, but that’s as close as they came; you have to be Clint Eastwood to hit a moving target, let alone a frantically scrambling one, at more than twenty feet with one of those ,475s, unless you’re shooting from a mount. Or get lucky. Or grow up with guns. Or were a marksman in the army...
    Anyway, I made it. I squeezed in behind the largest of the boulders, dragged my luggage in behind me, and tried to get my breathing back to normal. My thoughts were not pretty. Smooth old Daniel hadn’t given them credit for any brains at all. Hadn’t given one thought to the idea that they might have some insurance, just in case. Hadn’t even bothered to check out the Ford properly; shit, they could have had a bazooka hidden in there for all I would have noticed. Maybe they had a few hand grenades tucked away in the side paneling, that’d be fun. Evonne should’ve hit me a little harder with that trowel, it might’ve shaken a few brains to the surface.
    After a minute I stuck one eye out, didn’t see anything, so stuck it in again. After another minute I got out a little round mirror from my toilet kit—and it is none of your business what it was doing there—and perched it on a little ledge so I could see the car below and thus if anyone was trying to sneak up to it. No one was.
    A few more minutes went by. Then a few more. I wondered what Phil and Ted were up to, once they got done laughing. Maybe wondering what I was up to. After a moment’s reflection I decided they were up to the same thing I was—nothing. They might have had me, but I had them. Did I want to go on crouching behind a boulder for another nine hours or so until it got dark, then sneak down and go for a long, long walk?
    Not all that much, frankly. At least I was in the shade, but what I figured the boys would do is take turns watching the road while the other found some shade somewhere. Hmm. A Mexican standoff, I believe it’s called; in fact, I know it is. I wonder why... remind me to ask a Mexican sometime. Anyway, thus it was that, after another minute or two of absolutely nothing happening. I called out, “Yoo-hoo, anyone home?”
    “You better believe it,” the chatterbox called back.
    “Want to deal, or do you want to wait till you’re fried to a crisp?”
    “So talk, asshole.”
    “I’ll chuck down your clothes and a few bucks, then all you got to do is walk on out of here. I’ll give you an hour head start.”
    “What do you get out of it?”
    “I get you gone,” I said. “I also get me living to see another day dawn.”
    A lengthy pause ensued. I winked at a lizard who poked his head out from a hole in the rocks. He pretended he didn’t see me. Then the driver called out, “How do we know you won’t get cute?”
    “Cute how?” I called back. “I already got what I want, remember? I got my pal in court and you guys stuck out here in the boonies. What do I want a shootout at the OK corral for?”
    Another pause. Then he called out, “OK, faggot. So throw our stuff down.”
    “Look out below,” I said. I took a minute to