Deathwatch by Robb White Read Free Book Online

twenty-five rounds for the big gun and had about a dozen left.
    At the first contact with the ground, Ben made his legs and knees go limp so that he landed almost collapsed, his hands taking some of the weight.
    The pain made him grunt out loud.
    Blood running down his chest suddenly made him aware of the pain in his cheek. He felt it lightly with his fingertips but could only tell that there was an open cut about an inch long just below his eye.
    There were new cuts on his feet also; one of them near his ankle was bleeding rather badly.
    Even squatting there he had a view of the camp below, and now saw that Madec was kneeling in the back of the Jeep, the Hornet lying across the canvas top.
    Ben felt a wave of defeat as he pushed himself up with his hands and at last stood straight. He could not tell from here whether the catch basin was in view of the Hornet’s scope, but as he started toward it he had a strange feeling of inevitability. The basin would be in easy range and clear view. Ben just knew that.
    This time he heard the bullet go past him. It was so close that he heard not only the sharp little
click
noise it made in flight but the actual sound on the stone beyond him.
    Then the crack of the rifle rolled lazily up to him.
    Would Madec deliberately shoot him, he wondered.
    Ben decided that he had to find out.
    Ignoring the pain in his feet, he leapt forward, running as hard as he could toward the catch basin.
    Little noisy explosions on the cliff face went ahead of him all the way, the bullets missing him by inches.
    The man was a good shot, leading his target very accurately.
    Ben threw himself forward on his stomach. The catch basin was at the bottom of a small depression and when he lay flat down this way perhaps Madec could not see him.
    There was silence from the desert as Ben inched forward, using his bare elbows against the stones.
    The bullet struck just in front of his face, fillinghis eyes with sharp, dry dust which smelled of ozone.
    Ben pushed on, reaching out to the edge of the basin.
    The bullet knocked rocks out from under his fingers.
    Madec was now standing on the hood of the Jeep, his arm in the rifle sling.
    That was not as good as having the rifle barrel resting across the top of the Jeep. Not as steady. A little gust of wind, a little tremor from a heartbeat and, whether Madec wanted it to or not, the bullet would hit him.
    A piece of quartz just in front of his eyes suddenly split open, showering him with bright crystals.
    Even if he was not hit directly by a bullet these sharp slivers of rock flying around could take his eyes out.
    Ben rolled over on his back and sat up, waving his arms around. Then he pushed himself up to his feet.
    Ben made a helpless gesture with his arms and turned away from the basin, walking slowly, picking his way.
    As he went back to the top of the range he studied the bighorn sign, hoping to find another trail that would lead him to another water hole but, except for the trail he had followed there was only sign of aimless wanderings.
    Near the summit he sat down in the shade on the western side of an outcrop of stone.
    He found with his fingers that his face had stopped bleeding. The flesh around the cut was painful now, and he could tell that it was swelling.
    His feet were in bad shape, old cuts broken open, new cuts still bleeding.
    The slow, small irritating desert flies arrived and swirled around him. They were so stupid, so suicidal, but killing them only seemed to make them increase in number. They wandered in and out of his wounds or sat and preened their wings or even bred, flitting in his blood, and there was very little he could do. They had made a home on him.
    The Jeep was moving. To Ben it seemed as though the cloud of light brown dust was pushing the white body of the Jeep forward, bouncing it along on the desert.
    About a mile from the mountains where he was, an old eroded butte rose at an angle from a low cut terrace. Ben watched Madec force the Jeep