The tunnel began to slope slightly downhill, forcing them to stoop. There was a scent of dust, and the narrow space was filled with the hollow echo of their feet.

The soldiers in front stopped. “General?”

Their lights illuminated an inscription scratched on the tunnel wall:

J D Gower

Jul 15 1945

Nora could see, just beyond the inscription, a makeshift door made of juniper limbs lashed together with rawhide. It was ajar, and it opened into a dark chamber.

56

MORWOOD LAY ON his back, head swimming. Watts had continued to keep the attackers at bay, more or less—but with every shot, Morwood winced at the thought of one less round. The attackers had managed to move from cover to cover during the cross fire, and now the two were surrounded, only a short dash across open ground from their foes. But Watts was a hell of a shot, and so far that was the only thing preventing the final, inevitable rush. Morwood had his Glock in hand and—when they came over the wall—he was determined to take at least one out.

“How’re you doing?” Watts asked.

“In the Westerns, the odds are always worse than this,” Morwood replied.

“This ain’t no Western,” said Watts. “But there was once a guy, one of my predecessors as sheriff of Socorro County, name of Elfego Baca. He held off forty cowboys singlehandedly for thirty-three hours, killing four and wounding eight. They made a movie out of that standoff.”

“He must have been sitting on an arsenal. We don’t have one handy—and they’re waiting for us to run out of ammo. Where are you at?”

“Got eight rounds left, four in each cylinder.”

“I’m at seven.”

A silence. “Maybe,” said Watts slowly, “we should let them think we’ve run out.”

“How so?”

“If I pull the trigger on an empty chamber, it makes a distinctive click. We might just fool them that way.”

Morwood nodded slowly. “And after the last round is fired from my Glock, the slide ejects the spent round—but it makes a different sound from when the slide strips another round from the magazine and chambers it. If they know firearms, it’s a sound they might recognize.”

“I’d say it’s a safe bet they know firearms.”

Morwood’s concentration was interrupted by more shooting.

“It’s worth a try,” said Watts.

Watts opened the cylinders in both guns and took three rounds out of each. He then shifted them one place over in the cylinder so there was a single empty chamber between the next round and the last three. Morwood, for his part, ejected the Glock’s magazine, leaving a single round chambered, thumbed out the rounds, and slid the empty magazine back in.

Watts popped up and—waiting for a moment of relative silence—fired a double shot, the second pull falling on an empty chamber, eliciting return fire. He stumbled back down. “Shit!” Blood was dribbling down the side of his head. “The fuckers got my other ear.”

“At least you’re back in proportion.”

Watts took off his hat, spattered with blood, a piece of the brim torn off. “And worse, they ruined my hat.”

“My turn,” Morwood said, crawling along the adobe and—like Watts, waiting for a moment of quiet—raising his head, firing the last round with his left hand. A flurry of shots followed. He quickly pushed the rounds back into the magazine and reinserted it. He didn’t dare rack a round—the sound would tip them off.

“We’d better wait a bit,” said Watts. “They might be thinking we’ve only got one or two rounds left. So they’ll probably do something to try to provoke us.”

“Probably a feint, baiting us to fire.”

Watts nodded. They waited tensely … and then Watts heard the thudding footsteps of someone running.

He popped up and pulled the trigger twice on a figure running from one piece of cover to another. The second pull was on the empty chamber.

He ducked back down as more shots followed.

“Now,” said Morwood, “we engage them in negotiations. That’s what they’d expect if we’d run out of ammo.”

Watts nodded and called out, “Hey, Fountain!”

“Too late, Sheriff,” came the reply. “You had your chance!”

“Look, let’s talk.”

Silence.

“We’ve had time to think it over. We can help you!”

“Not with the crows pecking out your eyes, you can’t.”

Watts’s voice took on an almost pleading tone. “There’s no need to do anything stupid like killing a sheriff and an FBI agent. That’ll bring down law enforcement on you like a ton of bricks. You know that.”

“Not likely. We’ve got a thousand square miles of mountains and deserts where we can disappear your remains. Say adios. Maybe our next sheriff will be halfway decent—not a snot-nosed poseur who likes to show off his six-guns.”

“Bring it on,” said Watts, feigned bravado growing genuine at this insult. “We’ll shoot your ass to pieces.”

“Sure you will.”

Morwood heard the rush of feet, and he instantly racked a round into the chamber.

“This is it!” Watts muttered urgently.