"But Duncan ..."

"I'll look after him. You just go on to bed."

She went. I wrote for a while, then leaned back to think. Eventually, I dozed off. A couple hours must have passed.

I started awake. There were sounds outside the cave. The fire had died to coals. Carefully, I reached for the water pitcher and used it to drown the remains. A figure moved across the cave mouth, outlined by the moonlight. White man! His skin shone in the light. I took the rifle from the table and fell into a prone position. I waited while they talked it over out there. They seemed certain their quarry was inside. I didn't know how they had found the cave—blind luck, probably—but once here, they knew they had their man. I remembered having seen Duncan's fatigue jacket outside, a dead giveaway. I cursed myself for being fool enough to expect them to stop after losing their hound.

They didn't bother with a warning or to-do about surrender. They came in the cave, trying to sneak up on

Duncan. I started shooting. The .30-.06 roared like a cannon in the confinement of the cave. The muzzle flashes splashed white faces with orange light.

I never was much good at killing, not in Vietnam, not here. They were less than twenty feet away, hut I only hit one, in the arm. They got out before I could get

another.

The shooting woke the kids. Lois slipped up beside me where I lay in the cave mouth, asking what had happened.

"Never mind!" I snapped. "You get the kids out the hole in back. Go up to the hiding place. I'll meet you

later."

"Aren't you coming?"

"Lois, neither Duncan nor I can get through that passage. It's too tight. Now get."

As if to punctuate my argument, the rednecks opened up. It was like a regular war, like I saw in Vietnam. They were all over the slope. Bullets whined and pinged as they bounced from one cave wall to another. Lois left, dragging the younger kids down the small tunnel which opened on the far side of the hill.