TAYLOR HIT ME first, dropping the dog cage to drive his shoulder into my chest and plunge me backward into the grass so he could aim heavy boots at my head. I rolled, scissoring my legs and clipping him at the knees, and he flopped into a bed of gilia, cursing and swinging at air. The next was Benny, and he was hefting a fighting knife complete with finger guard.
“Bunch, goddamn it!”
He cut viciously at my outstretched hand, and I grabbed his wrist, spun to lever his elbow down across my shoulder, and yanked quick and hard. I wasn’t trying to flip him this time but to break the joint, and in the knotted and twisting flesh next to my ear I heard something give with a kind of pop. The hand splayed out in pain, and I stripped off the knife and turned in time to catch a solid punch on the forehead that made me feel ice-cold all over and drove me stumbling backward into a tangle of weeds.
A shadow blotted what was left of the sun and another heavy thud knocked the wind from my lungs. I didn’t really feel it with my body, but my mind told me that it was a hard one and that it should hurt. I rolled into a ball, hands clasped at the back of my neck, and tried to focus my strength into my legs, to get my legs under me and lever myself up and away from the stomping boots I knew would be coming.
“Dev—roll the other way!”
“What?”
“The other way—roll the other way!” The radio squawked. “You’re giving me a bad camera angle!”
“Damn your eyes, Bunch—”
A boot whistled past my ear to glance off my shoulder, and I grabbed the toe and heel and twisted sharply, the vague looming shape spinning out of vision. Another body flung itself on me and pummeled at my back.
“That’s it, Dev—hold it right there—it’s a good shot!”
“Bunch, you son—”
A fist caught my mouth and I felt the numbed flesh split against my teeth. I drove an elbow savagely back to crack against a skull, then looped an arm over enough body to fling Taylor across me with a hip throw and slash at his neck with the blade of my hand as he went past. Somewhere underneath the breathy grunts of the men and the insane barking and snarling of Sid, I heard a roar of motorcycle engines and glimpsed a cluster of bikes rounding the road below.
I saw a face hovering at my shoulder and gave it an elbow and spun to kick at another figure while the third man dived for my leg and began to sink his teeth into my calf.
“Goddamn!”
A kick freed me of that, but Taylor was up again and, head down and fists high, drove toward me in a bloody spew of curses. Crouching, I caught his fists on my forearms and jabbed the point of my knee into his groin. The man made a long squeak as he lifted his head back and fell slowly to one side, hands clutching the spot my knee had caressed. Benny, one arm dangling and the fighting knife clutched in his other hand, was coming at me again, grass roots and mud tangled with his fingers in the grip.
A loud rifle crack fired just over our heads and we stopped, frozen by the sound.
A second round exploded, and I saw the motorcycles slide to a dusty halt and scramble backward frantically, pulling over each other to find shelter behind the shoulder of cliff. A third round whacked into the torn mud and threw gobs of dirt across the beard and eyes of Taylor.
“That’s it—party’s over, people. Take your goddamn dog and haul ass while you still got one,” Bunch yelled.
From the tree line the rifle spoke again, and the three men stumbled down the hill toward the truck, the dog cage banging and barking between them. The pickup truck wheeled around, then dug through the grass and flowers, peeling the earth to bare mud as it fled. I looked at the crushed and torn ground and slowly gathered up the radio and binoculars. So much for peaceful meadows and mountain scenery.
“Not bad, Dev. Not bad at all. I think we got some good shots of Taylor proving he’s not disabled.”
“Why in hell didn’t you help me out?”
“Hey, I’m the cameraman. Besides, you didn’t need it.”
I rubbed a finger across my split lip, which was puffy and sore and had that metallic taste of torn skin. “The hell I didn’t.”
“I kind of wish you’d turned toward the camera more, though. The way Taylor was dancing around, I could have got better shots.”
I made it to the Bronco in exhausted silence. On the way down the mountain, Bunch said, “Jesus, I hope we don’t have to do it all over again.”
“What’s that?”
“The exposure meter. I had it set for the wrong kind of film.”