'Just two?' he whispered back.
'There's something in the way - maybe barrels. Use that smokeleaf tin.'
He put her down and fished in his waistcoat pocket for the tin he kept his cigarillos in. He tipped the last three out and slipped the tin back, keeping the lid. He'd polished the inside to a bright gloss until it was almost as good as a mirror.
The floor above was a foot or so over his head: heavy pine boards, with an iron flange at the edge and a guardrail around the opening for the stairs.
Moving cautiously up to the next step and keeping his head low, Lee lifted the tin lid up very slowly close to the nearest stanchion of the rail, and tilted it so he saw along the floor and towards the right-hand corner, where the shot had come from. He could see no one, but that was because a row of heavy barrels stood in the way: two rows, in fact, one stacked on top of the other, separated by the pallets the barrels were standing on.
Lee knew well how small a movement would catch a watching eye, and taking infinite pains to move slowly, he turned the lid round to face the other corner. That side was empty, apart from some piece of machinery under a tarpaulin, and Lee could see the gunman clearly, standing behind it and looking over the top, with his rifle pointed just above where Lee was standing. It was not McConville.
The stone columns holding up the roof - sixteen of them, each about two feet in diameter - were equally spaced along the length of the room in two rows, one near the back wall and one near the front, and Lee calculated that if he could reach the column closest to the stairs on the gunman's side, he might be able to shelter behind it while dealing with him; but that still left McConville free to shoot him in the back. This was really a hopeless situation, and he shouldn't have got himself into it.
In fact, it was like pretty well every other situation he'd ever been in. And I'm still here, he thought, and Hester twitched her ears. He slipped the smokeleaf lid back into his pocket.
Then from down below there came the loud scraping clang of the big steel door being hauled out of the way, and under cover of the noise, Lee took a good grip of the rifle and launched himself upwards as fast as he could, running at an angle to the top of the steps and left along the floor to the shelter of the nearest column.
His ears were full of noise - shots from right and left, and the echoes from the bare stone walls. He reached the column and pressed himself behind it.
It was the third column from the end on that
side. The tarpaulin-covered machinery behind which the gunman was hiding was near the middle of the end wall, and it was a little less high than the head of a man, which meant the shooter had to crouch all the time: not a comfortable position to hold for long. The best way to deal with him, if he'd been alone, would be to wait till he moved, as he'd have to eventually, and pick him off with one shot.
But behind Lee, at the far end of the warehouse, McConville had a better place of concealment and a clear line of fire. If he'd just had a pistol it wouldn't be so bad, but those sounded like rifle shots, and Lee, pressed against the column, felt as well as heard the bullets striking his narrow shelter. McConville wouldn't miss too many times with a rifle.
The first volley of shots came to an end.
Lee ran again, past the second column, on to the first - a little further from McConville, making it safer as the angle tightened; and closer to the other man, whose shoulder - was it? - Lee could see, imperfectly concealed.
He raised the rifle. In the same moment he pressed the trigger and McConville yelled, 'Duck!'
His bullet reached the man before the warning did,
and there was a grunt, a thud as he dropped his weapon, then a long withdrawn breath, and then silence.
Lee looked at the tarpaulin, and calculated: five running steps away, from right to left across McConville's line of sight, in about a second and a half . It should be possible.
And it was. McConville fired twice and missed, but Lee made it, and found the other gunman sprawled on his back with his pistol too far away to reach, and the eyes in his pale face burning. A pool of blood was spreading out around him like a great red wing unfurling. His cat- daemon crouched by his side, trembling.
'You've done for me,' the gunman said in the voice of a ghost.
Lee said, 'Yep, you're bleeding a lot. Reckon I have. Is that McConville over there?'
'Morton. Ain't no McConville.'
'Wouldn't that be dandy. What's he carrying?'
'Go stick your head up your ass.'
'Oh, you're a nice man. Now hold your tongue.'
Keeping low, he patted the man's chest and sides to make sure he wasn't carrying another weapon, and then, ignoring him, turned his attention to the other end of the warehouse. In one way, it didn't matter if he and McConville stood and hid from each other all day long. Captain van Breda could load his cargo without being shot at, and get away with it. But sooner or later, either Lee or McConville was going to have to move, and the first one to do so would probably die.
Suddenly a fusillade of shots rang out, and bullets ihudded into the walls behind Lee and the tarpaulin- covered machinery in front. Two or three struck the columns, and whined off into the corners.
And in the middle of the barrage, Lee - who was (Touching low behind the machinery - suddenly found himself knocked to the floor and dizzy with shock. Had he taken a bullet? Was he hurt? It was the strangest sensation - and then with a horrible lurch of nausea, he saw his Hester in the grasp of the fallen gunman's good hand. He had her around the throat. Lee was choking with her, but the outrage - a stranger's hand on his daemon! - was worse.
He dragged his rifle round till the barrel was hard against the man's side, and shot him dead.
Hester leapt away and into Lee's arms, and he'd never felt her tremble so violently.
'All right, gal, it's over,' he whispered.
'It ain't,' she whispered. 'There's still McConville.'
'Think I'd forgot that, you dumb rabbit? Git a hold a yourself.'
He rubbed her ears with his thumb and put her down gently. Then he looked out again, very cautiously, along the line of columns to the stack of barrels at the other end of the empty floor. There was no movement.
But Lee realised with a little flicker of hope that McConville wasn't only brutal: he was stupid too. A clever man would have done nothing, held his fire, kept as still as a stone until Lee had either killed or been killed by the other man. If Lee came out on top he might have thought all the danger was gone, and
McConville could pick him off when his back was turned. Instead of that, what did the fool do but give himself away. So there might be a chance.
Those columns...Two rows of eight, equally spaced along the length of the building, back and front. When Lee looked past the left side of the row at the front, by the windows, he could see the whole room, almost, clear across the centre of the big floor to the stack of barrels; but when he looked past the right side of the columns, he could see nothing but the narrow passage between the front wall and the row of overlapping columns, right down to the side wall at the far end.
But that meant in turn that McConville would have the same view. If Lee moved along between the row of columns and the front wall, he'd be invisible to the other man for some of the way, at least.
It was the best chance he had. He looked down at Hester, and she flicked her ears: ready. Lee quickly filled the magazine of the Winchester (and what a sweet weapon this was) and set off, making as little noise as leather-shod feet could on a wooden floor.
For the first three or four columns he was safely invisible, and he was ready to snap a shot as soon as anything moved into sight at the other end. The further he got, though, the more dangerous, because as the angle increased so did the gaps between the columns.
Couldn't be helped. Take the rest at a run. He stopped at the last point where he was still fully concealed, opposite the big doors right in the centre that opened for goods to come up by the hoist, and
then gripped the rifle and ran.
And in the same moment he thought, My shadow - damn, he can see my shadow -
The sun was pouring in through the windows. McConville had been able to follow his progress every step of the way; and no sooner had Lee realised that than two shots rang out, and he dropped. He was hit, but he had no idea where. He'd sprawled in the space between the second and third columns. With all his might he dragged himself up and flung himself forward towards the rack of barrels. If he was close against it on this side, McConville wouldn't be able to see him.
Maybe.
He made it, and slipped down to the floor. Hester was close by, trembling. Lee brought his finger to his lips, and he could do that because his hand was free, and his hand was free because he'd dropped the rifle.
It lay out in the open, several feet away and unreachable.
He sat there with his back to the lower rack of barrels, smelling the stinking fish oil, feeling his blood race, listening to every drip and creak and scrape and click, and holding back the pain that was prowling around just waiting to pounce.