"Cheers, Jonathan?"

Jonathan drank off the Laphroaig and put the glass on the table. "I've decided to forget about you for now, Miles."

"Have you? Just like that?"

"I'm going to be staying here in training for a couple more weeks, and I won't be able to concentrate on it with you on my mind. I have a big climb in front of me." Jonathan was sure that Miles knew he had checked out. The obvious lie was calculated to make Miles think he had him on the run, and Miles was the kind to press such an advantage.

"I sympathize with your problem, Jonathan. Truly I do. But unless this means you are crossing me off your list for good..." He lifted his shoulders in helpless regret.

"I might do just that. Let's have dinner together tonight and talk about it."

"A delightful idea."

Jonathan had to admire Miles's silky control.

Jonathan rose. "See you this evening."

"I'm looking forward to it." Miles raised his glass in salute.

The Land-Rover was parked in the loading zone in front of the lodge. As Jonathan climbed in, he noticed on the floorboards next to the shotgun a thoughtful gift from Ben: a six-pack of cold beer. He opened a can and sipped at it while he glanced over the area map on his lap. He had earlier located a long dirt road running in thin broken lines deep into the desert. Ben had told him it was a little-used rut track that only government rangers drove on. For more than a hundred fifty miles, the road pierced into the core of the western desert, then it stopped abruptly.

Tracing back with his finger, he found the place where the dirt track began, branching west from a north-south gravel access road. This gravel road joined the main highway about a mile west of the turnoff to Ben's place. Considering the difference in speed between the Rover and the rental car at Miles's disposal, that mile of good highway promised to be the most dangerous stretch.

Fixing the map in his mind, Jonathan folded it away and drove off, slowly winding up from the basin. On one of the cutbacks he glanced down to find that Miles's car was already in pursuit. He pressed down on the gas.

Seated beside Dewayne, Faggot in his arms, Miles saw Jonathan's sudden increase in speed. "He knows we're following him. Go get him, Dewayne. Here's your chance to reinstate yourself in my good graces." And he fondly scratched behind Faggot's ears as the car sprayed dust in a skidding turn.

The Rover's superior traction and suspension made up for its disadvantage in speed, and the distance between the two did not much alter throughout the race until the last flat hundred yards before the highway, during which Miles gained perceptibly on the Rover. Dewayne pulled an automatic from his shoulder holster.

"Don't," Miles ordered. "We'll pull along side on the highway where we can be sure of it." Miles knew the Rover had no chance of outdistancing him along the five miles of good road to town.

Jonathan approached the highway at full speed and quickly turned west, away from town.

For an instant Miles was troubled by the unexpected move. Then he decided that Jonathan realized the hopelessness of an open race and was seeking some back road on which the qualities of the Rover would give him a chance.

"I think this would be a good time to get him,

Dewayne."

The car torqued low on its springs as it bounced onto the highway and screamed around the corner in pursuit.

Jonathan held the accelerator to the floor, but at seventy the Rover was flat out, and the automobile gained on him steadily. The gravel cutoff was only half a mile away, but the car behind was so close that he could distinguish Miles through the rearview mirror. In a moment they would swing out and pull up beside him. He saw Miles roll down his window and lean back to give Dewayne a clear field of fire.

When they were almost on his bumper, Jonathan reached down and switched on his lights.

Seeing the tail lights flash, and imagining Jonathan had hit his brakes, Dewayne jammed down on his own, and the wheels squealed and smoked, while the Rover roared on at its best speed.

By the time Dewayne had fumbled his foot back onto the gas, Jonathan had gained sufficient distance to reach the gravel road with fifty yards lead. Miles swore to himself. It had been Henri who had told them about the headlight ploy.

Several times on the gravel road, when his lead was threatened, Jonathan wagged the wheel and caused the Rover to zigzag slightly, raising clouds of blinding dust which forced the car to fall back. In this way he held his advantage until he came to the ranger trail that led out into the desert. Once he was on this meandering track of potholes, and unbanked turns, and ruts so deep the automobile repeatedly bottomed, he had no difficulty maintaining his lead. He was even able to open another can of beer, although it splashed over him when he bounced into an unexpected hole.

"Just keep him in sight, Dewayne." At the turnoff onto the dirt road Miles had seen a weathered sign warning drivers that there was no outlet. Sooner or later, Jonathan would have to turn back. The road, often winding between giant outcroppings of sandstone, was not wide enough for two cars to pass. He had Jonathan in a box.

For nearly an hour the vehicles sped over the flat, gray-tan country where nothing grew in the powdery, baked earth. Dewayne had returned his gun to its holster where its pressure made him sweat freely. Faggot whimpered and pranced with sharp claws in Miles's lap. Sliding from side to side with each abrupt turn, Miles braced himself with pressure between feet and back. His lips were tight with chagrin at being unable to sit with poise. Even Faggot's frantic and moist gestures of affection irritated him.

The vehicles raced and jolted over the desert, lofting two high plumes of fine dust behind them.

Despite the stream of air gushing in through the open side of the Rover, Jonathan's back adhered with perspiration to the plastic seat. As he bounced over a rut, the jerry cans behind him clanged together, reminding him that it would not do for those chasing him to run out of fuel. He began to search for a site appropriate to his needs.

Dewayne hunched over the wheel and squinted into the dust rising before him. His jaw muscles flexed in anticipation of revenge.

About two miles farther on, Jonathan caught sight of an outcropping of rock, a single ragged sandstone boulder around which the track made an S-turn. It was ideal. He slowly eased off on the gas, allowing those behind to close to within a hundred yards. The instant he made the first turn, he hit his brakes, skidding to a stop and raising dense clouds of choking dust. He snatched the shotgun off the seat, leaped out of the Rover, and dashed for the boulder, knowing he had only seconds in which to scramble around the rock and come out from behind.

As Dewayne steered into the first turn, he was blinded by the swirl of dust. The Land-Rover loomed in front of him, and he jammed down on the brakes. Before the car had slid to a stop, Miles had his door open and had rolled out onto the ground. Dewayne twisted the window handle, grappling desperately at his automatic. Hemlock! The barrels of the shotgun jabbed painfully into his left side. He never heard the shot.

Jonathan snapped back the hammers of the shotgun as he raced desperately around the boulder. He heard the squeal of brakes, and plunged through the dust at a full run. Dewayne's face emerged out of the billowing white fog. He was trying to get his window down. Jonathan rammed the gun in through the half opened window and snapped on both triggers. The blast was deafening.

Dewayne snorted like a hammered steer as the force of the impact slid him across the seat and halfway out the open door, where he dangled and twitched until his nerves discovered they were dead.