The beaters went by, advancing through the swamp. One came so close, Gilbert could have reached out and touched him.
Gilbert stood up, stretching his stiff muscles. He waited an agonizing five more minutes, then set out along the trail.
A laggard beater materialized abruptly in his path. The machete blurred overhead, blade gleaming. The man's face showed recognition, but neither pity nor regret. He wouldn't kill Gilbert, naturally. He wanted Gilbert to run—back toward Mulveen.
Gilbert ducked under the upswinging arm. He drove his shoulder into the beater's midsection and felt the hard wall of muscle hold for a split-second, then yield. The beater jackknifed over. Gilbert let himself drop, grasped the beater's ankles and heaved. The beater sailed, yelling, over his head. The beater landed face-first in the swamp and Gilbert dove after him. He found the machete-haft, twisted. The big-bladed weapon came free in his hand, but the beater lifted his head from the mud and cried:
"Mulveen! Mulveen, sir! Mulveen!"
Gilbert struck with the side of the machete blade, using it as a club. The beater subsided face-down in the mud. Gilbert looked down at him, then scowled and turned him face-up in the swamp so he wouldn't drown.
Just then Mulveen's rifle cracked. The swamp-water swallowed the flat sound: there was no echo.
Mulveen heard the cry—he was close. Perhaps close enough to see the white sheen of frothing water where the beater had fallen....
Quickly Gilbert slipped with his machete among the mangrove roots. He made his way through the thick tangle of gnarled roots and the slime of the swamp back in the direction from which the beater had come. Behind him he heard the clubs and machetes of the other beaters, returning now toward the rifle fire.
Up ahead somewhere unseen in the swamp Mulveen was waiting with his atomic rifle. Behind Gilbert, the beaters were coming.