t the hard fist of another Mekstrom laid him out
colder than a mackerel iced for shipment.

The deadly 35-70 Express roared again, and there started a concentration
of troops heading towards the point of origin. I had a hunch that the
other side did not like anybody to be playing quite as rough as a
big-game gun. Someone might really get hurt.

By now they were all in close and swinging; now and then someone would
stand off and gain a few moments of breathing space by letting go with a
shotgun or knocking someone off of his feet with a carbine. There was
some bloodshed, too; not all these shots bounced. But from what I could
perceive, none of them were fatal. Just painful. The guy who'd been
stopped first with the rifle slug and then the other Mekstrom's fist was
still out cold and bleeding lightly from the place in his stomach. A bit
horrified, I perceived that the pellet was embedded about a half-inch
in. The two birds who'd been hacking at one another with the remains of
their shotguns had settled it barehanded, too. The loser was groaning
and trying to pull himself together. The shiny spots on his chest were
shotgun pellets stuck in the skin.

It was one heck of a fight.

Mekstroms could play with guns and knives and go around taking swings at
one another with hunks of tree or clubbed rifles, or they could stand
off and hurl boulders. Such a battlefield was no place for a guy named
Steve Cornell.

By now all good sense and fine management was gone. If I'd been spotted,
they'd have taken a swing at me, forgetting that I am no Mekstrom. So I
decided that it was time for Steve to leave.

I cast about me with my perception; the gang that Marian had joined had
advanced until they were almost even with my central position; there
were a couple of swinging matches to either side and one in front of me.
I wondered about Marian; somehow I still don't like seeing a woman
tangled up in a free-for-all. Marian was out of esper range, which was
all right with me.

I crawled out of my hideout cautiously, stood up in a low crouch and
began to run. A couple of them caught sight of me and put up a howl, but
they were too busy with their personal foe to take off after me. One of
them was free; I doubled him up and dropped him on his back with a slug
from my Bonanza .375. Somehow it did not seem rough or vicious to shoot
since there was nothing lethal in it. It was more like a game of cowboy
and Indian than deadly earnest warfar