Another man appeared, and Sam fired his shotgun again, pumped it, and retreated back over the rocks. He heard gunfire coming from up on the wall, four rapid shots.

He looked up as Remi ducked down. There were fifteen or twenty shots fired at the place where she had been, but she stayed low and moved over ten feet.

Sam climbed back on the wall, peered over it, and saw four men running toward the entryway. He raised the MAC-10, popped up, and strafed the runners from above. He ducked back, having seen all four fall, but the action of the MAC-10 remained open. He had used up the ammunition. There was a storm of bullets pounding the wall now. He sat still on the walkway, waiting for it to subside. It took a while, but gradually silence returned.

“How many?” Remi called.

“Seven, I think.”

“I only got two,” she said. “When are you going to try your new strategy? Before or after we’re out of ammo?”

“Now might be a good time,” he said. He went down the steps to the entryway, looked around the wall to see if any enemies were in sight but saw none. He restacked the firewood he had piled in the passage, poured some of the whiskey on it, struck a match and lit a fire. As it grew, he kept his shotgun aimed at the opening beyond. When the fire was flaming high and the resin-dripping branches were blazing torches, he took four of them together and ran up to the walkway. He threw one of the flaming brands as far as he could over the wall, then each of the other three so they landed as widely as possible. He sat down on the walkway again and listened while thirty or forty rounds glanced uselessly off the high stone wall.

Remi made use of the concentrated fire. She fired three rounds and then ducked down. “Make that three,” she said.

“I’ll tell the scorekeeper.”

“How’s our strategy— Oh, my,” she said, looking over Sam’s side of the wall.

Sam looked too. The sky seemed to be lightening. He took the shotgun and stood up to get a better look, then ducked down as the next volley of shots hit.

The torches had started some brush on fire, and the flames were growing, beginning to eat their way into a large thicket where Sam had hidden, crackling and raising sparks. As the gunfire died down, Sam heard men shouting in Spanish. Sam ran downstairs, picked up three still-burning brands, climbed back up, and threw them over the wall on the other side of the enclosure near Remi.

“What are you doing? They’re all on that side.”

“I’m giving us light and space,” he said.

“For what?”

“We’ll deprive those guys of hiding places and put them in the light of the fire.”