Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) (16 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Another betrayal

“I don’t trust that bastard with a loaded gun,” said Katarina.

“Neither do I, but I trust he will be more concerned with shooting at the enemy than at us for the present,” said Lazarus. “A loose cannon can be a powerful weapon so long as one is willing to take a gamble.”

“I didn’t think you were a gambling man,” muttered Katarina.

“Let’s proceed carefully, at all costs,” said Lazarus as they scrambled up the slope on the left side of the city. “If there are any negotiations going on, I would hate to spoil them and bring our comrades close to peril.”

Kokoharu, as if anticipating this, led them on a round-a-bout trail that concealed them from the sight of any guards in the city. They soon found themselves on a ridge high above the flat rooftops. Lazarus caught the whiff of boiling coffee from somewhere below, and his body ached for such comforts which had been denied him since their arrival in Cibola. Several guards patrolled the rooftops with Whitworth sniper rifles.

“Are you any good with those at a distance?” Lazarus asked Thompson. “I’m a fair shot myself but it’s your leg I’m thinking of.”

“Leave it to me,” the lieutenant replied. “I’ll pick the bastards off one by one while you two go in and do what you have to do on the ground.”

“Capital idea. Katarina? Are you ready?”

She did not reply, but merely cocked her pistol. Kokoharu lay down her spear and drew a wicked-looking obsidian knife from her belt before dropping down onto the nearest roof.

They followed her as silently as they could, desperately wishing that they were as stealthy as the nimble-footed Cibolan. Hopping from one roof to another, ensuring that nobody on the adjacent roofs could see them, they made their way towards the nearest sniper.

Lazarus made the kill. Creeping up on the guard from behind, he grabbed him in a lock and slipped his bowie knife out and up to his throat, drawing it hard and fast across esophagus, jugular and vocal cords. The man went down with a barely audible choking and coughing as blood filled his lungs and he asphyxiated. Lazarus plucked up the Whitworth and tossed it to Thompson.

With the partisan covering them from the roof, Lazarus, Katarina and Kokoharu slipped down to street level and made for the shadows of the next building. Ordinarily, Lazarus would have balked at the idea of leading two young women into a danger zone but he had fast learned that Katarina could take care of herself, and Kokoharu seemed as determined to rescue his friends as he did. And everything he had seen of her so far suggested that she might be a lethal killer when she had a mind to be.

A shot rang out behind them. They looked up and saw a Confederate fall backwards on the roof ahead of them. Thompson was a fine shot indeed, but all cause for stealth now was gone. The battle had begun.

Two Confederates came running around the corner and Lazarus blasted them both, low and fast while Katarina sent a third tumbling back through the doorway he had emerged from across the street. Lazarus lamented the spilled coffee pot as they hurried past, seeking cover as Thompson fired two more shots above their heads. There couldn’t be many more guards left on the rooftops. In fact the whole pueblo had gone very silent.

“They must be hiding somewhere indoors,” said Lazarus.

As he finished speaking a burst of Jericho fire illuminated the doorway to the kiva up ahead. Lazarus figured they would have a mechanical or two. It came lumbering out of the round building, firing as it advanced. They ducked down behind a low wall, drawing its fire. Bullets ate into the brick, rapidly reducing it to dust, its soft construction no match for the 45-70 rounds. The magazine ran empty and Lazarus poked his head up over the ruined wall, hoping to get a lucky shot in before the mechanical finished reloading.

Before he could fire, a wildcat leaped onto the mechanical’s back and wrapped her legs around its middle. Lazarus hadn’t even noticed Kokoharu leave them, but she had clearly found a sneaky way around the buildings and was now plunging her obsidian knife between the head and right shoulder of the behemoth again and again, causing the blood of the pilot to run out across the hot metal. It sagged to its knees and slumped forward. Kokoharu slid off the bronzed carcass and held her bloodied fist that gripped the blade aloft like a hunter reveling in victory after bringing down a stag.

Lazarus and Katarina whooped and cheered for their savior, but the little Cibolan was smart enough not to loiter near the doorway to the kiva. She rolled away just as two shots whistled out of the dark opening.

“They’re holed up inside,” said Lazarus, thumbing new cartridges into his Starblazer. “We’ve got them cornered.”

“But how to get them out?” said Katarina. “And how to stop them retreating further? You know what lies in the floor of every kiva.”

Thompson had descended from his rooftop vigil and joined them. Single file, with Lazarus carefully leading, they approached the kiva. Peering in, Lazarus could see that the Confederates had descended the ladder to the room below. They entered the building and stood around the hole in the ground. Thompson held out his rifle and called down.

“I give up! I’m wounded and give you my weapon!” He let the rifle drop and they heard it clatter on the floor below. There was movement. Voices. Somebody picked up the rifle.

They’ll never fall for this
, thought Lazarus.

But to his surprise, somebody was coming up the ladder. Lazarus let the soldier put his hands on the top rung and poke his head up before kicking savagely with his boot and sending the dazed Confederate tumbling back down into the kiva. Lazarus jumped after him and landed on his body.

There were four more men in the room. Lazarus had noted them and started to fire before they even knew they had an invader in their midst. He fanned his Starblazer as Vasquez would do, sending all six bullets at naval height around the room and into their intended targets. The noise was deafening within the subterranean room, and the blaze of each round lit the confined space up like an electrical storm. Men fell, clutching their guts and chests.

“Damn me, limey!” hooted Vasquez from somewhere unseen. “We’ll make a frontier gunman of you yet!”

They were tied together on the floor in the corner of the room, the ropes digging into Pahanatuuwa’s thick biceps. Lazarus drew his knife and cut them loose.

“What’s the devil’s been going on here?” he asked them. “We believed you both to be captured or drawn in on some hair-brained scheme to talk terms with Reynolds.”

“First one, then the other,” said Vasquez, climbing to his feet and rubbing some life back into his limbs. His face was bloody and swollen, as was Pahanatuuwa’s, suggesting some rough treatment at the hands of their captors. “After the failure to destroy the bridge, Mankanang lost all hope and concocted a scheme to offer Reynolds one of the Seven Cities in exchange for peace. He was going to hand it over to him without the other chieftains knowing!”

“He’s mad if he thinks that would satisfy Reynolds. One golden city will never be enough for him, or the C.S.A. for that matter.”

“But Mankanang and Xuthala don’t know Reynolds as we do. They roped us along on the pretense of being their translators, but we knew nothing of their plan to surrender the western temple. Turned out we were to be a sweetener on the deal. They were going to hand us over to Reynolds as compensation for the lives lost in the recent skirmishes.”

“Where are they now?”

Vasquez nodded to the doorway that led to the tunnels. “Showing Reynolds around his new golden palace. But what happened to you and Katarina? Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of you since the battle.”

“On the trail of Townsend,” answered Lazarus.

“Whatever happened to that hussy anyway?”

“Dead. She tried to make a run for it with a sack of stolen gold. Thompson killed her.”

Vasquez eyed the partisan. “You don’t say. Wouldn’t have thought it of her, but you never can tell, as they say.”

At the sight of Kokoharu, Pahanatuuwa’s eyes grew wide and angry and he began to bark at her in Cibolan. Lazarus intervened on her behalf.

“She was waiting outside the city for you, Pahanatuuwa. Like a guardian angel. It was she who led us in. And you’re not the only Cibolan who can claim to have felled a mechanical now.”

The big warrior’s eyes softened and he looked down at Kokoharu’s bloody right hand. A faint smile of pride touched his lips.

Vasquez whistled. “What a crew. Now I don’t know about you fellas, but I’m dying to put an end to this whole silly business and pay back Reynolds for all he’s done. You all with me?”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Lazarus.

“My brother and his wife must also pay for their treachery,” said Pahanatuuwa. “With their lives, preferably.” And he was the first to return to the kingdom of the
kachinas
.

The western temple was similar to its northern counterpart, but built in a slightly different way. It still rose tier on tier much like the pueblo above it, slabs of gold studded with turquoise that glimmered softly by the light of the torches.

Before they had got within two steps of the cavern, a sniper shot rang out and showered them with flakes of rock. They dived for cover, Vasquez firing in the general direction of the temple. The sniper could be seen reloading on a terrace three floors up. Thompson knelt, rested his Whitworth on a boulder, aimed and fired. The sniper fell back with a cry.

“Come on!” cried Vasquez. “In and at them!”

They hurried up the golden steps and spilled into the temple. There was no sign of Reynolds or the Cibolan traitors in the great room.

“They must be in one of the side rooms or upstairs,” said Lazarus. “Fan out but stay in pairs.”

Vasquez and Pahanatuuwa headed towards the storerooms on the far side of the temple while Lazarus and Katarina made for the stairs at the rear of the audience chamber. Thompson and Kokoharu remained and took up position in the great room should their quarry return that way.

The chambers above were deathly still. Lazarus knew that there must be more guards on the upper levels, so they proceeded cautiously, checking each corner of every room. They passed the bloodied corpse of the sniper Thompson had slain; laying on his back, a pool of blood slowly expanding across the gold slabs. They heard shots below and knew that Vasquez and Pahanatuuwa had come across some more Confederates.

As they entered a large, unlit room on the uppermost floor of the temple, Lazarus heard the click of a revolver being cocked. The metal walls caused the sound to echo. He had just enough time to duck as the pistol fired and sent its bullet thudding into the soft gold walls. By the light of the blazing round, Lazarus had seen the face of General Reynolds and several of his soldiers, limed in orange like demons from hell.

“Back out of here!” Lazarus cried as Katarina sent three bullets towards Reynolds to no effect.

Once outside the room, they stood on either side of the door, their weapons ready.

“There must be another entrance,” Katarina whispered so Reynolds could not hear her plan. “Every room in these places has at least two, or so it seems.”

“Agreed,” Lazarus whispered back. “You stay here and I’ll go around. Maybe I can come in on them from a side door.”

He hurried along the terrace and around the corner, searching for the door. A massive figure with copper skin and long black hair charged out of a doorway on the other side and barreled into him. At first Lazarus thought it was Pahanatuuwa, but the fierce determination of the man to disarm him made him realize that this was Mankanang.

His Starblazer slid across the gold flags, knocked from his grasp as he went down under the big Cibolan. He found himself powerless as the giant wrenched him to his feet and hauled him back in through the doorway from which he had come. He was shoved without ceremony to the feet of the beautiful Xuthala.

She smiled at him in her cold triumph. He tried to rise to his feet but she seized him, spun him around and pressed an obsidian blade with a wicked edge against his jugular. She barked something at her husband, and several figures hurried past the doorway. Lazarus wanted to cry out, for he saw Vasquez and Pahanatuuwa, but the blade digging into his neck made any such movement highly dangerous.

Xuthala marched him out onto the terrace. His English spirit was utterly humiliated at being treated in this way by a woman, but the strength in her lithe, coppery arms and the quickness of her blade banished any foolish thoughts of bravado. Up ahead, Vasquez and Pahanatuuwa had joined Katarina at the doorway to the room that held Reynolds.

Mankanang bellowed something which made his brother spin around. The two parties stared at each other for a while, willing the other to make the first move. Naturally, it was Vasquez who took the initiative.

“Well, your brother’s got us by the nuts, pal,” he said to Pahanatuuwa. “Much as that limey has been a pain in the ass, I’ve grown a little fond of him. I can’t let that hellcat ruin his shirt with his own blood. What’s next?”

Pahanatuuwa and his brother held a quick counsel.

“They want us to let Reynolds go,” Pahanatuuwa said. “You are to go with him. They say that white men can have the western temple but must not defile the kingdom of the
kachinas
further with their hostilities. You are to take your differences to the world above.”