Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) (17 page)

“And what of you?” Lazarus said, risking the bobbing of his Adam’s apple against Xuthala’s blade.

“I am to remain here and face the judgment of my brother’s counsel.”

“Hear that, Reynolds?” Katarina shouted into the room. “You’re free to go.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Vasquez. “We can’t leave Hok’ee here to answer to all we’ve done. And it churns my guts to see that bastard Reynolds walk away just when we had him.”

From a doorway further down the terrace they saw General Reynolds and his three remaining soldiers step out. Reynolds called out, “I’d surely love to catch up and reminisce, Vasquez. Perhaps there’ll be time for that topside!”

Pahanatuuwa’s eyes bulged at the sight of his sworn enemy vanishing down the stairs. To have come so close to his revenge and yet be forced to let it slip through his fingers due to another, lesser enemy must have been a terrible strain on his sense of honor. The strain became too much and he let out a primal roar as he lunged forward towards Lazarus and Xuthala.

Lazarus thought his number was up as the giant slammed into them. He felt Xuthala’s blade graze his neck and the warm blood run down. He did his best to get out of the mess as Pahanatuuwa’s big hands grasped Xuthala around the neck. She tried to cry out but was cut off as his fingers pressed in deep, choking her off.

Mankanang bellowed some challenge and made for his own brother, but Vasquez was ready and brought up his revolver. He sunk two bullets into the chief, and then a third as the enraged Cibolan reared up and turned on him. The fourth went between his eyes and the brute fell backwards without a sound, landing heavily on the terrace.

Pahanatuuwa let out a cry of anguish, not for his brother, but for the woman he finally let slip from his grasp. Xuthala was dead, her eyes white and wide, her neck crushed.

“Didn’t think he’d ever turn on her, no matter what she did,” Vasquez said.

Lazarus rubbed at the blood on his neck. “What do you mean?”

“Remember the woman I told you he was exiled over? The one who ditched him for another man?”

“Yes.”

Vasquez indicated the corpse of the woman who lay beneath the grieving form of Pahanatuuwa. “You’re looking at her.”

“And Mankanang…”

“Was the other fella. His own brother. What a deuce. They sure deserved each other.”

They heard shots down below and figured that Reynolds had run into Thompson and Kokoharu. They hurried down the stairs and found one dead Confederate and Thompson holding a smoking rifle while looking longingly at the doorway to the temple.

“I aimed for Reynolds but hit one of his troopers instead,” he told them. “Damn it! They went back up the tunnels to the city.”

“Reynolds will be back,” said Lazarus. “And with his whole army now that he knows the way down here. We should get back to the northern temple and warn them.”

Kokoharu looked at Pahanatuuwa. She sensed the great sorrow in his heart and went to embrace him. He grasped her and held her close, but his fierce spirit refused to let any tears escape.

Chapter Seventeen

The Cataclysm

The news that the chief of the northern clan and his wife were dead was met more with shock than mourning back at the northern temple. And the news that the enemy now knew the way down into the kingdom of the
kachinas
set everybody trembling with fear. Tohotavo and the other priests held a council within the temple. The chiefs were called in, and Pahanatuuwa too, which surprised everybody, not least himself. Once the meeting was adjourned, Pahanatuuwa rejoined Lazarus, Vasquez and Katarina, who were sitting on the steps outside.

“The council has decided on a drastic maneuver,” he told them. “If the enemy comes down here in strong numbers, which I believe they will, then we are to abandon the kingdom of the
kachinas
and return topside.”

“You’re just going to let them have the golden cities?” Lazarus asked.

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It makes more sense than all of us dying down here. If Reynolds is so desperate for the golden cities then he can have them. Forever.”

“What do you mean?”

“How much explosives do we have?” he asked Vasquez.

“Plenty after the partisans joined us,” the bandit replied. “They had a load aboard that Worm of theirs. Why?”

“I have explained the power of dynamite to the council. They are keen to see it put to use against the enemy.”

“Wait a minute,” Lazarus said. “If we start tossing dynamite around down here, we’re liable to have the ceiling down on our heads.”

“That’s the idea,” said Pahanatuuwa.

They stared at him, sure that something had been misunderstood. “Come again?” said Vasquez.

“Right above our heads lies the lake,” explained Pahanatuuwa. “If we blow away certain strategic points, we can bring the whole thing down, flooding the tunnels and concealing the golden cities forever. Naturally we will have made our way back to the surface before this happens, leaving Reynolds and his army to perish down here. All would be buried beneath the lake.”

“You can’t do that!” said Katarina. “To render such wealth forever irretrievable is madness!”

Pahanatuuwa glared at her. “The decision is for the council to make. You are all guests here.”

She knew he was right, but Lazarus could sympathize with her outrage at the idea. Unlike him, she still retained some hope of completing her mission, despite the death of Townsend. How could she return to her homeland having taken part in the ruination of the plan to finance the Union?

The remaining partisans were even more outraged than Katarina was once the plan was outlined to their new captain. “Surely there must be another way,” said Thompson. “We can’t just abandon the golden cities!”

“You heard the man,” said Vasquez, referring to Pahanatuuwa. “It’s not up to us. If the council says it is to happen then that’s what will happen.”

“This is ludicrous!” Thompson could be heard muttering as he went to rejoin his troops.

That evening Lazarus and Vasquez drew up a plan of the subterranean kingdom on the lid of a wooden crate, using a stick blackened in the fire. Pahanatuuwa and Tohotavo told them of the weak points in the supports that, if blown, would bring down the lake. They also made some calculations, then set aside an amount of dynamite and enough fuse to give them plenty of time to escape.

“So,” said Vasquez, biting the end off a cigarillo and jamming it in his mouth. “Who is joining this crazy party while all the sane people here get their hides topside?”

Lazarus snatched the match from his fingers before he lit the cigarillo, seated as he was, atop a crate of dynamite. “You, me, and Pahanatuuwa,” he said. “Tohotavo would be invaluable, but I fear his years would not allow him to keep up. It will be a fast run out of here once the fuses are lit.”

“Sure, sure,” said Vasquez, finding a safer spot to sit before fumbling for another match. “What about the Russkie?”

Lazarus looked over towards Katarina, who was helping Kokoharu in the organization of the people for yet another upheaval. “I fear that her views on our plan make her a liability. Thompson also. We’re going at this without them, just the three of us.”

“Fine by me.”

They ate a hearty meal of broth, corn and flatbread, which had been set aside for them from the supplies that had already been packed and sent on up to the northern city. The exodus of people had begun to move too, leaving the golden temple which for days had rung with the sound of a civilization eerily quiet, as it must have stood for generations before. Tohotavo and two of his fellow medicine men remained to bless the three
compañeros
who were about to embark on their mission of madness. They endured the traditional warrior ceremony of the Cibolans; marked with iron manganese and dusted with corn flour while Tohotavo shook his fetish stick to the beating of the rawhide drum.

Once the priests had departed, Lazarus looked at his companions. Pahanatuuwa looked every inch the ferocious Cibolan warrior apart from his metal arm, to which he had affixed a Golgotha rifle, but Vasquez looked like a bizarre clown from somebody’s nightmare, with a pasty face and black shadows smeared around his eyes. Lazarus imagined that he looked somewhat similar, and hoped that they would at least put some fear into their enemy should they come across them in the tunnels.

They set off, carrying the dynamite and fuse upon a primitive cart. The Cibolans had no use for the innovation of the wheel, so they had to hurriedly construct the ramshackle vehicle themselves that afternoon. Pahanatuuwa led the way with his torch held a safe distance away from the cart, while Lazarus and Vasquez pushed it along, cursing the shoddy wooden wheels and feeling the darkness closing in behind them like a shroud as they went deeper and deeper under the lake.

All passageways met at the center of the underground kingdom like the middle point of a cobweb. They moved in a clockwise direction, wiring the dynamite to the wooden supports pointed out on their crude map, trailing the fuse along the passageways as they went. They worked through the night, wiring up the passageways that led to the eastern and southern temples. As they neared the western temple, Lazarus halted in his wiring and strained his ears.

“What is it?” Vasquez asked.

“I can hear voices up ahead.”

They went silent and listened. There was indeed the sound of voices coming down the passageway towards them.

“Reynolds,” said Vasquez.

“Quick!” said Lazarus. “Unwire this lot. Hide the fuse. They mustn’t see what we are doing.”

They stuffed the bundle of dynamite back into the cart and kicked dust over the end of the fuse before hauling their load into one of the nearby storerooms. They had just got the cart and themselves out of sight, when the light of a torch appeared round the corner.

“How long do these damned passageways go on for, General?” asked a drawling southern voice. “I don’t much like creeping about like moles. What if the entrance should collapse and we all get stuck down here?”

“Can it, Major,” said the unmistakable voice of Reynolds. “Those savages manage to live down here without bother. What’s the matter with you? Didn’t you see that temple? There’s seven of those things down here. Enough gold to win the war ten times over and make gentlemen of us all into the bargain. Quit your bellyaching and keep up.”

“I been thinking about these temples, General,” continued the Major. “How are you planning to get the gold topside?”

“We’ll build a winch and derrick system and shift it brick by brick.”

“And ship it out in dirigibles?”

“Too slow. The dirigibles can’t carry all that much gold in a single flight. We’ll finish that railway through the mountains that the Yankees built with that subterranean doohickey of theirs. Most of the work’s been done for us already.”

Lazarus, Vasquez and Pahanatuuwa held their breaths as the company passed by. Once they were gone, Vasquez drew his revolver. “Let me pop him right in the back of the head!”

“No!” hissed Lazarus, grabbing his hand. “We’ve still got work to do and we don’t want half their army coming down here. I only hope they don’t spot any of the dynamite we’ve already rigged up.”

They dragged the stubborn cart back out into the passageway and continued on their mission. Having wired the points furthest west, they abandoned the cart in a store room and headed north, hoping that they would not stumble onto the heels of Reynolds’s party.

“They may have discovered the northern temple by now,” said Vasquez. “How are we planning to bypass them and make our exit?”

“The eastern city is too risky after the battle,” said Lazarus. “It’s a good bet a large part of the Confederate army is loitering around there. We could head down to one of the cities in the valley and walk back north on the surface.”

“As long as it isn’t that island pueblo. I ain’t much of a swimmer.”

Any further discussion on the matter was cut short as footsteps could be heard approaching. They looked around frantically, seeing no handy storeroom they could duck into this time. Hopelessly cornered, they drew their weapons and prepared for the worst.

They had the element of surprise on the Confederates who rounded the corner, and opened fire before their enemy could even draw their weapons. The tunnel was filled with shouts and deafening roars of pistols and the
boom-boom!
of Pahanatuuwa’s Golgotha. Several gray-shirts fell dead and in the flashes, Lazarus saw the black face of Thompson, his eyes livid with terror.

Two Confederates were left alive, and they stumbled over the corpses of their comrades, firing as they retreated. They had left their prisoner behind them, squirming in the dust. His hands were bound behind his back.

“Thompson!” exclaimed Vasquez. “What the Hell are you doing here?”

“Came to join you,” the partisan replied. “But Reynolds’s men captured me. Will one of you please untie me?”

Vasquez released him and helped him to his feet, but eyed him suspiciously.

“Where were they taking you, Thompson?” Lazarus asked.

“West temple, I figure.”

“So the north temple is taken?”

“As good as having the bars ‘n’ stars flying from its tip. Reynolds is on his way there.”

“We almost ran into him. And why the sudden change of heart? You made your opinion of our plan plain enough earlier.”

Thompson shrugged. “Couldn’t leave you three to die at the hands of my enemies. Besides, I came within a hair’s breadth of killing Reynolds before and I don’t want to miss that chance again.”

Something didn’t feel at all right about Thompson’s story, but they had no time to argue. The tunnels beneath the northern half of the lake were clearly infested with Confederates. They quickly referred to their map and made for the tunnels that led to the central cities. But the two Confederates who had got away had returned with reinforcements and were in hot pursuit.

They reached a junction in the tunnel complex and were momentarily confused as to which direction to take. That was all their pursuers needed to catch up with them, and soon a second furious gunfight broke out in the tunnels. Lazarus slammed his back against a corner while Vasquez and Pahanatuuwa did the same on the opposite side of the corridor. Thompson, caught in the middle, made a run for the Confederates yelling, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! It’s me! Kill them before they light the fuse and destroy us all!”

A bullet hit him square in the back and hurled him to the ground. Lazarus hadn’t seen the other two fire. A figure in a dress swept through the gun smoke like a phantom, the barrel of her long revolver adding to the fug of battle.