The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (2 page)

Norba had both hated and feared Lok-sha, but had no heart for a fight with the
jyabo.
Yet had Lok-sha left no heir, Norba would have become chief.

The impending shift to new grazing grounds promised trouble. A faction of the Khang-sar led by Norba wished to go to Tosun Nor, but Lok-sha had decided, under the present circumstances, it was better to graze far from the caravan trails and let a season go by without raids. The new soldiers from the east were not the undisciplined rabble of old. Something was afoot in China proper, and Lok-sha had thought it best to gather more information before testing fate. Moreover, there had been rumors of serious drought around Tosun Nor, and drought meant losses from the herds.

She seated herself beside Kulan, with Tsan-Po beside her, and Shambe seated on the other side of her son. Norba had moved to take the seat of
jyabo,
but Kulan was before him. Norba’s face flushed angrily when he saw the boy take the seat where he wished to sit.

“Move, boy. Go play with the children.”

Kulan sat very straight. “Unless it is decided otherwise, I am
jyabo,
” he replied. “Until then, take your place.”

For an instant there was utter stillness, then a mutter from the followers of Norba, but Kulan ignored them. Glancing at her son, Anna Doone was astonished. Truly, he looked every inch the young king. There was strength in him, of that there would be no doubt, strength and courage.

Norba hesitated, then reluctantly took a seat. Anna could see his repressed fury and knew there was trouble to come. It was well that they were leaving. The thought of escape from all this sent a little tremor of excitement through her, excitement tinged with relief.

The yurt filled and the air was stifling. Anna studied the faces of the chieftains, but they were expressionless. Would they follow Kulan, or would they demand an older, more experienced leader?

Tsan-Po whispered to her that most of those within the tent were supporters of Norba, and Anna Doone felt inside her coat for the pistol she was never without.

Their very lives might depend on the selection of Kulan as
jyabo,
for if Norba were able to take power, he would at once seek to rid himself of his rival. It would not be without precedence if Norba attempted to kill Kulan here, now. Her hand on her pistol, Anna suddenly knew that if Norba even moved toward her son, she would kill him.

She accepted some tea, drinking from a bowl that had come to Tibet from India in the dower of a princess, more than a thousand years before. In those years, Tibet had controlled most of western China, as well as part of India and Kashmir.

Abruptly, without waiting for the others to assemble, Norba declared himself. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we will move to Tosun Nor to pasture upon the old lands.”

There was silence as he looked around the yurt. That silence held for a slow minute, and then Kulan said one word.

“No.”

The word was definite, the tone clear, the challenge accepted.

Norba’s face flushed with anger, but Kulan spoke before Norba could frame a word.

“There is drought at Tosun Nor. The grass lies yellow and dead, the air is filled with dust. The beds of streams are cracked earth. We must go to the mountains, to the Yur-tse.”

Again Norba prepared to speak, but Kulan interrupted. “My father is dead, but I am my father’s son. We rode upon the high grass together and he taught me what I must do.”

For the first time, he looked at Norba. “You are
deba
of two hundred tents. You may ride with us or go to Tosun Nor. I would advise you to come with us.”

Norba looked around at his followers. “We are men, and not to be led by a boy. It is I who shall lead the Khang-sar. When you are of an age to lead,” he added slyly, “you may lead.”

Tsan-Po spoke. “The boy is his father’s son. Leadership falls upon him.”

Norba got to his feet. “Enough! I say that I shall lead. I say it, and my men say it.”

Kulan arose, and Shambe and Anna arose with him. Anna held her gun in her hand. “The Ku-ts’a stand without,” Shambe said, “and they follow Kulan…Unless all the chieftains say otherwise.”

Norba’s lips flattened against his big teeth, and for an instant Anna thought he would strike Kulan despite the fact that the bodyguards surrounded the tent. The Ku-ts’a numbered fifty-eight chosen men, the hereditary guard of the
jyabo.
Norba had not expected the Ku-ts’a. With the
jyabo
dead, he had believed they would accept the situation.

He slammed his sword back into its scabbard. “We will go to Tosun Nor,” he said. “You are fools.”

“Go, if you will,” Kulan replied, “and those who survive are welcome to return. Our herds will be fat upon the long grass of the limestone mountains.”

With a pang, Anna realized that Kulan was no longer a boy. The discipline had been strict and the training harsh, but he was every inch a king. Yet she was impatient, for their time was short, and if the plane were discovered, the fliers would be killed and they would be condemned to more fruitless, wasted years.

Alone at last, she said to him, “What was all that about the drought at Tosun Nor?”

“It had been rumored, so while you talked to the old man of your people, I asked the other. He spoke of dense clouds of dust high in the heavens, and of sheep and horses lying dead from starvation and thirst.”

He paused. “It is well that Norba goes, for when he returns, if he returns, his power will be broken.”

He glanced at her slyly, his face warming with a smile. “My mother taught me to listen, to question when in doubt, and to keep my thoughts until the time for speaking.”

After Kulan was asleep, she went outside the yurt and stood alone under the stars. There was moonlight upon the snows of the God Mountain, reflected moonlight that seemed born from some inner glory within the mountain itself.

She thought of home, of the quiet college town and the autumn leaves falling. It had been almost twenty years, but tomorrow they would fly over the mountains to India. To a fine hotel, a room of her own, a hot bath, and a real bed…it was impossible to imagine such things still existed.

For fifteen years she had been virtually a prisoner. True, Lok-sha had treated her well, and she had been respected among the Go-log, but their ways were strange, and her nights had been given up to dreaming of home.

The thought of Norba returned. If Kulan was gone, he would be in control, and would probably lead the Khang-sar Go-log to disaster. Lok-sha had always said he was a stubborn fool.

No matter. It was now or never. It was impossible that another opportunity would occur, for travel was restricted. No Europeans or Americans would be flying over this country. It was her last chance.

She looked around at the sleeping encampment. She would miss it. Lok-sha, despite their differences of background, had been a superior man. If he had been slow to appreciate her feelings, there had been no cruelty in him.

The icy peak was austere in its bath of moonlight; it was taller than Everest, some said, yet it gave an impression of bulk rather than height. It was no wonder the Go-log called it the God Mountain.

Tsan-Po was walking toward her. “Do you go tomorrow?”

She had ceased to be startled by his awareness of things. “Yes.”

“You have been long away…does someone await you there?”

“No.”

“We will miss you, and we will miss Kulan.”

“He goes to a great land. He will do well, I think.”

“Here he is a king. Ours is a small king, but even a small king is still a king.”

She felt the reproof of his tone, and together they watched the moonlight on Amne Machin. “He will make a strong man,” the lama said, “a stronger man and a better leader than Lok-sha.”

She was surprised. “Do you really believe that?”

“You have taught him much, and he has character. We Go-log face a trying time, for as the world changes, even we must change.

“Kulan has a sense of the world. You taught him of your land and of Europe, and I have told him of India, where I worked as a young man. He is schooled in the arts of war and statecraft, and I believe it is in him to be a great leader.”

He was silent, then added, “Your country could use a friend here.”

“Do you believe I am wrong to take him away?”

“We need him,” Tsan-Po replied simply, “and he needs you. For several years yet, he will need you.”

The lama turned away. “It is late.” He took a step, then paused. “Beware of Norba. You have not finished with him.”

When morning dawned, they rode swiftly to the hidden trucks. What Lok-sha planned to do with the trucks, she did not know, but presumably he intended to use them as a trap for Chinese soldiers.

She started the truck with difficulty for the motor was cold. There was no road, but the turf was solid, and she had driven on the prairie during her childhood in Montana. The old Army six-by-six was no problem.

Kulan followed, holding off to one side and leading her horse.

Keeping to low ground and circling to avoid gullies or patches of rock, she needed all of an hour to reach the plane.

The pilot and Dr. Schwarzkopf rushed to the tailgate and started to unload the cans. As soon as the truck was empty, Anna drove back for a second truck, and by the time she had returned, the cans of the first had been emptied into the tanks of the plane.

Yet they had scarcely begun on the second load when Shambe came down off the ridge where he had been on watch. Kulan, also watching from a quarter of a mile away, wheeled his mount and raced back at a dead run, drawing his rifle from its scabbard.

“Norba comes,” Shambe said, “with many men.”

Schwarzkopf dropped his jerry can and started for his rifle, but Anna’s gesture stopped him. “Finish refueling,” she said, and when he hesitated, “Doctor, put that gun down and get busy!”

Kulan swung his pony alongside her as she mounted, and Shambe drew upon the other side. They sat together, awaiting the oncoming riders.

Norba’s horse reared as he drew up, a hard pleasure in his eyes. “So…you are traitors. I shall kill you.”

Anna Doone’s heart pounded heavily, yet she kept all emotion from her face. Her son’s life, as well as her own, was at stake.

“These men are our friends. We help them on their way,” she said.

“And I shall decide who is and is not a traitor,” Kulan added.

From behind them the pilot said, “One more can does it.”

Anna’s heart lifted. Behind her was the plane that could take her home, the rescue of which she had dreamed for fifteen years. The time was here, the time was now.

The sky beckoned, and beyond the mountains lay India, the threshold to home.

“Go with them, Mother.” Kulan’s eyes did not turn from Norba. “I cannot, for these are my people.”

Her protest found no words. How often had she taught him that kingship was an obligation rather than a glory?

Her eyes swung around the semicircle of savage faces, and then for one brief instant the dream remained, shimmering before her eyes: a warm quiet house, a hot bath, meals prepared from food from a market, life without fear of disease or crippling disfigurement, life without war.

“Dr. Schwarzkopf,” she said, “you will leave your rifles and ammunition, they are in short supply here.”

“If you are going,” Kulan said, “you must go now.”

“If these are your people, Kulan, then they are my people also.”

The winding caravan of Norba’s people appeared, heading north toward Tosun Nor. She should have remembered they would come this way.

Dr. Schwarzkopf brought the weapons and the ammunition. “You will not come with us, then?”

“I can’t. This is my son.”

“You will die,” Norba said. His eyes flickered over the three he hated—the wife of Lok-sha, the leader of the Ku-ts’a, and the boy who stood between him and the kingship.

Norba’s rifle started to lift, and Shambe’s started up with it, but Kulan put out a hand to stop the movement, then stepped his horse toward Norba and looked into his eyes.

“I am
jyabo,
” he said. “I am your king.”

For an instant Norba’s rifle held still, then slowly it lowered. With an oath, Norba whirled his horse and dashed away, followed by his men.

Behind them the motors broke into a roar, and throwing up a vast cloud of dust, the plane rolled off, gathered speed, then soared up and away, toward India, toward home.

“You should have let me kill him,” Shambe said.

“No, Shambe,” Kulan replied, “many go to die, but those who remain will remember that I spoke truth.”

Three abreast, they rode to the crest of the ridge and halted. The caravan of Norba’s followers moved north toward the great lake known as Tosun Nor, moved toward drought and death.

Anna Doone, born in Montana, looked beyond them to a bright fleck that hung in the sky. Sunlight gleamed for an instant on a wingtip…then it winked out and was gone, leaving only a distant mutter of engines that echoed against the mountains.

May There Be a Road

T
ohkta looked at the bridge suspended across the gorge of the Yurung-kash. After four years, the bridge hung again, and now, at last, he could go to his betrothed, to Kushla.

At this point the gorge was scarcely a hundred feet wide, but black cliffs towered into the clouds above it, even as they fell sheer away hundreds of yards below. Down those cliffs came the trails that approached the bridge on either side. From where the bridge came into view from above, it seemed the merest thread…a thin line for which the eye must seek and seek again.

Scarcely four feet wide, the bridge was built of their handmade rope, of slats cut from pine forests, and of thin planks laid across the slats. With every gust of wind the bridge swayed, but those who had built it hoped that it would be their lifeline to the outside world.

Tohkta’s people were of the mountains, yet once each year they had descended to the oasis towns at the desert’s edge, taking the furs, the wool and hides, for which they were known. The gold they sometimes took was a secret thing. In the timeless kingdom of their mountain valleys the bridge was their link to the future.

Only once in all the years their tribal memory encompassed had the bridge not been there, hanging five hundred feet above the tumbling white water. And for too long had Tohkta’s people been isolated by its loss.

Four…almost five years before there had come a great shaking of the earth when the mountains raised higher, and steam and hot water gushed from newly made cracks. There had been a grinding of rock when the teeth of the earth were gnashed together. In the midst of it, the pinnacle that supported their bridge had toppled from the far side of the Yurung-kash into the gorge below.

There followed years of struggle against the high rocks and the torrent, years of terrible work to replace their bridge. Fields still had to be tilled and flocks tended, but two men had been dashed to death on the jagged rocks below when they fell from their ropes. Yet now the bridge was done.

The Kunlun Mountains rim the northern edge of Tibet, hanging above the deserts of Sinkiang, and are among the loneliest of the world’s mountain ranges. Long, long ago when Tohkta’s grandfather was a boy, a rare caravan still ventured along the ancient track that led from Sinkiang across Tibet and through the Himalayas to India itself, passing close to Mount Kailas, sacred to Buddhists.

For centuries that ancient track had been almost abandoned. Only yak hunters, as wild and strange as the creatures they hunted, used it now, or an occasional herdsman taking his flock to secret pasturage in the high mountain valleys.

Tohkta sat his horse beside his grandfather, Batai Khan, chieftain of their small tribe of fifty-six tents. This was a proud day, for today Tohkta rode to claim his bride from her father, Yakub, a wealthy Moslem trader. He glanced at his grandfather with pride, for the old man sat his horse like a boy despite his almost one hundred years. Fierce and fiery as always, the Khan was the oldest among a people known for their great age and their great strength.

Few outsiders ever came to know the mountain Tochari, remnants of a proud, warlike race that had ruled most of eastern Turkestan and much of western China. In ages past they had carried their banners against Mongol and Chinese, against Tungan and Turk, against the Tatar and Hun.

Slowly the column of twenty riders and their pack animals crossed the swinging bridge, and Batai Khan did not start up the trail until all were safely across.

“Yol Bolsun!”
he called out, waving to the people of the village who lined the switchback trail on the other side of the gorge. It was an old greeting to those who rode the mountain trails: “May There Be a Road!”

And now, for the first time in four long years, there
was
a road. The home of the Tochari was an island in mountains, cut off by the deep gorges of the Yurung-kash and the Keriya, and at its ends by impassable slopes. Within there lay more than one hundred square miles of grassy valleys, forest glades, waterfalls, and grass-covered mountain pastures. It was an isolated paradise among the snow-covered peaks, but now it was isolated no longer.

T
OHKTA WAS IMPATIENT
. Kushla awaited in the ancient oasis town of Kargalik, and how many were the nights he had remained awake to dream of her? Batai Khan and Yakub had arranged the match, but since their eyes first met, neither Tohkta nor Kushla had thoughts for another.

Yet four full years had gone by when no word could be received from her, nor sent to her.

“She will have forgotten me,” Tohkta said gloomily. “It has been forever.”

“She was a child,” Batai Khan replied, “now she will be a woman, and so much the better. You are not forgotten, believe me.” He glanced around at his handsome grandson. “I, who know women, say it. You have been a dream to her, and who can forget a dream?”

In the days that followed the finishing of the bridge Tola Beg, an ancient yak hunter, had been the first to cross, and he brought strange news. Chinese soldiers of a new kind had come to Sinkiang and to Tibet. The Dalai Lama had fled to India, and soldiers were in Khotan and Kargalik as well as Lhasa. People had been driven from their farms and their flocks to work upon a new road, harnessed like yak or camels.

“Do not go, Batai Khan.” Tola Beg peered across the fire from his ancient, rheumy eyes, his skin withered and weathered by wind and cold, darkened by wind and sun. “They will imprison you and seize your goods.”

“It is the time for the marriage of Tohkta.”

“There is danger. The Chinese seek the ancient track to India but it is not India they want; it is the men of our mountains they would enslave.” Tola Beg gulped his yak-butter tea noisily, as was the custom. “They respect nothing and they have no God. The mosques and lamaseries are closed and the lamas driven to work in the fields. The prayer wheels are stilled and there is a curse on the land.”

“I can go alone,” Tohkta said. “I will take the gold and go for Kushla.”

“We are Tochari.” Batai Khan spoke with dignity. “Does a khan of Tochari go like a thief in the night to meet his betrothed?”

They were Tochari. That was the final word among them. Tohkta knew the history of his people, and much more had been told him by an Englishman. In ages past it was said some of his people had migrated from Central Asia, going westward to become the Greeks and the Celts. Others had gone into northern India, to settle there, driven by the Hiung Nu, known to western nations as the Hun.

The Englishman had dug in ancient refuse piles along the ruins of the Great Wall, searching for bits of wood or paper on which there was writing. He had told Tohkta these fragments would piece together the history of the area, and of the Tochari. He glanced at Tohkta’s dark red hair and green eyes, a coloring not uncommon among these people of the mountains, and said the Tochari were a people who made history.

Batai Khan had rebuked him gently. “We know our past, and need not dig in dung piles for it. If you would know it, too, come sit by our fires and our bards will sing for you.”

And now they rode to claim the bride of Tohkta, for a khan of the Tochari must ride with warriors at his back and gold to consummate the union. Raw and cold was the weather, for the season was late. Soon the high passes would be closed, and the mountain basins would brim full with snow.

I
T WAS MIDNIGHT
on the third day when they reached the outskirts of the ancient town, crossing the road by which silk had once been carried to Greece and Rome. They drew up in a grove of trees and waited as the moon set beyond the desert hills. Tohkta was impatient to push on to the town, for eagerness rode his shoulders with sharp spurs. But Batai Khan had the caution of years.

Old as he was, he sat erect in his saddle, and the broadsword he carried slung between his shoulders was a mighty weapon in his hands. “The town has a different smell,” he said, “there is trouble here.”

“I must go to the house of Yakub,” Tohkta said. “Tola Beg can come. If help is needed, he can return for you.”

The Khan paused a moment, then nodded.

The house of Yakub was the largest in the oasis, and Tola Beg led the way on foot. Wind rustled among the tamarisks as they skirted an irrigation ditch. Beside Tohkta the old yak hunter moved, silent as a
djinn.
Tohkta, who had stalked wild sheep upon the highest peaks, was hard put to keep pace with the old man.

Outside the nearby
Ya-men,
which was the government house, stood vehicles that smelled of greasy smoke and petrol. Tohkta had seen them before, in Khotan. There were soldiers there also, reflected light gleaming from their gun barrels. They were fine rifles that filled Tohkta’s mind with envy.

“The old wolf was right,” Tola Beg breathed in his ear, “the town stinks of danger.”

The town was different, very different. The fires in the foundry were out and the alley of the bazaar was dirty and neglected. Everywhere there were horses and trucks and soldiers and supplies. Even in the violent days after the murder of the old governor, when the fighting between the Nationalists and the Moslem generals was at its worst, there hadn’t been this many armed men in Kargalik.

“The forces of history are at work here,” Tola Beg mumbled. “And that is something to avoid.” They moved on through the darkness and then drew up.

Tohkta crouched in the shadows, listening. Before him was the wall of the compound of Kushla’s father. Soon he would see her. His heart pounded with excitement.

Creeping like wild dogs to a sheepfold, they came into the yard. Here, too, they heard the language of the Han Chinese, and one voice that made Tohkta’s hair prickle on his scalp…a voice with the harsh tone of command. Neither of them spoke Mandarin, for Sinkiang is a land of many tongues, Chinese the least of them, but both knew its sound.

The house of Yakub, yet filled with Han soldiers. Tola Beg tugged at his arm. They must steal away while they had the chance.

But where then was Yakub? And where was Kushla?

“We must go. They have taken it for their own use,” Tola Beg whispered in his ear.

Tohkta moved back into the darkness, his thoughts racing over possible alternatives. Then it came to him, and he knew where they would be if they were alive and still in Kargalik.

I
T WAS AN ANCIENT
Buddhist temple, fallen to ruins, rebuilt, and ruined again. Sometimes Yakub had used it for a storehouse, and Kushla loved the ancient trees around it. There was shelter there, and a good spring nearby. They made their way through the dark town and approached with caution.

“Look!” Tola Beg caught his arm. “The spotted horse…it is the old one the girl loved. At least they left her that.”

Why not? The horse was almost as old as Kushla herself, who would be eighteen this year.

Leaving Tola Beg, he moved swiftly, glancing each way, then listening. Like a wraith, Tohkta slipped past the yak hide that hung over the door.

In the vague light from the charcoal brazier he saw her, and on the instant he entered she looked up. She stood swiftly, poised like a young deer, ready for flight. And then she looked into his eyes and came into his arms without shame.

Yakub got to his feet. He was in rags. The one room of the temple that still possessed a roof held only a few sacks and some bedding. Yakub had been a proud and wealthy man, but was so no longer.

“Go, Tohkta! Go, quickly! If you are found here—!”

From his shirt, Tohkta drew the sack of gold. “The marriage price,” he said. “I claim my bride.”

How lovely she was! Her dark eyes glowed, her figure under the thin garments was so lithe and eager. The years he had waited had brought her to womanhood, and to a loveliness he could scarcely believe. He tried to say all this.

“If you think I am beautiful after all that has happened, then our parents have chosen well,” she said.

“Please go!” Yakub seized his elbow. “For the sake of my daughter, take her and go. The gold also. If they find it they will take it, anyway.”

“What has happened here?”

“The Red soldiers, the ones that we heard of but who never came, they have come at last. They take everything and say it is for the future. Whose future? What future? I do not understand them, for until they came, we were happy. All we wished was to tend our flocks in peace. Now they are moving into the mountains, more soldiers arrive every day.”

“Batai Khan awaits us. Come, we will gather your flocks as we go, and you can live among us. I would not have my bride mourning her father on her wedding night.”

Kushla handed him her bundle and they turned swiftly to the door. Then Kushla caught a cry in her throat, and Tohkta felt rage and despair crowding within him.

The man who stood in the doorway was small with square shoulders and a neatly perfect uniform. Slender, he seemed to have that whiplike strength that resists all exhaustion. His cold eyes inspected Tohkta with careful attention.

“Greetings.” He stepped into the ruins of the room, and behind him were two soldiers armed with submachine guns. “Greetings to Yakub and his lovely daughter. Greetings to you, hillman. That is what you are, am I correct?” He spoke Tungan, and spoke it well. Tohkta said nothing.

“Answer me…” He pulled a small automatic from a holster. “Or I will shoot Yakub in the foot.” He flicked the gun’s safety off.

“Yes,” said Tohkta. “I am from the hills.”

“Very good. I am Chu Shih.” He said this as if it were a fact that explained itself. “We have been waiting for you. Waiting quite awhile. We knew that this woman was betrothed to a young man from the Kunlun. I could have sent her and her father to a labor camp, but I wanted to meet you. Our destinies are intertwined, you see. Would you like to know how?”

Tohkta quietly assented. He was listening, listening to Chu Shih and listening for sounds from outside the building. There were more men out there, but how many he didn’t know.

“You can have the opportunity of serving the people of China. I’m sure you do not care…but you will. There is a secret track over the mountains to India. It is the track used by Abu Bakr in the sixteenth century when he fled from Khotan. It is also my gateway to the mountain people. Do you know this track?”