The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (58 page)

The amphibian, he noticed, had been loaded with bombs. It was carrying six. He let one go as he swung in toward the field, another over the sheds, then he swung around, and in a rattle of machine-gun fire, let go two more over Castillo Norden. As the plane circled away, they could look back and see flames leaping high.

Peligro was at the plane’s radio, and now his eyes brightened.

“They are coming!” he said excitedly. “Your navy is coming!”

They landed once more on the small lake near Fortaleza and started back toward the city.

P
ONGA
J
IM
M
AYO’S FACE
was cut and swollen. Peligro looked tired, and Carisa Montoya walked almost in a dream. Only Armando Fontes looked the same; his round, fat face was sullen, his eyes somber when they passed the light of a window.

The streets were empty. Two bodies lay in the gutter where they had fallen earlier, and the sidewalks were littered with broken glass. A heavy smell of smoke from the explosion and fire tainted the air, and the waters of the bay were littered with wreckage. It was almost day, but the moon was still bright.

In the vague light the streets looked like those of a long-deserted city. Yet as they rounded a corner, a file of soldiers in Brazilian uniforms turned into the street from the opposite direction. They marched past, stepping briskly along, a cool, efficient, soldierly body of men. “That means that Vargas acted,” Ponga Jim said. “Everything will be over soon enough.”

They reached the steps of the hotel and started in when two men came out. One was Major Wagnalls from Natal. The other was Slug Brophy, Jim’s chief mate.

The major smiled and held out a hand. “So you made it! One of our boys just radioed word that Castillo Norden was in flames, the hangars destroyed, and three planes burning on the field.

“A transport landed there a few minutes ago from Rio. Von Hardt has been arrested by Major Palmer, and they found Hugo Busch beaten unconscious. A mechanic said you did it.” Wagnalls looked at Jim. “I didn’t think anybody could do that.”

“Neither did I,” Mayo said simply. “I guess I was lucky.”

“What about Don Pedro?” Peligro interrupted. “He is the one we want.”

Wagnalls’s brow creased. “That’s the missing item. He escaped. It doesn’t matter, for the government will confiscate his holdings here, so his power is broken. But I dislike to see him free.

“Especially,” he added, “since Señorita Montoya will soon be known as a government agent…President Vargas was suspicious, and Miss Montoya knowing Don Pedro, volunteered to investigate.”

“What I want to know,” Mayo demanded, “is how they captured my ship?”

Brophy grinned sheepishly. “Duro, the port captain, Du Silva, and an army officer came out. They had three girls along, so we didn’t expect trouble.

“They came aboard, and Duro said he had to search my cabin for dope. We started for the cabin. No sooner had we left the deck than men came up the ladder and deployed about the deck.”

“There’s still some fighting going on but all the principal plotters are taken care of but Don Pedro,” Wagnalls said. “But we’ll have him soon.”

“I don’t think so.”

Ponga Jim Mayo felt himself turn cold. His back was to the speaker, but he needed no more than those few words to tell him who it was. The voice had been low, but heavy with menace. He turned.

Thirty feet away, Don Pedro Norden stood in the street near the mouth of a narrow alleyway. In his hands he held a submachine gun. His brilliantly conceived plot had fallen to pieces, the men he hated had won. Yet he had a gun, and the little group before the hotel were covered, helpless.

Norden’s clothing was torn and bloody, his face looked thinner, harder, more brutal. If ever a man was seething with hate, it was this one. Never in his life, Jim knew, had he been so close to death. The man was fairly trembling with triumph and killing fury. The architects of his defeat—Juan Peligro, Major Wagnalls, Brophy, Carisa, and Ponga Jim—were all in range. He could in one burst of fire wipe the slate clean of his enemies.

Norden’s teeth bared in a grimace of hate, and when he spoke his voice was choked with emotion. “Perhaps I will be captured, but not yet….”

The submachine gun lifted, and Jim thought that even at that distance he could see the man’s finger tighten.

A gun roared, and the submachine gun began to chatter, but the muzzle had fallen, and the bullets merely bit against the stones of the street and ripped the dust into little fountains of fury.

Don Pedro Norden, a great black hole between his eyes, the back of his head blown away, fell slowly on his face.

Turning, they saw Armando Fontes, the big pistol clutched in his right hand, leaning nonchalantly against a corner. With a match in his cupped left hand, he was lighting a cigarette.

For a long moment, they stared, relief soaking through them. Ponga Jim looked at the disreputable little man.

“All right, Armando,” he asked. “Tell us. Who are you agent for? What’s your part in this?”

Fontes shrugged, his eyes lidded. He drew on his cigarette and took the occasion to slip the big gun back into his waistband.

“I, señor? I am but a little man. A little man who likes his government.”

He turned, and with a deprecating wave of his hand, walked down the street, and away.

Pirates of the Sky

T
urk Madden came in toward the coast of Erromanga at an elevation of about three thousand feet. The Grumman amphibian handled nicely, and flying in the warm sunshine over the Coral Sea was enough to put anyone in a good mood. Especially when Tony Yorke and Angela waited at the end of the trip in the bungalow by Polenia Bay. A night of good company, especially Angela’s, would take his worries away. The war in Asia was expanding. Someday soon America would be involved, and all this—the express freight and passenger business he had worked so hard to build—would be no more.

Curiously, Turk’s eyes swung to the interior. The island was only about twenty-five miles long, and perhaps ten wide, yet it was almost unknown except for a few isolated spots along either coast. Several times, he had considered taking time out to fly over the island and down its backbone.

Madden shrugged. Flying freight, even when you were working for yourself, didn’t leave much time or gas for exploring. When he saw Traitor’s Head looming up before him, he banked slightly, and put the ship into a steep glide that carried it into Polenia Bay. Deftly, he banked again, swinging into the cove, and trimmed the Grumman for a landing. It was then he saw the body.

The ship skimmed the water, slapped slightly, and ran in toward the wharf, but Turk Madden’s eyes were narrowed and thoughtful. Violence in the New Hebrides was bad medicine and there, floating on the waters of the cove, almost in the bay now, was the body of a native with his head half blown away.

None of Yorke’s boys came running to meet him. Instead, a white man in soiled white trousers and a blue shirt came walking down to the wharf. He was a big man, and he wore a heavy automatic in a shoulder holster.

T
URK CUT THE MOTOR
, and tossed the man a line, then dropped his anchor. He was thinking rapidly. But when he stepped up on the wharf, his manner was casual.

“Hello,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve met you before. Where’s Yorke?”

“Yorke?” The big man’s eyes were challenging. He lit a cigarette before he answered, then snapped the match into the water with studied insolence. “He sold out. He sold this place to me. He left two weeks ago.”

“Sold out?” Madden was incredulous. “Where’d he go? Sydney?”

“No,” the man said slowly. “He bought passage on a trading schooner. He was going to loaf around the islands awhile, then wind up in Suva or Pago Pago.”

“That’s funny,” Madden said, rubbing his jaw. “He ordered some stuff from me. Told me to fly it in for him. Some books, medicine, food supplies, and clothes.”

“Yeah,” the big man nodded. “My name is Karchel. He told me he had some stuff coming in. My price included that.”

“You made a nice buy,” Turk said. “Well, maybe I can do some business with you once in a while.”

“Yeah,” Karchel said. “Maybe you can.” His eyes turned to the plane. “Nice ship you got there. Those Grumman amphibs do about two hundred, don’t they?”

“Most of them,” Madden said shortly. “This was an experimental job. Too expensive, so they didn’t make any more. But she’s a honey. She’ll do two forty at top speed.”

“Well,” Karchel said, “you might as well come up and have a drink. No use unloading that boat right now. An hour will do. I expect you want to get away before sundown.”

He turned and strolled carelessly up the path toward the bungalow, and Turk Madden followed. His face was expressionless, but his mind was teeming. If there was one thing that wouldn’t happen, it would be Tony Yorke selling out.

Tony and Angela, he was sure, loved their little home on Polenia Bay. If they had told him that once, they had told him fifty times.

Now this man, Karchel, something about his face was vaguely familiar, but Turk couldn’t recall where he had seen it before.

“You don’t sound Dutch,” Karchel said suddenly. “You’re an American, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” Turk said. “My name is Madden. Turk Madden.”

Instantly, he realized he had made a mistake. The man’s eyes came up slowly, and involuntarily they glanced quickly at the brush behind Turk. Another guy, behind me, Turk thought. But Karchel smiled.

“I heard that name,” he said. “Weren’t you the guy who made all that trouble for Johnny Puccini back in Philly?”

Sure, Turk thought. That would be it. How the devil could he ever have forgotten the name of Steve Karchel? Shot his way out of the pen once, stuck up the Tudor Trust Company for $70,000, the right-hand man of Harry Wissler.

“If you want to call it that,” Turk said. He stepped up beside Karchel. “Johnny was a tough cookie, but he wanted to organize all the mail pilots. I was working for Uncle Sam, and nobody tells me where to get off.”

Karchel dropped his cigarette in the gravel path.

“No?” he said. “Nobody tells you, huh?”

Two men had come out of the brush with Thompson submachine guns. They looked tough. Covered all the time, Turk thought. Those guys had it on me. I must be slipping. Aloud, he said:

“You boys got a nice place here.” He looked around. “A right nice place.”

“Yeah,” Karchel chuckled coldly. “Lucky Yorke was ready to sell.” He motioned up the steps. “But come on in. Big Harry will be wanting to see the guy who thumbed his nose at the Puccini mob.”

Turk walked up the steps and then the mosquito netting flopped from the door, and a man stepped out. He was a slim, wiry man with a narrow face. His eyes were almost white, his hair lank and blond. He was neatly dressed in a suit of white silk, and there was a gun stuck in his waistband.

“Who’s this punk?” he snapped. “Didn’t I tell you if you found any more to cool ’em off?”

“This guy’s different, Chief,” Karchel said. “He’s a flyer. Just flew in here with some stuff for Yorke. I told him how we bought the place, and the stuff would come to us.”

“Oh?” Big Harry Wissler sneered. “You did, did you?” He stepped up to Madden, his white eyes narrowed. “Well, he lied. We wanted this spot, so we just moved in. Some of these damned niggers got in the way, so we wiped ’em out.”

“What about Yorke?” Turk said. “And Angela?”

Wissler’s eyes gleamed. “What? What did you say? Who’s this Angela?”

Madden could have kicked himself for a fool. Somehow then, Angela Yorke had managed to get away.

“What d’you mean?” Wissler snapped. “Speak up, you damn fool! Was there a woman here? We heard she’d left!”

“She had,” Madden said quickly. “I didn’t think.”

“Oh? You didn’t think!” Wissler sneered. Then he wheeled, his eyes blazing. “You idiots get out an’ find that woman! Find her if you tear the place apart. The one who finds her gets a grand. If you don’t have her by night, somebody gets killed, see?”

The man was raging, his white face flushed crimson, and his small eyes glowed like white-hot bits of steel.

“Take this punk away. Put him somewhere. I’ll take care of him later.”

Karchel’s hand was shaking when he took Turk’s gun. The two men with tommy guns covered him so he was powerless. Then, they hurried him from the verandah and down to a big copra shed.

“The chief ’s got the willies,” Karchel said. “We better watch our step.”

“Why stick with him?” Turk said. “You’ll get it in the neck yourselves, if you aren’t careful.”

“You shut your trap,” Karchel snapped abruptly. “I would’ve burned if he hadn’t helped me out of the pen. You couldn’t leave him, anyway. He’s got eight or ten million hid away. He’d follow you till the last dime was gone. He’d get you. Nobody ever hated like that guy.”

B
EHIND THE COPRA
shed a steep cliff reared up from the jungle growth, lifting a broken, ugly escarpment of rock at least two hundred feet. Here and there vines covered the side of the precipice, and from the rear of the shed to the foot of the cliff was a dense tangle. Once, three months ago, Turk had helped Yorke find an injured dog back in that tangle.

A sudden thought came to him with that memory.

“Damn! My plane’s sinking!” he shouted.

Karchel stopped abruptly, staring. Madden swung, and his big fist caught the gunman on the angle of the jaw, then he leaped around the corner of the copra shed and ran!

Behind him rose a shout of anger, then one of the men who had been with Karchel sprang past the corner and jerked up his submachine gun. Turk hit the ground rolling, heard bullets buzzing around him like angry bees, one kicking mud into his face. Then he was around the corner and into the brush. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled between the spidery roots of a huge mangrove, wormed his way around the bole of the tree, and then on through another.

He halted, breathing hard, and began to work his way along more carefully. This was the way the dog had come, trying to find a place to die in peace. Almost before he realized it, he found himself at the foot of the cliff.

Again he halted, pulled aside a drapery of vines. He stepped quickly into a crack in the rock and found himself in a chimney of granite, its walls jagged and broken. It led straight up for over two hundred feet. Carefully, taking his time, he began to climb.

It was nearly a half hour later that he came out on top, and without waiting to look back, walked quickly into the jungle and started for the top of Traitor’s Head.

He had been climbing for some time when he heard the movement. Instantly, he dropped flat on his face and rolled over into the grass beside the trail. The movement came to him again, and he edged along in the brush, peered out.

A
GIRL WAS COMING
down the trail, moving carefully. In one hand she gripped a sharpened stick, a crude weapon, but it could be a dangerous one.

“Angela!” he gasped.

“Turk!” Her eyes brightened and she ran toward him. “I saw you flying in, tried to warn you, but you didn’t see me. I was on the summit of the Head.”

“Where’d they come from?” he asked. “How long have they been here?”

“They came in about three days ago. They’ve got a steam yacht hidden, with a lot of gunmen aboard. They’ve two planes, too. They killed Salo, our foreman. Tony came running down the beach and knocked one of the men down. They grabbed him then, and started beating him. I knew I couldn’t help him by going down there, so I hid.”

“A good thing you did,” he said. “That blond-headed man? He’s Harry Wissler, a gangster from the States, and as crazy and dangerous as they come. The big man is Steve Karchel, he’s almost as bad.”

“I heard them say they were going to hijack some ships,” she told him. “They have a fast motorboat and two planes. They want to use this for a base, and loot ships going to and from Australia.”

“That’s absurd!” he said. “They couldn’t get away—” He hesitated. “They might, at that. They wouldn’t leave any survivors, and they’d sink the ships. There’s a war on now, that might make the difference.”

“What are we going to do, Turk?” Angela said. Her gray eyes were wide, serious. “We’ve got to do something! Tony’s down there—they may kill him any time. And then some ship will come along…it would be awful!”

“Yeah,” he replied, nodding slowly. “Where’s their yacht?”

“In Cook Bay. But they won’t leave it there long. It is too exposed.”

“So’s Polenia, as far as that goes. But the cove is okay. That is sheltered enough. Did you hear them mention any particular ship?”

“The
Erradaka.
I remember her very well because I once went from Noumea to Sydney on her. But they expect to get her before she reaches Noumea.”

T
HE
E
RRADAKA
was a passenger liner of some fifteen thousand tons, running from San Francisco to Sydney. She passed within a comparatively short distance of the island.

“Our problem now is to hide,” he told her. “They’ve got orders to find us—or else.”

“We’ll go where I’ve been.” She walked faster, and he was glad to step out and keep moving. “It’s in a place they’d never discover in years!”

They reached the round top of Traitor’s Head, and she walked straight forward to the very edge of the precipice. Then she stepped carefully over the edge!

He gasped and jumped to catch her arm, but she laughed at him.

“Come on over!” she said. “See! There’s a ledge, a few steps, and a cave!”

An instant his eyes strayed out over the edge. It was a long drop to the sea, and yet a more secure hiding place couldn’t be found. The cave was invisible from above, and one had to dare that narrow, foot-wide ledge before they could see the black opening. Inside it was dry and cool, and somewhere he heard water running.

“How in the world did you ever find this?” he demanded, incredulous.

“I climbed the Head one day, just to be doing it, and saw a rat go over here. I hurried up to see why a rat should commit suicide and saw him disappear in the rock. I decided to investigate, and found this. Even Tony doesn’t know it’s here!”

Turk Madden looked around the bare, rock-floored cave. A perfect hideout if ever there was one. Their greatest danger was to be seen from the sea when coming or going. A boat or plane might see them, as it was coming through the entrance to Polenia. Otherwise, with food and water, they could remain indefinitely.

He stepped toward the opening, then stopped dead still. A low murmur of voices came to him, and Turk tiptoed to the cave entrance, motioning to Angela for silence. Above on the cliff edge, two men were talking.

“They aren’t up here, wherever they are,” one man growled. “The chief ’s in a sweat about the dame; it’s a waste of time, if you ask me.”

“There’s worse ways of wasting time, Chino,” a second man said. “I’d like to find her. A grand is a lot of dough.”

“What d’you think about goin’ after these ships?” Chino asked. “I don’t know a damn thing about ships.”

“It’s a steal. A war goin’ on, lots of ships missin’ anyway, an’ if we don’t leave anybody to sing, what can go wrong? Durin’ the last war, a German tramp freighter did it for a couple of years. If they did it, why can’t we? It’s like Harry says. When everybody is fightin’ there’s always a chance for a wise guy to pick up a few grand.”