The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (64 page)

Richards was not only big, he was tough and powerful. They grappled and he rolled over and scrambled free. Both men came up at the same time. Turk started to close in, but Richards kicked him away, and when Turk struck out, he caught his arm in a flying mare. Turk relaxed and went on over in an easy roll, landing on his feet. He spun around, slipped a fast left, and smashed a big fist into Richards’s stomach. The mate backed up, his face dark with fury and pain. Turk followed, stabbing a left to the face, then crossing a jarring right to the chin. Richards’s knees wilted and he almost fell. He lunged forward, and Turk broke his nose with a driving right hook. Richards went down, hitting the deck hard.

Aaron Richards scrambled to his feet. Wheeling, he rushed for the gangway that led to the bank of the river. He bent over and plucked the large pin that allowed the gangway to swivel back and forth out of its hole. As Turk closed on him, Richards turned and swung the heavy piece of metal. It hit Turk a stunning blow on the back of his shoulder and knocked him flat on the deck, his pistol coming loose and rattling into the scuppers.

By the time Turk had picked himself up, Richards was stumbling down the ladder and out onto the muddy ground. When he saw Turk appear at the ship’s rail, he turned and, taking hold of the gangway railing, gave a mighty heave. The entire assembly, now disconnected at the top, came loose. Scraping down the side of the hull, it crashed into the gap between the ship and the riverbank. The mate took to his heels.

Diakov was returning from scouting the trees, and Richards straight-armed him like a football player. The big Russian went down, and Richards disappeared into the stand of fir along the water. Turk watched as he picked himself up, but instead of giving chase he limped toward the
Welleston.

“There are still some left, comrade! They’ve a boat down the river!”

At that moment a heavy engine roared to life beyond the trees. Turk ran to the other rail in time to see a Japanese torpedo boat arc out into the river. She was going all out, bow high in the water and her stern sunk deep, a cloud of blue-gray exhaust trailing from her pipes. Within minutes Aaron Richards would make the inlet, and from there the open ocean.

Turk backed up, yanked off his low boots and coat and, vaulting the railing, took a running dive into the icy water. The height and the cold took his breath away, but within a dozen powerful strokes he was alongside the Grumman and scrambling onto the hull. His clasp knife made quick work of the mooring rope, and then he was pulling himself into the cockpit and firing the engines.

He flew down the river with the throttles wide open, leaving Diakov on the bank bellowing encouragement. As the plane clawed for altitude, Turk struggled out of his freezing shirt and turned up the mostly ineffective cabin heater.

As the water deepened, the patches of fog thinned, and then ahead of him he could see the torpedo boat. She was shooting across the swells like an arrow, kicking up blasts of spray and leaving a long wake. Turk put the plane into a shallow dive. Fast as the Japanese craft was, the Grumman came down on it at over a hundred fifty miles per hour. Turk triggered his forward guns, the burst cutting the water across the bow.

There were only two men visible on deck—a Japanese sailor at the helm, and Richards, who was struggling to pull the cover from the boat’s antiaircraft machine gun. Turk wheeled around and came back, angling in on the fast gray boat carefully. The man at the wheel had begun evasive maneuvers, and Turk could tell it was throwing off Richards’s aim; his gun flamed, but it was a moment before he hit the Grumman, and then the bullets found only the wingtip.

Turk held his fire as Richards swung his gun, and then he let go with a long burst just before the traitor could fire. The steel-jacketed slugs tore up the decking, forcing Richards to dive for cover, and continued ripping back and down into the engine compartment. Turk shot past, barely off the water, then pulled back on the stick, heading up toward the clouds.

Outside his left-hand window he saw his port engine stall and die. The drag pulled at the plane, and he leveled out, trying to compensate with his rudder. He turned the nose of the plane back toward land and was glancing at the motor for any signs of bullet damage or fire when the starboard engine died.

“This could be better!” he muttered to himself.

Grimly, Turk put the ship into a long glide and aimed for the calm water just inside the bar at the mouth of the river.

The amphibian set down upon the water smoothly, and when it came to a halt, Turk turned and flipped on the two-way radio switch.

“Calling Khabarovsk…calling Khabarovsk. Madden, Coast Patrol. Down at sea off Kumuhu River. Please send help. Out of petrol.”

“Khabarovsk airdrome answering Madden, Coast Patrol. Stand by.”

Another voice spoke through the radio. “Diakov calling from S.S.
Welleston.
I found the crew tied up. We’re coming to fish you out. Are you all right, comrade?”

“Okay for now. Go pick up Richards first, no immediate danger…only I wanted to be shipwrecked with a beautiful dame.”

“Well,” a cool voice said in his ear, “you’re not very complimentary!”

Turk turned and his jaw dropped. “Tony! What are
you
doing here!”

“I was in the plane, and you just jumped in and took off, so here I am!”

Turk must have left his mike switched on. “Comrade Madden…do you want to countermand that rescue order?”

Diakov waited for a reply, but there was no sound but the lapping of water against the hull. The Cossack had spent three years in the United States and had seen many movies. He sighed deeply.

Wings Over Khabarovsk

T
he drone of the two radial motors broke the still white silence. As far as the eye could reach the snow-covered ridges of the Sihoti Alin Mountains showed no sign of life. Turk Madden banked the Grumman and studied the broken terrain below. It was remote and lonely, this range along the Siberian coast.

He swung his ship in a slow circle. That was odd. A half-dozen fir trees had no snow on their branches.

He leveled off and looked around, then saw what he wanted, a little park, open and snow-covered, among the trees. It was just the right size, by the look of it. He’d chance the landing. He slid down over the treetops, setting the ship down with just barely enough room. Madden turned the ship before he cut the motor.

Taking down a rifle, he kicked his feet into snowshoes and stepped out into the snow. It was almost spring in Siberia, but the air was crisp and cold. Far to the south, the roads were sodden with melting snow, and the rivers swollen with spring floods. War would be going full blast again soon.

He was an hour getting to the spot. Even before he reached it, his eyes caught the bright gleam of metal. The plane had plunged into the fir trees, burying its nose in the mountainside. In passing, it had knocked the snow from the surrounding trees, and there had been no snow for several days now. That was sheer luck. Ordinarily it would have snowed, and the plane would have been lost beyond discovery in these lonely peaks.

N
OT A DOZEN FEET
from the tangled wreckage of the ship he could see a dark bundle he knew instinctively was the flyer. Lutvin had been his friend. The boyish young Russian had been a great favorite at Khabarovsk Airport. Suddenly, Turk stopped.

Erratic footprints led from the crashed plane to the fallen body. Lutvin had been alive after the crash!

Madden rushed forward and turned the body over. His wild hope that the boy might still be alive died instantly. The snow under the body was stained with blood. Fyodor Lutvin had been machine-gunned as he ran from his fallen plane.

Machine-gunned! But that meant—

Turk Madden got up slowly, and his face was hard. He turned toward the wreckage of the plane, began a slow, painstaking examination. What he saw convinced him. Fyodor Lutvin had been shot down, after his plane had crashed, had been ruthlessly machine-gunned by his attacker.

B
UT WHY
? And by whom? It was miles from any known front. The closest fighting was around Murmansk, far to the west. Only Japan, lying beyond the narrow strip of sea at Sakhalin and Hokkaido. And Japan and Russia were playing a game of mutual hands off. But Lutvin had been shot down and then killed. His killers had wanted him dead beyond question.

There could be only one reason—because he knew something that must not be told. The fierce loyalty of the young flyer was too well known to be questioned, so he must have been slain by enemies of his country.

Turk Madden began a systematic search, first of the body, then of the wreckage. He found nothing.

Then he saw the camera. Something about it puzzled him. He studied it thoughtfully. It was smashed, yet—

Then he saw. The camera was smashed, but it had been smashed after it had been taken apart—
after the film had been removed.
Where then, was the film?

He found it a dozen feet away from the body, lying in the snow. The film was in a waterproof container. Studying the situation, Turk could picture the scene.

Lutvin had photographed something. He had been pursued, shot down, but had lived through the crash. Scrambling from the wrecked ship with the film, he had run for shelter in the rocks. Then, as he tumbled under the hail of machine-gun fire, he had thrown the film from him.

Turk Madden took the film and, picking up his rifle, started up the steep mountainside toward the park where he had left the Grumman. He was just stepping from a clump of fir when a shot rang out. The bullet smacked a tree trunk beside him and stung his face with bits of bark.

Turk dropped to his hands and knees and slid back into the trees. Ahead of him, and above him, was a bunch of boulders. Even as he looked a puff of smoke showed from the boulders, and another shot rang out. The bullet clipped a twig over his head. Madden fired instantly, coolly pinking every crevice and crack in the boulders. He did not hurry.

His final shot sounded, and instantly he was running through the soft snow. He made it to a huge fir a dozen feet away before the rifle above him spoke. He turned and fired again.

Indian-fashion, he circled the clump of boulders. But when he was within sight of them, there was no one about. For a half hour he waited, then slid down. On the snow in the center of the rocks, he found two old cartridge cases. He studied them.

“Well, I’ll be blowed! A Berdianka!” he muttered. “I didn’t think there was one outside a museum!”

The man’s trail was plain. He wore moccasins made of fur, called
unty.
One of them was wrapped in a bit of rawhide, apparently.

His rifle was ready, Turk fell in behind. But after a few minutes it became obvious that his attacker wanted no more of it. Outgunned, the man was making a quick retreat. After a few miles, Madden gave up and made his way slowly back to his own ship. The chances were the man had been sent to burn the plane, to be sure a clean job had been made of the killing. But that he was wearing
unty
proved him no white man, and no Japanese either, but one of the native Siberian tribes.

I
T WAS AFTER SUNDOWN
when Turk Madden slid into a long glide for the port of Khabarovsk. In his coat pocket the film was heavy. He was confident that it held the secret of Lutvin’s death.

There was a light in Commissar Chevski’s office. Turk hesitated, then slipped off his helmet and walked across the field toward the shack. A dark figure rose up from the corner of the hangar, and a tall, stooped man stepped out.

“Shan Bao!” Madden said. “Take care of the ship, will you?”

The Manchu nodded, his dark eyes narrow.

“Yes, comrade.” He hesitated. “The commissar asking for you. He seem angry.”

“Yeah?” Madden shrugged. “Thanks. I’ll see him.” He walked on toward the shack without a backward glance. Shan Bao could be trusted with the plane. Where the tall Manchu had learned the trade, Turk could not guess, but the man was a superb plane mechanic. Since Madden’s arrival from the East Indies, he had attached himself to Turk and his Grumman, and the ship was always serviced and ready.

Turk tapped lightly on Chevski’s door, and at the word walked in.

Commissar Chevski was a man with a reputation for efficiency. He looked up now, his yellow face crisp and cold. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheekbones, his long eyes almost as yellow as his face. He sat behind his table staring at Turk inscrutably. Twice only had Turk talked with him. Around the port the man had a reputation for fierce loyalty and driving ambition. He worked hard and worked everyone else.

“Comrade Madden,” he said sharply. “You were flying toward the coast today! Russia is at war with Germany, and planes along the coast invite trouble with Japan. I have given orders that there shall be no flying in that direction!”

“I was ordered to look for Comrade Lutvin,” Madden said mildly, “so I flew over the Sihoti Alins.”

“There was no need,” Chevski’s voice was sharp. “Lutvin did not fly in that direction.”

“You’re mistaken,” Turk said quietly, “I found him.”

Chevski’s eyes narrowed slightly. He leaned forward intently.

“You found Lutvin? Where?”

“On a mountainside in the Sihoti Alins. His plane had crashed. He was dead. His ship had been shot down from behind, and Comrade Lutvin had been machine-gunned as he tried to escape the wreck.”

Chevski stood up.

“What is this?” he demanded. “Who would machine-gun a Russian flyer on duty? We have no enemies here.”

“What about Japan?” Madden suggested. “But that need make no difference. The facts are as I say. Lutvin was shot down—then killed.”

“You
landed
?” Chevski demanded. He walked around from behind his desk. He shook his head impatiently. “I am sorry, comrade. This is serious business, very serious. It means sabotage, possibly war on a new front.”

C
HEVSKI WALKED BACK
behind the table. He looked up suddenly.

“Comrade Madden, I trust you will say nothing of this to anyone until I give the word. This is a task for the OGPU, you understand?”

Madden nodded, reaching toward his pocket. “But, com—”

The Russian lifted a hand.

“Enough. I am busy. You have done a good day’s work. Report to me at ten tomorrow. Good night.” He sat down abruptly and began writing vigorously.

Turk hesitated. Then, he went out and closed the door.

Hurrying to his own quarters, he gathered his materials and developed the film. Then he sat down and began studying the pictures. For hours, he sat over them, but could find nothing. The pictures were of a stretch of Siberian coast near the mouth of the Nahtohu River. They were that, and no more. Finally, almost at daylight, he gave up and fell into bed.

It was hours later when he awakened. For an instant he lay on his back staring upward, then glanced at his wristwatch. Nine-thirty. He would have barely time to shave and get to Chevski’s office. He rolled over and sat up. Instantly, he froze. The pictures, left on the table, were gone!

Turk Madden sat very still. Slowly, he studied the room. Nothing had been taken except the pictures, the film, and the can in which it had been carried. He crossed the room and examined the door and window. The latter was still locked, bore no signs of having been opened. The door was as he had left it the night before. On the floor, just inside the door, was the fading print of a damp foot.

Madden dressed hurriedly and strapped on a gun. Then he went outside. The snow was packed hard, but when he stepped to the corner he saw a footprint. The snow was melting, and already there were three dark lines of earth showing across the track under his window, three lines that might have been made by an
unty
with a rawhide thong around it!

Suddenly, Turk glanced up. A squad of soldiers was coming toward him on the double. They halted before him, and their officer spoke sharply.

“Comrade Madden! You are under arrest!”

“Me?” Turk gasped, incredulous. “What for?”

“Come with us. You will know in good time.”

They took him at once to Commissar Chevski’s office. Turk was led in and stopped before Chevski’s desk. There were five other men in the room. Colonel Granatman sat at the table beside Chevski. In a corner sat Arseniev of the Intelligence. He looked very boyish except for his eyes. They were hard and watchful. The other two men Madden did not know.

“Comrade Madden!” Granatman demanded. “You flew yesterday over the Sihoti Alin Mountains? You did this without orders?”

“Yes, but—”

“The prisoner,” Chevski said coldly, “will confine himself to replies to questions.”

“You reported that you found there the body of Comrade Fyodor Lutvin, is that right?”

“Yes.” Turk was watching the proceedings with astonishment. What was this all about?

“What are the caliber of the guns on your ship?” Granatman asked. “Thirty caliber, are they not?”

“Comrade Olentiev,” Granatman said, “tell us what you found when Commissar Chevski sent you to investigate.”

O
LENTIEV STEPPED FORWARD
, clinking his heels. He was a short, powerful man with a thick neck and big hands. He was, Madden knew, an agent of the OGPU, the all-powerful secret police.

“I found Fyodor Lutvin had been shot through the body with fifteen thirty-caliber bullets. His plane had been shot down. The gas tank was riddled, feedline broken, and instrument panel smashed. Most of the controls were shot away.

“I found the tracks of a man and where he had turned the body over, and followed those tracks to where a plane had been landed in the mountains nearby.

“On return I reported to Commissar Chevski, then received the report of my assistant, Blavatski. He ascertained that on the night of Thursday last, Comrade Lutvin won three hundred rubles from Comrade Madden at dice.”

“Commissar Chevski,” Granatman asked slowly, “who in your belief could have attacked Lutvin in that area?”

“The colonel is well aware,” Chevski said quietly, “that Russia is at war only with Germany. If we have a killing here, it is my belief it is murder!”

“Colonel Granatman,” Turk protested, “there was evidence of another sort. I found near the body a can containing aerial photographs taken along the coast near the mouth of the Nahtohu River.”

“Photographs?” Granatman frowned. “Did you report them to the commissar?”

“No, I—”

“You developed them yourself?” Granatman interrupted. “Where are they?”

“They were stolen from my quarters last night,” Madden said.

“Ah!” Chevski said. “You had photographs but they were stolen. You did not report them last night. You flew over a forbidden area, and you, of all those who looked, knew where to find Fyodor Lutvin’s body!”

Granatman frowned.

“I would like to believe you innocent, Comrade Madden. You have done good work for us, but there seems no alternative.”

Turk Madden stared in consternation. Events had moved so rapidly he could scarcely adjust himself to the sudden and complete change in affairs. The matter of the three hundred rubles had been nothing, and he had promptly forgotten it. A mere sixty dollars or so was nothing. In Shanghai he had often lost that many hundreds, and won as much.

“Say, what is this?” Turk demanded. “I’m sent out to look for a lost plane, I find it, and then you railroad me! Whose toes have I been stepping on around here?”

“You will have a fair trial, comrade,” Granatman assured him. “This is just a preliminary hearing. Until then you will be held.”

Olentiev and Blavatski stepped up on either side of him, and he was marched off without another word. His face grim, he kept still. There was nothing he could do now. He had to admit there was a case, if a flimsy one. That he had gone right to the body, when it was where it wasn’t expected to be—that there was no other known plane in the vicinity but his own—that the gun calibers were identical—that he had landed and examined the body—that money had been won from him by Lutvin—that he had told an unverified story of stolen photographs.