The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (76 page)

They were under the vast dome, and suspended from it was a huge bronze bell!

Towering high under the great dome, the bell was enormous, and across the bottom, which was a mere eight feet from the stone floor, it was fully as wide as it was tall! Directly beneath it was a chair, bolted to the floor. Four of the huge Ngolok tribesmen stripped to the waist stood around the bell, each with a huge mallet. The bell had no clapper, but was to be sounded by blows from the Ngoloks.

Several steps below the bell were Raemy Doone and Travis Bekart. Two guards stood beside them, and facing them was a woman, tall, and thin to emaciation, her face a haglike mask of wickedness and cunning. Behind her was a big man who could be none other than Bo Hau.

The entry of Turk and Shan Bao had been unnoticed as there was a screen before the door to prevent the entry of evil spirits, which according to the Ngolok belief must travel in a straight line and so cannot get around a screen.

Madden took in the scene at a glance. He needed no explanation for the chair beneath the bell. There was no form of torture so quickly calculated to ruin a man’s self-possession, none that would drive him into insanity and death so quickly as the awful roar of sound and the vibration. Beneath the bell the vibration would be terrific and centered entirely on that chair.

The guard nearest Raemy took her by the arm and started her for the chair, and then Turk stepped around from behind the screen. His heart jumping, he started toward them. He had taken three steps before Bo Hau looked up, and their eyes met.

“Release her!” Turk commanded.

The old queen’s eyes lit with an insane humor. “Kill him!” she said, her tone flat and cold.

The guard near Bekart wheeled, lifting his rifle. Turk’s hand shot out and grasped the rifle barrel underneath, then his left hand dropped to the stock just back of the breech. He jerked back with his left hand and shoved up hard with his right and ripped the rifle from the astonished guard’s hands. The man sprawled on the floor, and Turk stepped back, his rifle on the queen.

One flickering instant, no more. “Release her,” he repeated.

The guard holding Raemy took his hands away from her. Bo Hau was staring at Turk, his eyes alive with fanatic hatred.

“Raemy,” Turk said, his eyes shifting from Bo Hau to the queen, “walk back to the door!”

“Aren’t you taking me?” Bekart demanded.

“Why should we?” Madden replied harshly. “So you can stand trial for murdering your fellow soldiers?”

“Take me with you!” Bekart pleaded. “Don’t leave me here! These people are fiends!”

“You escaped us and went to them,” Turk’s voice was level.

“But, man! You can’t—”

“All right!” Turk relented. “Get along, but one wrong move and I’ll shoot you myself!”

Bekart jerked free and ran after Raemy. Slowly, Turk began to back up. In all this time, scarcely more than two minutes at most, Bo Hau had said nothing.

Ngoloks gathered around the bell had moved forward slowly, their eyes on Madden. The man on the floor got slowly to his feet. Turk watched them as he moved back, knowing that Shan Bao covered him, yet wary.

The old woman was scarcely sane. A withered hag, eaten by hatred, her mind twisted by power, and probably in a measure dominated by Bo Hau.

The big Ngolok was grinning now, “You go?” he spoke suddenly, pleasantly. His voice was high-pitched. “You leave so soon? We should so like to have you stay for dinner. Is it not the custom among your people to invite guests to stay for dinner?”

Turk did not reply, and suddenly Bo Hau’s face was ugly with anger. “Kill him!” he snapped.

The other guard’s rifle swung up, and even as it lifted, Turk swung the rifle he held and fired from the hip. The guard’s rifle clattered on the floor, he clutched wildly at his stomach, and pitched over on the stone floor.

“Thank you!” Bo Hau said brightly. “Now my people will come…thousands of them!”

Somewhere a gong clanged with huge, hammering blows, and the great Domed House was filled with a clamor of voices mingling with the roar of the gong and running feet!

“Run!” Turk roared at Shan Bao. “Back the way we came!”

Darting down the long hall, they rounded the turn to see a guard looming in the way. Turk’s rifle bellowed and the guard went down screaming. From behind them there was a shout, then a shot. The bullet ricocheted from the wall. When they reached the garden, still bright and glorious in the glow of the young moon, Turk stopped. “Take them, Shan!” he said. “Make it quick!”

For an instant, the Manchu hesitated, and Raemy’s lips started to form a protest, then they were moving.

Madden walked back and picked up a rifle by the wall where the guard was bound, and with it his ammunition belt. Then he retreated to the rocks on the far side of the pool. Kneeling behind the rocks, he waited.

His mouth was dry and his heart was pounding, but he tried to calm himself. The gate burst open suddenly, and men poured through it. Resting the rifle stock against his cheek, Turk began to squeeze off his shots. Once—twice—three times!

Each time a man fell, and the attack broke and split to either side among the shrubbery. Another man showed in the doorway, and Turk fired again. The man crumpled and fell. He shifted his position and studied the shrubbery. A slight movement warned him, but he waited. Suddenly a man lunged from the nearest bush, a huge knife in his hand. With a scream, he hurled himself at Turk’s breastwork!

The rifle barked again, and knocked back by the force of the heavy bullet, the Ngolok toppled into the pool. In the breathing space, Turk reloaded the rifle. Then, carefully, he eased back into the shadows.

Shan would be leading them up the steep climb again by now. He moved back, felt a rock wall, and then a low voice, Ryan’s, came to him. “Turk?”

“Yeah!”

“That Chinese gal showed us a new way out. Old steps in the cliff, used years ago. I waited to guide you. They comin’ after us yet?”

“In a couple of minutes. I got a few of them, scared ’em a little. Let’s go!”

Sparrow Ryan led the way, and they hurried up the steep steps as behind them there was a flurry of movement. Far up the stair Turk heard a stone rattle.

Suddenly, torches were burning behind them, and they could hear shouts and yells as the searching party scrambled through the dark crevasse. Ryan rushed on ahead. Turk turned at a small landing and glanced back. He could see the bobbing torches. Coolly and with care he began to fire.

A torch toppled and a scream lifted. Again and again he fired until the rifle was empty, and then he coolly reloaded and emptied it once more. Then he turned away.

A shadow moved, then the huge, greasy body of one of the mallet holders who had stood by the bell loomed from the shadows. How he got there, Turk could only guess. By some secret stair, no doubt, that opened upon this same landing.

The man was a veritable giant, stripped to the waist with his massive muscles gleaming in the light of the moon. Turk’s tongue touched his lips, and he circled warily as the man crouched and came toward him. Accustomed too long to fighting with his hands, he forgot his pistol, forgot everything but the huge man who moved toward him, catlike on his huge sandal-clad feet.

Suddenly, the Ngolok lunged. Turk’s left fist
splatted
against his lips, and Madden felt the give of the big man’s teeth, but then the fellow had his hands on him, and they slipped around his body, wrapping him in a python-like grip!

Turk’s head jerked forward and smashed into the Ngolok’s face, but then the big man jerked his head aside and began to crush with powerful arms. Turk’s left hand was bound to his side by the encircling arms but with his right he hooked short and hard to the ear, then struck down on the kidney with the edge of his hand. The Ngolok grunted, but heaved harder with his powerful arms. Agonizing pain shot through Turk, and he struggled wildly to get loose, then his right lifted and he dug his thumb into the big man’s mouth, keeping it between his cheek and the side of his teeth. Digging all four fingers into the flesh behind the giant’s ear and jawbone, he jerked back with all his strength!

The Ngolok screamed hoarsely as his cheek ripped under the tearing thumb, and his grip relaxed. As it did, Turk lifted his knee and stomped down on the huge sandal-clad foot with all his strength. With a roar of pain, the big man let go, and Turk sprang back, staggered, and then setting himself, swung a right hand that had the works on it. The punch caught the huge man off balance and he toppled back, hit the crumbling stone parapet, and went over in a shower of falling stones, his screams echoing upward through the vast chimney where they had climbed.

His back stiff with pain, Turk started on up the stair, his lungs gasping for air, his brain wild with fear of what lay behind. Somehow he reached the top and found Ryan crouching there, awaiting him.

The air on the high plateau was crisp and cold, and he gasped great draughts into his tortured lungs. Then he turned and they stumbled away into the darkness together.

S
EVERAL MINUTES MORE
and they came up with the rest of the party. Young walked a step behind Bekart, his eyes never wavering from the former pursuit pilot’s back. Raemy’s face was drawn and pale. Turk caught up with her, and she noted his torn shirt and a dark stain of blood on his cheek where the Ngolok’s clawing hand had torn the flesh like a claw. “You’re hurt!”

“No, and we’ve got to keep going,” he said. “Can you make it?”

“I think so.”

Turk’s eyes strayed to the Chinese girl. She was walking along, patiently, quietly. He knew the look. He had seen it in the faces of Chinese infantrymen long ago. They would walk until they dropped.

Scotty met them in the hills with a half-dozen armed men. He grinned at Turk, then looked quickly at Doone. “You all right?”

Bob Doone was walking beside his sister. He looked up and grinned. He was very thin, but his eyes were very bright. “Sure!” he said. “Who could be better?”

A silent group met in the big room where the Goose waited, resting easily on the dark water. Young, Scotty, Doone, Ryan, and Kalinov gathered around Turk. He was brief and to the point.

“We’ve got to move out—now! They’ll be down here, and we haven’t weapons enough to fight them off. Scotty, I’d say you and Kalinov should move out right away, keep to the low country and get as much distance between you and this bunch as you can. It’ll be rough going, but you’ll have to do it.

“Travel light. We haven’t much in the way of supplies, but we’ll rustle some more and bring them to you, supply you by air.

“Don’t fight unless you have to, but keep your riflemen to the rear.”

Madden watched them go, scowling thoughtfully. He was worried by Bo Hau’s lack of opposition to the escape from the Domed House. The man had the look of a plotter, a conniver as well as a man of action. Turk doubted that they would get away so easily.

The Grumman had brought more supplies than needed, and a few things were carried by the walking party, which made the plane somewhat lighter. There remained Young, Doone, Ryan, Shan, Bekart, and the two girls. It was still a heavy load. Madden had his own plans, intending to fly the fighter. From what he originally learned, there was still another fighter and two transports somewhere around the valley.

The transports, even if armed, did not worry him. The fighter was another thing.

Bob Doone had avoided Bekart, and he avoided him now as he walked over to where Turk Madden, his thumbs tucked behind his belt, was staring bleakly at the grim hills. The gray clouds had lowered themselves over the peaks now, and the massive grandeur of Amne Machin was shut out.

“Ryan tells me you came for my cargo, too?” Bob suggested.

Turk nodded. “And the sooner we get it and get moving, the better.”

“All right. When you’re ready, I’ll take you to it. I hid it myself.”

“Sparrow, you come with us. Shan, get the ship warmed up. Young, if you will, warm up the fighter for me. I’m flying it.” He glanced at the Manchu. “And keep an eye on Bekart. He’s got something on his mind!”

Turk checked his Colt, and then the three turned and walked from the ancient temple. The wind outside was raw and chill. Bob Doone led off and they started up the street, over the tumbled walls and broken stones. When they were halfway up the hill they stopped and looked back. White caps dotted the lake’s black water, and the hills were a sullen gray and black, streaked here and there in cracks and crevices with the white of snow.

On the far side of a plateau a path led downward. “Found it by accident,” Doone said. “Came down here, couldn’t carry the box very far. Before we crashed I’d seen those natives coming, and they didn’t look enticing.”

The path dipped into a thick growth of pine, then out and into a small open glade at the end of a canyon. Here, set away by itself, was a temple.

A wide stone-flagged terrace lay before it. They walked across, footsteps echoing hollowly, then up three high steps and through the narrow door.

Inside the light was vague, but they could see a bare and empty room except for one place at a far corner where some animal had gathered sticks and grass for a nest. A huge figure of Buddha loomed at the end. They walked toward it, and Doone gestured. “See? The Buddha is newer than the rest. Probably some other god was there and they put the Buddha in its place. Didn’t work very well from what I heard in the valley, for the people deserted the temple and, later, the town.”

He circled the pedestal and the huge stone figure. “Careful! It’s balanced very badly there. I think someone started to move it, planning to return the original, and then stopped.”

It was not of one solid stone, rather of blocks cunningly fitted together.

Behind the pedestal, Doone got down on his knees and dug at a flat block fitted into the floor. Using a knife, he succeeded in getting his fingers under the edge. He heaved on the slab, and his shoulder touched the pedestal. The figure above teetered dangerously. “Look out!” Ryan warned. “If that thing fell off of there it would kill us all!”

Turk stooped and got one edge of the slab and they lifted it out. In the recess below was the black steel box. Carefully, they lifted it out.