The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (82 page)

All he could think of was that he was alive and unhurt. His .45 had fallen from its holster but lay only an arm’s length away. What had become of the tommy gun, he couldn’t guess. He struggled to his feet, badly shaken, and moved away from the debris he had brought down with him.

The plane had hit the ground only a few feet away, but look as he might, he could not find the tommy gun.

He stared at the plane, then at the hole in the jungle.

It was a miracle, no less.

“Brother,” he said grimly, “they don’t do that twice, an’ you’ve had yours.”

He started away, then saw his machete lying not far from the broken wingtip. Recovering it, he started on a limping run, his head still buzzing, for the pyramid.

There was no stair on this side, and he knew that by now Vin Boling would be ascending. He started around the base, then halted, for suddenly through the vines he saw a deep notch in the side of the pyramid. It was a tangle of vines and fallen stone, but might be another entrance. It also looked like a hole fit for a lot of snakes.

Carefully, he approached the opening. Beyond the stones he could see a black opening.

Drawing a deep breath, machete in hand, he went into it.

Once inside he stood in abysmal darkness, the air close and hot, stifling with an odor of dampness and decay. Striking a match, he looked around. On the floor was the track of a jaguar, the tiger of the Amazon. There was mud here and mold. But directly before him was a steep stair. Mounting carefully, for the steps were slippery with damp, he counted twenty steps before he halted, feeling emptiness around him. He struck another match.

Torn and muddy from his fall, he stood in the entrance to a vast hall, his feeble light blazing up, lending its glow to the light that came through from somewhere high up on the pyramid’s side. Upon each wall was a row of enormous disks, surfaced in gold or gold leaf, at least a dozen upon a side. Before him was an open space of stone floor and, at the end of the hall, an even more enormous disk.

Stepping forward, Turk glanced up toward the source of the light and saw it was a round opening, and no accident, for he realized at once that the rays of the morning sun would shine through that opening upon certain days, and the golden flood of light would strike upon the great golden disk, and be reflected lightly upon the rows of disks.

Awed by the silence and the vastness of the interior of the great pyramid, he walked forward, his footsteps sounding hollowly upon the stone floor, and then he turned and looked back, and almost jumped out of his skin.

A figure wearing a tall golden headdress sat upon a throne facing the disk. Despite the need for him on the surface, Turk turned and walked toward the tall dais, approached by steps, on which the figure sat. Slowly, he mounted the stair.

It was a colossal figure, much larger than he had first believed, and he could see that it would be bathed in the reflected sunlight from the great disk over the end of the hall. In the lap of the figure was a great dish, and upon it lay several gold rings, and some gems.

Suddenly, Turk heard a shot from above him, and then a yell. The sounds seemed very close, and very loud.

“Here they come!” The voice was that of Pace.

“Let ’em come!” Boling said. “Mather, behind the stone on the right. Pace, stay where you are. Don’t waste any shots. Fagin, tell them unless they stop and return to their village we’ll kill the girl.”

Turk heard Fagin shouting, and he turned, searching for the opening through which the sound must come. And then he saw a bit of light and saw there was a stairway close behind the seated figure. From the light on the top steps, he knew it must lead to the roof.

Taking a quick step back, he picked up a handful of the gems on the dish and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he started for the doorway. But in the door he paused, for before him was a gigantic gong. It must have been ten feet across, and beside it a huge stone hammer.

Stuffing his gun back into his belt, he picked up the hammer, hefted it, and swung.

The sound was deafening. With a great, reverberating boom, the tone rang in the empty hallway. Outside, Turk heard a shout of astonishment, then a yell. Again, once, twice, three times he struck the gong, and then, dropping the stone hammer, he was up the stair in a couple of leaps.

He had hoped the surprise would give him his chance, and it did. He rushed out on a stone platform before the temple to face a group that stood astounded in their tracks, the pyramid still vibrating with the sound of the huge gong.

Nato saw him first. “Quick!” he said. “Over here!”

Boling recovered with a shout. “No you don’t, Madden!” he yelled.

He swung up his gun, and Turk snapped a shot at him that missed, and then shoved the girl toward the stair and fired again. The man behind Boling grabbed him and yelled.

“Look out!” His voice rose to a scream. “They are coming!”

The natives had started up with a surge, and Pace fired, then Mather. As their guns began to bark, Turk lunged after the girl, but Boling, more anxious to get her in hopes he could stop the natives with her, rushed after him.

Turk wheeled as Nato dodged onto the stairway, and Boling skidded to a halt.

“Out of my way, Madden! That girl can save us. Without her we’re all dead. You, too.”

“You fool!” Turk snapped. “They wouldn’t stop for her. You’ve violated tabu. They’d kill her, too.”

“You—”

Boling’s gun swung up, and Turk lashed out with his left. Boling staggered, but slashed at Turk with the gun, yelling in one breath for Nato to come back, in the other for help. Turk went under the gun and smashed a left and right to the body, and then as Boling wilted, he turned and lunged down the stairway after the fleeing girl.

A gun roared behind him, but the shot only struck the gong, and it clanged loudly, driving the natives to a greater frenzy. Grabbing Nato’s hand, Turk raced across the open floor and ducked down the dark and slippery stairway toward the opening where he had come in.

Behind them, the pyramid echoed to shots and yells, and then a high-pitched scream of terror and another shot. At the edge of the jungle, they stopped and looked back. All they could see was a mass of struggling figures, but to that there could be but one end, for if the natives had reached the top of the pyramid there was no hope for Boling’s crowd. One, perhaps two might get away, but more likely, none of them.

Turk caught the girl’s wrist and plunged into the jungle. Her face was white and her eyes wild.

“We must hurry!” she panted. “They will come for us, too, when finished there. We have violated tabu. No living thing must go to Chipan.”

“What about them?” Turk asked grimly, indicating the natives.

“They protect the tabu. That is different,” Natochi protested.

Slashing at the wall of jungle with his machete, Turk cleared a space and then moved forward into an opening. He walked swiftly, but as fast as he walked, the girl’s terror and her own lithe strength was enough to keep her close behind him.

Twisting and turning, using every available opening, he dodged through the thick undergrowth. They had little time, and then the hue and cry would be raised after them, and the natives would come fast, probably much faster than he could go.

A savanna opened before them. “Can you run?” he asked.

She nodded grimly and swung into a stride even with his own. Together, man and woman, they raced across the tall-grass field and into the jungle beyond. Turk’s heart was pounding, and though he strained his ears, he heard no more shooting. Then, after a long time, one shot sounded, far behind them.

“If Boling was smart,” he said, “he used that on himself.”

W
ALKING
,
RUNNING
,
STUMBLING
, and pushing, they made their way through the jungle. Behind them they heard no sound, but they knew the chase was on.

What if Shan had crashed in his takeoff? What if there had been some other trouble? What if they had not found the ship? If they had met with trouble, he thought grimly, if anything had gone wrong, then it would be a last stand on the lakeshore for them. And for Dick London and Phil Mora, too.

His shirt was hanging in rags, partly torn in the plane crash and partly in the jungle. His breath came in hoarse gasps, and he stopped once to brush his black hair from his eyes, staring back. He turned once more at Nato’s urging and plunged into the jungle.

How long they were in covering the distance he never knew. The jungle was a nightmare of tangling traps and spidery vines. They fought through it, heedless of snakes or swamps, thinking only of escape, and behind them, somewhere in the green and ghostly silence of the afternoon jungle, came the slim brown natives. Their tabu had been violated, and for this each man and woman must die!

A crash sounded in the jungle behind them, and Turk swung about swiftly, his gun leaping up. A native poised there with a spear, and Turk’s gun belched flame. The man screamed and the spear went into the ground. Then, as others rushed forward, Turk emptied the clip into them and turned and burst through the wall of the jungle into the open savanna. Before them was the blue of the lake!

If he had had the strength, he would have whooped for joy. Even as he ran, he jerked out the used-up clip and shoved in another one. The prop on the amphibian started to turn, and with his breath stabbing like a knife, he staggered with the girl down toward the water.

Rodd and London were standing there with rifles, and suddenly they began to shoot. Pushing the girl toward the boat, Turk wheeled on Rodd.

“Get going!” he said. “They’ve gone crazy! Nothing will stop them!”

They shoved off in the boat, and the plane’s door was open to receive them. Once aboard the plane, they pulled in the boat and Shan started the ship moving.

Gasping, Turk stared back toward the horde of natives, all of two hundred of them, gathered upon the site of their camp, stamping and waving their spears.

The twin motors talked strongly to the bright blue sky, and the big ship pulled up, circled once over the lake and leveled off toward the far blue distance where lay the Amazon.

“What about her?” Mora said, nodding toward the girl. She looked from one to the other, her eyes wide.

“She’ll do better outside,” Turk said quietly. “I’ll see that Joe Leone stakes her, and with the job we’ve done, he’ll be glad to. Besides,” he added, feeling the hard lump of the gems and gold in his pocket, “I’ve got enough here, out of their own temple, to take care of her for life.”

“Wait until I show her Coney Island,” Dick said. “And buy her a couple of hot dogs!”

She laughed. “With mustard?”

“Hey!” Dick gasped. “What is this?”

“Red tell me much about Coney Islands,” she said. “He talk always of hamburgers, hot dogs, and of beer.”

Turk took over the controls and held the ship steady. He looked down at the unrolling carpet of the jungle. It was better up here. It was cleaner, brighter, freer.

They would be in Obido soon, and tomorrow they would be starting home, down the dark rolling Amazon, the greatest of all jungle rivers. And behind them, in the green solitude of the jungle, the morning sunlight would shine through a round opening and touch with all its radiance upon a great golden disk, and the reflected light would bathe in strange beauty the solitary figure of the mysterious god of Chipan.

Mission to Siberut

S
teve Cowan cut the throttle and went into a steep glide. He glanced at his instruments and swore softly. If he made it this time, he would need a rabbit’s foot in each pocket. Landing an amphibian on a patch of water he had seen but once several years before, and in complete darkness! But war was like that.

The dark hump beneath him would be Tanjung Sigep, if his calculations were correct. Close southward was Labuan Bajau Bay. The inner bay, visible only from the air, was the place he was heading for. It was almost a mile long, about a thousand yards wide, and deep enough. But picking it out of the black, jungle-clad island of Siberut on a moonless night was largely a matter of instruments, guesswork, and a fool’s luck.

Cowan saw the gleam of water. Guessing at four or five feet, he leveled off and drew back gently on the stick. The hull took the water smoothly, and the ship lost speed.

At one place, there was about an acre of water concealed behind a tongue of land overgrown with casuarina trees. Taxiing the amphibian around the tongue of land, Cowan anchored it safely in the open water behind the casuarinas. When he finished, the first streaks of dawn were in the sky.

Mist was rising from the jungle, and on the reef outside Labuan Bajau Bay he could hear the roar and pound of surf. There would be heavy mist along the reef, too, lifting above that pounding sea. Cowan opened a thermos bottle and drank the hot coffee, taking the chill of the night from his bones….

Two days ago in Port Darwin, Major Garnett had sent for him. Curious, he responded at once. Garnett had come to the point immediately.

“You’re a civilian, Cowan. But you volunteered for duty, and you’ve flown over most of the East Indies. Know anything about Siberut?”

“Siberut?” Cowan was puzzled. “A little. I’ve been on all the Mentawi Islands. Flew over from Emma Haven on the coast of Sumatra.”

Garnett nodded.

“No Europeans, are there?” he asked.

C
OWAN HESITATED
.

“Not to speak of. The natives are timid and friendly enough, but they can be mighty bad in a pinch. Villages are mostly back inland. It’s heavily jungled, with only a few plantations. There are, I think, a few white men.”

“How about that trouble of yours some years back? Weren’t they white men?” Garnett asked keenly.

Steve Cowan chuckled.

“You check up on a guy, don’t you? But that was no trouble. It was a pleasure. That was Besi John Mataga. He’s a renegade.”

“I know.” Major Garnett nodded. “Furthermore, we understand he is negotiating with the enemy. That’s why I’ve sent for you.”

He leaned forward.

“It’s like this, Cowan. Intelligence has learned that fifty Messerschmitt 110s were flown from Tripoli to Dakar across the Sahara. They were loaded on a freighter heading for Yokohama. War broke out, and temporarily the freighter was cut off from Japan.

“Just what happened then, we only know from one of the crew, who was supposedly drowned. He got to us and reported that several of the crew, led by the chief mate, murdered the captain and took over the ship.

“The chief mate had some idea of striking a bargain with the Japanese. He’d claim the ship was injured and that he could tell them where it was—for a price.”

“And the mate is John Mataga, is that it?” Cowan asked.

“Exactly. Mataga had signed on under an assumed name, but was dealing with the Japanese as himself. Naturally, the freighter had to be hidden until a deal was struck. Our advices are that the deal is about to go through. In the right place at the right time, I needn’t tell you what those fifty Messerschmitts would mean to Japan.”

“No,” Cowan frowned. “Those Messerschmitts would be tough to handle.”

“That’s it,” Garnett agreed. “They must never reach Japanese hands. They must be found and destroyed—and we know exactly where they are?”

“Off Siberut?”

“Yes. Lying in Labuan Bajau Bay. You know it?”

“You bet.” Cowan sat up. “What do I do and when do I start?”

“You understand the situation,” Garnett said. “We can’t spare the pilots for an attack. Indeed, we haven’t planes enough. But one ship, flown by a man who knew the locality, might slip through.”

Cowan shrugged. “You want that freighter blown up?”

“Yes.” Garnett nodded vigorously. “You’ve had no bombing experience, so we can’t trust to that. You must land, and…”

But that had been two days ago.

The first night, Steve Cowan had flown the amphibian to a tiny inlet on the south coast of Java, where he remained all day, hidden from hostile scouting planes. Then when darkness fell, he took off again. Time and again he had narrowly missed running into the enemy. Once, south of Bali, he had come out of a cloud facing a lone Japanese plane.

He recognized it instantly. It was a Kawasaki 93, a bomber-reconnaissance plane. In the same instant, he banked steeply and sharply and fired a burst at its tail as it shot by him.

Cowan had the faster ship and could have escaped. But he was conscious of nothing but the realization that if the pilot broke free, it would be only a matter of minutes before speedy pursuit ships would be hunting him down.

His turn had brought him around on the enemy’s tail, and he gunned his ship. The Kawasaki tried an Immelmann and let go a burst of fire as it whipped back over in the tight turn. But Cowan was too close behind for the pilot’s fire to reach him.

He pulled his ship up so steeply he was afraid it would stall, but then he flattened out. For an instant the Kawasaki was dead in his sights.

Cowan’s burst of fire smashed the Japanese tail assembly into a stream of fragments. But their crew was game. They tried to hit Cowan with a burst from the observer’s gun.

Cowan saw the stream of tracer go by. Then he banked steeply and swung down in a long dive after the falling ship, pumping a stream of bullets into his target. Suddenly the Kawasaki burst into flame. An instant later, a red, roaring mass, it struck the sea.

The entire fight had lasted less than a minute. Cowan pulled back on his stick and shot upward, climbing until he saw the altimeter at sixteen thousand feet. Then he had leveled off and headed straight for Siberut.

C
OWAN DRANK
the coffee slowly, then ate a bar of chocolate. It would be daylight in a matter of minutes, he knew. Beyond the clump of casuarinas on the shore would be the renegade freighter. Beyond the trees, and probably a mile away.

Carefully Cowan stowed his gear, then checked his guns. He was carrying two of them, a .45 Colt automatic for a belt-gun and a .380. The smaller gun was strapped to his leg inside his trousers. There was a chance he might need an ace in the hole.

The explosive he’d brought along for the job was ready. It had been carefully prepared two days before by one of the best demolition experts in Australia.

Cowan made his way ashore through the mangroves that grew down close to his anchorage. Then he swung down from the trees and walked along the sand under the casuarinas.

Besi John Mataga would not leave the freighter unguarded. There would be some of the crew aboard. And if Steve Cowan knew Besi John, the crew members would be the scum of the African waterfronts where they had been recruited.

How he was to handle that part of it, Cowan didn’t know. You could rarely plan a thing like that; so much depended on chance. You knew your objective, and you went there ready to take advantage of any chance you got.

The Japanese would be hunting the ship. They wouldn’t pay off to Besi John without having a try for it. But on the other hand, they couldn’t afford to delay for long. The planes were needed too badly, with streams of new Curtiss, Bell, and Lockheed pursuit jobs pouring into Australia.

Cowan halted under the heavy branches of a casuarina. The outer harbor was open before him. There, less than a half mile away, was the
Parawan,
a battered freighter of Portuguese registry.

It was at least possible, even if improbable, that Besi John did not know of the inner harbor. In any case, no large ship could possibly negotiate the channel without great risk. The entrance, about two hundred yards wide, was shoal water for the most part and out of sight behind the point of casuarinas.

The
Parawan
lay in about sixteen fathoms, Cowan judged, remembering the soundings of the outer harbor. On the shore close by was a hut, where traders used to barter for rattan and other wood products.

Moving along the point toward the mainland, Steve Cowan studied the freighter from all angles. He would have to get aboard by night; there was no other way. In any event, it wasn’t going to be easy.

Keeping under cover of the jungle, Cowan worked his way along the shore. Several times he paused to study the sandy beach. Once he walked back under the roots of a giant ficus tree, searching about in the darkness.

A ripple in the still water nearby sent a shiver along his spine. He watched the ominous snout and drew back further from the water’s edge.

“Crocs,” he said. “Crocs in the streams and sharks in the bay.”

Coming to the bank of a small stream, he hesitated, then walked upstream. Finally he found what he sought. In a clump of thick brush under the giant roots of a mangrove, he found a dugout.

Cowan had known it would be there. The natives would want a boat on this bay, and all the boats would not be upstream at the villages. He was going to need that dugout. The bay, like all the waters around Sumatra, was teeming with sharks.

Walking along the shore under cover of the trees, Cowan stopped abruptly. He had been about to step out into a clearing. There in the open space was the hut where the traders used to meet. Two men stood in front of it.

B
ESI
J
OHN
M
ATAGA
had his back to him, but Steve Cowan recognized the man at once. No one else had that thick neck and those heavy shoulders. The other man was younger, with a lean, hard face and a Heidelberg scar. Cowan’s eyes narrowed.

“They won’t find this place!” Mataga said harshly. “It ain’t so easy spotted. If they do, they’ll never get away. We got our own spies around here.”

“You’d better have.” The stranger’s voice was crisp. “And don’t underestimate the Aussies and the Yanks. They might locate this place. It must be known to other people.”

“Sure.” Besi John shrugged. “Sure it is, Donner. But it ain’t the sort of place they’d figure on. White men, they never come here. One did once, but he won’t again.”

“Who was that?” Donner demanded.

“A guy named Cowan. I had a run-in with him once out there on the beach. I whipped the tar out of him.”

“You lie!” Steve Cowan muttered to himself.

He studied Donner. Instinct warned him that here was an even more dangerous opponent than Besi John. Mataga was a thug—this man had brains.

“I’m giving the Japanese just forty-eight hours!” Donner snapped. “They either talk turkey or I’ll deal with somebody else. I might start out for myself.”

“They’ll talk,” Mataga chuckled. “Birdie Wenzel knows how to swing a deal. They’ll pay off like he wants them to, and plenty. Then we’ll tell them where the ship is, and pull out—but fast.”

“What about them?” Donner said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You still think the old man is good for some cash?”

Mataga shrugged.

“I’m goin’ to work on him. He knows where the dough is. It’s hid aboard that ship, and he knows where. He’ll talk before I get through with him!”

The two men turned and walked out to a dinghy where several surly-looking seamen waited. They got in and shoved off.

Cowan studied the hut. Now whom had Donner meant by “them”?

While Cowan mulled it over, a husky seaman came around the corner of the hut, a rifle in the hollow of his arm. He said something through the door of the hut, and then laughed at the reply. He sat down against the wall, rifle across his lap.

Cowan stood half behind the bole of a huge tree and studied the situation anew. As long as that man remained where he was, there was no chance that a dugout could reach the freighter unobserved. The seaman was not only guarding whoever was in the hut but watching the ship as well. Even on the darkest night, it would be difficult to get away from shore without being seen.

Cowan circled around the hut. When he was behind it, he straightened up deliberately and walked toward it. Just as he stopped against the wall, he heard a light step. Wheeling, Cowan found himself facing a slender, hatchet-faced man with a rifle.

The fellow grinned, showing blackened stumps of teeth. Cowan did not hesitate. Dropping his left hand, he grabbed the rifle barrel and wrenched so hard that he jerked it free before the man’s finger could squeeze the trigger.

Pulled off balance, the man fell forward into a smashing right uppercut to the wind. As he went down, Cowan struck him with the butt of his own rifle. He fell like a log and lay still.

Cowan wheeled, his breath coming hard. He was just in time. The big fellow he had seen on guard in front came around the side of the hut. Steve Cowan gave no warning, but struck viciously.

H
E WAS TOO ANXIOUS
, and the punch missed. He caught a glancing blow from the other’s rifle and went to his knees. Blinded with pain, he nevertheless lunged forward and grabbed the man by the knees. The fellow struck again. Cowan rolled free, lashing out with a short blow that landed without much force. Both men got up at once.

The big fellow’s eyes flashed angrily. He rushed in, swinging wildly. Cowan lashed out himself, but caught one on the side of the head. The guard missed a vicious kick as Steve Cowan fell.

But Cowan was up quickly, and breathing hard. Steadying down, he met the rush with a hard right. The big fellow was fighting savagely, and apparently he had not considered a yell for help. Cowan knew he must get him, must knock the man out or kill him before he could shout.

It was more than a fight to win. It was more than a fight for mere life—although Cowan knew to lose meant death. It was a fight for all the lives that might be lost if those fifty crated pursuit ships out there got into Japanese hands.