Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  “Phil Mora’s a college man. Finished his post-grad work and went to Arabia on an oilfield job. He was there a couple of years, then back in the States, then the war. After the war he went to Syria for a year or two, and now this job.”

  Buck Rodd turned toward Turk. He was a big man, even heavier than Turk’s two hundred pounds, and a former commercial explorer, searching the jungle for gold, diamonds, orchids, and quinine bark, among other things. With Shan Bao, Turk’s long, lean Manchu mechanic, Rodd completed the party of five. , “You said something about a base on the Formosa,” Buck Rodd said. “That was a new one on me. Did Leone give you the dope?” Turk chuckled. “No, Buck, I’ve actually got almost nothing to go on! A few nights ago in Rio I ran into a big bruiser in a cantina, a drunken prospector with a red beard and red hair on his chest. I bought him a drink, and he told me he’d been hunting rubber and gold in Brazil all his life, so I started talking about this neck of the woods. No sooner did I mention it, though, than the bruiser clammed up. He’d been ready to talk until then, but he shut up and I couldn’t get a thing out of him. However, I went back there again, and on the third night we met again and had another drink.

  “Well, to cut it short, this bruiser finally comes out with a funny crack. He says, “You look big enough to take care of yourself, an” tough enough. If you’re goin’ to work that country, there’s a little lake in the jungle just west of the Formosa River. It would be a perfect base. But you be careful.

  “Huh! That ain’t much, is it? He say anything more?” “Well, yes. He did say something. He squinted at me sort of funny, and said, “If you get there, an’ they take you to Chipan, tell Nato that Red said hello.” his “Chipan? Where the devil is that? I thought that was all jungle, that no white man except maybe Fawcett, who got lost down there, had ever seen it.” “That’s about right. And I never heard of any such place as Chipan,” Turk admitted. “But a lake in that country? Say! That would be a base worth having, and one that would save us days of time. So where are we headed for? The Formosa!”

  The amphibian droned along smoothly, its twin motors purring like contented kittens, and Turk ran his fingers through his black, coarse hair.

  His green eyes swept the sky, alternately searching for the plane they had seen earlier and studying the vast sweep of the jungle below them. Fascinated, his eyes shifted from point to point over the land below.

  To him this had long been the most exciting country on earth because here, in one great chunk, was a great stretch of land that offered nothing but legend. Ever since the early Portuguese explorers had told their strange stories of vast ruined cities in the jungles, men, lured by memories of the Maya and Inca cities and the gold walled temples to the Sun, had searched these jungles in their minds. Few had actually penetrated their depths, and not many of the few had returned. In 1925, Colonel Fawcett had gone into those jungles and vanished. Rumors had come out of him alive, ruling a native people. And now this story told by a drunken prospector. The mention of a strange name … Chipan. And he was to say hello to Nato. Who was Nato? Man, Woman, or God? Or was it some figment of the native imagination? Some reptile? Some monster?

  Long ago, reading of this jungle, Turk had read where some Latin explorer had sighted a huge reptile, not unlike a prehistoric monster, in the Bemi swamp. And if such there were on earth, surely there could be no more likely place to find it than here, in these far green forests beyond the reach of men. No sunlight penetrated those depths below. There was hot, still heat, humidity, and the unceasing buzz of insects. At night that jungle was a hell of sound, of screams and yells and screeches.

  Turk’s wing tip scored the misty end of a cloud and he moved out into the vast, unclouded blue beyond, and the ship seemed lost in a droning dream between the green below and the blue above.

  Then out of the green came the shaggy brown ridge of a mountain chain, and the silver of a stream. It could be the Formosa. Phil Mora stuck his head over Buck Rodd’s shoulder. “Is that it?” he asked.

  Turk swung the ship in a wide circle, studying the terrain below. “It’s not the Formosa,” he said at last. “My guess is that it is one of the streams west of there, closer against the mountains.

  Nevertheless, we’ll scout around for a landing.”

  “Savanna over there to our northeast,” Rodd offered, inclining his head in that direction. “Looks like there might be quite a bit of open country around.”

  “There is,” Mora said. “Lots of this country through here is open. Several small mountain ranges in here, too.”

  Turk Madden swung the ship in a tighter circle, moving in toward the spot of open water.

  It looked not unlike the brief description Red had given him in the cantina, but there was no way he could be sure. He dropped lower, then cut the throttle and slid down toward the smooth dark water. Then he leveled off and, with the stick back, took the water easily and started to taxi toward the shore, keeping a sharp eye out for snags.

  When they were in a small cove, Shan Bao dropped the anchor and they swung slowly, turning the nose into the wind. Turk stared around curiously. The shore was flat and low at this point, the gavel beach giving way to tall grass, and beyond, a few scattered trees. A bit farther along, the wall of the jungle closed in, but here at the cove was timber enough for shelter and fuel, and some camouflage.

  Dick London was getting the boat out and Turk nodded toward shore.

  “Look that bottom over as you go in. I’d like to run her up on the beach if we can. I think we might make a takeoff up there. I think we’ll start flying from here tomorrow.”

  When they were gone, he got up and reached for his shoulder holster, buckling it in place. Then he picked up his jacket and slipped it on. Ashore, Buck was getting a fire started, and they all went to work getting their camp set up. Turk stared thoughtfully around. “It’s late, so we’ll sit tight. Tomorrow we’d better have a look at things.”

  Dick motioned toward the spur of the mountain. “Some funny rocks up there. One of them looks almost like a tower.”

  Madden turned toward it. The outline was dark against the sky. It did look like a tower. He lighted his cigarette, still staring at it, then tossed the match down and ground it into the sand with his toe. Chipan-what was Chipan? Staring at the strange shape against the sky of this remote jungle, Turk Madden felt a queer, ominous thrill go through him, a feeling that left him uncomfortable, as though eyes were upon him.

  He glanced around, and something in the manner of Phil Mora told him the geologist was feeling it, too.

  “Odd place,” Mora said at last. “Gets you, somehow.”

  “It does that!” Buck glanced up sharply.

  Against the darkening sky the shape of the tower was all gone. “I wonder if that is a tower? Or is it just a rock?”

  Dick London laughed. “There’s nothing of that kind in here. This is all wild country.”

  Mora shrugged. “So was the jungle in Cambodia before they found the lost city of Angkhor. You never know what you’ll find under this jungle. You couldn’t even see a city from the air unless you were hedgehopping. Not if it is really covered with jungle.”

  Buck Rodd had taken over the cooking job from Shan Ban fnr the ,vi-,nincr asiond Tnrlccom seated himself on a rock watching the brawny prospector throw a meal together, and listening half unconsciously to an argument between Mora and London as to the relative merits of Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey. It was not only his interest in this area of jungle that had prompted Madden to accept so readily the challenge of this new venture.

  Prospecting with the magnetometer was new, and as always such developments intrigued him. He was aware that the device would not entirely replace the usual surface instruments and methods, but it would outline the areas that deserved careful study and eliminate many others and much waste of time. Both Mora and London had worked with the magnetometer, the latter a good deal. Even in civilized areas, the cost of such a survey on the ground was nearly twenty times more expensive than
by air, while the difference in the time required for the survey was enormous. The magnetometer would be towed a hundred feet or so behind the plane in a bomblike housing, with the plane flying from five hundred to a thousand feet in the air, and at speeds around one hundred fifty miles per hour.

  In the nose of the flying eye there was contained a small detector element called a fluxgate, kept parallel to the magnetic field of the earth by a gyro mechanism. As the magnetic field varied in intensity with variations in the earth’s crust, the changes were picked up by an alternating current imposed upon the detector. These sharp pulses in voltage were picked up, amplified, and recorded.

  Once recorded, these observations were sent to geophysicists and geologists who interpreted the information, with the result that possible oil structures as well as mineral bodies could be identified with fair accuracy. Darkness closed in around the tiny camp, and overhead the stars came out, bright and close. The water of the lake lapped lazily at the amphibian’s hull, and Turk leaned back against his rock and stared into the fire. Phil had picked up his guitar and was singing a Western ballad when suddenly there came a new sound.

  Turk heard it first. He stiffened, then held up a hand for quiet. The lazy sound of the voice and the strings died and the fire crackled, and the water lapped with its hungry tongue. And then the sound came again, the low, throbbing sound of distant drums.

  Frozen in place, they listened. Buck Rodd sat up and stared over at Turk. “They know we’re here,” he said grimly. “The natives know it, anyway.” “They sound pretty far off,” London hazarded. “Maybe.” Turk shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell. They often sound loudest at a distance.”

  The drums throbbed, then died, then boomed louder still, and then the sound ended abruptly and the silence lay thick upon the jungle and savanna. Waiting, listening, they suddenly heard something else-a woman’s voice singing in the distance.

  The low, deep voice sang, with a strange accent. “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play!” London sat up. “Oh, no!” he said. “Not that! Here in the middle of the jungle some babe starts singing cow ballads! What is this?” “Next thing somebody will start broadcasting soap o eras!” Rodd said sarcastically. “Ain’t a man safe anywhere?”’

  Turk Madden’s scowl grew deeper, and his green eyes narrowed. It didn’t make sense. Not any way you looked at it.

  Not even, he thought, if the Petex outfit had beaten them to it. “You can be ready for anything,” Joe Leone had said, “they’ve got Vincent Boling running their show, an’ you know what he is. An’ he’s got Frank Mather, Sid Bordie, and Ben Pace working with him.”

  Turk knew them all. Bordie and he had tangled only a short time before, and Mather was a man who had done a short stretch in the federal pen for flying dope over the line from Mexico. The three were flying muscle men, and in this game they were playing for stakes that were enormous. And what happened back here in the jungle might never be known.

  “Tomorrow we start working,” Turk said, looking up suddenly. “Every man carries a gun at all times, but no shot will be fired unless you are first fired upon.

  If possible we must make friends with the natives, or whoever there is out here. First, remember these boys we’re playing tag with are tough. Nobody is to go into the jungle alone unless it is Buck or myself, and I don’t want either you, Mora, or Dick going into the jungle alone until you know your way around.”

  “You think we’ll have trouble? Shooting trouble?”

  London asked. “You bet we will. But guns aren’t something to be taken lightly, and neither is shooting when you are shooting at other men. We’ve got a job to do, and that’s the first thing. If they want war, let them start it.” He grew thoughtful. “Then we’ll give them all they want an’ more!” Daylight found Dick London working over his gear with Mora at his side. Turk came out from under the mosquito bar mopping the sweat from his face despite the early hour. It had been a thick, close night. , “We may get a storm,” Turk said, “so let’s get busy.”

  They ate a quick breakfast, and Turk went out with Shan to give the ship a thorough check. Buck Rodd came down to the beach and called out to them. “You can land up here if you want,” he said. “I’ve just been over this savanna. There’s no rocks, no dead trees.”

  Madden came ashore, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. At a jerk of Rodd’s head, he followed him to one side.

  “Come have a look,” Rodd suggested. “I didn’t want the others to know about this.”

  The two big men walked side by side, up the slight rise to the long level of the savanna. A light wind stirred the tall grass, but scarcely ruffled the heavier leaves of the jungle growth beyond.

  Buck stopped suddenly and pointed. In a patch of bare ground near an ant hill there was the track of a human foot-a sandal track.

  “Last night,” Buck said, “someone probably came down to look us over.” “Yeah,” Turk agreed. He hitched up his belt and grinned.

  “Well, maybe we’ll have trouble, but lets hope we duck it.” On a sudden thought, he turned and glanced toward the spur of the mountain. If there was any tower there, he could not distinguish it now. He remarked about it.

  “I noticed that, too,” Buck agreed, “but if the thing is there, and it is old and weathered, we might not see it. At sundown the outline is sharper against the sky. Should I have a look?”

  “No, better not. We’ve unloaded most of our gear here, so why don’t you and Shan stick around and keep an eye on things. Sort of fix the camp up, too. Mora, Dick, and I are going upstairs now.”

  With the amphibian turned into the wind, Turk warmed the ship up and started down the smooth water of the lake. The speed built up, and the ship climbed on the step as he put the stick forward. Then he brought it back and the ship took off easily, skimming off over the low jungle, building up speed.

  In a wide circle, he swung back toward the lake, his eyes scanning the jungle, yet there was nothing, nothing except … He stared again, and back in the notch of the hills he saw some taller trees. His eyes sharpened. He knew the trees growing among ruins often grew to greater height.

  Over the lake, the magnetometer was slowly trailed back into position, and Mora had his camera ready to shoot the continuous strip of 35 mm film that would make an unbroken record of the flight path.

  At five hundred feet, the amphibian swept back over the jungle and settled down to steady flying. . Pointing the ship due north toward the far distant Amazon, Turk held the speed at one hundred fifty miles an hour. Below them the green jungle unrolled, broken by wide savannas and occasionally by the upthrust of ancient mountain ranges. Leaning back in his seat, Turk glanced around, his eyes less on the jungle than the sky, for it was from the sky that trouble was most likely to come. Remembering the sudden dive of the mysterious plane on the preceding day, he thought of Sid Bordie, the Petex muscle man. It would be like Sid to try something like that. He was tough, but he was also a bluffer, and he always believed other men were more easily frightened than himself. For two hours they flew north and then started back for their base, flying a route a quarter of a mile west of the first course.

  Turk glanced over his shoulder as they flew in toward the lake. “Everything okay?”

  “Couldn’t be better!” Dick yelled in answer.

  Landing the ship, Turk taxied to the shore. He saw Buck Rodd come strolling down to the beach.

  “Everything quiet here,” Buck said. “I didn’t look around any. Mostly too busy.”

  On foot then, Turk walked swiftly up the slight hill through the tall grass, eager to stretch his legs. Surprisingly, the air was cool.

  Despite the latitude, they were fairly high here, and now, in the late afternoon, the heat was already slipping away.

  He struck straight for the edge of the jungle. There was less underbrush than he had expected and, following a route that paralleled the jungle’s edge, he headed toward the spur of the mountain where they had believed they had see
n the tower.

  As he walked, he saw no tracks, no marks of any man or woman. Yet despite the tower, if such it was, his mind was more curious about the girl’s voice, singing “Home on the Range.”

  It was absurd, of course. Had he heard the son alone, he would have been convinced he had only imagine it. The route led up to the mountainside, and soon he was out of the jungle and making his way through sparse brush and scattered boulders. Then he stopped abruptly. Before him in the path there was a track. He knelt, studying it. The foot was moccasin-or sandal clad, small and well shaped.

  The stride was even and firm, as of someone of light weight and not too tall. He had a feeling the track was not many hours, perhaps not even many minutes old.

  More slowly, he walked along. Once his hand went to his shoulder holster for the reassuring grip of the gun. A flyer in the East Indies and South America before the war, and in Siberia, China, and Japan during the war, Turk was no stranger to danger, but he knew that actually, it was always new.

  A man never became accustomed to it.

  The tracks proceeded down the path ahead of him, and then he came around a boulder and stood on the edge of the ridge, and before him was the tower. There was no doubt. It was a tower.

  Turk Madden halted, stirred by a strange uneasiness. It was that peculiar feeling known to those who come first to ancient ruins. The feeling of being watched, of walking upon hallowed ground, of intruding.

  It was late evening and ,the sun was down. The mountains had taken on the darkness of night, and the green of the jungle had turned to deep purple and black. Outlines were vague toward the lake shore, although even from here he could see the single star that marked their campfire. Turk stood there, waiting, every sense alert, a big man, well over six feet, and his broad, powerful shoulders heavy with muscle under the woolen shirt.