Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  The tower was black with age, worn smooth by wind and rain. It stood on a small plateau of grass among fallen stones, gloomy, ancient, alone. Yet there was a faint path down the slight incline toward its base, skirting the tower.

  Turk knew that there was no known civilization here.

  The Inca ruins were far to the west, in Peru. The Maya ruins were far to the north, in Yucatan and Honduras, and the Mayas had never been a wandering people. There had been rumors, of course. Two Portuguese seamen in 1533 had a story to tell of vast ruined cities. A Phoenician galley had been found embedded in the mud on the banks of the Amazon. And there had been tales of a still existent Guarani civilization, somewhere in the vast interior.

  Slowly, Turk moved down the path, feeling uneasy. He turned around the tower, and before him the hillside broke sharply away upon an inner valley, its steep sides scarred by broken walls and blackened stone. Here and there a wall was intact.

  In one place, another tower. And before him, in the tower by which he stood, was the black rectangle of an open door. Turk Madden hesitated. There was no sound but the faint whisper of the wind. He licked his lips and turned toward the door. And then he stopped. Faintly, and far away at first, he heard the sound of a nearing plane. Then he saw the ship.

  It was coming low over the hills, and incredibly fast. It could have been the same lane that had narrowly missed them on the day they arrive at the lake, or it might be another ship of the same type. Like a dark arrow it vanished over the lake and into the darkening sky beyond. Had the pilot sighted their fire? Most likely, unless they had covered it soon enough, for such a fire was visible for many miles. Well, then, they were probably discovered now, their whereabouts known.

  Yet there was still the tower. He reached into his pocket for the small flashlight he always carried and stepped up to the door. The light revealed the inside of the tower, and before him a square stone table, polished or worn until it was smooth as glass. In the center of the table was a plantain leaf, and on it a small cup. Curious, he stepped forward. The cup contained a liquid, and when he placed a hand upon it, the cup was warm.

  He hesitated. Obviously, this had been placed here for a reason. An offering to a god? But there was no image here, nothing but the smooth wall.

  He lifted the cup and tasted the liquid. He recognized the drink at once. It was something similar to the sweetened pozole of the Mayas, a drink made from ground maize. He tasted it again, and then carefully replaced the cup on the leaf. “Red?”

  The voice was so low it sent a shiver through him, and so unexpectedly near. He stood perfectly still, goose pimples running up his spine. It was a girl’s voice, and she was behind him.

  “No,” he tried to keep his voice calm, even. “It is not Red. I am Turk.” There was a whisper of movement, and the girl stepped into the light.

  She was taller than he had expected, for he was looking for someone like the Mayas, whose women were less than five feet tall, and the men only slightly taller.

  She was tall, beautifully shaped, and with very large, slightly oblique eyes. She might have been called beautiful. She was certainly striking, and the garb she wore left little to the imagination. “I am Natochi,” she said softly, in the same low voice. Nato, if you see Nato-the prospector had told him-tell her that Red said hello. Then this was Nato.

  “Red told me to say “hello,” he said.

  Suddenly, at a thought, he turned the light so that she might see his face, too. She looked at him, her eyes large, serious, intent.

  “You are friend to Red?”

  “Yes. You speak English?”

  “Red tell me how. You will be at this place long?”

  “Perhaps a week, perhaps a month. You live near here?” “He had to repeat that, and then she nodded. “Not far.”

  “At Chipan?” he asked, and was immediately startled by her expression. Stark horror came into her face.

  “No! No! Not at Chipan! Nobody lives at Chipan, only the-how you say it-ghost?”

  “It is near here?” he asked curiously. She shook her head, refusing to reply, so he took another angle. “Your people are friendly?” She hesitated. “They are sometimes friendly, sometimes not.

  At first they did not like Red, and then they did. They do not like the other one now.” “The other one?” Turk frowned. “Is there another white man here? Has he just come?”

  “Oh, no! He came when Red came, but he does not go away. He cannot go away now.”

  “What do you mean? Why can’t he go?” Turk persisted. “He has no legs. He stays here now.”

  Turk stared at her. What the devil was this, anyway? A white man, stuck in this country without any legs! Why hadn’t Red mentioned that? “Was he a friend of Red’s?”

  “Oh, no! They fight very much, at first! Many fight, with hands closed, but always he is stronger than Red. He is ver” strong, this one.” “You mean he had legs then? And not now?”

  She hesitated, obviously uncertain and a little frightened. “The Old Ones, they took his legs.

  They cut off them.”

  Shocked, Madden drew back. Then he asked warily, “why? Why did they cut them off?”

  “Because he wanted to go to Chipan. Always he wanted to go. They told him he must not, the Old Ones did, but he laughed and went, so they cut off his legs to keep him from going again.” She looked at Turk seriously. “It is very bad to go to Chipan.

  It is evil there.”

  Turk studied the situation thoughtfully. He wanted very much to talk to this man, to get him away from here, but also he wanted and needed the friendship of these people, for they could render his base useless if they were antagonized. More than anything now he wanted to get back to camp and to think this over.

  “We are friends,” he said at last. “We live at the lake. We work much. Tell your people we will not go to Chipan.

  Tell them we will be friends and help them if they wish it. Other men,” he added, “may come who are not friends. You must be on your guard, for they may be very bad men. You must come to our camp, and see the others, so you will know them.”

  She smiled suddenly, and he realized with a start that she was not only striking. She was beautiful.

  “I have seen them,” she said. “Each one. So have others of my people. We have watched you last night, and today.”

  They left the tower and parted on the edge of the jungle. He turned and walked swiftly back toward the fire, which was still bright. Buck Rodd was pacing back and forth, and when he saw Turk, relief broke over his face.

  “Man!” he exclaimed. “We were getting worried! Where have you been?” Turk accepted the cup that Shan Bao offered him and walked over and seated himself on the ground with his back to the stone. He took a swallow of coffee, and while Shan was dishing up the food, he explained briefly, amused by their wide-eyed interest. “Talk about luck!”

  Dick said with disgust. “You walk out into the jungle and run right into something like that. A beautiful dame, and away out here, too! Why doesn’t anything like that ever happen to me?” “If it did,” Phil Mora said smiling, “you’d probably be so scared you’d still be running.”

  “What about this fellow with no legs, this white man?” Rodd inquired. “You think that’s on the level? It’s funny this Red didn’t say anything about it.”

  Turk shrugged. “She said that he and Red fought all the time. Red must have been friendly enough with them, for apparently they let him go. I wonder what’s at Chipan that this other fellow wanted so much?” “That’s easy enough!” Rodd said. “Gold, probably.

  What else would make a man gamble on something like that? You remember what Pizarro found in Peru? The walls of that Temple to the Sun at Cuzco were sheeted in thin plates of gold. From what you say, this Chipan must be a sacred place.” “That wasn’t the impression I got,” Turk said. “She seemed afraid of it. The place is tabu, that’s a cinch.

  Evil, she said.” He glanced over at Mora and London.

  “Don
’t you boys get any wild ideas.

  If you don’t want to lose any legs, stay away from that place. And don’t ask any questions!”

  Yet he was less worried about Chipan and the tribesmen, whoever they were, than about the plane he had seen, for it was high time that Bordie or some of the Petex crowd showed up. Certainly any outfit that hired Vin Boling to ramrod such a deal, and men like Pace, Mather, and Bordie to carry it out, was planning on riding roughshod over any opposition.

  And they had moved in too easily.

  Daybreak found Turk and his crew in the air again.

  This time they flew clear on to Obido to refuel.

  Surprisingly, Joe Leone was waiting for Turk when he came ashore.

  “Came down to handle this gas setup myself, an’ just as well I did,” he said, his cigar jutting up from his tight-lipped mouth, “Boling’s in town.

  They’ve got a base back in the jungle.”

  Turk explained quickly, telling all that had happened except about the native girl and Chipan.

  For some reason he was reluctant to speak of it.

  Previously, he had warned Phil and Dick against any comments along that line.

  “Hi, Turk!”

  Madden turned at the booming voice and found himself facing Sid Bordie and a man he remembered vaguely as Vin Boling. To Boling’s reputation he needed no introduction. The man had ramrodded many legal or semilegal deals in his life and was utterly ruthless, a fighter who would stop at nothing. “Looks like you fellows were getting started,” Boling said, smiling. “But you’re late.

  We’ll have this survey completed in no time. Why don’t you pull out before you waste more money?”

  “We’ll finish it!” Leone said grimly. “And don’t start anything, Boling. I know how you operate.”

  The big man chuckled. He was taller than Turk Madden, lithe and hard as nails. In his whites and half-boots he looked rugged enough.

  Bordie was equally tall, but broader and thicker.

  “I want “em to stay!” Bordie said, his eyes bright with malice. “This Madden is supposed to be good. I want to see how good.”

  “Want to find out now?” Turk invited.

  “Nobody’s holding you, chum.” Bordie’s face flushed dark with anger.

  “Why, you-was He swung from his hip, and it was the wrong thing to do.

  Turk had been rubbing his palms together, rather absently, holding them chest high. It was an excellent punching position, which was exactly why he held them there. Sid Bordie’s punch started, but Turks rock-hard left: fist smashed into his teeth, and then a short right dropped to the angle of Bordie’s jaw and the big flyer’s knees sagged.

  But Turk had not stopped punching, the two blows had been thrown quicker than a wink, and the third was a left hook to the solar plexus thrown from the hip. It exploded in Bordie’s stomach, and the flyer grunted and hit the dock on his knees. His feet spread, Turk Madden looked over Bordie’s back at Vin Boling. “How’s about it, bud? You askin”, too? Or just looking?” Boling’s eyes held Madden’s with a queer, leaping light. Turk saw the hard gleam of humor there, and something else, a sort of dark warning. “You’re rough, Madden,”

  Boling said sarcastically, “and crude. I’m down here on a job, not swapping punches like any brawler. I’d rather like to take you down a notch, but that can wait.”

  As Turk turned on his heel and left, Sid Bordie got to his feet, his face pale and sick. His eyes were ugly with hatred, and a thin trickle of blood trickled from his smashed lips.

  “I’ll kill you for that, Madden!”

  Dick London moved up alongside of Turk. “Man alive,” he said. “He went down as if you’d hit him with an axe.”

  Leone rolled his cigar in his jaws. “Son,” he said, “I’d sooner be hit with an axe.” He shook his head then. “I don’t like it, Turk.

  That’s a bad outfit. I’d have felt better if Boling’d blown his top.”

  Turk nodded. “Yeah, he’s a hard case, that one. But whatever he does will be back in the bush where nobody can see, an’ if he has his way, there’ll be no survivors.”

  Sundown found the amphibian sliding down to a landing on the lake, and Turk’s eyes glinted with appreciation at what he saw. Rodd had constructed, with Shan’s help, a small dock, about four feet wide and thirty feet long. Also, he had a boom made of logs tied together and anchored, forming a neat little harbor near the dock.

  “We’ve been busy,” Rodd said as they strolled from the dock toward the camp. “An’ no sign of your babe in the woods. But say, I’ve been thinkin’ a little about this Red you told me about, an’ about the fellow without any legs. I know who he is.”

  Turk stopped. “What do you mean? Who is he then?” “Look,” Buck began, was I prospected down here before the war. Most of us in that racket knew each other. At first when you talked about this redhead you met, I didn’t think much about it, but then it began to tie in. Back in forty-one there were a couple of men took off into the jungle, had some idea of hunting the Lost Gold Mine of the Martyrs.

  Well, when I came out of the jungle to go back to the States and the Army, it was forty-two, and they were still missing. One of those men was Red Gruber. The other one was Russ Fagin. his “Fagin? I think I know that name,” Turk mused. “Wasn’t he in that Gran Chaco fuss?”

  “That’s him. A tough character, out for all he could get and any way he could get it. If this fellow without legs is Russ Fagin, I’ll bet he’s meaner than ever about now.”

  “That’s a horrible thing,” Mora said, “having your legs cut off. I wonder what made them do it?”

  “Nobody violates tabu,” Madden replied.

  “He was lucky he got off that easy.

  Usually, they stake them out on an anthill.” He studied the situation. “Shan, you can take the boys out tomorrow. I’m going over to this village wherever it is:

  Buck, you come with me. We’ll talk to this legless gent.”

  As though she had been expecting them, Nato met the two men at the edge of the jungle. She stood erect, her shoulders back, her garment tight and appealing about her. Her eyes went from Buck to Turk Madden. “You come now to visit us?” she asked.

  Turk nodded assent. “And to see the man without legs,” he added. A shadow crossed her face.

  “Oh, yes! But please, you must not ask for him at once. My people, they are strange.”

  Turk looked at her thoughtfully. “You are tall, Nato. What is your tribe? You seem like one of my people.”

  She was pleased, he saw that at once. My father,” she said softly, “was a Chileno-how you say-Iriss and Spaniss. He was a prisoner here for a long time. He, too, tried to go to Chipan. was “Tell Me,” Turk asked, “what’s at Chipan? Is it a city?” “A city, yes.” She would say no more than that, although after a minute, she looked around at him. “The other man, without legs, he is ver’ bad man. He try to kill Red.”

  “Was Red your friend? Your lover?” Turk asked gently. She looked at him, startled, then amused.

  “Oh, no! I was too young! Much too young! Red, he talk with my padre, father. He talk much with him. When he go, he say he will come back. You see, we like Red. My people all like him.”

  “Your mother,” Turk hazarded a guess, “she was Guarani?” For a moment, the girl did not reply, and then she said without looking at him, “You must not speak Guarani. It is tabu. Nor talk of Chipan.” They emerged from the jungle into a cluster of ordered fields. They were milpa resembling those of the Maya, yet here agriculture seemed to have progressed beyond the stage of burned jungle, for the fields were scattered with leaf mold gathered from the jungle, and an effort had been made to turn the soil over.

  “You plant maize? How many years here?”

  Turk asked curiously. She looked at him quickly, pleased by his interest. “Maize two years,” she said, “Jican two years.”

  Jican, he decided from her further explanation, was somewhat like the sweet-tasting turnip of Guatemala. T
here was no time for further questions, for they stood suddenly in the street of the village, a street heavily shaded by towering jungle trees, most of them the sapodilla. Beneath the trees were scattered many huts, some of them facing upon a rough square. Several children were playing in the compound, and they got up and drew back into the black doorways of the palm-thatched huts. They stopped before one of the larger huts, and now a man stepped from it. He was white-haired, and although he seemed old, his body was hard and young-looking.

  “Cantal,” Nato said, and then indicating Madden and Rodd in turn, she said, “Madden, Rodd.”

  The chief spoke slowly, looking from one to the other as he spoke, and Madden could gather the gist of what he said from his gestures and expression. Also, there was something faintly familiar about the tongue, and then Turk knew what it was. It was faintly similar to the Guarani language with some words he seemed to remember from the Chamacos.

  “What do we do now?” Buck asked softly. “The old boy seems friendly enough. Did you savvy that Chamaco? Seems mixed up, but I could get out a word or two.”

  Cantal led off; and he took them slowly about the village. It was a sightseeing tour, and Turk was interested despite his impatience to see and talk to Russ Fagin, if that was the name of the legless man.

  Obviously the maize crop was good, and Turk saw beans, squash, papayas, sapodilla, cacao beans, and after they had walked awhile, they stopped near another but and were served yerbe mate in wooden cups.

  Nato spoke suddenly to Cantal, and Turk, beginning to catch the sound of the language now and to sort out the Guarani words, understood she was asking about the man without legs. Cantal seemed to hesitate, and his face became severe. But finally the girl seemed to win him over. Cantal turned and led them to a large but that was set off to one side, and around it a low fence. As they passed through, a big man lurched suddenly out of the door on crutches, and as he saw them, his head jerked back as if he’d been struck.

  He wore a tattered and many times patched shirt and crudely made shorts of some coarse, native cotton material. His arms and shoulders were heavy with muscle, his neck thick,. and his face swarthy, unshaven. The eyes that stared from Madden to Rodd and back were hard, cruel eyes.