Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Yet now there was no chance. What had to be done must be done, and there was no time for details. He moved along and smiled to himself to know that three men moved behind him.

  They might have been ghosts wafted by some breeze from beyond the grave for all the sound they made.

  The deep crevasse in which they walked ended so suddenly that Turk stopped and Young ran into him. They made no noise, and it was well, for they stood on the edge of a pool, no more than twenty feet across. It was a pool surrounded by shade trees, and now, kneeling on the far side was a girl. She bent down and dipped up water with a wooden bowl, and drank from it. Her face was a delicate tracery of old ivory in the moonlight, and when she put down the bowl she knelt there on the stone slab, gazing up at the moon.

  Turk held himself very still. Behind him he could hear the breathing of the other men. Suddenly, and why he did not know, Turk decided he was going to speak to her.

  Carefully, he moved out from the others and skirted the pond on light stepping feet. When he was no more than a few feet away, he spoke to her gently in Mandarin.

  It was a wild chance, but she did not look like a Ngolok woman, nor like a Lolo. At the sound of his voice, she stiffened, and her chin came down, but she did not look at him. She did not turn her head, but looked across the garden. “Who speaks from the willows?” she asked. He spoke very softly, knowing that now he needed her help, her willing help. “A man who seeks the woman he loves, and her brother, who are prisoners here.”

  “You are not Chinese?”

  “American. his Surprisingly then, she turned her head and spoke in clearest English. “Then speak to me so.

  I was educated in a mission school and have talked with many Americans.”

  “You know the prisoner-Bob Doone?”

  “Yes, I speak with him often, although it is not allowed.” She arose and looked up at Turk.

  “He is the one you seek?”

  “Yes, and the American girl who came today?

  They did get her, didn’t they?”

  The girl nodded. “She came in with her hands tied and an American with her. He has been talking with Bo Hau, our master.”

  “You are a prisoner, too?”

  “Yes, they keep me as a hostage to keep the aid of my father, who is in Sining. He sends many caravans here, but he does not like the trade. It is done for my protection.”

  “You know how we can reach Doone? And his sister?”

  The others had moved around the pool and stood beside him.

  “It cannot be done. They are guarded with great care.

  Bo Hau has wanted something from the American. The man who came today with the woman, I heard him say he could show them how to get it. That he would help.” “By torturing her in front of her brother!” Young said. He swore bitterly.

  “To think the guy was once on our side! That we ate at the same mess!”

  Turk shook his head. “We cannot accept your decision that it cannot be done. It must be done, and tonight, we’ll do it.”

  She nodded as one who understands when a decision is irrevocable. “Then I will take you there,” she said, “but what of the guards?” Turk put his hand on her shoulder. “You take us,” he said gently, “we’ll cross our guards when we get to them!”

  Without further hesitation she turned and led them across the garden. Had they traveled by any other route than down the water course there would have been walls to climb, but here the gardens of the Domed House ran right against the mountain itself.

  Her way took them to a door set in a high wall. She opened it and went in, leading them across a paved court where they moved silently. At the far wall she hesitated. “I will speak to the guard,” she said, “and then-was Silently, Shan Bao glided to the fore. “And then I shall act!” he said, low-voiced.

  She opened the door and passed within, but when she had taken five steps she paused and turned slightly, then she spoke softly in some strange tongue. The guard stepped toward her, answering with a question. Swiftly, Shan Bao moved in, but some scarcely audible sound must have come to the guard. He wheeled, grasping his huge sword. Yet big as he was and fast as he was, he had no chance. The Manchu was too close, and his deadly knife darted like a serpent’s tongue and the big man fell forward.

  Shan Bao used the knife once more, and then they moved on.

  Young breathed into Madden’s ear, “You have that guy around all the time?”

  Turk nodded. He started to speak, then stopped, for now they were entering a long, dank passageway that trended down in a long steep ramp. When they had gone a hundred yards they began to pass barred doors. .

  “Slaves,” the girl whispered, “slaves, and most of them Chinese or Lolos. There is another guard ahead, then the men prisoners. The girl is kept above stairs.”

  Hardly had she finished speaking when a huge man loomed around the corner ahead of them. His eyes widened and his mouth opened for a bellow that would have rocked the monastery, but Turk was moving.

  Lunging like a fullback, he plowed into the big guard before the man could lift his sword, and, knocked from his hands, it hit the floor with a loud clang. The huge man grabbed at Madden, but Turk slipped inside of those mighty hands and smashed a right to the guard’s heart with every ounce of his two hundred pounds of whipcord and steel muscle behind it. The big man staggered and went back on his hands and knees. “The prisoners!” Turk snapped crisply at Sparrow Ryan. “Don’t bother about me! Go get Doone!”

  The guard rushed, and . Turk came to his feet, weaved inside the huge hands, and slashed the Ngolok’s face with a lancing left hand, and then he began throwing punches with every ounce of power he had.

  Smashing the guard back with a wicked overhand right, he hooked a left and right to the body. Wildly, the guard swung, but Madden was inside and fighting for his life. He stabbed a right to the body, then lifted his hand and hacked the edge of it across the guard’s Adam’s apple! Gagging horribly, the guard fell to his knees and Madden smashed him to the floor. Then he rolled the big man over and, ripping off the rawhide string he used for a belt, lashed the man’s hands behind him. Then he bound his feet together and hurriedly gagged him with a corner of the padded cloth ripped from the man’s clothing.

  Bob Doone-Turk knew him at once from his resemblance to Raemy-lunged from a cell. A half dozen other followed from other cells. The Chinese girl was hastily motioning them on, so wiping the sweat from his face, Turk started after her. The others fell in behind.

  Now she led them up a steep, winding stair into a wide stone hall. Then up another stair.

  Suddenly, Turk paused. “Ryan,” he said.

  “you’d better take Doone and get out. Get that steel box!”

  “And leave you? Don’t be crazy!”

  “You’ve got a job to do!” Turk told him.

  “Besides, I’ll have Shan. From now on, it’s up to me. Don’t tell Bob I’m after Raemy.”

  Ryan hesitated, then shrugged. With Young he turned back. Turk walked on down the empty passage behind the slim young Chinese girl.

  Suddenly, she gestured at him and stepped into a doorway at one side of the passage. Turk and Shan Bao followed, and no sooner were they concealed than four of the big guards appeared, and marching between them were Raemy and Bekart! Watching, they saw the group turn into a wide doorway and vanish into a room. Turk hesitated a moment, his mind working swiftly. From all appearances the prisoners were being taken to a questioning. This would be the one big chance: when they were not locked in cells! The long passage was dank and gloomy. Certainly, if modern tendencies were alive among the Ngoloks, they had done little to improve their living conditions. A chill pervaded the great Domed House, the damp, empty chill of a building long cold.

  This was no secret and marvelous lost civilization, it was the den of a barbaric people, constructed long ago, and almost untouched since. The flagstone floor was uneven and dirt gathered in the cracks. Here and there dampness had left stains on the wall and ceilin
g.

  “You’d better go back to the garden,” Turk whispered to the girl. “We’ll come that way and take you with us!”

  He stepped out of his hiding place boldly and walked across to the huge plank door. Without a glance over his shoulder he lifted the latch and stepped within. He heard the light slap of Shan Bao’s footsteps behind him and heard the door close softly. He did not turn his head, for his eyes were riveted upon the great hall in which he stood.

  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 Han was staring at Turk, his eyes alive with fanatic hatred.

  “Raemy,” Turk said, his eyes shifting from Bo Han 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-was “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 Han 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, Shau!” 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 python or like grip!

  Turk’s head jerked forward and smashed into the Ngolok’s face, but then the big men 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 an 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.

  Several 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?”