The Adventures Of Indiana Jones

by Campbell Black

  Or maybe this was just the final stage of a powerful seduction, seduced by the fortune and glory he was always after. She could understand seduction—those diamonds were certainly alluring—but this seemed a little over the edge.

  Magic?

  She didn’t know, or care. She only knew she was about to die, and she didn’t know why and didn’t want to, and hated him for it, and was afraid.

  The priests shackled her ankles to the basket.

  “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” she screamed. “You big lousy dirty ape.” Rage foamed at her lips, then dissolved again into supplication. “Be nice, fellas. Come on.” And when this had no effect, the distress call again: “Indy!”

  Mola Ram circled her as the front of the frame was closed, wedging her, spread-eagled, in the wafer-thin cage. Indiana looked away from her, to gaze adoringly at the face of the monstrous goddess above them. He dropped his snake to the floor; it crawled into a corner.

  The priests tore off Willie’s necklaces.

  “You got some kind of nerve!” she roared. “I knew you thugs were just a bunch of cheapskates! You’re saving these trinkets for someone—well, she’ll never look as good as me!” She was defiant now, contemptuous.

  Mola Ram came before her. He seemed pleased with her insolence. He bowed slightly, then raised his hand, tauntingly, toward her heart.

  Icy chills coursed through her, to watch the High Priest’s fingers approach her chest. She’d seen this part before; it terrorized her to envision it now. Her knees turned to water. If she hadn’t been held up by shackles and meshing she’d have crumpled to the ground. All her fine brazen boldness shriveled in the face of this wizard’s advancing hand. She fell to bargaining. “Wait. Not yet. Please. I’ll do anything. I know a lot of politicians and important industrialists. I was a personal dinner guest of Chiang Kai Shek. I know people who work for Al Capone.” A surrealistic thought struck her, and she laughed absurdly. “In fact, do you have a cousin named Frank Nitti, he lives in Chicago, you know you could be his brother.”

  Mola Ram sneered at her rantings. Heinously, he brought his hand closer. She felt his icicle fingers touch the cloth over her breast. There was a sickening pressure, like a finger pushing into a throat, or a thumb over an eye: nauseating pressure, intrusive, unexpected, violating.

  She swooned.

  In the half-lit tunnel, Short Round set a measured beat, stone against iron, trying to crack his bonds. He’d seen it done just this way in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, except it was harder to do than to watch. His arm was growing tired, his despair strong. What would Indy and Willie do without him? What if the Wheel of Transmigration separated them in the next life? It well might; there was no predicting the roll of the Wheel.

  The other children continued to watch him. He wouldn’t have minded some help, but they looked so weird standing there—like ghosts, or worse—that he decided concentrating on his task was the best bet. He thrust his fatigued arm down one more time, knocking stone against iron. And the clasp broke. Just like that: he was free.

  The other children stared darkly at him, in wonder, in disbelief, in unanticipated new belief. This was freedom, here, in their midst.

  Furtively, Short Round peered about. He was out of bondage none too soon, it seemed. At the tunnel mouth, a guard was approaching. In the torch-lit shadows, Short Round took a chance. He dove, rolled across the tunnel to a mine car full of rocks being pushed along the rails by two chained slaves.

  The guard lumbered past, unsuspecting. Using the mine car as cover, Short Round crouched, walking along with it, up and out of the pit.

  The other children from his chain gang watched him escape, but said nothing.

  Up in the temple, Willie came out of her swoon to see Mola Ram walking away. He hadn’t plucked out her heart; he’d just been toying with her! Tears of hope sprang to her eyes. Maybe all wasn’t lost yet.

  She struggled fiercely to break her bonds, pulled and tugged at her wrists—and good God, it happened: with all the lubricating sweat, she managed to extricate one slender wrist from the manacle that strapped her to the sacrificial frame.

  She reached out her free left arm imploringly to Indiana. “Indy, help us! Snap out of it. You’re not one of them. Please. Please come back to me. Please, come back to me.”

  Indy walked over to her cage, reached out slowly, took her hand in his. She grasped his fingers tightly. He brought her hand up to his lips, kissed it. They stared deeply into each other’s eyes. Yes, yes, Willie thought, he’s come for me.

  Resolutely he lifted her hand back to the iron frame, wrapped the shackle around her wrist, snapped it shut, locked the cage door in place. Then he bestowed a knowing look upon Mola Ram, who smiled, nodded, began chanting again.

  Willie was aghast. “No. What’re you doing? Are you mad?”

  He just stared at her, as if from a long way away

  She spat at him. She had never hated anyone so much. She would not beg again. She hoped he burned in hell.

  The sorceress demon spat; from her black mouth, it, sparked and flared. The buzzing was intensely loud now. It almost drowned out the fluttering, which had returned. The spit seared like fire, hissing in the flesh of his face, hissing with the serpent in his chest, the serpent awake now, uncoiling . . .

  But Kali would put it to rest. If he only gave himself to Kali, lost himself in Kali, quelled the buzzing fluttering hissing with the soporific drone of the name of Kali Ma.

  Calmly, hollowly, he wiped her spittle from his face; walked away from her, joined the congregation in its febrile chanting: “Mola Ram, Sunda Ram, jai ma Kali, jai ma Kali . . .”

  Chattar Lal and Mola Ram exchanged a satisfied glance, gladdened at the sight of the cold-hearted betrayal.

  The chanting grew louder.

  The wind blasted on, its abominable yowl.

  Short Round raced up the next tunnel, then flattened himself against a wall, panting. He peeked around the corner. Just as he’d remembered: this was one of the holding caves. There on the floor in one corner were Indy’s whip, hat, and bag. He ran in, picked the things up; put the hat on his head, the bullwhip on his belt, the bag over his shoulder . . . and felt, for all the world, like a miniature Indiana Jones. He pulled himself erect and marched upright into the adjacent tunnel. There, two guards saw him. They immediately gave chase.

  Now he really felt like Indiana Jones. He tore out into this level of the excavation, running full throttle, dodging guards, outdistancing his lumbering pursuers, weaving among the scores of slave children who watched this elusive boy in amazement.

  He darted in a narrow side tunnel, losing the guards on his tail. Up a twisting shaft, Short Round climbed, coming out on another level. Stealthily he crawled through an access tunnel; warily he peered back into the main pit.

  Twenty yards away, he saw a tall, wooden ladder leaning against the wall, its top perched against a ledge that fronted a warren of burrows. Other tunnels pierced the rockface up and down the length of the ladder. From the lowest of these, a child emerged, carrying a sack of rocks. He stepped out onto the ladder, climbed down carrying his load.

  When the boy reached the bottom, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion—then jumped in shock to see Short Round running toward him at top speed. Shorty motioned him to keep quiet. Incredulous, the boy simply gaped at Short Round as the furtive escapee leapt to the ladder and began to scramble up. Just like James Cagney in the last scene of Public Enemy. Short Round hoped it wasn’t going to be his own last scene, as well.

  He was already fairly high when the guard spotted him. The guard chased him up the ladder. Children in nearby alcoves stopped working to watch as Short Round ascended higher and higher, the angry guard closing the distance between them.

  Twenty feet above the top of the ladder, a wide overhang of rock jutted out far into the center of the great pit. Twenty feet out from the wall against which the ladder teetered, a rope hung in space, straight down from the overlying shelf, dangling from
a small hole in that partial ceiling.

  Dirty faces stared up at Short Round from every nook and burrow as he reached the top of the ladder. The guard was barely ten feet behind him. Shorty climbed off the ladder into the tunnel at the top . . . then a moment later, with a running jump, leapt back onto it, kicking it away from the wall.

  He held on tightly—so did the guard, several rungs lower as the ladder tipped in a gentle arc, away from the wall, out into the open pit. Certain suicide. At least that was the thought of the mesmerized children who watched the scene being played out. They wished him well in his final escape from this place

  But as the top of the ladder passed the bottom of the hanging rope, Short Round grabbed onto it. The ladder, with the guard, continued on over, crashing thunderously to the earth far below—while Short Round dangled precariously in space for a moment, then steadily pulled himself up the rope, through the roof hole, into the overhead chamber.

  He rolled a few feet across the floor; he lay still. It was empty in here, and quiet, though in the next room he could hear the muffled droning of a thousand narcotized voices. It was a disturbing sound.

  He got up, went to the far door, pushed it open a crack.

  Red light flared around the black statue of Kali, into the small room behind the altar of the temple of death.

  In the temple, chains clanked, gears ground, as the sacrificial frame was raised, then supinated, then up-ended, and flipped over, until Willie, stretched out on the iron bracing, found herself staring facedown into the bubbling lava pit.

  Staring at her own death. How excruciating it would be; how meaningless. How alone: that was the worst. Periodically she caught an image of herself in the glistening curvatures of the red bubbles far below, forming, breaking, distorting her reflection until it burst. Reflections of her life: contorted, overheated, now about to explode, like a droplet of water in a vat of acid. She wished she could do it over; she’d do it differently next time.

  But there wouldn’t be a next time. She didn’t believe in karma, or reincarnation, or heaven, or miracles. It would take a miracle now to save her.

  She held her breath. She hoped she passed out before it got too painful.

  Mola Ram gave orders to the executioner, who slowly turned the giant wooden wheel that lowered the basket. The crowd chanted. Willie screamed. Indy turned to watch.

  The sorceress hung above the pit in her true form, that of giant raven, suspended floating on the hot-air currents above the hole of fire. She was not flapping or fluttering now, as she had against the inside of his skull. She only floated, now: smiling, buzzing softly, knowing. Knowing the horror. The emptiness of his skull. The poison in his chest. She knew. She knew it all.

  She had to die.

  Mola Ram joined in the chanting now; the chanting got wilder. Indiana lent his voice to the masses.

  Willie hung, suspended on the iron frame, watching the boiling magma draw nearer to her body, as it was lowered, inch by inch, into the sacrificial pit. Into the fire.

  EIGHT

  Break for Freedom

  SHORT ROUND peered from behind the altar, into the cavernous temple, just in time to see Willie being dipped. And there, at the crater’s edge, stood Indiana, impassively watching her disappear.

  Shorty whispered to himself. “Indy, no.”

  The chanting was so loud it almost drowned out his thought. But he knew what he had to do. He had to be Indy’s pinchhitter. He had to wake Indy up. He had to pull Willie out. He had to get to America, and that was no big joke.

  But first things first. He promised the Three Star-Gods a shrine in his heart forever, in return for success on this mission. He promised Lou Gehrig never to doubt the great slugger’s batting average again, even if his brother Chu came back as a whole herd of baby elephants.

  He laid Indy’s accessories down on the shadow of an archway; he turned his baseball cap brim-backwards for action; and he jumped out onto the altar.

  He waved at Indy. Chattar Lal saw him first, though. The Prime Minister shouted at two guards to grab the kid, but the kid was too fast. As the guards tried to apprehend him, he scooted off the altar toward Indiana.

  One of the priests intervened, grabbing Short Round by the arm. Shorty bit the man’s hand; the priest let go. Another priest got in the way. Short Round kicked him hard, then skirted his crippled lunge.

  In another second, he made it to Indy. He smiled up hopefully: maybe the good doctor was already awake, was just putting on a good act as part of a clever con game, to fool these fools into something foolhardy.

  Indy brutally backhanded Short Round across the face. He fell to the ground, his hat knocked off.

  Tears coated his eyes. “Wake up, Dr. Jones.”

  Blood trickled from the corner of Short Round’s mouth as he stared at his hero in wounded disbelief. The moment didn’t last long, however; it only forged, for Shorty, the notion of what he had to do. It would be hard for him, but what, in this life, was not hard?

  He sprang up, ran toward the wall. Another guard was quickly on his heels.

  Chattar Lal had observed this entire transaction with distinct approval: the great Indiana Jones was now an obvious convert and devout believer. Satisfaction filled the Prime Minister’s eyes as he watched the guard chase down the annoying child, and as he watched Willie creak down to her final consummation.

  Willie continued to try holding her breath on the descending frame, but it was no use. It was impossibly hot, immeasurably bright. Waves of heat rose to scald her face; the acid fumes burned her eyes, her lungs, her skin. She was going to die.

  It was lonely. And scary. She tried to think of a prayer, but couldn’t think. She tried to twist away from the searing pain, but couldn’t move. Except she kept moving closer.

  Short Round, meanwhile, reached the wall, where he yanked a flaming torch out of its bracket, and swiveled on his attacker. The firebrand whisked past the guard’s face, backing him off. Shorty ran up to the executioner, swinging the torch fiercely. The executioner retreated from his wheel; Willie hung, suspended where she was, temporarily unmoving.

  Mola Ram was not as sanguine about these events as Chattar Lal seemed to be. This little monster was defiling the rites of Kali: he had to be punished. “Catch him! Kill him!” the High Priest shouted in Hindi, enraged.

  Two more guards went after Short Round, who was once more running straight at Indy.

  “Indy, wake up!” he yelled again. No response. At the last second he turned on the two guards about to catch him, forcing them back with his torch. In that second, Indy grabbed him from behind and began to strangle him.

  Indy held Shorty by the neck, lifting and turning the boy in the air until they were facing each other, at Indy’s arm’s length. Short Round gasped for breath, turning blue, as Indiana choked the life out of him.

  The serpent hissed and rattled in his chest, angered at the rude awakening. It had sensed the demon-child’s attack before Indy had actually seen him. By the time the demon approached with the torch, Indy was ready, the serpent was ready. Ready to strike.

  Indy wake up! the demon-child screamed, the words etched in the torchlight he cradled. The serpent recoiled. The demon was protean: he transformed into a ruby clot of blood, thick with purpose, gelid and steaming in the cold cave air, smelling juicy with death.

  Spinning, sputtering . . . Indy grabbed it, this clot-thing demon-child. Grabbed it and squeezed, tried to squeeze the dark squirting gob into something of a more pleasing shape, something the shape of Kali, something the size of his fist. Twisting, molding, forming, he turned the thing in his hands, turned it around and around until it faced him, its ghastly eyes bulging out of the gelatinous mass, waving its fire, facing his screaming, calling to the serpent.

  With his last breath the boy croaked, “Indy, I love you,” uttered the name of the Caretaker of the Celestial Ministry of Exorcism, and thrust the flaming torch into Indy’s side.

  Indiana went down, the fire roasting his flesh.
He wailed in pain, letting go of Short Round.

  Fire filled his head, raging out of control in the empty caverns. The serpent shrieked, uncoiling, writhing. The demon-child called to it: it called back, angry with new memory.

  Short Round held the torch fast against Indiana’s flank, until a guard finally grabbed him, knocking the torch away.

  Indiana writhed in pain on the ground. The light was blinding. The chanting started to crescendo. The executioner returned to his wheel, began lowering Willie once more. Chattar Lal smiled. Mola Ram praised Kali. The guard drew a knife, brought it up to Short Round’s throat. “Hold it,” said Indiana, rising. “He’s mine.” Indy took Shorty from the assassin, carried him a few steps away, lifted him into the air, held him high over the pit. Short Round looked down into the boiling furnace in terror; then into Indy’s eyes, for the last time.

  Indy winked.

  “I’m all right,” he whispered. “You ready?”

  Shorty winked back.

  He threw Short Round to a clear area, turned, and punched the nearest priest in the face; then punched another in the belly. Short Round gave one nearby guard a whirling karate kick to the side. At the same moment, a priest attacked. Shorty grabbed the cleric’s belt, rolled onto his own back, and flipped the man onto his head. The crowd beyond the crevasse was all wrapped up in the ecstasy of the ritual; they had no idea what was going on around the stone goddess. Chattar Lal knew well; he quickly exited behind the altar as the fighting increased.

  Two priests converged on Indy, but Short Round threw himself in front of one, who consequently flipped into the other. Indy threw another priest into the executioner. Both went flying down off the platform. Unfortunately, the executioner disengaged the handbrake. The iron cage containing Willie started plummeting down the pit.

  Indy jumped on the platform, clamping the brake on the spinning wheel. Again Willie stopped in her deathly plunge.