Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Hot damn,” he said, gasping.

  “Lower the rope again!”

  He appeared not to have thought of it. She repeated the order. He relayed it. The others obeyed. They looked like fishermen paying a line in a fog at sea.

  “Did you see him?” Elsa demanded. “Where is he? What is he doing?”

  “My not know seeing nothing. Hot damn.”

  “Can he catch the rope? How can he catch it? Won’t it blow out of reach?”

  He grinned — shrugged his shoulders.

  “Haul up! Haul it back here!”

  She made them bend on a coil of rawhide, to increase the weight and to give Andrew more chance to snatch it as it swayed in the wind. Nearly fifteen minutes after that, and not a sound from Andrew, until at last his shout came up echoing out of the mist:

  “All right! Haul away!”

  This time it was Andrew, spinning, clutching the rope with one hand, fighting with the other — using his pistol butt to beat off the eagle, not daring to shoot for fear of frightening the crew at the rope. Elsa shot the eagle — the first thing she had ever killed — almost the first time she had ever fired a pistol. The huge bird folded like a blown rag — vanished. Then, when they had hauled Andrew over the edge and he walked toward her, she was afraid — not of him — of his anger. He held out his hand for the pistol. She gave it to him. Andrew’s scorn conceded nothing — not a gesture — not the flicker of a sneer as he gave the pistol back to Bompo Tsering. Then he spoke savagely, in a low voice, commanding him to distribute the recovered load among the ponies. He watched him obey, making almost imperceptible gestures to the other Tibetans that sent them hurrying to the headman’s aid.

  It was several minutes before he faced Elsa again. They hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t dared to speak. He was gray, grim-lipped. Was he angry with her? Or was it not anger? He wasn’t trembling. He was breathing a bit harder than usual. But he seemed to be fighting himself, not thinking of anyone else, except that he kept glancing to make sure the loads were being properly roped. When he did speak his voice was almost normal and he had lost some of the gray look:

  “Elsa, I want a sheet of that foolscap paper and a soft pencil from your saddlebag. Do you mind?”

  When she brought them, with a pad to write on, he asked her to sit down. He said his own hand was too unsteady. He began dictating as if she were an office stenographer: —

  “Andrew Gunning to Bulah Singh.

  “Bad going here. Watch out for sliding rock. Cross carefully, one at a time. If you should overtake me, come day or night.”

  “ — That’s all.”

  He broke the pencil lead and split the wood with his teeth, making a cleft stick, into which he inserted the paper, folding it lengthwise, so that it looked almost like a toy airplane. Then he beckoned Bompo Tsering.

  “Go back there and tie this to the holy man’s thigh bone in the cairn!”

  The headman stared: “Gunnigun, that being too much very holy thigh bone! Long time blessed holy hermit dying that place!”

  Andrew jerked his head in the direction of the foot-wide track. Not another word. It was Bompo Tsering’s chance — to take or leave — to regain lost standing. He understood. It was trial by ordeal. He stuck out his tongue and obeyed. Elsa watched Andrew. Had he gone mad? Was he thinking of some kind of working agreement with Bulah Singh? It seemed incredible. But what else could the note mean? She couldn’t read Andrew’s thought; he had it veiled more obscurely than ever. She herself couldn’t think. She was panicky. But he sat down beside her, and she knew then that he needed her. He wasn’t asking for help. He expected it — knew it was there. He was beginning to recover from emotion so terrific that he hadn’t dared to relax attention from what needed doing. He was taking for granted that she understood that. She mustn’t dare to question him. Let him govern himself, in his own way. Let him feel he was understood. — She felt she was beginning to know Andrew at last.

  “The fool from Koko Nor was dead. Poor devil. On his way home. But so was the pony on his way home.”

  “We heard you shoot the pony.”

  “Yes. Beat the eagle to it. I gave the pony a swig of water from my flask. That kills the fear for a second. So they die relieved.”

  “Thank you, Andrew.”

  “What for?”

  “On behalf of the pony. It can’t say thank you.”

  “It doesn’t have to. Good pony — did his best, always.”

  She thought of Tom Grayne, suddenly, without meaning to, comparing him with Andrew. Tom wasn’t sensitive, or romantic. What could she say to Andrew that wouldn’t jar the sensitive unknown part of him that never quite came to the surface? At that moment it wasn’t far from the surface. She had glimpsed it — almost seen it.

  “Andrew.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I know why you don’t like gratitude. Deeds produce their own reward, in this life or the next. Isn’t that it?”

  He scowled — turned his head — stared at her — spoke quietly:

  “No. That’s lousy stuff.”

  “Lousy?” she asked. “Didn’t you once tell me you believe in reincarnation?”

  “Believe nothing. I know it.”

  “Well then, won’t the law of karma reward—”

  He interrupted, low-voiced: “No. The hell with reward — here or hereafter! That’s a rat’s motive. The rule is: you are what you do. So if you can, you’ve got to, or you lose your own self-respect.”

  He looked away again, listening for Bompo Tsering along the fog-veiled track.

  Elsa hesitated. Suddenly she decided she had a right to know. “Andrew, why did you write to Bulah Singh?”

  “Because I have to live with my own conscience. Neglect to warn him ‘ud be murder. He might have followed that fool from Koko Nor. Warning puts it up to him. I’ve done my bit.”

  “But why invite him, day or night! You don’t trust him, do you?”

  “No. That’s why.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “An enemy is less dangerous where you can watch him.”

  “But we might have escaped him.”

  “Yeah — and might not. As it is, he’ll do some hefty guessing, and he’ll guess me wrong, I bet you!”

  Through the fog came Bompo Tsering balancing his way back cautiously along the foot-wide track, spreading his arms as if he walked a tight rope, treading gingerly not to disturb the devils that loosen rocks. He marked time for a moment, for the pleasure of treading freely at last on firm rock. Then he came and stood in front of Andrew. Sweat had made streams in the dirt on his face.

  “Your saying, Gunnigun. My having doing. God-damn! Peling paper having writing being too much easy now can being seen. So coming other people — not good.”

  “March! Get going! You lead for a while.”

  Bompo Tsering lingered: “Gunnigun.”

  “Yes? What?”

  “Man from Koko Nor, his being dead now — having what — in bokkus?” By way of illustration Bompo Tsering thrust his hand into the voluminous swag-bag formed by the lining of his overcoat. “Money?” he suggested.

  Seven Tibetans came forward, as alert as vultures, thinking the same thought as the headman, grouping themselves behind him, watched by the other Tibetans, who had to stand by because Tibetan ponies will roll their loads off on the edge of anything — a precipice preferred. Andrew groped in his bulging hip pocket — pulled out a bag — undid the leather thong — drew out money — silver and Indian paper rupees. He didn’t count it. He thrust it back into the bag and tied the thong. Bompo Tsering held out his hand and the other Tibetans grinned.

  “Out of the way!” Andrew said sharply. “Stand back.”

  He tossed the bag over the cliff. There was no sound of its falling, but a long pause, then an awed chorus:

  “Gunnigun!”

  “March! Get going! Next time man or horse dies due to disobedience, I’ll pitch a month’s pay of each one of you over the first cliff w
e come to! On your way! Get going! March!”

  CHAPTER 29

  It wasn’t long before Andrew resumed his normal good temper. He bore no carry-over grudge against Bompo Tsering. So the Tibetans forgot his anger, and their own fear of him. They liked him again. That was part of the secret of Andrew’s success with men of an alien race — of his success, too, with animals: he dealt with the passing moment frankly, fairly, as it came, and when it was gone it was finished business. But beneath the surface he was more obscure than ever. Something had hit him. He was less than ever disposed to reveal what he was really thinking about. He avoided Elsa — rode alone — seemed almost suspicious of her, choosing his rare words, certainly on guard. Against what? Did he regret the brief self-revelation? That quick glimpse of his soul, in a fog, on a raw mountain ledge? Did he fear she would take advantage of it? It seemed so. The thought humiliated Elsa; it made her lonely and dejected — made her wonder what the sensation would be when Tom Grayne should see her coming, from far off. But like Andrew, she kept thought to herself. On the surface she was valiant, waxing her lips against the bitter wind, so that she could smile without pain. She kept herself clean, bright, healthy.

  “Whom am I trying to please? Me? Two men? One man? Which of them?”

  They had to fight every inch of their way down the lower end of the pass. The going should have been comparatively easy, but an unexpected snowdrift blocked them for half a day. The snow was softening — wouldn’t bear their weight. They tried to dig their way through it. Nightfall found them less than halfway through, but the snow freezing again. They were too exhausted and it was too dangerous to go ahead in the dark. They bivouacked in the long trench they had dug. Andrew ate what Elsa cooked, hardly speaking to her, then turned in and slept like a dead man. But he was up before daybreak, while the surface of the drift was still frozen hard. Before the Tibetans could cook their eternal tea, he was breaking trail. He almost outraced the morning thaw. Only the last three loaded ponies had to be dug through the end of the drift. But the delays had totaled up to a whole day lost. And now, starving ponies.

  The gallant animals struggled through thawing mud toward a distant village, while the mountains behind grew more and more incredible — like a nightmare — a fantastic wall ever in motion that surged like a tumbling sky, between them and India. Andrew rode in mid-column. Elsa came last. That way it was easier to prevent the Tibetans from over-driving and beating the ponies. Andrew had to take away Bompo Tsering’s whip, to prevent him from flogging ponies that were bogged so deep they couldn’t struggle.

  “Where’s your head, you fool?”

  “Hot damn! My head thinking too much. Coming someone!”

  They all knew they were being followed. It was the worse of two dreads. The village they were approaching was bad enough. It looked more like a fort than a village, half hidden amid glacial moraine and tumbled waves of sterile yellow earth. It looked as sinister as its reputation: a mean, inhospitable nest of bandits, amid hungry foothills. No monastery. No sign of cultivation. Andrew had never been there; neither had Bompo Tsering. One of the Tibetans said he had been there, years ago, but nobody believed him, except when he said the place was ruled by a black magician. They all believed that. They were afraid to whisper the magician’s name to one another, because devils might overhear, and he was said to control specially evil devils.

  But fear from behind is even worse than fear in front. They were running away from a dark unknown. Andrew didn’t dare to tell them who was coming. Even though they guessed — though they almost knew — though Andrew did know — it was better to pretend ignorance. Mention of Bulah Singh’s name might start another mutiny. Bulah Singh was a chief of police. Police and blackmail are the same thought in a Tibetan’s mind. They were still too near the frontier to believe themselves out of reach of the Indian Government. No Tibetan would try to understand, let alone believe that India doesn’t crave to conquer Tibet, or that there are limits to an Indian police officer’s authority. They might abandon the ponies and run, or abandon the loads and run away with the ponies. Or they might stubbornly halt and fatalistically await the outcome. There was no predicting what they might or might not do, being Tibetans. It was all up to Andrew. One mistake — a hesitation — a suggestion that he didn’t know what he was doing — even a hint of a change of plan — and the command would no longer be his.

  Elsa understood. She didn’t bother him — asked no questions. Even when they halted in a hollow for the noon meal, she merely unpacked the food for herself and Andrew and made it ready on a small canvas sheet in the lee of a rock, wondering what she would say if he should invite her opinion. Should she advise him to wait and face Bulah Singh? That seemed the lesser of two evils. There were six or seven miles to go. The exhausting Tibetan wind that blows from noon, or earlier, until nightfall, had reached full strength; it was hard to advance against — wearying, boring, baffling. That would have made a good camping place. Normally they would have pitched camp. But no one was thinking of that now. The Tibetans were grudging a half-hour’s rest for the starving ponies. They were fretting to press forward harder than ever, wondering whether Andrew could drive a bargain for them all at the village. They might be prisoners — slaves — plundered dead men before sunset.

  Andrew came and sat on the ground-sheet beside Elsa. He didn’t look at her, but he spoke at once, ungrudgingly, as if he were paying a bill.

  “You’re good. Thanks.”

  It came from deep within him. Elsa knew that. She knew what he meant. It flowed into her consciousness like comforting physical warmth.

  But it suddenly occurred to Andrew that she might think he referred to the food. He wasn’t praising her for doing her job right. Any woman could have done that. So he added:

  “I didn’t want to talk.”

  “I understood that, Andrew. You had too much to do.”

  He frowned. He was going to have to explain after all. He hated that.

  “I didn’t want to be Nancied,” he said. “Get what I mean? I couldn’t stick it — not now.”

  “Andrew, you needn’t have feared that.”

  “We’re in a tight fix, Elsa. Got to keep my head. Soul talk ‘ud get me rattled.”

  “Andrew, I am sorry I said as much as I did, two nights ago. I promise faithfully, I won’t ever again—”

  “Easy, now, easy!” He was irritated because she went from one extreme to another. “Why can’t women take a man’s words at face value?”

  “I will never broach that subject again, Andrew, unless you ask me to.”

  “That’s different. I’ll let you know when.”

  “I tried to share with you a — a — something that I can’t even explain to myself — not in words.”

  “I know that. Pass it up until later. Listen to what we’re up against now.”

  “I know some of it.”

  “I will tell it all — if you’ll listen.”

  She accepted the rebuke — sat still, careful to look unresentful in case he should give her one of his quick sculptor’s-eye glances. There she made a mistake. He did look. He misinterpreted.

  “Why don’t you bawl me out?” he demanded. “I know I’ve been—”

  She interrupted: “No, you haven’t, Andrew. I understood perfectly. You couldn’t help being—”

  “What d’you mean, couldn’t help it? I did it on purpose.”

  “Yes. I understood that.”

  “When I’m up against real trouble, I hate Nancy-ism.”

  “Don’t let’s talk about it.”

  “I’m explaining. Morgan Lewis, last thing before I left Darjeeling, tried to get me to promise to let you fly off the handle whenever you please.”

  “Yes. He told me he had said something like that.”

  “The man’s a nut.”

  “But you can’t persuade me he isn’t a genuine friend.”

  “He’s a genius,” said Andrew. “Welsh at that — half druid. All the rest of him is small boy. Dar
n him, he should have shut the trap on Bulah Singh. He could have. Now we’re like an army on the lam. We might as well be brigands. Until early this morning I kidded myself that Lewis sprang the trap for Bulah Singh and missed him. But this morning I woke up. Doped it out. Lewis let him escape.”

  “Andrew, I could have told you that, if you had asked me.”

  “You mean, Morgan Lewis told you what he’d do?”

  “No.”

  “Nancy knows some of his secrets. Did she tell you?”

  “No. She didn’t. I can’t explain how I know it.”

  “Clairvoyance,” said Andrew, scowling, thrusting his jaw forward a shade of an inch. “Well — here’s the common sense of it. Bulah Singh knew too much. Had the goods on too many hypocrites in high places. So Lewis chased him across the frontier.”

  “Dr. Lewis hopes he’ll be—”

  “For God’s sake, let me tell it. Bulah Singh had his plans all laid to scram for Tibet if the dice should turn against him. Lewis must have known that. Problem: let him go? catch him? or bump him off? The British do bump ’em off secretly, once in a rare while, when there’s someone they can trust to do the job smartly and hold his tongue. But they don’t like it. It isn’t in Lewis’s line. Lewis likes subtlety — force Bulah Singh to beat it and brand himself as a self-convicted fugitive from justice — nowhere to go but Tibet, and take the consequences.”

  “Andrew, may I say something?”

  “Yes. But don’t talk to me out of the sky.”

  “Bulah Singh intended, from the very first, to follow you and to make use of both of us!”

  “Oh, say, see here—”

  “Andrew, I know. I’m not guessing.”

  “Are you being clairvoyant?”

  “From the moment when he found out that you intended to return to Tibet, he resolved to follow you: and to compel me to come with him. I mean persuade. I don’t think he’d have tried to use force.”