Massacre River (A Neal Fargo Western) #5

by John Benteen

  “Always is,” Fargo said tersely and spurred his horse, rode ahead. He came up alongside O’Bannon. “Drop back a little,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “and keep a close eye on Jade. If she tries to escape, stop her.”

  O’Bannon gaped at him. “Escape?”

  “Goddammit, you heard me,” Fargo said. “That’s all I’m gonna tell you. Just watch her. I want to talk to Murchison.”

  He circled out, wide of the column, spurred the big bay gelding up the ascending road, came up alongside the grizzled sergeant. Murchison looked him over curiously: the bandoliers, the shotgun, the rifle in the saddle scabbard, the holstered Colt and sheathed knife. There was respect in his eyes and he made no comment on Fargo’s artillery.

  “Have any trouble on the last convoy?” Fargo asked.

  “A little. When we got up in the Igorot country, somebody took a couple of potshots at us from the rice terraces. Nothing worse. We returned fire; it quit. Maybe we got him.” Murchison spat a great glob of tobacco juice. “But it gets a little worse every time. There’s somethin’ goin on up in these mountains, you can bet on that.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s like I used to hear the real old-timers tell about the Injuns. It’d build up little by little, a shot or two here, an ambush there. Then, all at once, all hell’d break loose.” He spat again. “That’s what I’m lookin’ for now—hell to break loose. I’m glad to have you and your men along. If we have trouble, don’t be afraid to shoot back.”

  “If they hit us, where do you think it’ll be?”

  The sergeant shrugged. “Don’t know. Once we get up into the Bontoc country, we’re sittin’ ducks for anything. Especially with whatever it is you’re haulin’ along. I heard about that train holdup yesterday. I don’t know what you got in them chests, buddy, but I’m afraid they’re gonna draw down the lightnin’ on us.” Then he snorted. “What the hell. I hate to miss out on the fun down on Mindanao. I could use a good fight.”

  They rode on in silence, stopping often to rest the horses. They were climbing into the mountains, now, along a narrow dirt road that writhed and twisted like a snake with a broken back. Ahead, great ranges loomed, purple and shrouded in mist; over them, the wooded hillside towered, below, it fell away steeply.

  Then they entered the country of the Bontoc Igorots. Now, the mountains were huge, convulsed—and they had been fantastically sculptured by the hand of man. Great terraces, like the steps of stairs provided for an unimaginably enormous giant ridged the hillside, each terrace diked and planted with rice. For thousands of feet those fantastic stair steps towered over them, constructed over centuries by the small, brown, fierce people who labored in them even as the convoy passed. The Igorot women worked alongside their men, bare breasted; the men themselves were naked except for G-strings and a curious sort of cape made of wooden slats or banana leaves strung on a string around their necks. The slats, sword-shaped, stood out around their shoulders in a kind of ruff, providing some protection against the rain, which came often now, in intermittent showers. The road narrowed; its curves were right angle turns; and Murchison sent scouts ahead around each to check for ambush.

  But, by mid-afternoon, nothing had happened, and the laboring convoy picked up speed, for the sergeant was anxious to reach Baguio before nightfall. Fargo rode up and down the line, his eyes sweeping those huge terraces above them endlessly; indeed, as Murchison had said, they were sitting ducks for an attack from above.

  It came, just after three o’clock, without warning. The scouts had swept around another turn. The convoy was strung out, its rearguard like so many cowboys pushing the drags of a trail herd. There was no sound but hoof beats, the creak of wagon wheels, the occasional whinny of a horse or bray of a mule. It was raining again. Then the silence exploded in a thunderous fusillade of gunfire.

  It came from above, from behind the fortress of a rice terrace dike. Thirty riflemen, forty, all firing as fast as they could pull trigger. The air was ripped with lead; horses screamed; Fargo saw one rear, topple over. Horse and rider went rolling down the hillside like toys, bouncing until they came to a sheer drop, then hurtled into space.

  Murchison’s command was a bawl. “Ride like hell and return fire! Get this convoy moving!”

  It was no work for a shotgun now, the range was too great. Fargo spurred up alongside Jade Ching’s horse, struck it hard on the rump. “Line out!” he bellowed. And to O’Bannon: “Stay with her!” He rode to the pack mules. “Weatherbee, lash those critters up!”

  Teamsters whipped their teams. Weatherbee quirted the mules. The whole convoy, under fire, broke into a laboring run along that narrow, dangerous road. Fargo dropped back, levered a round into the Winchester, sought for targets. He thought he saw the dots of heads behind a terrace dike a hundred yards above. He began to shoot, working the carbine lever as fast as he could, laying down a covering fire all along the terrace.

  The rear guard was doing the same, firing as it galloped. Fargo saw a trooper rise in his stirrups, pitch backward, gun falling. The frightened horse plunged over the slope, dragged the man downhill, lost its footing, went rolling tail over teakettle, ended up motionless on top of its rider in a terrace below, Almost at the same time, a man screamed above, stood up, pitched down the hill, rolled all the way into the road just in time to be trampled by Fargo’s galloping mules. One of the attackers, he was, Fargo saw, not an Igorot but a Tagalog. Fargo fired at another head, had the satisfaction of seeing a body lurch over the edge of the terrace, dangle there. Then they were around one of the sharp curves.

  The fire lessened, but it continued. Above them, the ambushers were racing along the terrace, some of them in silhouette, to gain new positions for firing. More troopers had gone down; ahead, Fargo saw, a team had been dropped in harness; the wagon blocked the road. Behind it, horsemen fought their mounts. Jade Ching was somewhere ahead.

  Fargo spurred his horse far out to the edge of the road. Its right hind hoof slipped perilously over the edge as he forced it around the wagon. It snorted, but he forced it on.

  Then he was in the clear again. He caught up with the mules, passed them. Ahead, he saw Jade, riding hard, bent low in the saddle, O’Bannon alongside, whipping her horse at every jump, Fargo rammed home spurs, drove his own mount up to them.

  Then Murchison’s voice rose above the melee, “Halt! Dismount and fire!” There was more shooting from ahead. Fargo cursed. The ambushers were divided into two contingents; now the road was blocked. And those from the rice terrace were pouring down the hill, on foot, slipping, sliding, leaping over the ten-, twenty-foot dikes into the soft mud and water, but shooting as they came. The convoy was a jumble, a madhouse, and a lovely target for their weapons; and Fargo made his decision in that instant.

  He spotted a sort of path leading down between the dikes below—a road for carabao. It was muddy, dangerous, went almost straight down hill. No place for galloping horses, but it was the only way out; to stay here on the road was worse than suicide. He bellowed something at O’Bannon and Weatherbee, pointed, then seized the bridle of Jade’s horse. “Follow me!” he bawled, and then he spurred his mount over the edge of the road.

  It hit the slippery mud of the buffalo path, sat down on its haunches, neighing in fright, and slid as if on a toboggan. Jade’s horse, coming the same way, crowded its haunches. Jade screamed in fright, and Fargo yelled: “Hang on!” He heard mules braying behind him as they followed.

  The towering walls of the dikes raced past him. The horse slid, completely out of control. Ahead, suddenly, something huge and black loomed: a water buffalo on the path. It heard the commotion behind itself, turned its head, stared wall-eyed from beneath massive horns. Confronted by the apparition of horses, riders and pack mules coming straight for it, it stood motionless for a second. Then it gave a bawl of surprise and terror, went into a lurching, tail-hoisted run, lost its balance, fell, and went rolling. It landed in a rice terrace below, scrambl
ed up, ran on, disappeared.

  Meanwhile, straight down into the awesome valley Fargo’s convoy slid. Above, guns still crackled; and somebody had spotted them, was shooting at them. But there was no stopping, no shooting back. As lead whined around his ears, Fargo rode as he had never ridden before, one hand holding the reins of Jade Ching’s mount.

  It was a wild, crazy, roller coaster ride. From behind came the terrified bray of a mule. Then its body, upside down, legs flailing, slid past Fargo, barely missing knocking his own floundering horse over and, pack goods flying, rolled on and on. It soon stopped kicking, neck broken. Fargo thanked God it was not the animal with the money chests.

  Then, far down the slope, the path ended, hard on in a rice terrace. Fargo’s horse hit the water up to its hocks, floundered, regained balance. Just in time, he reined it and Jade’s animal aside to make room for the rest of the train. Hoofs sucking in mud, the animals floundered along the level, watery terrace, sheltered by the dike of the next one above from the gunfire from the road. As the rest of the train floundered into the mud of the terrace, Fargo dismounted, cramming shells into the Winchester.

  Behind them, riflemen were coming after them, on foot, slipping, falling, guns raised high to protect them from the mud. Clad in ragged white, they were small, brown men, nimble, but not even they could keep enough balance to shoot in that crazy descent down the hill. Fargo lined the Winchester, and even as he opened fire, realized that O’Bannon and Weatherbee were doing likewise.

  Now the shoe was on the other foot. It was like shooting ducks. As each man appeared, the riflemen of Fargo’s party took aim, leading their targets to compensate for the speed of their descent. As bullets struck, men screamed, went rolling. Five fell that way, six, then, seeing what awaited them, the others tried to check their slide, turn, scrabble back up the slope. It was useless. As they clawed at the mud, they were even easier prey. Fargo, O’Bannon and Weatherbee did merciless slaughter.

  Then, with startling suddenness, it was over. There were no more targets; and as Fargo ceased firing, so also did the gunfire above pinch off. All at once, a deathly silence replaced the turmoil.

  Panting, shaking with reaction, Fargo turned to look at the others. Horses and riders alike were plastered with mud, drenched with sweat and water. He counted heads. But all were safe.

  Jade Ching dismounted, sat down in the deep water of the rice field, put her head in her hands and began to cry.

  O’Bannon’s thick chest rose and fell. “Jeesus,” he whispered. “What a fight.”

  Fargo looked at the hillside towering above them. It was impossible to get the pack train up that muddy, corpse-strewn path, even if any of the convoy were left alive or still in place up there. He looked down into the valley, which still descended for hundreds of feet below them, in terrace after terrace. In its very seam, there was a cluster of huts in a clearing.

  Fargo supposed that somewhere, leading out of this terrace, there was another path to the one below, and another to that one and so on down. There was nothing to do but look for it.

  They were not going to Baguio. They would have to go into the valley and work their way north from there.

  He only hoped that whoever lived in that village below was friendly. He did not think his crew would be in shape to fight again this afternoon.

  Then he tensed. Coming around the corner of the terrace dike were three men. Igorots, they were naked except for their G-strings and wooden rain-shields. And, he noted, the great bolos that hung by their thighs.

  But each of them had bow and arrow in hand, the arrows nocked and trained on Fargo and his party.

  Fargo’s first reaction was to tip the shotgun on its sling, loose a blast. The double barrels would wipe all three out. But better judgment held his hand. He could kill these three, but that would not get them down into the valley or out of it again. Instead, he sheathed the Winchester in the saddle boot and held up both hands, palms outward.

  Fifteen yards away, the three men stopped. They were blocky, short legged, bulging with muscle. Their eyes were suspicious but intelligent. The bows they held were short, not powerful-looking—but at this range they did not need to be powerful.

  “Hold your fire,” Fargo said harshly to his men. Then he said to the Igorots: “We’re friends.”

  They looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “They don’t understand English,” Weatherbee said. “Let me try them on Tagalog. Kamiista ka?”

  Fargo thought he saw a gleam of comprehension. Weatherbee went on talking, rattling out the musical Tagalog. Then one of the men nodded, only slightly. He answered, haltingly, in what appeared to be the same dialect.

  “They don’t know what this battle is about,” Weatherbee said, “but they know that a lot of their rice has been ruined.”

  “Tell them that we’ll pay them for it.”

  Weatherbee spoke. They listened intently. Then Weatherbee said: “Fargo. Where do you keep your cigars?”

  “All the ones on me are ruined. There are more in my saddlebags.”

  “Get ’em,” said Weatherbee. “Slow and easy, with no false moves. These people are like Indians. Presents are important to them, especially tobacco.”

  Gingerly, Fargo delved into a saddlebag, brought out an oilskin-wrapped reserve of cigars. He passed them to Weatherbee. The tall man went forward slowly, with the cigars extended.

  The three Igorots looked at them. Then the oldest lowered his bow. He reached out, took a third of them. “Palaam,” he said. The other two followed suit. Then the arrows were unnocked, thrust with others through the strings of the breechclouts. But Fargo noticed that each man rested his hand on the haft of his bolo.

  He took out a waterproof match case. Stepping forward, he lit a cigar for each Igorot. They inhaled deeply and, as soon as the smokes were going well, promptly reversed them, putting the lighted ends in their mouths; it was their strange and customary way of smoking.

  “Tell them we have enemies above. We need to go down into the valley. If we can stay the night at their village, we’ll settle for the rice and pay them well besides.”

  More palaver. Then Weatherbee said, “They don’t speak Tagalog so good. But I’ve got it now. They say the men who attacked us are their enemies, too. They drove them out of their fields to mount their ambush and ruined their rice and that they’ll take us down to the village. They say everybody’s gone up above, that the Tagalogs have retreated and the convoy’s hightailed it on to Baguio, and that we’re alone in any case. We can be their guests, if we’ll help guard their village with our guns.”

  “We will,” Fargo said.

  “I told them that.”

  One of the Igorots turned, gesturing to the others— and to Fargo—to follow. Then he slogged along on the edge of the rice terrace dike. Fargo moved after him, leading the horse close to the dike’s rim, so as to do minimum damage to the rice. “Come on,” he told the others. “We’re going down.”

  ~*~

  The descent into the valley was only slightly less hair-raising than the escape from the road. Weaving in and out of the great terraces, following steep, muddy paths, they were in constant danger of being overrun by the sliding horses or crushed by them. On the way down, another mule broke its leg and had to be shot, its gear transferred to the rest. Overloaded, they had a bad time of it, too.

  Only the Igorots took the descent in stride, smoking their reversed cigars, nimble as cats. After what seemed an eternity, the terraces ended; now the path improved slightly as they entered a pine forest. It was shrouded with mist, dripped with moisture; and, at this elevation, it was getting cold. The Igorots appeared not to notice.

  Presently they emerged into a clearing. In its center was a cluster of rude huts, inside a stockade of small poles. They were on stilts, their conical roofs of thatched cogon grass, rice straw, and jungle foliage. A few sag-bellied pigs ran loose, some thin, brilliantly colored chickens scratched in the mud, water buffalo roamed outside the compound, and t
here was an astonishing number of scrawny mongrel dogs—not at liberty, but tied to the stilts of the huts. They set up a cacophonous yapping at the smell of strangers.

  “Nothing’s gonna sneak up on ’em, anyhow,” O’Bannon observed.

  Weatherbee’s voice was sardonic. “You’ll probably eat one of ’em before the night’s over. These aren’t watchdogs, they’re food. There’s nothing an Igorot likes better than cooked dog.”

  “Oh, saints preserve us,” O’Bannon grunted. Then he said, “That’s right. I remember seeing the dog market at Baguio.”

  Slowly, shyly, the people of the village appeared, like prairie dogs coming out of their holes. They materialized in the doorways of the huts, nearly nude little women, totally naked children, more fierce-looking warriors, and stared with wide-eyed reserve at the cavalcade, especially marveling at the sight of Jade Ching, who had lost her hat long since and whose blouse was plastered to her breasts with muddy water.

  The three guides halted, began to speak in a rattling dialect. They talked for a long time; presently some of the shyness vanished. The people came down into the compound, clustered around the white men, the Tagalog packers, and the Chinese man and woman.

  “Good as a county fair for them,” O’Bannon grunted. “Hello, sugar pie.” This to a small, comely, bare-breasted woman.

  Fargo’s voice was sharp. “You keep your hands off their women, O’Bannon, or so help me God, I’ll castrate you.”

  “Well, I can look, even if I don’t touch.”

  Weatherbee broke in, after conferring with one of the three. “They say we’re their guests and that their village is ours. First they’re going to feed us. Then, Fargo, the men want us to join them in their hut for a powwow.”

  “Right,” said Fargo.

  “And if O’Bannon touches their women,” Weather-bee said, “you won’t have to worry about castrating him. They’ll take his head. Look there.” And he pointed to the biggest hut, in the center of the compound.

  On poles before its doorway were three white, grinning skulls.