Massacre River (A Neal Fargo Western) #5

by John Benteen

  Chapter Seven

  Actually, Fargo learned, the skulls were fairly old, kept only for ceremonial purposes. This particular village was too close to the main road and the city of Baguio to dare take heads—except on an occasional foray north, where a few might be picked up in combat with tribes of equal fierceness, who would not make any report that might bring down the authorities upon them.

  Supper was boiled rice and a ghastly stew which Weatherbee ascertained to be a mixture of dog and chicken. Fargo tried not to think about the Igorot way of preparing dog—the recipe began with beating the animal’s ungutted carcass virtually to a pulp. He and the others made a show of eating heartily, realizing what importance these people placed on acceptance of their hospitality. Then, leaving the others to guard the money chests and Jade Ching in the hut that had been turned over to them, he and Weather-bee went to the men’s retreat, the biggest house in the village.

  There, with Weatherbee as interpreter, Fargo held council with the elders. It was a slow, difficult process because of the language barrier, but gradually some things became clear.

  Early that morning, nearly fifty armed Tagalogs had appeared from nowhere, occupied the rice terraces above the road. Too strong for the Igorots to drive away, their numbers had also kept them from the risk of warning the convoy. Besides, they had been told with utter confidence that the rule of the Americans on Luzon was almost over. General Luna, of Insurrection fame, had come back to life and was driving them out. Even now, as the Igorots could see for themselves, American soldiers left the region every day. The tribesmen had no way of knowing they were being shipped out to fight the Moros; they assumed that General Luna had indeed frightened them away.

  So they had stayed clear of the battle. But, warriors themselves, they had been awed by the ferocity with which Fargo and his men had fought, the damage they had done. For that, Fargo was greatly respected. Moreover, they were glad to be rid of General Luna’s men—and grateful to him for doing it. The Tagalogs had retreated over the mountain, into another valley— those who had survived. Undoubtedly the American soldiers would come back tomorrow to look for Fargo’s crew and would take them safely on to Baguio.

  Fargo shook his head. His plans had changed. Two ambushes already along the main routes; there was no doubt that General Luna would watch their movements and try another. It was time to go into hiding. He had studied maps given to him by Jonathan Ching. The compound of the Chinese merchants lay about a hundred miles north, as the crow flew, in a place called, in Tagalog, the Valley of the Boar. He wanted to go straight to it through the mountains. And he wanted someone from this village—if they knew the place—to guide him.

  The Valley of the Boar. He read the apprehension on their faces before Weatherbee translated their answers. The journey up the Cordillera would be terribly hard for animals and women—and, for that matter, for the unbelievably soft white men, who could not run all day and live off rice. Worse than that, though, were the people—the Ifugayo, the other tribes of Igorots, the occasional bands of Negritos, and other wild men of Ilokano stock, plus scattered groups and tribes that even the Igorots considered to be revoltingly primitive. Many of these bands had never seen white men, much less a Chinese woman: Fargo’s convoy would be a rich prize for their warriors.

  Fargo patted the shotgun. They had seen what this could do. They had seen how his men could fight. Besides, he would pay them well. He knew, living as close to civilization as they did, trading at Baguio, that they were thoroughly aware of the value of money. He named a sum—two hundred dollars— that struck them speechless. It was more money than their village would see in cash in half a decade.

  Besides, he pointed out, unlike most white men, he would be delighted to see them take as many heads as they wanted from any enemies killed in combat.

  Then he watched greed and fear battle in their faces; and, as he had known it would, greed won. It was a terrible journey, but they would undertake it, and they would bring him safely to the Valley of the Boar. Three of them—the ones who had led him to the village—would serve as his guides.

  They agreed to leave before daylight tomorrow. The first day’s march would be designed to elude any pursuit by General Luna’s men, or, for that matter, the American Army. There would be investigations into the train robbery and the ambush on the high road and Fargo knew how long such official proceedings could detain them. He could not risk the loss of even a single day.

  After more cigar smoking and drinking of tuba, the potent coconut wine, the meeting broke up. Fargo and Weatherbee returned to the hut. There, Jade Ching was already asleep under a pile of blankets, Chuang at her feet, alert, with a hatchet cradled in his lap.

  Fargo took nothing for granted. He divided the night into three watches, among himself, O’Bannon, and Weatherbee; and he took the first watch. Sitting in the doorway of the hut, the shotgun cradled across his knees, he watched the mountainside appear and disappear through shifting mist. At exactly midnight by his watch, every rooster in the compound began to crow, as chickens in the Philippines always did, for some inexplicable reason.

  Fargo thought about last night with Jade. She had been passionate and adept in bed; and there had been a touch of desperation in her lovemaking. But over and over, she had warned him that he was taking her to her doom. From what he knew of Chinese, Fargo thought she probably spoke the truth, and he could not help feeling a certain compassion for the girl.

  He bit the end off a cigar, lit it, blew smoke, That, however, was not his concern. Collecting twenty-five thousand dollars from Jonathan Ching was. After all, business was business.

  It was too bad about Jade.

  ~*~

  Before the roosters crowed again at daybreak, they were well into the wilderness, the pack train strung out along a narrow trail down the seam of the valley through heavy forest, two of the Igorots trotting ahead, one bringing up the rear. Fargo had never mastered their names; he thought of them as One, Two, and Three. They did not appear to mind; the designations seemed to amuse them.

  Jade Ching rode stirrup to stirrup with Fargo whenever possible. Beneath the poncho that shielded her from the eternal dampness of this area, she shivered from time to time, and she was beginning to show the strain of the journey. She spoke to him only when Chuang, who rode behind them, was forced to drop back.

  “I still don’t think you understand,” she whispered. “The moment Chea finds out that I have had other men—and he will know—I’m reduced in his eyes to the status of a common whore. He may take me for concubine, but never for wife. He may kill me. Or ... he may sell me.”

  “Your father would never stand for that.”

  “My father loves me. But don’t be deceived, Fargo. He’s old-style Chinese through and through on matters of honor and face. Do you know about face?”

  “Yes,” said Fargo. “Once you cross the International Dateline, face—honor, prestige—is more important than anything else.”

  “That is too true. And so few Americans understand it. An Oriental will die rather than lose face. And my father will lose much face when Chea understands that my father has sent him damaged goods. It is a violation of an ancient bargain, one made when I was only a newborn babe—at which time I was betrothed to Chea. As much as Jonathan Ching loves his daughter, he would rather see her beheaded or sold into slavery to some Moro Datu or Sultan than to have his family lose face. His dishonor is shared by all our ancestors. And our ancestors are sacred.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that,” Fargo said, “before you crawled into bed with that first man.”

  For a moment, Jade’s countenance showed anger; then it turned to resignation. “Don’t you think I’m human? You know I was educated in England. I hate the old Chinese values. I am not really Chinese—I’m Western. And Western women—oh, they talk a lot about virginity and chastity, too; but when they want to sleep with a man, they do it. I did it, too; I was very young, maybe too young to understand, then. I can assure you, t
hough, that the last thing I thought about when I lost my virginity was my ancestors.”

  Fargo said nothing.

  She reached out, put her hand on his wrist. “Has it occurred to you that there might be an alternative? That, if you only showed a little mercy, the rewards to you might be great?” She turned in the saddle, gestured toward the pack train. “Back there—a hundred thousand dollars. And here—” her hand molded the poncho to her breasts, and her eyes were lambent as she looked at him. “Myself. It could all be yours. The money. And what I could give you. You know from the other night what I could give you. And you ... I have wanted a man like you all my life.”

  Fargo looked narrowly at her.

  “You’re suggesting that I double-cross your father. Turn back, take the money, take you—”

  “We could sail from Lingayen before he knew what was happening. We could go from here to Japan, then to Vladivostok, through Russia to Europe. He couldn’t touch us there. With a hundred thousand dollars—”

  Slowly, Fargo took out a cigar. Deliberately, he bit off its end. Shielding a match from the rain, he lit it. Then he blew smoke.

  “A hundred thousand. Does that seem like a lot of money to you?”

  “It’s a terrific sum.”

  Fargo laughed shortly. “It would, with luck, last me maybe four years. But I’d have to stretch it. Two, the way I live, would be more like it. I generally try to run about two jobs a year. I don’t like to take a job for less than twenty thousand. In between, I live pretty high.”

  She stared at him.

  “You can’t spend forty thousand a year.”

  Again Fargo laughed. “You don’t know how I live.” Then his smile went away. “From day to day,” he said harshly. “You saw me with my clothes off. You saw the scars. Do you know how I got them? Do you know how I’ll end up? Someday the buzzards will eat me.”

  “But that’s no way to live. With so much money, you could settle down—”

  “That’s right,” Fargo said. “I could invest it, live on the interest. Go to an office every day. Get old, so old I couldn’t use a woman if I had one or sit a horse at a dead run. I could rock on the front porch and scratch myself when I itched and then I’d come down with cancer or a bad liver and die slow, with a lot of people hovering over me, all of ’em wondering which one was gonna get my money. No. No, Jade. I ain’t built that way. There are too many places in the world I haven’t seen yet, too many women I ain’t been to bed with, too many inside straights I haven’t filled. My aim is to do it all while I can. One of these days, somebody will shoot at me and he won’t miss. When that bullet hits, I may have a minute to think. I don’t want to spend that minute worrying about what I haven’t done.”

  “But I could make you so happy. Anything you wanted, I would do. I don’t care what it is—” her breasts rose beneath the poncho. “Anything. I would love to do anything for you.”

  “Yes,” Fargo said. “Well, there’s no way to tell you. You are a beautiful girl, and I would enjoy having you for a while. But only for a while.” He took the cigar from his mouth. “Maybe I could put it like this. Orientals aren’t the only ones who worry about face. I have a reputation to keep up, myself. People come to me for the jobs I do because they know that, if they pay my price, I can be trusted. It’s important to me that everybody knows that. It’s important to me that a man can trust me with his daughter and a hundred thousand dollars for a certain sum. That’s my business. And the minute I double-cross your father, take off with his daughter and with his money, I’m out of business.” He put the cigar back and blew smoke again. “Maybe I have a certain honor of my own. You’re supposed to be delivered to this man up north and I’m going to take you. What happens then is none of my concern.”

  Jade Ching was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Fargo. Do you know something?”

  “What?”

  Her voice rasped. “You are a son of a bitch.”

  Once more, Fargo laughed. “How in the hell do you think I make my living?”

  Jade’s mouth thinned; she reined in her horse and dropped behind.

  Not without a certain regret, Fargo turned his attention to the terrain ahead.

  Down in this river valley, the forest was semitropical. No coconut palms, no banana trees; but the omnipresent bamboo was here, and many other livid green plants. And lauan, the tall mahogany of the Philippines, shading out everything else. From time to time, there were scurryings in the brush: wild pigs, carabao gone feral, living in the jungle; not much else in the way of wildlife.

  One and Two trotted on ahead, on foot, finding trails where there were no trails, and sometimes they led the group up the mountainside, into the pine forest. The pines were huge, dripping moisture, and their needles were slippery; the animals were hard put to keep their footing.

  That was the pattern of their day’s journey. Fargo felt satisfaction as the wilderness closed in behind them. Here they were secure from General Luna or the American Army. If there were any attack at all, it would be by people armed with primitive weapons; they could not stand against guns.

  They made camp on a bench on a mountainside, in the pines. Fires were lit, food cooked for the Americans, rice boiled for the Igorots, the Tagalog cargadores, and for Chuang, who preferred it to the American rations. Jade ate with the Americans. After the meal, Fargo passed the whiskey bottle around. She drank her share and more.

  Then the Bontoc Igorots stood up, and if they had had fur, they would have bristled like dogs as they stared into the outer darkness. Fargo was on his feet in a flash, shotgun cradled and pointed, and the experienced O’Bannon and Weatherbee were only a beat behind him with their rifles. Fargo’s keen eyes saw movement out there in the Stygian blackness.

  Then the Negritos came in.

  Not a one of them would have come up to Fargo’s chest. The tallest was not over four feet. Tiny little men, they carried bolos seemingly too large for them and bows as long as they were and quivers full of arrows which, Fargo knew, had been dipped in poison. There were a dozen of them, black as the night itself, their features Negroid, flat nosed and full-lipped, their hair kinky. They were naked, except for their weapons. They ranged themselves around the fire, hands out lifted in the sign of peace.

  One, Two, and Three, with bolos drawn, began to chatter in some sort of dialect. Two of the Negritos answered back. There was much waving of hands, sign language. Then One motioned Weatherbee over and began to speak to him in faltering Tagalog.

  Presently the tall pack master turned to Fargo. “The Negritos want presents. After they have presents, they’ll give us information.”

  Fargo said: “Cigars? I’ve got four more boxes.”

  “Give them two,” Weatherbee answered.

  Fargo went to the packs, brought out two boxes of cigars, passed them around among the Negritos. They took them eagerly. When he had lit one, the owner of that one lit all the others off its end. Then they promptly reversed the cigars, put the lighted ends in their mouths. Around the fire, the dozen of them, the trio of Igorots, and the three experienced Americans all dropped into the flat-heeled Filipino squat, soles of their feet level with the ground, buttocks riding on their heels.

  It was necessary that they stay like that for a long time before the talk began. Then the oldest Negrito— his kinky hair was gray—began to chatter. One, Two, Three chattered back; and One talked to Weatherbee, who told Fargo what was going on.

  There was a Negrito village not far from here. Not long before, a group of Tagalogs, plus a few Ifugayo, had descended upon it. With them had been General Luna.

  Fargo tensed. “General Luna? What did he look like?”

  There was more chattering. Then One stood up, face grave. He turned to Weatherbee and spoke. Weatherbee, frowning, questioned. More palaver. Then Weatherbee turned to Fargo. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this at all.”

  “What do you mean?” Fargo stared at him across the fire.

  Weatherbee rubbe
d his face. “These are the first people we’ve met who’ve actually seen General Luna. And they all say that General Luna is a white man.”

  ~*~

  In that instant, Fargo felt menaced as never before on this journey.

  He looked at Weatherbee with eyes like slate. “You’re sure? A white man?”

  “Yes.” Weatherbee talked to the Negritos for a moment more. He said, “Not only a white man. They say he is an American.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “But it’s true,” Weatherbee said. “They say he is an American who hates Americans.”

  “Impossible,” Fargo said. “Unless he’s a deserter or the like—”

  In that instant, nostrils flaring, all the Negritos leaped to their feet like watchdogs scenting danger. One of them nocked his bow.

  Suddenly, from the slope above, a gun roared. The pygmy with the drawn arrow was hurled back by the impact of a bullet. Then a voice rang out in the deathly silence that followed: “Mr. Fargo! Don’t move! Every member of your party is covered! Anyone who moves will die!” And, as if to certify the warning, the rifle coughed again. By Fargo’s left foot, the slug pitched dirt.

  Slowly, assessing everything, Fargo raised his hands. He came out of the Filipino squat, feeling terribly vulnerable, and turned to look up the mountainside. “All right,” he called. “Don’t shoot.”

  “The son of a bitch,” O’Bannon said, and reached for his rifle.

  A bullet cranged out of blackness. It smashed the receiver of the Springfield.

  “Goddammit,” said Fargo. “Stand fast. They’ve got the drop.”

  Silhouetted against the fire, he kept his hands high. “All right,” he called out. “Who’s up there?”

  But he already knew the answer. That challenging voice had been American, all right, with a deep Southern accent. It came back to him now, from the blackness of the pines, ringing out like a muted bell in the night.

  “It’s General Luna.”

  Fargo licked dry lips. He had been taken by surprise. So had these wilderness guides of his. Whoever Luna was, he was a master of woodcraft, and tenacious as hell. There was no point in trying to fight him now.