The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four

by Louis L'Amour

  Ponga Jim’s fists balled in his coat pocket. “I’ll take my chances, Valdes,” he said coldly. “I don’t like the odor of your friends.”

  SEÑORITA MONTOYA was dancing. For once Mayo would have liked to cut in. But it was a practice he had never cared for, and everywhere, but in the United States, was considered grossly impolite.

  He had taken but a few steps when she was beside him. “Have you forgotten our dance, Captain?”

  Ponga Jim looked at her and caught his breath. She was radiantly beautiful. Too beautiful, he thought, to believe. He remembered that again, a moment later.

  “I hope you made the deal, Captain,” she said, “it would be wise.”

  “Why?” Over his shoulder he saw Von Hardt talking to Don Pedro. The big Spanish-German was a powerful man physically with a domineering manner thinly veiled by a recent layer of polish.

  “Because I like you, Captain,” she said simply, “and these are dangerous times.”

  His eyes narrowed. Another threat? Or a warning? “Think nothing of it,” he said, smiling again. “All times are dangerous in my business. I play my cards as they fall, the way I want to play them. I’ll make my own rules and abide by the consequences.”

  He knew Busch, at least, was a full-fledged Nazi. Von Hardt probably was. Scanning the room, Mayo noticed at least a dozen others with a pronounced military bearing.

  Don Ricardo, he knew, was hand in glove with the Falange. Just before the war, on a visit to Spain, the man had spent much time with Suner, the pro-Nazi foreign minister. If ever a room was filled with Nazi sympathizers, this was it.

  He was startled from his meditations by a sudden stiffening of Carisa’s body under his hand. Her eyes were over his shoulder, and turning, he glanced toward the French doors.

  A slender, broad-shouldered man stood there alone. He was undeniably handsome, but was only a trifle over five feet tall. One hand touched the neatly waxed mustache, and the other was in his coat pocket. He surveyed the room with all the sangfroid of a ringmaster watching a group of trained horses perform.

  A subtle change had come over the guests. Men had stopped talking. Faces had stiffened. Mayo glanced at Norden and saw the multimillionaire’s face slowly change from rage to a cold, ugly triumph. All evening he had felt the charged atmosphere of danger at Castillo Norden. Now for the first time, it had centered on one object. However, the small man in the door was undisturbed.

  Then Mayo saw something else. A dark form flitted past the French doors behind the man and faded into the shadows beside the window. Then another. Two more men, hard-looking customers in evening clothes, were walking toward the window, talking quietly. Another man left his partner and lit a cigarette.

  They were coming, closing in. Slowly, casually, as in a well-rehearsed play. And the little man kept watching the room with an air of blasé indifference.

  Carisa’s face was deathly pale. “Please!” she whispered. “Let’s go to the conservatory. I feel faint.”

  He was fed up with wondering who was on what side and pretending that he had an open, cosmopolitan attitude about such things. He had been invited here so that he could be conned into selling his aircraft by a bunch of Nazis and he was expected to politely not notice.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You go. I want to talk to that man.” He was startled by the fear in her eyes.

  “No!” she whispered. “You mustn’t. There’s going to be trouble.”

  He laughed at her. “Of course,” he said, “that’s why I’m going.”

  Casually, he walked over to the man standing by the windows. The musicians were playing another piece now, a louder one.

  “Hi, buddy,” Mayo said softly. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re right behind the eight ball. There are four or five men on the terrace and more here in the room.”

  The smile revealed amazingly white teeth. “Of course.” The little man bowed slightly. “They do not like me here. I am Juan Peligro. Your name?”

  “Mayo. Jim Mayo.”

  Peligro’s eyebrows lifted. “So?” He looked at Ponga Jim thoughtfully. “I have heard of you, Captain. Have they made an offer for your amphibian yet?”

  Ponga Jim glanced at Peligro quickly. “How did you know?”

  “One learns much. They need planes, these men.”

  A burly man with a square, brutal face suddenly stood beside Mayo. “Captain Mayo? Don Ricardo wishes to speak with you.”

  “Why not let him come here?” Ponga Jim said. “I like it in this room.”

  The man’s face darkened. “You’d better go,” he insisted. “This man does not belong here. He is going to be dealt with.”

  Ponga Jim grinned suddenly. He felt amazingly good. “I like him,” he said. “I like this guy. You deal with him, you deal with me.”

  The man hesitated. Obviously, they wanted no outward disturbance. “We don’t want any trouble,” the man said, “you—”

  His right hand dropped to his pocket too slowly. Ponga Jim’s left hand closed on his wrist, and his right moved also, in the form of a fist. That punch struck the man in the solar plexus and knocked every bit of wind out of him.

  As he started to fall, Ponga Jim caught him by the shoulders and spun him around. Using the man as a shield, he started for the door. “Let’s go,” he said over his shoulder.

  Don Pedro Norden and Dr. Von Hardt were standing at the door. Von Hardt’s expression was stiff. Norden was purple with rage. “You fool,” he snarled angrily. “I’ll have you bullwhipped.”

  “Try it,” Ponga Jim said, smiling.

  At the outer door, the man Mayo was holding made a sudden lunge. Instantly, Mayo pushed him hard between the shoulders. As the man fell down the steps, the two made a dash into the shrubbery beyond the drive.

  Running swiftly across the grass, Peligro spoke to Ponga Jim. “Gracias, amigo. But you make trouble for yourself.”

  “What would I do? That gang was tough.”

  Behind them Mayo heard running feet. Somewhere a motor roared into life, then all was still. But he was under no illusions. The pursuit would be swift, efficient, and relentless. Worst of all, it was more than ten miles to Fortaleza.

  They had started across another curve of the drive when a car rounded a bend and they were caught dead in the headlights. Before they could get off the drive, the car swept alongside.

  “Quickly!” It was Carisa Montoya at the wheel, and Ponga Jim did not hesitate. Peligro was in beside them and the car rolling almost as soon as she had spoken.

  Miraculously, the gate was unguarded. The broad highway to the port lay open before them. Yet before they had been driving more than two minutes, Carisa slowed and sent the big car into a side road that led off down a steep grade through clumps of trees.

  She slowed down. The car purred along almost silently. Huge boulders loomed up and were passed. Trees cast weird shadows over the road. Then they turned again and swung in a narrow semicircle back toward the hacienda.

  “The highway is a trap,” Carisa explained swiftly. “Don Pedro has five guards between the Castillo Norden and Fortaleza. No one can approach his place without permission.”

  “You’d better drop us and get back,” Mayo warned. “This is all right for us, but for you it might be bad.”

  “Yes, please,” Peligro said suddenly. “Let us out. The stable road will take you back without their knowledge. Then instantly to bed. We can go on from here.”

  The car slid soundlessly away. Ponga Jim Mayo looked after her. “That woman’s got nerve,” he said. “But not the best of friends.”

  Peligro was already moving, and before they had gone a hundred yards, Mayo knew that he was not walking blind. The little man knew where he was going.

  “They will scour the country,” Peligro said. “Don Pedro will be angry that I came here tonight.”

  “Will the señorita be able to get back all right?” Mayo asked.

  Peligro shrugged. “She? But of course. The stable road, it is most safe. T
he peóns are there, but then, they see what they wish to see.”

  “Would Norden kill a woman?”

  Peligro chuckled without humor. “He would kill anyone. He lives for power, that man.”

  “Is he a Nazi? Busch looked it.”

  “Sí, Busch was a storm trooper. Von Hardt is also a Nazi. But Don Pedro Norden? He is a Nordenista, amigo, and that is all. He uses the Nazis as they use him.”

  “What about you?”

  “I?” Peligro chuckled. “Let us say I love what Don Pedro hates. Perhaps that is sufficient. But then, I am a Colombian.”

  “The fifth column is strong in Colombia.” Mayo studied the figure ahead of him.

  “Naturalmente. Everywhere. But my country could never be a Nazi domain. There are more bookshops in Bogotá than cafés. Think of that, amigo. Men who read are not Nazis.”

  Peligro stopped suddenly, then deliberately pushed through a thick wall of brush beside the path. After a few minutes, they stood in a small clearing. Under the arching branches was an autogyro, the outline of its rotating wing lost in the shadows.

  Ponga Jim looked at the Colombian with respect. “Well, I’m stumped,” he said. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

  Juan Peligro winked. “One does or one dies, my friend.”

  CHAPTER II

  It was still dark when Ponga Jim Mayo came alongside the ship. Only a dim anchor light forward, and the faint glow over the accommodation ladder. He paid the boatman and watched him start for the Custom House Pier. For some reason, he felt uneasy.

  He glanced forward at the bulking stern of the freighter that lay a ship’s length beyond the Semiramis. She was a Norwegian ship, the Nissengate.

  Mayo had mounted the ladder and was just stepping to the deck when a dark figure hurled itself from the blackness beyond the light. A shoulder struck him a terrific blow in the chest, and he was knocked off balance into the hand-line.

  It caught him just at the hips, and overbalanced, he fell headfirst into the sea. He hit the water unhurt and went down, deep, deeper. He caught himself and struck out for the surface.

  A dark body swirled by him, and a knife slashed. Avoiding it, he shot through the surface, and an instant later his attacker broke water not six feet away. Ponga Jim dived and grabbed the man’s wrist, wrenching the knife from his grasp. Then closing with him, Mayo began to smash powerful blows into his body.

  The man sagged suddenly. All the breath had been knocked from his body. The platform of the accommodation ladder seemed only a few feet away. Ponga Jim struck out, reached it, and crawled up. He dragged his prisoner with him.

  He lay still, getting his wind. Then he got up and pushed the stumbling man ahead of him up the ladder.

  “What iss?” A big man with a childlike pink face stepped out of the dark.

  Instantly, Ponga Jim knew his mistake. Fighting and swimming, they had worked their way forward until alongside the Norwegian ship, boarding it by mistake. Glancing back toward the other ship, he could see they had swung nearer on the tide.

  “Sorry,” Mayo said. “This fellow jumped me as I came aboard my ship. I’ll call a boat and we’ll go back.”

  The seaman stared at him warily. He was carrying a short club and a gun. He looked like a tough customer. “How I know dat’s true?”

  The man who had attacked Ponga Jim came to life. “It’s a lie,” he burst out. “He attacked me.”

  “Aboard my own ship?” Mayo laughed. “Hardly.” He swung the man into the light. He was short and thick, almost black. There was an ugly scar over one eye, another on his cheek. He glared sullenly at Mayo, then with a jerk, broke free.

  Ponga Jim grabbed at him, but the watchman stepped between. “How do I know yet which iss lyin’?” he demanded.

  “Ask the men aboard my ship.” Ponga Jim gestured aft. “The Semiramis.”

  The man peered at him. “Dot iss not der Semiramis. I neffer see no ship by dot name. Dot iss der Chittagong, of Calcutta.”

  “What?” Mayo stared aft. The dark loom of the ship was unfamiliar. Her bridge was too high, and there were three lifeboats along the port side of her boat deck, not two as on the Semiramis.

  “You come aboard der wrong ship, mister,” the seaman told him. “I t’ink you better go ashore now.”

  The man with the scarred face leered at him, his yellowish eyes triumphant. Ponga Jim looked from one to the other. Dripping with water, he turned and went down the gangway.

  When he had hailed a harbor boat, he had himself sculled aft. The other ship was a flush-decker at least a thousand tons heavier than the Semiramis. There were four other ships in the harbor, all unknown to him.

  Ponga Jim Mayo scowled and let his memory travel back for a moment. Shortly after eight-thirty that morning, he had walked down the accommodation ladder and been taken ashore. Slug Brophy and Gunner Millan, his first and second mates, had leaned on the rail as he went. Beyond, several of the crew had been working about the deck.

  Back on the Custom House Pier, Mayo took stock of the situation. He had been through too much with his crew to doubt their loyalty. He knew Brophy would never consent to move without ample reason, for Brophy was not a man to be bluffed or imposed upon.

  Somewhere in the background would be Norden and his Nazi friends. Fourteen hours earlier, Mayo had left the ship with a full crew. Now she was gone.

  In the meantime, he had received an offer for his amphibian plane. Upon refusing the offer, he had been threatened. The affair of Juan Peligro had brought about an open break with his host.

  The Spanish-German might have had the ship removed from the harbor. If so, he would have laid deliberate plans to conceal his action. He would be ruthlessly efficient. No doubt the officials in port were all in his pay.

  Coolly, Ponga Jim went to a hotel, obtained a room, and went to bed. In the morning after a good breakfast, he sought out Duro the port captain. “What happened to the Semiramis?” Ponga Jim asked. “When I went ashore yesterday she lay aft of the Nissengate. When I returned she was gone.”

  The Brazilian looked at him thoughtfully. “The Semiramis, you say? I never heard of it.”

  “The pilot who brought me in was Du Silva,” Mayo said.

  Captain Duro studied Ponga Jim curiously, then shrugged. “I don’t think so. Señor Du Silva has not come to work all week…I believe he is sick.”

  “Now that’s a bunch of…” Then he stopped. “I see,” he said warily.

  “If I were you,” the man told him lazily, leaning toward him, “I’d go home and get some sleep.”

  Ponga Jim’s hand shot out and took the port officer by the throat. “And if I were you,” he said coldly, “I’d figure out another story before the American consul and President Vargas begin to ask questions.”

  Duro’s face paled, but he merely stared at Mayo, his eyes ugly.

  “What could you tell them? That your ship, armed with a full crew, had been stolen from the harbor? It could be very amusing, señor.”

  Ponga Jim slammed the port captain back into his chair. “No,” he said flatly, “I’d tell them Don Pedro Norden was a traitor, and that you were his tool.”

  He strode from the office. After all, Duro was right. It would be an utterly preposterous story. Ships of several thousand tons displacement do not vanish into thin air. As for witnesses, no doubt fifty people had noticed the Semiramis, but how many could see her name at that distance? The Chittagong, moored in the same place, would be considered the same ship. The few who knew better could be bribed or frightened.

  Then, he was aware of the fact that his own reputation did not appeal to many government officials. He had been in action against the Japanese and Germans in the East Indies before the war began. That his aid had been invaluable to the Dutch and British was data burned deep into reports of their intelligence services. The fact that he had usually profited from those services would be enough to blacken his reputation with some people.

  A man of Norden’s strength could b
uild a substantial case against a lone captain of a tramp freighter with a mixed crew. Even if he won in the end and proved his point, it would require months of red tape and argument. In the meantime, what of his ship and his men?

  Just why Norden wanted planes Mayo did not know, but the presence of Nazis on the hump of Brazil boded no good for the Allies. It was too near the source of bauxite for American planes. It was a place of great wealth and poverty, two elements that were often unstable when combined.

  What Ponga Jim Mayo wanted done he must do himself. No doubt the communications were controlled by Norden, and it was to be doubted if any message he might send would be allowed to leave Fortaleza.

  No doubt the freighter had been moved to some nearby river mouth or minor port where the plane would be removed. Possible anchorages were few, but there was nothing he could do to search. For the moment, the Semiramis and her crew must get along on their own. Don Pedro would expect him to protest to the government. He would expect excited demands, protests, much noise. In that case, it would be very simple for Don Pedro to have him sent to an insane asylum. Certainly, a man claiming someone had stolen an unknown ship and its crew would be insane enough for most people.

  Long ago, Ponga Jim Mayo had discovered that attack was the best defense. He had discovered that plotters like to take their own time. He knew that one man with energy and courage could do much. So he wasn’t going to protest or demand, he wasn’t going to argue. He was going to carry the fight to the enemy.

  Jim bought a suit of khakis, and returning to the hotel, changed from the bedraggled suit. Castillo Norden was on a spur of Mount Jua, approximately ten miles from town. In the side street not far from the hotel was a disreputable Model A. Nearby a Brazilian loitered. He was a plump, sullen man with a mustache and round cheeks.

  “How much to rent the car all day?” Mayo asked.

  The Brazilian looked at him, bored. “You go to Castillo Norden, my friend,” he replied, “you go to trouble.”

  Ponga Jim grinned. “Maybe I’m looking for trouble. Do we go?”

  The Brazilian tossed his limp cigarette into the gutter.