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

by Louis L'Amour

  She smiled suddenly, and he realized with a start that she was not only striking. She was beautiful.

  “I have seen them,” she said. “Each one. So have others of my people. We have watched you last night, and today.”

  They left the tower and parted on the edge of the jungle. He turned and walked swiftly back toward the fire, which was still bright.

  BUCK RODD WAS PACING BACK AND FORTH, and when he saw Turk, relief broke over his face.

  “Man!” he exclaimed. “We were getting worried! Where have you been?”

  Turk accepted the cup that Shan Bao offered him and walked over and seated himself on the ground with his back to the stone.

  He took a swallow of coffee, and while Shan was dishing up the food, he explained briefly, amused by their wide-eyed interest.

  “Talk about luck!” Dick said with disgust. “You walk out into the jungle and run right into something like that. A beautiful dame, and away out here, too! Why doesn’t anything like that ever happen to me?”

  “If it did,” Phil Mora said, smiling, “you’d probably be so scared you’d still be running.”

  “What about this fellow with no legs, this white man?” Rodd inquired. “You think that’s on the level? It’s funny this Red didn’t say anything about it.”

  Turk shrugged. “She said that he and Red fought all the time. Red must have been friendly enough with them, for apparently they let him go. I wonder what’s at Chipan that this other fellow wanted so much?”

  “That’s easy enough!” Rodd said. “Gold, probably. What else would make a man gamble on something like that? You remember what Pizarro found in Peru? The walls of that Temple to the Sun at Cuzco were sheeted in thin plates of gold. From what you say, this Chipan must be a sacred place.”

  “That wasn’t the impression I got,” Turk said. “She seemed afraid of it. The place is tabu, that’s a cinch. Evil, she said.” He glanced over at Mora and London. “Don’t you boys get any wild ideas. If you don’t want to lose any legs, stay away from that place. And don’t ask any questions!”

  YET HE WAS less worried about Chipan and the tribesmen, whoever they were, than about the plane he had seen, for it was high time that Bordie or some of the Petex crowd showed up. Certainly any outfit that hired Vin Boling to ramrod such a deal, and men like Pace, Mather, and Bordie to carry it out, was planning on riding roughshod over any opposition. And they had moved in too easily.

  Daybreak found Turk and his crew in the air again. This time they flew clear on to Obido to refuel. Surprisingly, Joe Leone was waiting for Turk when he came ashore.

  “Came down to handle this gas setup myself, an’ just as well I did,” he said, his cigar jutting up from his tight-lipped mouth. “Boling’s in town. They’ve got a base back in the jungle.”

  Turk explained quickly, telling all that had happened except about the native girl and Chipan. For some reason he was reluctant to speak of it.

  Previously, he had warned Phil and Dick against any comments along that line.

  “Hi, Turk!”

  Madden turned at the booming voice and found himself facing Sid Bordie and a man he remembered vaguely as Vin Boling. To Boling’s reputation he needed no introduction. The man had ramrodded many legal or semilegal deals in his life and was utterly ruthless, a fighter who would stop at nothing.

  “Looks like you fellows were getting started,” Boling said, smiling. “But you’re late. We’ll have this survey completed in no time. Why don’t you pull out before you waste more money?”

  “We’ll finish it!” Leone said grimly. “And don’t start anything, Boling. I know how you operate.”

  The big man chuckled. He was taller than Turk Madden, lithe and hard as nails. In his whites and half-boots he looked rugged enough. Bordie was equally tall, but broader and thicker.

  “I want ’em to stay!” Bordie said, his eyes bright with malice. “This Madden is supposed to be good. I want to see how good.”

  “Want to find out now?” Turk invited. “Nobody’s holding you, chum.”

  Bordie’s face flushed dark with anger.

  “Why, you—”

  He swung from his hip, and it was the wrong thing to do. Turk had been rubbing his palms together, rather absently, holding them chest high. It was an excellent punching position, which was exactly why he held them there. Sid Bordie’s punch started, but Turk’s rock-hard left fist smashed into his teeth, and then a short right dropped to the angle of Bordie’s jaw and the big flyer’s knees sagged. But Turk had not stopped punching, the two blows had been thrown quicker than a wink, and the third was a left hook to the solar plexus thrown from the hip. It exploded in Bordie’s stomach, and the flyer grunted and hit the dock on his knees.

  His feet spread, Turk Madden looked over Bordie’s back at Vin Boling. “How’s about it, bud? You askin’, too? Or just looking?”

  Boling’s eyes held Madden’s with a queer, leaping light. Turk saw the hard gleam of humor there, and something else, a sort of dark warning.

  “You’re rough, Madden,” Boling said sarcastically, “and crude. I’m down here on a job, not swapping punches like any brawler. I’d rather like to take you down a notch, but that can wait.”

  As Turk turned on his heel and left, Sid Bordie got to his feet, his face pale and sick. His eyes were ugly with hatred, and a thin trickle of blood trickled from his smashed lips.

  “I’ll kill you for that, Madden!”

  Dick London moved up alongside of Turk. “Man alive,” he said. “He went down as if you’d hit him with an ax.”

  Leone rolled his cigar in his jaws. “Son,” he said, “I’d sooner be hit with an ax.” He shook his head then. “I don’t like it, Turk. That’s a bad outfit. I’d have felt better if Boling’d blown his top.”

  Turk nodded. “Yeah, he’s a hard case, that one. But whatever he does will be back in the bush where nobody can see, an’ if he has his way, there’ll be no survivors.”

  SUNDOWN FOUND THE AMPHIBIAN sliding down to a landing on the lake, and Turk’s eyes glinted with appreciation at what he saw. Rodd had constructed, with Shan’s help, a small dock, about four feet wide and thirty feet long. Also, he had a boom made of logs tied together and anchored, forming a neat little harbor near the dock.

  “We’ve been busy,” Rodd said as they strolled from the dock toward the camp. “An’ no sign of your babe in the woods. But say, I’ve been thinkin’ a little about this Red you told me about, an’ about the fellow without any legs. I know who he is.”

  Turk stopped. “What do you mean? Who is he then?”

  “Look,” Buck began, “I prospected down here before the war. Most of us in that racket knew each other. At first when you talked about this redhead you met, I didn’t think much about it, but then it began to tie in. Back in forty-one there were a couple of men took off into the jungle, had some idea of hunting the Lost Gold Mine of the Martyrs. Well, when I came out of the jungle to go back to the States and the Army, it was forty-two, and they were still missing. One of those men was Red Gruber. The other one was Russ Fagin.”

  “Fagin? I think I know that name,” Turk mused. “Wasn’t he in that Gran Chaco fuss?”

  “That’s him. A tough character, out for all he could get and any way he could get it. If this fellow without legs is Russ Fagin, I’ll bet he’s meaner than ever about now.”

  “That’s a horrible thing,” Mora said, “having your legs cut off. I wonder what made them do it?”

  “Nobody violates tabu,” Madden replied. “He was lucky he got off that easy. Usually, they stake them out on an anthill.” He studied the situation. “Shan, you can take the boys out tomorrow. I’m going over to this village wherever it is. Buck, you come with me. We’ll talk to this legless gent.”

  AS THOUGH she had been expecting them, Nato met the two men at the edge of the jungle. Her eyes went from Buck to Turk Madden.

  “You come now to visit us?” she asked.

  Turk nodded assent. “And to see the m
an without legs,” he added.

  A shadow crossed her face. “Oh, yes! But please, you must not ask for him at once. My people, they are strange.”

  Turk looked at her thoughtfully. “You are tall, Nato. What is your tribe? You seem like one of my people.”

  She was pleased, he saw that at once. “My father,” she said softly, “was a Chileno—how you say—Iriss and Spaniss. He was a prisoner here for a long time. He, too, tried to go to Chipan.”

  “Tell me,” Turk asked, “what’s at Chipan? Is it a city?”

  “A city, yes.” She would say no more than that, although after a minute, she looked around at him. “The other man, without legs, he is ver’ bad man. He try to kill Red.”

  “Was Red your friend? Your lover?” Turk asked gently.

  She looked at him, startled, then amused. “Oh, no! I was too young! Much too young! Red, he talk with my padre, father. He talk much with him. When he go, he say he will come back. You see, we like Red. My people all like him.”

  “Your mother,” Turk hazarded a guess, “she was Guarani?”

  For a moment, the girl did not reply, and then she said without looking at him, “You must not speak Guarani. It is tabu. Nor talk of Chipan.”

  They emerged from the jungle into a cluster of ordered fields. They were milpa resembling those of the Maya, yet here agriculture seemed to have progressed beyond the stage of burned jungle, for the fields were scattered with leaf mold gathered from the jungle, and an effort had been made to turn the soil over.

  “You plant maize? How many years here?” Turk asked curiously.

  She looked at him quickly, pleased by his interest. “Maize two years,” she said, “Jican two years.”

  Jican, he decided from her further explanation, was somewhat like the sweet-tasting turnip of Guatemala. There was no time for further questions, for they stood suddenly in the street of the village, a street heavily shaded by towering jungle trees, most of them the sapodilla.

  Beneath the trees were scattered many huts, some of them facing upon a rough square. Several children were playing in the compound, and they got up and drew back into the black doorways of the palm-thatched huts. They stopped before one of the larger huts, and now a man stepped from it. He was white-haired, and although he seemed old, his body was hard and young-looking.

  “Cantal,” Nato said, and then indicating Madden and Rodd in turn, she said, “Madden, Rodd.”

  The chief spoke slowly, looking from one to the other as he spoke, and Madden could gather the gist of what he said from his gestures and expression. Also, there was something faintly familiar about the tongue, and then Turk knew what it was. It was faintly similar to the Guarani language with some words he seemed to remember from the Chamacos.

  “What do we do now?” Buck asked softly. “The old boy seems friendly enough. Did you savvy that Chamaco? Seems mixed up, but I could get out a word or two.”

  Cantal led off, and he took them slowly about the village. It was a sightseeing tour, and Turk was interested despite his impatience to see and talk to Russ Fagin, if that was the name of the legless man. Obviously the maize crop was good, and Turk saw beans, squash, papayas, sapodilla, cacao beans, and after they had walked awhile, they stopped near another hut and were served yerbe mate in wooden cups.

  Nato spoke suddenly to Cantal, and Turk, beginning to catch the sound of the language now and to sort out the Guarani words, understood she was asking about the man without legs. Cantal seemed to hesitate, and his face became severe. But finally the girl seemed to win him over.

  Cantal turned and led them to a large hut that was set off to one side, and around it a low fence. As they passed through, a big man lurched suddenly out of the door on crutches, and as he saw them, his head jerked back as if he’d been struck.

  HE WORE A tattered and many times patched shirt and crudely made shorts of some coarse, native cotton material. His arms and shoulders were heavy with muscle, his neck thick, and his face swarthy, unshaven. The eyes that stared from Madden to Rodd and back were hard, cruel eyes.

  “Hello, Fagin,” Rodd said. “You remember me? We met at Tucava, in the Chaco.”

  Fagin stared at him. “Yeah”—his voice was harsh—“sure I remember. What are you doin’ here?”

  “I’m with Madden here, on a little survey job.”

  “Madden?” Fagin smiled. “What is this, a meeting of the lost souls department? Or a reunion of the veterans of the Chaco?” His eyes held on Madden. “Well, what do you want with me? If you think I want to leave, you’re wrong. I won’t leave here until I kill every last one of these dirty savages.” His voice was low and vicious and shook with repressed hatred. “They bobbed my legs.” He chuckled grimly. “An’ all because I went to their cursed Chipan!”

  He hitched closer on the crutches, his eyes gleaming. “Madden, you’re a man with spine. There’s gold in that place. Gold, diamonds, everything. It makes Cuzco look like a piggy bank, take it from me. I got there, an’ I’d of gotten away, too, if it hadn’t been for that Cantal, there. He spotted me, an’ when the priests got through, they’d taken my legs so I could never go back.

  “Take me back there, man. I’ll show you where it is.” He hitched closer and the excitement made his veins swell in his head. “Listen, man.” His voice boomed loudly, and Turk saw other natives coming nearer, and he suddenly wondered how much of this Natochi could grasp. “There’s loot there enough for all of us. Everyone. Gold to buy the world.”

  “You’d better take it easy,” Turk advised softly. “These natives won’t like that. They’ll understand.”

  “Understand? Them?” He sneered. “They don’t savvy anything, but their pig talk.” He leaned forward, thrusting his head out at them. “But you should see Chipan. What a city. It puts the Maya and the Inca to shame. An’ old? Why that town’s older than Rome. Older than Athens. Probably older than Babylon. You take it from me, this is something.

  “You can take me,” he hissed, leaning toward Turk. “To the devil with these gugus. Kill the lot of them. You’ve got guns. Mow ’em down. Let’s get their gold an’ get out of here.”

  CANTAL TOUCHED TURK’S ARM, and his face was severe. He spoke quickly. Nato interpreted.

  “He says we must go now,” she said, her eyes were frightened. “I think he understands, as I do, and it will be bad for you.”

  “No,” Turk said, looking at Fagin, “I won’t be involved in any venture that will take me to Chipan. If it is tabu, I shall respect their tabu. If you want to get out of here, to get back to civilization, I’ll take you out, some way.”

  Fagin glared wildly. “Fool!” he screamed. “You blithering fool! There’s gold there, I tell you. Tabu! What do their fool tabus mean to a white man?”

  Madden turned abruptly away and accompanied by the others, walked rapidly off. Behind them, Fagin raved and shouted.

  “I’ll get there!” he screamed. “I’ll get there, an’ to the devil with you all. I’ll see the whole bunch of you dead. All of them an’ all of you!”

  Madden stopped when they were well away from Fagin and he glanced at Buck Rodd. The big prospector’s face was grim.

  “Crazy,” Rodd said. “Crazy as a loon.” He scowled. “But they seem to be takin’ good care of him. I wonder why.”

  Turk voiced the question to Nato, and she replied quickly, “We do not like the—what do you say?—break of tabu, but we have much feeling for one touched by spirits. The priests took his legs so he could not go back, for there is much danger there, spirits that cause much sickness. But we care for him. We always shall.”

  “Rodd,” Turk said, “there’s probably something to this tabu. Lots of white men scoff at them, but usually what a native calls evil spirits is something with a very real foundation. In New Guinea once a guy investigated a tabu and found it originated with an epidemic of smallpox. Tabu was the native method of quarantine. There’s probably some good reason for this one.”

  “Yeah,” Rodd agreed, then he loo
ked at Turk. “I wonder if Fagin’s nuts or if there is a lot of gold there. Man alive! What a find it would be!”

  “Right now I’m thinking of something else,” Turk admitted. He shook a cigarette from a pack and handed it to Rodd, then took one himself. “Buck, did you happen to look past him into the doorway? I did, and lying on the table, half covered by a cloth, was the torn end of a package of cigarettes. The same brand as these.”

  “The devil!” Rodd shoved his thumbs down in his belt and squinted his eyes. “Then he’s seen somebody else recently, and if that’s true, I guess we both know who.”

  “Sure, Boling’s crowd.” Turk shrugged. “This may come to a showdown mighty quick now.”

  Yet careful questioning of both Natochi and Cantal failed to elicit any information about white men other than Fagin. Wherever Russ Fagin had been, or whomever he had talked to, these two knew nothing about it. Yet Turk could see that his questions aroused curiosity, and before he left the village he had the promise from both Cantal and Nato that if any other white men came around, he would be notified at once.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK passed swiftly and without incident. The amphibian was constantly in the air, shuttling back and forth from the base to Obido, and the film and records piled up swiftly. Yet, as the days went by, Turk found himself growing more and more worried, and the strain was beginning to show on both Mora and London as well. Rodd took it easy. He hunted occasionally, or relieved Mora or London, who instructed him in their work. Often he prospected one of the nearby streams, or roamed the mountains with a sack and a hammer, taking samples. These trips Turk knew were more than prospecting trips, for Buck Rodd was keeping an eye on the country. He was not trusting to the natives.

  On the tenth morning, Turk gestured at the stack of film, waiting in its cans to be transported to Obido.