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

by Louis L'Amour

  “You two! By all that’s holy, if I was ever glad to see anybody!”

  “We trailed them,” Buck said, “we were after the films. You’ve got them?”

  “Yeah. In the transport.”

  “Hell’s breakin’ out back there,” Rodd said, panting from his run. “Vin Boling’s in Chipan with Mather, Pace, and another guy, and they’ve killed a half-dozen natives. Russ Fagin’s with them. We hid in the jungle until they got by us. They’ve got Nato, too!”

  “The girl?” Turk scowled. “That’s a help, isn’t it. If it was just them and the natives, I’d let them fight it out.” He fed shells into the clip of the tommy gun. “Look,” he said swiftly, “you two take the film and records and head back for our ship.” Quickly, he explained. Then he looked at Shan. “Think you can get her out of there?”

  Shan Bao listened to his explanation, then nodded.

  “All right, then,” Madden said, “get this stuff back to the ship, take off, and get back to our base. Load up and be ready to move out.”

  “What about you?” Buck protested. “If you’re going to tackle that gang, I’m with you!”

  “No,” Turk said. “This is my deal. You fellows get back. Shan couldn’t pack all this stuff in one trip, anyway. I’m going over there in the little ship.”

  “How will you land?” Rodd protested.

  Turk shrugged. “Maybe I won’t have to. I want to get that girl away from them, but if I catch that bunch alone, I’m not going to play tag with them. Get going!”

  “What about me?” the Boling man protested.

  Turk turned on him. “Mister,” he said, “unless you can fly that transport, or some of those guys come back, it looks to me like you’ve got a long walk.”

  On the run he headed for the small ship. A swift check, and he climbed in. It had been gassed up and was ready to go.

  Evidently Boling had the same idea that he did, and after their return they had no idea of staying around.

  He warmed the ship up, and then with Rodd and Shan waving good-bye, he took off. The little ship answered to the controls like something alive, and it took only a matter of minutes to let him know that he was flying a really hot job. He skimmed off over the jungle and banked around the tall trees as around a pylon.

  Instantly, he saw them. Five men and a girl, one of them moving with a swinging movement as if on crutches, and behind them, some distance off yet moving steadily forward, were the natives. They clutched spears and machetes, and despite the undoubtedly superior armament of the Boling crowd, Turk knew they were in for trouble. Yet the white men had reached the tumbled rocks and ruined, vine-covered walls of Chipan.

  Turning, Turk studied the situation below. The ruins of the ancient city covered a wide area, and over most of it the jungle had moved, binding the stones together with vines and creepers. Here and there tall trees grew up from some courtyard or walled enclosure, and except for one comparatively wide space of stone terrace, the city was completely covered. This terrace, bounded by long parapets shaped like the bodies of serpents, led up to a massive pyramid. This pyramid was ascended by a wide row of steps, and, atop it, on a space a hundred square yards, was a temple, and before the temple, an altar. It was toward this place that Russ Fagin was leading Boling.

  As Turk zoomed over them Boling waved an arm, evidently thinking him to be Sid Bordie, returned.

  Turk skimmed out over the jungle and banked into a turn and started back. The girl was obviously their prisoner. In the hands of such men as these, there could be nothing but ill treatment and death awaiting her. No doubt she was a hostage, but knowing the fanaticism of natives when their tabu has been violated, Turk was sure that she would be of no use to Boling. Which meant she would certainly be killed. If Nato, who had helped them, was to escape, it must be by his hand.

  Landing was impossible. The terrace was long enough, but it was littered with fallen stones. He looked at the jungle, swallowed.

  “If there’s a special god for fools,” he said aloud, “I hope he’s got his fingers crossed for me.”

  Turning the ship toward the edge of the jungle behind the pyramid, he came down in a slow glide, then he cut the motor and, with the trees close under him, brought the stick back. He came down in a stall.

  There was a tearing crash, and he was hurled violently forward. The safety belt broke and he shot forward as the plane nosed down through the trees and brought up in a tangle of leaves and lianas that broke under him. He fell and then crashed into another tangle of vines. He finally hit the earth under the trees in a mass of dried leaves, reptiles, spiders, and decayed lianas that had hung among the tangle of vines like a great bag full of jungle rot and corruption.

  All he could think of was that he was alive and unhurt. His .45 had fallen from its holster but lay only an arm’s length away. What had become of the tommy gun, he couldn’t guess. He struggled to his feet, badly shaken, and moved away from the debris he had brought down with him.

  The plane had hit the ground only a few feet away, but look as he might, he could not find the tommy gun.

  He stared at the plane, then at the hole in the jungle.

  It was a miracle, no less.

  “Brother,” he said grimly, “they don’t do that twice, an’ you’ve had yours.”

  He started away, then saw his machete lying not far from the broken wingtip. Recovering it, he started on a limping run, his head still buzzing, for the pyramid.

  There was no stair on this side, and he knew that by now Vin Boling would be ascending. He started around the base, then halted, for suddenly through the vines he saw a deep notch in the side of the pyramid. It was a tangle of vines and fallen stone, but might be another entrance. It also looked like a hole fit for a lot of snakes.

  Carefully, he approached the opening. Beyond the stones he could see a black opening.

  Drawing a deep breath, machete in hand, he went into it.

  Once inside he stood in abysmal darkness, the air close and hot, stifling with an odor of dampness and decay. Striking a match, he looked around. On the floor was the track of a jaguar, the tiger of the Amazon. There was mud here and mold. But directly before him was a steep stair. Mounting carefully, for the steps were slippery with damp, he counted twenty steps before he halted, feeling emptiness around him. He struck another match.

  Torn and muddy from his fall, he stood in the entrance to a vast hall, his feeble light blazing up, lending its glow to the light that came through from somewhere high up on the pyramid’s side. Upon each wall was a row of enormous disks, surfaced in gold or gold leaf, at least a dozen upon a side. Before him was an open space of stone floor and, at the end of the hall, an even more enormous disk.

  Stepping forward, Turk glanced up toward the source of the light and saw it was a round opening, and no accident, for he realized at once that the rays of the morning sun would shine through that opening upon certain days, and the golden flood of light would strike upon the great golden disk, and be reflected lightly upon the rows of disks.

  Awed by the silence and the vastness of the interior of the great pyramid, he walked forward, his footsteps sounding hollowly upon the stone floor, and then he turned and looked back, and almost jumped out of his skin.

  A figure wearing a tall golden headdress sat upon a throne facing the disk. Despite the need for him on the surface, Turk turned and walked toward the tall dais, approached by steps, on which the figure sat. Slowly, he mounted the stair.

  It was a colossal figure, much larger than he had first believed, and he could see that it would be bathed in the reflected sunlight from the great disk over the end of the hall. In the lap of the figure was a great dish, and upon it lay several gold rings, and some gems.

  Suddenly, Turk heard a shot from above him, and then a yell. The sounds seemed very close, and very loud.

  “Here they come!” The voice was that of Pace.

  “Let ’em come!” Boling said. “Mather, behind the stone on the right. Pace, stay where yo
u are. Don’t waste any shots. Fagin, tell them unless they stop and return to their village we’ll kill the girl.”

  Turk heard Fagin shouting, and he turned, searching for the opening through which the sound must come. And then he saw a bit of light and saw there was a stairway close behind the seated figure. From the light on the top steps, he knew it must lead to the roof.

  Taking a quick step back, he picked up a handful of the gems on the dish and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he started for the doorway. But in the door he paused, for before him was a gigantic gong. It must have been ten feet across, and beside it a huge stone hammer.

  Stuffing his gun back into his belt, he picked up the hammer, hefted it, and swung.

  The sound was deafening. With a great, reverberating boom, the tone rang in the empty hallway. Outside, Turk heard a shout of astonishment, then a yell. Again, once, twice, three times he struck the gong, and then, dropping the stone hammer, he was up the stair in a couple of leaps.

  He had hoped the surprise would give him his chance, and it did. He rushed out on a stone platform before the temple to face a group that stood astounded in their tracks, the pyramid still vibrating with the sound of the huge gong.

  Nato saw him first. “Quick!” he said. “Over here!”

  Boling recovered with a shout. “No you don’t, Madden!” he yelled.

  He swung up his gun, and Turk snapped a shot at him that missed, and then shoved the girl toward the stair and fired again. The man behind Boling grabbed him and yelled.

  “Look out!” His voice rose to a scream. “They are coming!”

  The natives had started up with a surge, and Pace fired, then Mather. As their guns began to bark, Turk lunged after the girl, but Boling, more anxious to get her in hopes he could stop the natives with her, rushed after him.

  Turk wheeled as Nato dodged onto the stairway, and Boling skidded to a halt.

  “Out of my way, Madden! That girl can save us. Without her we’re all dead. You, too.”

  “You fool!” Turk snapped. “They wouldn’t stop for her. You’ve violated tabu. They’d kill her, too.”

  “You—”

  Boling’s gun swung up, and Turk lashed out with his left. Boling staggered, but slashed at Turk with the gun, yelling in one breath for Nato to come back, in the other for help. Turk went under the gun and smashed a left and right to the body, and then as Boling wilted, he turned and lunged down the stairway after the fleeing girl.

  A gun roared behind him, but the shot only struck the gong, and it clanged loudly, driving the natives to a greater frenzy. Grabbing Nato’s hand, Turk raced across the open floor and ducked down the dark and slippery stairway toward the opening where he had come in.

  Behind them, the pyramid echoed to shots and yells, and then a high-pitched scream of terror and another shot. At the edge of the jungle, they stopped and looked back. All they could see was a mass of struggling figures, but to that there could be but one end, for if the natives had reached the top of the pyramid there was no hope for Boling’s crowd. One, perhaps two might get away, but more likely, none of them.

  Turk caught the girl’s wrist and plunged into the jungle. Her face was white and her eyes wild.

  “We must hurry!” she panted. “They will come for us, too, when finished there. We have violated tabu. No living thing must go to Chipan.”

  “What about them?” Turk asked grimly, indicating the natives.

  “They protect the tabu. That is different,” Natochi protested.

  Slashing at the wall of jungle with his machete, Turk cleared a space and then moved forward into an opening. He walked swiftly, but as fast as he walked, the girl’s terror and her own lithe strength was enough to keep her close behind him.

  Twisting and turning, using every available opening, he dodged through the thick undergrowth. They had little time, and then the hue and cry would be raised after them, and the natives would come fast, probably much faster than he could go.

  A savanna opened before them. “Can you run?” he asked.

  She nodded grimly and swung into a stride even with his own. Together, man and woman, they raced across the tall-grass field and into the jungle beyond. Turk’s heart was pounding, and though he strained his ears, he heard no more shooting. Then, after a long time, one shot sounded, far behind them.

  “If Boling was smart,” he said, “he used that on himself.”

  WALKING, RUNNING, STUMBLING, and pushing, they made their way through the jungle. Behind them they heard no sound, but they knew the chase was on.

  What if Shan had crashed in his takeoff? What if there had been some other trouble? What if they had not found the ship? If they had met with trouble, he thought grimly, if anything had gone wrong, then it would be a last stand on the lakeshore for them. And for Dick London and Phil Mora, too.

  His shirt was hanging in rags, partly torn in the plane crash and partly in the jungle. His breath came in hoarse gasps, and he stopped once to brush his black hair from his eyes, staring back. He turned once more at Nato’s urging and plunged into the jungle.

  How long they were in covering the distance he never knew. The jungle was a nightmare of tangling traps and spidery vines. They fought through it, heedless of snakes or swamps, thinking only of escape, and behind them, somewhere in the green and ghostly silence of the afternoon jungle, came the slim brown natives. Their tabu had been violated, and for this each man and woman must die!

  A crash sounded in the jungle behind them, and Turk swung about swiftly, his gun leaping up. A native poised there with a spear, and Turk’s gun belched flame. The man screamed and the spear went into the ground. Then, as others rushed forward, Turk emptied the clip into them and turned and burst through the wall of the jungle into the open savanna. Before them was the blue of the lake!

  If he had had the strength, he would have whooped for joy. Even as he ran, he jerked out the used-up clip and shoved in another one. The prop on the amphibian started to turn, and with his breath stabbing like a knife, he staggered with the girl down toward the water.

  Rodd and London were standing there with rifles, and suddenly they began to shoot. Pushing the girl toward the boat, Turk wheeled on Rodd.

  “Get going!” he said. “They’ve gone crazy! Nothing will stop them!”

  They shoved off in the boat, and the plane’s door was open to receive them. Once aboard the plane, they pulled in the boat and Shan started the ship moving.

  Gasping, Turk stared back toward the horde of natives, all of two hundred of them, gathered upon the site of their camp, stamping and waving their spears.

  The twin motors talked strongly to the bright blue sky, and the big ship pulled up, circled once over the lake and leveled off toward the far blue distance where lay the Amazon.

  “What about her?” Mora said, nodding toward the girl. She looked from one to the other, her eyes wide.

  “She’ll do better outside,” Turk said quietly. “I’ll see that Joe Leone stakes her, and with the job we’ve done, he’ll be glad to. Besides,” he added, feeling the hard lump of the gems and gold in his pocket, “I’ve got enough here, out of their own temple, to take care of her for life.”

  “Wait until I show her Coney Island,” Dick said. “And buy her a couple of hot dogs!”

  She laughed. “With mustard?”

  “Hey!” Dick gasped. “What is this?”

  “Red tell me much about Coney Islands,” she said. “He talk always of hamburgers, hot dogs, and of beer.”

  Turk took over the controls and held the ship steady. He looked down at the unrolling carpet of the jungle. It was better up here. It was cleaner, brighter, freer.

  They would be in Obido soon, and tomorrow they would be starting home, down the dark rolling Amazon, the greatest of all jungle rivers. And behind them, in the green solitude of the jungle, the morning sunlight would shine through a round opening and touch with all its radiance upon a great golden disk, and the reflected light would bathe in strange beauty the
solitary figure of the mysterious god of Chipan.

  Mission to Siberut

  Steve Cowan cut the throttle and went into a steep glide. He glanced at his instruments and swore softly. If he made it this time, he would need a rabbit’s foot in each pocket. Landing an amphibian on a patch of water he had seen but once several years before, and in complete darkness! But war was like that.

  The dark hump beneath him would be Tanjung Sigep, if his calculations were correct. Close southward was Labuan Bajau Bay. The inner bay, visible only from the air, was the place he was heading for. It was almost a mile long, about a thousand yards wide, and deep enough. But picking it out of the black, jungle-clad island of Siberut on a moonless night was largely a matter of instruments, guesswork, and a fool’s luck.

  Cowan saw the gleam of water. Guessing at four or five feet, he leveled off and drew back gently on the stick. The hull took the water smoothly, and the ship lost speed.

  At one place, there was about an acre of water concealed behind a tongue of land overgrown with casuarina trees. Taxiing the amphibian around the tongue of land, Cowan anchored it safely in the open water behind the casuarinas. When he finished, the first streaks of dawn were in the sky.

  Mist was rising from the jungle, and on the reef outside Labuan Bajau Bay he could hear the roar and pound of surf. There would be heavy mist along the reef, too, lifting above that pounding sea. Cowan opened a thermos bottle and drank the hot coffee, taking the chill of the night from his bones….

  Two days ago in Port Darwin, Major Garnett had sent for him. Curious, he responded at once. Garnett had come to the point immediately.

  “You’re a civilian, Cowan. But you volunteered for duty, and you’ve flown over most of the East Indies. Know anything about Siberut?”

  “Siberut?” Cowan was puzzled. “A little. I’ve been on all the Mentawi Islands. Flew over from Emma Haven on the coast of Sumatra.”

  Garnett nodded.

  “No Europeans, are there?” he asked.