Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  CURTIS sighed despairingly. The four natives had crouched close to the ground when Juan had mentioned the word, “Sacha,” and their terrified moans sounded like the wind in the tree tops.

  “Allan,” Jo whispered, “what’s it all about?”

  Curtis looked disgustedly at the frightened natives.

  “A lot of superstitious stupidity,” he said savagely. “I’ve heard a thousand variations of the snake god legend, none of which make sense. These are the first natives I’ve ever encountered who paid any attention to the story. It seems there’s supposed to be a huge snake in the Peruvian jungles who rescued the people from the Spaniards centuries ago. The natives call the snake Sacha. There’s another part of the legend that gives Sacha a daughter, a girl who rides the beast and answers the entreaty of her countrymen who are in need. It’s been years since I’ve even heard a mention of the silly story. Who’s been pouring tales into their ears, Juan?”

  “No one, amigo,” Juan answered. “They are big fools all by themselves. Not far from here they have seen the tracks of the snake god and they are afraid.”

  “The tracks of the snake god!” Curtis repeated sharply. “What are you talking about, Juan? Do you believe in this story?”

  “Me?” Juan said indignantly. “Very much not. But Juan has seen the tracks also.”

  “So you’ve seen the tracks,” Curtis said grimly. “Where?”

  “Deep in the jungle. For many miles the tracks twist and turn through the jungle. Trees are knocked down, bushes are torn up by the roots. The tracks you cannot miss. It is all very foolish,” Juan finished somewhat uneasily.

  “Tracks or not,” Curtis said, “we head into the jungle at sun-up. Now try and talk some sense into your boys.”

  IN THE pale light of breaking dawn the results of Juan’s efforts were apparent. The four natives had disappeared completely.

  Juan roved up and down the shore line seeking their trail, but it was hopeless search. He came back to Curtis shaking his big head like an angry dog.

  “When I find them,” he said wrathfully, “I break their afraid heads in my hands like a twig.”

  “We’ll be better off without them,” Curtis said. “Get the gear from the launch. We’re ready to go.”

  Juan passed the knapsacks of provisions from the compartments of the launch to Curtis who carried them to the beach. When the supplies were removed, Juan asked:

  “What we do with the boat?”

  “Scuttle it,” Curtis said. “Jerk the stops before you leave. If someone stumbled on it here it’d be like an arrow pointing to the path we took.”

  In twenty minutes the small launch had drifted from the cove and was settling. Curtis and Juan slung heavy packs to their shoulders and, with Jo in the middle, they filed into the dark jungle.

  They trudged through the thick bush, Juan in the lead, hacking at the clinging trailers, until the sun had moved high in the heavens.

  It was during their first rest halt that they heard the airplane.

  The noise of its motor was like the droning of a giant fly high in the heavens. Curtis shaded his eyes with his hand and searched the sky until he located the plane, a gleaming white speck against the white backdrop of a cloud.

  Flying high, it swung over them in several long crisscrosses before it finally disappeared into the sun.

  Curtis glanced briefly at Juan.

  “We’d better be moving,” he said.

  Jo stood up quickly.

  “I’m ready,” she announced.

  Her dress was torn in several places and smudges of dust streaked her cheeks, but her smile was bright.

  “Good kid,” Curtis said.

  AGAIN they marched on. That afternoon two more planes flew over them at an altitude of only a few hundred feet.

  Curtis followed their flight with his eyes, a worried line furrowing his forehead.

  “Allan,” Jo asked suddenly. “What planes are those?”

  “Can’t tell,” Curtis answered. “Their insignia has been painted over. Let’s keep moving.”

  In another hour they came to a fork in the narrow trail and Juan cried suddenly:

  “See, amigo! Ahead of us is the track of the snake god. Where the trees are knocked aside and the bush tom up is the track of Sacha.”

  The face of the big black native oddly strained and his hand was clenched around the butt of his hip-holstered automatic. With his other hand he pointed, half-fearfully, half-triumphantly, down the trail.

  Without speaking Curtis moved down the trail toward the section of the jungle that had been ripped apart, as if by the passing of a giant monster.

  Curtis studied the shattered trees and crushed underbrush carefully. The swath cut across the trail they were following at right angles, and wound away into the dense fastness of the jungle.

  Something had passed here, knocking trees aside and tearing up the matted jungle floor—but it hadn’t been a mythical snake god!

  Curtis’ eyes narrowed and a worried frown tugged at his lips.

  Juan was looking uneasily at the sundered jungle path.

  “You see,” he said, “it is as I have said.”

  “Have you seen many of these tracks?” Curtis asked.

  “Very many,” Juan answered. “All through the jungle. Sacha is everywhere.”

  Curtis smiled tightly.

  “Don’t blame this on your snake god, Juan. These tracks were made by armored tanks.”

  “Tanks?” Jo said incredulously, “are you sure, Allan?”

  “Certainly. It’s as plain as the nose on Juan’s face. Look at the way the bark has been scraped clean from the trees. And look at the imprint of the treads on the ground. These tracks were made by tanks, about twenty-five tonners, I’d guess.”

  Juan looked dubiously at the tracks, but there was an expression of relief in his eyes.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “It is so easy to see.”

  “Then let’s be moving,” Curtis said. “We’ve got a long trek ahead of us.”

  THEY continued on until the swiftly falling jungle night made further travel impossible. Then they made a swift camp, ate their frugal rations and turned in.

  In the morning before the first slanting lances of the sun cut through the dusky dawn, they were on their way again, driving deeper and deeper into the mysterious, foreboding fastness of the tangled jungle.

  Again they heard the distant droning of planes and soon they could see four slim fighters lazily circling overhead. As they watched, one of the planes banked slowly and started down in a long glide. At a hundred feet the plane pulled out of the dive and flashed over them, so close that they could see details of the camouflaged fuselage.

  The three remaining planes banked and dove after the leader. Curtis swore softly.

  It was impossible to tell whether they had been seen. The leafy roof of the tall jungle shrouded the trail completely, and at the speed the planes were traveling it would have been nearly impossible for their pilots to see the trail or the small party.

  Still—

  Watching with narrowed eyes Curtis saw the planes pull out of their steep dives and climb again into the sky. The wings of the leader plane waggled slowly and the small formation banked and thundered away.

  “What does it mean?” Jo asked worriedly. “It seems almost like they’re looking for us.”

  Curtis swung his pack to his shoulder without answering.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  In silence the small party continued their march. Throughout the rest of the morning the sky was empty of planes, but after their brief stop for lunch, they saw one single plane, flying thousands of feet above them, heading west.

  Curtis studied the terrain over which they passed carefully now. A queer uneasiness disturbed him, as his eyes probed the still, silent forests.

  Juan noticed something too, for his glance swung restlessly from side to side.

  THE deep depths of the jungle were quiet now, as the small party fought their
way along the ever-narrowing trail. Ahead of them the path they were following converged with another trail that branched off at right angles.

  Juan, in the lead, hacked savagely at the trailing creepers and the thick underbrush that tore at their clothing.

  “How much longer?” Jo panted. “I feel like I’ve been walking for ages.”

  “Keep your chin up for a while longer,” Curtis said.

  When they reached the right-angling branch of the trail, Curtis stopped and looked about. The convergence of the two trails formed a small natural clearing about fifty yards in diameter.

  Here Curtis stopped.

  “We’re rather close to our objective,” he said, “so we can rest here for a while.”

  They moved ahead to the center of the clearing. Curtis felt the peculiar prickling premonition again, as he unslung his pack and dropped it to the ground.

  Nervously he glanced about the clearing. It was late afternoon and the shadows of the dense trees threw flickering areas of darkness over the shrublike bushes. Everything was quiet.

  He noticed for the first time then that the shrill, almost incessant screams of the birds had ceased, and that the silence that had settled over the jungle was frighteningly unnatural.

  His hand dropped instinctively to his gun.

  “Juan,” he said softly, “I think we had better start back. I don’t like the looks of things.”

  “Allan,” Jo said anxiously, “what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, in a low voice, “but I think I’ve found out all I need to know. We haven’t any time to waste. Hurry!”

  He was bending down for his pack, when he heard the sudden cracking, rustling noise in the bushes.

  On one knee, he froze. His eyes flicked swiftly about the circle formed by the clearing, and he drew his gun slowly.

  Suddenly through the dark depths of the underbrush he saw the flash of metal, and the vague shadows of moving shapes.

  Jo crouched close to him, and he put his free arm about her shoulders.

  “Don’t be afraid, Honey,” he whispered.

  He raised his gun and backed carefully toward the narrow trail that had led them to this clearing.

  Juan was at his side, crouched low, his big hand closed over his gun.

  “Don’t be fools!” a harsh voice behind them said suddenly. “You are covered from every side.”

  AT the sound of the strident, commanding voice, there was a sudden threshing sound from the underbrush that circled the clearing, and from the tangled depths of the jungles a dozen uniformed soldiers suddenly emerged, their rifles pointed unwaveringly at them.

  “Be sensible,” the harsh voice continued. “Throw your weapons into the center of the clearing. If you delay I will order my men to fire.”

  Curtis felt Jo trembling in his arms.

  “Chin up,” he said.

  His eyes swung over the semi-circle of tough, hard-bitten soldiers who covered them so completely with their weapons. Resistance was not only futile, it was impossible. The soldiers were obviously Nazi, and they looked anxious to use the rifles they held so grimly in their hands.

  “Throw down your weapons!” the harsh voice snapped. “I give you but one more chance.”

  Slowly Curtis lowered his gun and tossed it into the center of the clearing.

  “Drop your gun, Juan,” he told the big native.

  With a contemptuous flip Juan tossed the gun after Curtis’.

  “I do not need the gun,” he said grimly. “If I get these hands of mine on their necks.”

  Curtis stood motionless as a slim, arrogant German officer stepped around him and regarded him with mocking eyes.

  “May I ask the meaning of this attack?” Curtis said calmly. “We are a legally licensed archeological expedition and as such, have the right to explore this territory.”

  “Have you?” the German officer said coldly.

  He waved his hand and a tall thickset blond fellow stepped from a place of concealment in the tangled shrubbery, and advanced.

  Curtis stiffened slightly.

  This man’s eyes raked mockingly over Curtis and Jo, before he turned to the German officer.

  “This is the man,” he said. “I do not know about the girl. She traveled as his secretary.”

  “Good,” the officer snapped. “So?” he wheeled to Curtis, “It is just an exploring expedition, is it?”

  The heavy-set blond with the soft amused blue eyes checked the officer with an upraised hand.

  “I will handle this, Captain Brach. I believe that Mr. Curtiss will more fully appreciate the situation if I explain it to him. After all we both speak the same language. We can speak as one foreign agent to another, can we not, Mr. Curtiss?”

  CURTIS regarded the man thoughtfully. This man, he knew, was the same whom he had seen on board the Ventura, in company with the mysteriously beautiful woman.

  “Permit me to introduce myself,” the German agent said politely. “I am Kurt von Wessel. My job was to prevent your arriving here, Mr. Curtis. Happily, I have succeeded, though you did manage to give me the slip from the Ventura. That was very clever of you, I must say.”

  “Thank you,” Curtis said quietly. “I imagine it was especially annoying after you had gone to the trouble of murdering Carlos Benevedas and implicating me as the guilty party. That was to give you time to slip away from me at Lima, was it not?”

  “Yes,” von Wessel admitted, smiling. “I didn’t think that you were planning to jump ship so unobtrusively. You forced me to alter my plans a bit. I was forced to fly here and warn the garrison of your whereabouts. Our planes located your party early this morning. Since then we have been expecting you quite patiently.”

  Curtis shrugged wearily.

  “Since you’ve won the little game we were playing, would it hurt to tell me just what the whole program is? After all, I don’t imagine I’ll be taking the information back with me.”

  “No,” von Wessel smiled, “you won’t be taking anything back with you. There is no harm in telling you that for several months Germany has been infiltrating troops into this country. We have the nucleus of a complete armored division gathered here in the abandoned ruins of an ancient Incan city. At the proper moment these forces, together with a band of Peruvian renegades, will strike at the capital of the country, Lima. Imagine, if you can, the effect on Hemispheric Solidarity, when the government of Peru is controlled from Berlin.”

  “Very neat,” Curtis said grimly. “It was what the American state department feared.”

  Captain Brach stepped forward.

  “We must return to our encampment,” he said. “If you are through with the prisoners, Herr von Wessel, I will have them escorted to their cells.” Von Wessel smiled coldly.

  “I am through with them,” he said softly.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Maria Again

  THE improvised cell to which Curtis, Jo, and the massive Juan were taken, was little more than a small, dank cave, situated in what had once been the heart of the ancient Inca city.

  Through a small square aperture in the ceiling, and a similar foot-square slot in the right wall, a scant supply of sticky tropical air was admitted.

  The only entrance and exit to the narrow little cave was covered by a thick-slabbed stone door, which the uniformed soldiers of Captain Brach slid into place.

  Then the three heard the footsteps outside moving away until there was no more sound.

  In the murky darkness of the cave, Curtis struck a match. Then, holding it aloft, he moved slowly about their confinement. His sharp exclamation was punctuated by sudden darkness as the match flickered out.

  “It’s all right,” his voice came through the darkness to Jo and Juan. “I’ve found an old candle stub in a wall niche here.”

  There was the scraping of another match. Then illumination. Curtis lighted the candle, which sputtered at first, then flamed to a steady glow that drove the darkness from all save the smallest corners of t
he tiny cave.

  “Not exactly what Edison had in mind when he first began puttering around,” Curtis observed, “but it’s something.”

  Juan was busy at the stone door that barred their exit, his huge muscles knotting as he searched for leverage on its worn surface.

  Jo crossed to Curtis.

  “It’s just about all over, isn’t it, Allan?” she asked softly. There was no trace of fear in her voice.

  Curtis shook his head.

  “Perhaps,” he admitted, “but it won’t actually be over until we admit we’re licked. I’m not conceding anything yet.”

  “This ancient Inca city, Allan,” Jo asked, “have you been here before?” Curtis shook his head.

  “I’ve been in this territory, Jo, but never found the city until now. Several expeditions had tried to find it, unsuccessfully, of course. A few of us knew it was here. In the ancient Inca civilization this was called Sacha.”

  “And that’s the basis of the snake god legend?” Jo asked.

  Curtis nodded.

  “Part of it. The queen who ruled this city was supposed to have escaped with the great snake Sacha when it was sacked and razed by a maurading band of conquistadors. The snake and the queen were supposed to have taken refuge in the jungles, returning to dwell alone in the city after the Spaniards had left it in ruins.”

  Jo shuddered.

  “Well, you’ve found it full of minor snakes now,” she observed.

  Curtis nodded soberly.

  “And somehow, Jo, these snakes have to be crushed before they have a chance to touch off the revolt that will crush all South America under the coils of the Axis.”

  JUAN came back from the door. His black brow was shiny with sweat. He shook his head.

  “The door no move, amigo,” he declared.

  Curtis shook his head.

  “I didn’t think it would. It probably can only be opened from the other side. Undoubtedly it operates on Inca lever theory. Clever people, those ancients.”

  Juan looked patiently at Curtis. There was complete faith in his expression, as though he were certain his amigo would inevitably bring forth a solution to their troubles.