by Chuck Dixon
She turned to Lee, bound in place beside her. He had his face forward, eyes on the sentries who either sat in the sand playing games with stones or leaning dozing on rifles.
“Well, there’s one question that’s answered for me,” Bat said in a croaking voice she didn’t recognize.
“Yeah?” Lee said without turning.
“About us,” she said.
Lee didn’t answer.
“I don’t have to wonder where you and I are going,” she said and smiled to herself.
After a few minutes, Lee spoke.
“This ain’t over, baby,” he said, voice even, as calm as if he were asking her to pass the salt.
“Wish I could believe that,” she said.
“Try praying.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“I was hoping you were. Your God seems the right one to pull us out of shit this deep,” Lee said, turning his eyes toward hers.
A voice shouted a clipped order that echoed off the walls. Their guards became animated, moving in swift order to stand and come to smart attention, rifles clasped before them. Bat moved her head as much as she could to see the source of the sudden command.
A quartet of figures was walking at a deliberate pace toward them from the grand tent of the general. As they neared, Bat recognized General Gordon walking alongside the officious prick Haverty who was skipping to keep pace with the taller man. And with them walked two uniformed Chinese in flowing green silk robes, faces in the shadow of conical hats of white rattan trimmed in red.
The pasha general had decided to give in to his righteous wrath and hand them over to the mercy of the Manchus.
Bat remembered Jimmy Small’s history lesson and shuddered.
25
Hombres
“We’re going to need water today,” Dwayne said, looking to the cargo area of the Toyota. There was one remaining gallon jug of purified water left.
“You think there’s water here?” Caroline asked from where she crouched by the fire warming a pan of canned soup.
Rick Renzi was mercifully asleep on the bench seat. N’itha crouched nearby in the shade of the branches of a boojum tree, skinning a jackrabbit she caught in a trap that morning.
“Has to be a spring or a tank somewhere. Wish Jimbo was here. He can always find water.” Dwayne shielded his eyes with his hand to scan the cliff face of white rocks above them.
“I will find water,” N’itha chirped, wiping her bloody fingers on some leaves before rising.
“I’d feel better if you didn’t go alone, honey,” Caroline said to Dwayne.
“You sure?” Dwayne said, filling a liter bottle with water for the hike.
“As long as she puts a shirt on,” Caroline said, eyeing the near-naked beauty now bent over the slumbering Ricky, delivering a farewell kiss to his forehead.
N’itha led the way along a ledge that broadened as it looped around a sheer face of rock. Dwayne followed behind, a half dozen plastic jugs hanging from his back, a line of rope slung through the handles. At his wife’s insistence, N’itha wore one of Ricky’s Metallica t-shirts. It would fit her petite frame like a dress if she hadn’t cut the lower third of it off and knotted it in the front to expose her midriff.
It must be love, Dwayne thought—Ricky didn’t kill her when she took a knife to one of his prized concert shirts.
Below them was a hundred-foot fall to where a tree-covered slope dropped into a valley lined either side by more mountains of green trees broken only by promontories and shelves of rock white as chalk in the high desert sun. Far beyond the peaks was the shimmering endlessness of sand and rock that ran to the Pacific Ocean invisible over the horizon.
The ledge turned downward after a sharp turn and into a deep crevice in the face of the mountain. It was wide enough now to allow a car to pass. N’itha stopped at the edge of a shadow beneath an outcrop high above them. She held up a hand to him, and he stopped behind her. Her face raised, Dwayne could see the girl’s nose wrinkling, her nostrils flaring.
She was smelling for water. Something that Jimmy Smalls claimed he could do, but Dwayne always thought was a boast. With this girl, from an epoch long lost to the past, he was a believer. Caroline Tauber insisted to him that N’itha might not be entirely human, at least not one hundred percent homo sapiens. She didn’t mean it as insult or slight to N’itha. It was a purely scientific observation. Everyone on the team had a fondness for the girl who was intelligent, spirited, and tough as anyone they’d ever served with. But there was something feral about her.
Dwayne’s estimation of her was only growing as she turned to him, eyes grave. Her hand went to the handle of the sheath knife on her belt. Dwayne set the chain of plastic jugs on the floor of the ledge and followed her around the wall and down into the cleft in the rock.
The pathway widened into a slope dense with trees and hedges of blue-flowered bushes. N’itha moved at a deliberate pace through the thicket without making a sound. Dwayne did his best to follow noiselessly, branches catching on his clothes and hanging him up. The slight girl seemed to glide through the bushes barely stirring a leaf or twig. She stopped and sniffed before cocking an ear. She turned back to him, pointing at her ear. Dwayne listened as well and could hear, somewhere ahead the chuckle of water over rocks. They emerged from the hedgerow onto a slope of gravel that led down to a place where water came out of a crack in the rock face to tumble down into a pool before following a course along a wash and vanishing into the woods below. They moved to the edge of the pool. N’itha stepped into the water and winced. Dwayne dipped fingers in and found the water felt ice cold. Constant evaporation in the desert heat kept the water near freezing.
“It’s good. Are you okay here while I go back and get the bottles?” he said.
She nodded eagerly before pulling the t-shirt over her head and tossing it aside. He left her to wade into the chilled water and started up the hill.
The climb back up the slope felt longer than the way down. He found the top of the slope and followed it along the wall of rock to where he left the jugs. He startled some lorikeets on his way down through the hedges. They exploded upward as one, flashes of red and yellow like flames against the enclosing green. He stepped out onto the slope to see N’itha standing in the center of the pool, facing away from him.
Two men stood on the opposite bank, speaking to her. They each had a rifle slung over a shoulder on a strap. A large net bag filled with scuffed gallon plastic jars rested on the rocks at their feet. They wore ragged jeans and worn western yoke shirts with cut off sleeves. He saw a gleam of a gold chain at one of their throats. A Raiders cap with a curved bill on one head. A straw cowboy hat with a creased brim on the other. The most expensive article of clothing on them were their Nikes. Probably Tijuana knock-offs.
“Que pasa, amigos?” Dwayne said, walking down to the water’s edge. Keeping his tone light. Just another dumb gabacho. His back itched where he could feel the butt of the big Colt touching the small of his back.
They looked from him to the girl in the pool, smiles unmoving. N’itha kept facing them, not turning at Dwayne’s voice. In her innocence, she was doing nothing to hide her breasts from these cabrones.
“Tu mujer nos estaba diciendo que estás perdido,” Cowboy Hat said to him.
Good girl, Dwayne thought. She’d told the cowboy they were both lost. And they thought she was Dwayne’s wife. No hint that there were others with them.
“Maybe you can point the way back to the fire road,” Dwayne replied in gringo Spanish.
“We can show you,” the cowboy said. His buddy nodded, returning his gaze to the girl standing in the pool.
“No need. Just point it out. We’ll find it,” Dwayne said, willing his hand to stay loose, stay away from the gun at his back.
“The trails here are tricky, señor. There is no easy way. You can come with us. We will show you,” the cowboy said.
Dwayne started to object, but the guy continued.
&
nbsp; “These mountains get cold at night, and your wife is not wearing much clothes. And there are tigres here. Very dangerous at night.”
I’ll bet, Dwayne thought. He shrugged like What choice do we have? and whistled to N’itha, tossing her the t-shirt she’d left on the shore.
After filling their jars and bottles with fresh water, they made their way away from the pool along a trail heading north and away from the place where his wife and child and invalided friend were camped. Dwayne weighed his options and the likely outcomes. He might have to kill this pair at some point. They could just be a pair of campesinos out on a hunt. Or they could be something else. So long as they were gaining distance from the glade where the Toyota was parked, he could wait.
A glance at N’itha told him that she was running the same odds as he was. He shared a look with her. She lowered her dark eyes to tell him that she would wait to move until he did.
26
Bona Fides
“Devilish sorry, chaps. There seems to have been a lack of understanding between us,” Charles Gordon said, his face twisted in apology.
He’d ordered his prisoners freed. Soldiers were sawing away the thongs at their throats and ankles, releasing them from their cruel bondage to the gallows posts. Haverty was directing the men with hushed commands and gestures. Canteens were offered to them.
The two mandarins stood to the side, faces shaded by their broad conical hats. A tall one with a long horse face. A stouter one, his robe making him look like a fireplug covered with a drape. The one with the horse-face struggled with a smirk, trying to retain his officious demeanor.
It was Shan and Wei.
Their unwanted chaperones last seen swimming away into the icy mist of the manifestation field that brought them here.
“I pray you can excuse my actions,” Gordon was saying as his men cut the thongs binding the captive’s wrists.
“You tried to lynch us,” Lee said, massaging his hands to restore circulation.
“You must confess that the nature of your company is unusual even for this mad country. A nigger, a Red Indian, a mad Irishman. I mean, sir...” Gordon trailed off with a smile of camaraderie between old soldiers.
“The general must be excused,” Shan said, with a bow of his head. “The Americans can only blame their own impatience. They left without proper documentation.”
“Aye. I informed them that travel in Szechuan requires the written approval of a legion of officials. Every step and every transaction necessitates authorizing by the serving mandarin, wang, or doyen. It’s deuced inconvenient, but that is how you Celestials play the game,” Gordon said.
Shan surrendered to a smile. He held up a vellum folio with a broken wax seal, tied closed with a strand of braided red silk through a silver clasp. It appeared to be packed full of papers.
Gordon began, “Of course, your goods and weapons will be returned to you. If there is any other consideration, I can provide—” Boats, his hands free, stepped up to Lieutenant Haverty and drove a fist into the officer’s face. Haverty plunged to the ground.
“From one mad Irishman to another, prick,” Boats said, holding out a hand to help the man up. The lieutenant accepted the hand with a grin, blood in his teeth. “Accepted,” Haverty said.
“Shame there’s not a brother for me to punch,” Chaz said to Jimbo under his breath.
“Mr. Taan was very angry,” Shan told Lee Hammond.
“I bet he was,” Lee said.
“You would have won that bet,” Shan said, frowning.
They were on the gun deck of an ironclad steaming north in the midstream of the river. A vessel of the imperial riverine navy on course to join the siege of Nanking. It was named The Complete Abundance in honor of the child emperor. Six twelve-pound guns, three to either side, sat roped in place at their ports. Shan paid passage for himself and his party. The packet of papers impressed the illiterate Han skipper with all its gold seals and stamps and boldly counterfeited signatures.
The crew of the gunboat was Chinese with an Englishman aboard serving to direct the cannon crews. A red-faced Yorkshireman named Carberry, a man in a perpetual temper. He occupied the ladder to the quarterdeck, leaning on the slats with a clay pipe clamped in his teeth, showing disapproval of the world and everything in it. His gun crews napped on the deck in whatever shade was offered.
The team was inspecting the contents of their crates. Most of their food, ammo, and equipment had been returned along with their gun belts and revolvers. One of the modified imitation Henrys was missing. Morris Tauber was going to have kittens when he found out about that. No one was suggesting another encounter with Gordon or the Ever Victorious Army. They’d trust a century and a half of history to swallow up the rifle.
“We’d be dead if you hadn’t come back for us,” Lee said, leaning on a gunwale, watching the butter-colored river flow past.
“I was given the transport documents. Mr. Taan did not trust you with them,” Shan said.
“Taan is a chess player. He knew if we fucked you guys over, we’d be fucking ourselves,” Lee said.
Shan nodded.
“What about Dr. Tauber? Did he freak out when you guys came back?”
“Frick ow?”
“Freaked out. He was surprised. Shocked. He wasn’t expecting it.”
“Yes, he was most perplexed and excited. Mr. Taan understood from this that the doctor knew nothing of our plan,” Shan said.
“It was a last minute inspiration,” Lee said.
“Any more such inspirations and Mr. Taan will have your friend shot,” Shan said, no trace of a phantom smile on his face.
“Taan understands this operation has its risks, right? You or Wei could catch a bullet.”
“Then it is in your interest to see that nothing like that occurs,” Shan said, walking away.
They steamed north and west against the current, following the circuitous course of the Yangtze.
The traffic coming toward them, bound for Shanghai, was mostly western vessels flying flags of European monarchies with the occasional Stars and Stripes. Aboard many of them, the decks were packed to the rails with troops. The fighting up north was being left to the Chinese to sort out. Nanking was the last Taiping stronghold. The siege there would be carried through by the Imperial troops, and, once inside, the slaughter would be near total. The European powers decided they wanted no part of what would be an ugly ending, even for them, to the bloodiest war in human history. It was felt, diplomatically speaking, that it would be best for the regency in Peking to have this victory to themselves in order to restore the dignity stolen from them over the past decade and a half by a war with the English and French and a bloody rebellion from within. So, John Bull and Johnny Crapaud and Billy Yank were steaming back to the coast. Even Pasha Gordon and his mixed army of mercenaries were folding their tents and calling it a win all around.
Down the river roads on either bank marched mile after mile of refugees, wheeling, carrying and dragging their possessions. The farther north the gunboat traveled, the thicker the press of the forsaken grew. More than once, columns of Imperial cavalry came along the road. Men in lacquered bamboo armor of red and black carrying lances with colorful banners fixed to them and shining shields with brass faces. They whipped a path clear through the wretched parade with the blades of their swords.
Moving toward the battle at Nanking, along with The Complete Abundance, were troop ships of Imperials, junks loaded with supplies of food, feed, gunpowder, horses, and coolie laborers. All was being fed into the maw of the largest land battle ever fought on the planet. A combined order of battle of a million men set against one another for one final conflict to end the heavenly reign of a man already dead for months.
27
River of the Dead
On their second day upriver, the gunboat rounded a headland to the sounds of gunfire ahead. Carberry bawled his crew to quarters, shrieking what was probably barbaric Mandarin to the ears of his men. His orders were salted wit
h curses in English just as raw. The barefoot men, roused from the naps and highly animated, scurried this way and that to their assigned guns. They loaded the port and starboard guns with powder and grape and rammed the charges home.
“Run out the guns! Run ’em out, ye yellow bastards! God damn yer soulless hides! Buggerin’ gong-farmers!”
The team was roused from sightseeing on deck or resting below. They rushed to the quarterdeck, startling the pilot at the wheel, a Kowloon skipper in red silks who wore a sash with a pair of Adams revolvers shoved in it.
Chaz chambered a round in his rifle and watched the point of the headland as more and more of the river beyond was exposed. The crack of rifle fire echoed over the water toward them.
“See anything?” he said to Jimbo, who was sighting through the scope of the long-barreled Whitworth. Byrus was crouched by Jimbo’s blind side, gladius drawn and ready in his fist.
“I see gun smoke on the water. I can’t see what’s making the noise. There’s movement in the reeds along the bank,” Jimbo said.
“Wish we had more practice with these rifles,” Chaz said. The only shakedown they’d been able to give the new weapons was in a makeshift shooting range below decks on the Raj. They ran a hundred rounds through each rifle, familiarizing themselves with the weapons. The targets were only fifty feet distant, backed by sacks of sand. Hardly a test of their accuracy.
“Maybe we’ll get some now,” Boats said, swinging his rifle one-handed by the lever to jack a round home.
“You looked like John Wayne there, sailor,” Chaz said.
“The Duke used blanks. Good way to shoot yourself in the foot,” Jimbo said.
