The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 97 Collected Stories

by Robert E. Howard

  "I give you the information where she is," he said. "Ain't that somethin'? And I'll do more--I'll manage to lure the big Chinee away from his house while you go after the gal. I'll fake a invitation from a big merchant to meet him somewheres--I know how to work it. An hour before midnight I'll have him away from that house. Then it'll be pie for you."

  ME AND BILL MEDITATED.

  "After all," wheedled Ace, "she's a white gal in the grip of the yeller devils."

  "That settles it," I decided. "We ain't goin' to leave no white woman at the mercy of no Chinks."

  "Good," said Ace. "The gal's at Yut Lao's house--you know where that is? I'll contrive to git him outa the house. All you gotta do is walk in and grab the gal. I dunno just where in the house she'll be, of course; you'll have to find that out for yourselves. When you git her, bring her to the old deserted warehouse on the Yen Tao wharf. I'll be there with John Bain. And listen--the pore gal has likely been mistreated so she don't trust nobody. She may not wanta come with you, thinkin' you've come to take her up-country to them hill-bandits. So don't stop to argy--just bring her along anyhow."

  "All right," we says and Ace says, "Well, weigh anchor then, that's all."

  "That ain't all, neither," said Bill. "If I start on this here expedition I gotta have a bracer. Gimme that bottle."

  "Licker costs money," complained Ace as Bill filled his pocket flask.

  "Settin' a busted nose costs money, too," snapped Bill, "so shut up before I adds to your expenses. We're in this together for the money, and I want you to know I don't like you any better'n I ever did."

  Ace gnashed his teeth slightly at this, and me and Bill set out for Yut Lao's house. About half a hour to midnight we got there. It was a big house, set amongst a regular rat-den of narrow twisty alleys and native hovels. But they was a high wall around it, kinda setting it off from the rest.

  "Now we got to use strategy," I said, and Bill says, "Heck, there you go makin' a tough job outa this. All we gotta do is walk up to the door and when the Chinks open it, we knock 'em stiff and grab the skirt and go."

  "Simple!" I said sourcastically. "Do you realize this is the very heart of the native quarters, and these yeller-bellies would as soon stick a knife in a white man as look at him?"

  "Well," he said, "if you're so smart, you figger it out."

  "Come on," I said, "we'll sneak over the wall first. I seen a Chinee cop snoopin' around back there a ways and he give us a very suspicious look. I bet he thinks you're a burglar or somethin'."

  Bill shoved out his jaw. "Does he come stickin' his nose into our business, I bends it into a true-lover's knot."

  "This takes strategy," I says annoyedly. "If he comes up and sees us goin' over the wall, I'll tell him we're boardin' with Yut Lao and he forgot and locked us out, and we lost our key."

  "That don't sound right, somehow," Bill criticized, but he's always jealous, because he ain't smart like me, so I paid no heed to him, but told him to foller me.

  WELL, WE WENT DOWN a narrow back-alley which run right along by the wall, and just as we started climbing over, up bobbed the very Chinese cop I'd mentioned. He musta been follering us.

  "Stop!" he said, poking at me with his night-stick. "What fella monkey-business catchee along you?"

  And dawgoned if I didn't clean forget what I was going to tell him!

  "Well," said Bill impatiently, "speak up, Steve, before he runs us in."

  "Gimme time," I said snappishly, "don't rush me--lemme see now--Yut Lao boards with us and he lost his key--no, that don't sound right--"

  "Aw, nuts!" snorted Bill and before I could stop him he hit the Chinee cop on the jaw and knocked him stiff.

  "Now you done it!" said I. "This will get us six months in the jug."

  "Aw, shut up and git over that wall," growled Bill. "We'll git the gal and be gone before he comes to. Then with that reward dough, I'd like to see him catch us. It's too dark here for him to have seen us good."

  So we climbed into the garden, which was dark and full of them funny-looking shrubs the Chineeses grows and trims into all kinds of shapes like ships and dragons and ducks and stuff. Yut Lao's house looked even bigger from inside the wall and they was only a few lights in it. Well, we went stealthily through the garden and come to a arched door which led into the house. It was locked but we jimmied it pretty easy with some tools Ace had give us--he had a regular burglar's kit, the crook. We didn't hear a sound; the house seemed to be deserted.

  We groped around and Bill hissed, "Steve, here's a stair. Let's go up."

  "Well," I said, "I don't hardly believe we'll find her upstairs or nothin'. They proberly got her in a underground dunjun or somethin'."

  "Well," said Bill, "this here stair don't go no ways but up and we can't stand here all night."

  So we groped up in the dark and come into a faintly lighted corridor. This twisted around and didn't seem like to me went nowheres, but finally come onto a flight of stairs going down. By this time we was clean bewildered--the way them heathens builds their houses would run a white man nuts. So we went down the stair and found ourselves in another twisting corridor on the ground floor. Up to that time we'd met nobody. Ace had evidently did his job well, and drawed most everybody outa the house.

  All but one big coolie with a meat cleaver.

  WE WAS JUST CONGRATULATING ourselves when swish! crack! A shadow falling acrost me as we snuck past a dark nook was all that saved my scalp. I ducked just as something hummed past my head and sunk three inches deep into the wall. It was a meat cleaver in the hand of a big Chinee, and before he could wrench it loose, I tackled him around the legs like a fullback bucking the line and we went to the floor together so hard it knocked the breath outa him. He started flopping and kicking, but I would of had him right if it hadn't of been for Bill's carelessness. Bill grabbed a lacquered chair and swung for the Chinee's head, but we was revolving on the floor so fast his aim wasn't good. Wham! I seen a million stars. I rolled offa my victim and lay, kicking feebly, and Bill used what was left of the chair to knock the Chinaman cold.

  "You dumb bonehead," I groaned, holding my abused head on which was a bump as big as a goose-egg. "You nearly knocked my brains out."

  "You flatters yourself, Steve," snickered Bill. "I was swingin' at the Chinee--and there he lays. I always gits my man."

  "Yeah, after maimin' all the innocent bystanders within reach," I snarled. "Gimme a shot outa that flask."

  We both had a nip and then tied and gagged the Chinee with strips tore from his shirt, and then we continued our explorations. We hadn't made as much noise as it might seem; if they was any people in the house they was all sound asleep. We wandered around for a while amongst them dark or dim lighted corridors, till we seen a light shining under a crack of a door, and peeking through the keyhole, we seen what we was looking for.

  On a divan was reclining a mighty nice-looking white girl, reading a book. I was plumb surprised; I'd expected to find her chained up in a dunjun with rats running around. The room she was in was fixed up very nice indeed, and she didn't look like her captivity was weighing very heavy on her; and though I looked close, I seen no sign of no chain whatever. The door wasn't even locked.

  I opened the door and we stepped in quick. She jumped up and stared at us.

  "Who are you?" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

  "Shhhhh!" I said warningly. "We has come to rescue you from the heathen!"

  To my shocked surprise, she opened her mouth and yelled, "Yut Lao!" at the top of her voice.

  I GRABBED HER AND CLAPPED my hand over her mouth, whilst goose-flesh riz up and down my spine.

  "Belay there!" I said in much annoyance. "You wanta get all our throats cut? We're your friends, don't you understand?"

  Her reply was to bite me so viciously that her teeth met in my thumb. I yelped involuntarily and let her go, and Bill caught hold of her and said soothingly, "Wait, Miss--they's no need to be scared--ow!" She hauled off and smacked him in the eye w
ith a right that nearly floored him, and made a dart for the door. I pounced on her and she yanked out my hair in reckless handfuls.

  "Grab her feet, Bill," I growled. "I come here to rescue this dame and I'm goin' to do it if we have to tie her hand and foot."

  Well, Bill come to my aid and in the end we had to do just that--tie her up, I mean. It was about like tying a buzz-saw. We tore strips offa the bed-sheets and bound her wrists and ankles, as gentle as we could, and gagged her likewise, because when she wasn't chawing large chunks out of us, she would screech like a steamboat whistle. If they'd been anybody at large in the house they'd of sure heard. Honest to gosh, I never seen anybody so hard to rescue in my life. But we finally got it done and laid her on the divan.

  "Why Yut Lao or anybody else wants this wildcat is more'n I can see," I growled, setting down and wiping the sweat off and trying to get my wind back. "This here's gratitude--here we risks our lives to save this girl from the clutches of the Yeller Peril and she goes and bites and kicks like we was kidnappin' her ourselves."

  "Aw, wimmen is all crazy," snarled Bill, rubbing his shins where she had planted her French heels. "Dawgone it, Steve, the cork is come outa my flask in the fray and alt my licker is spillin' out."

  "Stick the cork back in," I urged. And he said, "You blame fool, what you think I'd do? But I can't find the cork."

  "Make a stopper outa some paper," I advised, and he looked around and seen a shelf of books. So he took down a book at random, tore out the fly-leaf and wadded it up and stuck it in the flask and put the book back. At this moment I noticed that I'd carelessly laid the girl down on her face and she was kicking and squirming, so I picked her up and said, "You go ahead and see if the way's clear; only you gotta help me pack her up and down them stairs."

  "No need of that," he said. "This room's on the ground floor, see? Well, I bet this here other door opens into the garden." He unbolted it and sure enough it did.

  "I bet that cop's layin' for us," I grunted.

  "I bet he ain't," said Bill, and for once he was right. I reckon the Chinee thought the neighborhood was too tough for him. We never seen him again.

  WE TOOK THE OPPOSITE side from where we come in at, and maybe you think we had a nice time getting that squirming frail over the wall. But we finally done it and started for the old deserted warehouse with her. Once I started to untie her and explain we was her friends, but the instant I started taking off the gag, she sunk her teeth into my neck. So I got mad and disgusted and gagged her again.

  I thought we wouldn't never get to the warehouse. Tied as she was, she managed to wriggle and squirm and bounce till I had as soon try to carry a boa-constrictor, and I wisht she was a man so I could sock her on the jaw. We kept to back alleys and it ain't no uncommon sight to see men carrying a bound and gagged girl through them twisty dens at night, in that part of the native quarters, so if anybody seen us, they didn't give no hint. Probably thought we was a couple of strong-arm gorillas stealing a girl for some big mandarin or something.

  Well, we finally come to the warehouse, looming all silent and deserted on the rotting old wharf. We come up into the shadder of it and somebody went, "Shhhh!"

  "Is that you, Ace?" I said, straining my eyes--because they wasn't any lamps or lights of any kind anywheres near and everything was black and eery, with the water sucking and lapping at the piles under our feet.

  "Yeah," came the whisper, "right here in this doorway. Come on--this way--I got the door open."

  We groped our way to the door and blundered in, and he shut the door and lit a candle. We was in a small room which must have been a kind of counting or checking room once when the warehouse was in use. Ace looked at the girl and didn't seem a bit surprised because she was tied up.

  "That's her, all right," he says. "Good work. Well, boys, your part's did. You better scram. I'll meet you tomorrer and split the reward."

  "We'll split it tonight," I growled. "I been kicked in the shins and scratched and bit till I got tooth-marks all over me, and if you think I'm goin' to leave here without my share of the dough, you're nuts."

  "You bet," said Bill. "We delivers her to John Bain, personal."

  ACE LOOKED INCLINED to argy the matter, but changed his mind and said, "All right, he's in here--bring her in."

  So I carried her through the door Ace opened, and we come into a big inner room, well lighted with candles and fixed up with tables and benches and things. It was Ace's secret hangout. There was Big Bess and a tall, lean feller with a pale poker-face and hard eyes. And I felt the girl stiffen in my arms and kind of turn cold.

  "Well, Bain," says Ace jovially, "here she is!"

  "Good enough," he said in a voice like a steel rasp. "You men can go now."

  "We can like hell," I snapped. "Not till you pay us."

  "How much did you promise them?" said Bain to Ace.

  "A grand apiece," muttered Ace, glancing at us kind of uneasy, "but I'll tend to that."

  "All right," snapped Bain, "don't bother me with the details. Take off her gag."

  I done so, and untied her, watching her nervously so I could duck if she started swinging on me. But it looked like the sight of her brother wrought a change in her. She was white and trembling.

  "Well, my dear," said John Bain, "we meet again."

  "Oh, don't stall!" she flamed out. "What are you going to do to me?"

  Me and Bill gawped at her and at each other, but nobody paid no attention to us.

  "You know why I had you brought here," said Bain in a tone far from brotherly. "I want what you stole from me."

  "And you stole it from old Yuen Kiang," she snapped. "He's dead--it belongs to me as much as it does to you!"

  "You've hidden from me for a long time," he said, getting whiter than ever, "but it's the end of the trail Catherine, and you might as well come through. Where's that formula?"

  "Where you'll never see it!" she said, very defiant.

  "No?" he sneered. "Well, there are ways of making people talk--"

  "Give her to me," urged Big Bess with a nasty glint in her eyes.

  "I'll tell you nothing!" the girl raged, white to the lips. "You'll pay for persecuting an honest woman this way--"

  John Bain laughed like a jackal barking. "Fine talk from you, you snake-in-the-grass! Honest? Why, the police of half a dozen countries are looking for you right now!"

  John Bain jumped up and grabbed her by the wrist, but I throwed him away from her with such force he knocked over a table and fell across it.

  "Hold everything!" I roared. "What kind of a game is this?"

  JOHN BAIN PULLED HISSELF up and his eyes was dangerous as a snake's.

  "Get out of here and get quick!" he snarled. "Ace can settle with you for this job out of the ten thousand I'm paying him. Now get out, before you get hurt!"

  "Ten thousand!" howled Bill. "Ace is gettin' ten thousand? And us only a measly grand apiece?"

  "Belay everything!" I roared. "This is too blame complicated for me. Ace sends us to rescue Bain's sister from the Chinks, us to split a three-thousand-dollar reward--now it comes out that Ace gets ten thousand--and Bain talks about his sister robbin' him--"

  "Oh, go to the devil!" snapped Bain. "Barlow, when I told you to get a couple of gorillas for this job, I didn't tell you to get lunatics."

  "Don't you call us looneyticks," roared Bill wrathfully. "We're as good as you be. We're better'n you, by golly! I remember you now--you ain't no more a milyunaire than I am! You're a adventurer--that's what old Cap'n Hurley called you--you're a gambler and a smuggler and a crook in general. And I don't believe this gal is your sister, neither."

  "Sister to that swine?" the girl yelped like a wasp had stung her. "He's persecuting me, trying to get a valuable formula which is mine by rights, in case you don't know it--"

  "That's a lie!" snarled Bain. "You stole it from me--Yuen Kiang gave it to me before he got blown up in that experiment in his laboratory--"

  "Hold on," I ordered, slightly di
zzy, "lemme get this straight--"

  "Aw, it's too mixed up," growled Bill. "Let's take the gal back where we got her, and bust Ace on the snoot."

  "Shut up, Bill," I commanded. "Leave this to me--this here's a matter which requires brains. I gotta get this straight. This girl ain't Bain's brother--I mean, he ain't her sister. Well, they ain't no kin. She's got a formula--whatever that is--and he wants it. Say, was you hidin' at Yut Lao's, instead of him havin' you kidnapped?"

  "Wonderful," she sneered. "Right, Sherlock!"

  "Well," I said, "we been gypped into doin' a kidnappin' when we thought we was rescuin' her; that's why she fit so hard. But why did Ace pick us?"

  "I'll tell you, you flat-headed gorilla!" howled Big Bess. "It was to get even with you for that poke on the nose. And what you goin' to do about it, hey?"

  "I'll tell you what we're goin' to do!" I roared. "We don't want your dirty dough! You're all a gang of thieves! This girl may be a crook, too, but we're goin' to take her back to Yut Lao's! An' right off."

  Catherine caught her breath and whirled on us.

  "Do you mean that?" she cried.

  "You bet," I said angrily. "We may look like gorillas but we're gents. They gypped us, but they ain't goin' to harm you none, kid."

  "But it's my formula," snarled John Bain. "She stole it from me."

  "I don't care what she stole!" I roared. "She's better'n you, if she stole the harbor buoys! Get away from that door! We're leavin'!"

  THE REST WAS KIND OF like a explosion--happened so quick you didn't have much time to think. Bain snatched up a shotgun from somewhere but before he could bring it down I kicked it outa his hands and closed with him. I heard Bill's yelp of joy as he lit into Ace, and Catherine and Big Bess went together like a couple of wildcats.

  Bain was all wire and spring-steel. He butted me in the face and started the claret in streams from my nose, he gouged at my eye and he drove his knee into my belly all before I could get started. But I finally lifted him bodily and slammed him head-first onto the floor, though, and that finished Mr. John Bain for the evening. He kind of spread out and didn't even twitch.