Operation Stranglehold

by Dan J. Marlowe

  “The free show’s in the next tent,” Hazel informed me coldly.

  “Sorry about that,” I answered, and looked away. Reluctantly; I would never have believed the girl had that much ass in her lingerie. I found another bush, then rejoined Erikson and Walter on the roadway below.

  “I want to show you something,” Walter said to me. He led the way around the curve to the edge of the abyss where he pointed across it. “See that?”

  “That” was a tangle of long strips of steel guardrail that had been torn from their posts by the downrushing flood. Most were badly twisted, but one or two seemed comparatively straight. Through some freak of the destructive water-force, the guardrail on our side still remained firmly bolted to its posts.

  “If a couple of those had ripped off on our side, we might have been able to use them to get across,” I said.

  The blond youth looked at me quizzically. “A twenty-foot horizontal pole vault?”

  I had already visually compared the length of the guardrail against the deep slash in the roadway. I was sure it could make it across the gap. I looked up at the almost vertical, jaggedly cut face of the upper slope of the mountain, down which a fine mist of spray was still falling, residue of the flood. “Could a mountain climber make it across, Walter?” I asked.

  He stared upward at the nearly perpendicular overhang, calculating. Then he looked at me to see if I were serious. Finally he gazed down into the impassable fissure that barred our way. He spat on his hands and rubbed them together. “What happens when I get across?” he asked.

  He’d said “when” not “if.” It could have been cockiness, but it was the second time I’d seen his superficiality melt away when faced with reality. “Take the straightest rail and bridge the gap with it,” I answered. “I’m sure it’s long enough, but you’ll have to be sure you have it aimed properly, or you’ll lose the rail in the pit. There’s a length of rope in one of the knapsacks; I think it’s in Hazel’s. Wait till I get it.”

  Hazel and Lisa were standing beside Erikson when I went back around the bend. The redhead came over to me when I began to rummage in her knapsack. “I suppose the kid was shocked because I got a look at her bare ass?” I said.

  “She’s not a very shockable young lady,” Hazel returned. “She has a wise old head on her young shoulders. For instance, when I was apologizing to her for your attitude—”

  “Why the hell should you have to apologize to her for my attitude?” I thrust in.

  Hazel continued, ignoring the interruption. “—by telling her that you were really a lamb, do you know what she said?” She didn’t wait for my response. “She said that you were the kind of lamb to make wolves seek other employment.” Hazel giggled, then sobered as I removed a supple length of manila from her knapsack. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Come along and see.”

  She followed me around the bend where young Croswell was intently studying the smooth-looking face of the upper slope. He tied one end of the rope around his waist securely, and I uncoiled the length of line and fastened the other end to a firmly anchored guardrail post. Walter didn’t waste any time. He climbed the bank to the first level and then began to edge his way across the wet cliff-face with only a sheer drop beneath him.

  “God, that’s dangerous!” Hazel muttered from beside me.

  I paid out line as Walter worked his way across. Twenty feet isn’t far, but I couldn’t even see the tiny niches in the rock he used for hand and foot holds. He rested for a moment when he found a minute outcropping on which he could rest both feet. I relaxed my own tensed shoulder muscles; I felt as if I’d been climbing with him.

  “Oh!” I heard a sharp exclamation from behind me. Lisa was standing there, her eyes upon Walter, a hand pressed to her mouth. Hazel slipped a comforting arm around her waist. When I looked back at the cliff-face, Walter had resumed his human fly act and was steadily advancing toward the far side of the gap. I heard Lisa’s tremulously explosive exhaled breath when Walter completed his passage of the mist-sprayed rock face and dropped down to the road on the other side of the gap.

  He went immediately to the interlocked guardrails and wrenched loose the straightest one. I’d expected him to rest after his passage; instead, he worked the guardrail upright until he had it standing on end. The kid not only had guts; he was a hell of an athlete.

  “Aim it across the narrowest point!” I yelled at him.

  He waved a hand in acknowledgement, then started the upper portion of the rail in our direction. It landed with a solid thud on our side of the gap and bounded two feet into the air. I jumped on the end when it bounced a second time to keep it from going down into the pit. The second bounce almost threw me, but my weight held the rail in place. There was a good four feet of purchase extending on either side of the crevasse. We had ourselves a bridge.

  “Go get Erikson,” I told Hazel. While she was at it I untied my end of the manila line from the guardrail post, coiled up what I could, and flung it across the gap to Walter Croswell. We might have need of it again.

  Hazel returned with Erikson and the knapsacks. Lisa slipped into hers. It was a measure of Erikson’s dull-eyed condition that he stared at the abyss and the single length of steel spanning it with no comment.

  Hazel lowered herself astraddle our crude bridge. Walter Croswell and I stood on its opposite ends. “Stretch out flat and distribute your weight,” I told Hazel. Cautiously but surely she slithered across the washed-out gorge with smooth, steady, swimming movements that made it look easy.

  “You’re next,” I told Lisa. “Give me your knapsack. It might unbalance you. I’ll take it across for you.”

  She pushed my held-out hand away. “I can manage,” she said, although her face was pale.

  Well, crap on you, kid, I thought to myself. If your un-dies are all that precious to you, carry on.

  The girl dropped down on the rail and locked her legs beneath it. I could see that her eyes were closed as she started to inch her way across. She made it halfway, and then she must have opened her eyes. I could see her body go rigid as she clung to the rail. “Keep going!” I called. “Keep going, Lisa!”

  I don’t know if she even heard me. She was paralyzed with terror. I saw Walter Croswell beckon to Hazel to take his place standing on the end of the rail, and then he dropped down upon it at his end.

  “It won’t support two people!” I shouted at him.

  He hesitated, then inched out partway. He stopped when the rail began to sag from the combined weight. He extended an arm toward Lisa while talking softly to her. I couldn’t hear what he said, but she raised her head and looked toward him. It was another full minute before she began moving in his direction. When their hands touched and Walter secured a grip on her wrist, I heard Hazel’s sigh of relief clear across the gap.

  Then I helped Erikson down onto the rail. I knew he wasn’t going to have an easy time, but there was nothing I could do to help. It took him twice as long as it had Lisa to make the passage, and it was plain that every millimeter was torture. Walter helped him up on the other side, but Karl immediately slumped to his knees.

  It was my turn. From a flat position on the rail it looked twice as far to the other side. In the middle of the span the rail began to bob sickeningly because there was no one behind me to hold down the loose end. I moved in uneven spurts to break up a regular rhythm of movement which might accentuate the undulations. I welcomed the firm handclasp with which Walter dragged me toward solid ground.

  Hazel was kneeling beside Karl Erikson. “He’s had it,” she told me. “He’s not going to be able to make it on his own.”

  One look was enough to confirm her diagnosis.

  We’d finessed one problem only to be faced with another.

  Walter and I took the end of the guardrail and threw it into the pit. The whole shining length whirled and twisted as it fell into the mud-packed pond at the bottom of the washout.

  There was no help for it, despite E
rikson’s condition; we had to keep moving. Hazel and I stationed ourselves on either side of him while Walter and Lisa led the way. The clouds had dissipated, and the sun beat down steadily. Erikson shuffled forward uncomplainingly, but it was only Hazel’s supporting shoulder on his good side that kept him upright.

  I called a halt late in the afternoon. I had no idea where we were. Erikson did, if I could get it out of him. Walter and Lisa sat down at the edge of the road. He had stayed close to the girl ever since the crossing over the washout. It was as though he’d suddenly recognized a frailty calling for his support. I saw Hazel observing them with a Mona Lisa smile. The redhead has the correct temperament to encourage romance under the world’s worst conditions.

  I waited until Erikson had recovered a little from his last stretch of foot-slogging. I didn’t like the flesh color of his battered arm. There was a dull red puffiness which I hoped came from sun exposure and not the start of a serious infection. I gave him a drink of water from my canteen. “Do you know where we are, Karl?” I asked quietly. I didn’t want to disturb the others by indicating our dependency upon his knowledge of the countryside.

  Erikson tried to rally his pain-dulled faculties. He sat up straighter and studied the sweep of pine-clad hills dropping away below us. “That’s the Lorida River valley—down there,” he said, pointing. “Village—within two or three miles. Place I told—you about that’s a—railway drop-off point—for vacationers.” A momentary spark of animation stirred him. “Old road—this side of rail line. Only shepherds use—since engineers changed grade—of this one. Lean-to shelter fronting cave—where they keep sheep—during storms. Good—vantage point. Overlooks village, railroad, and roads.”

  We needed a good vantage point to say nothing of a lean-to shelter in which we could get Erikson off his feet. Then there was the question of our rapidly dwindling food supply. I had already made up my mind to effect a night-time breaking-and-entering at the first village we came to. The chance of casing the town in daylight from the vantage point was a real plus.

  “We’ve got to get moving again, Karl,” I told him.

  “Help me—up,” he said doggedly.

  I helped him up, and we started off again. I had estimated two hours to reach the old road Erikson had described, even at our inchworm pace. It took us three because of his mounting disability. There was no mistaking now that his flushed features signaled increasing fever.

  Once while bringing up the rear with Erikson, I heard the clop-clop of hooves on the hard earth road. We took cover in brush as a mule-cart came up behind us, going the same way we were. The cart had evidently come up some trail from the valley on this side of the washout. A pipe-smoking old woman was perched on the squeaking-wheeled cart amidst a clutter of empty fruit boxes. A horse would have smelled us and whinnied his curiosity. The mule plodded stolidly by.

  I’d become aware that Walter and Lisa were conducting an increasingly heated, although low-voiced, conversation. Because of the sound-carrying quality of the mountain air I was about to tell them to knock it off, until I saw that Hazel was listening shamelessly.

  “It’s totally unnecessary,” Walter was saying heatedly.

  “It is for the good of all,” Lisa insisted. Neither was aware of an audience. “It’s best that I go on by myself. I’m a burden and a risk. All I have to do is reach the American consulate. I’ll be granted political asylum there.”

  “I’ve already told you I can get all the help you’ll need at our company’s office in Madrid!” Water expostulated. “With a lot less risk. No red tape. No unanswerable questions.”

  “It would be less risky for you if I went on alone, Walter.”

  “Stick with me like we planned!” the blond youth returned. He sounded angry. “I’ll get you out of the country. How will you know who to trust in Madrid?”

  Lisa turned her head to one side, but I could see that she was crying. Walter made a baffled, typically masculine sound in the face of this female waterworks eruption. Beside me Erikson spoke up unexpectedly. I hadn’t been aware that he was listening.

  “No time—for talk,” he rasped from a dry throat. “Got to—get off this road or—wind up buried so deep—in rotten Spanish jail that—corner of hell will seem—like paradise.”

  “He’s right,” Hazel said briskly.

  Once again we set out. Hazel divided her time between Erikson and Lisa. The girl regained control of herself in the warmth of Hazel’s sympathy. “Maybe we shouldn’t try to make the cave shelter tonight?” Walter suggested to me. He had his eye upon Erikson.

  I shook my head. “This is the siesta hour. Nothing should be moving around these parts except flies on a manure pile. Later we might not be so fortunate.”

  It was Walter who eventually found the old road. I had been doing rearguard duty with Erikson again. The big man was reduced to a zombielike plodding. Walter was waiting beside an overgrown path so weed-covered that it took a second look to see it had once been something more substantial.

  “The shepherd’s lean-to is about two hundred yards up the hill,” Walter said. “There’s a high point just beyond it affording a marvelous look down into the village. I couldn’t see anything moving on the road leading down into it.”

  “Let’s get to the lean-to,” I said.

  Walter and I half dragged Erikson up the old road. The lean-to was no larger than a single-car garage, but the open back wall was the cave entrance. Inside was a blackened fireplace which used a rock fissure for a natural flue, and a crude bed made of braided rope over a rough wooden frame.

  Walter and I lowered Erikson onto the bed. His big frame made it look like doll’s furniture. The bed began to wobble visibly from the chills that shook him. Hazel noticed too. She began to gather scraps of wood from previous fires and place them in the fireplace.

  “No fire until after dark,” I warned. I returned her you-heartless-bastard stare. “No sentimentality, baby. It’s for his good, too.”

  She didn’t answer me.

  She went to Erikson, and I went outside into the diminishing sunlight.

  CHAPTER VI

  I found the promontory Walter had mentioned without any trouble. It was all that Karl had claimed for it as a lookout point. The village below was as exposed as though on the palm of my hand. The single-track rail line crossed the valley through a pass between two distant hills, entered the village, and stopped beside a dun-colored building that could only be the station.

  By the time the sun started to set behind the highest cliffs, I had the village’s street plan memorized. A few buildings I had marked for closer attention that night. It was dark inside the cave when I returned to it. Erikson’s fever had again taken over from his chills. Hazel was bathing his forehead with a damp cloth. Walter and Lisa were asleep in a corner with their arms around each other and even their feet intertwined. I kicked the soles of each to waken them. “Collect firewood,” I told them as they sat up with a start. “Before it gets too dark.”

  Hazel looked up from her self-imposed task when the lovebirds exited into the gathering twilight. “Karl needs a doctor, Earl. He’s hot as a branding iron one minute and shaking with chills the next,” she said.

  “Maybe we can get some hot soup into him when we get a fire started after dark.” Not that I expected any miraculous results. Erikson’s condition had gone unattended too long. Anyone without his rawhide constitution would have collapsed long ago.

  I arranged kindling in the rough-hewn fireplace and looked around for tinder. Lisa’s knapsack, propped against a rock wall, had its flap open. Inside, I could see what appeared to be a newspaper-wrapped bundle. I took out the package and rolled it open. A pair of none-too-new tennis shoes dropped out.

  I wadded up the paper and thrust it under the sparse kindling, prepared to wait until Walter and Lisa brought more. I was still kneeling in front of the fireplace when the pair of them reentered the lean-to entrance to the cave, laden with firewood. Lisa made a sound like a bleating sheep when
she saw her tennis shoes on the rocky floor. She dropped her load of wood and ran to her shoes, then spun around, her eyes darting everywhere until they came to the fireplace.

  “No!” she gasped when she saw the crumpled newspaper.

  She pushed me away from the fireplace as she snatched up the paper and trotted back to her knapsack. She rewrapped the shoes in the paper, then thrust the package into the depths of the knapsack. She huddled over her cache with the defensive mien of a protective animal mother guarding a newborn litter.

  Everyone had half frozen where they were during this procedure. If they were like me, they were wondering if the strain of the past couple of days had caused the girl to lose her marbles. Even Walter Croswell looked surprised.

  He was the first to react. He went to the girl and placed his arm around her shoulders. She remained on her knees, still crouched above the knapsack. She appeared neither to accept nor reject his attention.

  The little incident had somehow penetrated Karl Erikson’s apathy. He pushed aside Hazel’s brow-wiping hand and sat up on the braided-rope bed with a grunt. He heaved himself to his feet, his good arm using Hazel as a crutch. The expression on his face was different from the withdrawn, tightly repressed, pain-wracked look I had seen ever since he climbed out of the prison van.

  He hobbled to the corner where Walter still had his arm around Lisa. “Give us—a minute alone,” Erikson said hoarsely to the blond youth. Walter hesitated, but finally stood up and came over and joined Hazel and me.

  “What does he want?” he asked Hazel.

  “I have no idea, but I’m sure it’s all right,” she said soothingly.

  Erikson had awkwardly lowered himself to his knees and then seated himself beside Lisa. Their heads were almost touching as Erikson spoke to the girl in an unintelligibly low-toned, rasping murmur that went for some while. Lisa nodded her head several times. Finally she called Walter over and he joined the powwow.