They entered an area where the tunnel widened into a small cavern and the screams seemed to be running toward them, so they paused, waiting, and then there he was: Warden Hassan!
The plump warden emerged from a passageway, doing a demented dance, eyes popping, clawing at his head, literally tearing clumps of hair from his scalp.
“Grab him!” O’Connell said to Jonathan, and soon both men had hold of his arms, pulling his hands away from where fingers of frenzy were ripping at his hair.
But the warden, crazed by pain, managed to shove both would-be helpers off, hurling them aside, not breaking stride as, screaming like an attacking horde of Tuaregs, Hassan ran headlong across the cavern . . .
. . . and smacked into the rock, like a car hitting a telephone pole.
Then Hassan just stood there, for a moment, giving Evelyn the chance to gasp in horror before he fell, flopping onto his back, staring at the rocky ceiling with wide-open, unseeing eyes.
“Jesus!” O’Connell said.
Evelyn had clasped a hand over her mouth.
“What got into him?” Jonathan wondered.
O’Connell went over and knelt to take Hassan’s pulse, then closed the man’s eyes, and stood.
“City of Dead’s claimed another resident,” he said.
Evelyn turned away, weeping, and O’Connell and Jonathan exchanged troubled glances.
Which was why none of them noticed the blood-soaked beetle slither out of the late warden’s ear and into the darkness.
11
Night Visitors
Night’s star-studded sapphire shroud had descended upon the City of the Dead, moonlight painting the partial pillars and crumbling walls of Hamanaptra a chalky ivory. The two camps set up within its fragmentary walls were as far away from each other as possible. The Americans with their larger contingency, a city of tents with a roaring bonfire, made a pitiful suburb of the four pup tents of the Carnahan group, whose small campfire consisted of brush O’Connell had gathered, vissigia and siveeda, and palm tree twigs and branches he’d loaded up on, back at the Bedouin oasis.
When O’Connell returned from burying Hassan, he found Evelyn and her brother huddled near the small, crackling fire.
Evelyn looked up at O’Connell, who tossed his shovel near his ever-handy gunnysack arsenal, and asked him, “What do you suppose killed the poor man?”
“Maybe it was something he ate,” Jonathan said dryly.
The little group was well aware of the late warden’s repellent eating habits.
“Or something that ate him,” O’Connell said, sitting beside the young woman. This remark made both Evelyn and Jonathan look at him curiously. “He had a wound on his foot that looked like an animal bite.”
“Snake perhaps?” Jonathan wondered.
“Not sure. It was a fairly small bite, but the wound was deep—my finger couldn’t find the end of it.”
Evelyn shuddered, gathering her folded arms closer and tighter to her breasts. “I saw you talking to the Americans. Have we made peace?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” O’Connell said. “But they’re not as cocky as before They had a sobering experience of their own today, their own tragedy.”
O’Connell told them of the the three diggers who’d been killed by an ancient booby trap, pressurized salt acid, apparently.
Evelyn’s eyes widened. “Perhaps we’re lucky we were interrupted today. We’ll have to take precautions when we go back to open that sarcophagus tomorrow.”
Jonathan, sipping at a tin cup of minty Bedouin tea, glanced about uneasily, and with none of his characteristic irony at all, said, “Perhaps this place truly is cursed.”
As if in response to him, a gust of wind swept through the camp, sounding like a ghostly groan, blowing sand, rippling Evelyn’s Bedouin gown and the shirts and trousers of the men, damn near blowing out their little campfire.
O’Connell swallowed, and as the fire flickered and came back to life, he exchanged wary looks with Jonathan.
Evelyn picked up on this and laughed at them. “You two! You’re such children.”
O’Connell leaned back against the rocks, arms folded. “Don’t believe in curses, huh?”
“No,” she said, almost snippily. “It’s rubbish.”
“How can you say that?” Jonathan said. “The Carnahans know all too well that such things shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
Evelyn waved him off, laughing a little more. “Be quiet, Jonathan. Don’t pay any attention to him, Mr. O’Connell.”
Jonathan, his expression gloomy all of a sudden, said, “Ask her about our parents, O’Connell. See what she has to say about that.”
“Am I missing something?” O’Connell asked, confused, almost as uneasy with this conversation as he’d been with the ghostly wind blowing through the camp.
Evelyn replied, with crisp confidence, “I believe what can be seen, what can be touched, is real. That is what I believe.”
“My sister is an atheist, Mr. O’Connell,” Jonathan said. “A fairly recent convert to believing in nothing, actually—ask her about that, sometime, too . . . What do you believe in, old boy? The stars and stripes and Mother and, what is it? Cherry pie?”
“Apple,” O’Connell said. He withdrew his elephant gun from the gunnysack and cocked it, a metallic sound that rang in the night. “I’m an old boy scout, Jonathan—I believe in being prepared.”
“As for me,” Jonathan said, “I’m a worshiper in the Church of Self-Gratification.” He dropped a hand down to pick up something—the canvas pouch Warden Hassan had worn on his belt—and unsnapped it and reached inside, fumbling.
“That was the warden’s, wasn’t it?” O’Connell said, the massive weapon draped across his lap.
“Yes, dear boy. Wouldn’t have wanted to bury something so valuable with the poor bloke—might have incited future grave robbers to plunder . . . ouch!”
Evelyn, concerned, sat forward. “Jonathan! What is it?”
“Damn it, anyway,” Jonathan said. “Forgot about the damn thing being chipped!”
And he withdrew from the pouch a small liquor bottle, and—sipping carefully at its broken spout—drank greedily, with orgasmic satisfaction.
“Glen Dooley,” Jonathan sighed, wiping his mouth with a hand. “Twelve years old . . . For a man with such shortcomings in the area of physical hygiene, our late friend the warden had remarkably good taste in libations.”
Carelessly, Jonathan tossed the pouch to the ground, and the rest of its contents—sand—leaked out.
O’Connell and Evelyn glanced at each other, shook their heads, amused by their mutual uneasiness over something so trivial. Then a distant rumbling—so distant, of the three around the campfire, only O’Connell heard it—caused the American to raise a hand in a gesture of silence. As the brother and sister watched him with alert interest, O’Connell knelt and placed an ear to the ground, listening; but a sudden pounding of hoofbeats, quickly joined by a thundershower of gunfire, rendered his effort moot.
The rain of lead was falling on the American camp: O’Connell could see it as well as hear it, how the small orange explosions of rifle fire popped against the darkness like kids setting off backyard fireworks.
O’Connell thrust the elephant gun into Evelyn’s arms, startling her. Then, jumping to his feet, withdrawing a shoulder-holstered revolver with one hand, snatching up his gunnysack with the other, he told the Carnahans, “Stay put!”
And he took off running through the ruins, toward the battle, revolver in hand.
He did not realize that Evelyn—slowed by, but nonetheless lugging, the hefty elephant gun—had taken off after him. So had Jonathan, reluctantly, wielding his derringer, holding his precious liquor bottle to his breast like a baby he was protecting, calling to his sister, “I say, Sis! Didn’t the man just tell us not to do this?”
Keeping low, darting about the rocks and ruins, O’Connell made his way toward the besieged camp. Through the town of tents galloped a dozen M
ed-jai riders, rifles blazing, picking off fleeing native diggers like tin-can targets off a fence. The tattooed horsemen had charged through the bonfire, scattering it about, not putting it out exactly; rather, sending small fires burning here and there around the camp. Partially blinded in the cloud of sand raised by the pounding hooves of horses, the Americans (with the exception of Chamberlin, who was apparently cowering in his tent), were standing their ground, firing revolvers, occasionally picking off a warrior; but they were seriously outgunned.
Daniels caught a bullet in the left shoulder, but the tough bastard kept shooting as he spun and fell, killing the man who’d wounded him. Blasting away as best they could, Henderson and Burns dragged their wounded friend out of the line of fire.
O’Connell was at the outskirts of the camp now, ducking in and around the ruins, when a figure dashed from behind a rock pile and bumped right into him: Beni.
“Going somewhere?” O’Connell asked.
“Rick! I was just looking for you! To warn you, my friend!”
O’Connell grabbed onto Beni’s sleeve and dragged him along, toward the battle, saying, “Let’s make ourselves useful, shall we?”
“A small question, my friend—what is it you have against running away from a fight?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the company I’d have to keep.”
Staying low, they moved along a ridge of rocks and rubble, nearing the raid in progress; finally, O’Connell yanked Beni down behind the rubble pile.
Just beyond where they hid, a tall, angular-faced figure, flashing a golden scimitar, was galloping through the camp; he seemed to be the leader, cutting down the native diggers with a certain relish reserved for traitors. The diggers cried out as they died, their robes fluttering in the night like the wings of dying birds.
“Stay here with this,” O’Connell told Beni, putting him in charge of the gunnysack arsenal. “Keep me reloaded.”
“You can trust me, Rick!” Beni was blinking in rhythm to the gunshots beyond their protective rubble-pile barrier.
“Of course, I can’t trust you. But ditch me, or run off with my weapons, and you better pray I get killed out there.”
“Rick, you hurt me!”
“Exactly.”
O’Connell peered up and over the barrier, waiting for the right moment, then—revolver clutched tight in his right hand—scrambled up on top of the rocks just as the Med-jai leader was riding by, and leaped out at him, tackling him, dragging him down off his horse, both men slamming to the ground, raising a cloud of dirt and sand and dust.
Both men adroitly got to their feet, wheeling toward each other, the Med-jai leader with his golden scimitar hiked high to slash his foe, O’Connell shooting the damn thing out of the warrior’s hand. His next shot would have taken the bastard out, but another warrior on horseback charged between them, another scimitar slashing above him, narrowly missing his head. O’Connell fired up at the son of a bitch, blowing him off his saddle and into the next life.
But when O’Connell spun around to take out the Med-jai leader, the man was riding off. Drawing his other revolver, O’Connell stood ground, swiveling about, firing both weapons, shooting warriors out of their saddles, until he was out of ammunition. He dove in back of the rubble pile, where Beni waited with the gunnysack and ammunition. He was still behind there, reloading his revolvers, when a too distinctive explosion attracted his attention—the sound of his elephant gun discharging its deadly load!
O’Connell peered up above the rubble just in time to see a Med-jai rider blasted out of his saddle to take a twenty-foot ride into a collapsed wall, by Evelyn, who—lifted back off her feet by the recoil of the huge weapon—went flailing through the air herself, landing in a pretty pile in a dune. He was at once horrified by her presence and delighted by her spirit.
From here, O’Connell could see that Jonathan had joined the battle, too—and he couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride for the Carnahans.
Jonathan had rounded up a group of diggers who had armed themselves with pistols; all Jonathan seemed to have was that little gambler’s handgun of his—and the bottle of Glen Dooley tucked in his belt. But they were positioned down around the front-entry pylons, just inside the temple grounds, and as four Med-jai horsemen charged through, Jonathan’s group fired, leaving four empty saddles.
But several Med-jai warriors were coming up over the temple walls, and Jonathan and the diggers were soon in the midst of brutal hand-to-hand combat.
Reloaded now, O’Connell—after throwing Beni a hard stay put look—scurried around the rubble, hands filled with revolvers, on his way to help Jonathan.
O’Connell didn’t make it that far.
Hearing hooves thundering up behind him, O’Connell whirled and that Med-jai leader was right above him, swinging that golden scimitar. O’Connell ducked, raised an arm instinctively, to protect his face, and the scimitar flicked the revolver from his hand; another swing of the blade, and the other gun was gone!
The hard-eyed, angular-faced figure looming above him smiled—partly in respect to a valiant fellow warrior, partly to gloat that O’Connell, who earlier had disarmed the Med-jai leader, had been similarly disarmed by him.
This moment of arrogance on the warrior’s part bought O’Connell the time he needed: He dove over the rubble pile, where Beni held open the gunnysack like Santa allowing a child to choose a toy, and when O’Connell came running back over the rocks, he had a stick of dynamite in his hand.
Quickly he dipped the fuse of the dynamite into the nearest small fire, helpfully scattered by the warriors, and its fuse came alive, spitting sparks.
O’Connell stood before the Med-jai chieftain, looming on horseback, and held the hissing stick high.
“I hate to lose a fight,” O’Connell said, grinning up crazily at the warrior, “but I’ll settle for a draw.”
The warrior’s eyes locked with O’Connell’s.
The fuse sizzled, shortening, making its journey toward a death for everyone in the camp.
The Med-jai leader thrust his scimitar toward O’Connell—a gesture, not an attack.
“Leave this place,” the warrior said, in a deep, sand-papery voice. “Leave this place or die!”
O’Connell just looked at him. “That’s kind of my point, isn’t it?”
The warrior reared his steed back, and galloped off, crying out to the remaining Med-jai riders, who raced after him, vanishing into the night and the desert. In moments, only the dust of their hoofbeats remained—that, and the destruction they had wrought.
Beni looked up from behind the rubble pile. “You want to put that out, Rick? You made your point.”
“Oh,” O’Connell said, “yeah,” and he plucked the fuse from the stick of dynamite.
Evelyn, covered in sand, came staggering up to him, looking very shaken indeed; he went quickly to her, held her close to him.
“Darling,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”
She drew away from him, just a little, but not breaking their close embrace, perhaps surprised by this tender intimacy—O’Connell was surprised himself: It had just come out.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine . . . now.”
Henderson and Burns, disheveled but seemingly none the worse for wear, came stumbling up. Burns was bracing Daniels, whose shirt, at the shoulder, was a scarlet blotch, though the man revealed no pain whatsoever.
“You see,” Daniels said through his teeth. “That proves it. Old Seti’s fortune is under this goddamn sand!”
Henderson said, “It’s got to be down there! Why else would these savages try to drive us off like this?”
O’Connell’s eyes were searching the surrounding ridges of the valley. “These are desert nomads. They value water, not gold.”
“There’s no well here!” Burns said, cleaning his glasses on his shirt. “This place sure as hell ain’t no oasis!”
“I know,” O’Connell said. “That’s what troubles me.”
Dr. Chamberlin fi
nally emerged from a tent, with a first-aid kit, and tended to Daniels.
Running a hand through his thatch of blond hair, Henderson, clearly embarrassed, said, “Listen, uh . . . thanks for pitchin’ in.”
“You’d do the same,” O’Connell said, not at all sure of that.
“About before . . . today, down below . . . well. We shouldn’t go wavin’ weapons around at each other. We can be rivals without bein’ enemies.”
“Agreed.”
Burns said, “Maybe at night, we should band together . . . join forces. Maybe you people would like to camp with us.”
O’Connell glanced at Evelyn, who nodded. “We’d like that,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll make the move.”
Evelyn was glancing about the overturned camp. “Where’s Jonathan? Has anyone seen my brother?”
No one had.
“We need to look for him,” Evelyn said, worry creasing her brow as she clutched O’Connell’s arm.
“You need any help?” O’Connell asked the Americans. “You have bodies to bury.”
“No,” Henderson said, “thanks. We’ll manage—you did plenty, already.”
And Henderson offered his hand for O’Connell to shake, which he did.
O’Connell and Evelyn moved quickly through the moonlight-washed ruins, back to their camp, where the fire was dwindling, to find Jonathan’s body sprawled out in its dimming light, vacant eyes staring at the sky.
“They’ve killed him!” Evelyn cried. “Oh my God in heaven!”
Jonathan blinked and stared up at his sister, goofily. “I thought you were an atheist,” he said, slurring drunkenly.
That was when O’Connell noticed the bottle of Glen Dooley, still tight in Jonathan’s hand.
Half a bottle was left, and O’Connell shared the liquor with Evelyn, while Jonathan slept it off in his tent.
O’Connell had built the fire up, but the desert night was its usual bitterly cold self, and they sat close together, sharing warmth. She told him she wasn’t a “drinking girl” and then proceeded to damn near drink him under the table, or anyway would have if they’d had a table. At one point, concerned—in the aftermath of the Med-jai raid—that she couldn’t defend herself, she inveigled him into giving her impromptu boxing lessons.
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