Settling the .45 firmly in place, he slung the tommy gun over his shoulder and swung into the mangroves.
The earth was soggy with leaves and moss, and the jungle was filled with a strange, greenish light, as though Turk had left the plane to step into some fantastic other world where tree trunks rose into the towering green thickness of the jungle roof, their grotesquely swollen bodies wrapped in lianas and swathed in dead leaves and pulpy creepers. Turk Madden, his dark face streaming with perspiration, pushed and struggled through the dense growth.
At times he emerged into an open space where the growth was scattered along the ground, even though the roof overhead was as tightly woven as ever.
Only occasionally could he get a fleeting glimpse of the sky, blue and distant. He halted, and a butterfly with a wingspread of seven inches danced in the air before him. He stopped again as a monkey chattered briefly somewhere off in the green distance.
What seemed a mottled branch of a jungle tree stirred slightly, and with the hair bristling along his scalp, Turk slipped the machete he had taken from the plane into his right hand. It was a boa constrictor, as thick as a man’s thigh. Turk stepped gingerly around the tree and moved on, avoiding the many-colored globes of the curuju that are filled with a caustic ash. He avoided, too, a column of ants that trailed from a tree into the depths of a green and sickly-looking swamp.
Yet he made time. He found ways through the trees, using the machete but little, keeping his pace steady, and moving as swiftly as he could. When his sense of distance and timing assured him that he was approaching the savanna where Boling had his base, he moved more slowly, and purposively. Still when he finally reached the field, he almost walked into it before he caught himself. Sheathing the machete, then, he unslung the tommy gun. “Brother,” he told himself, “here goes nothing!” The tents, now in ashes, were not far from him, but the planes had returned. There were two now, so all of the party must be present. Bordie’s ship, as well as Bordie himself, was gone. That still left Boling, Frank Mather, and Pace, three tough customers, together with whoever they had to service the planes and maintain the base.
One of the ships was a big transport job, the other a small gray ship like the one Bordie had flown. It was not a fighter, but did mount a couple of machine guns.
Circling warily on the edge of the jungle, Turk searched for the men themselves.
He saw nothing, however, until finally, near a small fire, he saw a man rise and pick up a coffee pot. .
“Personally”-the man’s voice was strong and clear-“I wish we were out of here. This jungle gives me the creeps.”
“Yeah,” another voice agreed, “but if they do take that Chipan for a lot of loot, we’ll be fixed for life!”
“Will we?” The first man’s voice was ironic.
“I ain’t seen Vin Boling turning loose of anything yet. All we’ll get will be what they don’t want. I’d rather be out of here.”
“I wonder where Sid is?”
“You needn’t. When a man takes off in a ship like he had, after a ship Madden’s flying, an’ doesn’t come back in all this time, mister, he ain’t comin’ back!”
“He could have gone on to Obido or Santarem.”
“Sure. He could have done that, but I’ll lay five to one he didn’t. Sid Bordie washed out on this one. You take it from me.”
There was no way to approach closer without being seen, and Turk didn’t try for further concealment.
He stepped out of the jungle and started walking swiftly through the grass toward the men. “What about this Madden?” the man with the coffee pot was saying. “The way Bordie talked about him you’d think he was a combination of Jack Dempsey and Wild Bill Hickok. I only seen him once, an’ that was the day he clipped Sid in Obido.”
“Oh, he’s tough, all right! Flew in the Chaco an’ in China. Ran a hand-me-down airline in the East Indies before the war. He’s tough, but he can be had! Like I’ve told Bordie, I wished I had a chance at him. Maybe I ain’t no hand with my fists, but with a gun?
Say!” Turk stopped. “All right, chum. Say it!”
The coffee pot dropped with a crash, and the man’s head jerked as if he’d been struck. He wheeled toward Turk, his eyes ugly. He was a short man and stocky, with corn-colored hair in a crewcut. He had a red face and his eyes were pale blue. The other man was in a sitting position, and his face looked as if somebody had washed it in flour. “Here it is,” Turk said quietly. “I don’t want you boys, but if you want to buy in, this is your chance. I want those films and the records, and nothing more. What do you say?”
The man on the ground spoke and his voice shook.
“Let him have “em, Ed. Heck, I want to get out of this. This ain’t no place for a man to die.
I-was “Shut up!” Ed snarled viciously. “You may be yella, but I’m not. Ma. Den, you get anything here, you got to take it.”
Turk’s lips tightened and he felt a strange jumping in his stomach. “Chum, you get one more chance.
Drop the rod an” back away with your hands up.”
“Like the devil!”
With a whiplike movement of the arm, the short man drew and fired. It was fast, incredibly fast, and Turk felt the snap of the bullet as it whizzed by his ear, and then he swung up the tommy gun.
“Drop it!” he yelled.
The man laughed and steadied his hand. “Why, you-was Turk Madden shut down on the trigger, and the gun jarred in his hand. The gun dribbled from the short man’s hands and he backed up slowly, his face shocked, his eyes suddenly alive with awful realization. He staggered, then fell.
The other man might have been turned to stone. “Not me, Madden!” he gasped hoarsley. “I got a wife an’ kids! I-was “Forget it!” Turk said. “If you’ve got a wife and kids you’re in one rotten racket. Where are those films and records?” “In the transport,” the man said eagerly. He got to his feet. “I’ll get them for you.”
A sudden movement startled Turk, and he wheeled, dropping into a crouch, the tommy gun ready, and then he could have whooped with joy. Two men were rushing toward him, and they were Buck Rodd and Shan Bao. “You two! By all that’s holy, if I was ever glad to see anybody!” “We trailed them,” Buck said, “we were after the films.
You’ve got them?” “Yeah. In the transport.”
“Hell’s breakin’ out back there,” Rodd said, panting from his run. “Vin Boling’s in Chipan with Mather, Pace, and another guy. All of them have tommy guns, and they’ve killed a half dozen natives. Russ Fagin’s with them. We hid in the jungle until they got by us. They’ve got Nato, too!” “The girl?” Turk scowled.
“That’s a help, isn’t it. R it was just them and the natives, I’d let them fight it out.” He fed shells into the clip of the tommy gun.
“Look,” he said swiftly, “you two take the film and records and head back for our ship.”
Quickly, he explained. Then he looked at Shan.
“You’ve flown that ship a lot of miles. Think you can get her out of there?”
Shan Bao listened to his explanation, then nodded. “All right, then,” Madden said, “get this stuff back to the ship, take off, and get back to our base. Load up and be ready to move out.”
“What about you?” Buck protested. “If you’re going to tackle that gang, I’m with you!”
“No!” Turk said decisively. “This is my own deal. You fellows get back. Shan couldn’t pack all this stuff in one trip, anyway.
I’m going over there in the little ship.”
“How will you land?” Rodd protested.
Turk shrugged. “Maybe I won’t have to. I want to get that girl away from them, and if I catch that bunch alone, I’m not going to play tag with them.
Get going!”
“What about me?” the Boling man protested.
Turk turned on him. “Mister,” he said, “unless you can fly that transport, or some of those guys come back, it looks to me like you’ve got a long walk.”
On the run he headed for the small ship. A swift check, and he climbed in. It had been gassed up and was ready to go. Evidently Boling had the same idea that he did, and after their return they had no idea of staying around.
He warmed the ship up, and then with Rodd and Shan waving goodbye, he took o@.: The little ship answered to the controls like something alive, and it took only a matter of minutes to let him know that he was flying a really hot job. He skimmed off over the jungle and banked around the tall trees as around a pylon.
Instantly, he saw them. Five men and a girl, one of them moving with a swinging movement as if on crutches, and behind them, some distance off yet moving steadily forward, were the natives. They clutched spears and machetes, and despite the undoubtedly superior armament of the Boling crowd, Turk knew they were in for trouble. Yet the white men had reached the tumbled rocks and ruined, vine-covered walls of Chipan. Turning, Turk studied the situation below. The ruins of the ancient city covered a wide area, and over most of it the jungle had moved, binding the stones together with vines and creepers. Here and there tall trees grew up from some courtyard or walled enclosure, and except for one comparatively wide space of stone terrace, the city was completely covered. This terrace, bounded by long parapets shaped like the bodies of serpents, led up to a massive pyramid. This pyramid was ascended by a wide row of steps, and, atop it, on a space a hundred square yards, was a temple, and before the temple, an altar. It was toward this place that Russ Fagin was leading Boling.
As Turk zoomed over them Boling waved an arm, evidently thinking him to be Sid Bordie, returned.
Turk skimmed out over the jungle and banked into a turn and started back. The girl was obviously their prisoner. In the hands of such men as these, there could be nothing but ill treatment and death awaiting her. No doubt she was a hostage, but knowing the fanatacism of natives when their tabu has been violated, Turk was sure that she would be of no use to Boling.
Which meant she would certainly be killed. If Nato, who had helped them, was to escape, it must be by his hand.
Landing was impossible. The terrace was long enough, but it was littered with fallen stones. He looked at the jungle, swallowed. “If there’s a special god for fools,” he said aloud, “I hope he’s got his fingers crossed for me.”
Turning the ship toward the edge of the jungle behind the pyramid, he came down in a slow glide, then he cut the motor and, with the trees close under him, brought the stick back. He came down in a stall.
There was a tearing crash, and he was hurled violently forward. The safety belt broke and he shot forward as the plane nosed down through the trees and brought up in a tangle of leaves and lianas that broke under him. He fell and then crashed into another tangle of vines. He finally hit the earth under the trees in a mass of dried leaves, blind reptiles, spiders, and decayed lianas that had hung among the tangle of vines like a great bag full of jungle rot and corruption.
All he could think of was that he was alive and unhurt. His .45 had fallen from its holster but lay only an arm’s length away. What had become of the tommy gun, he couldn’t guess. He struggled to his feet, badly shaken and moved away from the debris he had brought down with him.
The plane had hit the ground only a few feet away, but look as he might, he could not find the tommy gun.
He stared at the plane, then at the hole in the jungle. It was a miracle, no less.
“Brother,” he said grimly, “they don’t do that twice, an’ you’ve had yours.”
He started away, then saw his machete lying not far from the broken wing tip. Recovering it, he started on a limping run, his head still buzzing, for the pyramid.
There was no stair on this side, and he knew that by now Vin Boling would be ascending. He started around the base, then halted, for suddenly through the vines he saw a deep notch in the side of the pyramid. It was a tangle of vines and fallen stone, but might be another entrance. It also looked like a hole fit for a lot of snakes.
Carefully, he approached the opening. Beyond the stones he could see a black opening.
Drawing a deep breath, machete in hand, he went into it. Once inside he stood in abysmal darkness, the air close and hot, stifling with an odor of dampness and decay. Striking a match, he looked around. On the floor was the track of a jaguar, the tiger of the Amazon. There was mud here and mold. But directly before him was a steep stair.
Mounting carefully, for the steps were slippery with damp, he counted twenty steps before he halted, feeling emptiness around him. He struck another match.
Torn and muddy from his fall, he stood in the entrance to a vast hall, his feeble light blazing up, lending its glow to the light that came through from somewhere high up on the pyramid’s side. Upon each wall was a row of enormous disks, surfaced in gold or gold leaf, at least a dozen upon a side. Before him was an open space of stone floor and, at the end of the hall, an even more enormous disk.
Stepping forward, Turk glanced up toward the source of the light and saw it was a round opening, and no accident, for he realized at once that the rays of the morning sun would shine through that opening upon certain days, and the golden flood of light would strike upon the great golden disk, and be reflected lightly upon the rows of disks.
Awed by the silence and the vastness of the interior of the great pyramid, he walked forward, his footsteps sounding hollowly upon the stone floor, and then he turned and looked back, and almost jumped out of his skin.
A figure wearing a tall golden headdress sat upon a throne facing the disk. Despite the need for him on the surface, Turk turned and walked toward the tall dais, approached by steps, on which the figure sat. Slowly, he mounted the stair.
It was a colossal figure, much larger than he had first believed, and he could see that it would be bathed in the reflected sunlight from the great disk over the end of the hall. In the lap of the figure was a great dish, and upon it lay several gold rings, and some gems. Suddenly, Turk heard a shot from above him, and then a yell. The sounds seemed very close, and very loud.
“Here they come!” The voice was that of Pace.
“Let “em come!” Boling said. “Mather, behind the stone on the right. Pace, stay where you are. Don’t waste any shots. Fagin, tell them unless they stop and return to their village we’ll kill the girl.”
Turk heard Fagin shouting, and he turned, searching for the opening through which the sound must come. And then he saw a bit of light and saw there was a stairway close behind the seated figure. From the light on the top steps, he knew it must lead to the roof.
Taking a quick step back, he picked up a handful of the gems on the dish and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he started for the doorway. But in the door he paused, for before him was a gigantic gong.
It must have been ten feet across, and beside it a huge stone hammer.
Stuffing his gun back into his belt, he picked up the hammer, hefted it, and swung.
The sound was deafening. With a great, reverberating boom, the tone rang in the empty hallway.
Outside, Turk heard a shout of astonishment, then a yell. Again, once, twice, three times he struck the gong, and then, dropping the stone hammer, he was up the stair in a couple of leaps.
He had hoped the surprise would give him his chance, and it did. He rushed out on a stone platform before the temple to face a group that stood astounded in their tracks, the pyramid still vibrating with the sound of the huge gong.
Nato saw him first. “Quick!” he said. “Over here!” Boling recovered with a shout. “No you don’t, Madden!” he yelled. “By the-was He swung up his gun, and Turk snapped a shot at him that missed, and then shoved the girl toward the stair and fired again.
The man behind Boling grabbed him and yelled.
“Look out!” His voice rose to a scream.
“They are coming!” The natives had started up with a surge, and Pace fired, then Mather. As their guns began to bark, Turk lunged after the girl, but Boling, more anxious to get her in hopes he could stop the natives wi
th her, rushed after him.
Turk wheeled as Nato dodged onto the stairway, and Boling skidded to a halt.
“Out of my way, Madden! That girl can save us.
Without her we’re all dead. You too.”
“You fool!” Turk snapped. “They wouldn’t stop for her. You’ve violated tabu. They’d kill her, too.”
“You-Boling’s gun swung up, and Turk lashed out with his left. Boling staggered, but slashed at Turk with the gun, yelling in one breath for Nato to come back, in the other for help. Turk went under the gun and smashed a left and right to the body, and then as Boling wilted, he turned and lunged down the stairway after the fleeing girl.
A gun roared behind him, but the shot only struck the gong, and it clanged loudly, driving the natives to a greater frenzy. Grabbing Nato’s hand, Turk raced across the open floor and ducked down the dark and slippery stairway toward the opening where he had come in. Behind them, the pyramid echoed to shots and yells, and then a high-pitched scream of terror and another shot. At the edge of the jungle, they stopped and looked back. All they could see was a mass of struggling figures, but to that there could be but one end, for if the natives had reached the top of the pyramid there was no hope for Boling’s crowd. One, perhaps two might get away, but more likely, none of them.
Turk caught the girl’s wrist and plunged into the jungle. Her face was white and her eyes wild.
“We must hurry!” she panted. “They will come for us, too, when finished there. We have violated tabu.
No living thing must go to Chipan.”
“What about them?” Turk asked grimly, indicating the natives. “They protect the tabu. That is different,” Natochi protested.
Slashing at the wall of jungle, with his machete, Turk cleared a space and then moved forward into an opening. He walked swiftly, but as fast as he walked, the girl’s terror and her own lithe strength was enough to keep her close behind him.
Twisting and turning, using every available opening, he dodged through the thick undergrowth. They had little time, and then the hue and cry would be raised after them, and the natives would come fast, probably much faster than he could go.
Night Over the Solomons (Ss) (1986) Page 9