He wailed, fell back, sat down hard. Short Round threw dirt on a flap of burning cloth, prepared to leap on the young monarch again . . . but there was no need.
The Maharajah looked as if he’d just awakened from a bad dream. And so he had.
Short Round sat before him. He’d seen this transformation before. “It was the black nightmare of Kali,” he explained to Zalim Singh. Short Round, like The Shadow, knew what evil lurked in the hearts of some men; some boys, too.
The Maharajah nodded. His eyes were full of grief. “They made me do evil things. May Lord Krishna forgive me.” It was only fragmented visions now, but they stabbed at his conscience like broken shards.
Indiana, in the meantime, had jumped up to a catwalk above the conveyor belt, leading near where Willie waited with the empty trolley. Time was running out, though. Mola Ram arrived, with reinforcements.
In seconds, they were encircling the place.
“Get down here, Shorty!” yelled Willie. “I got us a ride!”
A guard rushed her. She yanked the iron brake handle off the mine car and bashed his head in—then held another, more leery, at bay.
Short Round lowered himself down the rocky balcony. The Maharajah leaned over to see him off. “Please, listen. To go out you must take the left tunnel,” he warned.
Shorty stared at him uncertainly a moment, then knew he was telling the truth. “Thanks,” he said, and scooted down the rock.
Indy was having trouble. Three guards jumped down to the catwalk, forcing him back. He shinnied up a short ladder, knocked it away, ran along a parallel ledge. The guards opened fire with pistols. Indy shielded himself behind a cart, wheeling it to the next catwalk.
Willie started her car rolling down the track; climbed in. The guard who’d been watching her took his chance now and grabbed her leg. Short Round was there, though. He picked up a perfect rock, look his stance, checked the runner at first, shouted, “Lefty Grove!” and let fly with a sliding pitch that caught the guard hard behind the ear. The man went down.
Another guard grabbed Shorty from behind as Willie’s car slowly started gathering momentum. Shorty slithered out of his assailant’s grip and karate-kicked him in the stomach.
A wild-looking priest now began chasing Willie’s truck. Shorty raced up to intersect the man, rolled into a little ball, threw himself in the attacker’s path. They both went spilling in different directions. Short Round got right up again, pursued the mine car another fifty feet, and finally managed to jump on, just as it was really picking up speed. Willie pulled him in.
They looked around quickly until they spotted Indiana, still dodging guards up in the catwalks and scaffolds.
“Indy, come on, hurry!” they bellowed together.
Indy looked down at them, saw where he was in relation to them, saw where they were heading: into a large exit tunnel at the near end of the quarry.
He ran hard, jumping from ledge to ladder to catwalk to beam. Guards were shooting at him from all sides now, splintering wood, chipping rock. Mola Ram stood on high ground, shouting orders, pointing to the departing commandoes.
“They are escaping! Kill them!” he commanded in Hindi. The guards doubled their efforts.
Indy came to the end of the scaffolding. Guards rallied behind him; below and above. He leapt into dim air, caught hold of a block and tackle that carried him at dizzying speed, down, on a line coverging with the accelerating mine car.
“Follow them! Kill them!” Mola Ram roared.
Bullets whizzed and exploded. The car sailed on toward the tunnel; Indy sailed on toward the car. When he was a few yards above it, a few to the side, he let go—and flew, in a not-so-gentle arc, into the speeding gondola.
They whooped, crouching down to avoid the caroming bullets. Indy noticed an unconscious thug at the bottom of the car. He took the man’s gun, then dumped him out over the edge, just as the car tore into the blackness of the tunnel.
Suddenly it was totally dark; no more bullets shattered the air; and they were barreling down the tracks at the bottom of the cab. And they were going to make it.
Back in the quarry, Mola Ram watched the cart zip into the first leg of the escape route to vanish from sight. Fury darkened his eye as he whispered to his aide. “They’ve stolen the Sankara Stones. They must be stopped.”
NINE
Cliffhangers
TORCHES LIGHTED the way for the careening trolley. Indy quickly saw the tracks separate in two directions, one back around toward the quarry again, one straight out. He lifted a shovel from the floor of the car, swung it down the side just in time to hit a switch on the tracks that hunted them, with a CLANG, onto the exit rail.
This line soon entered another cavern, and branched into two more. Before any action could be taken, it tore down the right fork, into that tunnel.
Short Round looked worried. “No, Indy, big mistake. Left tunnel.”
But it was too late. They all just held on as the mine car shot down into the darkness of the echoing caves.
There were long descents, short rises; Indiana had a sense they were going even deeper into the mountain. The wind rushed past his face as he stuck his head up on the wide curves, still picking up speed. Willie huddled in the bottom of the cart, trying to catch her breath. Short Round had seen roller coasters in a couple of movies, but nothing as good as this. Except maybe the one in King Kong, at the end of the film, when the ape derailed it. But Short Round wasn’t scared of monkeys, no matter how big: he’d been born in the Year of the Monkey—which he now took for a good sign that this ride would end well.
Back in the quarry, Mola Ram organized pursuit cars. Guards carrying Khyber rifles filled two wagons and pushed off, rolling into the tunnel the infidels had taken.
Ram stopped a third car from joining the chase, though. He had a more foolproof plan for destroying the thieves of the Sankara Stones, a plan that didn’t involve losing more loyal guards in rail-to-rail combat.
Resolutely he walked toward the large side cavern where the main waterfall tumbled into the black crystal of the underground lake.
Indy reaffixed the brake handle to the front of the car, the one Willie had pulled off during the fight, and applied variable pressure to it as they hurtled around, trying to control their speed. Even so, once or twice they took a corner on two wheels. Indy scrunched down, to lower their center of gravity and prevent derailment.
Short Round peered over the back end, expecting trouble. He’d been a thief half his life; it was second nature to him to keep an eye over his shoulder when he was running with the goods.
Willie stayed low. She could see the horizontal support beams of the tunnel racing overhead. They seemed to flash by closer to the car with each successive turn: the tunnel was getting lower.
She was about to mention this, when all at once the car plunged downward—at what felt to Willie like a vertical drop, but was probably just a rather steep incline—throwing them all against the back of the cab; leaving Willie’s stomach somewhere back up in the neighborhood of the top of the grade.
They leveled out. Indy returned to the brake lever. Shorty returned to his rear-end lookout post. He was soon rewarded.
A gunshot rang out. Short Round saw the first Thugee car take a curve far behind them. On the straightaway, the riflemen began blasting.
Bullets richocheted off the back of their car, all around the tunnel. They ducked low, until the next bend. Then Indy shouted over the din of the clackering wheels.
“Shorty, come here and take the brake!”
“Read you loud and clear, Indy!” Short Round scurried forward to take the wildly vibrating handle from Indy.
Indiana slid back to the rear. “Slow on the curves,” he shouted up, “or we’ll fly off the tracks!”
“Read you loud and clear, Indy!” the boy shouted back. He gripped the brake with every muscle in his little hands; he grinned with every muscle in his little face.
With yet one more sinking feeling, Willie reali
zed that this catastrophe was Short Round’s idea of a good time. She yelled up at him in a panic of anger: “I hope you’re better at this than driving a car!”
His grin grew even more ferocious. “We could let you off right here, lady!” She wasn’t his mother yet.
Willie closed her eyes, counted to ten. Dear God, the child was turning into another Indiana Jones.
Mola Ram directed a detail of men to the waterfall—more precisely, to the gargantuan cistern that took the run-off from the falls. Like a great round iron pot, it rested on timber and rock supports that wedged it in place, poised there, almost delicately.
Mola Ram had his men get sledgehammers.
The lead chase car was gaining on the escaping vehicle. Indy, Willie, and Shorty spent more time crouching as rifle bullets flared in the iron-rich ore that filled the tunnels around them. Sporadically Short Round would pop up to brake on a curve; Indy would do the same to shoot. He only had six shells in his gun, though, so he was judicious in his firing.
He actually hit one rifleman, but another immediately took his place. They seemed unstoppable; they were getting closer.
At the next hard turn, Short Round rode the brake with all his weight. The brake pad screeched on the metal wheel; sparks flew like a comet tail.
The ceiling was getting lower again as well. The support beams rushed over their heads so closely, Indy could barely look over the top of the car to shoot. His last bullet buried itself in a length of timber.
One of the thugs sat up to take proper aim and died a hero to his cause: his head struck an onrushing beam; he was knocked from the car in two directions. This lightened the load of the pursuit car considerably; it increased its speed.
Indy crouched low, his knees touching Willie’s. “Get down, everybody,” he barked. “Get down. They’re coming.”
Mola Ram’s men rhythmically swung their sledgehammers against the wedges under the huge water-filled cistern. Several tons of weight pressed down, holding the struts in place. Mola Ram was not worried, though. They would give with each blow, a millimeter at a time, until they finally gave way completely.
And then the cistern would roll over, spill.
“Faster,” he ordered.
The sledgehammer rhythm picked up its pace.
Indy yelled at Short Round. “Let up on the brake!”
“What!” shouted the kid. They were already hurtling along like a train in a silent movie.
“Let her go! Our only chance is outrunning them.”
“What about the curves?” Willie pointed out.
“To hell with the curves.” He pulled Short Round’s hands off the brake. They tore around the bend half an inch airborne, then settled back down on the tracks with a thunderous rattle.
“We’re going too fast!” cried Willie.
The guards in the pursuit car were thrown from side to side; they almost went over. Indy’s car hit the next curve on two wheels. “Get over on the other side!”
They all hugged the inside, low, as the car whipped around.
The Thuggee car, just behind, also took the curve at full speed. They were heavier, though—big men, long guns. They derailed.
The car flew off the tracks sideways. The guards’ heads peered over the top like worried fledglings. They weren’t worried long, though. They crashed into a stone wall with an explosion that shook the cavern.
Indy’s cart rocketed away. The second Thuggee car was pummeled with debris from the wreck; the driver grabbed for his brake, to avoid the same fate.
Indy smiled boyishly. “One down, one to go.”
Mola Ram’s guards continued to hammer away at the supports under the mammoth cistern. Finally one of the lateral rocks began to crumble, then quickly shattered under the redistributed pressure.
High above the workers, the cistern listed fractionally. Water lapped over the edge, sloshed around the rim, as the huge tank creaked into this new, slightly tilted position.
Indiana hefted a railroad tie out of the bottom of the car. He leaned it against the rear wall and, after the next burst of gunfire, teetered it over the back, onto the tracks.
It bounced along the rails a few seconds—long enough for the pursuers to spot it and scream, before crashing into it. They weren’t demolished, though; the tie just skidded, tumbled, bounced out of the way like a large, useless matchstick.
The guards looked overjoyed. Indy looked sick.
“Any more ideas?” Willie moped. She’d largely decided to forget about getting out of this place alive. That way, maybe she’d be pleasantly surprised. It seemed pretty much out of her hands, in any case.
“Yeah. Short cut,” said Indy. He swung at another set of points on the track; the car veered off into a side tunnel. A moment later, the second car forked off in a different direction and disappeared.
“Bad guys go away,” noted Short Round with some suspicion. “Where they going?” It couldn’t be that easy.
It wasn’t. The Thuggee cart suddenly reappeared out of another tunnel—on a parallel track, directly beside them.
One of the guards fired point blank at them, but, in all the jostling, missed. Indy grabbed the muzzle of the rifle, wrenching it from the thug’s hands. He swung it around, catching one guard on the jaw.
Another snatched Shorty by the arm.
“Indy, help!”
Indy grabbed his other arm. The two men had a tug-of-war with the boy while Willie jabbed at the others with the Khyber rifle.
Indy won the pulling contest; Shorty lurched into their car, falling to the bottom. In the same second, another guard leapt across onto the rear of Indy’s truck. He got his arm around Indy from behind.
Indiana swiveled around and leaned back, scraping the thug against the stone wall flying by. This stunned the man enough so that Indy was able to break his grip. He whirled in a crouch, then came up punching—and knocked the guard over the end of the car.
He turned to help Willie, who’d just slammed another thug down with the gun butt. Before he took a step, the guard he’d just dispatched climbed over the back of the truck again, though; he bashed Indy on the head with a rock. Indy went down.
Willie stepped up instantly. She took aim, gave the man a good right hook to the face, and sent him sailing down onto the tracks for the count. She hadn’t spent time in Shanghai without learning something.
Indy stood up wobbily. “My mistake.” He smiled.
She handed him his hat.
In the car alongside, the guards were picking up their guns. They’d dropped behind about five yards during the last interchange.
“Get down!” shouted Indy. He saw something useful.
He grabbed the shovel, swung it hard at an overhead dumper release; then hit the deck.
A barrage of rocks, dirt, and gravel pelted both cars from the dumper. The following car took it full bore: one guard was crushed outright, then the whole trolley was derailed by debris on the tracks. They went over in a cloud of rock dust as Indy’s group, bruised and dirty, roared on.
Roared on into a tunnel studded with stalactites. Indy stuck his head up, but scarcely had time to say “Duck!” The car crashed through the rocky projections, breaking off tips that hung too low from the ceiling, then careening out again with only a minimal loss of speed.
Willie looked up this time. There was once again nothing to do but close her eyes: twenty feet ahead was a break in the track.
They hit the break at sixty. The good news was there was a five-foot drop-off beyond it. The car went sailing over the edge, dropped the distance, landed with a CRUNCH on the lower section of track . . . and kept going.
Willie giggled lightly. Anything goes.
The sledgehammers kept beating. Two more rock supports gave way; then a third. Almost in slow motion, the enormous pot began to tip.
There were shouts as the guards ran for cover.
Mola Ram stood, removed, on a platform overlooking the event. The noise alone was incredible—the sound of the earth’s own en
gines—as the huge vessel rolled, keeled over, crashed to its side.
With a deafening roar, a million gallons of water burst across the cavern in a surging tidal wave.
Into the tunnels.
This new length of track was straight; the tunnel, high.
Indy smiled with that air of nonchalance Willie both loved and hated. “Brake, Shorty, brake,” he said.
Short Round was a little sorry the ride was over already, but figured there’d be other rides. He pulled casually on the brake lever.
It didn’t work.
He pulled harder.
It came off in his hands.
“Oh, oh. Big mistake,” he said, wide-eyed.
Willie only nodded. “Figures.”
It also figured that they were just heading into a long, gentle slope that didn’t seem to go anywhere but down.
They, of course, began moving faster still.
Indy bent over the front of the car to look underneath. The entire braking apparatus was hanging loose from the pad. Indiana pulled himself back in.
The three of them looked at each other with complete understanding of what had to be done. They’d been through a lot together. Here was half a moment to remember it.
Willie thought: You’re a good man, Indiana Jones. Wish I’d known you somewhere else.
Indy thought: Hope you two guys stick together, ’cause I sure haven’t been much help to either one of you.
Shorty thought: If this lady is the last treasure Chao-pao discovered before he leaves me in this life, she must be pretty big fine treasure. Better I keep her.
Willie and Shorty each squeezed one of Indy’s hands. Then Indy climbed out over the front of the racing car.
Facing backwards, he lowered himself down. Willie and Short Round held on to his arms and jacket, to give him extra bracing. When his bottom was inches from the rails, he swung a leg underneath the car, trying to kick at the brake pad. The ground was a blur beneath him. His feet fell momentarily—he bumped along, in danger of being dragged under the iron wheels—but he regained his grip.
The Adventures Of Indiana Jones Page 33