by Steve Lee
Kurt dived at him.
Sloane slipped under the flying man and gripped his ankles, swinging him at the Chinaman charging forward. Their heads made contact. Blood and brains clouded the air. Sloane hurled Kurt's body at the remaining acrobat, bowling him off his feet. Sloane leapt onto the fallen man, boot stamping into his chest. He felt the rib cage collapse beneath him.
That left only Khan between him and the clown.
Sloane turned. Khan was advancing on him in a cautious semicrouch. He flung himself at the big Mongolian with a flying kick, foot smacking into his stomach.
Sloane hit the ground hard.
Khan laughed. And moved toward him.
Springing up, Sloane flashed a swift series of punches at Khan's belly. Again Khan tensed his muscles. His laughter boomed as Sloane's fists bounced off his body. Sloane tried a desperate snapkick. The blow never landed. Khan seized him in midair, flung him like a flour sack over his shoulder.
Moving with surprising speed, Khan snatched a pitchfork from the ground and ran at Sloane, the points thrust towards him.
Sloane scrambled back, managed to get to his feet. Dodging and weaving, he gave ground, retreating from the jabbing pitchfork until something at his back told him he could retreat no furthe… the barn wall.
Khan grinned, a low rumble of amusement rising from his throat. He held the pitchfork low so Sloane could not duck his savage impaling thrust. He charged.
A tine ripped through Sloane's shirt as he dodged aside, grazing his skin, pinning him to the barn. With a jerk, he tore himself free of the quivering, deep-thrust fork.
Khan closed on him, arms spread wide like a rearing grizzlie. Sloane's flurry of body punches troubled him no more than mosquito bites. His arms locked round Sloane, hands meeting and clasping behind his back. He lifted him off the ground. He squeezed.
Sloane's arms were crushed to his sides. Helpless, he struggled in a tightening grip of steel. Air was torn from burning lungs; his chest felt like it was splitting open; red darkness clawed at his brain.
His thrashing knee found Khan's crotch.
For a brief moment, the death grip slightly eased. Long enough for Sloane to wrench free his arms. He chopped his hands together with Khan's neck in between. Swinging back his arms, he clapped both palms against the Mongolian's ears, hard as he could.
Khan bellowed. His hands clamped his ears but there was no way he could reach shattered ear drams. Moaning he fell back against the barn.
Sloane knew it would only take the giant a few seconds to recover. Then the maddening pain would give him even greater strength, strength to tear Sloane apart like a butterfly. He had to strike now while Khan's muscles were relaxed.
Sloane closed his eyes for a second, willing all his inner strength to flow from the deepest core of his being into his right fist.
Khan stopped moaning. His hands groped toward Sloane.
Sloane's eyes snapped open. With a scream of effort, he buried his fist into Khan's stomach.
His knuckles struck wood.
Sloane ripped his fist out of the big man's body. His arm was bloodied to the elbow.
The look of dull disbelief on Khan's face contracted into the most pain-twisted expression Sloane had ever witnessed. His mouth stretched tight across his teeth, giving him the appearance of a partly fleshed skull. Strings of pink drool hung from his lips. His eyes creased to agonized slits.
From his ruptured belly, red snakes uncoiled, dripping and steaming toward the blood-splashed soil. Khan looked down at what was happening to him. He made a sound like the whimper of a whipped dog. With both hands, he grabbed at the soggy things bulging from his stomach, lifted them, tried to fit them tenderly back into the gaping red hole in his body. His guts spiraled into his hands, piling up and overflowing.
He threw back his head and uttered a ghastly drawn out wail, a dying beast howling at the treacherous moon. His eyes rolled upward, becoming opaque. He swayed and fell back against the barn wall. Slowly, he slid down the wall, trailing a broad smear of blood.
His breath shuddering from his lungs, Sloane looked down at the body of his enemy, at his own blood-caked arm. He thought of the despair Chang Fung would feel if he could see how his teachings had been misused. He had strayed from the center.
Perhaps too far to ever find his way back again.
The sound of running feet tore his gaze from the horror of Khan's gutted body. He saw Carmello disappear into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Sloane moved away from the body. His mission was not yet over.
Picking his way across the corpse-littered ground, Sloane approached his horse. It had been roaming nervously over the battlefield, made jumpy by the gunfire and a bullet crease down its flank. Catching hold of the reins, Sloane gentled the animal. From the saddle, he unstrapped his rifle case.
Carrying the case he strode toward the clown's final refuge.
12
Sloane kicked open the ranch house door and darted inside, diving for the floor.
To his surprise, there was no ambush awaiting him, no blaze of guns. Only a silent, overfurnished room. Picking up the riflecase, he rose to his feet.
At the far end of the room was a flight of stairs. Moving cautiously, Sloane edged his way toward it.
Carmello appeared at the top of the stairs.
He had changed into his clown costume and makeup. He looked exactly as Sloane had first seen him up on the wagon in the desert. Even to the fancy black cane he gripped in one hand.
"You're a hard man to kill, Mr. Sloane," he said, reproachfully shaking his cane at Sloane like a school-marm's finger.
They looked at one another, only the stairs between them. With slow deliberation, Sloane started to climb the steps.
"Hard but not impossible…"
Carmello pointed the cane at him. Catching sight of the smooth black hole at its tip, Sloane leapt backwards. The Remington cane-gun spat flame and Sloane grunted as the.22 slug burned through him.
He fell on his back at the bottom of the stairs.
"I gotta hand it to you," the clown said with admiration. "You sure don't give up life easy."
Taking a deep breath, Sloane sat up to examine his wound. The bullet had passed straight through the fleshy part of his thigh. It was bloody and it was painful, but it wouldn't kill him. Not unless rot set in.
Carmello lowered the smoking cane-gun to his side.
"You know, Sloane, you've given me a lot of entertainment today. It's gonna be a shame to bring down the curtain on your act… a real cryin' shame."
Sloane looked round for the rifle case. It lay several feet away. To reach it, he would have to crawl.
"You know, I've been thinkin' 'bout them people called Sloane. I remember now, they had a boy. Reckon he'd be 'bout your age now… if he wasn't dead."
Carmello studied the wounded man below, watching for a reaction to his words. But Sloane's face betrayed nothing except an eager desire to kill him.
Sloane rolled over, began to drag himself towards the rifle case.
"But mostly, I remember the woman," the clown continued. "Of course, I don't remember her face too good — no. But I know she was a fine-lookin' woman. She must've been the way she got Luke and the others all hotted up like that." He chuckled at the memory.
Sloane had nearly reached the rifle case.
"She got kind of hotted up herself when we done with her. But I guess you know that. Yeah, that was quite a blaze, I can tell you. I seen a lot of men die, Mr. Sloane, and women too, but I ain't never heard nothin' like them screams. Not before, not since."
Sloane was opening the rifle case.
The clown watched him, smiling, ready to step back to the cover of the corridor behind him.
"You don't think I'm fool 'nough to stand here and let you shoot me, do you?" he grinned.
From the rifle case, Sloane drew out a sword, a long straight-edged sword, sharp as a razor.
Carmello laughed.
"What d'y
ou think you're gonna do with that big old toothpick? Forget it, Sloane… you're a dead man — dead!"
Sloane climbed painfully to his feet, gripping the sword in a white-knuckled fist.
"I'm gonna kill you," he promised.
"Kill me?" the clown scorned. "Why you should get down on them knees of yours and thank me, boy! D'you think you would've turned out the way you are if I hadn't come along? No, you'd be out on some cracker farm somewheres, scratchin' at the dirt like an old hen pickin' for worms!"
Sloane climbed the stairs toward him.
"Don't you get it yet?" Carmello yelled at him, "I gave you hate… I gave you strength… I made you, boy!"
No loss without gain, thought Sloane. He had come far enough to see his hatred with detachment. Perhaps there was truth in what the clown said. Maybe Carmello had just been an instrument of fate to put him on a certain path. If so, he had served his purpose. And now it was done, he was going to die.
Sloane took another step toward the clown.
"Alright, Sloane," said the clown. "Try and kill me. Just you come up and try. And we'll see how far you get!"
Laughing, he turned and retreated down the corridor to his study. Inside, he locked the door and shot home a bolt. He began to breathe easier. He helped himself to a cheroot and lit it.
In the center of the room, a Gatling gun was set up. Carmello squatted behind the Gatling and settled down to wait. His fingers idly tapped out a tune on the side of the big gun…
* * *
The barn door crept open and Sebastian peered cautiously out. Deciding the coast was clear, he stepped into the open, followed by Pepe and Conchita. Before them, forty men lay scattered on the ground in stiffening attitudes of death.
"Why are they all lying down like that?" asked Pepe. Sebastian looked at him pityingly, smug with the secret knowledge of an older child.
"Estupido!" he jeered. "Didn't you ever play dead?" To demonstrate, he shouted "Pang!" very loudly, dropped to the ground clutching his chest and rolled over several times.
He lay there motionless like the rest of the fallen men. A moment later, he jumped up, grinning.
None of the other bodies followed his example.
* * *
The doorknob was turning…
"Your last bow, Mr. Sloane," the clown whispered to himself, smiling, and cranked the Gatling handle. He blasted the door, shaking the room with metal thunder.
When the smoke cleared, the door was sieved, a ruin. After the clatter of the Gatling, Carmello found the silence oddly unsatisfying. He stepped quietly across the room and unhooked his swordstick from the wall. He drew the blade, stealthfully approached the door. Cocking his head, he put an ear to the door and listened.
Sloane's fist crashed through the door full into the clown's face. The clown staggered drunkenly back across the room. Kicking in the rest of the shattered door, Sloane advanced after him, sword in hand.
Carmello shook his head clear and faced Sloane, his own sword raised in defense.
They circled each other.
The clown cut savagely at Sloane's head, found his blade turned aside. He leapt back as Sloane thrust toward his face.
Thrusting, parrying, swinging and lunging, they moved round the room like men joined by an invisible thread. Blade clashed against blade, each man finding his attack met by an impenetrable wall of steel.
Sloane slipped suddenly on his own trail of blood. Carmello pressed the advantage, forcing Sloane down on one knee, their swords locked. The clown's blade inched towards Sloane's bare throat. Sloane's wound was pumping blood. He knew he had to break the deadlock before he grew too weak. With a surge of effort he drew himself up, pushing back the clown, sinking his foot into Carmello's stomach. He straightened his leg, thrust-kicking the clown backwards but losing his own balance as pain stabbed deeper into his thigh.
Carmello crashed through a window and out onto the balcony beyond. Shrugging off broken glass, he scrambled upright, searching round for an escape route.
Secured to the balcony was a trapeze which had been used for practice by the acrobats. They wouldn't be needing it anymore, Carmello thought as he seized hold of the trapeze. Behind him, Sloane stepped onto the balcony. There was no time for fear or hesitation. Carmello slashed through the securing rope and, gripping his sword between his teeth, launched himself off the balcony into the air.
The trapeze swung him toward a landing platform mounted on a stout pole fifty yards away. As he breezed through space, Carmello's mind was racing after a plan of escape. If he could get onto that platform, he could be down the rope ladder and away on a horse before Sloane had time to get out of the house. It was a big if. The switch from trapeze to platform had looked childishly easy when he watched the acrobats perform. Now, as he hurtled at stomach-jolting speed toward the platform, it didn't look very easy at all.
He threw out a hand to get a grip on the platform. His nails raked the wooden boards, filled with splinters. But he didn't have enough elevation. The trapeze tore him away from the platform, whisking him back towards the balcony.
And Sloane.
Sword raised, Sloane waited for his return.
Carmello hoisted himself higher on the trapeze, twisting his body away from Sloane. The sword swipe grazed his shoe, slicing off the heel.
Like a pendulum, Carmello arced back toward the platform, passing over the trampoline below. This time, to gain height, he swung outwards with his whole body. His feet hooked onto the platform.
He swayed there for a long moment, suspended between platform and trapeze.
He tossed his sword onto the platform. Then he threw himself forward, releasing his hold on the trapeze. He fell across the platform, arms outstretched like a heathen worshipper throwing himself at the mercy of bis savage god.
The clown picked himself up. Dismayed, he watched the trapeze sail back toward the balcony. Sloane caught it.
From below came sounds of excitement and laughter. Sebastian, Pepe, and Conchita squatted down as they had done so often before. They were expecting a show, the clown realized. Very well, they would have a show, a show to remember.
Carmello cut the rope securing a second trapeze to the platform and gripped the bar one-handed, holding his sword in the other.
As Sloane swung in pursuit from the balcony, Carmello cast off from the platform. The two men hurtled toward each other, raising high their sword arms. They struck. Metal clashed against metal, shocking bone to the marrow.
The momentum carried them past each other. Neither was hurt. The two of them twisted round as each arc exhausted itself. Once more, they rushed at one another.
Sloane thrust at the clown. Carmello parried his blow and, as Sloane swept past, hacked through one of the ropes of his trapeze.
Sloane was jolted but managed to keep a precarious hold on the other rope where it joined the bar. Below, the children high-pitched their excitement.
Again the trapezes converged. The damage to Sloane's trapeze had weakened its swing, leaving him vulnerable. Carmello laughed as he bore down on Sloane, his victory certain. Sloane drowned the laughter with his Ki-Ai yell.
The swords flashed in the sun.
The clown's laughter became a shriek.
He fell.
As his trapeze swung by, red rain dabbled Sloane's face. He caught a brief glimpse of the clown's severed hand still clasping the trapeze.
Helpless, Carmello hit the trampoline. It flung him back into the air and dropped him onto the pointed tips of a wooden fence. The fence skewered him, the spikes bursting through his rib cage and out bis chest.
The three children clapped enthusiastically. They thought it was the best trick the clown had ever performed.
Sloane dropped carefully down onto the trampoline. He bounced a few times before coming to rest. He swung himself to the ground, wincing at the pain waves from his thigh when he touched earth. One leg of his pants was soaked red.
He limped past the children. Pepe and Conchita were sti
ll clapping and cheering, calling for more. The elder boy sensed something was wrong. He ran over to where the clown lay draped over the fence, his painted mouth still grinning.
Sebastian drew slowly back.
Sloane met his eyes. The boy glared at him, silent, accusing. A look of hate and grief and loss. Sloane knew that look. He saw himself years before.
Wearily, Sloane turned away. He walked amongst the dead, searching for Kathie and Ching Lei. The flies were already noisily busy.
He stooped and picked his hat out of the dust where it had fallen earlier. He beat the dust from it against his arm.
He felt satisfaction but also emptiness. The consuming ball of fire that had blazed so long in his brain was gone, burned out. It left a space that needed filling. He began to think about the journey home.
There was a lot he had to say to Chang Fung.
And to Su Fan.
Especially to Su Fan.
But right now he had need of a shovel.