“Faster!” he shouted, and smashed his fist against the driver’s shoulder as if he were spurring on a horse.
The men on the running board were firing round after round and missing every time. Quill pulled out his pistol. He would take them both out himself. He would just wound the wolf, though, and let it die slowly and painfully. Then he’d take the stallion as his personal trophy. Before he left for the States, he would see if the stallion would lead him home—to the Phantom’s home and all of its treasures.
He threw open the passenger door so hard it knocked one of his men off the running board. He dropped into the man’s place, and took aim at the the Phantom and Diana. He fired and missed, fired again and missed again. The track was bouncing too damn much.
Cursing through his gritted teeth, he turned his aim on the wolf, but before he squeezed off a round, the beast suddenly dashed into the jungle. The gunfire spooked the wolf, Quill thought, that was the reasonable explanation. But he couldn’t shake the certainty that the wolf had heard his thoughts.
The Phantom pulled up hard on the reins and the stallion came to a quick stop, then pranced in a tight circle. He was looking around. Ah, the wolf—he probably thought it had been shot, Quill figured.
Quill smacked the window with his fist and motioned the driver to hit the brakes. He aimed at the purple target, bracing his arm with his other hand as the truck skidded to a dead stop. “Nobody shoot. He’s mine!”
Got ’im now. He fired.
But just as he pulled the trigger, someone knocked his arm and the shot flew wide. He spun around and grabbed the man behind him by his collar.
“I didn’t do anything!” He raised his hands in protest and shook his head.
Quill didn’t want to hear it. He put the gun to the man’s face and pulled the trigger. Click!
Out of bullets. He let go and the wide-eyed man, shrinking in fear, toppled backward off the running board.
Quill spun around just as the Phantom and Diana charged into the jungle, leaning low over the stallion. He ducked back into the cab and pulled bullets from his gun belt to reload the pistol.
“Go! Go! After them,” he shouted. “What in blazes are you waiting for, a formal invite?”
“But there’s no road that way!” the driver pleaded.
“Then make one!”
The truck plowed into the woods after the stallion. The horse darted through a thick grove of trees, and the riders alternately looked up and ducked as limbs barely missed knocking them to the ground.
Quill was so transfixed by the scene that he was only vaguely aware that the men on the running board had either jumped or been knocked off by the branches swatting the sides of the truck. It was just him and the driver.
“Go down! Go down!” Quill muttered, anticipating the moment when the Phantom and the girl would be slammed to the ground.
“Go down where?” the driver asked, misunderstanding Quill.
“Shut up and drive!”
The stink of smoke seeped through the dense forest. The stallion suddenly reared up as flames from the fire engulfed a nearby tree. The horse was clearly afraid and unwilling to go further.
The truck surged ahead. “Got ya now!” A maniacal grin spread across Quill’s face.
Then, suddenly, a loud screech ripped through the cab. Branches pounded the windshield, the truck slammed into two trees and wedged between them. Quill was thrown forward and his injured right leg cracked hard against the underside of the dashboard. He rolled onto the floor, grabbing the leg.
“Ahhh!” he yelled out in pain. “Can’t you drive!”
He looked out to see the stallion with its riders charging away to his left, on a new path away from the fire. Two of his men on horseback pulled up alongside the truck. Livid with pain and rage, Quill shouted at them to catch the riders.
“Don’t let them get away!”
“The horses are afraid of the smoke,” one of the riders yelled.
“So is his horse. Go after him. Now!”
As they galloped after the Phantom, Quill realized his other foot was wedged in the springs underneath the seat. He pulled and twisted, but couldn’t free his foot. He glanced out the door and nearly swallowed his tongue. A wall of flames danced toward him. In moments he could feel the heat, hear the crackling of the flames as they consumed everything in their path.
“My foot. I can’t get out. Someone help me!”
The driver leaped out and loped away from the truck and the fire.
“Hey, get back here!” Quill screamed.
The man kept on running.
Moments after the truck crashed into the trees, Zak pulled off the tarp that had covered him and his father during the wild ride.
“I smell smoke,” Yak whispered.
“Me too.”
When they’d climbed into the truck, they’d had no idea that Quill and his men were about to join them. Fortunately the men had ridden in the cab and on the running board, so they’d gone undetected. Zak had found a hole in the truck’s canvas wall, and he’d seen enough to know that the Phantom and Diana had somehow survived the crash and were riding away on Hero. He’d also seen Quill taking aim. That was when he’d stuck his hand through the hole and shoved Quill’s arm just as he’d fired at the Phantom.
They scrambled out of the back of the truck just as the driver abandoned the vehicle and fled into the jungle. Flames shot toward the sky. In no time, the truck and everything around it would be engulfed.
Then they heard someone yelling inside the cab of the truck. “Someone needs help,” Yak said.
“It’s the bad one,” Zak said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Zak moved around the side of the truck. He could feel the heat from the fire now. Quill was on his back on the floor, clutching his injured leg, his other foot jammed under the seat. He was trapped there like a bird in a cage.
Quill looked startled to see Yak and Zak but recovered quickly. He aimed his pistol at Yak. “Get me out of here or I’ll shoot.”
“If you shoot us, you won’t get out,” Yak said calmly. “Put the gun down. The fire is coming very quickly.”
Quill’s face twisted in anger and pain. Then he lowered the gun and dropped it. Yak picked it up and hurled it into the jungle. He leaned over and worked Quill’s foot free. Zak helped pull him out of the truck.
Quill stood up, hobbled on one leg, then leaned against the truck. Flames were already flickering in the underbrush. “What are you going to do, eat me after I’m cooked?”
Yak looked around, then pointed in the direction the truck had come from. “Go that way. You can get away from the fire.”
Quill looked warily at Yak, then limped away.
“Why, Papa? Why did you let him go?”
“It would be good to let him roast in the truck, I know. But sometimes we must make sacrifices for the greater good. Do you understand?”
Zak shook his head.
Yak smiled. “You will soon enough.”
Father and son dashed into the forest. They weren’t far from their village, at least not far using their traditional method of transportation. “Do you think the fire will burn our village, Papa?”
Yak pointed to the sky where dark rain clouds had formed. “The spirits are already working for us. They accepted our sacrifice. The village and the forest will be saved.”
Drops of rain struck his head as if in confirmation. Then Yak grabbed a long, thick vine that hung from one of the trees, swung up into the branches, grabbed another vine, and swung it toward his son.
Zak caught it, laughed, and quickly followed his father into the deep forest.
SEVENTEEN
Hero dashed through the forest, picking a path that avoided heavy underbrush and low branches. The Phantom could tell that the stallion was at ease now that they were clear of the fire and smoke. He galloped with a smooth, relaxed rhythm. With two riders on his back, his pace was slower, but he didn’t seem to be wearing down.
; The Phantom hadn’t expected the fire since the fuel had been so low. But apparently there had been enough to set off the explosion. He hoped the rain, which was starting to fall, would control the fire before it spread.
“We lost them,” Diana said finally.
The Phantom glanced back. “Not yet.”
Two men on horseback were gaining on them. “We can’t outrun them doubled up like this,” she said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of friends in this forest.”
The Phantom pointed upward at a vast network of ropes, vines, and nets hanging from the trees. Here and there, faces were visible, watching them as they sped past, deeper and deeper into the dense forest.
When the Phantom looked back again, the two riders had closed the gap. They drew their pistols and took aim. One fired, then the other. The Phantom and Diana ducked to avoid a thick limb just as a bullet struck it; chips of wood spattered onto their heads. Another bullet missed the Phantom’s shoulder by inches.
The Phantom was starting to get worried now, but before the riders could fire again, they were abruptly yanked from their saddles by ropes with nooses that had been dropped from above. The men were jerked straight upward, crashing through the limbs and branches. Yelling and cursing, they vanished into the thick forest canopy.
Several Rope People, acting as counterweights, came down as the riders went up. The Phantom reined in Hero; Diana stared up in amazement. “How did they do that, anyway?” she asked.
“It’s all done with hooks, pulleys, and winches. They’ve got a lot of practice.”
“Look!” She pointed at the Rope People who dropped to the ground.
Zak and Yak waved and ran over to them. Rain was pouring down now, but the high forest canopy acted as an umbrella, and it seeped through only as a soft, fine spray.
“My friends, the Rope People.”
“How did you get here so fast?” Diana asked, astonished to see Zak and his father.
Yak just pointed to the trees.
“Never underestimate the speed of travel by rope,” the Phantom said. “But you’ve got to grow up with it.”
“I’d like to hear more about it. I never knew about the Rope People. The Bangallans are even more interesting than I’d imagined.”
“Can you stay with us for a while?” Yak asked. “I want to thank you for saving my son’s life.”
“I’d love to,” Diana replied before the Phantom could get in a word. “I’d like to hear all your stories.”
Zak laughed. “That would take years.”
“Maybe some other time,” the Phantom said “We have to be moving right along.”
Diana looked disappointed. “I’ll make a point of coming back.”
Several more Rope People dropped like blossoms from the trees. She immediately began talking with them, and the Phantom went over to Yak. “You can be very proud of your son. He’s a brave kid. He’s the one who saved you.”
“With the help of your wolf,” Zak said. “Where’s Devil?”
As soon as he asked the question, the wolf leaped from the nearby foliage. Most of the Rope People shrank back in surprise and fear, chattering among themselves and pointing. Then they laughed when the wolf trotted over to Zak and licked his face.
“Good, boy. Good, boy,” Zak said, hugging him. “I wish I had a wolf just like you.”
The Phantom turned to Diana. “We need to be on our way, pronto.”
It all seemed like a dream to Diana. Everything was happening so fast. The masked man’s rescue and the escape from the freighter. Flying and crashing a plane and landing on a white stallion. Fleeing in the jungle and meeting the Rope People. And now she was racing deep into the forest with the purple-garbed masked man.
She drank in the sights and sounds around her. The forest was lush and green, and every sort of plant and animal imaginable blurred past them. The songs of birds, the buzz of insects, the calls of monkeys and leopards and a thousand others filled her head. She felt dizzy, unable to imagine what could be in store for her next. She didn’t even want to think about it.
“Are you okay?” the Phantom asked, leaning forward, his breath warm against her hair, her ear. His arms tightened around her and she welcomed it.
“I feel a little light-headed. I guess I haven’t had much sleep lately.”
“And the humidity can make you drowsy.”
The rain had stopped, the water now rising as steam from the floor of the forest, and the afternoon was quickly turning to dusk. As the jungle’s sounds and shadows became disembodied from their origins in the failing light, the jungle became even more mysterious.
It was as if Diana had stumbled into a mythological world where the magnificent and the grotesque coexisted. At any moment tigers might leap out at them, a boa constrictor might drop from the trees, the sun might burst through the forest. Flesh-eating plants might trip Hero, wrap themselves around the horse and riders, and feed on them until they were nothing more than skeletons.
Her imagination went wild. The stallion waded across a shallow stream, and Diana was sure she saw a dozen pairs of red crocodile eyes moving across the surface of the water toward them. “Look!” She pointed toward the dark waters as a crocodile raised its head out of the water.
“They’re just curious. As long as we don’t stop, we’re okay,” the Phantom assured her. “Of course, you don’t want to fall in, either.” Then he held her closer and spurred Hero, who bolted forward, out of the water and onto a trail that he alone could see.
There was something oddly familiar about the Phantom. It seemed ridiculous, yet she couldn’t get over the sensation. She was certain that she would’ve remembered a character in purple tights and a mask.
Had she met him, perhaps, when he was in regular clothes? Certainly from the way he spoke, it was obvious that he spent a good deal of time away from the jungle. He was no wild man.
They rode for a long time, and when twilight finally overtook them, the Phantom slowed Hero to a trot. Diana noticed the sound of running water growing louder and louder, until it was a thunderous roar.
A waterfall appeared then, glimmering in the moonlight. They were thirty feet below the top and another thirty feet above the swirling pool that caught the falls.
At first Diana thought that he had brought her here just to see the awesome power of the falls and enjoy the stupendous sight. But he nudged Hero, who trotted confidently forward toward the falls, then through the sparkling curtain of water. She was covered in a fine, cool spray that was the most refreshing shower she’d ever had after a long trip.
But the journey wasn’t over yet. In a sense it was just beginning. Hero carried them across the dry cavern behind the falls and out the other side. They paused a moment, gazing over the landscape.
A pristine valley opened up in the moonlight below them. It probably hadn’t changed in a thousand or ten thousand years. Even at night, it was easy to see that the forest was older and less dense than anything they had traversed.
Somehow she knew it was friendlier, too. She had no fear of being attacked by vicious creatures. It was the sort of place where she had always wanted to have a home, a place to escape from the hectic pace of big city life, which she realized she enjoyed less and less each time she returned home.
“It’s beautiful, just beautiful. Breathtaking,” she said.
“Magical, I think that’s the word. It’s called Deep Woods. Wait until you see it in the daylight. There’s no place quite like it.”
“Does that mean we’re not going to just pass on through it?”
The Phantom didn’t answer. Instead he spurred Hero, and they rode swiftly across the valley floor. Hero seemed to gallop with an unbridled joy now, knowing he had arrived home. Yes, she was sure they were very near the Phantom’s secret home, and she wondered what sort of place it would be.
A cliff rose above the forest, and protruding from it was a huge rock formation at least eighty feet high. It had bee
n carved by the wind and rain into the shape of a skull. Two large caves formed the eye-sockets of the skull. An avalanche or maybe a millennium of weathering had left a gash that looked amazingly like the ruins of a nose. An enormous cavern at least thirty feet across and fifteen feet high formed the mouth.
A skull cave, she thought, and she knew this was where the Phantom lived. She tried not to form any preconceptions of what it must be like inside, but her mind had already painted a dim, gloomy picture. Mold, darkness, snakes, God knew what else. The Waldorf it wasn’t.
Then the day’s events caught up with her, overwhelmed her. She was suddenly so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open and nodded off. Now and then she surfaced from wherever she’d gone and was aware that as Hero pranced through the opening of the cave, the Phantom murmured, “Home, sweet home,” and that she laughed softly and drifted away again.
She was asleep when Hero finally stopped. The Phantom carried Diana into Skull Cave and set her down on a pile of woven mats.
Guran immediately appeared and covered her with blankets. The Phantom adjusted the blankets, then gently brushed her light-brown hair away from her face.
“Who is she?” Guran asked, his voice soft.
“Her name is Diana Palmer.” A beat passed as he gazed thoughtfully at her. “I know her, Guran. From before. From America . . .”
Guran watched in silence as the Phantom got to his feet and walked outside the cave. He sat down on a rock and looked out over the dark valley, which was blanketed with a silver glaze of moonlight.
The first time he met her was when she was staying on the Hopi Indian Reservation. He was seventeen and traveling the world with his father, who was showing him all the hideouts. They were staying in one of those hideouts, a spot located at the top of a high, sheer mesa.
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