Raiders Of the Lost Ark

by Campbell Black

  Something was going on at the bar, where most of the clientele was gathered. Some kind of drinking con­test. Lined up on the bar was a collection of shot glasses. A large man, shouting in an Australian accent, was stumbling against the bar even as he raised his hand and blindly fumbled for his next drink.

  Indy moved nearer. A drinking contest. And he wondered who the Australian's opponent might be. He pushed his way through, trying to get a look.

  When he saw, when he recognized the opponent in the contest, he felt a moment of dizziness, a giddiness that was tight in his chest, a stab, a quick ache. And for a second the passage of time altered, changed like a landscape painted long ago and left untouched. An illusion. A mirage. And he shook his head as if this movement might bring him back to reality.

  Marion.

  Marion, hethought.

  The dark hair that fell around her shoulders in loose, soft waves; the same large intelligent brown eyes that surveyed the world with a mild skepticism, an in­credulity at what passed for human behavior-eyes that always appeared to look inside you, as if they might perceive your innermost motivation; the mouth -perhaps only the mouth was a little different, a little harder, and the body a little fuller. But it was Marion, the Marion of his memory.

  And here she was involved in an insane drinking contest with a bear of an Australian. He watched, hardly daring to move, as the throng around the bar made bets on the contest. Even to the most innocent spectator, it must have seemed wildly unlikely that the Australian could be outdrunk by a woman barely more than a couple of inches over five feet tall. But she was throwing back drinks, matching the man glass for glass.

  Something inside him, something that lay hard in the center of him, became suddenly soft. He wanted to drag her away from the lunacy of the place. No, he told himself. She's not a child anymore, she's not Abner's daughter now-she's a woman, a beautiful woman. And she knows what she's doing. She can take care of herself-here, even in the middle of this mot­ley crew of burnt-out cases and bandits and boozers. She tossed down another drink. The crowd roared. More money was thrown down on the bar. Another roar. The Australian staggered back, reached for a drink, missed and toppled backward like an axed tree. Indy was impressed. He watched as she tossed her black hair back, picked up the money from the bar and shouted at the drinkers in Nepalese; and although he didn't know the language, it was obvious from her tone of voice she was telling them that their sport was over for the evening. But there was one glass left on the counter and they weren't going to move until she'd drunk it.

  She stared around them, then she said, "Bums." And she drank the glass down. The crowd roared again, then Marion waved her arms in the air and the mob began to disperse, grumblingly, moving toward the door. The barman, a tall Nepalese character, was making sure they left, ushering them out into the night. He had an ax handle in one hand. In a joint like this, Indy thought, you might need more than an ax handle to ensure closing time.

  Then the bar was empty, the last stragglers having gone out.

  Marion went behind the bar, raised her face and looked at Indy.

  "Hey, didn't you hear me? You deaf or something? Time's up. You understand? Bairra chuh kayho?"

  She began to move toward him. And then, the light of recognition on her face, she paused.

  "Hiya, Marion," he said.

  She didn't move.

  She simply stared at him.

  He was trying to see her now as she was, not re­member her as she had been, and the effort was sud­denly difficult. He felt tight again, this time in his throat, as if something had congealed there.

  "Hello, Marion," he said again. He sat down on a barstool.

  For a second he imagined he saw some old emo­tion in her eyes, something locked there in her look -but then what she did next astonished him. She made a hard fist of her hand, swung her arm at great speed and struck him with a solid right to the side of his jaw. Dizzy, he fell from the stool and lay sprawled across the floor, looking up at her.

  "Nice to see you, too," he said and, rubbing his jaw, grinned.

  She said, "Get up and get out."

  "Wait, Marion."

  She stood over him. "I can do it a second time just as easy," she said, making a fist again.

  "I bet," he said. He rose to his knees. The jaw was damn sore. Where had she learned to hit that way? Where had she learned to drink so well, come to think of it? Surprise, surprise, he thought. The girl becomes a woman and the woman turns out to be a terror.

  "I don't have anything to say to you."

  He rose now and rubbed dirt from his clothes. "Okay, okay," he said. "Maybe you don't want to talk to me. I can understand that-"

  "That's insightful of you."

  That bitterness, Indy thought. Did he deserve that bitterness? Yeah, maybe, he realized.

  "I came to see your father," he said.

  "You're two years too late."

  Indy was aware of the Nepalese bartender nursing his ax handle. A menacing character altogether.

  "It's okay, Mohan. I can handle this." She gestured contemptuously at Indy. "Go on home."

  Mohan laid the ax handle on the bar. At her nod, he shrugged and left.

  "What do you mean 'two years too late'?" Indy asked slowly. "What's happened to Abner?"

  For the first time something in Marion softened. She exhaled slowly, breathing out an old sadness. "What do you think I mean? An avalanche got him. What else could get him? It's only fitting-he spent his whole damn life digging. As far as 1 know he's probably still up the side of that mountain, preserved in the snow."

  She turned away from him and poured herself a drink. Indy sat down on the barstool again. Abnerdead. It was inconceivable. He felt as if he'd been struck again.

  "He became convinced his beloved Ark was parked halfway up some mountain." Marion sipped her drink. He could see some of her hardness, some of that exterior shell, begin to crack. But she was fighting it, fighting the display of weakness.

  She said, "He dragged me, a kid, halfway round the world on his crazy digs. Then he pops off. He didn't leave me a penny. Guess how I lived, Jones? I worked here. And I wasn't exactly the bartender, you understand?"

  Indy stared at her. He wondered what he was feel­ing now, what kind of strange sensations were moving inside him. They were unfamiliar to him, alien. She suddenly looked terribly fragile. And terribly beauti­ful.

  "The guy that owned the place went crazy. Every­body goes crazy here sooner or later. So when they dragged him away, guess what? He leaves me this place. All mine for the rest of my natural. Can you imagine a worse curse?"

  It was too much for Indy to absorb at once, too much to take in. He wanted to say something that might comfort her. But he knew there weren't any words.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  "Big deal."

  "I'm really sorry."

  "I thought I was in love with you," she said. "And look what you did with that sacred piece of knowl­edge."

  "I didn't mean to hurt you."

  "I was a child!"

  "Look, I did what I did. I'm not happy about it, I can't explain it. And I don't expect you to be happy about it, either."

  "It was wrong, Indiana Jones. And you knew it was wrong."

  Indy was silent, wondering how you could ever apologize for past events. "If I could go back ten years, if I could undo the whole damn thing, believe me, Marion, I would."

  "I knew you'd come through that door sometime. Don't ask me why. I just knew it," she said.

  He put his hands on the bar. "Why didn't you go back to the States, anyhow?" he asked.

  "Money. Pure and simple. I want to go back in some kind of style," she said.

  "Maybe I can help. Maybe I can start to do you some good."

  "Is that why you came back?"

  He shook his head. "I need one of the pieces that I think your father had."

  Marion's right hand came up swiftly, but this time Indy was ready and caught her wrist.

  "
Sonofabitch," she said. "I wish you'd leave that crazy old man in peace. God knows you caused him enough heartache when he was alive."

  "I'll pay," he said.

  "How much?"

  "Enough to get you back to the States in style, any­how."

  "Yeah? Trouble is, I sold all his stuff. Junk. All of it. He wasted his whole life on junk."

  "Everything? You sold everything?"

  "You look disappointed. How does that feel, Mr. Jones?"

  Indy smiled at her. Her second of triumph pleased him in some way. And then he wondered if she was telling the truth about selling Abner's stuff, if it was all really so valueless.

  "I like it when you look dejected," she said. "I'll buy you a drink. Name it."

  "Seltzer," he said, and sighed.

  "Seltzer, huh? Changed days, Indiana Jones. I pre­fer scotch myself. I like bourbon and vodka and gin, too. I'm not much for brandy. I'm off that."

  "You're a tough broad now, aren't you?"

  She smiled at him again. "This ain't exactly Sche­nectady, friend."

  He rubbed his jaw once more. Suddenly he was tired of the fencing. "How many times can I say I'm sorry? Would it ever be enough?"

  She pushed a glass of soda toward him and he drank from it with a grimace. Then she leaned against the bar, propped on her elbows. "You can pay cash money, can you?"

  "Yeah."

  "Tell me about this thing you're looking for. Who knows? Maybe I can locate the guy I sold the stuff to."

  "A bronze piece in the shape of the sun. It has a hole in it, slightly off center. There's a red crystal in it. It comes from the top of a staff. Does it sound fa­miliar?"

  "Maybe. How much?"

  "Three thousand dollars."

  "Not enough."

  "Okay. I can go as high as five. You get more when you return to the States."

  "It sounds important."

  "It could be."

  "I have your word?"

  He nodded.

  Marion said, "I had your word once before, Indy. Last time we met you gave me your word you'd be back. Remember that?"

  "I am back."

  "The same bastard," she said.

  She was silent for a time, moving around the side of the bar until she was standing close to him. "Give me the five grand now and come back tomorrow."

  "Why tomorrow?"

  "Because I said so. Because it's time I started to call some shots where you're concerned."

  He took out the money, gave it to her. "Okay," he said. "I trust you."

  "You're an idiot."

  "Yeah," he sighed. "I've heard that."

  He got down from the stool. He wondered where he was going to spend the night. In a snowbank, he supposed. If Marion had her way. He turned to leave.

  "Do one thing for me," she said.

  He turned to look at her.

  "Kiss me."

  "Kiss you?"

  "Yeah. Go on. Refresh my memory."

  "What if I refuse?"

  "Then don't come back tomorrow."

  He laughed. He leaned toward her, surprised by his own eagerness, then by the sudden wildness of the kiss, by the way she pulled at his hair, the way her tongue forced itself between his lips and moved slickly against the roof of his mouth. The kiss of the child was long gone; this was different, the kiss of a woman who has learned the nature of lovemaking.

  She drew herself away, smiled, reached for her drink.

  "Now get the hell out of my place," Marion said.

  She watched him go, watched the door close be­hind him. She didn't move for a time; then she undid the scarf she wore around her neck. A chain hung suspended between her breasts. She pulled on the chain, at the end of which there was a sun-shaped bronze medallion with a crystal set into it.

  She rubbed it thoughtfully between thumb and fore­finger.

  Indy trembled in the freezing night air as he went to­ward the car. He sat inside for a time. What was he supposed to do now? Drive around this hole until morning? He wasn't likely to find any three-star hotel in Patan, nor did he relish the idea of spending the night asleep in the car. By morning he'd be frozen solid as a Popsicle. Maybe, he thought, I'll give her some time and then she'll soften and I can go back; maybe she can show me some of that hospitality for which innkeepers are supposed to be famous. He cupped his hands and blew into them for heat, then he started the engine of the car. Even the rim of the steering wheel was chilly to touch.

  Indy drove off slowly.

  He didn't see the shadow in the doorway across the street, the shadow of the raincoated man who had boarded the DC-3 in Shanghai, a man by the name of Toht who had been sent to Patan at the express re­quest of the Third Reich Special Antiquities Collec­tion. Toht moved across the street, accompanied by his hired help-a German thug with an eyepatch, a Nepalese in a fur jacket and a Mongolian who car­ried a submachine gun as if anything that might move in his line of vision would automatically be a target.

  They paused outside the door of The Raven, watching Indiana Jones's car depart in a flare of red taillights.

  Marion stood reflectively in front of the coal fire, a poker in her hand. She stabbed at the dying flames and suddenly, despite herself, despite what she con­sidered a weakness, she was crying. That damn Jones, she thought. Ten years down the road, down a hard bloody road, he comes dancing back into my life with more of his promises. And the ten years col­lapsed, time flicked away like the pages of a book, and she was remembering how it had been back then -fifteen years old and fancying herself in love with the handsome young archaeologist, the young man her father had warned her about. She remembered his saying, "You'll only get hurt, even if you'll get over it in time." Well, the hurt had been true and real-but the rest of it wasn't. Maybe it was true what they sometimes said, that old wives' tale-may­be you never really forgot the first man, the first love. Certainly she had never forgotten the delicious qual­ity, the trembling, the feeling that she might die from the sheer anticipation of the kiss, the embrace. Noth­ing had touched that wicked heightening of the senses, that feeling of floating through the world as if she were insubstantial, flimsy, as if she might be transparent when held up to light.

  She decided she was being stupid, crying, all be­cause Mr. Big Shot Archaeologist comes strutting through the door. The hell with him, she said to her­self. He's only good for the money now.

  Confused, she went to the bar. She slipped the chain from her neck, laid the medallion on the bar. She picked up the money Indy had left and, reaching behind the bar, put it inside a small wooden box. She was still staring at the medallion, which lay in the shadow of the huge taxidermic raven, when she heard a noise at the door. She whipped quickly around to see four men come in, and at once she understood that there was trouble and that the trouble had come in the wake of good old Indiana Jones. What the hell has he landed me in? she wondered.

  "We're closed. I'm sorry," she said.

  The one in the raincoat, who had a face like an open razor, smiled. "We didn't come for a drink," he said. His voice was heavily accented, German.

  "Oh." And she watched the razor's companions, the Nepalese and the Mongolian (dear God, he has a machine gun), poke around the place. She thought of the medallion lying on the surface of the bar. The guy with the eye patch passed very close to it.

  "What do you want?" she asked.

  "Precisely the same thing your friend Indiana Jones is looking for," the German said. "I'm sure he must have mentioned it."

  "No, I'm sorry."

  "Ah," the man said. "Has he acquired it, then?"

  "I don't think I understand you," she said.

  The man sat down, drawing his raincoat up. "For­give me for not introducing myself. Toht. Arnold Toht. Jones asked about a certain medallion, did he not?"

  "He might have done . . ." She was thinking about the gun that lay on the ledge behind the stuffed ra­ven, wondering how quickly she could reach it.

  "Don't play silly games with me, please," Toht sai
d.

  "All right. He's coming back tomorrow. Why don't you come back then too, and we'll hold an auction, if you're that interested."

  Toht shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I have to have the object tonight, Fraulein." He rose and looked in the fire, bending, lifting the poker from the embers.

  Marion pretended to yawn. "I don't have it. Come back tomorrow. I'm tired."

  "I am sorry you're tired. However . . ." He mo­tioned with his head. The Mongolian caught Marion from behind, pinning her arms at her back, while Toht pulled the red-hot poker from the fire and moved to­ward her.

  "I think I see your point," she said. "Look, I can be reasonable-"

  "I'm sure, I'm sure." Toht sighed as if he were a man weary of violence, but that sound was misleading. He advanced toward her, still holding the poker close to her face. She could feel its heat against her skin. She twisted her face to the side and struggled against the grip of the Mongolian, but he was too strong.

  "Wait, I'll show you where it is!"

  Toht said, "You had your opportunity for that, my dear."

  A sadist of the old school, she thought. The medal­lion doesn't matter a bit to him, only the sight of that poker searing my face. She struggled again, but it was useless. Okay, she decided, you've lost everything else, you might as well lose your looks, too. She tried to bite the big man's arm, but he simply slapped the side of her face, stinging her with an open palm that smelled of wax.

  She stared at the poker.

  Too close. Five inches. Four. Three.

  The sickening smell of hot metal.

  And then-

  Then it all happened too quickly for her to follow for a moment, an abrupt series of events that occurred in a blur, like an ink drawing that has been caught in the rain. She heard a crack, a violent crack, and what she saw was the European's hand go up in the air sud­denly, the poker flying across the room to the window, where it wrapped itself in the curtains and started to smolder. She felt the Mongolian release her and then she realized that Indiana Jones had come back, that he was standing in the doorway with that old bullwhip of his in one hand and a pistol in the other. Indiana Jones, just like the damn cavalry coming at the last possible moment. What the hell kept you? she wanted to scream. But now she wanted to move, she had to move, the room was filled with all manner of violence, the air was charged like the atmosphere of an electrical storm. She swung over the bar and reached for a bot­tle just as Toht fired a gun at her, but the bullets were wild and she rolled over on the floor behind the coun­ter in a rage of shattered glass. Gunfire, deafening, loud, piercing her ears.