“That’s what we call real shooting,” I observed. “Out, Mary! Head out!”
Mary threw her weight on the tiller, and we went hissing away from the bank into which we had so nearly run. Behind us, Wan Shih’s men had hoisted their sail and were coming after us with gathering speed, amid shrill yells.
“Groot! Go help Mary with that helm,” I ordered. “When they open fire, shove her out of the way. Head straight down the river.”
Groot clawed his way aft. Neither he nor Mary Fisher realized that I had been hit, but I realized it. So did Rosoff. I glanced down, met the baron’s eyes fastened upon me, and our gaze held for a minute. To do him justice, he let out no whimper.
“Well?” he said. “Finish it. Murder me quickly.”
“Not at all,” I returned. “I’m anxious not to disable you, my dear baron. I mean to hang you when we reach the city, and I’d hate to spoil the show!”
“Damn you! You’ll not live to reach there!”
I began to think that this might be true. Thus far, I had not dared move from where I stood, for I knew only that his one shot had gone home. The numbing shock of the bullet had killed the pain.
Now I glanced down, and realized why there was no life in my left arm. The bullet had been well enough intended, but Rosoff’s rather dazed condition or else the motion of the boat had spoiled the intention. The bullet had broken my shoulder, and the blood was beginning to show. A cry from Mary showed that she had perceived it.
These things take long in the telling, for at the crucial moments of life and death time appears suspended to the brain’s perception and what may pass in an instant will require long to set down upon paper.
Groot was at the helm, and I perceived that he had it well in hand. I sat down, laid aside my weapon, and unbuckled my belt. I made shift to get it about my neck, and so improvised a sling which would carry my useless arm. Mary came hastily to help me and—so quickly had the affair passed—it was now Wan Shih opened fire. I think that three minutes might cover the action from the time of the first blow.
The other boat was fifty feet behind us and not gaining perceptibly; the wind was coming with that gathering gusto which brings rain, and all the world had turned to darkness. Wan Shih and his gang were not exposing themselves more than they had to, but rifles began to crack and it was plain their craft had carried concealed arms.
As Mary stumbled toward me, I caught her arm and pressed her back.
“Down!” I cried at her. “I’m all right, girl. You, Rosoff! Stand up. Stand up, you dog, or I’ll drill you through the foot!”
I caught up my pistol. At that, Rosoff came to his knees, clutched the gunnel with his good hand and rose shakily to his feet. He saw that I meant business. When he came into sight. Wan Shih ceased firing.
“Hurt, Groot?” I sang out.
Alan shook his head. His glasses had gone in the excitement.
“Can’t see well,” his voice floated down the wind to us. “But I can hold her.”
I looked at Rosoff.
“You try to jump, and I’ll get you!” I said, holding my gun on him. “Mary, don’t get between us—that’s right. We’re safe enough now. We can outrun them to the river, at least. Where’s that gun I gave you?”
She pushed it at me. I emptied my own weapon at the other boat, and got the helmsman. She yawed for a moment, then came on again. I dared fire no more, since we were short of cartridges, and Rosoff’s gun lay in the stern near Alan.
Rosoff heard the click when my gun emptied, and gathered himself. That man was no coward, whatever else he was! He was in the act of jumping when I caught up the pistol Mary shoved forward, and let him have it in the right arm. He whirled around, lost his balance, and came down.
“Up!” I shouted at him. Mary had covered her eyes. “Up, or you’ll catch it in the foot!”
Cursing, the baron rose. Just in time too, for Wan Shih had opened fire again and a bullet tore through the sail above my head. This settled matters, for Rosoff dared try no more tricks. He stood there cursing at me like a madman, both arms useless, but serving us as a shield against pursuing fire.
“How’s everything ahead?” I asked Mary. “I can’t take my eyes off our friend here.”
She rose, and struggled to a position beside me. The first drops of rain were sweeping down, and the wind was beginning to howl. Wan Shih was maintaining his position, both of us diving directly before the wind.
“It’s hard to see,” responded Mary, peering ahead. “We’re out in the centre—”
“Any bridges that you know of?”
“There are none below, I’m certain. We came down as far as the Min River one day with Wan Shih.”
“Then we’re all to the good,” I returned, and drew a breath of relief. “Can your uncle see without his glasses?”
“Not well, no. But well enough to keep us from running into shore.”
I doubted it, for the storm-darkness was pretty murky. I doubted it still more a couple of minutes later, when the rain began to come down in driving sheets that blotted out the shores from view. Still, I could do nothing. With the excitement of action over, the pain was beginning to bear in upon me, bringing weakness with it.
Looking at Mary, I chuckled. We were all soaked to the skin, of course.
“It’s a real test, isn’t it?” I asked cheerfully.
“What?” She looked at me.
“Why, rain! I never before saw a girl who could sit in a driving rain and look prettier than ever!”
A flush crept up into her dripping cheeks and then a smile into her eyes.
“You haven’t red hair for nothing, have you?” she retorted. “May I tie up your shoulder?”
“You may not—just yet. But I wish you’d retrieve that swagger stick of mine; it’s kicking around in the bottom there—”
She got the swagger stick safely, and I stuck it into my hip pocket, under my coat, to brace up my backbone. I was beginning to need stiffening. But Rosoff was worse off than I, for the poor devil was reeling on his feet, and despite the anguish was clinging with his shattered hand to the gunnel.
And behind us the other boat still came on, a little closer if anything.
“Some boats ahead!” cried out Mary suddenly. “At anchor!”
“’Ware boats!” I yelled at Groot. He leaned forward, squinted fearfully, and then nodded. We were going at a pretty good clip by this time, and I was beginning to wonder how long the mast and sail would stand the strain.
“We’re almost at the mouth of the river!” exclaimed Mary. The rain came in swooping gusts, thicker than ever. “I remember those boats were anchored there when we came before.”
“Then we’re safe,” I returned, and added to myself: “None too soon, either! If I go out before the baron, I’ll make sure of him first!”
I did not need to bother, for at this instant Rosoff swayed, and then went down in a heap and lay quiet. Pain and loss of blood had put him under. There was no danger now, for the rain was so thick that even Wan Shih’s boat was indistinct.
Suddenly Mary swayed upright. A frightful cry burst from her lips. At the same instant, I saw Groot put the tiller hard down, straining at it with all the power of his body—too late! Something struck the mast, and down she came; I saw the yard catch Groot and knock him overboard like a fly, before the sail dragged over me and sent me sprawling.
CHAPTER VIII
In the Net
If you’re ever been upcountry in China, where there are no game laws, you know how those fishing craft are built. A thirty-foot craft will have what looks like a pronged bowsprit—two great bamboo poles fifty feet long, jutting up from the bows in a great Y, and curving again to the water, far apart at the outer ends. Between these poles are slung the nets.
Alan Groot had seen the bunch of boats herded side by side, and had steered to clear them, not by too great a margin lest we strike a shoal. What we had not seen, however, were those damnable bamboos sticking out like huge spider legs
. We went slap into them, the mast was knocked out of us, and the springy bamboos brought us to a cradled halt.
I was trying to get out from under that infernal matting sail, and to find my pistol, when there came an exultant yelling from Wan Shin’s boat, and then a tremendous crash as they sailed bang into us. That crash settled me. It flung me across the boat, I brought up against my wounded shoulder, and the last thing I heard was the crack of a gun.
When I came to myself, things were different again. We were on solid ground.
Groot, looking considerably the worse for wear, was holding me while Mary Fisher bound up my shoulder. They had cut away half my coat, which made me rather a sight. However, Mary pinned on the sleeve after lashing my arm to my side. My feet were bound. So, I perceived, were those of Alan Groot.
The shock of the two craft slamming into them had dislodged the fishing boats from their crude moorings, and they were strewn along the shore, where Wan Shih’s men were drawing them up stern first for safety.
We were on the shore also, sitting on the sand in the driving downpour like castaways. The rain was beating down in sheets, hard as ever; but it was warm summer rain and nobody cared particularly. In front of us stood a priest, rifle in hand, watching us. At a little distance, Wan Shih and two other priests were giving first aid to Rosoff.
“Damn those boats!” said Alan Groot energetically. “If I’d seen the things—”
“Hello!” I contrived to grin. “Sounds as though you’d wakened up, Alan? Where did you get that bump on the jaw?”
Waked up? I’ll say he had! Mary informed me that he had been drawn aboard fighting and had fought until they downed him. Wan Shih, I was glad to observe, had a black eye.
“And I’m afraid,” she said steadily, while she pinned up my sleeve again, “that I shot somebody—”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’ve played a good game, and we’ve lost. Did they get your gun?”
She nodded, unable to speak. She had caught the gun knocked out of my hand when the sail bore me down.
I reflected that things were not so bad after all. Groot and I would be out of the way, of course, and it would probably be done without any great loss of time. Mary, however, had gained quite a reprieve.
It would be some time before Baron Rosoff would be in any shape to molest her, and by then, I trusted, the worthy baron would be translated to another sphere. Somebody in Cheng-tu was certain to recognize the body of John Li. Besides, I had sent word where I was going. When I failed to show up, the Heart-resting-place was due for an investigation. If I knew the military governor, and I knew him pretty well, he would have started some action by this time.
I said as much to Alan.
“Now that you’ve got on your fighting clothes,” I said, “keep wearing them and we’ll go down game! Mary’s all right. In two or three days, at the outside, there’ll be a sound of revelry by night, and the Heart-resting-place will be raided.”
“Oh!” Alan blinked at me. “All I’m sorry for is that I shan’t be there to see it!”
“Well,” I said reflectively, “maybe we’ll be sticking around. If there’s anything to this table-tipping stuff, you and I may be floating around to twang a harp when they string up the baron. If we can hunt up a slate in Cheng-tu, maybe we can jot down a message about hanging him instead of shooting him. That was my idea all along. The main thing will be to get hold of a good honest medium who can get the message proper—”
“Stop it—stop it!” cried out Mary, so suddenly that the guardian priest jumped and threw up his gun in alarm. Tears were blending with the rain on the girl’s face. “Oh, how can you talk that way when—”
“What do you want us to do?” growled Alan. “Hold a lodge of sorrow?”
“Don’t use slang, Alan,” I reproved him. “What would they say in Berkeley if they heard such language on your chaste lips?”
“Shut your blamed mouth!” snapped Groot. “If I could get this confounded cord off my feet, I’d make ’em sorry yet that they picked on me!”
“If that’s all you want, it’s easy,” I responded. “You twist over so you’re facing me, with your feet conveniently near. Mary, be so kind as to get that swagger stick out of the small of my back. It’s made of steel, so unfortunately it isn’t broken. My back is. Now, Alan, are you game to go down fighting?”
“You give me a show!” he said.
Mary put the swagger stick in my hand, and I tossed it in the air and caught it. The guard stepped forward, but Wan Shih was striding over and the priest left matters to his boss. Wan Shih looked down at us severely. I tossed up the stick, caught it, and smiled at him. The point of that stick was carefully out of sight under my leg.
“More of a trick to that than you’d think,” I said lightly.
He did not respond. He just gave us one long, steady look that took in everything. Then he turned his back and walked back to Rosoff. The priest looked after him—and I set the point of that swagger stick to the cord about Alan’s feet. I pressed twice. Those razor edges of steel went through the water-rotted straw rope like paper.
“Take it easy, now,” I said. “I’m in on this deal.”
He nodded and sat motionless. It was no simple matter to pick at my own leg-rope under the eyes of the guard, but he suspected nothing in that swagger stick, and presently I was able to move my legs slightly.
At this moment Rosoff, pulled to his feet by two priests, came staggering over to us. He was an unpleasant sight, with a smear of rainy blood over one side of his head, and both his arms in pawn. He came to us and planted a hearty kick in my side.
“Hang me, will you?” he said. “You damned American rat! I’ll teach you something.”
Mary started forward. Rosoff turned on her with a gesture—except for his hurt hand, he would have struck her where she stood.
“Be quiet, girl!” he snarled. “Keep your place until I want you.”
“That’s what they call Hun blood, Alan,” I observed to Groot. “Pleasant chap, eh?”
Rosoff went purple. “Throw him into the river!” he ordered the priest who stood over us. I gave Alan a warning frown, and he relaxed.
I did not blame Mary for fainting. It was rather a brutal affair—all of us there in the whirling rain, Rosoff standing over us with demoniac fury in his handsome face, and those impassive yellow brutes ready to do anything at his word. Neither Alan nor I had any illusions. We knew that the end was here and now.
My only desire was to do as much damage as I could before going under. The priest put down his rifle, grinned, and called one of his two comrades. Wan Shih and the third stood watching.
The two stooped to pick me up.
I was just as glad that Mary had gone out, as the theosophist chaps say. The point of that little stick took the man above me square in the throat—just a peck, no more and no less. The other was stooping over to pick up my legs; I could see the three scars in his scalp where the sacred punk had burned into him at his initiation. As the first man grunted and fell, he straightened up in surprise, and I gave him the stick in the stomach. I think it went clear through him.
Groot and I came to our feet at the same instant. Rosoff was already backing away, cursing us luridly.
Wan Shih jerked out an automatic and fired. The third priest banged away with his rifle. The boatmen were coming on the jump, Groot and I went for the crowd, knowing that we would go down but meaning to go down hard.
I saw Alan stagger, and flung my little stick. That was the last trick in my bag, and the best. The point caught Wan Shih in his open mouth. Then—the third priest fired at me point blank, and I laughed as I went down.
CHAPTER IX
“For They’re Hangin’ Danny Deever—”
The same scene—the same place on the river shore, the same driving rain, the same fringe of boats. I opened my eyes, rather astonished that hell was like this. Then I coughed and clutched at the flask which my friend Lieutenant Ch’en, of the yamen guard, was hold
ing to my lips.
“Do it again,” I said. “Do it again, and don’t waste it! I’m partial to Scotch.”
Ch’en grinned happily and obeyed my command like a dutiful man.
“Why didn’t that chap hit me?” I inquired.
“I hit him first,” said Ch’en, “Look around, sir!”
He helped me to my feet. The first thing that I saw was one of the river patrol launches nosing in close to the shore. Wan Shih’s boatmen were being tied up by our soldiers.
Wan Shih himself, pretty well bled but still ripe for hanging, was being trussed up, and Baron Rosoff was marching to the shore three inches ahead of a bayonet.
“Look here, don’t hurt the baron!” I exclaimed hastily. “I have my heart set on seeing him stretch hemp, lieutenant!”
“Oh!” This from Mary, who rose from the figure of her uncle and caught my hand. “Oh! I thought—I thought—”
“Thoughts don’t count,” I said cheerfully. “Deeds are more important, Mary—”
And I kissed her in the rain, as the poet said.
“Where am I?” murmured Groot, as a soldier helped him up. He was pretty groggy—a bullet had clipped him over the head and downed him.
“Paradise!” I informed him. “Lieutenant Ch’en, kindly prove a ministering angel to my future uncle by marriage! Quickly, or he’ll protest that he’s a prohibitionist—”
Ch’en, grinning like a jovial fiend, shoved the flask at Alan Groot, who choked down several swallows before he realized that he had broken a lifelong rule. Then he gave me one sad look and gasped for air.
“What has happened?” he demanded, blinking so hard at me and Mary that she drew away in rosy confusion. “Why, who are these men?”
“They dropped in for tea or something,” I said, “How about it, Ch’en? How the devil did you get here at what Professor Groot would call a highly opportune moment?”
Lieutenant Ch’en saluted.
“We received your notes last night, sir. Also, the body of John Li was recognized at headquarters. I was sent out today to take a look at this river, and being given a free hand, decided to do it under cover of the storm to avoid observation. We had thought we made out shooting, and as we came in past the river mouth we heard the shooting here. We were only a hundred feet from the mouth of this river, sir. If we’d been five minutes earlier, we would have been in time to capture the whole crowd. Another boat is following us, sir.”
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 19