by John Benteen
The gunfire had attracted the attention of both the Moros and the Filipinos outside the compound. Fargo shot home another round into his own weapon. Weatherbee had dropped an unconscious guard and scooped up a gun, and Chuang had seized a rifle, too. Fargo grabbed the key inside his shirt. “The artillery park!” he bawled. “Head for the guns!”
They ran down the hill. The Moros had formed line; they had rifles too and they began to shoot. Bullets whined around their heads, as Fargo and the others shot back. Moros dropped. “Keep going!” Fargo bellowed, and they ran toward the guns, Fargo with the key tightly gripped in his hand.
The Krags held originally five rounds each, but many had been expended. One of the Filipinos had worn a bandolier; now Weatherbee turned, ran back up the hill. “Got to have more ammo!” He flung himself down beside the bodies, stripped off the bandolier, tossed it. O’Bannon’s outstretched hand caught it. Weatherbee sprang to his feet, ran to catch up. He had gone four steps when a bullet caught him between the eyes and he pitched over backward.
Now the lead flying around them had become a sleet storm. O’Bannon punched rounds from the bandolier, handed them out as they ran, “Down!” Fargo cried as the fire became too intense and they hit the dirt. It was, for the moment, only the Moros who were shooting at them, and as they rammed fresh rounds into their guns, it was the Moros on whom they concentrated. More of the brightly clad figures dropped; the fire diminished. Fargo sprang to his feet. “Let’s go! Head for the cannons! Were gonna use the dynamite gun!”
Firing as they went, they zigzagged across the compound. The Filipino battalion, out there beyond the stockade, was a mile distant, confused. It began to run, in good order, toward the compound. Fargo and the others had almost reached the artillery. Fargo made a thankful sound as he saw that the gun on which he had been working this morning was still unlimbered.
“Hold ’em off!” he bellowed, tossed his rifle to O’Bannon as the Moros charged across the compound, and ran for the powder magazine, key in hand. Either he had guessed right or they were finished. He slammed up against the steel door, rammed the key at the huge padlock. It went in easily, turned slickly. Then Fargo exerted every ounce of strength to pull open the door. Behind, it was buttressed with sandbags. He pushed those aside and plunged in. “O’Bannon!” he cried.
While Chuang fired, the Irishman came running.
Fargo pitched him a case of firing cartridges. O’Bannon caught them in midstride, turned and ran back toward the cannon. Fargo scooped up a box of the projectiles, prayed nobody would put a slug into them, and lurched toward the gun, unsteady under the massive weight of the case.
He ripped open the breechblocks. His frantic hand crammed in a firing cartridge below, a projectile above, slammed the blocks shut. “Help me!” he bellowed, seized one trail of the gun, O’Bannon got the other; by massive effort they swung it around toward the contingent of fifteen surviving Moros who ran toward them. The range was not a hundred yards. Fargo flung himself forward, grabbed the elevating wheel, whipped the gun tube down as low as it would go and pulled the lanyard. The firing cartridge made a sound like a deep cough. The projectile whirred, was distinctly visible, as it left the barrel. Then it hit, and the impact fuse detonated its substantial charge of nitroglycerine. The Moros, running forward, disappeared in a cloud of white smoke. Without waiting to see the results, Fargo served the gun again, cartridge and shell, pulled the lanyard once more. “Around!” he bawled.
They seized the trails and turned the gun. The Filipino troops were pouring through the gate of the stockade, now. A glance over his shoulder as the smoke cleared showed no Moros left standing. Fargo scooped up another cartridge and another vaned projectile. Range two hundred yards, he thought. That’s point blank—almost. He whipped the elevating wheel as the soldiers crowded through the gate, upped the tube. Then, without time to sight or worry about windage, he yanked the lanyard.
The section of palisade beside the gate dissolved in white smoke. Fargo rammed another load into each tube, yelled something at O’Bannon. As the Filipinos hesitated under unaccustomed artillery fire, they changed the deflection and Fargo yanked the lanyard almost instantaneously. The charge of nitrogel went off squarely in the middle of the oncoming troops, obscuring them with smoke. The roar of the exploding shell was thunderous; the screaming that followed was terrible. Fargo fired again for effect and again after that, and the troops broke and ran, back in the direction in which they’d come.
There were no more Moros to cope with. The Filipinos were disorganized, retreating out of range. Fargo turned to O’Bannon. “Terence! You and Chuang serve the gun! I’m going back to the house after Jade!”
“No!” Chuang snapped. “I go too!”
“Listen—” Fargo began, but O’Bannon whooped. “Let ’im go! I can serve the gun! Look! I’ve got help!” He pointed.
Fargo stared. As if the gunfire had been a signal, the two cargadores, both ex-soldiers, had appeared, leaping down out of a hut. Later, Fargo was to learn that they had volunteered to join the Insurrection to save themselves; but only with reservations. Carter had considered them insignificant because of their race, but now they were to prove themselves first-class fighting men. “All right!” Fargo snapped at Chuang, scooping up the bandolier, passing the Chinese cartridges. “Come on! Cover us, O’Bannon, but no rounds in the house! We don’t want the women hurt!”
He and Chuang ran back up the hill. It was a steep climb, and their legs pumped, their lungs worked like bellows. Halfway there, gunfire erupted from the upper windows. A bullet touched Fargo’s arm, ripping the cloth of his shirt and tearing the skin. Below, there was the repeated thunder of the dynamite gun.
Fargo motioned Chuang out to the left. “You go that way, I’ll take the right. Keep low and zigzag.” Gun at high port, he went charging up the hill, weaving and dodging, keeping his silhouette low. Chuang went in the other direction. Both men fired from the hip as they ran, reloaded without stopping. They took advantage of every crook in the palisade, every hut along the way.
Then Fargo, at least, had made it. He threw himself down behind a dwarf banana outside the veranda. Lead whistled over him. He rolled on his side, crammed the Krag full of cartridges, wishing he had his shotgun. He saw that Chuang had also taken cover at the other edge of the porch. When the Chinese had his gun fully reloaded, Fargo gave a signal. Then both sprang up and ran for the front door.
They fired as they ran. The door was open and gunfire blossomed back at them. Fargo sprang up the steps, hands working bolt and trigger of the Krag at once. The fire from the doorway ceased. Two bodies fell through it.
Fargo leaped over them just ahead of Chuang, scooping up a rifle as he went, for his own was empty. Somebody shot at him from a doorway and he trained the picked-up gun and fired. A man screamed, and Fargo grinned his wolf’s grin. Then he ran down the corridor, into the great room in which the gray-clad body still slumped in the big chair. “Marcy!” he bellowed.
“Fargo! Here!” The woman’s voice came from the side of the room. Fargo whirled to confront an open door, saw her pale face behind it. Somebody fired at him from somewhere and he hurtled through the door just under a screaming bullet. It was a small room, a storage closet. Marcy was pressed tightly in one corner of it, face like chalk.
“Four guns,” she blurted. “They’re in here.”
But Fargo had already seen the Fox ten gauge. He made a sound in his throat, scooped it up, seized its bandolier, crammed two rounds in its twin breeches. “Now, by God. Where is Spott? Where’s Jade?”
“Upstairs.” Marcy’s voice was a whisper. “Fargo, he’s my brother.”
“Sorry,” Fargo rasped. “Too late to worry about that.”
Marcy’s voice was guttural. “You don’t understand. I hate his guts. Don’t let it stop you. Kill him.”
Before Fargo could answer, there was more gunfire in the room and bullets shrieked. Another heavy body dived through the door. Chuang, bleeding from a wound in h
is left shoulder, scuttled behind the cover of the doorjamb. He looked at Fargo and the shotgun. “My hatchets?”
“Hatchets, hell,” Fargo rasped.
“I want my hatchets.”
Fargo saw them on the floor. “Here’re your blasted hatchets!” He tossed them to Chuang. “I’m going upstairs. Carter’s got Jade up there.”
“I come,” Chuang grunted. As Fargo ran out of the closet, he followed. Fargo saw he’d thrown aside his rifle, had a hatchet in each hand.
Bullets spatted the wooden floor as they ran for the staircase. Fargo looked up, saw three men firing. He tilted the shotgun, pulled the right trigger. The blast of nine buckshot slammed upward and one man fell over the landing rail; two more sagged down behind it. Fargo ran up the stairs, aware of Chuang’s pounding footsteps behind him.
Two more men appeared, leveling Krags. Fargo fired the left barrel. At least one of them screamed horribly and both vanished. Fargo broke the shotgun, crammed in two more rounds as he gained the landing, slammed the breeches shut again. Then he bellowed: “Carter! Spott Carter! Where are you?”
For answer, a bullet whined past his head. Carter appeared in the corridor—he had the Colt in one hand and Jade Ching clasped before him as a shield in the other. His eyes were like coals, his mouth warped in a twisted grin. “Let’s see you use that shotgun now, Fargo, without blowing this Chinese slut all to hell!”
“Fargo, please—” Jade screamed. Fargo halted, frozen, trying to think what to do. Chuang’s footsteps pounded on the stairs. Then, with arm outstretched, Spott Carter leveled the Colt. “Say your prayers, Fargo. I never miss.” He eared back the hammer.
Fargo raised the shotgun, froze. He could not shoot; he’d kill Jade. The Colt tracked him. He flung himself to one side as it went off. Then above him, Chuang made a sound. “Hunh!”
Jade screamed. Fargo raised his head.
Stared.
The hatchet had hurtled through the air, end over end, as accurately as any bullet. It passed just across Jade Ching’s scalp. And then it buried itself in Spott Carter’s skull, splitting it wide open. Carter did not even have time to cry out. The gun dropped from his hand as he fell backward.
Jade lurched to the side, landed against the wall. She sat there, naked to the waist, crying hysterically. Below, as targets presented themselves, the dynamite gun kept thundering.
The house was very quiet. Marcy Carter appeared beside Fargo, as he got shakily to his feet. She stared at what lay on the floor oozing the contents of its braincase. Then she turned away, gagging.
“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, God, God, God.”
Fargo reached out, took her hand, pulled her to him, and as she buried her face against his shoulder, he held her.
Chuang was already helping Jade to her feet. “Mistress. Are you all right?”
Jade looked at Marcy, plastered against Fargo. Then she nodded. “Yes. I’m all right. Thanks to you. And your hatchet.”
Chuang came as close to laughing as, Fargo guessed, he ever did. “The hatchet can go where the shotgun cannot. One is not a true Hip Sing if he misses at such a distance with the hatchet.”
Outside, there was, Fargo suddenly realized, no more artillery fire. He felt a sudden fear, dodged into a bedroom and stared out the window.
From this height, he could see the artillery park. He was afraid that what would meet his eye would be bodies scattered around the dynamite gun. Instead, O’Bannon had spotted him. Faintly, the Irishman’s voice drifted up to the house.
“Hey, Fargo!” He raised his arm, waved. “My end’s under control if yours is. Come on down, and I’ll buy you a drink!”
Chapter Ten
Jonathan Ching said: “I am at a loss as to how to deal with this situation.” He leaned back in his chair. “You were to deliver my daughter to Chea Swen-tai.”
“I did that. But he rejected her because she was not—”
Ching lowered his head. “Intact. Yes.”
Fargo said, coolly, “It was not her fault that she was violated by the madman, Carter.”
“But yours. You were to protect her from such dangers. That, among other things, was why I paid you.”
Fargo shrugged. “At least she’s still alive.”
“Yes. But my connection with the house of Chea is broken.”
Fargo lied smoothly. “Perhaps, then, it was my fault. But not hers. She could not fight off Carter. But certainly she was a virgin until then.”
“Of course she was. All the same ... to some extent, our contract is violated. I am grateful to you for saving my daughter’s life, of course, but—”
“But business is business and I didn’t deliver her in good order to Chea: the money, yes, but not your daughter.” Fargo rolled his cigar across his mouth. “I don’t suppose you could market her to any other Chinese husband now, could you?”
“No,” said Ching. “Of course not.”
“Then why don’t you let her go to England, like she wants to? The English aren’t as fussy as the Chinese. She could be happy there and probably find a wealthy husband as well. I don’t think that, with your connections in Hong Kong, connections in London would do you any harm.”
Ching’s eyes glittered. “There’s a point I hadn’t considered. And, of course, the English wouldn’t expect me to pay fifty thousand dollars marriage portion.”
“No,” Fargo said. “So, in a sense, you’ve saved that much.” And, since you’ve saved fifty thousand and your daughter and you’ll probably reap profitable connections out of all this, I’ll take my full fee. Plus the expenses.”
Ching rubbed his face. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Fargo.”
“It’s up to you, Mr. Ching.”
Ching was silent. Then he arose from the chair behind his desk. “I would lose face if I kept less than my word. You shall have your full fee, Mr. Fargo, expenses for the men you hired; and Jade shall go to England and make a good marriage there. Besides, the American Government seems to be so grateful for your breaking up this incipient insurrection that I do not care to forfeit their goodwill by angering you.”
“I saved them a hell of an investment in men and materiel, yes,” said Fargo. “Or, rather, the dynamite gun did.” He also arose. “You can make the draft payable to the Bank of San Francisco.”
“That is where you are bound?”
“Yes,” said Fargo. “That’s where I’m bound.”
“The money will be there when you arrive.” And Jonathan Ching put out his hand. “Thank you for saving my daughter,” he said, face softening.
“I didn’t, really. Chuang did.”
“But you risked your life for her, too; and you’re not Chinese. I’ll not burden you with more thanks, Mr. Fargo. But you’ll have your money. And you’ll say goodbye to Jade?”
“Yes,” said Fargo. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs,” said Ching. “Chuang will conduct you to her.”
~*~
“No,” Fargo said. “I travel light. I don’t tie myself down to any one woman, ever.”
Jade pressed her body against him. “But you are taking Marcy Carter back to the States.”
“Well, the government wants to talk to her about this whole affair. It’s nothing personal.”
“I think it is,” she said, “and I’m jealous.”
“Don’t be. You got out light. You weren’t beheaded or sold into slavery. In a sense, Spott Carter did you a favor. At least you have an excuse for not being a virgin. And you’ll live in England instead of northern Luzon.”
“I would be happy with my fate,” she said, “if my fate only included you.”
“No woman’s fate includes me,” he said. “Kiss me goodbye, Jade, and then I’m leaving.”
She looked at him with huge, dark, moist eyes. Then she turned her mouth upward. “All right,” she said.
~*~
O’Bannon stood beside Fargo on the dock. “Why leave? Think of all the opportunity here in the Islands to get rich. Don’t you w
ant to be rich, Neal, me lad?”
“Of course I do,” Fargo said.
“Then stay.”
“Can’t. I had a letter from some people down in the oil fields in East Texas. They made me a proposition I can’t turn down.”
“Oil. You can get oil out of coconuts. Copra.”
“Sure. Enjoy your plantation and all those brown girls, you Mick.” Fargo hit O’Bannon on the arm. The ship blew its whistle. Fargo started toward the gangplank.
“Goodbye, you damned cavalryman.”
“So long, you blasted sunshiner.” Then Fargo went up the gangplank.
Later, after the ship had pulled out, he sat in the lounge with Marcy Carter.
“You’ll like the United States,” he said.
She was lovely, big breasts encased in a gown of yellow silk. “I’ll like anywhere that’s not out in the mountains of Luzon. But ... Fargo, are you sure you can do it?”
“I can do it,” he answered. “I can smuggle anything in anywhere.”
“Even part of the Confederate treasury? Gold that’s over fifty years old? In strange coin?”