Collection 2003 - From The Listening Hills (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Unconsciously, Cowan had wandered back to the jetty. He stopped, staring at the dark blobs—freighters on Paagumene Bay. Much more was at stake out at the Oland Point home of Isola Mayne and her brother than appeared on the surface. A sailing list, in the hands of the Japanese submarine commanders, might disrupt the whole military line of supplies with the Far East. Whichever enemy got it—either the Japanese or Besi John Mataga—did not matter much with Cowan. Either way it would be disastrous.

  Mataga was on the island, and somewhere nearby was Koyama. Mataga’s apparent lack of interest in the list had not fooled Cowan. He knew the man too well. Besi John, besi being Malay for “iron,” would make his own attempt in his own way, and Mataga would strike with utter ruthlessness.

  Cowan took his cigarette from his mouth and snapped it into the bay. He could do nothing here. Oland Point was where the answer would be.

  He dropped into the rubber boat and paddled out to the amphibian.

  Opening the door of the cabin, he stepped in. A light flashed suddenly in his eyes and a fist smashed out of the darkness and knocked him to his knees. Someone struck him a vicious blow on the head, then another.

  Through a fog of pain he struggled to hold himself erect, he heard Mataga’s harsh voice.

  “Lash the beggar!” Besi John growled. “We got a date at Oland Point.”

  Cowan struggled, trying to shout. Then something crashed upon his skull and he fell forward into a foam of pain that ate into and through him.

  IT WAS ALMOST day when he opened his eyes again. The plane was still in the air. Struggling to master his nausea, he tried to reason things out. Still in the air?

  He struggled to rise, but an arrow of torment from his head made him fall back, helpless. But not before he had discovered that he was tied hand and foot.

  His brow furrowed, he tried to grope his way back along the trail of semiconsciousness. Something had happened—

  Memory of it was veiled in the mists, in the half-lights of awareness after he had been struck down. How long, he could not recall, yet something had happened. There was a dim recollection of lapping water, a strange dream of firelight dancing upon a dark hull, a mutter of motors, aircraft engines, and the murmur of voices.

  He remembered, vaguely, through darkness and clouds, a round hump, like that on a camel’s back.

  Somehow, that dark hump stood out in his mind, forcing itself always into the foreground. He had a feeling of having seen it before.

  Finally he opened his eyes, and knew that he had passed out again. The plane was resting on the water. He could hear waves lapping against the hull.

  He rolled over, and tipping his head back, Cowan looked around the cabin of the plane. Sitting in the hatchway, with his legs dangling toward the water was a huge and heavily tattooed Malay. Seeing that he was, for the moment, unobserved, the pilot tried to move his hands. They were bound beneath him and the tightness of the ropes was cutting into his wrists but more painful than that was a seam in the folded metal of the aircraft…a seam that just might have a sharp enough edge to free him!

  Moving with the slight swell of the water under the craft, Steve Cowan shifted until the ropes lay across the seam, and then, very slowly, he began to saw up and down. How long he worked he did not know but the progress was horribly slow. He felt strands of the rope part, but when he twisted his wrists they seemed just as tightly held. Dispirited, he glanced up and noticed the native in the door watching him with a knowing sneer on his face…and the Malay watchman was a man he knew!

  Yosha was a tough from the oil fields in Balikpappan, a man noted for his viciousness and dishonesty. With a war on it was not surprising that he and Besi John had washed up on the same shore.

  “So, y’get away, eh?” Yosha stood and started aft, his blocky body filling the fuselage of the plane almost completely. “We see about tha’.” He drew a parang from its bamboo sheath and took a step toward Cowan. In that instant, a woman screamed. Wildly, desperately, a cry of mortal anguish came from somewhere on shore!

  Yosha stiffened, glancing back toward the aircraft hatchway, startled.

  Steve Cowan lunged. He hit the Malay with his shoulder, toppling him over backward. Yosha swung but the plane was too small a space to effectively wield the machete-like parang and the blade scraped sparks along the aluminum skin of the craft. The tip hit a rib in the metalwork and the weapon jumped from his grip.

  Yosha’s big hand grabbed for the handle of the weapon, as his other clutched at Cowan’s shirt front.

  Cowan jerked back, tearing the thin garment from the grasping hand. Both men lunged to their feet. Steve Cowan, quicker in reaction, smashed his head forward into Yosha’s face in a frantic “Liverpool kiss.” Yosha stumbled back and Steve jerked at his bindings, growling in frustration and fear.

  A cord parted as the Malay stood up. Cowan jerked and twisted, one hand coming loose just as Yosha rushed. Cowan lashed out with a right, his wrist still wrapped in hemp, and the blow set his adversary back, but it was weak, the wrist and hand still numb from being bound. Fighting for his life Cowan swung a wicked blow to the brute’s middle. Then he lunged into the Malay, his fists slamming the big muscle-corded body.

  Yosha flinched away, staggering across the cabin. Yet now he held the thick-bladed knife ready, his teeth bared in a grimace of ferocious hate. Then, his feet wide apart, he started creeping along the narrow cabin toward Cowan. Cornered, desperate, Cowan feinted a blow as the islander lunged. Risking everything, the American hurled himself against Yosha’s shoulder, and thrown off balance, both men toppled through the open hatch and struck the water.

  Down, down, down! Then, somehow, Cowan discovered he was free and began desperately to swim for shore with powerful strokes.

  As Cowan’s head broke the surface, he glanced back. The plane rode gracefully on the blue water, not far away. But with the woman’s scream still ringing in his ears, Cowan made no move to find out what had become of Yosha. He continued to swim swiftly toward shore. In a short while Cowan reached the shallows and splashed to land. He crossed the beach at a run. When the jungle had closed around him he felt safe.

  Moving swiftly and silently, he worked his way toward the rambling plantation house, stripping the remains of the rope from his wrists. He was unarmed, and none knew better than himself the foe he was facing.

  Ahead of Cowan was the wall of the Port Captain’s house, and in it an open French window. He crossed the garden swiftly, moving from one clump of shrubbery to the next. Flattened against the wall, he peered in.

  Isola Mayne was standing by a table. Her dress was torn. Masses of red-gold hair had fallen about her shoulders. Yet despite these things, never before had Cowan seen a woman look so regal, so beautiful, so commanding.

  “You tell me!” Besi John Mataga’s voice carried a soft but deadly threat. “If you don’t, we kill the maid. Your butler was a fool. He gave us no time to explain.” He gestured at the body of a man which Cowan noticed, for the first time, lying in the shadows, near the wall. “I’ll kill you or this woman if I have to. Now, where’s your brother’s safe? We know he has one. Tell us, and we’ll let you go.”

  “So that’s what this is about.” Isola Mayne’s voice was low, and it made Steve Cowan’s nerves tingle. “You want the shipping list? And my butler was a traitor, too? Well, you’ll never find the list because it isn’t here.”

  Mataga’s face flushed and his eyes glinted with anger. But he merely turned away.

  “Go ahead!” he told his men. “We’ll see if she’s as brave as she pretends.”

  Isola Mayne’s face paled. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, but Steve Cowan detected the resolution draining from her voice, and he saw how her eyes widened with horror. The men with Besi John were savage beasts.

  Leaning further, he could see the two men holding the maid, a native girl. They had bent her arms cruelly behind her back. The girl’s face was white, but her eyes were fearless.

  “Don’t tell them!”
she cried. “They’ll kill us anyway.”

  “Shut up!” Mataga whirled and struck the girl viciously across the mouth.

  Instantly, the room burst into a turmoil of action. Isola Mayne, seizing a paper knife, was around the table with a movement that took the renegade by surprise. Only a quick leap got him away from the knife. Then he caught the wrist of the actress and with a brutal wrench, twisted her to her knees.

  In the same instant that Isola moved, Steve Cowan had plunged through the door. He hit the room running. The nearest of the men holding the maid dropped her arm and wheeled to face him, grabbing for his gun, but he was too slow.

  Cowan went at him with a roundhouse swing that started at the door. It knocked the fellow sprawling into a corner, his face pulped and bloody. Springing across the fallen chair, Cowan leaped to close quarters with the other man. A shot blazed in his face, then the American’s fist drove deep into the softness of the man’s body, and he saw the fellow’s face turn sick.

  Someone jumped on him from behind. Dropping to one knee he hurled the man over his shoulder, then lunged to his feet just as Besi John Mataga whipped out a gun.

  For a second Steve looked straight into the gun barrel. Lifting his eyes he could see death in Mataga’s cruel face.

  Then Isola Mayne twisted suddenly on the floor and kicked out with all her strength. At the same moment Mataga’s pistol roared but the bullet went wild. Cowan moved. He hit Mataga in a sudden lunge and Mataga fell, cursing viciously.

  Catching Isola’s wrist, Cowan lifted her from the floor, and seizing the automatic from the table where it had fallen, charged for the door and the maid came stumbling after them.

  HOW THEY REACHED the jungle, Steve Cowan never knew. He was aware of moving swiftly, of Isola beside him. When the maid stumbled and fell, he picked her up, almost collapsing after going the last few feet into the jungle. There had been shooting. He distinctly remembered the ugly bark of guns and the white lash of a bullet scar across a tree trunk ahead of him.

  “Put me down.” The voice brought him back to awareness. It was the maid speaking. He put her down carefully. Her face was white and set, but she seemed uninjured.

  Isola was beside her in an instant. “Are you all right, Clara? If anything happens to you here, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “I’m all right.”

  Steve Cowan liked the blaze in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid, only angry. His eyes went to Isola.

  “I’m Steve Cowan,” he said. Briefly, he explained. “What we’ll do now,” he added, “is anybody’s guess. We’ll have to keep moving until we find a place to hole up. Mataga won’t quit. Especially,” he added grimly, “now that I’m free.”

  “You knew him before?” Isola said. Her eyes flashed. “He’s a spy.”

  “Two years ago we had difficulties on Siberut, an island near Sumatra.”

  They walked on in silence. Despite the maid’s injured ankle and knee, he kept them moving along. There was no time for hesitation, Besi John would work swiftly and shrewdly.

  Cowan studied the situation. It could hardly be worse. Esteville would not help him. Nominally the French were in charge, and no American Army officials could interfere without disclosing Cowan’s true status. Whatever was done he must do himself. He checked the magazine of the automatic. Five shots remaining.

  “We’ve got to recapture my plane,” said Cowan. “Then I can fly you to Paagumene Bay.” He looked at Isola. “Your butler was a traitor? He was selling you out to the Japs?”

  “I guess so,” answered the girl. “He’d been with us for years and we trusted him. Oh, it’s so horrible!”

  They reached the edge of the jungle near where the plane was moored. A boat was alongside of the amphibian, and two Malays were seated in it with rifles across their knees. Another one of Besi John’s men was standing in the cabin doorway.

  “Well,” Isola said, “it was a good idea.”

  Grimly Cowan sized up the situation. Three men with rifles. That chance was eliminated. They found a hollow beneath the roots of a giant ficus tree. It was dark, almost a cave. Cowan handed the automatic to Isola. “You may need this,” he said. “What I have to do, it’s best to do quietly.”

  She did not warn him, she did not suggest that he guard himself, but something in her eyes carried a tender message. For an instant her hand was on his arm as she smiled.

  “Don’t worry about us,” she said.

  STEVE COWAN MOVED swiftly. He knew the jungle too well to be fearful. Even less than Besi John’s imported Malays did he fear the abysmal darkness under the mighty trees. He was familiar with darkness; they superstitiously distrusted it.

  There was, he recalled, a radio at the plantation. Since M. Esteville would not help him, he would help himself.

  Night had fallen. Yet moving through the blackness under the trees, Steve Cowan knew it would be a help rather than otherwise. He left the jungle, and slipped swiftly from tree to tree across the lawn near the mansion.

  The radio room was on the second story. He heard the murmur of voices inside. Then a guard walked along the porch near the railing. Behind the guard was the lattice he intended to use to get to the second floor. He could have waited, but impatience and hot, goading temper drove him on.

  The guard, warned by some sixth sense, turned, and Cowan struck like a panther. His left smashed into the man’s windpipe, knocking him gasping against the rail. Then the American chopped him across the eyes with the edge of his hand.

  The man fell facedown on the porch, and did not move. His gun had fallen over the rail, but he wore a knife. With the blade in his teeth, Steve Cowan went up the lattice. A man sat at the radio, reading a magazine. Being here, he could only be a Mataga man.

  Cowan slid a forearm under the man’s chin, and crushed it against his windpipe. Then with a quick jerk, he wrenched the fellow back over his chair. Dragging him to the floor, Cowan spoke softly.

  “Lie still and live,” he said. “Move and you die.”

  He reached for a rope, and the native acted. He hurled himself at Cowan, his lips twisted in a snarl. Cowan’s knife blade, held low and flat side down, slashed suddenly. Blood cascaded down the man’s shirt front, and he slumped to the floor.

  Cowan sat down at the radio. For an instant he held the key, then he began to send.

  BENTON HARBOR…SS. BENTON HARBOR…NEW PLAN…COME AT ONCE.

  KOYAMA.

  A door swung open and another man appeared. Evidently he was another guard for he uttered a loud shout when he caught sight of Cowan. Then without hesitation he whipped out a gun and fired at the American. The sound of the shot rocked the building, and before the Malay could pull the trigger again, the American threw the knife—low and hard!

  It struck! Horrified, the Malay stared at the haft protruding from his stomach. The muzzle of his own weapon sagged as he reached for the knife and tugged it out. Blood gushed, and he fell.

  Cowan caught up the gun and sprang into the hall. Two men were charging up the stairs and he sent slugs whizzing at them. Somehow he missed, so he dodged across the hall into another room, slamming the door after him. Then, crouching, he wheeled as bodies smashed against the door. He fired again, once, twice, until the gun clicked empty, and he dropped the useless weapon.

  A noise behind him made Cowan turn quickly. A man had come into the window by means of the vines, and Cowan recognized him at once. It was Yosha, the bloodthirsty Malay who had tried to kill him on the amphibian.

  Yosha looked bigger than ever. With bared teeth, he leaped at the American. Cowan’s jab missed and he was seized by powerful arms, swept from his feet and hurled across the room. He hit the wall with a crash but came back fighting, although half stunned.

  The Malay met the American with a straight arm and flung him against the wall once more. When Cowan tried a flying tackle, Yosha met it with a smashing knee that knocked him rolling to the floor. A kick to the forehead sent darts of pain lancing through his brain. The Malay was adept i
n this kind of fighting.

  Drunk with agony, Cowan staggered to his feet. He had realized that this battle must be to the death. So he cut loose a terrific left hook which caught Yosha on the chin and rocked him to the heels. But the Malay only snarled, shook his head and replied with a bludgeoning blow which slashed Cowan across the cheek. Dazed, the American could not avoid the instant attack which followed.

  Coolly, but with diabolical fury, the Malay tried to beat him into submission. Yosha had a knife in his belt and evidently meant to use it when he had punished the American to his satisfaction. But Cowan kept his head. He weathered the storm and continued to watch for his opportunity.

  At last it came. As the knife flashed out Cowan tried another judo trick. Stepping in, he avoided the thrust, and flipped the blade inward. At the same moment he tripped Yosha. The Malay fell to the floor on top of the knife and rolled over. The knife was sticking out of his chest.

  At this instant shots rang out in the direction of the beach. Cowan sprang for the window. He could see stabs of flame as more shots ripped the air. Still dizzy from the pounding he had received, the American cleared the sill and went down the vines outside.

  Just what was happening he had no idea, but whatever the diversion, he must make it work to his advantage. Running swiftly, he headed for the woods.

  THE RATTLE OF rifle fire down along the beach was growing. He swung away from that direction, cutting deeper into the jungle. Then he reached the ficus. Isola Mayne and the maid were gone!

  Shocked, Steve Cowan froze, trying to understand. Isola would not have moved willingly, he knew that. The knowledge was no help. He started for the beach, moving fast.