“We’ll take that in tomorrow,” he suggested, “but today we knock off. I’m taking a flight over the jungle. You come along, Dick, an’ the rest of you take it easy around here, but keep your eyes open.”
They took off in the bright morning sunlight and headed due north as usual, but when a few miles were behind them, Turk banked the ship steeply and circled low over the jungle.
“Keep your eyes open, Dick,” he said, “this is a reconnaissance flight. Boling’s outfit has me worried.”
With the two Pratt & Whitney motors roaring along pleasantly, Turk moved the ship down to a thousand feet and swung over the green carpet of jungle. Somewhere, not too far away, Boling would have a base camp. Twice his planes had been seen, but if they were actually conducting a survey it was not obvious, or else they were working far to the west.
That Vin Boling or one of the men with him had established secret contact with Russ Fagin seemed obvious, and if they had, they would know about Chipan. Knowing how inflammatory natives can become over violation of a tabu, Turk Madden understood that if the newcomers invaded Chipan it might mean disaster for every white man in the area.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned his head. The small plane they had seen before was just rising over the tops of the trees, and as it lifted, it turned in a wide swing toward them.
Turk yanked back on the stick and began to reach for altitude. What was coming he didn’t know, but he wanted to be ready for anything. He went up in a fast climbing turn and it took him over a long savanna, the one from which the small ship had risen.
“Look!” Dick yelled. “There’s some planes! Three of them!”
Vin Boling’s headquarters lay before him. In air line distance it was no more than twenty miles from his own, with the native village between them. He scowled. It was odd that nothing had been seen of Boling’s planes when he had been running a survey with the magnetometer.
He glanced back at the smaller plane and saw it was climbing fast and already a little above him.
“Looks like trouble!” he said, nodding quickly. “If that boy is armed, we may have plenty of it!”
London looked at him, astonished. “You don’t mean they’d fight us? Like in war?”
Turk chuckled grimly. “Brother, when you tangle with that crowd it’s always war. Petex knew what they were doing when they hired Boling. And Bordie, Mather, and Pace are fit running mates for him.”
The small ship was a high-powered job with a terrific rate of climb, and it had passed them in the air. Suddenly, it went into a wingover and came down toward them in a screaming dive.
With one fleeting glance at the small ship, Turk opened the throttle wide and hit the straightaway, streaking off over the jungle. Yet he knew he could not hope to keep away from the smaller ship, which was much faster and more maneuverable than his own.
He saw it pull out of its dive and level off in pursuit, and he deliberately slowed. The heavens were almost cloudless, and there was little chance of escape that way. His only chance lay down below or in a sudden break that would put the ship in his sights. He cleared his guns with a burst of fire and saw Dick’s startled glance. Then as the small gray ship came hurtling up on his tail, Turk did a half roll and came out of it only a few hundred feet over the jungle.
Several towering trees loomed before him, and he pointed the nose for them and put the stick forward, screaming in a long, slanting dive. He heard a yell from Dick and saw the bright spark of tracer as it leaped up alongside the cabin then fell away behind. The trees, like a solid wall, seemed rushing to meet them, and when they seemed certain to crash, he yanked back on the stick and the ship zoomed up and over. He put the stick forward and did a vertical bank with a wingtip almost touching the jungle below and turned right back on his trail, hauling back on the stick and grabbing at the space above him.
WITH A QUICK GLANCE around as he turned, he saw the fighter had safely missed the trees, but had overshot on his unexpected turn and was pulling up now in an Immelmann. Kicking the throttle open, Turk streaked away for the rising ship and let go with a burst of fire that streaked by the nose, but as the other ship was pulling out, it staggered suddenly in the air, and Turk banked sharply and swung around.
Although he had not noticed it, one of his bullets must have gone home on the other ship. Coolly, he hung above it and behind, watching the pilot fight the ship. He moved in closer, and, suddenly, the gray ship snapped out of it, pulled up sharply and, banking, swept toward Turk, guns blasting fire.
Cursing himself for a fool, Turk Madden made a flat turn, opening up on the smaller ship. But the burst was a clean miss, and the next thing he knew tracer was streaking by his plane. There was no chance to get away. The issue must be decided here. Pointing the amphibian straight at the gray ship, he opened the throttle wide.
He was hoping the pilot would take it for a suicide attempt, an effort to get him while going down himself. But whatever the pilot of the gray ship thought, he pulled up suddenly, and Turk let go with a burst that riddled his tail assembly.
The small ship fell away sharply, clearing Turk’s wingtip by inches, and Madden caught a fleeting glimpse of Bordie’s face, white and desperate, as the man fought the falling ship.
Madden pulled out and streaked away. Suddenly he was shaking all over and felt sick and empty inside. He glanced over at London, and Dick’s face was as white as his own must have been and his eyes were round and bright. Suddenly, Turk was sweating. He wiped his face and glanced back. A puff of smoke rose suddenly from the jungle, and then a tiny spark of flame. Madden turned his head and started back for camp.
“Do you think he got out of that?” Dick asked hoarsely.
Turk shrugged. “There’s no telling. When a ship crashes into the jungle like that, a man’s got a chance, anyway. A mighty slim one, but I’ve known them to walk away. Those trees right there are mighty high, and that jungle’s like a web. He didn’t have much speed when he hit.”
“What now?” London asked.
“Their base,” Turk said grimly. “They asked for a fight, an’ they can have it.”
Yet when he zoomed over the savanna where Boling’s planes had been, the craft were gone. However, the tents were still there, and what was obviously a storage tank. Madden turned at the end of the field and came streaking back, his twin motors wide open. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a man ducking from one of the tents, and then he cut loose with his guns and saw the tents go up in a burst of flame.
Turning, he made another pass at the field, this time pointing a finger of tracer at the storage tank, and getting it. There was an explosion and a puff of red rolling flame following a burst of black oily smoke.
At the end of the field, Turk leveled off and headed for the horizon. It had been a hot bit of work, but a good one. He streaked away, then made a wide circle and headed back for his own base. He felt suddenly let down now that it was over, and yet he knew just how lucky he had been. If Bordie had waited him out, or hadn’t pulled up when he did, it would have been only a matter of a minute or two until he would have shot down the heavier, less maneuverable amphibian. In the last analysis, in such a scrap, it was how much spine a man had, and the breaks.
Madden mopped the sweat from his face again and swung low over the lake. Then he cut the throttle and came in for a landing. The ship touched the water lightly, then took it and taxied toward the shore.
“Hey!” London leaned forward. “Where is everybody?”
Turk’s brows drew together. The shore was empty.
FACING UP THE BANK, they started for the tent, yet even before they reached it, they saw Phil Mora. The geologist and cameraman was struggling to get off the ground, his head bloody.
Turk bent over him. “Phil! What happened? Where’s Rodd and Shan?”
Mora’s lips struggled to shape the words, and London came running with a pan and some cloths.
“Relax,” London said. “Take it easy.”
Madden’s eyes swept the
clearing. A few quick steps in each direction showed him no one in sight. If Rodd and Shan were alive, they were in the jungle. At least, he told himself with sharp relief, they were not lying here. He strode back to Mora.
“Tell me what happened,” he pleaded, dropping beside the man.
“Six of them,” Mora said. “They came out of the jungle when I was in the tent. Shan had gone to the spring for water. Buck was off looking around in the jungle. They slugged me when I came out.”
Dick’s head came up sharply. “The film! And the records!”
Turk lunged to the tent, but even before he jerked back the flap he knew what to expect. The cans and the box of records were gone. He stood then, his big hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed in thought. Suddenly all the excitement was gone and his mind was cold and ready.
They must have been close to camp, waiting for him to take off. When he was gone, they had moved in. The fight, then, had been lost. He had shot down their plane, strafed their base camp, but they had slugged Mora and got away with the film and the records. And the records and the film were the whole object of this jungle trip. If they got away with them, Tropco was defeated and Petex had won.
Slipping his Colt from its shoulder holster, Turk checked the load. Then he slipped several extra clips in his pocket. He picked up a submachine gun and packed some ammunition down to the water. After that he helped London move Phil Mora to the tent.
“Dick,” he said quietly, “you stick here with Phil. Take good care of him. If those guys come back, which isn’t likely, you’ll have to fight. You’ve got a good spot down on the shore behind those rocks. I’d move some ammo down there, and get some guns ready. If Buck or Shan come back, hold them here. We may have to get out in a hurry. I’ve an idea we’re in for trouble from the natives, too.”
“The natives?” Dick stared. “Oh, I see. You think that Boling and his crowd will go into Chipan with Fagin after that gold?”
“Knowing them, I do,” Turk replied positively. “They won’t miss, and that will mean the natives will go hog wild and want to wipe us all out. Better pack all our gear down to the beach and get ready for a quick move.”
“What about you?” London demanded.
“Me?” Turk shrugged. “I’m gong after that film and those records.”
He took twenty minutes for a smooth, rapid check of the ship, refueled from the small emergency supply they had on hand, and then warmed up the motors. He had only the roughest idea of a plan, but it was an idea that might work.
Not over three miles from Boling’s base he had noticed another small lake. Actually, it was a treacherous-looking place, resembling a swamp more than a lake. There was every chance that there were snags, and it was very small, scarcely a patch of water among the mangroves and bamboo. However, with a bit of maneuvering he was sure he could put the ship down, and it would leave him within striking distance of his objective.
Of two objectives, in fact. The tall trees near where he had shot down Bordie’s plane formed the apex of a triangle of which the other two corners were the pool for which he was headed and Boling’s base camp. Also, he recalled that tall trees were often indicative of ruins and were an evidence often used as such by archeological explorers.
Turk got away into the wind and leveled off low over the jungle. The distance was short, and it was only a matter of minutes until he was circling the pool. He glanced down as he banked the ship, swallowing the sudden lump that came up in his throat.
The pool was there all right, and it was long enough, even longer than he needed, which would be a help in the takeoff.
The catch was that the pool was narrow, and there was a crosswind.
“I’d sooner tackle an irrigation ditch!” he said with disgust.
Then he mentally crossed his fingers and, cutting the speed, came in as slowly as possible. Putting the stick to the right, he gave the ship a little left rudder, careful not to overcontrol, slipping the ship down to the right into the crosswind. Then he flattened the ship out hurriedly and put the amphibian down with sweat beading his forehead. Taxiing as near to the mangroves as he dared, he got a line on one of them and soon had the ship moored.
Settling the .45 firmly in place, he slung the tommy gun over his shoulder and swung into the mangroves.
The earth was soggy with leaves and moss, and the jungle was filled with a strange, greenish light, as though Turk had left the plane to step into some fantastic other world where tree trunks rose into the towering thickness of the jungle roof, their grotesquely swollen bodies wrapped in lianas and swathed in dead leaves and pulpy creepers.
Turk Madden, his dark face streaming with perspiration, pushed and struggled through the dense growth. At times he emerged into an open space where the growth was scattered along the ground, even though the roof overhead was as tightly woven as ever. Only occasionally could he get a fleeting glimpse of the sky, blue and distant.
He halted, and a butterfly with a wingspread of seven inches danced in the air before him. He stopped again as a monkey chattered briefly somewhere off in the green distance. What seemed a mottled branch of a jungle tree stirred slightly, and with the hair bristling along his scalp, Turk slipped the machete he had taken from the plane into his right hand.
It was a boa constrictor, as thick as a man’s thigh. Turk stepped gingerly around the tree and moved on, avoiding the many-colored globes of the curuju that are filled with a caustic ash. He avoided, too, a column of ants that trailed from a tree into the depths of a green and sickly-looking swamp.
Yet he made time. He found ways through the trees, using the machete but little, keeping his pace steady, and moving as swiftly as he could. When his sense of distance and timing assured him that he was approaching the savanna where Boling had his base, he moved more slowly, and purposively. Still when he finally reached the field, he almost walked into it before he caught himself. Sheathing the machete, then, he unslung the tommy gun.
“Brother,” he told himself, “here goes nothing!”
The tents, now in ashes, were not far from him, but the planes had returned. There were two now, so all of the party must be present. Bordie’s ship, as well as Bordie himself, was gone. That still left Boling, Frank Mather, and Pace, three tough customers, together with whoever they had to service the planes and maintain the base.
One of the ships was a big transport job, the other a small gray ship like the one Bordie had flown. It was not a fighter, but did mount a couple of machine guns.
Circling warily on the edge of the jungle, Turk searched for the men themselves.
He saw nothing, however, until finally, near a small fire, he saw a man rise and pick up a coffeepot.
“Personally”—the man’s voice was strong and clear—“I wish we were out of here. This jungle gives me the creeps.”
“Yeah,” another voice agreed, “but if they do take that Chipan for a lot of loot, we’ll be fixed for life!”
“Will we?” The first man’s voice was ironic. “I ain’t seen Vin Boling turning loose of anything yet. All we’ll get will be what they don’t want. I’d rather be out of here.”
“I wonder where Sid is?”
“You needn’t. When a man takes off in a ship like he had, after a ship Madden’s flying, an’ doesn’t come back in all this time, mister, he ain’t comin’ back!”
“He could have gone on to Obido or Santarem.”
“Sure. He could have done that, but I’ll lay five to one he didn’t. Sid Bordie washed out on this one. You take it from me.”
There was no way to approach closer without being seen, and Turk didn’t try for further concealment. He stepped out of the jungle and started walking swiftly through the grass toward the men.
“What about this Madden?” the man with the coffeepot was saying. “I only seen him once, an’ that was the day he clipped Sid in Obido.”
“Oh, he’s tough, all right! Flew in the Chaco an’ in China. Ran a hand-me-down airline in the East Indies before the war.
He’s tough, but he can be had! I wish I had a chance at him. Maybe I ain’t no hand with my fists, but with a gun? Say!”
Turk stopped. “All right, chum. Say it!”
The coffeepot dropped with a crash, and the man’s head jerked as if he’d been struck. He wheeled toward Turk, his eyes ugly.
He was a short man and stocky, with corn-colored hair in a crewcut. He had a red face and his eyes were pale blue. The other man was in a sitting position, and his face looked as if somebody had washed it in flour.
“Here it is,” Turk said quietly. “I don’t want you boys, but if you want to buy in, this is your chance. I want those films and the records, and nothing more. What do you say?”
The man on the ground spoke and his voice shook.
“Let him have ’em, Ed. Heck, I want to get out of this. This ain’t no place for a man to die. I—”
“Shut up!” Ed snarled viciously. “You may be yella, but I’m not. Madden, you get anything here, you got to take it.”
Turk’s lips tightened and he felt a strange jumping in his stomach. “Chum, you get one more chance. Drop the rod an’ back away with your hands up.”
“Like the devil!”
With a whiplike movement of the arm, the short man drew and fired. It was fast, incredibly fast, and Turk felt the snap of the bullet as it whizzed by his ear, and then he swung up the tommy gun.
Turk Madden shut down on the trigger, and the Thompson jarred in his hands. The short man backed up slowly, his face shocked, his eyes suddenly alive with awful realization. He staggered, then fell.
The other man might have been turned to stone. “Not me!” he gasped hoarsley. “I got a wife an’ kids! I—”
“Forget it!” Turk said. “If you’ve got a wife and kids you’re in one rotten racket. Where are those films and records?”
“In the transport,” the man said eagerly. He got to his feet. “I’ll get them for you.”
A sudden movement startled Turk, and he wheeled, dropping into a crouch, the tommy gun ready, and then he could have whooped with joy. Two men were rushing toward him, and they were Buck Rodd and Shan Bao.
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four Page 77