Had the Rocks burst into a roar about him the surprise would have been no more shocking. Willoughby literally staggered with the impact of the stunning revelation.
“What? My death? Afdal, are you mad?”
“What will the English do to Baber Ali?” demanded the chief.
“They’ll demand that he be tried for the murder of Suleiman,” answered Willoughby.
“And the Amir would hang him, to placate the British!” Afdal Khan laughed mirthlessly. “But if you were dead, none would ever know! Bah! Do you think I would let my uncle be hanged for slaying that Punjabi dog? Baber was a fool to let his men take the Indian’s life. I would have prevented it, had I known. But now it is done and I mean to protect him. El Borak is not so wise as I thought or he would have known that I would never let Baber be punished.”
“It means ruin for you if you murder me,” reminded Willoughby–through dry lips, for he read the murderous gleam in the Orakzai’s eyes.
“Where are the witnesses to accuse me? There is none this side of the Castle save you and I. I have removed my men from the crags near the bridge. I sent them all into the valley–partly because I feared lest one might fire a hasty shot and spoil my plan, partly because I do not trust my own men any farther than I have to. Sometimes a man can be bribed or persuaded to betray even his chief.
“Before dawn I sent men to comb the gorge and these Rocks, to make sure no trap had been set for me. Then I came here and sent them away and remained here alone. They do not know why I came. They shall never know. Tonight, when the moon rises, your head will be found in a sack at the foot of the stair that leads down from Akbar’s Castle and there will be a hundred men to swear it was thrown down by El Borak.
“And because they will believe it themselves, none can prove them liars. I want them to believe it themselves, because I know how shrewd you English are in discovering lies. I will send your head to Fort Ali Masjid, with fifty men to swear El Borak murdered you. The British will force the Amir to send an army up here, with field pieces, and shell El Borak out of my Castle. Who will believe him if he has the opportunity to say he did not slay you?”
“Gordon was right!” muttered Willoughby helplessly. “You are a treacherous dog. Would you mind telling me just why you forced this feud on him?”
“Not at all, since you will be dead in a few moments. I want control of the wells that dominate the caravan routes. The Russians will pay me a great deal of gold to help them smuggle rifles and ammunition down from Persia and Turkestan, into Afghanistan and Kashmir and India. I will help them, and they will help me. Some day they will make me Amir of Afghanistan.”
“Gordon was right,” was all Willoughby could say. “The man was right! And this truce you wanted–I suppose it was another trick?”
“Of course! I wanted to get El Borak out of my Castle.”
“What a fool I’ve been,” muttered Willoughby.
“Best make your peace with God than berate yourself, sahib,” said Afdal Khan, beginning to swing the heavy tulwar to and fro, turning the blade so that the edge gleamed in the early light. “There are only you and I and Allah to see–and Allah hates infidels! Steel is silent and sure–one stroke, swift and deadly, and your head will be mine to use as I wish–”
He advanced with the noiseless stride of the hillman. Willoughby set his teeth and clenched his hands until the nails bit into the palms. He knew it was useless to run; the Orakzai would overtake him within half a dozen strides. It was equally futile to leap and grapple with his bare hands, but it was all he could do; death would smite him in mid-leap and there would be a rush of darkness and an end of planning and working and all things hoped for–
“Wait a minute, Afdal Khan!”
The voice was moderately pitched, but if it had been a sudden scream the effect could have been no more startling. Afdal Khan started violently and whirled about. He froze in his tracks and the tulwar slipped from his fingers. His face went ashen and slowly, like an automaton, his hands rose above his shoulders.
Gordon stood in a cleft of the cleft, and a heavy pistol, held hip-high, menaced the chief ’s waistline. Gordon’s expression was one of faint amusement, but a hot flame leaped and smoldered in his black eyes.
“El Borak!” stammered Afdal Khan dazedly. “El Borak!” Suddenly he cried out like a madman. “You are a ghost–a devil! The Rocks were empty–my men searched them?”
“I was hiding on a ledge on the cliff above their heads,” Gordon answered. “I entered the Rocks after they left. Keep your hands away from your girdle, Afdal Khan. I could have shot you any time within the last hour, but I wanted Willoughby to know you for the rogue you are.”
“But I saw you in the cave,” gasped Willoughby, “asleep in the cave–”
“You saw an Afridi, Ali Shah, in some of my clothes, pretending to be sleeping,” answered Gordon, never taking his eyes off Afdal Khan. “I was afraid if you knew I wasn’t in the Castle, you’d refuse to meet Afdal, thinking I was up to something. So after I tossed your note into the Orakzai camp, I came back to the Castle while you were asleep, gave my men their orders and hid down the gorge.
“You see I knew Afdal wouldn’t let Baber be punished for killing Suleiman. He couldn’t if he wanted to. Baber has too many followers in the Khoruk clan. And the only way of keeping the Amir’s favor without handing Baber over for trial, would be to shut your mouth. He could always lay it onto me, then. I knew that note would bring him to meet you–and I knew he’d come prepared to kill you.”
“He might have killed me,” muttered Willoughby.
“I’ve had a gun trained on him ever since you came within range. If he’d brought men with him, I’d have shot him before you left the Castle. When I saw he meant to wait here alone, I waited for you to find out for yourself what kind of a dog he is. You’ve been in no danger.”
“I thought he arrived early, to have come from Khoruk.”
“I knew he wasn’t at Khoruk when I left the Castle last night,” said Gordon. “I knew when Baber found us safe in the Castle he’d make a clean breast of everything to Afdal–and that Afdal would come to help him. Afdal was camped half a mile back in the hills–surrounded by a mob of fighting men, as usual, and under cover. If I could have got a shot at him then, I wouldn’t have bothered to deliver your note. But this is as good a time as any.”
Again the flames leaped up in the black eyes and sweat beaded Afdal Khan’s swarthy skin.
“You’re not going to kill him in cold blood?” Willoughby protested.
“No. I’ll give him a better chance than he gave Yusef Khan.”
Gordon stepped to the silent Pathan, pressed his muzzle against his ribs and drew a knife and revolver from Afdal Khan’s girdle. He tossed the weapons up among the rocks and sheathed his own pistol. Then he drew his tulwar with a soft rasp of steel against leather. When he spoke his voice was calm, but Willoughby saw the veins knot and swell on his temples.
“Pick up your blade, Afdal Khan. There is no one here save the Englishman, you, I and Allah–and Allah hates swine!”
Afdal Khan snarled like a trapped panther; he bent his knees, reaching one hand toward the weapon–he crouched there motionless for an instant eying Gordon with a wide, blank glare–then all in one motion he snatched up the tulwar and came like a Himalayan hill gust.
Willoughby caught his breath at the blinding ferocity of that onslaught. It seemed to him that Afdal’s hand hardly touched the hilt before he was hacking at Gordon’s head. But Gordon’s head was not there. And Willoughby, expecting to see the American overwhelmed in the storm of steel that played about him began to recall tales he had heard of El Borak’s prowess with the heavy, curved Himalayan blade.
Afdal Khan was taller and heavier than Gordon, and he was as quick as a famished wolf. He rained blow on blow with all the strength of his corded arm, and so swiftly Willoughby could follow the strokes only by the incessant clangor of steel on steel. But that flashing tulwar did not connect; each murderous blow rang on
Gordon’s blade or swished past his head as he shifted. Not that the American fought a running fight. Afdal Khan moved about much more than did Gordon. The Orakzai swayed and bent his body agilely to right and left, leaped in and out, and circled his antagonist, smiting incessantly.
Gordon moved his head frequently to avoid blows, but he seldom shifted his feet except to keep his enemy always in front of him. His stance was as firm as that of a deep-rooted rock, and his blade was never beaten down. Beneath the heaviest blows the Pathan could deal it opposed an unyielding guard.
The man’s wrist and forearm must be made of iron, thought Willoughby, staring in amazement. Afdal Khan beat on El Borak’s tulwar like a smith on an anvil, striving to beat the American to his knee by the sheer weight of his attack; cords of muscle stood out on Gordon’s wrist as he met the attack. He did not give back a foot. His guard never weakened.
Afdal Khan was panting and perspiration streamed down his dark face. His eyes held the glare of a wild beast. Gordon was not even breathing hard. He seemed utterly unaffected by the tempest beating upon him. And desperation flooded Afdal Khan’s face, as he felt his own strength waning beneath his maddened efforts to beat down that iron guard.
“Dog!” he gasped, spat in Gordon’s face and lunged in terrifically, staking all on one stroke, and throwing his sword arm far back before he swung his tulwar in an arc that might have felled an oak.
Then Gordon moved, and the speed of his shift would have shamed a wounded catamount. Willoughby could not follow his motion–he only saw that Afdal Khan’s mighty swipe had cleft only empty air, and Gordon’s blade was a blinding flicker in the rising sun. There was a sound as of a cleaver sundering a joint of beef and Afdal Khan staggered. Gordon stepped back with a low laugh, merciless as the ring of flint, and a thread of crimson wandered down the broad blade in his hand.
Afdal Khan’s face was livid; he swayed drunkenly on his feet, his eyes dilated; his left hand was pressed to his side, and blood spouted between the fingers; his right arm fought to raise the tulwar that had become an imponderable weight.
“Allah!” he croaked. “Allah–” Suddenly his knees bent and he fell as a tree falls.
Willoughby bent over him in awe.
“Good heavens, he’s shorn half asunder! How could a man live even those few seconds, with a wound like that?”
“Hillmen are hard to kill,” Gordon answered, shaking the red drops from his blade. The crimson glare had gone out of his eyes; the fire that had for so long burned consumingly in his soul had been quenched at last, though it had been quenched in blood.
“You can go back to Kabul and tell the Amir the feud’s over,” he said. “The caravans from Persia will soon be passing over the roads again.”
“What about Baber Ali?”
“He pulled out last night, after his attack on the Castle failed. I saw him riding out of the valley with most of his men. He was sick of the siege. Afdal’s men are still in the valley but they’ll leg it for Khoruk as soon as they hear what’s happened to Afdal. The Amir will make an outlaw out of Baber Ali as soon as you get back to Kabul. I’ve got no more to fear from the Khoruk clan; they’ll be glad to agree to peace.”
Willoughby glanced down at the dead man. The feud had ended as Gordon had sworn it would. Gordon had been in the right all along; but it was a new and not too pleasing experience to Willoughby to be used as a pawn in a game–as he himself had used so many men and women.
He laughed wryly. “Confound you, Gordon, you’ve bamboozled me all the way through! You let me believe that only Baber Ali was besieging us, and that Afdal Khan would protect me against his uncle! You set a trap to catch Afdal Khan, and you used me as bait! I’ve got an idea that if I hadn’t thought of that letter-and-telescope combination, you’d have suggested it yourself.”
“I’ll give you an escort to Ghazrael when the rest of the Orakzai clear out,” offered Gordon.
“Damn it, man, if you hadn’t saved my life so often in the past forty-eight hours, I’d be inclined to use bad language! But Afdal Khan was a rogue and deserved what he got. I can’t say that I relish your methods, but they’re effective! You ought to be in the secret service. A few years at this rate and you’ll be Amir of Afghanistan!”
Sharp’s Gun Serenade
I was heading for War Paint, jogging along easy and comfortable, when I seen a galoot coming up the trail in a cloud of dust, jest aburning the breeze. He didn’t stop to pass the time of day, he went past me so fast Cap’n Kidd missed the snap he made at his hoss, which shows he was sure hightailing it. I recognized him as Jack Sprague, a young waddy which worked on a spread not far from War Paint. His face was pale and sot in a look of desprut resolution, like a man which has jest bet his pants on a pair of deuces, and he had a rope in his hand though I couldn’t see nothing he might be aiming to lasso. He went fogging on up the trail into the mountains and I looked back to see if I could see the posse. Because about the only time a outlander ever heads for the high Humbolts is when he’s about three jumps and a low whoop ahead of a necktie party.
I seen another cloud of dust, all right, but it warn’t big enough for more’n one man, and purty soon I seen it was Bill Glanton of War Paint. But that was good enough reason for Sprague’s haste, if Bill was on the prod. Glanton is from Texas, original, and whilst he is a sentimental cuss in repose he’s a ring-tailed whizzer with star-spangled wheels when his feelings is ruffled. And his feelings is ruffled tolerable easy.
As soon as he seen me he yelled, “Where’d he go?”
“Who?” I says. Us Humbolt folks ain’t overflowing with casual information.
“Jack Sprague!” says he. “You must of saw him. Where’d he go?”
“He didn’t say,” I says.
Glanton ground his teeth slightly and says, “Don’t start yore derned hillbilly stallin’ with me! I ain’t got time to waste the week or so it takes to git information out of a Humbolt Mountain varmint. I ain’t chasin’ that misguided idjit to do him injury. I’m pursooin’ him to save his life! A gal in War Paint has jilted him and he’s so broke up about it he’s threatened to ride right over the mortal ridge. Us boys has been watchin’ him and follerin’ him around and takin’ pistols and rat-pizen and the like away from him, but this mornin’ he give us the slip and taken to the hills. It was a waitress in the Bawlin’ Heifer Restawrant which put me on his trail. He told her he was goin’ up in the hills where he wouldn’t be interfered with and hang hisself!”
“So that was why he had the rope,” I says. “Well, it’s his own business, ain’t it?”
“No, it ain’t,” says Bill sternly. “When a man is in his state he ain’t responsible and it’s the duty of his friends to look after him. He’ll thank us in the days to come. Anyway, he owes me six bucks and if he hangs hisself I’ll never git paid. Come on, dang it! He’ll lynch hisself whilst we stands here jawin’.”
“Well, all right,” I says. “After all, I got to think about the repertation of the Humbolts. They ain’t never been a suicide committed up here before.”
“Quite right,” says Bill. “Nobody never got a chance to kill hisself up here, somebody else always done it for him.”
But I ignored this slander and reined Cap’n Kidd around jest as he was fixing to bite off Bill’s hoss’s ear. Jack had left the trail but he left sign a blind man could foller. He had a long start on us, but we both had better hosses than his’n and after awhile we come to where he’d tied his hoss amongst the bresh at the foot of Cougar Mountain. We tied our hosses too, and pushed through the bresh on foot, and right away we seen him. He was climbing up the slope toward a ledge which had a tree growing on it. One limb stuck out over the aidge and was jest right to make a swell gallows, as I told Bill.
But Bill was in a lather.
“He’ll git to that ledge before we can ketch him!” says he. “What’ll we do?”
“Shoot him in the laig,” I suggested, but Bill says, “No, dern it! He’ll bust hisself fallin’ down th
e slope. And if we start after him he’ll hustle up to that ledge and hang hisself before we can git to him. Look there, though–they’s a thicket growin’ up the slope west of the ledge. You circle around and crawl up through it whilst I git out in the open and attracts his attention. I’ll try to keep him talkin’ till you can git up there and grab him from behind.”
So I ducked low in the bresh and ran around the foot of the slope till I come to the thicket. Jest before I div into the tangle I seen Jack had got to the ledge and was fastening his rope to the limb which stuck out over the aidge. Then I couldn’t see him no more because that thicket was so dense and full of briars it was about like crawling through a pile of fighting bobcats. But as I wormed my way up through it I heard Bill yell, “Hey, Jack, don’t do that, you dern fool!”
“Lemme alone!” Jack hollered. “Don’t come no closter. This here is a free country! I got a right to hang myself if I wanta!”
“But it’s a damfool thing to do,” wailed Bill.
“My life is rooint!” asserted Jack. “My true love has been betrayed. I’m a wilted tumble-bug–I mean tumble-weed–on the sands of Time! Destiny has slapped the Zero brand on my flank! I–”
I dunno what else he said because at that moment I stepped into something which let out a ear-splitting squall and attached itself vi’lently to my hind laig. That was jest my luck. With all the thickets they was in the Humbolts, a derned cougar had to be sleeping in that’n. And of course it had to be me which stepped on him.
Well, no cougar is a match for a Elkins in a stand-up fight, but the way to lick him (the cougar, I mean; they ain’t no way to lick a Elkins) is to git yore lick in before he can clinch with you. But the bresh was so thick I didn’t see him till he had holt of me and I was so stuck up with them derned briars I couldn’t hardly move nohow. So before I had time to do anything about it he had sunk most of his tushes and claws into me and was reching for new holts as fast as he could rake. It was old Brigamer, too, the biggest, meanest and oldest cat in the Humbolts. Cougar Mountain is named for him and he’s so dang tough he ain’t even scairt of Cap’n Kidd, which is plumb pizen to all cat-animals.
The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume One: Crimson Shadows Page 58