The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (55 page)

“Hello,” he said cheerfully. “Did I come at the wrong time?”

She stiffened and swallowed a scream. “Jim, are you mad? If they find you here, they’ll kill you. You’ve got to get away!” She caught him by the arm. “You must—now!”

“After all my trouble getting here? Anyway, why are you worried? And whose team are you on, anyway?”

“Not on theirs,” she said. “But I have to be careful. And you’re too good a dancer to die young.”

He grinned. “Shucks, and I thought it was my boyish smile. All right, tell me one thing and I’ll go. Where is Don Ricardo’s room?”

Her face paled. “You mustn’t. That would be insane.”

“Tell me,” he insisted. “The longer you stall, the greater the danger.”

“Across the hall and the third door on your left.”

He walked to the door, and turning the key, glanced out. The hall was empty. He stepped out and pulled the door shut softly. Then he walked quietly across the hall to the third door. He touched the knob, and it turned gently under his hand.

Ponga Jim Mayo opened the door and stepped in—and found himself looking into the business end of a Luger in the hands of Hugo Busch.

“So,” the German said. “We meet again.”

Jim said nothing. The German’s left hand was holding the telephone handset which had evidently just been replaced on the cradle. Carisa! Could she—

The door opened behind him, and then he heard Valdes’s crisp voice. “May I ask what this means?” he demanded.

“The American came in, I followed,” Busch said, shrugging. “How he got here, I don’t know.”

“Don Ricardo,” Ponga Jim said coolly, “do you think if he followed me in that I would be standing near the door? I came in and found him.”

“He lies,” Busch snapped. “What would I be doing in your rooms?”

Valdes looked at the German thoughtfully. “What, indeed? Nevertheless, Herr Busch, it will bear thought. Now, if you like, take him away. I must dress for dinner.”

W
ITHOUT A WORD
Busch marched Ponga Jim to a square building near the stables. The windows were heavily barred. A man working nearby glanced up and saw Jim, then went on repairing a wagon, uninterested.

Hugo Busch, keeping carefully out of reach, swung open a cell door and pushed Jim inside. Then, suddenly, and before Mayo could turn, Busch struck him over the head with the gun barrel.

Jim staggered and almost went to his knees, then Busch hit him again. Ponga Jim tottered against the wall, blood running into his eyes from a cut scalp, blinded by pain and the ruthlessness of the sudden attack. Calling a guard, Busch handed the soldier the gun. Then he turned around and walked up to Jim.

“So? You come to cause trouble, eh? We’ll see about that. Maybe I’ll give you all the trouble you want.”

His left smashed Jim on the jaw, knocking him across the cell. Ponga Jim pawed blindly at his face to get the blood out of his eyes.

On the second jab, Jim went under it and smashed Busch under the heart with his right. Before Busch could clinch, Jim hooked a left to the jaw and jarred the German to his heels.

Bursting with rage, Hugo Busch rushed back. Using all the power and skill that had once carried him to the Olympics he went to work. Blinded by blood and pain from the two brutal blows with the gun, Jim could get no power into his blows. Busch came up with a sweeping hook that lifted Mayo bodily and knocked him against the wall. He hit hard, slipped to the floor, and his head banged against the steel cot.

In a bloody haze, he tried to get up, and slipped back. He felt a heavy kick in the ribs, then another, but consciousness slipped from him, and he lay still.

It was dark when he opened his eyes, pitch dark. He rolled over, his body one endless wave of pain. Struggling, he got his knees under him and straightened. His head felt heavy and rolled on his neck. Fumbling, he felt of his face. It was cut and swollen, and his head had two long gashes from the gun barrel, and a big lump from the blow against the cot.

How long he stayed on his knees he did not know, but suddenly, he came to himself and got up. Then he was suddenly sick, and going to the corner, retched violently. Feeling around, he found a bucket of water, took a long drink, then poured some in the basin and splashed it over his face and head.

Then he lay down on the cot and after a while, he fell asleep. It was morning when he awakened.

A
FUMBLING OF
a key in the lock awakened him, and he staggered to his feet to see Hugo Busch come in, stripped to the waist. The man was muscled powerfully, and he grinned at Mayo. There was a welt on his jaw, and a bit of a blue lump over one eye.

“Ready for a workout?” Busch grinned.

Unbelieving, Jim saw the man meant to beat him again. Busch walked up and swung his open hand at Jim’s face. Bleary from the frightful beating of the night before, Mayo could barely roll his head out of the way, but Busch missed his careless slap, and it made him angry.

He jabbed a left at Jim’s cut eye, and Jim started to go under it, but Busch was ready and dropped the left. The punch took Mayo between the eyes, and grabbing suddenly, he got Busch by the arm and jerked him into a right to the body. The punch lacked force, but had enough to hurt.

Busch tried to get loose, but Ponga Jim clinched and hung on.

Then the fighter broke free and went to work like a butcher at a chopping block. When the German left, he was covered with blood—Jim Mayo’s blood. He laughed harshly.

“I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll be back tomorrow. We’re going to put you in a ring to see how you Americans take it.”

Ponga Jim backed up and sat down. After he had bathed his face again, he lay down and stared up at the ceiling through his swollen eyes. He had to get out. In time these beatings would kill him. If he had a chance to recover, and could start from scratch, it might be different. Now, there was no chance. Or was there?

For a long time he thought, and out of the thinking came a dim memory of a fight he had seen ten years before, of a fellow who used a Kid McCoy type of stunt. Out of that memory came a plan.

But it was a plan that covered only one phase. It did not cover escape. He had to get away, had to get out and let the authorities know what was being planned here.

It was then he heard the plane. Only a few minutes later, another, then several at once. He sat up abruptly. The transports were coming. That meant the day was soon to come.

I
N THE MORNING
he was still stiff and sore. He was battered, and he knew his cuts would open easily. A glance into a mirror showed he was hardly to be recognized. But he shadow-boxed a little to loosen up, and rubbed his muscles. He was, he knew, in no shape for such a battle as he would now have. But he was in better shape than Hugo Busch believed.

Valdes was with them when they came to get him. He frowned when he saw Ponga Jim’s face.

“Been giving it to you, has he? Well, I don’t like it.”

Jim said nothing, and he was led to a ring that had been pitched in the open under some trees. Seats had been placed around, and there were at least thirty German officers there. One of them, an elderly man, scowled when he saw Mayo’s face. He put a monocle in his eye and studied Jim briefly. Then he removed the monocle and started away. He took three steps but then walked back briskly.

“Good luck,” he said briefly. “For myself, I don’t care for this sort of thing.”

Ponga Jim was stripped to the waist, and they were tying on the gloves when he looked up to see Carisa coming down the lane with Don Pedro and Von Hardt. She involuntarily put a hand to her mouth when she saw Jim’s face.

Busch got into the ring, and Jim barely had time to take the piece of tissue paper from under his arm and put it a little higher, so it would not be noticed. The action passed unseen.

Someone struck a bell, and Busch walked out. Jim came to meet him, then lifted his left arm. From the armpit the thin sheet of tissue paper floated toward the floor.

For an instant, Busch stared. Involuntarily, his hands dropped. An instant only, but it was enough. Ponga Jim threw his right high and hard.

There was a sodden smack, then Hugo Busch crumpled to the canvas without so much as a sound.

For a moment, there was dead silence. Then, from the crowd there arose a roar of anger, mingled with a few cries of approbation, and one definite hand clap. It was from the elderly officer with the monocle.

Lifted from the floor, Busch was showered with water. For an instant he stared, wondering. Then with a cry of rage, he shook off his handlers and rushed.

“Enough.”

The voice did not seem loud, but suddenly everyone froze. Even Hugo Busch stopped his rush in midstride.

Not a dozen feet away, standing alone at the edge of the crowd, was Armando Fontes.

In his right fist he held his huge pistol. It was aimed at Don Pedro Norden!

CHAPTER IV

Armando Fontes was holding a large sweet potato in his left hand, and was gnawing at it contentedly. He was still wearing his soiled whites. His belt barely retained his bulging stomach.

“If you move,” Fontes said, “I will kill Don Pedro. Señor Mayo, get out of the ring and walk to me.”

For just a moment there was startled silence.

Ponga Jim, holding his breath, crawled through the ropes. Only then did anyone move. A German officer, at the opposite end of the line from Don Pedro, reached for his gun.

Fontes scarcely seemed to move, but the gun roared, and the German fell facedown, blood spattering the ground.

“Next time, Don Pedro,” Fontes said, undisturbed, “it is you. If you no want to die, tell these men to stand still.”

“Don’t move,” Norden said. “The fool really will shoot.”

Fontes backed slowly away after Jim Mayo. Around the corner of the stable, the Brazilian wheeled about and darted between two sheds. Almost at once a heavy cart laden with hay moved into the space, and a silent, unspeaking
obrero
began to work over the wheel.

Fontes knew his way. Quickly, and with devious turns, he led Mayo into the rocks along the side of Mount Jua. Behind them, men were scattering out. The cart in the opening between the sheds would delay pursuit. It would save a minute, perhaps two, for the line of stables and sheds was unbroken for some distance in either direction. And every second counted.

Armando, for all his weight, moved with surprising agility. He stopped once to hand Jim his .45 Colt.

“I take it from the guard,” he said, “the
carabinero
was angry—but no matter.”

Only a few paths led across the face of Mount Jua at this point. Don Pedro had obviously planned to have the mountain protect his rear, and certainly, only one who knew the paths could have traveled where Fontes was going.

Surprisingly, at the foot of the mountain trail the battered Model A was standing in the shade. They got in, and the motor coughed into life. Over a rocky, broken road, Fontes guided the car, seemingly more by instinct than sight.

“You saved me a beating,” Ponga Jim Mayo said.

The Brazilian shrugged. “I don’t like those men. They make troubles.”

P
ONGA
J
IM WENT
into the side entrance of the hotel and reached his room unnoticed. Armando sat down on the bed and took off his torn fedora, wiping his forehead.

“Is hot,” he said. He looked solemn. “I wished to shoot him, that Don Pedro.”

There was a light tap on the door, then even as Ponga Jim’s gun slid into his hand, the door opened and Juan Peligro stepped in. He glanced quickly at Fontes.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

Mayo introduced them. Quickly, Peligro turned to Jim. “I have located your ship. It is in the Acaraú River. There are twenty men aboard, men other than your crew.”

Ponga Jim explained quickly what he had overheard at the Castillo Norden, and what had happened there. When his story ended, Peligro looked at Fontes with respect.

“You could work for me, my friend,” he said.

Armando shrugged. “It is no good work for other man,” he said. “I work for myself. When I want to rest—I rest—want to work, I work. I like it this way.”

Suddenly, a car rolled up to the front of the hotel. They all heard it. They also heard the sharp commands as men unloaded. Ponga Jim rushed for the door just in time to see a file of Norden’s thugs come up the steps. He ducked back into the room. It was empty.

He stared about, unbelieving. But Peligro and Fontes were gone. Then he noticed the open window, its curtain blowing in the light breeze. A fist pounded on the door, and there was a sharp command to open.

Ponga Jim went out the window to the ledge, then dropped to the roof of the shed below it, and then into the street. A German rushed at him. They grappled for an instant, then Jim broke free and punched him solidly in the jaw.

Even as the man dropped, Jim jerked open a door and walked into a cantina. He walked through to the next street, went outside, dodged through the light traffic, and stepped into the car in front of his own hotel. It was a large, powerful car from the Castillo Norden.

The man on guard at the door of the hotel wheeled as the motor roared into life. Then as the guard realized what was happening, he raised his gun and took careful aim. Ponga Jim was dead in his sights, and for an instant, Mayo looked death in the face.

From across the street there was a great coughing gunshot. The soldier folded, his rifle going off harmlessly into the air. Even as Ponga Jim let the clutch out, he saw Armando Fontes, his huge pistol dangling in his fingers, leaning against the corner of the building across from the hotel.

The big car swung into a curve, and Jim stepped down on the accelerator and opened her up. Whatever else she had, the car had power. He headed out the road toward Castillo Norden, and when the car hit the highway it was doing ninety.

Norden’s road was guarded. That was all right with Mayo. He roared past the first guard station with the motor wide open, and saw two men waving wildly as he went through.

Peligro had told him just where the amphibian was. It was gassed up and kept ready for instant flight. If he could get to it, and away, things would start to look up.