The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (73 page)

Raemy Doone stared searchingly at Bekart, and there was a cold and curious light in her eyes. Raemy, Turk decided, was an astute young woman.

D
ARK WATER ROLLED
back from the ship. Turk gunned the amphibian and it lifted, the water of the black lake dropping away below. He came back slowly on the stick, skimming over the ridge and lifting the ship toward the gray clouds. In the distance, its mighty granite shoulders lost in crowding gray cumulus, was the icy mass of Amne Machin, the mountain that was a god.

Turk glanced at the altimeter. “I’m going up,” he said. “We’ll just have a look.” They adjusted their oxygen masks and climbed. Clouds came and fell away. They skimmed an ugly ridge, soared past a glacier-created peak, and climbed on. The towering peak of Amne Machin still hung over them.

“Going on up?” Ryan gestured with his thumb.

Madden shook his head affirmatively. Later, when they had descended to a lower level again, he glanced over at Ryan. “Want my guess? I’d say that peak wasn’t an inch under thirty-one thousand feet, about two thousand higher than Mount Everest! Joe Rock, one of the two white men who ever got within seventy-five miles, estimated it to be over twenty-eight thousand, but he was conservative. Some of the war flyers figured it to be over thirty-three thousand!”

“Gives me chills to look at it!” Ryan said. “Now where’s this plane we’re lookin’ for?”

“On a plateau. We should be there in a few minutes.” The Grumman slid down through scattered clouds and skimmed over a dark forest. Far below them something dark moved on the stone-covered field and vanished under the trees with a queer, bobbing run.

“What was
that
?” Raemy demanded, over Madden’s shoulder.

He shrugged. “Nothing I ever saw before. There are rumors of queer animals, animals never before seen.”

“Not even in Hollywood?” Raemy was grinning.

“We’re not speaking of varieties of wolves,” Turk said. “But only in the last few months they have been finding new animals in the Congo. A new type of rhino, a wild boar. Who knows what they’ll find up here.”

She gestured at the country below. “How much of this is unknown country?”

Madden shrugged. “Probably a chunk as big as Arizona. Tibet itself is just a shade less than the combined areas of Arizona, California, and Nevada. The population is estimated to be about the same as California’s.”

“Look, Turk!” Ryan exclaimed. “There’s the plane!”

“Stop!”
The voice was cold and deadly calm. “Fly back to the lake where we stopped last night, and start right now!”

Rigid, Turk Madden looked up. Travis Bekart, a .45 Colt in his hand, was crouching behind them. “Put this ship down,” he said, “and I’ll kill you!”

Madden’s eyes were quiet, calculating swiftly. His quick glance had assured him that Bekart had slipped into a chute harness. If he shot, he would bail out immediately.

“Why, sure!” Turk said. “If you feel that way!” Then, instantly, he snapped into a vertical bank. Hurled from his position, Bekart’s head slammed into the corner of a seat and he collapsed.

Turk glanced at him and watched Shan take the gun from the fellow’s hand, then bind them securely. Raemy watched, her eyes wide and strange.

“What got into him?” Sparrow asked, speaking to nobody in particular.

“I think,” Turk said as he skimmed back over the plane below, “that he would rather we didn’t see this ship! It makes me kind of curious!”

He banked slightly and studied the plateau thoughtfully. “What do you think, Ryan?”

“I think she looks okay. Put her down. After all, Columbus took a chance!”

“Cross your fingers then!” Turk swung around into the wind and came in for a landing. He knew he wasn’t going to like it, but here they were.

As they swooped down, Ryan suddenly touched him on the shoulder. “Pick her up,” he said, “there’s a lake in that hollow!”

Turk shot past the plateau and circled wide over the valley. Sparrow was right. There was another black lake, almost identical with the one seen previously, and here, too, there were ruined buildings, but here they surrounded the lake on three sides. The lake was scarcely more than a mile from the plane on the plateau.

Turk Madden slid down, leveled off, and came in fast, skimming the water lightly. He brushed the low waves, brushed them lightly again, and then the ship took the water smoothly and he taxied in toward another lonely, lost, and ruined town.

“This country,” Ryan said, “must have been quite a place at one time!”

Madden nodded. “Hear about that pyramid they found in Shensi? Over fifteen hundred feet high. The biggest one in Egypt is only a third of that height, and about a third of the baseline. Nobody knows anything about it. Hell, they’ll find there was civilization in China six thousand years ago before they are through!

“There’s been almost no excavation there, and none in Shensi. All we know of Chinese civilization is what we can see and read, and that’s old enough. Somebody should do some excavating in Central Asia, and in extreme western China.

“Nobody knows much about Tibet above ground, or Sinkiang, or Turkestan, so how can they figure on the ancient history?”

When the ship was anchored, Turk got out on a pier and took a rifle with him. “I’ll take Shan Bao and Miss Doone,” he said. “Stick with the ship, Sparrow. Later, we’ll leave Shan an’ you an’ me will have a look-see. Okay?”

Ryan nodded. Bekart was coming out of it. “Lie still, sweetheart,” Ryan said, “or that slap you got on the noggin will seem like a love tap.” He looked up at Turk. “Think I’ll interrogate this guy. Maybe he’ll talk.”

“Better wait until we see this ship,” Madden advised. “I’ve got an idea.”

He paused when they reached the shore. Rows of ancient buildings of time-blackened stones lined the water’s edge. Here, too, some of them were built on stone pilings over the water, evidently as a means of defense. But the city had outgrown what was evidently merely a beginning and had gone ashore, and crawled slowly around the lake. Two mountain streams flowed into the lake, which had only a very narrow visible outlet to the south.

The sky was gray and unbroken by any rift in the clouds. The air was damp, and there was a faint, musty smell. Their footsteps echoed hollowly so Turk was glad when they emerged from the age-blackened walls and started up the scarred slope of the hill.

The bomber lay on its belly some fifty yards away, a dark spot on the white snow. No landing gear was down, but wings and props were intact. Turk glanced at Raemy. “I’d better look first,” he suggested.

Her eyes flickered, frightened. “Please. Would you?”

His feet crunched on the thin snow. Here and there the wind had revealed the black rock and gravel surface of the plateau. No vegetation could be seen. The ship looked lost and alone, and his heart began to pound as he drew near. He turned as his hand touched the door and glanced back.

Raemy stood on the snow, a silent, lonely figure. She was tall and stood well up to him when they were together, but now she looked forlorn and very small. “Look!” Shan pointed.

Turk’s eyes followed the gloved finger. The cowl of the nearest engine was bullet-riddled. He felt his scalp tighten, and his eyes swept the fallen ship. Left motor shot out, tail assembly shot to shreds. The guy had performed a minor miracle to get down in one piece.

He pulled the door open. It came so easily he almost lost his balance. He peered within. It was dark and empty, with the chill of something long lifeless.

It had been looted of everything portable. If the crew had been alive when they landed, they were gone now. Perhaps to death or captivity. The steel box was missing, and there were dark stains on the instrument panel, the altimeter smashed by a bullet.

Raemy was walking toward the ship. Madden shook his head at her. “No sign of anybody, but the ship was shot down.”

“
Shot
down?” Her eyes questioned him. “By the Japanese?”

“There were no Japanese in this area. It must have been someone else.”

Her face looked old and tired. She kicked her toe into the crusted snow. “Travis?” she asked. “He flew as fighter escort—”

“Who knows? He acted strange, but it could be something else.”

“Are…any of them—”

“No.” He took her by the arm. “Want to look? I think the copilot was hurt. There’s some blood.”

Shan Bao muttered, and Turk turned. Shan was pointing at a crude cairn of stones. Raemy stumbled toward it, and they followed. Turk’s face was somber, yet when he saw the name he felt a wave of relief go over him. Scratched crudely on a stone slab atop the cairn were the words:

WILLIAM A. LYTE, LIEUT., A.A.F. KILLED OCTOBER 9, 19

The date was incomplete. “Interrupted,” Turk said, “by somebody, or something. Lyte was the copilot.”

“I should be sorry,” Raemy said, “but somehow I can only be glad it isn’t Bob.”

When they returned to the lake Ryan was waiting. “Found a building that’s intact,” he said, “a good hideout.”

“We’ll make this our base,” Madden said. “From here on we work on the ground all we can. Save gas and attract less attention. Shan can remain with the ship. We’ll go, Ryan.”

“And I,” Raemy told him.

Madden hesitated. Then he shrugged, smiling at her. “All right, but you’re inviting the risk and will have to take the consequences. From here on it will be very dangerous.”

“I know.”

She spoke quietly and seriously, and Turk looked at her again and was convinced. Ryan walked back inside, and Raemy stood there beside Madden, staring out over the lake.

“Madden,” she asked suddenly, “how do you suppose he was shot down?”

Turk hesitated. “There’s no answer to that. We’ve seen one or maybe more planes. Bekart said he couldn’t identify the one he saw. Well, I couldn’t either. They may have shot your brother down.”

Raemy looked at him. “If you think anything else, tell me.”

“It’s only a hunch, and I’ve no motive to ascribe.”

“You mean Travis?” She looked at Turk seriously.

“Well, it does seem strange, I think, that he should do everything to keep us from landing. Almost as if he knew what we would find.”

“Yes, I thought of that. But why would he do it?”

That made Turk hesitate. Raemy and her brother were both wealthy. With Bob Doone dead, all the wealth was hers. Then, if she should marry, and if after awhile she died…

“I’ve no idea,” Turk replied.

D
AWN FOUND THEM
, each carrying a rucksack and rifle, heading down the vague and ancient trail that led through the ruined city. Turk walked in the lead, followed by Raemy. Behind her was Sparrow Ryan.

The light was cold and gray, and the path mounted, skirting the side of the mountain, weaving along through canyons and up steep mountainsides. With every mile the way became steeper and the terrain more rugged. Once they heard a plane and hid, waiting until the sound died away. It was below the clouds from the sound, but it did not fly over them.

Ahead of them the canyon ended suddenly in a wide pool enclosed by a grove of willows and poplar. Beyond the grove green grass waved in a wide field!

They halted under the trees. Before them lay a long and very deep canyon at the end of which loomed the massive towers of an ancient monastery, or what appeared to be such. Nearby, several men worked over an irrigation ditch.

The monastery occupied the whole end of the valley, and buildings were constructed halfway up the steep sides at that end. Suddenly a man on horseback rode from the trees on the far side and neared the workers. He shouted angrily at one, and as the man straightened to reply the horseman felled him with a blow from the butt of a whip.

“Rough, isn’t he?” Ryan whispered.

“Wait! One of the men is coming this way.”

One of the workmen, carrying a crude wooden shovel, walked slowly toward them. Turk’s eyes narrowed. “A white man! If that’s your brother,” he whispered to Raemy, “don’t run out there! Everything depends on care now.”

The man plodded to a sluice gate and lifted it to let water into a ditch. As he leaned over, Turk spoke. “Don’t look up. If you know English, nod your head.”

The man jerked as if shot at the sound of Turk’s voice. He rested his hands on the gate, then he nodded.

“Are you from the American plane on the plateau?”

“Russky,” he said. His voice carried over the few yards of water. “Nine Yanks here. Three from that plane.”

Raemy repressed a gasp and Turk’s grip shut down hard on her arm. “You are prisoners?”

“Slaves. There are many of us. Most are Chinese. Can you help us?”

“Yes, but be careful! You work here every day?”

“Today and tomorrow. After tomorrow in a valley six miles east. There will be thirty white men.”

The horseman had turned and was watching the man at the gate. “Don’t take chances. Is the American named Doone with you?”

“Young is here. Doone is at the Domed House. I will see him tonight in prison.”

“Tell him we have come for him. Tell him we’ll find a way to help. Can we talk to one in command here?”

“No!” he said violently. “That would be fatal! She is a fiend!”

The horseman had started toward them, but was still some way off. “What are the planes?”

“There are five of them, three fighters and two transports. Be careful, I go.” The man closed the gate and shouldered his shovel.

Turk drew back and they retreated into the canyon. “You heard,” he said briefly. “Your brother’s alive. We’ve no idea what shape he’s in. If they’ve a valley like that, with so many slaves, they must have a considerable force themselves.”

“But planes?” Ryan protested. “This is fantastic!”

“Why? Some of them undoubtedly learned to fly with the Chinese. Some of the flyers might be Chinese who joined them.”

“How could anyone dream of such a place?” Raemy exclaimed.

“We’ve known for years,” Turk said, “that Tibet had monasteries full of warlike monks. We’ve known that the Lolo tribesmen kept slaves, and not long ago the Army sent men among them to search for American flyers. But if any were held as slaves you can be sure they were well hidden before the Army men got there! These Ngoloks are infinitely worse than the Lolos!”