Lone Star 01 (16 page)

“Be up in a minute, I said, didn't I?” Volpes grinned and spat. “Always said chinks have cast-iron skulls.”

Nobody confirmed or denied it.

“Okay,” Volpes said, “grab him and tie him up. The boss'll want this smart turd alive.”

The five moved in with more relish than caution.

Ki scrambled upright, his face purposely fearful while he threw up both hands as if in entreaty. But what he expected didn't happen; no
shuriken
sprang from his sleeves to appear in his hands. He flicked his wrists. Still nothing. Jammed! Somehow, with all the grit and banging around, the damned release mechanisms had broken!

Not that the five crewmen were aware of this, of how near to death they had all come, as they sprang for him. Seemingly trapped by their swift convergence, Ki had time for only a
kapalabhati
cleansing breath before embracing their attack—
nukishomen-uchi
—drawing them and himself into the circular harmony of the universe.

Ki stunned the nearest man with a back-knuckled “ram's head” jab between the eyes. Without turning, without apparently seeing his target, he stabbed the second with a left-handed thumb-and-forefinger thrust to the throat, constricting the flow of blood through both jugular veins and dropping the man unconscious. Meanwhile, he stopped the man tackling from the rear with a sideways snap-kick; his solar plexus paralyzed, the man sank to his knees, convinced he was dying. But the fourth man managed to come in butting from the other side, knocking Ki just enough off balance so he could gouge his knee in the small of Ki's back and apply a full nelson.

“I got him now! Beat the shit outta him!”

“You betcha!” The fifth man grinned, plunging forward.

Using the man behind him for support, Ki bunched both legs in a flying upward thrust, his heels catching the fifth man square in the balls. The man doubled up, uttering short croaks of agony and confusion.

Then, planting his feet firmly on the ground again, Ki simply backed up. The man behind him, who had both arms and one foot engaged in the lock he had put on Ki, was thrown immediately off balance, and had to remove the knee he'd put in the small of Ki's back, to keep himself from falling. So Ki just relaxed and bent his knees and dropped out from under the full nelson, turning as he did so to deliver an elbow-strike just beneath the fellow's breastbone. The man went down, and Ki was just preparing to finish the job with a heel to the groin, when he felt the press of cold steel against his temple.

“You move,” Volpes said coldly, “and I'll blow your fuckin' pigtail brains out.”

Slowly, Ki lowered the foot he was planning to stomp with and stood motionless. His face became taut, expressionless, as the rifle continued to bore into his temple.

The five fallen men began stirring, crawling and gasping raggedly, then tottering upright, holding themselves, hacking and wheezing.

“S‘mbitch,” the one who'd been hit in the balls croaked. He was still in a crouch, one hand cupped over his groin. “The bastard's nailed. C'mon, let's pay him back!”

The men all staggered forward, lunging at Ki. They were big, husky, range-toughened brawlers, used to absorbing a lot of punishment and dishing it back out. Yet it was likely none of them would have been alive, much less standing, if Ki hadn't been caught weakened and groggy, before he'd had a chance to revive his flagging energy. But he had been caught, so the men were standing, crowding in, while Volpes held Ki at bay with his finger tight around the trigger.

The infuriated men surged forward, bent on revenge, arms seizing and fists smashing. Ki stumbled, blinding pain seeming to shatter his skull. He was pulled to the ground, dragged and kicked.

“Hey, don't kill him! He's worth somethin' alive!”

Ki gritted his teeth against the brutal impact of boots. He fought his way to his feet again, using fists, elbows, teeth, knees, his entire body as a weapon. But it was useless. Despite his spirit, his defiant will, Ki was only human—a human being whose mind and body were exhausted from his brush with the murderous stampede, and drained of their inner force. Blackness overcame him again, and he slumped unconscious to the trail.

His senses returned gradually, as numbed impressions:

The bent-over hunch of his body ...

Jarring pain in his wrists, ankles, and belly . . .

The sight of moonlit ground moving past him at the pace of a horse's walk, and the sound of a complaining voice in back of him ...

One other thing Ki knew: he was alive.

He finally became aware of the fact he was tied hand and foot, and that he was jackknifed over a saddle. Craning his head about, he caught sight of two Ryker crewmen, one in front and the other behind him; and of Volpes riding point, mounted on a close-coupled grullo that bore the Snake-Eyes brand on its rump.

“Dunno why the boss picked me to go,” the rider in back was whining. “My guts're all busted up inside from that kick, I just know they are, and this jouncin' hurts like pissin' hell.”

“Shut up bellerin' like a sick calf,” Volpes retorted harshly. “You ain't half as bad off as Mike or Lonnie are, and Fletch here, he can't talk much above a squeak after his throat got squozed.”

The riders lapsed into silence, emerging out onto a thin strip of a pass between the mountains and the foothills. They were high, Ki realized, and climbing higher, on a wandering, little-used trail no better than an animal track. More than that, he couldn't tell.

Ki closed his eyes and slumped his head, and quietly tested the ropes binding him. They were tight and well-knotted—but not tight or knotted enough. A slight, hu morless smile creased his mouth as he twisted and flexed his wrists and ankles, sensing the weak points. The men, having put their faith in the ropes restraining him, would be less watchful and cautious.

He relaxed then, feeling a bit more confident, and began rebuilding his vital psychic strength. Calming his mind, Ki focused his concentration on an internal point just below his navel, the place the Chinese call
tan t‘ien.
As he adjusted his breathing, he continued pressuring the ropes lightly with his wrists and ankles, but he made no overt move to break loose; he was more concerned with restoring his essential energy, and was willing to wait, playing the prisoner, to learn why he was alive. It was no accident; Ki did not believe in luck, but in cause and effect. So there was a reason why he hadn't been killed. To be questioned, he supposed, though he sensed there was more to it than that ...

For all its meandering, the trail kept generally climbing. In single file, the riders crossed a winding bench and passed through a cloaking pine forest, coming out on the sharp-breaking rim of a narrow canyon. The timber and brush closed down so thickly that the canyon could not have been discovered, even in full daylight, until it was actually entered.

The men veered northward, angling once more over sloping ground until, between two towering rocks, a break in the jagged canyon rim disclosed another ribbony path. As they turned onto it, a guard on the connecting rim came out to the edge, where he could be seen outlined against the soft, starry sky. He did not yell a challenge, but waved questioningly with his arms. Volpes signaled the guard to go on with his job of watching, and they continued along the second trail.

The going was slower now, long night shadows cast by the surrounding mountains blanketing the canyon in darkness. Before he saw the shallow creek, Ki heard Volpes's grullo splashing into the water, followed by the others. They progressed up the stream, its bed widening and deepening as it flowed down around a bend in the now narrowing canyon wall.

Turning the bend himself, Ki glimpsed a point ahead where the two canyon walls apparently joined together to form a land bridge. The water was now up to the withers of the horses, pouring out of what appeared to be the end of a box, over a waterfall some twenty feet in height and about ten wide.

First Volpes and then the next rider disappeared under the falls. Having no choice, Ki moved under the cascading sheet after them, his clothes and aching flesh becoming drenched in the frigid mountain water beating down over him and the horse. On the right, pale moonlight filtered through a narrow passage. They rode into the vague opening, and almost immediately emerged into another, much smaller canyon that was hardly more than a natural pocket dug in the hills.

Not far inside the pocket was a bare-earthed clearing, fronting an elongated log cabin with a flat roof. A few steps from its door were the smoldering embers of a campfire, the silhouettes of three or four men spread out around it. If there were more men in the camp, they were sleeping in the small tarpaper-roofed shacks that dotted the scrub flanking the house; but Ki suspected the shacks were empty, the men out chasing a scattered herd of terrified steers.

They rode across the clearing and up before the main cabin. The door opened and a young woman stepped outside, holding a brass night lamp, and looking puffy-eyed and irritated at the men as they dismounted. The two crewmen moved away, out of range of Ki's limited vision. Volpes went up to the girl and said something too low for Ki to hear; and she said something back that was also inaudible, though, judging by the sharpness of its tone, it was probably a rebuke. Ki guessed she was Volpes's girl.

Volpes turned around and walked toward Ki, the girl trailing grudgingly, evidently having been told that her lamp was required. Volpes stopped beside Ki and unsheathed a Green River knife. The girl eased closer, shining the lamp on Ki, her other hand clutching the neck of a long raglan coat, which was draped open around her shoulders, over her nightgown.

Her nightgown was the sort beloved by maiden aunts, of thick daisy-cloth flannel gathered at a yoke in front and back, making it hang very full. But it didn't matter, not on her. Her breasts were plump and high, their large nipples protruding out from the already straining material; and she was leggy down to the warped, mud-caked cowboots that peeked beneath the hem of her gown. Her hair was wrapped in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and was as raven-black as her eyes, and her butternut-brown face was heart-shaped and matched her body's promise of sensual passion.

One other thing Ki noticed: the girl was Eurasian.

Ki managed a slight nod.
“Yü nü,”
he said.

“Hello yourself.” Her black eyes widened, curious, though her mouth remained drawn in a hard, suspicious line.

Volpes had jerked as if bitten. “You've got a fat lip that's gonna get fatter,” he snarled, slicing the rope that held Ki down across the saddle.

Ki dropped like a feed sack to the ground, landing on his side. His skull still throbbed and his brains felt as if they were scrambled, from the twin knockouts suffered from the herd and the crewmen. He lay still, breathing through his mouth, as he felt Volpes cut the ropes around his ankles. Then he was hauled to his feet.

“Fletch, goddmam it, c‘mere,” Volpes yelled, and the man Ki had jabbed in the throat hastened out from the side of the cabin, running bowlegged while he buttoned his fly.

“Put this sassy-assed sonofabitch in the empty shed ‘round back,” Volpes told him. “And make sure he stays there, 'y‘hear?”

Fletch nodded, and pushed Ki ahead of him, causing Ki to stumble slightly, and Ki used the opportunity to glance back and see if the girl was looking his way.

She was, frowning as if perplexed while she stood with Volpes's arm possessively around her waist. Ki grinned. She stiffened, then was hurriedly propelled toward the cabin door, Volpes gripping her tighter and muttering curses.

Ki was pushed forward again, across the yard and along the cabin to the rear, where off to one side stood a small plank-walled shanty with a dark, gaping door. Fletch shoved him inside, and the door slammed shut, and he heard a padlock snapped in heavy chain.

Ki placed his ear against the door. When he could no longer hear Fletch's receding footsteps, he slid down onto the floor and rested his back against the board wall. For a while he merely sat relaxing, and then he began freeing his wrists from the rope.

Focusing all his concentration on the task, Ki purposely dislocated the bones of his wrists, then his hands, even his nimble fingers. Then, by merely twisting and stretching his ligaments and muscles, he slowly wormed his limp, formless flesh through the encoiling bonds. The rope dropped empty to the floor behind his back.

Snapping his bones back into place, Ki swiftly checked his vest pockets. They were all empty, as were his shirt and pants pockets. His daggers were gone, and even his jammed devices holding the
shuriken
were missing. Obviously he'd been searched while he'd been unconscious that second time; and once the men had found the first of his secreted weapons, they must have turned him virtually inside out to locate the rest. He was fortunate to have been left his clothes. Grinning mirthlessly, Ki wondered what they must have thought when they discovered his devices.

He stood, stretching his cramped muscles, and started to cautiously feel around the dark, gloomy shed. He quickly realized that when Volpes had called it empty, he'd been telling the truth.

He settled on the floor again, and fell asleep.