The Temple Dancer (19 page)

When she looked up from the falling elephant, Maya saw Geraldo's mount
rearing and whistling in terror. Geraldo clung to the beast's arching back as
it bucked and skittered toward the packhorses.

But then her mind went blank, and her vision exploded in a thousand
stars. Only when she fell backward did the pain come. Above her she
looked into the quivering face of Slipper. "Bitch! Bitch!" he screamed. His
fat cheeks flared scarlet, and he shook his hand as if the blow he'd given her
had broken his fingers. "You nearly killed me!" He continued to shriek,
but in a language she did not know.

She had fallen on her bag. She felt the corners of her wooden boxes
poke against her skin, and also the stones of the road that cut into her back.
She was too tired to stand, and feared that if she did Slipper would strike
her again. Her arm hurt.

With an almost languid slowness, she turned her face from the eunuch.
From this position she could again see Geraldo and the ponies as they
stumbled down a narrow embankment road. Whether he drove the pack
ponies before him, or was being dragged behind them, she could not tell.
His hands flailed the air, for he had lost the reins.

More shots rang out, mingling with the ringing in her hurt ear, and
Slipper's incoherent shrieks. The bitter smoke of Chinese powder drifted
over the rain-wet rocks.

"Get up! You whore, get up!" Slipper shrieked, lifting his hand to
strike her again. "We're going to die, you bitch!"

She blocked his blow and scrambled to her feet. "Where is Deoga?"
she cried. She could barely hear her own voice for her ear ringing.

But Slipper's face had suddenly gone ashen, and his eyes wide. She
turned and saw what he saw: another bandit, driving his pony for them at
full speed, holding his wide sword like a scythe for their necks. She threw
herself against the eunuch, pitching Slipper on to the road just as the blade
whistled above their heads.

The bandit galloped forward, heading straight for one of Pathan's
horsemen. The guard held his sword as steady as a lance, but his bedouin
crabbed and cantered. He wanted to attack but his horse wanted to flee,
and so they churned uselessly; and all the while the bandit and his pony
drove forward like a shot arrow.

The guard's bedouin reared just as the bandit galloped past, and the
bandit's wide sword sliced through the horse's belly. A spray of blood
erupted from the gash. The guard slid from his saddle as the bedouin collapsed beneath him. The bandit wheeled round for a new attack.

Before the guard had looked up, the bandit's wide sword hacked
halfway through his neck.

A shot rang out, echoing from the cliff walls. Maya swung her head
around, but could not find the source. She pushed herself from Slipper. The
eunuch covered his head with the tails of his shirt, clutched his ears, and
sobbed.

The bandit struggled to tug his sword from the guard's neck. The
bedouin shuddered and died. Blood still pumped from the wound in its belly,
a scarlet stream that inched along the wet stones toward Maya and Slipper.

Another shot rang out, pinging as it ricocheted from the nearby rocks.
The bandit managed to yank his sword free. His eyes had found Maya's.
She saw that his eyes were empty, that a coldness flew from them like
knives that sought her heart. Later she remembered the dirt on his stubbled
cheeks, the sinews that pulsed in his neck. At that moment she saw only his
eyes black as death. Once they found her, the bandit's eyes never left hers.
She could not understand why he looked at her with such fury.

Another shot. Both the bandit and Maya glanced toward the sound. It
was Da Gama, riding toward them. He held his reins high in his left hand,
in his right hand a gun. He dropped the smoking pistola like an empty
husk and let it fall to the road without a glance, then reached behind into
his saddlebag for another.

Again he shot. The bandit's pony collapsed-Da Gama's round had
shredded through its hindquarters. The bandit flailed to avoid getting
pinned beneath it. The wild-eyed pony dragged its lifeless rear legs, whistling
and screaming. Its cries drowned out even Slipper's mindless wails.

As though the pony's shrieking infuriated him, the bandit turned and
slammed his sword into its neck. The pony squirmed and twisted and died.
Steam rose from the blood on the bandit's sword as he turned to face Da
Gama.

Maya saw that Da Gama had again dropped his smoking pistola and
readied a new one. The bandit's eyes had once more locked on her. She
drew back as he marched relentlessly toward her with his wide blade held
high. His cold rat eyes bored into Maya's. Despite herself, Maya could not
look away.

Then the bandit's face disappeared. For an instant in its place she saw a
red pulp, like a sponge dipped in paint, and then the bandit's head exploded. He spun and fell like a broken doll. His stained sword clattered
inches from her feet in the puddle of bedouin's blood. She never heard the
shot, although she could hear its echo still ringing through the canyon.

Once more Da Gama dropped his empty pistol to the road and took
out a fresh one. Maya hardly recognized him now; his friendly, bemused
look had disappeared; instead she now saw a face grown fierce, bared teeth
clinched tight. Da Gama dismounted cavalry style, swinging his leg over
his horse and sliding to the ground while he kept his pistola level. His head
spun at every tiny sound.

Da Gama glanced at her and nodded. Keeping watchful, he sidestepped
to the body of the guard, and bent down to check the pulse. Only when he
was sure the horseman was dead did he make his way to Maya and the
weeping Slipper. There was no need to check the bandit.

"How badly is he hurt?" he asked. But he kept his pistola high and did
not look at either of them, only snatching glances as he scanned the rocks.
At their feet, Slipper had fallen into breathless whimpering, but he still
clutched his shirt ends over his head. His pink belly quivered as he sobbed.

"I don't think he's hurt at all," Maya answered.

"Scared, then," Da Gama said. He shot a quick glance at Maya. "And
you?"

"I twisted my arm."

"That all?" She nodded, and he seemed to understand though his eyes
were elsewhere. His left hand fished in a pocket and produced a kerchief.
"You've blood on your face. I don't think it's yours."

Maya wiped her face as Da Gama moved to the road's edge and looked
down.

"Shit," he said.

Maya peered down-the plummet took her breath. A long way down
she saw the twisted body of the mahout, and below him the carcass of the
elephant, its gray belly split open like a fruit. "Alive?" she whispered.

"It doesn't matter," Da Gama replied. There was no sign of Lucy, nor
of Pathan. Maya stepped back from the edge, horrified, grateful to still be
alive. Da Gama's face looked broken by the sight. "Can you help me with
the eunuch?" he asked her.

Together they tugged Slipper's plump arms and staggered down the
road. Da Gama led them to a place where the road widened, and an overhang of rock formed a kind of shelter. The last of Pathan's guards lay there,
stretched beneath a saddle blanket, breathing hard. An arrow protruded
from his eye.

"Is he dead?" Slipper whimpered.

"Nearly," Da Gama said. Da Gama once more turned to the road, with
pistola held high. "You stay here. I'll just get my horse," he said.

"Let me come with you," Maya said, and after a moment's decision, Da
Gama nodded.

"Did you see anything of Geraldo?" he asked as they walked. Maya
told him how he and the packhorses had galloped down an embankment
road. The information was just one more item that Da Gama would have to
sort out later.

They found Da Gama's mare pacing nervously around the bodies of
dead men and horses. He gentled it and led it from the blood-soaked rocks.
"Let's get back to the eunuch," he said.

"What about Lucinda and Captain Pathan?" Maya said. When she said
the names, they hung in the air, like names of the newly dead.

"I don't know," Da Gama said.

"Are we in danger still?"

"I don't know. I don't know what's going on. My plans have all gone
wrong. I made a big mistake coming here." As they walked back, Da Gama
stooped from time to time to pick up a pistola he earlier had dropped.

When they neared the overhang, Slipper shuffled to them on his tiny
feet. "He moaned at me!" he wailed. "How can he moan with an arrow in his
eye?"

"Yes, yes," Da Gama answered angrily. He tethered his horse and sat
near the injured man, smoothing his hand over the horseman's forehead.
"There's nothing we can do for him."

"If he hasn't the sense to die, then kill him!" Slipper whispered.

"No. We don't do such things." Slipper sniffed and huddled a little way
off. Da Gama reached into his pack and handed a pistola to Maya. "Ever
work one of these?" She shook her head. "Pull this back until it locks," he
said, pointing to the flint-hammer. "Then point it and pull here." He
wrapped her small fingers around the pistola's oiled grip, and glancing at her
face as if to check her resolve, not her understanding. "I've got to reload."

"Do you think we're still in danger, Da Gama?" Maya asked.

His silence told her everything.

He hauled the saddlebag from his horse's back and sat near a flat rock.
He took out five or six loaded pistolas from the bag and laid them in a line;
next to them the fired pistols that he had not dropped. "Listen to me," he
said as he worked. "You have to be steady to hit the target, especially from
a distance." He opened a small leather bag of shot, and a flask of Chinese
powder. "If you really mean to kill someone, let him get close to you."

Maya took this in without a word. "I didn't expect this," Da Gama
muttered as he reloaded. He might have been talking to himself. "This, after we paid them off! You can't trust even thieves these days." His hands
moved quickly, angrily. A stiff brush down the barrels of the fired guns.
One or two had misfired; these he poked at but heaved away.

Only when she saw the fury with which he hurled those useless pistolas
against the mountain wall did Maya realize the depth of his fears, and of her
danger. Da Gama took up the other pistolas and began to load them: powder
down the barrel, followed by a twist of cotton torn from a dusty wad. He had
begun to sweat. He tamped the powder, taking a hurried glance over the
road. Then the shot. This was more elaborate: Da Gama placed a round between his teeth and bit down on it, then wiped it dry on his shirt. He pressed the now misshapen round into the iron barrel, grunting with the effort it
took to push it with the tamping stick. His hand slipped and he gashed a
knuckle. He topped off the firing pan with a final dose of powder, and placed
the loaded pistola in the line on the flat rock. Then he started on the next.
When he finished there were nine, and also the one in Maya's hand.

After the horror of the bandits' deaths, Da Gama's work, so unexpectedly precise, comforted Maya. Slipper had crept into some nearby bushes,
where he squatted and grunted with his efforts. She tried not to watch.

Da Gama's mare pranced nervously. Thunder rumbled in the distance
and the sky grew dark. A huge drop of rain splattered at Maya's feet, and
another, and another. Da Gama gathered up his pistolas and shoved a couple
into his belt and the rest into his saddlebag. "Cover the hammer with your
hand," he said to Maya.

Rain pelted from the sky in big, stinging drops. "Oh, Allah!" Slipper
cried as he ran up to the others, tugging on his silk trousers. "What more
can go wrong?"

Then they heard the hoofbeats.

Lucinda's dress hung in tatters. Clinging to his bare shoulders, Lucinda felt
Pathan's fierce breath and the effort of his running. Lucinda wished that
she were lighter. She could hear the sound of hoofbeats growing louder.

"We're not far from the others now," Pathan told her. They came to a
turn in the road. "Here," he panted, his voice little more than a gasp.

But when they made the turn, Pathan slowed and nearly dropped Lucinda. Before them was a body, facedown, a deep gash across its back. The
relentless sound of hoofbeats approached. Pathan stepped over it. "Do not
look, madam," Pathan said, recovering his wits.

Lucinda did close her eyes, but only for a moment, and only after she
had looked, and then only out of sorrow. She could no longer hide from
what faced them. There were more bodies on the road. "Dear God," Lucinda whispered as they passed.

At last Pathan slowed, and stopped. They had come to a narrow landing.
A neem tree, growing horizontal from the cliffs above them, gave a little shelter. "If any of our people survived, they have fled, madam. I'm sure that some got away. We can pray so. But for now we are on our own, I fear." He
nodded to some rocks near the grove. "Let me help you down, madam."

"I can walk if you will give me your arm to lean on," Lucinda answered.
With Pathan's help, she limped to a nearby rock and falteringly sat down.
"What will you do now?"