The Threateners (36 page)

"Grab a chair and knock out that window," I said to Ruth. “Do a good job so we don’t slice ourselves too badly climbing out. I’ll try to hold them off; let me know when you’re ready.”

It was the old Custer’s Last Stand routine, except that poor old Yellowhair had had no escape window behind him, and no lovely lady, either. Suddenly I realized that I was feeling good, very good, a strange feeling for a gent who was probably about to be killed, either in this shattered dining room or out on a rocky hillside I hadn’t even seen by daylight, in a totally foreign land, the natives of which were distinctly hostile. But I’d been cautious and conservative long enough-long enough to get me here at last, close to the target. Now I could forget about being clever, which wasn’t really my forte, and concentrate on surviving, which was. I heard glass breaking behind me. With the heavy machete in my right hand and the sharp carver in my left I established, shall we say, a defensive perimeter, and made them pay bloodily for encroaching upon it. . . .

“All right, it’s ready. The ground is only some four feet down.” Ruth’s voice was still hoarse from the scarf.

“Go on out, I’ll be right after you.”

I heard her scrambling out and swearing in an unladylike manner as cloth ripped somewhere. “All right, I’m out, most of me. . . . Come on, Errol Flynn, stop playing Robin Hood or whatever! Let’s get
out
of here!”

I passed the carver back. “Hold this for me.”

It was pistol time now; and I shot one of them left-handed and the rest backed off. I handed the machete out to Ruth. The sights and sounds of combat were diminishing. Belinda was gone from the room and Ackerman was either gone or down where I couldn’t see him. Somebody, presumably a

Vasquez guard, was still putting up a tough resistance in a comer, but he was the last. The place was a wreck, but at least we’d got a good meal out of it.

I spoke to the
Compañeros
facing me: “The first one who comes out this window after us is dead.
Muerte
, get it?”

I spoke in English, but they seemed to get the general idea. Covering them, right-handed now, I backed myself out through the opening, groped for footing, and found it only a little way down. I stood up incautiously, tearing hell out of my seersucker jacket, that had hung up on a nail or something. I yanked it free.

“Ah, you found it, too,” Ruth said, a dim figure in the darkness beside me, but not so dim that I couldn’t see that something drastic and unfortunate had happened to the skirt of her linen dress. “Can we go now?”

“I’ll take the machete. You keep the knife.”

We seemed to be at the rear of the house with a steep hillside above us. I took us about thirty yards up the slope and glanced back. Nobody showed at the lighted window from which we’d come, but that wouldn’t last.

“I want you to keep going,” I said to Ruth. I looked around for a landmark. “Head for that big white rock way up there. Find a hole nearby and crawl into it and stay there. Don’t move, don’t breathe, as they say in the X-ray room. Just stay there. If somebody tries to crawl in with you, use the knife. Well, unless it’s me.”

“What . . . ? Oh, why do I bother to ask? You’re going hunting.”

“We call it creating a diversion.”

She touched my shoulder lightly. “Just don’t let them divert you, darling.”

Then she was gone. There were silhouettes at the window now. I laid aside the machete and took out the gun again, and found a steady two-handed rest on a rock, and fired once. Somebody screamed down there. I set the safety and put the gun away, picked up the machete, and climbed on after Ruth. It was easier going now that my eyes had had time to become adapted to the night and I could see the dim shapes of the rocks and brush. Somebody else was on the hillside, hurrying after Ruth, who, less accustomed to moving in the dark, was making more noise than I was. Crouching behind a bush, laying aside the machete once more, I let him go past, intent on his female quarry. I rose up and whipped the liberated scarf, the one that Ruth had been about to discard, around his neck, from behind—and the damned thing didn’t work. Well, sure, it cut off his wind all right. Any garrote will do that, but I couldn’t seem to apply the right wrenching strain to the cloth to crack the vertebrae. I’d seen Palomino do it and had the armorer demonstrate it to me, but it simply didn’t work for me; I had to pin the guy down and choke him to death. Clearly, Thuggee was not my religion. I started to hide the body, which was stupid; instead I hauled him over to a big light rock and draped him across it.

I picked up the machete again. Ruth was a pale shape above me, working her way up the hillside—mountainside, rather. With my vision still improving, I could see the distant top now, high against the night sky. The stars were very bright at this altitude, whatever it might be; they reminded me of home, where we also got some pretty fair celestial displays at night.

Below me, the hunt was getting under way. I’ve never quite understood the standard movie chase scenes where the pursuit goes on endlessly and nothing happens to anybody except perhaps a few harmless bullets bouncing off the landscape. Why doesn’t the jackass hero ever ambush his pursuers and discourage them by taking out a few of them, instead of forever running ahead of them witlessly like a rabbit, dragging the breathless heroine with him?

My light seersucker suit, although damaged and no longer immaculate, wasn’t the best uniform for night fighting, and taking off the jacket would only make things worse since my shirt was white; well, I’d just have to be careful and pick good cover. I watched them for a little and spotted one who was either more eager than the rest or had found easier going; he was well in the lead. I set a course to intercept, moving cautiously from rock to rock until I was in the right position.

Waiting for him to come to me, I heard a shout as somebody found the body I’d laid out for them. My man was looking that way, over his shoulder, trying to learn what was going on down there, when he came past me. Crouching low, I saw a leg appear and chopped with the machete. He gave a wild howl and dropped to one knee, reaching down for the place that hurt.

“Ah, Dios, Dios!”

He was in a perfect position, and I rose and swung the heavy blade with all my strength, two-handed, and almost made it at last. Well, those old boys with their big axes often had a bit of trouble doing a clean and total job, even with the neck resting on a block; that’s why the guillotine was invented. There was a lot of blood, of course, all of it in fact, as I cut the object free and set it on a high rock nearby. Crude and nasty, I admit, but you can’t afford to be fastidious with a whole religion chasing you.

They were coming my way now, drawn by the screams; but I’d heard a voice I’d recognized, taking charge down there behind me, and I had the answer now. It was an obvious answer, the first thought of every outnumbered clown in trouble, but that didn’t obscure the fact that it often worked and I didn’t have a great deal of choice. Instead of fleeing the oncoming hordes, I crawled toward them and found myself a good spot a little aside from the direct line between them and the object so clearly silhouetted on its rock. Soon the first ones were stumbling past me blind and gathering to stare up at the exhibit, jabbering angrily in Spanish. I gathered that the name had been Miguel, and that whatever he’d been alive, he was an irreplaceable treasure dead. But nobody seemed eager to pick up his head and return it respectfully to his body.

One of them spotted movement above, perhaps Ruth, perhaps just a leaf in the breeze, and they charged off in pursuit. More of them came past, paid their respects to the head, and chased after the rest. At last the lean, black-clad figure of Palomino moved past me, but a little too far away, with too many men close to him. I could have tried it, but I knew he’d stop at the head, and he did. He gave a command, and it was taken down and carried away with the body. He gave additional commands that organized a skirmish line across the mountainside. He moved aside to study the situation above, stopping only ten feet away from me. A moment later I had the pistol in his back.

It’s not the recommended way of dealing with a man trained as we are—you don’t want to get that close—but these were the folks who left guns all over the floor, so I thought I was safe in assuming that he didn’t know the firearms tricks any more than I knew how to work his lousy scarf.

“Helm?” His voice was soft.

“Who else?”

“If you shoot me, they will kill you.”

“If I don’t shoot you, they’ll kill me. Unless you tell them not to.”

“What reason have I to do that?” he asked calmly.

“I could say your life, but let’s assume that we’re both brave men who don’t fear death. But I think, if you keep me alive, you’ll find me very useful. . . . Quick now, send them off before they figure out what’s going on!”

Three or four men, coming up, had realized that something was wrong although they couldn’t tell exactly what in the dark. They were moving toward us uncertainly.

"
Jefe?
" one said questioningly.

“Go with the others.” Palomino gestured up the slope. ‘‘Join the line. You should be no more than three meters from the next man.” At least I thought that was the appropriate translation.

“Sí, jefe.”

The group went on. I said, “Well, they’re still taking your orders, but for how long with the Old One still alive and kicking and nobody willing to lay a hand on him? Seems to me your takeover is in serious trouble, amigo.”

He drew a long breath. “I was certain that the foolish gringo woman would shoot. The shot was to be the signal, as you saw, and the gun did discharge, even if accidentally. But a proper Spanish widow, avenging her husband, would have emptied the whole magazine into the body and spat on the body.”

“And if Ruth didn’t shoot, or missed, you were ready to do the job and blame it on her. Only, when the time came, you couldn’t do it. The old loyalty was too strong.”

“Loyalty!” He spat out the word. “What kind of loyalty is it that will sacrifice a man whose whole adult life has been spent in faithful service—sacrifice him for a small mistake, easily corrected.” He drew another long, ragged breath. “No. You saw. I could not shoot, either, any more than that sentimental woman. And these men, my
Compañeros
, they take my orders here, at least for the moment, but I cannot order that because they would not obey, could not obey. He has been our leader too long. He is the true high priest who has presided at all our ceremonies and interpreted all our mysteries. I thought I could do it, but I was incapable, as you saw. There is no man here who can kill
El Viejo
.”

“You’re wrong, there is one man, if you’re willing to deal,” I said.

The rooms behind the kitchen had, I suppose, originally functioned as servants’ quarters; but Vasquez had apparently chosen to make them his private suite. I couldn’t quite understand the reason for his choice at first, not until I realized that the house was level here, allowing the wheelchair a clear shot into the dining room and even to the front door, whereas the bedroom wing of the house kind of straggled down the mountainside with a step here and a couple of steps there. I once had to serve behind a wheelchair in the line of duty, not to mention having occupied one occasionally after getting myself damaged, and I remembered how all the casual little stairsteps that architects love to stick into totally unnecessary places had suddenly grown into major obstacles.

There was a man stationed at the door. Palomino waved him away and spoke to me.

“Be careful of Bo, he is very strong and dangerous.”

“Thanks, I’ve seen him in action, remember?”

“I will wait outside.” He smiled thinly. “It is all right, I will keep my word. This time. But you drive a hard bargain. I was really looking forward to enjoying the blond muchacha—the other blond muchacha.” He made a little bow of apology toward Ruth, standing beside me. “And I fail to understand why you must have the man who once ordered you killed. He is a little battered, but he would have served very well at one of our forthcoming ceremonies in which a young man who is being initiated will prove his skill with
la bufonda
.”

“That’s the scarf?” I asked. “It’s
phansi
in Hindustani, I believe, and the Indian sect employing it was first known as the Phansigars, meaning stranglers. Then of course there were the Dacoits and the Thuggees. I read up on it a little. ” I was just talking casually to keep him from realizing that my bargaining position was really pretty weak. It occurred to me that the rites in which the novices of the
Compañeros de la Hoja
proved their neck-breaking abilities might teach me what was wrong with my own scarf technique, but it didn’t seem advisable to ask for a guest card. I said, “It’s better for you this way. No more wandering
Americanos
disappearing in the wildernesses of South America; no dead Yankee agents to upset our government, very bad for business. Señor Vasquez had the right idea.”

Palomino gave me his limited smile again. “Yes, I am certain that you have my welfare much at heart. But you speak sensibly. Blood was spilled, and my people, primed for violent action, went out of control, but it is just as well they did not succeed in destroying the hated gringos as they wished. I will abide by our deal.” He glanced again toward Ruth. “Do you come with me, señora?”

“She stays here,” I said. “I need her to hold the dog.”

“Very well. I go so my people can see that, whatever happens, the blood is not on my hands.”

He strode off, and the door closed at the end of the corridor. Ruth was glaring at me.

“Hold the dog? Have you lost your mind?”

I said, “It’s just a very nice Chesapeake pup, and it never killed anybody. It’s not the Hound of the Baskervilles, and it’s time you stopped having nightmares about it.”

She said angrily, “I’m scratched and bruised and dirty, and my only good dress is in rags; and you want me to undergo amateur therapy!"

I’d had to climb up the mountain to find her—she wouldn’t have revealed her location to anybody else—and help her out of the little cave in which she’d gone to cover, hiding herself quite well, with her knife ready. But she’d broken down a bit when she realized that it was over and had clung to me tightly.