E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action Page 12

  “We were afraid you’d mistrust us, Major. But if we send one man, will you let him come back without hurt?”

  “Send six,” he countered.

  She laughed, derisively. “Half of us? Oh, no!”

  “Send six,” he repeated, “with guns. That will make us even. Neither side can risk any tricks.”

  Yasmini studied him for a moment. “I don’t know whether he’ll accept anything of the sort. You’re desperate.”

  Slade laughed. “Desperate enough to gamble on wiping out six men, and then with what’s left of us, tackle the others? If they’re afraid, I’ll go out into the open until one of yours is in the open, gun in hand. Then Shir Dil steps out. If we fire on your one man, the others will have two of us in the open.”

  She nodded. “I’ll go back and tell Marouf.”

  “Your cousin, Marouf?”

  Yasmini smiled over her shoulder, and gave him a coquettish wave of the hand, as she went with his proposal.

  Slade repeated to the guards and Shir Dil what he had proposed; he concluded, “And no false moves. It’ll soon be dusk. This is to keep them amused until I take my turn. Understand?”

  Ram Singh answered for the Sikhs: “Understanding, and we do it, sahib.”

  Yasmini waved her scarf from the rain channel, and called, “Marouf says it is good. He waits for you to come.”

  Slade would have stepped from the protecting shadows, but Diane, who had heard the bargaining, caught him from one side.

  “Don’t,” she begged. “You’re the key man, she knows it.”

  Slade jerked free. “They’re lousy shots!”

  Though he had lost little time between summons and response, the interlude had been the cue for another actor. Kellam, stepping from a corner in which, unnoticed, he had been sitting, made for the tunnel mouth. He was empty-handed, though he had a pistol in his hip pocket.

  “Hey, you!” Slade called, as Kellam brushed past.

  “Let it be!” Shir Dil warned, catching Slade’s belt and yanking him back. “Two go out, they think trouble.”

  “Now the scums think I’m scared, and they’ll get cocky!”

  Between Kellam and the old Pathan, the damage had been done. Then, out on the shelf, a tall man popped up from the earth, and shouted, “Here I am, send your next!”

  “Bad light,” Shir Dil explained, “they don’t see good, they don’t know him, don’t know you.”

  Slade went out. The shelf was already banded with long shadows. “No matter what tricks they pull,” he whispered when he reached Kellam’s side, “get that man first.”

  From another rain slash, a second bandit got up, rifle ready, and joined Marouf. Slade then called, “All right, Shir Dil.”

  The old man pounced out, alert yet bold. Another tall fellow from the opposing side came out of a crevice; but there the only response to Slade’s call was Ram Singh’s explanation, “Enough to talk now. We stay with the memsahib, by order.”

  Slade couldn’t argue. Instead, he called to the bandits, “Shabash! This is enough. We’ll come over to talk to you.” Then, in a low voice, to the men at his left, “Nothing else I could do, or they’d make the most of knowing nobody’ll back me.”

  A few yards from the visible bandits, the trio halted. Greetings were ceremonious; compliments were elaborate. During the exchange, Slade was convinced that at least two of the three negotiators were familiar. Karim, who sat next to Marouf, had lost three front teeth. His mouth was still bruised, and he took little part in the talk.

  Slade had seen them previously only once, and by moonlight; but that instant before his leap into Yasmini’s courtyard had been one during which details were indelibly impressed. When Shir Dil nudged him, there was no doubt left at all; the nudge meant to Slade, “These fellows would rather run than fight.”

  The haggling was such as might have taken place in any bazaar stall. “We be twelve, not counting our sister, Yasmini,” Marouf stated. “You and the captain, that makes fifteen, and your old man, he is sixteen. Then take three parts and leave us thirteen, and go with our blessing.”

  “You swear on a Koran?” Shir Dil demanded.

  “Aywah! And by the three divorces,” Marouf affirmed. “Name the oaths, and see if we do not take them.”

  “How divide it? Ask him, Shir Dil!”

  The old man asked, and interpreted the answer: “Each thing, one by one, how much is it worth. Then we make sixteen stacks, and God loves the generous.”

  Kellam turned to Slade. “If we could recover half, we’d make a good showing. But there’s something odd about this.”

  “A good deal’s odd! Which queer bit gags you?”

  Kellam answered, “The opening deal’s too good. They can’t expect us to accept the first offer.”

  “They can rook us in the appraisal, or foul us up one way or another. They’re not giving us any breaks.” Then, to Shir Dil, “Say this: they want, but we have. And the taking, it will cost them. So let them pay for the peaceful giving. Take four stacks, and go with our blessing.”

  Marouf laughed even before the formality of translation. He wagged his beard, and regarded everyone amiably, being pleased at not dealing with a fool or a weakling.

  Finally Slade broke into the dicker by exclaiming, “Shabash! Enough talking, soon it’s dark, and tomorrow is another day.” Then, catching Karim’s eye, he said, “O Friend! You want presents. Let me offer you the finest.” He flipped the Hand of Fat’ma toward the battered man. “Luck and my blessing!”

  Karim’s face lighted from instant recognition. “Praised be Allah!” He reached into his tunic, drew out a cord from which hung a carnelian amulet, and removed the gem. In its place, he tied the blue-enameled Hand of Fat’ma. He showed his tooth stumps in a happy smile.

  Slade bowed, and asked Marouf, “With your permission, we go back. Fire, or do not fire, either is good.”

  Marouf courteously answered, “Permission, and blessing, O Friend! And what happens, by Allah, it happens.”

  Each group got up, and backed to its post. Neither could be stupid enough to shoot it out, in the open, and from a cold start.

  “Won’t be long now,” Slade remarked, once they readied shelter. “We’ve got them baited, and half an hour, it’ll be dark, and then—”

  But Kellam had not been listening. “That was odd, out there. Marouf recognized the trinket, that blue-enameled hand.”

  Diane cut in, “Well, of course he did! He lost it at Yasmini’s place, the night they tried to murder or rob you.”

  The words were spoken, despite Slade’s nudge and his attempt to carry on with what he had been saying. Raising his voice failed to check Diane, and the attempt only added emphasis to the detail which Slade had tried to gloss over; yet he made a final try: “Just by way of ribbing the fellow, I offered him a lucky charm. Trifles help.”

  But Kellam, not saying a word, got up and left the group. A long silence followed. Slade broke it by taking a deep breath. Then, “Pretty rugged, but maybe that’s what he needed.”

  “What do you mean?” Diane asked.

  “What do I mean? You gave him everything but a diagram to prove that Yasmini sold him out.”

  “Well, good heavens, Dave! As if he didn’t know that all the time, and seemed to love it! She’s with the enemy—I can’t understand—”

  “If I ever try to shush you, again, you’d better shush! Listen, darling. You made it clear that Yasmini faked the breaking and entering of her house in Peshawar, to back her stall about being in danger. At the time, I fell for the trick, and I was stone sober—he was owl-eyed drunk, and didn’t get as good a look at the three with knives as I did. When I met Sir Pratap Singh, I figured that he had sent busmashes to finish Yasmini and search her house, and that failing, he finally appealed to the commissioner. He—Steve—snapped at the bait. Now he can’t give hims
elf an alibi. You made it too clear that he wasn’t saving the girlfriend by going AWOL. That he was just her custom built front, her made-to-order, benevolent American chump, Uncle Sam in person!”

  After a pause, he went on, “Well, he’ll spend some time trying to justify her, but this is more than he can swallow. You made a Christian of him this time! You put the kiss of death on that romance, darling!”

  “Blame me, always blame someone!” She choked, caught her breath, and went on, “Next you’ll say I flashed that lucky hand.”

  Slade was about to repeat why, after declining Marouf’s offer, he had given Karim the holy amulet; but he decided against further words. Instead, he found Shir Dil, who was taking a cat-nap.

  “They expect more bargaining. They expect you to sneak out after dark to get more water. They’ll be ready to snipe, just for the sport of it. This time, never mind the drink. Shoot back, and keep shooting.”

  Shir Dil anticipated the finale: “Same time you go with Ram Singh’s fellow’s to rush them from the back?”

  “If I can get those blockheads to follow. Come along, and see what we can do with them.”

  Darkness had fallen. The fires whose light was to keep the besieged from taking off in the truck once more spread a wavering glow across the shelf, and all the way to the marble column. As an afterthought, Slade said, “Get Captain Kellam, every gun counts.” Then he went to the four Sikhs, to explain his plan.

  They listened, gravely. Though they admitted the idea was sound, they nevertheless insisted that their job was to guard Diane.

  Hearing a discussion center about the memsahib, Diane stepped up to the group. “Now what’ve I done wrong?” she demanded. “For once, I will be right, I’ll make it right!”

  Slade told her what Ram Singh and his fellows held to be their first duty. He concluded, “So tell them they can go with me! Sign a waiver, sign a release, pay them off, but whatever you do, do it in a hurry!”

  Ram Singh went stubborn. “No, memsahib. Begging pardon of your presence, women have no sense, could I go back saying, the woman told me to break my orders? We are your guard, we guard you.”

  “Dave,” she said, helplessly, “what else can I do?”

  “Nothing. Steve and I can swing it alone. Move fast, hit hard, panic the bunch, and they’ll scatter like quail. Shir Dil, where’s Captain Kellam?”

  The old man answered in Pushtu, “I beg leave to represent to the Threshold of Benevolence that the captain is pig-drunk.”

  Though Diane understood not a word, it was easy for her to read Slade’s face, and Shir Dil’s. “Go on, Dave,” she said, “I’ll get my four guards to change their minds.”

  “How?”

  She retorted, triumphantly, “Now who’s talking out of turn? Please, Dave, go, and if they let me down, well, I tried, and you’ll still be under cover, no worse off.”

  Her voice had changed, and when she caught his hand, he knew that she was confident, vibrant, and that nothing remained of the petulance and weariness which had kept them snapping at each other ever since their meeting in Peshawar.

  “Go ahead, don’t look back, they’ll be on your heels, ready to take off when you’re ready to bounce out that side passage. You move the rocks while I’m talking.”

  CHAPTER XII

  Slade went far into the gloom of Suastos, and turned right to pick his way toward the crevice which they had blocked against surprise. After locking the switch of his flashlight, he set to work, carefully removing the pieces of rock he had arranged so that anyone approaching from without would start a noisy slide.

  Above the drumming and muttering of the ruins, he caught voices: Diane and the Sikhs, he guessed, as he crept out to skirt the mound until he saw the glow of watch fires. While waiting for Shir Dil’s demonstration, he wondered how far he could go in supporting the old Pathan, certainly far enough to disconcert the enemy.

  “But they won’t be caught from the rear a second time,” he told himself. “Unless Diane’s blockheads listen to reason, I better stand pat. Shir Dil can duck back without—”

  He shook his head; while his reasoning was true, he couldn’t swallow it. “With a tommy gun, I could take ’em at a walk…easy meat for one man…”

  The man who ran the show had no business pulling rash tricks, needlessly risking the head which did the thinking for all; but this logic made him grimace disgustedly. “Fat lot of thinking you’ve done—start doing things!” Then a warning voice, from the same source which sent a chill racing all through him: “That’s what those wooly outlaws are waiting for, for the head to blow a gasket!”

  That chill, that shiver going the length of the spine; the tightness in the throat, and the thumping at the temples—he knew that he was about to buck sense and reason.

  He looked over his shoulder. No sign of the Sikhs. Very well, then; they weren’t yellow, they were cagey. They’d fight it out, when Diane needed them.

  Then, though he could not from his observation spot see the truck exit, he knew that something was happening. The besiegers exclaimed and muttered. Turbans bobbed from cover, ducked back, came up again.

  “God, what a chance! One tommy gun, or a sack of grenades!” he muttered, and somehow kept himself from risking it with carbine and pistol. The former was too slow, the latter not sufficiently accurate at such range.

  A man lurched into Slade’s field of vision. He had a bottle in one hand, and a bowl in the other. Kellam, pig-drunk, zigzagged toward the bandits. Though he shouted, the thick-lipped utterance was hopelessly confused by the wind. The besiegers who were out of direct line of the tunnel mouth laughed and gestured. Yasmini came from her shelter; whether to welcome Kellam, or to warn him back, Slade could not guess. He jerked violently about, startled by the sound of one rock grating clashing against another.

  Diane was walking toward Slade.

  “Get back!” he said, and gestured.

  She ignored him, and came on.

  Then hell rattled from the front. Slade spun about, and in time to see both bowl and bottle rise on first bounce, and roll over the shelf. Kellam had drawn a pistol.

  He yelled ferociously, he darted toward the men who mocked him. Whatever he had drunk, it had finally keyed him up: Hashish madness, Slade thought, when pistol blast and the end of a long bound coincided; another leap, another shot, timed as a ballet dancer’s routine.

  One man dropped, drilled clean. Another, though hit, returned the fire. In a matter of seconds, Kellam had no targets; instead, he had become one. Bullets whined and screamed. Kellam advanced, holding his fire so that in the end, he could shoot down into the shallow shelters of the bandits.

  Yasmini alone was visible. She screamed, and gestured to Kellam and to her allies.

  Slade bounded from cover. This was the chance to catch them from the flank. The surprise, however, was knocked flat by a deep-throated shout behind Slade. Heavy feet thumped out drum-notes as they pounded the thin earth which overlay the buried houses of Suastos. The Sikhs were advancing. Having taken a direction, they would not change.

  Above their savage war cry came Diane’s voice, very high. “I got them going! They’re with you!”

  Kellam was down. He bobbed up, leaped, sank into a ditch. It exploded with pistol fire. Yasmini, posed as though she had grabbed at Kellam and missed him, doubled up and rolled out of sight.

  Then Slade was in it, and so were the Sikhs, now that the nearest of the besiegers, aware of the surprise, had tried to defend themselves. Shir Dil, instead of opening the show, finished it by picking off one of those who raced in every direction.

  “I told you I’d do it!” Diane cried, when the shooting ended. “I ran out, and they had to follow me, they had to!”

  She laughed wildly. Slade caught her arm. “Easy, darling. He’s out there, I saw him go down. Get back, stay back, til we make sure everything’s clear.”

>   Hooves clattered. In the darkness below the shoulder, the survivors of Yasmini’s accomplices were cutting tracks. They had suffered far more casualties than any unorganized group could ensure.

  Everything was clear. Shir Dil made certain of that by taking each fallen bandit by the beard and slashing him neatly under the chin. He did this while Slade knelt beside Kellam.

  Yasmini had collapsed within a yard of the captain. She had one of her late accomplices by the sleeve; she still gripped a dagger. It was red, and the man’s coat was ripped. A bullet had drilled her between the shoulders, knocking her against the object of her fury.

  Though Kellam reeked of post, he was clear headed, despite his half dozen wounds. He tried to wipe off the blood froth trickling down the corners of his mouth. The chill of shock made him gray-faced. He said, with an effort, “Worked better than I thought.”

  “You damn fool,” Slade muttered. “You damn fool.”

  “Nothing like a drop of post for a fast getaway. If you’d only seen the—guys run—” Then, as Shir Dil moved, Kellam saw Yasmini. “Good God—did—I—how—”

  “Easy fellow. We’ll take care of her—the women will—Yasmini—” He took the dagger from her limp hand. “She went to bat for you, she tried to stop them.”

  “I thought… I saw…her…in front me…but—”

  “She used this on the man you clinched with. When you lost your pistol.”

  Kellam understood. “Did she? She did! Let me talk to her—why don’t you help her?”

  “She’s done, Steve.”

  Kellam drew a wheezing breath. He smiled, made a sound which came near being a triumphant laugh. “You never gave her credit—”

  Above, Shir Dil was trying to keep Diane from coming near the edge of the channel. Now that she had recovered a little from the tension of her desperate play, she began to understand what Slade had told her, and she cried, “Steve! Steve!”

  Slade got to his knees, saying, “It’s Diane.”

  Kellam laid a hand on his arm. “Take good care of her—take—where’s Yasmini, I knew all the time—” He let go of Slade’s arm. He made a choking, wheezing sound; he coughed blood. A violent tremor ended it.