Exploits (10 page)

I got up at about four o'clock, dumped the lunch under my bed, and filled up the basket with a pile of General Chang's better jade trinkets. Then I went out to where the Bentley was parked and put a couple of ten-gallon drums of gas into the trunk. Merriweather knocked on my front door at five on the dot, and I loaded the straw basket into back seat, saluted the row of soldiers that were lined up to see me off, and climbed into the car beside him.

“Wake me when we've got about ten miles to go,” I said as he headed off down the middle of the wall.

“How can you sleep at a time like this?” demanded Merriweather. “I'm a nervous wreck.”

“Just relax and trust to the Lord,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning back.

I must have fell sound asleep then, because the next thing I knew the car had come to a stop.

“Reverend Jones?” said Merriweather, shaking my shoulder gently.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“You said to let you know when we were within ten miles of our destination.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'm gonna stretch and get some of the kinks out.”

I opened the door and stepped out into the morning air. Some soldiers had gathered around, so I popped open the trunk and asked one of ’em to load the canisters of gasoline into the tank while I walked over to the edge of the wall and attended to a call of nature.

“I'll drive the rest of the way,” I told Merriweather when I returned to the car. “It'll help get my reflexes sharp.”

He scooted over to the passenger's side, and I spent the next couple of minutes getting used to the Bentley, which was a mighty fine car except that someone had gotten all mixed up and put the steering wheel and pedals on the wrong side.

“I wonder how fast this baby can go?” I said as we got to within two miles of my first fistic encounter.

“The speedometer goes up to one hundred and fifty,” he answered.

“Is that miles or kilometers?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Let's open her up and find out,” I said, pressing the gas pedal down to the floor.

“Careful, Reverend Jones!” he yelled as we barreled along the top of the wall, sending soldiers jumping for cover. “You'll get us killed!”

“Only if I stop or slow down,” I said sincerely, and suddenly we were past the last of the soldiers and Merriweather finally figured out what was happening and started laughing his head off. We heard some gunfire behind us, but whoever built that wall just didn't know when to call it quits, and we drove another four hundred miles before we finally ran out of gas and had to get out and start walking.

We came to a pair of towers in about half a mile, one on each side of the wall, each with a staircase leading down to the ground.

“Well, it's been a fascinating experience, Reverend Jones,” said Merriweather, walking over to the staircase that led to the west, “but I've really got to continue my journey to England. The sooner they know the army is missing, the sooner they can send out search parties.”

Somehow the notion of foot-slogging across the Gobi Desert didn't seem as appealing to me as it did to him, so I bid him farewell and clambered down the stairs on the east side of the wall, all set to sell General Chang's jade baubles to the highest bidder so I could finally get around to building my tabernacle.

5. The Abominable Snowman

I spent the next week walking south, since I had the Gobi to the west and a bunch of warlords to the east. I kept thinking that a town ought to pop into view any minute, but I didn't see anything except a bunch of farmfields and an occasional former warlord being hung out to dry, and I began thinking that my picnic basket could have used a little less jade and a little more lunch.

I was sitting down in the shade of a tree, thinking that whoever had called China a crowded country hadn't actually tried walking across it, when I heard a familiar voice coming from behind me.

“Well, I'll be damned if it ain't the Reverend Lucifer Jones!”

I got to my feet and turned around and found myself facing Capturing Clyde Calhoun, decked out in his usual khakis and pith helmet and leading a safari column.

“Well, howdy, Clyde,” I said. “I ain't seen you since Mozambique. What are you doing in these here parts?”

“Same as usual,” he said, walking up and shaking my hand. “Collecting animals for my circus—them what survives getting captured, anyway. The rest go to museums and gourmet chefs and other interested parties.”

“I ain't seen hide nor hair of any animals since I got here,” I said.

“Well, they take a heap of finding,” he said. “But I just picked up seventy-three giant pandas from the bamboo forest up north.”

“That's a lot of pandas,” I said. “I hear tell they're an endangered species.”

“They are
now
,” he agreed, patting his rifle fondly.

“Maybe you should have left some for the Chinese,” I suggested.

“Oh, I left ’em enough to breed,” he assured me. Suddenly he frowned. “Unless both of ’em was females.” He took a swig from his canteen, and then offered it to me. “How about yourself, Lucifer?” he continued as I took a long drink of water. “What are you doing out here in the middle of China?”

“Mostly looking for a way out,” I admitted.

“Well, I'm headed for Tibet,” he said. “Why don't you come along with me? I could use a little companionship; none of my bearers speak any American.”

“What's so special about Tibet?” I asked.

“That's where we'll find the Abominable Snowman,” he replied.

“Sounds ugly,” I said. “Or at least sadly lacking in manners.”

“He's worth a pretty penny back in the States,” confided Calhoun. “Fifty grand stuffed and mounted, and at least twice that much if he's still mildly alive and twitching.” He paused for a minute. “Tell you what: you come along with me, and I'll not only give you three squares a day, but I'll split the take with you if you find him first.”

Which suddenly make Tibet start looking a whole lot more interesting.

“Clyde,” I said, “you got yourself a deal. What's for lunch?”

He had a couple of his people set up a table and his chef whipped us up some panda sandwiches, and we washed ’em down with a few beers and got to reminiscing about old times, and before we knew it was getting dark, so we wound up spending the night right there. We were up bright and early the next morning, and we made pretty good time, especially considering that Clyde had this habit of stopping every couple of minutes to shoot birds or squirrels or anything else that this regrettable tendency to breathe in and out. I kept expecting to run into some warlord or other, but Clyde kept shooting so much that all the local warlords must have figured the Imperial Army was on the march and hightailed it out of our path, because we didn't see nary a one during the whole trek.

After a couple of months it started getting right chilly at night, and pretty soon the days weren't much warmer, and finally we had to stop long enough to make us a pair of fur coats out of panda skins. When we finally hit the Kunlun Mountains, Clyde paid off about eighty of his bearers and skinners and sent ’em packing, and just kept a cook and a couple of trackers with us.

Now, it's entirely possible that there's a piece of level ground somewhere in Tibet, but if there is, I never did see it. We started following footpaths up the mountains, hunting for a pass to the other side, where Clyde was sure he could get a line on the Abominable Snowman in a little town called Saka, but once we found the pass all it did was lead us out of the Kunlun Mountains into the Tangkula Mountains, which were even higher and colder, and before long we were sitting in a cave at about ten thousand feet in the middle of a howling blizzard, warming our hands next to a fire he'd built and trying real hard not to listen to our teeth chattering.

The weather had cleared by morning, and as we wandered out of the cave we came upon some tracks in the snow.

“Looks like we had some polar bears hanging around last night,” I said.

“Ain't no polar bears in Tibet,” answered Clyde, squatting down and examining them. “These here tracks was made by something what walks upright, and stands maybe eight feet tall.” He looked up at me with a great big smile. “I don't think we're gonna have to go to Saka after all. I think maybe we just lucked out and are sharing this mountain with the Abominable Snowman.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded vigorously. “Let's split up forces and go out searching for him. I'll follow his tracks, and you go the other direction just in case he circled around, and we'll meet back at the cave at nightfall.”

He started walking off.

“Ain't you gonna take your gunbearer or your tracker with you?” I asked.

“Too dangerous,” he shouted back. “Best to leave this kind of work to experienced hunters.”

“I don't want to cast no pall of gloom on the proceedings, Clyde, but I ain't an experienced hunter, or even an inexperienced one if push comes to shove.”

“Then wait in the cave with the others. I'll be back in a few hours.”

Which made excellent sense, and which is what I did.

Clyde piled in at twilight, with little icicles hanging down from his moustache, and immediately sat down by the fire.

“How'd it go?” I asked, since I didn't see no snowman, abominable or otherwise, in tow.

“The tracks vanished about a mile from here,” he said, holding his hands out to warm them. “I spent most of the afternoon hunting for his lair, but I couldn't find it.” He paused thoughtfully. “I think tomorrow I'll lay some traps for him.”

“Tell me more about this here Snowman,” I said.

“Ain't that much to tell,” answered Clyde. “The locals call him the Yeti, and near as I can figure out he spends most of his time hanging around the mountain doing abominable things.”

“Anybody ever seen him?”

“Probably,” said Clyde, “but I get the distinct impression that them what's actually encountered him have passed on to the next plane of existence with remarkable alacrity.”

“I wonder what he eats?” I mused, hoping that he hadn't developed a taste for Christian missionary somewhere along the way.

“Beats me,” said Clyde. “If it's anything but snow and rocks, he must be one hungry snowman.” Suddenly he looked up. “Say, you gave me an idea, Lucifer. I think I'll bait some of them traps with the last of the panda meat.”

I told him I thought it was a good plan, especially since I'd had my fill and then some of panda steaks, and then we turned in, and the next morning Clyde was out laying his traps as soon as the sun came up.

I asked Kim, our cook, to fix me up some coffee. He came back a couple of minutes later with a pot of tea.

“I said I wanted coffee,” I told him.

“Coffee all gone,” he said. “You drink tea.”

I didn't think no more of it, but when Clyde went out the next morning to bait more traps, I asked for tea, and this time what I got was a pitcher of hot water.

“Tea all gone too,” explained Kim.

“Just how much tea did Clyde drink last night?” I asked.

“Him no drink tea at night. Just whiskey.”

“Maybe he took it with him this morning,” I suggested.

“Twenty pounds of it?” replied Kim.

That did seem like a lot of tea, no matter how eleven o'clockish Clyde might feel, so I got to thinking, and it didn't take me long to figure out that someone was swiping our supplies. And since the bearer and the tracker hadn't gone out in two days and there wasn't no place inside the cave to stash it, I figured it had to be someone else.

And since there was only one other person who was crazy enough to be wandering around on the mountain in this weather, I decided that things were suddenly looking up for my bank account.

Clyde returned at sunset, and immediately started warming himself by the fire.

“How'd it go?” I asked.

“Oh, he's out there all right,” answered Clyde. “And he's a smart one, too.”

“How so?”

“He managed to pick up one of the panda steaks without getting snared. I'll have to camouflage my traps better.”

We talked for a while, settled down for a hard evening's drinking, and fell asleep just about the time the nightly blizzard started blowing.

The next morning I waited until Clyde had left, then told Kim to fix me up a dozen sandwiches. While he was busy making them, I got into my panda coat and picked up one of Clyde's auxiliary rifles. When Kim was done, I put the sandwiches into a backpack, and then, as an afterthought, I added twelve bottles of beer, and told him I was going out for a little exercise and to maybe hunt up a grocery store.

I saw Clyde's footprints heading off to the left, so I turned right and began following a narrow ridge that wound its way down the mountain. I stopped about every half mile, took a sandwich and a beer out of my backpack, and placed them on the snow. After about three miles the path I was on started branching every which way, but that didn't bother me none since all I had to do to get back was turn around and follow my footprints, so I just kept on wandering and setting down sandwiches and beer.

The snow was right deep, and the altitude wasn't exactly a boon to serious breathing, and by the time I'd emptied my backpack I figured it was getting on toward midafternoon, so I turned around and started heading back to the cave.

I'd gone about half a mile, and was just turning a corner around a big boulder, when I saw this huge shaggy figure, maybe eight feet high, standing about two hundred yards away with its back to me, eating a sandwich and washing it down with a beer. I figured the safest course was to fire a warning shot, just to kind of get its attention and let it know I was armed, so I pointed the rifle straight up at the sky and pulled the trigger.

I think I ought to break into my narrative at this point to make a suggestion born of bitter experience: if you ever find yourself on a narrow ledge of a snow-covered mountain in Tibet, firing a .550 Nitro Express into the air probably ain't the smartest course of action available to you.

When I woke up, I felt kind of constricted. I thought I heard the sounds of digging, but I couldn't move, or even turn my head, to see what was happening. Then, after a couple of minutes had passed, I felt two huge hands grab me by the shoulders and pull me up through the snow, and suddenly I was facing this great big guy who was wearing a shaggy coat made out of sheepskin.