Rembrandt's Ghost (27 page)

“He’s seen something,” whispered Billy, his voice thin.

“Don’t move a muscle,” warned the professor.

Finn kept watching. The lead man barked a series of instructions and the rest of the group disappeared up the jungle path. The leader stayed where he was, continuing to look around, keeping his attention on the trees overhead. He cocked an ear, obviously listening for any signs of movement.There was nothing except the faint sighing of the wind in the trees and the thudding of Finn’s heart within her chest. Finally, he turned slowly through three hundred sixty degrees, the long ceremonial sword pointing like the extended hand of a clock, searching. Then he turned and followed the other four into the protective shadows of the jungle.

“Wait,” Winchester said softly. There was only silence.

“Now what?” Billy said.

“Wait,” repeated Winchester. “It may be a trick.”

“We should go back to the cave,” said Billy urgently. “We shouldn’t have come out here without weapons. We should have had a plan.” The only thing they had that could have been considered a weapon was a long, thick piece of bamboo that Winchester used as a staff.

“I think he’s gone,” the professor said finally. He rose up out of the mud, dripping. Billy helped Finn up and they stared at each other, grinning.

“Very attractive,” said Billy, laughing. Finn used both hands to slick the soggy mass of her hair away from her face. She swept away as much of the ooze from around her eyes, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

“I’m afraid your friend is right,” said Winchester. “Our little voyage of discovery was ill advised. We should return to the cave at once. If that man spotted something we could be in serious trouble. They may send out a patrol to look for us.”

Finn quickly checked herself over, looking for evidence of leeches, but Winchester’s goatskin puttees seemed to have done the trick. They moved through the grass to the foot of the dune.

“We’ll leave tracks if we go down the beach,” said Finn.

“Not if we stay in the shallows. The tide is coming in,” said Winchester. “It will wash away any tracks.”

“Let’s get moving,” said Billy. He stepped forward out of the tall grass. There was a sudden, startling shout from only a few feet away.

“Otaku! Teiryuu! Sate!”
The partially uniformed leader of the little band of fisherman stepped out of the shadows, sword at the ready. Behind him came the others, including the young boy with the spear. They eased to the left behind the leader, cutting off any chance at escape toward the dune. Finn, Billy, and Winchester were trapped; they either moved forward onto the point of the sword or backward into the dense mangrove swamp.

“Now what do we do?” Finn said.

The man with the sword took a step forward, the sword moving back and forth hypnotically. The young boy swung farther to the right, flanking them, his spear raised. Winchester moved to the right, making a small feint toward the dune.

“Yamate kudusai!”
screamed the Japanese man in the hat.
“Wakamare-wasu?”
It wasn’t really a question. Finn couldn’t understand the words, but the intent was clear.
“Da-me!”
the young boy with the spear yelled. Both he and the man with the sword moved closer. Finn took a step back toward the swamp.

“We’re in big trouble,” said Billy. “He’s not interested in negotiations here.”

Suddenly the man with the sword made his move, charging toward Winchester, the blade up-raised, an incoherent scream of rage erupting from between his clenched teeth. Winchester raised his stick to block the savage cut, realizing a split second later that the overhead blow had been a trick. Instead of bringing the blade directly down the man spun on his heel like a dancer, swinging the blade around in a sweeping arc aimed at cutting the professor in half from the side.

Winchester tried to back away from the swing, but it was hopeless. At the same time the young boy raised his spear, cocking his arm back, aiming the copper-tipped weapon at Finn’s midsection.

There were three harsh cracking sounds in quick succession. The man with the sword stopped in midswing, his hat flying back off his head in a fountaining spray of blood and tissue as the whole top of his head from the bridge of his nose upward vaporized in a gory blur.

Magically two patches of rose-red color appearedin the center of the young man’s ragged uniform blouse and he crumpled to the ground. The man with the sword, dead on his feet, fell backward in a heap, the sword still clutched in his fist for the killing blow. The sound of the shots echoed all around the deep expanse of the Punchbowl.

“What the hell?” said Billy, astounded, staring at the bodies. He turned to the equally startled Winchester. “I thought you said these people ran out of ammunition a long time ago.”

“They did,” said Winchester.

“I did not,” said a voice in heavily accented English. From the jungle appeared a squat man wearing camouflage with a long bolo machete on his belt and carrying a very large automatic pistol in his right hand.

“My name is Fu Sheng,” said the man. “Come with me quickly if you wish to free your friends.”

Fu Sheng told his story. It was much like their own. He was a castaway as well. Caught in the typhoon while piloting
Pedang Emas
toward the position the fat pirate Lo Chang had finally revealed to them, he’d let the boat ride out the storm only for it to be thrown through the secret island’s funnel like gap on the lip of the sweeping storm surge and then dashed to pieces on the far shore of the lagoon. According to him, he and his master, a man the Chinese man called Khan, were the only ones on board the old sardine boat who survived the storm and its aftermath.

After recuperating from their near drowning, the two men had separated to look for a source of fresh water. Returning to their rendezvous point, Fu Sheng had been just in time to see his friend and fellow survivor being carried off by what he first took to be wild men of some kind. Following them at a distance, Fu Sheng watched helplessly as his friend was taken to a compound close to a river that flowed down from the mountains and emptied on the far side of the original mangrove swamp Finn had seen when she’d awakened on the beach. According to Fu Sheng, the village was occupied by at least two hundred of the natives.

“Is he talking about the Japanese or your so-called locals?” Billy asked Winchester quietly.

“The locals,” answered the professor.

“How are we supposed to take on two hundred people?” Finn asked.

“Not to mention the Japanese,” added Billy. “Those shots must have woken up everyone on the island.”

“Those shots also saved our lives,” said Finn. “I don’t much like his looks, but he’s got the gun and he seems to have the know-how as well.”

“We still need some sort of plan,” said Billy.

“I rather think this Fu Sheng fellow makes it up as he goes along,” murmured Winchester, following the squat man in his camouflage fatigues as he moved quickly through the dense undergrowth. They climbed steadily through the jungle, keeping the Punchbowl at their backs and moving west, skirting the perimeter of the swamp.

They kept walking for more than an hour, pausing every few minutes to listen for anything other than the constant screeching chatter of the island’s birds and monkeys. There was nothing; if the Japanese had sent out patrols to look for the missing fishing party they were being quiet about it.

Eventually they reached a wide, boiling stream that surged down from the Punchbowl’s high rim, its course strewn with large tumbled boulders. The banks were steep and slippery looking, turned to slick eroding mud by the constant spray of water dashed onto the rocks.

“There,” grunted Fu Sheng, pointing. Finn looked. There was a heavy rope tied to a protruding tree root and dangling down the stream bank. It was made out of several tightly wrapped strands of rattan and knotted at foot-wide intervals. Through the spray Finn could also see another rope contraption that spanned the stream itself. It was a crude bridge with one strand of rattan rope to hang on to and a second lower strand to put your feet on, the lower strand twice as thick as the upper. At intervals were heavy-looking lengths of bamboo woven between the top and bottom ropes to keep them taut and separated.

“Ingenious,” said Winchester, impressed.

“Ratlines,” said Billy, smiling. “They’ve turned ratlines on their side.”

“Ratlines?” Finn asked.

“Those ropes like ladders on pirate ships,” explained Billy. “Sailors used them to climb up and lower the sails.”

“They would have had something like that on Zheng He’s treasure junks,” said Winchester. “A remnant from the past.”

“Cross,” instructed Fu Sheng. “One at a time.”

Finn went first, dropping down the knotted rope and out onto the twisting bridge. She wavered at first and slipped, then got the hang of it, shuffling sideways, gripping the upper rope firmly with both hands. Watching her go, Fu Sheng kept the heavy automatic ready in his hand, his dark eyes scanning the surrounding walls of noisy jungle, searching for a hint of anything out of place. Finn reached the far side, turned, and waited. Billy came next, followed quickly by Winchester. When Winchester was halfway across, there was a sudden gust of wind that shook the trees and the man’s hideous-looking goatskin cap flipped off and swirled down into the water.

“Damn!” the professor cried. “My best hat!”

“No great loss.” Billy grinned, standing with Finn on the far bank. The gust of wind was followed by an equally sudden dark screen of cloud and an abrupt deluge. Within seconds the pounding rain became a torrential downpour, sheets of flailing water shrouding the other side of the stream like a heavy curtain, catching Winchester in midcrossing and instantly soaking Finn and Billy to the skin.

They ran back into the protective cover offered by the enormous canopy of a gigantic gnarled jungletree and watched as Winchester struggled across the wildly swing bridge. He made it at last, then stumbled through the downpour, slipping wildly on the muddy ground, and joined Finn and Billy under the tree.

“Bloody hell!” the professor breathed. “That’s quite something!” He turned and watched as Fu Sheng shoved the pistol into his belt, slithered down the knotted rope, and then stepped out onto the bridge. The rain continued to pour down, the hammering of the drops on the broad-leafed jungle foliage drowning out anything but shouted conversation. At least it had stopped the endless annoying symphony of the birds and monkeys.

The pirate was more than halfway across the rope bridge, barely visible in the fog of rain. There was a brief sound like the buzzing of some whirring insect and an instant later Fu Sheng staggered on the rope ladder and gave a sudden cry. A foot-long sliver of bamboo magically appeared, jutting from his shoulder. Its shaft was fletched with brightly colored feathers, startling in the sheeting rain like Technicolor smears. Blood blossomed on the pirate’s chest, a darker stain against the green camouflage.

Finn whirled, trying to see the person who’d shot the arrow. There was nothing. The attacker was invisible. Finn jumped forward, heading for the bridge, but Billy grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.

“Are you out of your mind!” he yelled. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

There was a second buzzing sound and an arrow tore through the foliage no more than a foot from where Billy stood. He dragged Finn down to the floor of the jungle. Winchester followed. They stared out at Fu Sheng, swinging on the ladder. Another arrow whizzed past, narrowly missing him.

Fu Sheng reached up, grabbed the shaft of the arrow in his shoulder, and snapped it off. Obviously in terrible pain, teeth clenched, he hurled himself across the last few feet of the ladder and headed up the shallow embankment. This time Finn got to her feet and ran toward him. She managed to get one arm around his waist as another arrow came perilously close, flicking through the underbrush by her side.

“Help me!” Finn said.

Billy and Winchester surged upward, then pulled both Finn and the pirate into the relative safety of the jungle undergrowth at the foot of the big tree. Finn propped Fu Sheng against the trunk and looked at the arrow in his shoulder. Remembering her first year of anatomy in art class, she saw that the shaft had missed the chest and impacted in the deltoid, slicing through it and pushing out through his back.

It wasn’t quite as serious as it looked. Painful, but at least it hadn’t pierced the lungs or struck any major arteries.

Two more arrows in quick succession sliced through the leaves on Finn’s right. One of the arrows struck the trunk of the tree and skidded off.

She pulled Fu Sheng forward to look at the exit wound. Then she reached for the arrowhead, intending to pull it out through the wound, when a bark from Winchester stopped her.

“Don’t!”

“Why not?”

“They poison their arrows. I’ve seen them killing wild boar that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Do you want to take the chance?”

“I can’t leave it in there!”

Fu Sheng was fading, eyes fluttering, his lips pale.