The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (9 page)

“My apologies,” Gavagan said. “That was insensitive.”

“He’s been missing four years. And there are probably many that share your opinion…all of which is beside the point.” She opened her purse and took from it a ring, a dragon ring made of heavy gold and jade. “Have you ever seen that before?”

Tom Gavagan fought to keep the excitement from his voice. “Then this was not in the collection when it was lost? It is the Han ring, of course.”

“It
was
lost.”

Somehow this was beginning to make sense. The Kuan-yin, the bronze owl, and now this. “So how—?”

“I bought the ring, Mr. Gavagan, two days ago in Pearl. I bought it for sixty dollars from a man who believed he was cheating me.”

Gavagan turned the heavy ring in his fingers. If this ring had been in the collection when lost, yet had turned up for sale in Pearl Harbor, it meant that either all of the artifacts had not been lost, or all of them had been stolen.

From the moment he had seen the bronze owl, he had begun to grasp at the edges of an explanation. He had been sure he had heard of that owl, yet there could have been more than one…there could have been many. Still…

“Why did you come to me?”

“Because I believe you can help me. You know the people who understand such things, Mr. Gavagan, and I do not believe my uncle’s collection was stolen before he was lost at sea.”

“Come along,” he told her, “we’re going to see a man about an owl.”

A
LL WAS DARK
and still when the car drew up alongside the old pier where the
Manoa
was moored. There was no light on the schooner, looming black and silent upon the dark water. “I hope he’s aboard,” Gavagan said, “or in the village. Anyway, there’s something here I want you to see. You should stay in the car, though, there’ve been some rough characters about.”

At the plank, he hesitated. There was a faint stirring aboard the schooner. Swiftly, Gavagan went up the gangway. As his feet touched the deck, a man loomed suddenly before him.

“Kamaki?” It was too tall to be Kamaki. Gavagan heard a shoe scrape as the man shifted his feet to strike.

Gavagan lunged forward, stepping inside the punch and butting the man with his shoulder. The man staggered and started to fall, but Gavagan caught him with a roundhouse right that barely connected.

The hatch opened suddenly and Al Ribera stood framed in the light holding a pistol. “All right, Gavagan. Hold it now.”

Tom Gavagan stood very still. The man he had knocked down was getting up, trying to shake the grogginess out of his head. Realization suddenly dawned on the man and he cocked himself for a swing.

“Stop it!” Ribera said harshly. “Don’t be a damned fool. He can help, if he wants to live. The guy’s an expert in this stuff.”

Gavagan measured the distance to Ribera, but before he could move, the man he had hit was behind him and he had no chance. Ribera stepped aside, and Gavagan was shoved toward the ladder.

There had been no sound from Laurie Haven, and suddenly he realized they thought the car to be empty.

Kamaki was lying on the deck with his hands tied behind him. As Gavagan reached the bottom of the ladder, the Hawaiian succeeded in sitting erect.

Al Ribera came down the steps. There was another man, a Chinese with a scarred face whom Gavagan recalled having seen about town.

Three of them, then…and Ribera had a gun.

Kamaki had blood on his face from a split in his scalp and there was a welt on his cheekbone. The stocky Chinese had a blackjack in his fist. Gavagan was bound, hands behind his back, ankles tight together.

“What’s the matter, Al?” Gavagan asked. “Did your perfect crime go haywire?”

Ribera was not disturbed. “
Crime?
It’s a salvage job. The skipper just wouldn’t cooperate with his new partners. You ever been down in a helmet and dress?”

“The word is out, Ribera, those pieces are known. They know where they came from and, soon enough, they’ll know who you are.”

“There’s nothing to connect us with this! And for your information, when we get the rest of this stuff up we’re not coming back. We took on enough provisions tonight to get to San Francisco.”

“What about the ring?”

Ribera’s head turned slowly. “What ring?”

“The jade and gold ring from the collection. Somebody peddled it.”

Ribera stared hard at Gavagan, trying to decide whether this was a trick, yet as he stared, Gavagan could almost see his mind working. There was enough larceny in Ribera that he would be quick to suspect it of another.

Ribera turned to look at the big man Gavagan had fought with on the deck. The man’s eyes shifted quickly, but he tried to appear unconcerned.

“Nielson, did you—?”

“Aw, he’s lyin’!” Nielson declared. “There ain’t no ring I know of.”

Ribera’s eyes were ugly. “Yes, there was. By the lord Harry, one of you is lyin’, and I’ll skin the…” He stopped and motioned his men out of the cabin. “Come on, let’s take this on deck.”

They locked the door to the cabin, and Gavagan could hear footsteps on the ladder. “What’s going on here, Kamaki?”

“Sounds like you know more than I do…. Pops found this wreck, we brought some stuff up. He called you and was asking around about the sunken boat when Ribera showed up. He knew all about what we’d found and wanted to cut himself in. When we said no, they took over. They were going to force us to go back out. They let me go with the Chinese guy to get supplies. I guess that’s when Pops escaped.” He was quiet for a moment then. “Almost escaped,” he said.

“He had the Kuan-yin with him when he died,” Gavagan said.

Kamaki shook his head, tears showed in his eyes. “He wanted to give it to my wife…to help us have kids. Can you believe that? He has a chance to get away but he takes the time to steal a hunk of ivory because he thinks it might help her. He got shot and he still carried it down the beach with him….” There was no sound for a moment but Kamaki quietly crying.

Then the Hawaiian took a long slow breath. “They are getting ready to cast off,” he said.

“What!”

“The tide is turning, they’re going to take the
Manoa
out.”

Tom Gavagan heard feet moving on the deck, lines being let out, the slap of filling canvas. “Can these guys sail?” he asked.

“Yeah. The Swede and the Chinaman…the Chinaman can dive, too.”

Soon enough they could feel the roll of the deep ocean, and Gavagan inched his way over to where Kamaki was tied.

“Let’s figure a way to get loose. I don’t fancy being tied up and I don’t fancy going down in a helmet and dress with these guys running my lines.”

“They took all the knives when they tied me up…even the one on the weight belt of the diving dress,” Kamaki said.

“What about that?” Gavagan jerked his head at a long nail driven into the crosspiece just above the door. It was at least six inches long but had been driven into the wood only about an inch. “If we could get it out I think I could use it to get the knots untied.”

“Yeah?” Kamaki suddenly grinned. “Watch me.”

He wormed his way over to the bulkhead and maneuvered himself so that he was on his back with his legs extending up the wall. He arched his back until his weight was on his shoulders and his heels scooted almost a foot higher, closer to the nail. But the boat was rolling constantly now, and no sooner had he tried to hook the ropes binding his legs over the nail than the deck heeled over and he fell, his heels hitting the deck with a thud.

“Help me.” Kamaki squirmed back into position. Gavagan soon got the idea. He got to his feet and, leaning against the bulkhead, blocked Kamaki’s legs from sliding to the right. A locker blocked them from going too far left. Kamaki hunched, his powerful torso straining. Hunched again…he slipped one of the ropes binding his feet over the nail. Then he tightened his stomach muscles and fearlessly hung all of his two hundred and twenty pounds from the nail.

There was a moment where nothing happened. Then the
Manoa
listed, Kamaki’s weight shifted, and with a groan the nail pulled free from the wood. Kamaki crashed to the deck.

“You okay?” Gavagan whispered.

“I’ll pay for that later. I think they heard us.” Kamaki tried to get back to where he had been as footsteps crossed the decking above them.

“Get down!” Kamaki demanded. But Tom Gavagan shook his head.

Al Ribera opened the hatch and came partway down the companionway, gun drawn. He saw Gavagan standing unsteadily at the bottom of the steps.

“You tryin’ something?”

“Cut us loose!” Gavagan demanded.

Ribera laughed. “No chance.” He leaned out and gave Gavagan a shove. Gavagan tottered on bound feet and fell to the deck. “That’ll teach you to stay sitting down,” Ribera smirked, and closed the hatch behind him. He never saw, or didn’t pay attention to, the six-inch nail lying at Gavagan’s feet.

Kamaki grunted. “You are one cool customer, Tom.”

I
T TOOK TEN MINUTES
of finger-numbing work for Gavagan to loosen the knots on Kamaki’s wrists. Less than a minute later they were free. Free but still locked in the cabin. Kamaki went to the small table protruding from one side of the locker. He pulled up on it and removed the single leg underneath. The table hinged up and fastened against the locker. They now had a weapon.

Some sort of diversion was in order, but before they could discuss what to do there came more sounds of feet on the deck over their heads and then the sound, far off but approaching rapidly, of powerful engines. There was the crackle and squawk of a bullhorn announcing words that sent relief flooding through Tom Gavagan.

“This is the United States Coast Guard! Drop your sails and heave to!”

There was no change in the motion of the
Manoa
. Suddenly the hatch was thrown open. Before Kamaki could set himself there were footsteps on the stairs and Ribera appeared, gun in hand.

“Got loose, did you? Well, tough. Get out on deck, we need hostages.”

Suddenly Kamaki swung the table leg. It hit Ribera’s forearm and the gun went off into the deck. Gavagan rushed him, getting inside and hitting him with a right to the jaw. The man staggered back and Gavagan wrenched the gun away. The Swede stepped into the hatch, and Gavagan pointed the gun at him and forced him back onto the deck.

They were at sea and the
Manoa
had fallen away from the wind; she was pitching erratically in the troughs of the waves. Off to the port side a powerful searchlight cut through the night. Silhouetted behind it a Coast Guard cutter stood ready, the barrel of a machine gun picking up the edge of the beam.

Kamaki dragged Ribera, none too gently, up onto the deck, and Gavagan collected the Chinese. They waited as a boat from the cutter pulled up alongside. The third man off the boat after a Coast Guard lieutenant and an ensign was Art Roberts. The fourth person out of the boat was Laurie Haven.

“Well, Tom,” said Roberts, “imagine meeting you here.”

“Where are we?” Gavagan located a faint glow in the sky that must be the beginnings of dawn. “And how did you get here?”

“The middle of the ocean, it seems. It looked like you were heading for Molokini Island.” Roberts had a faint smile on his face.

Laurie spoke up. “I took your car and went for the police as soon as the boat left the dock.”

“With a little help from Lieutenant Cargill we caught you on radar,” Roberts told him.

“Here.” Tom Gavagan handed the policeman Ribera’s pistol. “I think the chances are pretty good that ballistics will prove this is the gun that shot Teo.”

He took the pistol, produced an evidence bag, and dropped it in. “You will all have to come in to headquarters, there are a lot of questions that need answering. A Coast Guard crew will bring this boat back to port.”

T
HE SKY WAS
just going from gray to blue and the lights of the island were appearing in the distance when Tom Gavagan found Laurie Haven on the deck of the cutter.

“I haven’t really thanked you for saving us,” he said.

“I haven’t thanked you for finding where my uncle’s ring came from. It’s a relief just to know what ultimately happened to him. We all wondered for so long.”

“With luck, Kamaki can recover much more from the wreck.”

“I should pay you something…. I never dreamed I’d get such fast results.”

“No need. But if you want to sell any of the Madox collection, I’d be honored to handle it for you.” He glanced at her appraisingly. “There is a favor you could do for me…when the police are finished with it I would like it if you gave that Kuan-yin to Kamaki as a partial payment for recovering your uncle’s collection.”

Laurie looked puzzled. “I could do that, but why?”

“His father wanted him to have it, and I think his wife would appreciate it, too…enough said?”

Laurie smiled and leaned into the wind as the cutter rounded the breakwater and turned into the harbor.

Sand Trap

B
efore he became fully conscious he heard the woman’s voice and some sixth sense of warning held him motionless. Her voice was sharp, impatient. “Just start the fire and let’s get out of here!”

“Why leave that money on him? It will just burn up.”

“Don’t be such an idiot!” her voice shrilled. “The police test ashes and they could tell whether there was money or not…don’t look at me like that! It has to look like a robbery.”

“I don’t like this, Paula.”

“Oh, don’t be a fool! Now start the fire and come on!”

“All right.”

Monte Jackson held himself perfectly still. Despite the pounding in his skull he knew what was happening now. They believed him dead or unconscious and, for some reason, planned to burn the house and him with it.

From some distance away he heard footsteps and then a door closed. All was quiet except for the ticking of a clock. Returning consciousness brought with it pain, a heavy, swollen pain in the back of his head. He opened his eyes and saw linoleum, turquoise and black squares, an edge of enameled metal and beyond it, lying against the wall in what he now realized was the dark corner behind a washing machine, a man’s dress sock, lightly covered with dust. His head hurt, it hurt badly and he wasn’t sure he could move.

His fingers twitched…okay, movement was possible. He didn’t get up, but he thought about it…were they gone? Who were
they
? A woman. He could almost remember her, something…

He smelled smoke. Smoke! And not wood smoke either, burning plastic, amongst other things. He was definitely going to have to get up.

He lurched to his knees, sending a flurry of twenty- and one-hundred-dollar bills to the floor; his head swam and black spots passed before his eyes. He was in the utility room of a house somewhere, flames crackled, there was money everywhere. He grabbed the side of the washing machine and stood up, a haze of smoke hung in the doorway before him, he stumbled forward into a kitchen. Behind him there was a good two thousand dollars in currency scattered on the floor…but other things had his attention.

The pain and the increase in light blurred his vision. A roll of paper towels, conveniently placed near a burner on the gas range, was spreading fire to items left on the counter, brown paper bags from the market, a wooden box built to hold milk bottles, and from there to the gaily colored drapes over the sink…one whole side of the room was in flames. On the floor lay a man in his shirtsleeves and wearing an apron, a caked reddish-brown stain on his side. Beside him lay two items. A small pistol and a heavy, cast-iron pan.

Monte Jackson suddenly had a vision of that pan coming down on the side of his head. It was only then that he noticed the food that was splattered all over his right shoulder and sleeve. He touched his scalp and nearly lost his balance. It was split, split to the bone.

He turned, and as the lightbulb over the sink burst from the heat of the fire, staggered to a door that looked like it opened onto a side yard; he yanked at the knob. It turned but the door wouldn’t open, it just rattled in the jamb. A lock? The heat was like the broiling desert sun and growing even more intense. The lock needed a key…and the key was not in it.

As the paint began to blister on the wall next to him, Monte Jackson dropped to all-fours and crawled into the burning kitchen, desperately headed for the door that he assumed led to the dining room. He slipped in the sauce that covered the floor near the body, his hand hit the pistol and it went skittering into a corner. He pushed through the swinging door and he was suddenly in the comparative calm of a butler’s pantry.

Shadows thrown by the flames fled ahead of Jackson as he scrambled to his feet and ran down the hallway. Past the dining room, the living room, then the front door was before him. He slid to a stop; a faint whistling sound came from under the door…air rushing into the house, feeding the fire that was spreading in the kitchen and licking its way down the ceiling of the hallway. He could feel its heat at his back. Jackson turned the knob and pulled the door open. It came easily, like one of those automatic doors in a supermarket, the pressure of the outside air pushing it inward. The fire roared to greater life behind him, flames pouring up the stairwell and into the second floor.

Jackson stumbled across a wide front porch and down a short set of concrete steps, the free warm air of the summer night enfolding him. He swayed on his feet. What was going on? He remembered a building with arches along the sidewalk, sitting in a bar, a girl…

Riverside. He was in Riverside. He had been in the bar at the Mission Inn!

Fire lit the second-floor windows of the house. He had to call the fire department…but, what of the man on the floor? The man was dead. The man was dead and he probably owned the house that was burning. Monte Jackson wanted to be far away. Far away in a place where none of this could have happened.

Headlights swung into the front yard and Jackson turned. But the car was not coming in from the road, it had been parked behind the house, near the detached garage.

“It’s him! You idiot, get him!” He heard the woman’s harsh voice again, and suddenly the car accelerated. Jackson backed up, turned, then ran. The dark sedan sprayed gravel as a heavy foot was applied to the gas. He dodged, jumped a hedge and went to his knees, but was up with a lunge and into the shrubbery, slamming blindly into a woven wire fence, hitting it hard enough to throw him back; he ploughed on. The car ground to a stop, caught in the hedge, and he heard the doors pop open. There was a shot. He felt the hot breath of the bullet pass his cheek. He crouched and ran, sighted a gate…how he got through it and into the orchard beyond he never knew.

Twice he stumbled and fell headlong, but forced himself to keep running until he was completely out of breath.

As his head cleared he caught the sound of tires as a car drove by on gravel. Following the sound, he emerged from the brush on the lip of a ravine dividing the wood from a county road.

It was not a main road but, by the look of it, plenty of cars were passing. If he could get a lift, get out of here, well, maybe he could figure out what happened.

He thought of his appearance and lifting a fumbling hand, felt gingerly of the wound along his scalp. There was dried blood in his hair and on his cheek and ear.

The sound of water led him to an irrigation ditch where he dropped to his knees and bathed the blood away, then dried himself with his shirt and handkerchief. Carefully, he combed hair over the wound to try to conceal it. Behind him, the orchard was silhouetted against the glowing cloud of smoke that rose from the fire.

S
O WHAT HAD HAPPENED
? Well, there was the lounge at the Mission Inn. A girl, pretty enough…pretty enough for a man who had spent the last three months in the desert. He had caught her eye momentarily, but what would a girl like that want with him?

Unfortunately, it was all coming back to him.

The girl, woman (he had other names for her now)…had been well dressed but was obviously nervous. A man, a big young man, was hanging around the bar, watching her. The two never spoke but Monte Jackson hadn’t been in the desert so long that he was blind; the man didn’t want to be noticed, but he was watching the woman whose name, Jackson now knew, was Paula.

He had finished his drink and left the bar, there was no time in his life right now for women; few women would tolerate the way he was living. There was also no time in his life for whatever kind of drama was brewing between her and the man at the bar. He had no time for it, but when the dark sedan had pulled up beside him as he walked down the street, he had found himself involved, regardless.

A
FTER CLEANING UP
, he decided against trying to get a ride. Although he was hurt, a minor concussion, at least, a torn scalp, bruises and scrapes from his escape, and a nasty cough from the smoke he had inhaled, he had to think, and he was still sure that his appearance, especially so close to a fire, would draw unwanted attention.

His memories were sorting themselves out and he thought he knew where he was. A little farm, a nice gentlemanly farm, on the outskirts of Riverside. He turned right and started walking along the road. Occasionally cars sped past. At first he ducked into the ditch when he saw them coming, fearing a bullet from Paula or her friend. But soon after he started out he had heard fire engines in the distance, probably on a parallel road, and figured that Paula might be busier trying to explain to the cops and the fire crew what had happened than she was trying to find him. So he walked along the shoulder of the road, squinting against the dust of passing cars, until he came to an intersection. The new road was paved, and on the other side, under a streetlamp, was an empty bus stop.

T
HE BUS GOT
him within a block of the El Mirage Motel where, earlier in the day, he had taken a room on the second floor. He no longer had his key but the desk clerk remembered him and gave him another. The room was as he had left it just hours before. He went to the bathroom and washed his face and scalp again. Though very painful, he cleaned the wound, and that started it bleeding again. He tore strips from a towel and bound it up as best he could; the kind of pressure it needed was impossible, for the bruising was worse than the cut. He slipped out of his torn and filthy clothes and noticed that the pockets were almost empty…it was not only his room key that was gone, his wallet was missing too! He sat down next to the telephone. He should call the police.

That was simple. That was the right thing to do. And what would he tell them? Well, the truth; a woman had picked him up in her car as he left the lounge at the Mission Inn. She had said that a man was following her and that she would like him to see her home. Her husband, a local doctor, would then drive him wherever he wanted to go.

It had made sense at the time.

Once at the farm, she had asked if he wanted a drink. When he said yes, she’d suggested that he get a coaster out of the cabinet behind him. He had turned, and when he had turned back, the big man from the bar was standing there and had hit him on the head with the cast-iron pan. He’d fallen to his knees and the man had hit him again. The last thing that he remembered was the woman, Paula, fitting his hand around a small automatic pistol…curling his fingers around it, then carrying it away in a handkerchief.

He was a patsy. The two had set him up but it hadn’t worked. He definitely should call the police.

Except that thought worried him. With his wallet gone he had no ID. No one knew him here; the year or so since leaving the service he had spent prospecting in the desert. His terminal leave pay and what he had saved financed the venture, for his expenses had been small. He’d never had an address or a job anywhere except for the Army and he’d only gone there because a judge had given him a choice, the military…or jail.

He had a record, that could be a problem. Breaking and entering with a gang of other kids from Tempe. His uncle, an old jackass prospector, had taken a strap to him many a time but it hadn’t helped. The Army had and after eight years in a ranger company he had emerged a different man.

None of which was going to help him now. He had escaped but the woman was going to have a lot of explaining to do and he was suddenly certain of what she was going to say. The very story she had tried to set up in the first place would be her best bet now. Someone had tried to rob the dead man in the house (was it her husband?), the house had caught fire just as she was returning home. He didn’t know exactly how she’d spin it but he had no doubt that she would identify him as the killer…and she probably had his wallet.

He felt short of breath and his throat was tight. Everything he had learned in the Army told him to call the police. But his childhood, the poor kid raised in an ovenlike trailer who had been chased by the cops down dusty alleys and through weed-grown scrap yards, said something else. The world he lived in now was not the world of the military. He could not count on officials being the hard but fair officers he had once known. He could not count on those around him to take responsibility for their actions or to take pride in their honesty.

In the end he split the difference. Quickly dressing in clean clothes, he packed his bag and, using a stash of money left in his shaving kit, paid the bill. He gingerly pulled his hat on over the makeshift bandage and set out for the bus station.

After buying his ticket he turned to a phone booth and, pulling the door shut, dropped a dime in the slot. After speaking with an operator and holding for a minute or so a voice responded. “Robbery-Homicide, Lieutenant Ragan speaking.”

Jackson took a deep breath. “Lieutenant Ragan, don’t think this is a crank call. I’m going to outline a case for you. Listen….”

Without mentioning his name he outlined his story from the moment he’d been accosted by the woman on the street. He told how he was lured into her home, that he’d been knocked out, and the plans to fire the house. He ended suddenly. “Ragan, I need help. This man, whoever he was, was killed, shot, and these people are looking for a cover story…something that doesn’t implicate them. I’m not a killer, but you can see the spot I’m in, can’t you?”

“I guess so,” the policeman said. “What do you want from me?”

“Look into it from my angle, don’t just believe everything you’re told.”

“We never just believe what we’re told.” Ragan’s voice was dry, nearly expressionless. “Look, it’s not my case. All I can tell you to do is to give yourself up. Just come in and let us do our job.”

Monte Jackson hung the receiver gently on the hook.

He had done what he could. Once on his claim, it might be months, even years before they found him. But he knew too much to believe he could escape forever.

Yet he must have breathing space. He was in a trap, but if he had time he might think his way out or perhaps, the investigation would turn up something that led away from him. He had made an attempt to offer an element of doubt. The police might accept the woman’s story, yet if they had cause to look further, what might they find?