Rick Brant - The Golden Skull Part 5

Rick knew that the mysterious rifleman could have gotten away before this. The fact that he was still lying in wait could mean only one thing. He had known he was being pursued by the Spindrifters, and he had waited in the hope of picking off one or two of them.

Fingers of ice laid themselves across Rick's spine. It was no fun being the object of deadly intentions. He lay very still.

His hand brushed something soft among the thorns, and he thought he knew what it was. He was lying in a patch of the tiny pink flowers known as _cadena de amor_--chain of love. He had seen them everywhere during the day. They grew like weeds anywhere they were allowed to flourish.

The humor of it touched him. How romantic his sister Barbara would think it--to be trailing a desperado through an ancient Spanish city, and to be flat on one's stomach in a patch of chain of love. If he got out of this with a whole skin, he would write her about it, omitting such unpleasant facts as rifle bullets striking too close and thorns among the flowers.

But unless he did something about it, he probably would still be lying there at dawn. He rose to his knees, then to his feet, holding his breath until lack of response from the rifleman told him he had not been observed. Then he resumed his slow march in the direction Scotty had taken.

All guidebooks to the Philippines mentioned the walled city as a "must-see" item for tourists, and Rick had intended to take a daytime tour. This was not a suitable subst.i.tute. He would still have to return by day. He moved on, with extreme caution. He could see nothing but the upper edge of the wall and the silhouette of the ancient cathedral a few hundred yards away. But movement of air, a slight thinning of the darkness, told him when he pa.s.sed openings in the thick wall.

Suddenly he stopped, all senses alert. He had heard something. As he waited, muscles rigid with the strain of listening, he heard a whisper no louder than the rustle of a moth's wing.

"Rick?"

"Yes," he breathed.

Even though he was expecting it, he gave an involuntary jump when Scotty's hand touched his sleeve. Scotty's lips touched his ear and the husky ex-marine whispered almost inaudibly:

"Gate to the street. Ten paces ahead. I have an empty gasoline drum.

Going to throw it. If he fires and is close enough, rush him. If not, make for the gate. Can't stay here all night."

Rick found Scotty's shoulder and squeezed it to indicate agreement, then he crouched low, ready to move like a plunging fullback in any direction.

Scotty moved away. In a moment Rick heard the faint sc.r.a.pe of metal on stone. He filled his lungs with air, then held his breath, waiting.

He sensed rather than saw Scotty lift the gas drum over his head. Even when empty, gas drums weigh quite a bit, but Scotty launched it like a medicine ball. Rick saw it briefly, a cylindrical shadow against the sky, then it landed with an appalling clatter, struck sparks from a stone, and rolled noisily away.

The rifle flamed one, twice. It was perhaps twenty paces away, and the shooting was toward the drum. Rick rushed forward, arms outstretched. He heard a slap like a baseball hitting a glove, then a cry of pain. The rifle blasted again, muzzle skyward.

Rick thought he heard a siren wail, but there wasn't time to wonder. He sprang headlong toward the rifleman. His shoulder struck flesh which yielded. Then warm metal touched his hand and he grabbed for it. The rifle barrel! He leaned on it, keeping it vertical, and put his weight into the job of driving its owner back off balance.

A blow caught him under the eye and he saw stars. For a moment he relaxed his grip, then he released the rifle and reached until he found cloth. He pulled, letting himself go backward as the wearer of the cloth was pulled off balance. He landed on his back, and a knee in the chest drove the air out of him. He rolled sideways, fists driving out. One connected and the shock of hitting bone ran through his knuckles and up his arm.

A heavy weight landed on his stomach and he grunted, trying to roll out from under. Again his fist lashed out and connected. He drew it back for another punch.

Brilliant light illuminated the scene. Rick blinked in the glare and saw Scotty's grim face above him. Scotty had his fist c.o.c.ked back for a punch that would have knocked him colder than a raspberry popsickle.

"Hold it," Rick grunted. Scotty was forcing the air out of him by sheer weight.

Running feet pounded the earth and hands jerked both of them to their feet. Scotty held the sniper's rifle, but the sniper was gone.

A Filipino policeman looked at them over the sights of a .45 caliber Colt automatic. Even in the reflected lights of the prowl car's head lamps, the muzzle looked only slightly smaller than the entrance to Mammoth Cave.

Rick's hair lifted. "Put that thing down!" he gulped.

"Officer," Tony said crisply, "these are the two boys from my party.

They were chasing the burglar." He added, "Apparently they succeeded only in catching each other. What in the name of an Igorot icebox were you two trying to do?"

The boys looked embarra.s.sed. "We had the sniper," Rick explained. "But we must have got tangled up. I thought the man with the rifle was the burglar, but it was Scotty."

"He threw the rifle at me," Scotty said. "I reached for him, swung on him and connected, then the rifle knocked me down."

The policeman's running mate came back from a search of the darkness. He spoke to his companion in Tagalog.

"No use," the first policeman said. "He is gone. We would need help to find him, since the walled city is big and has many hiding places. Can you give a description? By the time help came he could be miles from here. Perhaps we can get him later."

Rick knew how hopeless that was.

"Unless the boys got a better look," Tony Briotti said, "the only thing I can say is that he was either an Igorot or an Ifugao. Short and muscular. I saw his haircut--couldn't very well miss it. But not his face."

Rick and Scotty hadn't even seen that much. An Igorot or Ifugao?

Probably the latter, since their expedition was connected with the Ifugaos and not the Igorots. Rick remembered the incident on the freighter. There was a pattern to this....

"I will be the one to take the rifle," the policeman said.

Rick wondered at the strange flavor of the phrase. But he was to hear it many times while in the Philippines. "I will be the one...." It was a literal translation from the Spanish.

"I will be the one to take the names," the second policeman said, opening his notebook. "You will have to make charges."

"No use," Tony replied. "Let's forget the whole thing. We'll never catch up with the man, whoever he was."

Nevertheless, the police insisted on names and histories, and it was ten minutes before the Spindrifters made their way back to the hotel. In the main dining room they talked over cups of hot chocolate, ignoring the curious stares of late supper guests who obviously wondered about Rick and Scotty's disheveled condition.

Since the boys had not wanted to discuss their personal business in front of Lazada's chauffeur there had been no chance to tell Tony about Chahda. Now they did so, and Rick ticked off points on his fingers.

"Item One: The man on the boat who tried to chop you. Either an Igorot or Ifugao. Item Two: Chahda checks out of the hotel and appears as a Sikh guard at Lazada's."

"You forgot Item Three," Scotty added. "Colonel Felix Rojas. Asked us what good is hay to a dead horse, and knew we were having dinner at Lazada's." He described the incident to Tony.

"Item Four," Rick continued. "We find a prowler in your room. He had a rifle cached in the walled city and waited around to use it on us. He was either an Igorot or Ifugao." He spread his hands. "Do we need anything more? Something is in the wind. But what?"

"A golden skull," Scotty said.

"Yes. But we don't have it. Does it make sense for anyone to try to knock us off before we have it? Shucks, we don't even know where it is, except that it's somewhere among the rice terraces."

"Which is like saying that somewhere in the Mohave Desert is a buried treasure," Scotty added.

Tony Briotti sighed. "I had heard a great deal about the penchant you two have for mysteries and excitement. Now I believe everything I've heard and more. I can't imagine any reason for all these happenings.

They simply don't make sense."

"They do to someone," Rick said, and Scotty nodded agreement.

Their waiter approached, an envelope in his hand. "Meester Brant? This come while you outside. You take?"

Rick took. "Must have arrived while Scotty and I were battling for the boxing champions.h.i.+p of the walled city." He tore it open.

"Item Five," he said. "From Chahda. 'Can't come now. Meet you in Baguio.

Watch yourselves. Big danger from Ifugao no palate.'"