May There Be a Road (Ss) (2001) Page 5

  Then the roar of guns dropped to an occasional shot as tribesmen fled up the trail toward Tohkta. Across the river, at the turn of the last switchback, a slim figure astride a gray horse moved. Chu Shih rode forward. His mount leaped the mound of dead horses and men as if they were a low gate and not sprawled bodies on a narrow trail with a sheer drop on one side.

  The soldiers parted as their commander rode amongst them; then, with riflemen in the lead, he started out onto the bridge.

  Tohkta boiled with rage. He would never let them cross! He stumbled into a prone position and taking careful aim at Chu Shih’s head squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle clicked on an empty chamber. He was out of ammunition!

  Down on the shelf there was flickering movement. The form of Batai Khan stood and drew the broadsword from the scabbard across his back. The razor-sharp blade flashed as he brought it down on one of the two ropes that held the right side of the bridge. The blade bit and bit again. Then the rope gave way and suddenly the bridge sagged and swung.

  Chu Shih turned in his saddle, the horse rearing as the weakened bridge bucked and twisted like a living thing. There was a shot and Batai Khan jerked. More soldiers came running down the trail, firing their rifles. The first of these skidded to a stop, working the bolt of his gun, and Batai Khan’s great sword struck, disemboweling the man. Suddenly Han soldiers on all sides were firing. The men on the tilting, swaying bridge, the soldiers on the trail, all fired as the ancient Tochari leader turned, his massive body pierced by a half dozen bullets, and brought his blade down on the other right-hand rope.

  The ends of the second tether, not cut through, spun and twisted as they unraveled. There was a frozen moment, then the soldiers ran panic-stricken back toward the rock shelf. For a moment the eyes of the Tochari chieftain and the Chinese officer locked, then Batai Khan raised his sword and bellowed, “Yol Bolsun!”

  A single shot brought him down. The sword clattering to the rocks beside him. A single shot from an unknown trooper on the bridge..” a shot that did no good at all, for the primitive rope shredded and the floor of the bridge peeled away, hanging twisted almost a thousand feet over the roaring waters.

  Chu Shih’s horse fell, sliding, taking four soldiers with it. The officer grabbed for one of the ropes on the high side of the bridge, held for a moment, then tumbled toward the river far below.

  Tohkta struggled to stand as two villagers ran past him, axes at the ready. In a moment the villagers reformed their positions along the trail and, with scathing fire, drove the remaining Han soldiers up the switchback trail. Following them down to the bridgehead Tohkta watched as the ax men cut the bridge away. It collapsed with a crash against the far wall of the gorge. On the rock shelf above it lay the body of Batai Khan.

  “Yol Bolsun,” Tohkta whispered as Kushla came to stand beside him.

  “What was that, my love?” she said.

  “It means good-bye or good luck… May There Be a Road.” After a moment Tohkta laughed.

  For even though Batai Khan had destroyed their bridge he had bought them time. Time to live, to raise another generation in freedom, time to plan..” if necessary time to escape. This, in its own way, was as much of a road as that once joined by their bridge. He had a vision of a Buddhist’s spinning prayer wheel. Even as they had once been connected to their future by the bridge, now they were connected to the future by the lack of it. A season? A year? A decade? Who could tell, but, as the Tochari know, nothing but the mountains lasts forever.

  By torchlight, Tohkta Khan gathered his dead and returned to the village with his bride. The future given them by Batai Khan would begin tomorrow, and there was much to do.

  *

  FIGHTER’S FIASCO

  Good heavyweights are scarcer than feather pillows . in an Eskimo’s igloo, so the first time I took a gander at this “Bambo” Bamoulian, I got all hot under the collar and wondered if I was seeing things. Only he wasn’t Bambo then, he was just plain Januz Bamoulian, a big kid from the Balkans, with no more brains than a dead man’s heel. But could he sock! I’m getting ahead of myself I am walking down the docks wondering am I going to eat, and if so, not only when but where and with what, when I see an ape with shoulders as wide as the rear end of a truck jump down off the gangway of a ship and start hiking toward another guy who is hustling up to meet him. It looks like fireworks, so I stand by to see the action, and if the action is going to be anything like the string of cuss words the guy is using, it should be good.

  This guy is big enough to gather the Empire State Building under one arm and the Chrysler Tower under the other, and looks tough enough to buck rivets with his chin, so I am feeling plenty sorry for the other guy until he gets closer and I can get a flash at him. And that look, brother, was my first gander at the immortal Bambo Bamoulian.

  He is about four inches shorter than the other guy, thicker in the chest, but with a slim waist and a walk like a cat stepping on eggs. He is a dark, swarthy fellow, and his clothes are nothing but rags, but I ain’t been in the fight racket all these years without knowing a scrapper when I see one.

  Me, I ain’t any kind of a prophet, but a guy don’t need to be clairvoyant to guess this second lug has what it takes. And what is more, he don’t waste time at it. He sidles up close to the big guy, ducks a wide right swing, and then smacks him with a fist the size of a baby ham, knocking him cold as a Labrador morning!

  Old Man Destiny doesn’t have to more than smack me in the ear with a ball bat before I take a hint, so I step up to this guy.

  “Say,” I butts in. “Mightn’t you happen to be a fighter?” “How would you like to take a walk off the pier,” he snarls, glaring at me like I’d swiped his socks or something. “You double-decked something-or-other, I am a fighter!

  What does that look like?” And he waves a paw at the study in still life draped over the dock.

  “I mean for money, in the ring. You know, for dough, kale, dinero, gelt, sugar, geetus, the his “I get it!” he yelps brightly. “You mean for money!” What would you do with a guy like that?

  “That’s the idea,” I says, trying to be calm.

  “In the ring, and with the mitts.”

  “It’s okay by me. I’ll fight anybody for anything! For money, marbles, or chalk but preferably money.

  Marbles and chalk are kind of tough on the molars!”

  “Then drop that bale hook and come with me. I am the best fight manager in the world, one of the two smartest guys in the universe, an” just generally a swell guy”

  “That’s okay. I like you, too!” he says.

  Ignoring what sounds faintly like a crack, I say, “They are wanting a fighter over at the Lyceum Club. And we’ll fight whoever they got, we don’t care who he is.”

  “We? Do both of us fight one guy? Mister, I don’t need no help.”

  “No, you fight. I’m the brains, see?

  The manager, the guy that handles the business end.

  Get it?”

  “Oh, so you’re the brains? That’s swell, it gives you something’ that’ do, an’ we’ll manage somehow!”

  I looks at him again, but he is walking along swinging those big hooks of his. I catch up, “Don’t call me mister. My name is McGuire, “Silk’ McGuire. It’s Silk because I’m a smooth guy, see?”

  “So is an eel smooth,” he says.

  A few minutes later, I lead my gorilla into Big Bill Haney’s office and park him on a chair in the outer room with his cap in his mitts.

  Then I breeze inside.

  “Hello, Bill!” I says cheerfully. “Here I am again! You got that heavyweight for the four-rounder tonight?”

  “What do’ you care?” he says, sarcastic. “You ain’t had a fighter in a year that could punch his way out of a paper bag!”

  “Wrong,” I says coldly. “Climb out of that swivel chair and cast your lamps over this!” And I dramatically swing the door open and give him a gander at my fighter, who has parked his number tens on the new maho
gany table.

  “Hell,” he says, giving Bambo the once-over. “That ain’t no tighter. That chump is fresh off the boat.”

  “No wisecracks. That guy is the greatest puncher since Berlenbach and faster than even Loughran. He’s tougher than a life stretch on Alcatraz, and he ain’t never lost a battle!”

  “Never had one, either, huh?”

  Big Bill looks Januz over with a speculative glint in his eyes, and I know what he sees. Whatever else he may have, he does have color, and that’s what they pay off on. My bohunk looks like a carbon copy of the Neanderthal man, whoever he was, only a little tougher and dumber.

  “Okay,” Haney says grudgingly. “I’ll give him the main go tonight with “Dead-Shot’

  Emedasco. Take it or leave it.”

  “With who?” I yelps. “Why, that guy has knocked over everyone from here to China!”

  “You asked for a fight, didn’t you?” he sneers.

  “Well, you got one. That clown of yours would’ve dragged down about twenty bucks for getting bounced on his ear by some preliminary punk; with the Dead-Shot he’ll get not less than five centuries. Why are you kicking?”

  “But this guy’s a prospect. He can go places. I don’t want him knocked off in the start, do I? Chees, give a guy a chance, won’t you?”

  “Forget it. That’s the only spot open. I filled that four rounder yesterday, and then Hadry did a run-out on the main event, so I can shove your boy in there. If he lives through it, I’ll give him another shot. What do you call him?”

  “Hey, buddy?” I barks at him. “what do’ you call yourself?”

  “Me? I come without calling,” he grins. “But my name is Bamoulian. Januz Bamoulian.

  Ja-nuz—”

  “Skip it!” I says hastily. “We’ll call you Bambo Bamoulian!”

  I touch Haney for a fin, so we can eat, and we barge down to Coffee Dan’s to hang on the feed bag. While Clan is trying to compose a set of ham and eggs, I go into a huddle with myself trying to figure out the answers. This big tramp Dead-Shot Emedasco is poison. Or that’s the way he sounds in the papers. I have never seen him, but a guy hears plenty. I usually get all the dope on those guys, but this is one I missed somehow. He has been touring the sticks knocking over a lot of guys named Jones, and on paper looks like the coming heavyweight champ.

  The way Bambo charges them ham and eggs, I decide we better fight early and often, and that I’d rather buy his clothes than feed him. But while I am on my third cup of coffee, me not being a big eater myself as I’m nearly out of money again, I look up and who should be steering a course for our table but “Swivel-Neck” Hogan.

  Now, I like Swivel-Neck Hogan like I enjoy the galloping cholera, and he has been faintly irritated with me ever since a poker game we were in. He had dealt me a pair of deuces from the bottom of the deck, and I played four aces, which relieved him of fifty bucks, so I know that whenever he approaches me there is something in the air besides a bad smell.

  “Hey, you!” he growls. “The skipper wants ya.”

  “Say, Bambo,” I says, “do you smell a skunk or is that just Swivel-Neck Hogan?”

  “Awright, aw right he snarls, looking nasty with practically no effort. “Can dat funny stuff! The chief wants ya!”

  As I said, I like Swivel-Neck like the seven-year itch, but I have heard he is now strong-arming for “DiamondBack” Dilbecker, a big-shot racketeer, and that he has taken to going around with a gal in every pocket, or something.

  “Act your age,” I says, pleasant-like. “You may be the apple of your mother’s eye, but you’re just a spoiled potato to me.” Then I turns to Bambo and slips him my key. “Take this and beat it up to the room when you get through eating, an” stick around till I get back. I got to see what this chump wants. It won’t take long.”

  Bambo gets up and hitches his belt up over his dinner. He gives Swivel-Neck a glare that would have raised a blister on a steel deck. “You want I should bounce this cookie, Silk?” he says, eagerly. “Five to one I can put him out for an hour.”

  “It’d be cheap at twice the price,” I chirps. “But let it ride.”

  When we get to Dilbecker’s swanky-looking apartment, there are half a dozen gun guys loafing in the living room. Any one of them would have kidnapped and murdered his own nephew for a dime, and they all look me over with a sort of professional stare as though measuring up space in a cornerstone or a foundation. This was pretty fast company for yours truly, and nobody knows this better than me.

  Dilbecker looks up when I come in. He is a short, fat guy, and he is puffy about the gills. I feel more at home when I see him, for DiamondBack Dilbecker and me is not strangers. In fact, away back when, we grew up within a couple of blocks of each other, and we called him Sloppy, something he’d like to forget now that he’s tops in his racket.

  “McGuire,” he says, offhand. “Have a cigar.” He shoves a box toward me, and when I pocket a handful I can see the pain in his eyes.

  I smile blandly and shove the stogies down in my pockets, figuring that if I am to go up in smoke it might just as well be good smoke.

  “I hear you got a fighter,” he begins. “A boy named Bamoulian?”

  “Yeah, I got him on for tonight. Going in there for ten stanzas with Emedasco.” Now, I wonder as I size him up, what is this leading up to? “And,” I continue, “he’ll knock the Dead-Shot so cold, he’ll keep for years!”

  “Yeah?” Dilbecker frowns impressively.

  “Maybe so, maybe no. But that’s what I want that’ see you about. I got me a piece of Emedasco’s contract, and tonight I think he should win.

  I’d like to see him win by a kayo in about the third round.”

  Dilbecker slips out a drawer and tosses a stack of bills on the desk. “Of course, I’m willing to talk business. I’ll give you a grand.

  What do you say?”

  I bit off the end of one of his cigars, taking my time and keeping cool. Actually, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and a dozen cold chills playing tag up and down my spine.

  Dilbecker’s at a loss for patience. “Take it, it’s a better offer than you’ll get five minutes from now,” he growls. “Things could happen to you, bad things..” if you know what I mean.”

  He’s right, of course. He’s got a room full of bad things on the other side of the door. I hate to give in to this kid I used to know on the old block but what the hell..” lookin’ at him I realize it may be my life on the line. Nevertheless, a man’s got to have his pride.

  “Don’t come on hard with me, Dilbecker. You may be a tough guy now because you got a crowd o” gun guys in the next room but I remember when the kids from St. Paul’s used to chase you home from school!”

  “Yeah? Well you forget about it!” he says.

  “Set this fight and don’t make me mad or both you and the Slavic Slugger’ll wake up to find yourselves dead!”

  Now, I’m not bringing it up but I helped him escape from the parochial school boys a time or few and I took my lumps for it, too. I’m not bringing it up but it’s got my blood pressure going anyway.

  “Awright, you said your piece,” I says, as nasty as I can make it. “And now I’m sayin’ mine. I’m sending my boy out there to win and you can keep your money and your guns els and your damned cigars!” I tossed the load from my pocket on his desk. “I got connections, too. You want to bring muscle? I’ll bring muscle, I’ll bring guns and sluggers, whatever it takes.”

  He laughs at me, but it’s not a nice laugh. “Muscle? You? You’re a comedian. You should have an act. You bum, you been broke for months.

  You know better than to put the angle on me. Now get out of here, an’ your boy dives t’night, or you’ll get what Dimmer got!”

  Only a week ago they dragged “Dimmer”

  Chambers out of the river, and him all wound up in a lot of barbed wire and his feet half burned off.

  Everybody knows it is Dilbecker’s job, but they can’t prove nothing. I am very sensit
ive about the feet, and not anxious to get tossed off no bridges, but Bamoulian will fight, and maybe a very big maybe he can win!

  Also, I don’t like being pushed around. So, am I brave?

  I don’t know. I get out of there quick. I got the rest of my life to live.

  So we go down to the Lyceum and I don’t tell the big ape anything about it. He’s happy to see me and raring to go; I don’t want to distract him any. I’m bustin’ a sweat because I’ve got no connections, no muscle, no gun guys and Sloppy Dilbecker has. I do, however, call in some favors. There’s an old car, which is sitting right outside the dressing-room door, and a pawnshop .38, which is in my pocket. And running shoes, which is on my feet.

  Now it’s nearly time and I am getting rather chilled about those feet by then, although it looks like they’ll be warm enough before the evening is over. Several times I look out the dressing-room door, and every time I stick my head out there, there is a great, big, ugly guy who looks at me with eyes like gimlets, and I gulp and pull my head in.

  I don’t want Bambo worried going into the ring, although he sure don’t look worried now, so I says nothing. He is cheerful, and grinning at me, and pulling Cotton’s kinky hair, and laughing at everybody. I never saw a guy look so frisky before a battle. But he ain’t seen Dead-Shot Emedasco yet, either!

  Once, I got clear down to the edge of the ring, looking the crowd over. Then I get a chill. Right behind the corner where we will be, is Sloppy Dilbecker and three of his gun guys. But what opens my eyes and puts the chill in my tootsies again is the fact that the seats all around them are empty. The rest of the house is a sellout.

  But those empty seats… It looks like he’s saving space for a whole crew of tough guys.

  It is only a few minutes later when we get the call, and as we start down the aisle to the ring, I am shaking in my brand-new shoes. Also, I am wondering why I had to be unlucky enough to get a fighter stuck in there with one of Dilbecker’s gorillas. And then, all of a sudden I hear something behind me that makes my hair crawl. It is the steady, slow, shuffling of feet right behind me.