Brokenclaw

18

THE CHELAN MOUNTAINS

He waited in the lobby of the apartment building until Rushia arrived fifteen minutes later.

‘What the heck’s the matter, James? You look like a ghost.’

Bond found himself unable to speak. He just nodded, indicating that Rushia should follow him.

‘Well, that wasn’t any lovers’ tiff,’ Rushia said, standing just inside the door of Chi-Chi’s apartment.

‘It’s not funny, Ed. Look in the bedroom.’

‘Oh, shit. No!’ Rushia came out of the bedroom and motioned Bond into a chair. ‘You called the cops.’

He shook his head. ‘The last thing I want is cops.’

‘Then you’re going to Muir Woods? It’s not exactly private there. They have forest rangers and all. It’s a National Monument, for crying out loud.’

Bond had visited the woods on several occasions, and like thousands of others, had marvelled at the giant redwood trees which tower on the edge of Mount Tamalpais State Park. ‘I’m going nowhere near Muir Woods,’ he said, a dull edge to his voice.

‘So what the hell happens to Chi-Chi? Lee says you have to be there if you ever want to see her alive again. James, old buddy, you’re risking her life.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Because I think the Muir Woods thing is a set-up. I think I know where that bastard Brokenclaw Lee is holed up.’

‘You think you know? Hell, James, this isn’t a time for hunches. You’ve got to know, not just have some kind of an instinct.’

‘Okay, then – I know where he is. The Muir Woods meeting’s almost certainly a blind. Sure, it’s probably some sort of ambush as well, but I’m heading for the place I know he’s at.’

‘So what do I do? Sit on my thumbs and eat Gummi Bears?’

‘We’re all supposed to be in that conference tomorrow morning, Ed. Well, sure as hell, Chi-Chi isn’t going to be there. Neither am I, and if you agree to help, neither will you.’

‘Is that right? We going AWOL, James? If you say yes to that, I didn’t hear you. What I heard was we’re taking some of the leave due to both of us.’

‘You’ll come?’

‘Only if you’re really sure.’

‘Near as dammit.’

‘That’s near enough for me. Hey,’ Rushia’s eyes were focused on something near the sagging drapes. ‘What the heck’s that doo-hickey down there?’

Bond saw it as Rushia pointed. Something small, glinting on the carpet. He reached down and came up with a stick pin, the kind of thing people wore in their lapels to show they belonged to the Rotarians or the Elks. This one had three tiny letters fixed to its head. The letters spelled out FBI.

‘So now we know who snatched her.’ Bond looked blankly at the pin. ‘I’m not only going to get Brokenclaw, but I think I’ll probably also have a go at those crooks Nolan and Wood.’

‘Just say the word, James, and I’m with you.’

‘It’s more than just a word, Ed. I need inside help. Information. I need to know stuff that I think you can get for me.’

‘Shoot.’

Bond talked carefully for a good half-an-hour. When he had finished, Rushia leaned back in his chair. ‘There’s an awful lot of it, James, but I can probably get it all within an hour or so – make that two hours, so why don’t you get this place squared away while I go and do the jobs? I’ll call you as soon as I have anything. Better, I’ll come and pick you up but I also think we’ve got to watch our backs; leave some billay doo, as they say in Paris, France, just to make certain the old folks at home know roughly where we’re heading.’

‘I leave that entirely to you, Ed, but the last thing I want is the cavalry coming to my rescue. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it alone. It’s an end game. Me and Brokenclaw alone.’

‘And what if he doesn’t see it your way?’

‘The man has a gigantic ego, Ed. I can’t see him turning down a chance to beat me, one on one, as your people say.’

‘A one on one with that guy could mean something pretty deadly, Jim.’

‘Don’t ever call me Jim.’ There was no humour in his voice. ‘I know a guy called Geoffrey in the business, back in London. He has a damned great notice in his office. It says ‘The name is Geoffrey, not Geoff.’ That’s the way I feel. The name’s James, not Jim.’

‘Excuse me,’ Rushia said with exaggerated politeness. ‘Just didn’t know you cared.’

When he had gone, Bond began to tidy up. He hauled the door back into place, took down the shattered poster and generally made the apartment look a little less messy.

The telephone rang around midnight. Rushia said he had everything they needed. He would pick him up within the hour.

‘We’ll have to charter,’ Rushia said when Bond was seated next to him in a big green Chevy sedan. ‘I don’t see us getting on any regular flights. I left word, by the way. Said all three of us had gotten a sniff of Brokenclaw and couldn’t raise anyone else.’

‘Will that hold up?’

‘Maybe not for ever, but it should give us twenty-four hours.’ Then he started in on the information Bond required.

The area around the Chelan Mountains, high in the north of Washington State, was what Ed called ‘Vacation Land’. ‘There’re scenic routes to walk or drive. They ski there in the winter – there’s been no snow as yet this year, but it’s going to be cold. We’ll need some heavy clothing, but most of the holiday stuff goes on south of Lake Chelan. This reservation you talked about . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s a semi-official thing. Washington State has a lot of regular Indian Reservations. The one you’re after isn’t just confined to Blackfoot people either.’

Bond waited. Since he had seen the arrow piercing the oil painting in Chi-Chi’s bedroom and read the message attached to it, he had heard one thing over and over again in Brokenclaw’s voice—

‘I doubt if I could live with myself if I did not spend time among my other people. I need to recharge my batteries like the next man. There are members of the old Blackfoot Confederacy who live apart. High in the Chelan Mountains, in Washington State, there is a peaceful camp where they live out their lives in the old way. I go there often. I like to breathe the smoke from my tepee, reflect on life, talk to my ancestors.’

It was not a mere hunch that had brought him to the conclusion that Brokenclaw had gone off to this ‘peaceful camp’ as he had called it. This was logic. If Brokenclaw believed in his own powers of escape, evasion and ability to remain outside the law, the camp in the Chelan Mountains was the one place he would go. Maybe to recharge his batteries, possibly to take stock, to think out his next move. He would have funds outside the United States, and in the peace of the mountains, he could, as he put it, breathe the smoke from his tepee and make a decision.

If he wanted revenge on the two people who had been the cause of his downfall, it was in those mountains he would wreak that revenge. Chi-Chi would be there, and Brokenclaw’s logic must have told him that Bond would eventually follow.

‘Not just Blackfoot people?’ he queried.

Rushia took the car on to the airport road. ‘Nope. Around twelve years ago a number of Indians from various tribes settled in the Yakima, Colville, Warm Springs and Nez Perce Reservations, asked if they could live outside their allotted reservations in a camp of their own choice. There were Blackfoot Confederacy people, Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow and Mandans. They swore an oath that they would live together in peace, but they wanted to live in the old way. Up there they don’t bother anyone. They’re self-supporting, they use original tools, they hunt game and small animals and they keep to themselves.

‘Somehow they’ve worked out a common understanding with one another. There have been rumours that they practise a lot of their old, somewhat barbarous ceremonies, but, as long as nobody bothers them, they don’t cause any trouble. I have a map that’ll take you right up to the camp.’

‘Where do we go first?’

‘We hire an air taxi, James. That’d be our fastest route, a jet if possible, to the field at Wenatchee. Then we hire a Range Rover or some such. There’s a track that’ll take us to within five miles of the place. It’s uphill, through wooded country, but the paths are there if you look for them. Map’s in the glove compartment here.’

‘I’ll look at it on the aircraft. If we can get an aircraft.’

They got a Learjet, and when they said where they wanted to go, they also got a strange look. ‘Something going on up near Wenatchee?’ the man from Weatherproof Air Services asked.

‘Not that we know of. This is a mission we’re on. Government business.’

‘Why don’t you get a government airplane, then?’

‘You know what it’s like.’ Ed became very confidential, very trusting. ‘So many damned forms. We want to get up there as quickly as possible, not wait for a week. We put the Learjet on Amex and shove it in for expenses when the time comes. You know how the old song goes?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why did you ask if something was going on up in Wenatchee?’ Bond asked.

‘Because you’re the second job we’ve had tonight. Same route. Had to use our one DC-3, the old workhorse herself. Slow, but still flying.’

‘You couldn’t give them a Learjet?’

The man shook his head. ‘Another government job.’ He dropped his voice. ‘FBI. One agent and a male nurse. Taking a woman back home. She’s been in some accident. Looked in a bad way. Unconscious. Had to get her on a stretcher.’

‘How long ago?’ Rushia asked.

‘Why the interest?’

Rushia sighed. ‘If you really want to know, it’s connected to the case we’re on.’

‘Well, they left about three-quarters of an hour ago. If we get your flightplan filed and okayed quickly enough, you’ll be landing within ten minutes or so of the DC-3.’

‘Let’s go then.’ Bond was not smiling.

The DC-3 was parked near the terminal building at Wenatchee, under the big floodlights. They saw it as they came in to land, and, as the Learjet taxied in, both Rushia and Bond craned to see if there was any activity around the aircraft.

In the terminal, Rushia went in search of the crew while Bond headed for the car rental services. He tried Avis first and found they had only just let their last Range Rover go. ‘Big call for them around these parts,’ the girl said. ‘I can let you have an almost new Isuzu Trooper. It’ll do the same job for you.’

It was two thirty in the morning when, with Rushia at the wheel and Bond following the map, they left the airport, heading north.

‘They’re coming back,’ Rushia announced as the Trooper pulled away and picked up speed.

‘Who’s coming back?’ Bond’s mind was ahead of them. Already he was flexing his mental and physical muscles for the showdown with Brokenclaw.

‘Who d’you think, dummy? Dorothy and Toto? Your friends Wolan and Nood . . .’

‘Nolan and Wood. They’re coming back this way?’

‘Certain as the unexpected.’

‘Speak to me, Ed.’

‘Okay. Read my lips. Your two ex-FBI buddies are coming back. The DC-3 crew are waiting for them. They hired a Range Rover and they’ve got twenty minutes’ start on us.’

‘Then . . .’

‘You haven’t heard the best part.’

‘Well?’

‘They’re coming back with another guy. One of them told the pilot. They want him to take them to Bracket Field, the other side of LA. You might like to know that the other guy’s an Oriental gentleman. Old and infirm, they said. Some charter is picking him up from Bracket Field. Right? Happy now?’

In the darkness, Bond smiled.

They drove for ninety minutes, keeping to the Columbia River on their right and the dark mass that was forest and mountains to their left. They went through the town of Chelan and on, until they reached a narrow road to the left.

‘This the one that peters out into a track about twenty miles up?’ Rushia asked.

‘About five miles from the camp, yes. Can you do it without lights?’

‘Not yet I can’t. Not if you want to get there.’

‘Pull over at any sign of lights.’ Bond already had his automatic pistol out.

The road was little more than a track, and both expressed their doubts about getting vehicles past each other. ‘If they suddenly come hurtling down with their Oriental gent on board, we’re in for H’ang Chow Mein,’ Ed chuckled. ‘Or Bondburger.’

The going was slow, and thirty minutes later it was light enough to kill the headlights. Ten after that they saw the Range Rover.

It was pulled hard in to the right of the track and seemed empty and deserted.

‘I guess I’m going to do the famous Rushia backup. Watch out for me, James.’ Slowly the Trooper rolled in reverse, weaving a little until they had moved about thirty yards back, and just around a bend which would hide them from anyone approaching the Range Rover.

‘I don’t suppose you came ready for a shooting war?’ Bond’s finger was itching.

‘You don’t? Well, James, I came prepared for all eventualities.’ Ed jerked at his waistband and drew out a massive Colt revolver with a six inch barrel. ‘.357 Magnum,’ he grinned happily. ‘This is my “Make my year” gun. I also have accessories, like handcuffs. I was going to use them on your good self if I came to the conclusion that you were going to do something really difficult . . .’ He let the sentence trail off at the sight of Bond’s eyes narrowing. ‘No, well, perhaps not. Let’s get ready for these palookas and the famous General H’ang.’

‘When we take them, I want you to drive them down to civilisation and turn them in.’

‘Can’t I hang around and wait for you?’

‘I’d rather you had them in some lock-up. I’m not certain, but I think if they were near me for any length of time, I might just kill all three.’

They moved quietly up the track. There was enough tree cover for Rushia to sink down, hidden by the Range Rover, and Bond to find a nice covert on the far side. From it, he had a view of the path snaking upwards through the trees which, he knew, led to the camp and Brokenclaw.

They waited for almost an hour before the sound of voices began to float down from the track. Neither Wood, Nolan nor the general seemed to have the slightest care in the world. As far as they were concerned, they were invisible. Bond had a sudden nudge of anxiety lest Brokenclaw had sent some of his people from the camp down with the ex-FBI men.

When they came into view, however, there were only three, moving slowly, two of them keeping time for the general’s dot-and-carry-one limp. They let them actually start to get into the Range Rover.

‘I really wouldn’t try anything silly, like going for catapults or shouting rape!’ It was Ed Rushia who broke the silence, and they all froze, for the long barrel of the Colt was placed neatly in General H’ang’s ear. ‘I could deafen him a mite,’ he continued. ‘Also my buddy just behind you, Wood – or Nolan – whichever you are, has a strong conviction that you are all expendable.’

H’ang dropped the briefcase he had been holding.

They came quietly enough, though they were all three carrying pistols. Both of the former FBI men still had handcuffs on them. ‘Needn’t have brought them after all, Ed,’ Bond said cheerfully as they cuffed all three men together, helped them into the rear of the Range Rover and used the last set of cuffs to secure them to part of the metal framework.

‘Commander Rushia’s going to take you boys down to the nearest cops.’ He fiddled with the briefcase, which opened easily enough, the combination lock having been used so often that the numbers almost fell into place by themselves.

Inside was another set of the Lords and Lords Day documents, and when he saw them, Bond realised his hands were trembling. ‘Take this lot, Ed, and burn them the first chance you get.’

‘Okay, buddy. Good luck. I’ll be waiting for you.’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ one of the ex-FBI men growled. ‘He’s never coming out of there alive. I can promise you that.’

‘You’d be surprised at the places Captain Bond’s come out of alive.’ As he said it, Rushia thought he would possibly interrogate the boys on the way down. He had picked up a wrinkle here and there. If James was going into a certain death situation, it was better for ole Ed Rushia to be warned so he could send in the cavalry.

Bond must have read his mind. ‘Ed,’ he said quietly, ‘only in the last resort. Please promise me that. It has to be very bad. I must do this on my own.’

Rushia nodded, raised a hand and started the Range Rover’s engine as Bond slowly began his hike up the path which rose to lead him to his destiny.

He knew the real danger was only just starting, and after a mile, had that uncanny feeling that there were several pairs of eyes on him.

Slowly, the path flattened out, and then, quite suddenly, he was at the end of the treeline. The woods grew to the edge of an oval depression, about a mile long and half-a-mile wide. Smoke rose from camp fires, teepees were sited neatly in two long rows. At the furthest point, standing apart from the teepees, there was a large circular structure built of hides stretched over wood. It had a high curved roof and a totem stood directly in front of it. The ceremonial Lodge, Bond thought, bringing his eyes back down the lines of teepees. At the end nearest to him was a tent taller and bigger than the rest. ‘Buck House,’ he muttered to himself, stepping from the trees, his arms high over his head, his pistol held by the barrel, to show that he came in peace.

Women, and a few men, had been moving through the camp, doing the usual morning chores of any society, lighting fires, starting to cook. As they saw the white man approach, they stopped and watched, faces expressionless, as he headed on down to the large teepee.

He could smell the woodsmoke mingled with burned meat and expected to be called to a halt at any minute. But the men and women did not move. He realised that, after the initial interest, their combined gaze had now fallen on the teepee which he was nearing from the rear.

He moved slightly to one side, so that he could approach diagonally, and then reach the entrance flap at the front. As he moved, a figure stepped from behind the teepee.

‘Captain Bond, what a pleasure to welcome you to our camp; and what a pity you did not obey my orders two nights ago.’

‘Where is she, Brokenclaw?’ He stood stock still, holding eye contact with the huge man who was now dressed in buckskin and wore a long hunting knife at his belt.

‘Where is she?’ Brokenclaw’s voice was friendly. ‘She is safe, James Bond. She is here and she is safe. Why, do you wish to fight me for her?’

‘That was my intention. One to one, head to head, Brokenclaw. And I’m quite willing to do it on your terms. You choose the weapons, so to speak.’

Brokenclaw put back his head and laughed. ‘You think you’re man enough to be a chief? All right, Captain Bond. There is one way we can find out if you have the strength to be a leader of men. Come, I will introduce you to a little ceremony invented first by the Mandan nation. It was designed for just such a purpose – to choose leaders. It is called the torture rite of the o-kee-pa.’