May There Be a Road (Ss) (2001) (6 page)

At that moment a fusillade of rifle fire exploded from concealed points along the trail leading up to the Tochari village. Soldiers fell from the top of the trail, and in a moment the Chinese and the villagers were pouring volley after volley into each other in the thundering confines of the gorge.

Reaching the shelf where the bridge stanchions had been fastened to the rock, Tohkta dropped from his horse and was met by Batai Khan and four warriors armed with old rifles. Ibrahim turned his horse tightly in the narrow space.

"They follow us closely, Grandfather!" Tohkta pointed up the trail. But the four men had pressed forward, and as the first of Chu Shih's horsemen came into sight they fired, sending the first horse screaming over the cliff edge, its rider still astride, and collapsing two more in a struggling mass, blocking the trail.

Above, the machine gun opened up, forcing the defenders on the trail to cover and allowing soldiers to crowd their way onto the trail again. In the gray light of the gorge tracers whipped like hellfire, streaking in all directions as the burning bullets bounced from the rock and whirled away into the oncoming night.

The nearest soldiers were advancing again; using the dead horses as cover, they rained fire on the shelf, leaving few areas of even partial safety.

Chu Shih was, whatever else he might be, a leader. Yet better than any of them he knew how desperately he must cross the bridge and take the village.

Tohkta nestled the stock of the rifle against his cheek, measuring the distance. He squeezed off his shot, and the man at whom he fired froze, then fell. The snow fell faster. Blown particles stung like bits of steel upon their cheeks.

The Chinese above moved in. One paused to crouch against the rock wall. Ibrahim shot him, and he rolled down the trail to their feet.

At the top of the trail more soldiers made their way down the switchbacks, covered by the machine gun.

They came in short, quick dashes, utilizing the slightest bits of cover. Ever they drew closer.

Occasionally there would be the crack of one of the captured rifles or the dull boom of a muzzle-loader from the villager's side of the gorge and often a soldier would fall, but always this would instantly attract a lash of resumed fire from the machine gun.

"We must go, Batai Khan," said Tohkta.

"We cannot hold out here."

"Yes," agreed the old man, and motioned to his companions to cross the bridge. He dropped into their place and, as they ran into the open, dropped the first soldier to raise a rifle. Ibrahim shot and Tohkta was beside him firing and reloading, but the second Tochari on the bridge was down and as the others bent to pick him up another was shot and fell into the crevasse. Then Ibrahim ran, pounding across the swaying bridge.

The old man put his hand on Tohkta's arm.

"Go," he said. "Go, Tohkta Khan. I will stay."

It was not lost on Tohkta that Batai Khan had used the leader's title. He shook his head.

"No," Tohkta protested. "Our people need you."

"Go, I say!" He glared at Tohkta from his fierce cold eyes. Then in a softer voice, he said, "Would you have me die as an old horse dies?

I cannot stop them," he said, "but the bridge can."

Tohkta stared at him, uncomprehending. Then it came to him, and he was astonished. For an instant he was filled with despair as he realized what tremendous cost had gone to the building of this bridge, the long struggle with the mountain and the river, the backbreaking toil. "You would destroy our bridge?

It cost four years to build!"

"What are four years of work against four thousand years of freedom. In time, you can build another bridge." Even as his grandfather spoke, he knew it was what they must do. The despair left him.

Together they knelt and fired, retreated a few steps, then fired again. An icy wind roared down the tunnel of the gorge, and the bridge swayed before it.

Down the cliff trail they could see them coming now, many dark figures, blossoming with fire.

Bullets struck about them.

Batai Khan was hit, and he fell, losing his grip upon the rifle, which fell into the void.

Tohkta bent to lift him but there was a gleam in the old man's eye. "Leave me here!

You must destroy the bridge and silence the devil gun." "Yes, Grandfather."

"Tohkta Khan, go with God!"

Batai Khan tore loose and fell to the stone.

Snow drove down the gorge, obliterating all before them. And Tohkta ran though his heart was crushed.

On the bridge the howling wind caught him. The ropes flexed and jumped with every step and bullets tore through the rope and wood around him. Soldiers depressed the muzzle of the machine gun, holding the tail of the tripod high, and tracers tore at him.

One left a smoldering hole in his sheephide jacket, another left a slice like that of a knife upon his calf.

Then he was across, he fell, and was struggling to rise when he felt small hands lift him. It was Kushla. Ibrahim was there, reloading his Chinese rifle.

"Go!" He grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Have men bring axes. We must cut the bridge!"

Ibrahim was next. "Come on!" Tohkta said.

"We must stop the machine gun!"

The three of them ran. They ran up the narrow trail, and though there was cover it was scant enough.

Bullets flew.

Tocharis fired back from behind rocks or trees.

Men on both sides of the gorge died.

As he went Tohkta gathered up the few men with stolen rifles, and when he could wait no longer they took cover behind a boulder. There were five of them.

"We must destroy the devil gun!" Tohkta ordered them. "We must kill those who use it and any who are close, we must keep firing though we all may die. With that gun, the Hans can take the bridge before we can cut it. Are you ready?"

Together they rose and as one fired up and across the crevasse and into the group of soldiers around the gun.

Several fell, and as Tohkta worked the bolt on his rifle, the gunner began to swing the muzzle. Fire sliced toward them and they fired again and again.

Bullets bounded into the rock, into Ibrahim, tore Tohkta's rifle from his grasp and ripped his thigh.

But as he fell so did the Chinese gunner, and the two tribesmen left standing shot the next nearest man too.

Tohkta lurched to his feet. The gun was silent, the crew a struggling mob of the dead and dying.

He lifted Ibrahim's rifle and shot a man who lifted himself from the trail near the gun. The man fell, clutched at the edge of the trail and, as the rock crumbled in his fingers, clutched at the barrel of the machine gun.

A moment later the man was spinning down into the gorge and the gun was falling fast behind him. Tohkta felt like crying out in triumph, but the day had been too expensive in lives and a dozen or more soldiers had poured onto the shelf where the stanchions of the bridge were fastened. Chinese and Tochari defenders alike were firing into each other at near point-blank range.

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.