INTO THE FORBIDDEN HILLS
Terry's two black pistols, canteen and packed saddle bags lay on the
table. Without a word he snapped holster and canteen into his belt
holes and the Sergeant picked up the bags and extra gun. As he blew
out the light Terry first realized that dawn had come. They hurried
silently to the cuartel, in front of which the sixteen impatient
Macabebes were drawn up, each equipped for the field and holding
saddled ponies. As he drank the coffee that the thoughtful Mercado had
prepared for him Terry gestured questioningly toward the ponies.
"I knew you would want to travel fast, sir, so I borrowed these ponies
from planters. They are very angry about the ladrones, sir, and were
glad to help." He found ample reward for his foresight in Terry's
unspoken commendation.
Several brown heads appeared at windows to stare after the little
cavalcade that trotted down the side of the plaza at daylight and took
the west trail into the brush. It was not a smart outfit, it lacked
all of the flourish and the trappings of parade, but it did look eager
to use the carbines that flapped from pommel straps. Terry's compact
gray set the pace for the dauntless men who rode behind him, and the
Sergeant brought up the rear snapping sharp-voiced invectives that
withered three over-zealous riders.
A long trail lay before them. Terry maintained a steady trot that ate
up the miles. The day grew hot, the brush thicker. Twice he halted the
column to water the ponies at shallow fords: once he stopped to smooth
saddle blankets and resaddle.
He felt the heat intensely. His skin seemed dry and hot, and he
slanted his campaign hat low over his eyes to dim the glare of the sun
and relieve the strain on his eyeballs, which ached fiercely. His
pony, having worked off its excess of spirit, settled down into a
tireless pace that tested the picked mounts the planters had selected
as their best, and the miles passed in silence save for staccato
pounding of hoofs on hard packed earth and the swish of underbrush
that lined the narrow crooked trail.
At noon he drew up at Sears' plantation to freshen men and beasts.
Sears tore out to meet them, greeted Terry enthusiastically and ran
inside again to hurry his cook while Terry superintended the care of
the ponies. When Sears' foreman bore the soldiers into the cookshack
for a hot dinner of rice and fish Terry passed up the high stairway
and into the cool house, there to sink into a big chair, faint.
Sears was energetically speeding his boy in the laying of his
"company" linens and silver. He lumbered over to Terry and in his
enthusiasm shook hands again. Feeling the hand hot to his touch, he
glanced keenly down into the burning eyes.
"Man, you're sick! You shouldn't be out in the sun in this
condition!"
Terry mustered a weak laugh but Sears insisted: he poured out a stiff
drink of Scotch and when Terry refused this he half wrecked his
medicine chest in search of aspirin. He found only two tablets, and
these Terry swallowed obligingly, finding almost instant relief as the
perspiration cooled his parched skin.
Sears' anxious hospitality suffered during lunch as despite a brave
show of appetite Terry ate nothing, but briefly outlined the situation
that was taking him into the foothills.
"So they are coming this way?" Sears exclaimed. "I hadn't heard it yet
but I knew something was up. Last night some Bogobos--they are fine to
me since you--since I--" he floundered a moment, "I mean they're fine
to me. Well, anyway, last night they came to tell me that two strange
natives, both armed, had ridden past here toward the foothills: didn't
know who the pair were--you may, though, as they described one as
havin' a white eye."
Terry nodded: "That is Malabanan, Sears."
Sears whistled: "Pwhew! I am gettin' some likely neighbors--probably
the other was his side-kicker, that laughin' devil of a Sakay! Well,
anyway, that's not all, Lieutenant. About two hours ago my foreman saw
your Moro boy, Matak. He was ridin' that black pony of yours and
stopped to ask my foreman if he had seen two natives ridin' by,
describin' Malabanan. Then he beat it after 'em."
Terry was watching through the open window and when he saw his men
emerge from the shack he rose apologetically, listening attentively
while Sears told him the best trail to the three abandoned shacks
that Terry sought. Sears, distressed in the helpless way of physically
big men, detained him while he refilled his canteen with fresh water
and sought Terry's habits long enough to again try to press a Scotch
upon him.
"Sears, that aspirin fixed me up. I wish you would give me a couple
more of those tablets."
Further search proved fruitless, he had no more. He turned to Terry
with a sorrow out of all proportion to the situation.
"Lieutenant, I haven't got any more. But here's some quinine--take a
few grains every few hours--it may help you."
Terry thrust the vial of capsules into his shirt pocket and after
thanking Sears hastened outside to where his men were tightening
girths under the watchful Sergeant's eye. Sears hovered over Terry,
offering advice, expostulating, as Terry mounted and gathered rein.
"Lieutenant," he said, "you know the ford is just above the pool they
call the 'Crocodile Hole.' Cross the ford, come back along the bank,
and you'll find a trail leadin' to the three shacks in the woods."
"I know, Sears. Thanks. Good-by."
"_Adios_," Sears called. Then he stood watching the little band trot
through the gate and into the woods. His eyes moistened, he raised his
big fist against an invisible foe.
"If they get him--" he muttered through lips that trembled unashamed,
"if they get that boy--that sick boy, I'll--I'll--we'll ... and I
didn't have any medicine for him--the only thing he ever asked me
for--or ever asked anybody for!"
* * * * *
For the first time Terry urged the gray. Matak over two hours ahead of
him and mounted on the next best pony in the Gulf ... Malabanan hours
ahead of Matak, riding toward the Ledesma girl held for him in one of
the three shacks.... He pushed the pony hard across the open
clearings, recklessly forced him through the underbrush that in
frequent areas obliterated the trail. They were now well inland and
mounting a perceptible grade toward the foothills: the sluggish stream
they had paralleled all day ran swift here. Once, where the trail
twisted near the bank, they heard the rush of rapids, and a mile
farther on they came in sight of a curiously soundless waterfull. They
had reached the Bogobo country but the afternoon quiet was unbroken by
the sound of agongs. Fear had reached the foothills.
His pony was too much for the courageous but smaller mounts of the
Macabebes and Terry gradually drew ahead. He must overtake Malabanan
before nightfall.... Ledesma had not put his confidence into words,
but he had looked it--had trusted him ... the pony's head and neck
dripped, a welt of lather fringed the saddle blanket over the withers
and down both shoulders. The Sergeant, seeing his men fall behind,
galloped up into the lead and cursed them on with graphic phrases
culled from the English, Spanish and Malay tongues. But it was
useless: the gray pony carried its desperately anxious rider faster
than their jaded mounts could travel. Terry drew out of sight, but
they rode on.
All through the afternoon Terry had been dimly conscious that the
headache had returned, that his face was flushed and hot, but the fast
pumping blood seemed to energize his faculties. Never had he felt so
keyed-up, so sinewy of nerve.
The hours flew with the miles. At five o'clock he crashed out of the
woods into an open spot where the trail bent down toward the river to
skirt a deep black pool--the Bogobos' Crocodile Hole, which none of
them would ever approach. It was a roughly circular depression
extending from bank to bank, a hundred feet in diameter; it lay just
below the ledge of rock that made a low-water ford but which, at high
water, was the brink of a falls which had worn a deep hole in the soft
river bottom.
Terry slowed his steaming pony as he rounded the pool. Stories that he
had overheard flashed across his mind, ghastly stories whispered by
tremulous native lips into credulous brown ears, of the size of the
Thing which dwelt here, of its age, its incredible scaly length and
girth, its patient devilish cunning; of the toll it had taken of three
generations, tales you would not care to hear--like that of the old
blind Bogobo who lost his way, and groping for the trail with naked
hands--no, you would not care to hear such appalling tales.
Riding the river ledge above the pool he glanced down into the deep,
quiet waters but his thoughts snapped back to the present as his pony
balked at the edge of the ford. The gray had never balked at water,
and attributing the display of vice to fatigue, he tried to gentle him
into the shallow water, then touched him with spur--minutes were
precious now. Driven by the steel, the gray stepped gingerly into the
stream, took several steps, then snorted as he wheeled back to the
bank. Terry swung him back sharply and sent the spur deep into the
flanks of the trembling beast: half wild with the unaccustomed
punishment he dashed into the water and splashed across in frightened
bounds that took him up the opposite bank into the brush.
Terry brought the pony round and stroked its neck soothingly to calm
the unaccountable terror apparent in the nervous tossing of head and
distension of red nostrils. As he guided him along the bank a sound of
disturbed water brought Terry's head up sharply: heavy ripples circled
away from a spot near the opposite shore just under the ford. As he
peered keenly he discerned the indistinct outline of something that
looked like a heavy log sink slowly into the dark depths. The pony
fretted until they left the river-bank to follow an old trail that led
into the woods.
Here Terry held him to a walk, riding cautiously, pausing at each turn
of the trail to scrutinize every inch of brush intently, ears alert to
faintest sound. He knew he was nearing the deserted huts. He advanced
several hundred yards thus, searching for the clearing, listening.
Discerning well ahead a space where the sky was open above a cleared
area he dismounted, hurriedly knotted the reins to a sapling, snatched
his extra pistol from the saddle holster, then crept forward through
the early forest twilight, wary, both pistols at full cock.
Creeping round the first bend in the trail he searched the near
thickets with penetrating keenness: he knew Malay treachery. His eyes,
flashing from side to side, focussed upon a dim, motionless figure
outlined in the shadow beneath the trunk of a large tree that stood on
the edge of the clearing. His back was to Terry and he seemed
engrossed in some silent drama that was being enacted in the clearing
out of Terry's field of vision.
Terry crept toward him soundlessly and when he had covered half of the
distance that separated them he was overjoyed to recognize him as
Matak. As Terry's lips parted in a low call, Matak glided from the
tree like a swift shadow just as a shriek of pain and terror rent the
silence of the woods, followed by a vowelled curse and the sound of a
heavy hand on naked flesh.
As Terry sprang forward to the edge of the clearing he heard behind
him the distant sound of ponies driven recklessly through the
underbrush, and knew that the Macabebes were coming up!
He halted at the edge of the clearing, unobserved by the crowd of
bandits who had sprung out of the three disused huts when Matak leaped
into the open: with ready rifles and bolos they awaited the command of
their white-eyed leader, who stood in front of them, startled, but
coolly confronting the Moro. Ledesma's daughter, who had fallen under
Malabanan's heavy blow, staggered to her feet and ran blindly into
the arms of a laughing rough whom Terry recognized as Malabanan's
companion at the dock--the sardonic Sakay.
For a moment the tableau held. Terry could not see Matak's face but he
heard the tense fury of the voice:
"Malabanan, you speak English?"
Malabanan looked him over insolently before answering: "Yes."
Moro met Tagalog in the Bogobo's country on the common ground of the
American-brought English tongue!
"Malabanan, you know me?"
"No."
"You remember one night--nine years now--on Basilan? You remember kill
old man, old woman, then girl on boat? You remember kill little boy,
too, and throw in sea?"
The Moro's voice dripped with the released passions of nine years of
brooding over terrible wrongs. As he saw the light of recollection
appear in the desperado's dark face, he struggled to speak the words
that had been dammed up so long:
"Malabanan, I am that boy.... Now you die!"
He snatched the long knife from the scarf knotted about his waist in
Moro fashion, his knees bending under him in a tigerish crouch as he
slowly circled toward his powerful enemy. Malabanan drew his great
bolo with a contemptuous sneer at the little Moro and before Terry
could have interfered had he wished, they leaped at each other. Matak
dodged down under the first awful sweep of the gleaming bolo and as
he came up he struck at Malabanan, not with the classic downward
stroke, but UP!
As the glittering blade went home, deep, Malabanan threw the Moro from
him with a convulsive heave that crashed him senseless against the
stump of a charred tree. His colorless left eye, lusterless in strange
contrast to the baleful fire that glowed in the right, Malabanan
gathered his fast ebbing strength in a last effort and staggered
toward the unconscious Moro, his glittering weapon upraised, heedless
of the pale American who stepped out with a rasping: "Halt!"
But he sank limp as Terry's heavy pistol roared a message he did
heed--though never heard--sagging down to sprawl across the Moro's
legs.
Terry leaped full into the clearing and covered the ladrones, who
stood paralyzed by the swiftness of the tragedy, stunned by the
dramatic appearance of the young American whose pistols were famed
throughout the Gulf, and as they hesitated the Macabebes smashed out
of the fringe of timber, threw themselves off their reeking ponies and
moved to surround the band.
Sakay, supporting the girl as a screen, drew back toward the nearest
of the huts and opened fire at Terry with a rifle. The ladrones
scattered for cover and in a minute the woods rang with their
fusillade and with the deadly volleys sent in answer by the Macabebes.
It was a brief combat. Though outnumbered nearly two to one the
soldiers were disciplined and highly trained marksmen. In a moment six
of the bandits were on the ground, nine threw up their hands in
surrender and the balance fled through the woods. The Sergeant, who
had been slugging away with his rifle with a calculating attention to
the details of marksmanship belied by the fierce joy in his brilliant
black eyes, ceased firing at Terry's shouted command and detached
eight of his man, who caught up some frightened ponies and raced
through the woods to head off the fleeing brigands.
Sakay, using the fear-crazed girl as a shield from behind which to
shoot at Terry, found his aim thwarted by her struggles. Seeing Terry
advancing straight upon him and fearful of exposing himself to the
fire of the two black pistols, he dropped his rifle and holding the
girl directly in front of him, called out in English:
"I surrender! I surrender! I surrender, Lieutenant!"
His deep anxiety subsiding when he realized that he would suffer no
immediate harm, Sakay threw the girl from him with a brutal force that
sent her prostrate and was promptly rewarded by the husky Mercado, who
had been under American tutelage long enough to understand the virtue
and the technique of what is vulgarly known as "a good swift kick."
The Sergeant escorted Sakay into the group of prisoners rounded up by
the four soldiers and set them to digging a grave for the six, who,
with Malabanan, would "never appear before the court." In a few
minutes the pursuit party rode into the clearing herding all but three
of the criminals who had fled: those three were carried in and placed
alongside the grave.
Terry worked over Matak, who had been merely stunned. In a few minutes
the Moro recovered fully and went back to secure Terry's pony, which
he had abandoned near the ford.
While the Sergeant attended to the duties of identification and burial
of the dead Terry led the girl into one of the huts and quietly
comforted her. She told him of the ordeal of her forced journey
through the greater part of a day and a night, of the captors who
leered at her but remained aloof because of fear of Malabanan, of
being waked from sleep at Malabanan's arrival just before Matak
appeared. Malabanan and Sakay, worn with the night's ride, had stopped
during the noon hours to rest in the woods.
When it came time to go, Terry placed the girl on his pony, declining
another mount, as his head now ached too fiercely to withstand jolting
in the saddle. He set off in the lead, afoot, followed by the
prisoners under escort, Mercado bringing up the rear with the girl.
As they neared the ford Terry heard a sharp out-cry from one of the
guards, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Whirling, he saw the
brush on his right agitated by the movements of a figure that crashed
unseen through the tangle of vegetation. Two soldiers flung themselves
off their ponies and leaped in pursuit, pausing fruitlessly for sight
of the fleeing form and dashing on with trailed rifles. The aggressive
Mercado galloped up, shouting an explanatory "Sakay!" as he charged
straight into the brush.
Terry sped down the trail toward the river, emerging on the bank just
as the lithe Sakay burst from the brush. Laughing derisively at Terry
Sakay leaped toward the stream, reached the bank in four great bounds
and leaped far out from the low edge. As the bandit's powerful body
curved in the air Terry's pistol barked twice before the supple form
straightened to strike the pool in a perfect dive.
Terry leaped down the bank to cover Sakay when he should rise. Leaning
over the ledge he distinguished the white-clad figure sliding
gracefully through the dark depths with the momentum of the dive: ten
feet, twenty, thirty, then it slowed, started to rise.
But as he watched, tense ... there was a rush of a massive armored
body through the shadowed depths, a great scaly thing swirled the
limpid pool, a flash of hideous teeth--and the white form was gone.
Spellbound with the unutterable horror of what he had seen, Terry
watched the waters become quiet again, but turned away, aghast, when
bubbles rose like tiny silver globes against the jet depths. When he
turned back there were no more bubbles.
He sank down on the bank, sickened. The Macabebes had come up with
their meek prisoners and waited at the ford, restless, their eyes
fixed on the oily pool. Even Mercado was anxious to be gone.
Unaffected by the terrible fate of the bandit he had hunted, he viewed
the approach of sunset with vague concern, for this was the nearest
that he had ever been to the edge of the Hill Country.
Terry strove to rise, and at last realized that he was ill. He sank
back, dazed with the sudden force of a fever that coursed through his
body achingly, that throbbed in his head with a tumultuous roar. He
tried again, but fell back, dizzy. He rested till his head cleared,
then sat up and called Mercado to him. His voice came weak.
"Sergeant," he explained, "I do not feel--like going in to-night. You
push on--rest at Sears' to-night. Keep the prisoners in his corral
under guard. He will look after Señorita Ledesma and the men. Tell him
that I request that he come here and dynamite this pool--thoroughly.
Push on to Davao next morning and send for Ledesma to get his
daughter; and if I am not there by that time, you send a brief report
of this affair to Zamboanga. Understand?"
"Yes, sir, but you look sick, sir!" A quick concern flooded the
Macabebe's heavy face.
"Yes--I do not feel--very well. I am going to cut across country to
get to Doctor Merchant tonight. It is only six miles straight through
the woods."
The Macabebe led his charges across the ford, then, worried, returned
to Terry's side. Reassured somewhat by the brave smile, he mounted
after receiving a final injunction to take Matak in with him if they
overtook him. As the Macabebes herded their cowed prisoners into the
woods across from where he lay, Terry lay prone in another of the
intermittent surges of mounting fever that robbed him of his strength
and faculties.
When the wave of fever subsided he rose weakly, took his bearings by
the low sun and crossing the ford struck straight into the woods in
the direction he knew Dalag to lie. Entrance into the deep woods
brought instant twilight. He had covered a mile when a resurgent tide
of fever brought him down on the thick carpet of dead leaves that
covered the darkening forest floor, and for several minutes he lay
gripped in the sickening spasm that rioted through his veins and
robbed him of all reason. When it passed he rose dizzily to stumble on
under the trees, which reached up toward a sky glorious with the
flaming reds and deep pinks that mark the passing of a hot day over
the Celebes Sea.
He staggered on, conscious only of the necessity of getting to the
doctor and of the agonizing explosions in his head which threatened to
rend his skull asunder at each jarring footfall. The sky grayed,
darkened. Dusk found him a short quarter-mile further on, where
another surge of raging temperature brought him low. Another followed
swiftly. When he rose at last, night had wrapped the thick woods in
its black mantle, and he was no longer conscious of direction, or of
purpose, or of self. He stumbled along dazedly, trying to recall the
purpose that had taken him into the woods.
The paroxysms passed. The fever had reached a consistent high level,
lending him a singular buoyancy of body and of spirit, but his reason
was gone. He walked faster and faster, his vision keen under the dark
canopy, his mind racing with disordered ideas, a kaleidoscope of long
displaced memories. Often he stopped short, puzzled, vainly striving
to stem the fugitive currents of conceits in his efforts to remember
what purpose had brought him here. His head throbbed. He kept step
with each pulsing ache--it seemed to help. He hurried on through the
night.
The way grew steeper, always he traveled up the ascent. Flooded with
the hot energy that swept through his arteries, each passing hour
seemed to add to the fires that fed his strength.
The gray beams of early dawn, filtering through a now taller vault of
forest, found him far up the slope and mounting still steeper grades.
He could not quite remember what his mission was ... something that
the Governor wanted, he thought, something he, too, wanted to do ...
or was it a Christmas present for Deane....
He climbed higher, laughing, singing, talking loudly. Stumbling over a
log his burning eyes had not seen, he turned in grotesque humor to
offer curtsy and abject apology, then hastened on upward. Later,
carroming from a huge tree he had hit head on, he addressed it in
grave good humor: "Please keep to the right." His flushed face purple
in the green light of the deep woods, he hurried on, again worrying
over the nature of his forgotten mission and hysterically impressed
with its importance.
The sun rose high overhead but it was twilight in the deep forest
through which he clambered, over decayed logs, through rank
overgrowth, past little streams of filthy water flowing in sullen
silence through channels overgrown with moss. No sounds of forest life
challenged the vast silence of the damp and cheerless vault of green,
no song of bird or shrill thrumming of insects that makes the tropical
forest a palpitant discordance during the hot hours of the day.
His laughter rang mockingly through the shadowed silence, the loud
vagaries of his delirium carried far tinder the overhang of tunneled
foliage.
"It's all right, Sears ... poor little fox, you won't ... you need not
worry about me, Doctor ... on Sunday, too--snowshoes and all.... LOOK
OUT MAJOR!... and we need you here, Dick,--Ellis and Susan, Father
Jennings, the foreigners--all of us...."
Always he kept his face turned toward the heights, and climbed. The
afternoon, waning, found him groping slowly upward, the furious energy
of his fever wearing off. His voice was weaker but he babbled
unceasingly, through dry lips parted in set fever-grin.
"I hope I did not miss, Sakay. I hope I did not miss.... 'Imagine
bristly Berkshire swine upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!'--and if
they make a break, SMASH 'EM!... Don't wait, Deane, don't wait."
Unaware of the ill omened forms which, surrounding him while still the
sun was high overhead, had kept apace all afternoon with his
slackening gait, he halted under a huge tree, leaning against the
trunk in sudden weariness. His voice, weak, tremulous, carried to an
audience he could not see:
Just to know that years so fair might come again,
Awhile ...
Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice--
Your smile....
At the end of the song his hoarse laughter rasped through, the woods.
He sank down, tried to rise, then lay where he had fallen beneath the
great tree. He lay still while the last white rays of the dying sun
faded from the topmost leaves far overhead, heedless of the narrowing
circle of eyes which flashed in the dusk.
Then, as he weakly pressed a hot hand against his scalding eyes in a
gesture of pain that was infinitely pathetic, the Hill People closed
in.