The Peaceful Profession
The Spindrift campfire blazed high, and its warmth was welcome in the
cold mountain night. Balaban and Dog Meat were out on patrol, although
it was unlikely that any Ifugao had followed the invaders over the
mountain.
Camp had been pitched in a grove of trees on the Igorot side of the
divide. The boys and Tony had taken suitable clothing from their
supplies and were now equipped with sturdy trail clothes and warm
leather jackets. Chahda, similarly dressed in spare clothes, now
resembled an Igorot only because of his haircut.
Tony sipped steaming coffee from a battered mug. He grinned at the faces
around the fire: Rick, Scotty, Angel Manotok, Chahda, and Pilipil, whose
wounded leg had been treated with supplies from the first-aid kit.
"Archaeologist at work," Tony commented. "Digs in musty old tombs all
day, and now and then gets excited about a clay jug or something else he
uncovers. The archaeologist has nothing but old jugs or beetles or stuff
like that to get excited about. It's a peaceful profession, boys. That's
why I like it. Calm, quiet, orderly."
Pilipil didn't get the irony in Tony's voice, but the others laughed.
Scotty nodded agreement. "That's the popular idea of an archaeologist,
all right! Sounds like a recruiting ad, doesn't it? Be peaceful and
quiet. Live to a ripe old age. Be an archaeologist. Reminds me of the
recruiting poster that hooked me once. Join the Marines, it said. See
the world. Learn a trade. I joined. Saw the world while snaking on my
belly through the South Pacific. Learned a trade, too. How to fire a
rifle. Very few peacetime riflemen needed, however."
"We'll combine our trades," Tony said. "You might say we did, earlier
tonight."
As Rick put more wood on the fire he said, "We're together, for the
first time. Before, either Tony or Chahda was missing. Now what do we
do?"
Tony considered. "I must admit I was not giving much thought to the
purpose of the expedition when you came after me. I spent most of my
time imagining how my skull would look on the knick-knack shelf in the
hut."
"What knick-knack shelf?" Chahda asked.
"You wouldn't have noticed," Tony told them. "It was high in the rear of
the hut, above the opening you made. A shelf full of skulls. I kept
trying to flatter myself that surely my head would be prettier than
those. But I didn't really believe it."
"Do you really believe the Ifugaos would have taken your head?" Rick
asked.
"You bet I do! You should have seen Nangolat. He shed civilization with
his clothes. He got down to a breechcloth and he was all primitive. He's
got a bad case of bats in the belfry, believe me. I'd say he was a true
fanatic."
"Yes," Angel Manotok said positively. "You remember I tell you about
those eyes of his? The doctor is right. Nangolat is crazy. He is a
killer."
Rick remembered the crazed, distorted face of Nangolat rushing for the
jeep with spear extended. "I vote Nangolat for nuts, too. Insane and
dangerous."
"This being Mountain Province, Philippines, I don't think it would do
much good to call the men in white coats to bring a strait jacket,"
Scotty observed. "So, what do we do? We can ignore him, avoid him, or
shoot him. The first is hard, since he carries a sharp spear. The second
may be possible. The third I reject as being un-scientific and unkind,
not to mention illegal."
"One more possibility," Chahda offered. "Catch him, tie him up, have
Scotty talk him into stupor."
Rick chuckled. "You may have an idea there, Chahda. Seriously, Nangolat
is guilty of kidnaping. That makes him a criminal. Surely it isn't wrong
to catch an escaped criminal and turn him over to justice."
"Not wrong," Tony said, "but maybe just a little bit impractical."
Rick pressed the point. "Why? If we thought faster, we could have picked
him up tonight. You knocked him colder than a penguin's pocketbook. We
could have tossed him into the back of the jeep like a sack of bones."
"Yes, Rick. But chances like that don't come twice. Catching him now
would mean making a definite attempt. It would mean an expedition. I
doubt that he'd stay around to be caught."
"Guess you're right," Rick admitted. "Then, to get back to Scotty's
question, what do we do now? Apparently Nangolat has his people up in
arms against us. There's no law enforcement worthy of the name up here,
so we can't call for help. So what next?"
Tony poured himself another mug of coffee from the steaming pot. "We
continue after the cache of artifacts."
The boys stared. Chahda shook hands with the scientist. "Now I see why
Rick and Scotty call you Tony. Number One regular guy. Why let little
thing like whole nation of head-hunters scare you off?"
"Archaeology is certainly a peaceful profession," Rick said admiringly.
"Scotty and I don't scare easily, but it didn't occur to me that we
should proceed as though nothing had happened."
"You're getting the wrong impression," Tony said mildly. "Let's consider
the situation. There's Nangolat, the principal troublemaker. What is his
reason for behaving as he does?"
"Well," Scotty began, "he certainly was the one who tried to kill you on
the boat."
"I think he was. He would have known all about the expedition from
Okola. He would have known what ship we were on, and a phone call to the
agent of the line would have told him our arrival time, from which he
could easily have figured what time we would enter Manila Bay. He would
also have known that I was the archaeologist for the expedition. After
all, I signed the correspondence we had with Okola, and he was Okola's
assistant."
"But why would he want to kill you?" Rick asked.
"For religious reasons. Nangolat is a religious fanatic. I saw that
quite clearly during the time I was his captive. He does not want the
artifacts dug up--or he didn't. Remember the legend? If they're dug up,
drought and earthquakes will follow. By killing me aboard ship, the
expedition would never take place. That must have been how he reasoned."
Rick was beginning to see light. "Angel, was Nangolat supposed to be a
Christian?"
Angel shook his head. "No. He was a pagan. Once he went to church with
me, but that was only to see how Christians worship. He worshiped the
Ifugao gods which were in the museum at the university."
Rick commented, "I imagine his studies with Okola, and especially the
work he did tracking down the legends of the golden skull, made him even
more religious. I won't say superstitious."
"You're right," Tony said approvingly. "This is not superstition.
Nangolat is as firmly convinced of the correctness of his religious
beliefs as any Christian martyr. I'm sure he considered the object of
our expedition as pure sacrilege."
"I'm with you up to a point," Scotty remarked. "But why didn't he kill
the lot of us as soon as we landed? He could have gotten Rick and me the
night we met you for dinner. We walked in a lot of dark places, and we
weren't particularly on guard."
"He tried," Tony reminded them. "We surprised him in my room at the
Manila Hotel. Probably he was examining my effects to see if I had maps
or charts. Then he waited in the walled city and tried to pick you two
off with rifle fire."
Chahda spoke up. "Not so easy to find chances to kill, even in city like
Manila. With gang, yes. Alone, no."
"He's right," Tony agreed. "Then, somewhere along the line, Nangolat had
a change of heart. I don't know why. Perhaps his research told him that
the drought and earthquakes would follow the digging up of the golden
skull only if it should be done by unbelievers like us. Perhaps if the
faithful do the uncovering, the Ifugao gods will smile. I don't know.
But Nangolat decided he wanted the expedition to help _him_ find the
artifacts."
"The old competitive spirit got him," Scotty murmured. "Wanted his side
to win."
"Maybe," Tony said with a grin. "Anyway, he got away with the earth
scanner; he had it when Nast turned me over to him. Of course he
couldn't use it. So he must have planned to capture one or all of us. He
could have waited until the expedition got here, but things would then
be complicated by our hiring diggers and camp helpers, which he knew we
intended to do. Also, we intended to contact the road commissioner at
Bontoc, a man who represents law and order--such as it is. So Nangolat,
apparently, decided to stake everything on capturing us, forcing us to
find the cache, then removing our heads. By the time the law got around
to looking for us, the artifacts would be well hidden by the Ifugaos,
and so would our bodies. Our skulls would be aging gracefully in some
hidden place. And no Ifugao would know a single thing about it when
questioned. It was a good scheme."
"Except for one thing," Rick corrected. "The terraces cover miles. We
could spend weeks searching."
"There's one bit of evidence you don't have, boys. Remember that there
is a major clue to the whereabouts of the cache? A dragon. Well,
Nangolat knows--and has always known without knowing its significance
until now--where the dragon is located."
Tony smiled at the interested faces around him. "And that's not all. I
know where it is, too!"