Off the Mangrove Coast by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [L'Amour, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-89954-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2000-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

John Lacklan staggered into view, pushed along by the rough shoves of the boy who had been his guide. His hands were tied, his clothing torn, his body scratched and bruised. How badly he had been treated I didn’t know; the trip through the jungle might have left him in the condition that he was in. I admired him in that moment, though, for he held his head high, in his eyes was the hollow look of fear but he didn’t beg, or cry, or even tremble. He was keeping himself together although I thought I could tell that it was a near thing.

Without looking away I ran a shell into the chamber of my rifle and set the safety. I wasn’t at all sure about my original plan of barging in and spiriting them away; there were easily as many shotguns in the room as I had expected plus the Japanese rifle and the boy carried Lacklan’s Winchester over his shoulder. Not only were there more guns than I would have liked but several were cradled in the hands of Jeru’s outlaws, held casually but ready for use.

The boy stepped in behind Lacklan and kicked the back of his left knee, knocking him to a kneeling position. Lacklan started to get back up but the boy unlimbered the rifle and poked him hard in the kidney with the muzzle. John Lacklan gave a choking cough of pain and collapsed back to the floor. Old Jeru whirled his parang and then tested the edge against his thumb.

“Find me a door!” I whispered to Raj. “Damn quick!”

Now there was a commotion somewhere in the room. “Get off me!” I heard Helen call out. Then she lurched into view, a portly Iban trying to drag her down by one arm. She shook him off; he was surprised, I think, by that same physicality that had caught my attention. She was bigger than he was and lithely powerful.

“Stop it! You stop this!” she yelled at them. Raj was back tugging at my sleeve but the boy, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, stepped in quickly and pressed the rifle barrel against Helen’s throat … even if John Lacklan got his head cut off I wasn’t going in there if it risked Helen’s getting killed.

The boy yelled at her in Iban, then in English. “Sit, missy. You sit or I kill you.” He jabbed at her with the gun barrel. “Everybody die, you don’t sit down.”

She didn’t even move.

“You can’t kill him. Take our things, our money. You can’t kill him!” she cried.

“We’re Americans, damn it. Let us go or you’ll regret this.” John’s voice wavered.

In my travels around the world I’ve noticed that identifying yourself as an American never helps, it just makes the locals get violent or want more money.

The boy shrugged, “We kill Englang, Dutch … America, who cares.” He suddenly spoke in his own tongue for a moment and everyone laughed. Old Jeru the hardest.

“You don’t want John’s head.” Helen spoke in a manner that let me know she wanted all to hear.

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