Slocum and the Celestial Bones Read online

  He emptied the six rounds into four more rats. But six more were released. He could never reload fast enough to kill all the rats being turned free from their cages around the pit. If he went one way, the sailors on the far side of the pit loosed the chittering, snarling rats there. Slocum winced as he felt sharp teeth grab on to his tough boot top.

  Those boots had protected him against mesquite thorns and even rattlesnake fangs, and they did not fail him now. He kicked out hard and sent the rat flying. But that rodent was replaced by two more. Four. Ten. Slocum spun around and around, the rats clinging to him with their teeth driving for his flesh. Some, the ones with weaker jaws, lost their grip and smashed into the dirt walls. Most were stronger—or hungrier.

  He began clubbing the snapping rats with the barrel of his six-gun. This worked for a few seconds. The sailors let more rats free from their cages.

  “We got a million of ’em,” Charlie yelled down.

  Slocum had no time to wonder how the sailor knew what he was thinking. It would not have been too hard, in any case. Slocum fought fiercely, swinging his pistol and then enduring the sharp, stinging rat bites in an attempt to reload. He could never hope to kill more than a half dozen of the rats with his bullets, but he wanted to take a few of the sailors with him if he was going to die.

  “Get back, mates,” Charlie called. “He’s up to the point of wanting to kill us ’fore they gnaw his bones clean and white.”

  Slocum realized then that the sailors had done this before. Many times before, and had learned all the tricks. He was distantly aware of new bets being made—most of them at high odds against him. Some part of his alcohol-fogged, fear-shrouded brain wondered who was stupid enough to believe he would ever escape alive. Then he realized they all knew he would die. That was the point. They were betting on how long he would survive.

  Slocum saw that he was not going to be successful reloading before the weight of the rats bore him down. He kept moving, swinging the barrel and knocking huge brown and gray clumps of the ferocious rats off him. He bled from a dozen bites. He pressed himself against the side of the pit, then put his chin down and ran as hard as he could for the far side. The toes of his boots dug into the hard dirt. He kicked and clawed and tried to get free. The lip of the pit was not that far above him. But his fingers caught at the loose dirt, and he slid back down into the undulating carpet of snarling rodents.

  “I win!” cried a sailor. “Four minutes and he didn’t make it out.”

  Slocum realized that if he had somehow succeeded in getting free of the pit, the sailors would have grabbed him and tossed him back to his death. Slocum had seen terriers thrown into a pit like this. A good dog could kill a hundred or more rats and, now and again, even exhaust the supply and survive to kill for the amusement of the saloon patrons another day.

  Even if he had the advantage of a well-trained rat-killing dog, he had started more than half drunk. Slocum felt his strength ebbing quickly, and it would not be much longer before a rat got to his throat and ripped out his jugular. Or he lost enough blood from myriad other bites to weaken enough for the horde of rats to finally overpower him.

  He clutched the butt of his pistol and considered shooting himself until he heard Charlie yell, “A hunnerd that he kills himself.”

  The bet was quickly covered, and Slocum’s will hardened. He would never give the son of a bitch who had lured him into the pit the satisfaction now. He tried to run across the pit and climb the far side again. This time the sailors kicked and struck at him to be certain he did not escape.

  He slid down the steeply sloping side, pulling in his arms to protect his face and throat from the snapping rats.

  Fury burned away what whiskey remained in his brain. He fought with renewed strength, prompting another round of spirited betting on him.

  But as Slocum fought, he felt the rage-inspired strength fading. The rats were winning. He smashed himself against a dirt wall and spun against it to get some of the clinging rats off. They were hungrier than he was strong. As he pressed his head against the dirt wall, though, he heard something peculiar. It was a rushing sound as if water raced along only inches away. He saw no way to use this—until he looked up and saw a Chinese woman just behind the ring of sailors light a stick of dynamite.

  Slocum dived and slid along the dirt floor of the pit when the dynamite with its sizzling fuse arched up and came down just behind him. The explosion was muffled. He had worked in mines enough to know a dud, but this was something else. The tiny pop! of detonation was about what he would expect from a half stick of dynamite but a curious crackling sound accompanied it. The only thing he could equate it with was a breaking pot.

  Then came an immense rush of water into the pit. He had been right. A water main passed close by. The dynamite must have cracked the pipe enough to cause the water to flow into the pit. Rats chittered all around as they swam for their lives in the rapidly rising water. Slocum thrashed about and let the gushing waters toss him about until he flopped onto the floor of the saloon.

  He got to his feet. The explosion and water filling the pit had caused the sailors to hightail it out of the bar. All but Charlie. The man stood stock-still, eyes wide in horror.

  “You son of a bitch,” Slocum said. He reared back to swing a haymaker at the sailor, but Charlie simply sank to the floor. He landed on his knees, then tumbled forward onto his face. Standing behind him was the Chinese woman. Slocum got a better look at her. She was dressed in a somber gray padded coat that came to her knees. Under the coat she wore what might have been a pale yellow silk blouse and dark linen trousers. Slippers more appropriate for the boudoir encased her tiny feet.

  Slocum took all this in with a single glance. His green eyes fixed on the slender needle in her hand. A drop of blood dripped from the tip. Charlie’s blood.

  “Thanks,” Slocum said. “You saved me the trouble of killing him.”

  She knelt and wiped the bloody weapon off on the sailor’s shirt, then tucked it away in a knot of dark hair at the back of her head.

  “Come,” she said. “They will return and be angry.”

  “I can see why. You made a shambles of the place.” Slocum saw that the water level continued to rise. The pit had been filled to overflowing and now sloshed about at ankle level. Anyone not knowing the pit had been in the middle of the saloon might blunder in and find himself thrashing about in eight feet of churning, muddy, rat-filled water.

  “The police will not like having water service stopped.”

  Slocum shook his head. San Francisco had underground water mains and sewers for its citizens. This was the mark of real civilization. Most places he frequented used outhouses, and young children or women fetched water from streams or lakes.

  They stepped into the night-cloaked street, and Slocum saw the woman was right. The sailors had not gone far. They argued among themselves until they spotted Slocum.

  He started to tell the Chinese woman to run for it, but she had vanished. Once more he was on his own and facing two dozen sailors intent on seeing him die in the messiest fashion possible. They advanced on him with clubs and wickedly sharp knives. He touched the six-shooter in its holster. He had been unable to reload. Fighting so many men would be like going against the horde of rats: impossible.

  Slocum ran. His boots clattered against the cobblestone street, but the sound did not echo and rang out curiously flat. The fog! The fog muffled his steps. When a swirling gray cloud enveloped him, he darted for a building, found a doorway and crowded into it. The angry sailors rushed past, waving their knives and clubs and vowing to slit his throat and beat him to a bloody pulp.

  Slocum waited for them to pass, then headed back in the direction of the saloon only to find he had not waited long enough. He ran into three lagging sailors. They spotted him instantly.

  One advanced while the other two moved to flank him.

  “Here. This way,” came a soft, sibilant voice. He jerked his head around and saw the Chinese woman again. S
he held open a door. He never hesitated and darted through it. She slammed it behind him and dropped a locking bar into place.

  From the way the door sagged under the repeated kicks from the sailors, the entire wall might come tumbling down in an instant. Slocum started reloading.

  “No time,” she said, tugging at his arm. “This way.”

  “That’s twice you saved me,” Slocum said. “I’m doubly in your debt.”

  She stood a good foot shorter than Slocum and appeared frail. Small and petite she might be, but Slocum quickly saw frail was not the right word. A stuck door at the rear of the room yielded to her powerful kick. She was through the door and hurrying along in a split second. Somehow she did not appear to touch the ground. Rather, she drifted inches above it like some kind of Celestial ghost.

  But Slocum had felt her touch and inhaled her jasmine perfume. The occasional glint of light off the deadly steel needle she had tucked into her hair showed that nothing about her was incorporeal. Slocum found himself hard-pressed to keep up when they left the building and entered an alley. The woman was already a dozen yards away and being swallowed up by the fog.

  Slocum ran flat-out now and caught up with her. They moved through the foggy San Francisco streets, down alleys, through spaces between buildings where Slocum had to suck in his breath and lose skin to get through. The entire while, the woman never appeared to rush or be upset.

  “There he is! Get him, mateys!”

  Slocum swung about as a burly sailor burst from the fog. Before he could fight the man, he found himself clutching the man’s dead body. An ax protruded from the sailor’s back. Two other seamen advanced on Slocum. As he watched, another sailor stiffened and corkscrewed down to the ground. A knife had almost severed his head from his body. The other sailor almost reached Slocum before two Chinamen silently appeared. One grabbed the sailor by the throat. The other split open his head with a small ax like the one in the first sailor’s back.

  “Come, hurry,” the woman said, tugging again at his arm.

  “Wait a minute,” Slocum said. “Who are you? Who are these men?” He faced the three silent Chinamen. From some hidden arsenal concealed under their padded jackets they had retrieved other hatchets and knives and held them ready.

  “They are On Leong,” the woman said.

  “On Leong? What’s that?”

  “They are boo how doy, tong assassins. Now come. Hurry. There is no time.”

  Slocum looked at the trio of hatchet men and repressed a shudder. The reputation of the Chinese tongs was one of sheer barbarism and brutality. Somehow, he had come under their protection. He had no idea how long that would last. He followed the woman deeper into Chinatown, the foggy streets making it impossible for him to figure out the route. For now, that was all right. For now.

  “There is no doubt?” the woman asked from the safety of her hiding spot just inside the mouth of an alley.

  “None, milady,” said a huge Chinaman. He held knives in both hands.

  “On Leong. Very interesting. Why do boo how doy protect an American?”

  She stepped out into the street. Light from a distant gas lamp down the street fell on her. She wore a form-fitting white satin dress embroidered with writhing green-thread dragons and other mythical creatures fashioned in vibrant colors. Jade ornaments gleamed in her jet-black hair and at the belt around her trim waist. She thrust her hands into voluminous, dangling sleeves, turned and walked away unconcerned about the murder and mayhem all around her in the foggy San Francisco night.

  None would dare interfere with her. They would pay with their lives if they so much as spoke to her. In minutes she left Slocum, the other Chinese woman and the On Leong killers far behind as she moved on to her rendezvous.

  2

  “Down,” the woman said urgently. “You must go down. The street is not safe.”

  Slocum looked around. Through the billowing fog he saw nothing, heard nothing. As far as his every sense could tell, they were alone. Then he jumped as a Celestial came up and stood a yard away from him. Slocum had not heard the man moving.

  “You’re as good as any Apache brave I ever saw,” Slocum said. Then he grinned ruefully and added, “Or as good as any brave I didn’t see.”

  The Chinaman stood silently. Not a muscle twitched. As far as the man was concerned, Slocum did not exist. Slocum would have pressed the point except the man held a wickedly sharp hatchet in his hand. Blood dripped from the silver blade onto the cold ground.

  “You sure it’s safer down there?” Slocum looked past the woman into the darkness of the stairway leading down into the bowels of the earth. Slocum had heard all the stories about tunnels under Chinatown. Opium dens abounded, and those were some of the milder pastimes that could be found.

  “The Sum Yop are on the prowl this night.”

  “Sum Yop? Another tong?” Slocum saw the smile curl the woman’s lovely lips. For a moment.

  “You learn fast. In Chinatown all is controlled by the tongs.”

  “That must come as a real surprise to the San Francisco police.”

  “No,” she said. “It does not. They do not come down anywhere but Dupont Gai unless invited.”

  Slocum blinked at this. Dupont Gai was the main street through the heart of Chinatown, but the area spread out for dozens of blocks in all directions. No one knew how many Celestials lived in the area, but it was a considerable number. Every sailing ship from the Orient carried more coolies to work on the railroads, but not every Chinaman ended up carrying steel rail or driving spikes. Those who did not work for the railroad barons found it difficult to get any work other than in this patch of China transplanted just behind the twin peaks of the Golden Gate that protected San Francisco Bay.

  “If not the Sum Yop, then the Suey Sing. We must get off the street. Now.”

  She turned and hurried down the steps, as if going first would relieve Slocum’s anxiety about the underground danger. It did not. The back of his neck prickled as he followed. The hatchet men who had protected them on their way through the maze of streets pressed close behind. Slocum fancied he could hear the blood still dripping from the one killer’s weapon.

  The descent was done in complete darkness. Slocum braced himself on either wall and got splinters in his hands from the rough wood. He ignored the minor pain. There was not much else in the rest of his body that felt better. The rat bites burned like fire, and his head felt as if it might split open at any instant. Worst of all, he noticed how hungry he was. Too much tarantula juice had burned up what food he had eaten earlier before starting on his wild bender.

  Hearing the soft padding of the woman ahead gave Slocum a way to guide himself through the passage. While hardly wider than his shoulders, he got the knack of walking along at a brisk pace without bumping into either side. When he saw a faint yellow outline of a door ahead, he slowed and let the woman go to it. The tong killer behind him shoved him forward roughly.

  “Watch it,” Slocum growled. He started to turn but felt the butt end of the hatchet pressed into his back. He kept walking. The Chinaman could easily have killed him if he had wanted.

  “Enter, please,” the woman said, bowing to him and pushing open the door. Although the light came from a single coal oil lamp, Slocum had to squint. His eyes had adjusted to the utter darkness, and even this small trickle of light burned.

  “Please, sit. I must announce your arrival.”

  “Wait,” Slocum said, reaching out to take her arm. She looked down at his hand on her delicate arm. This was enough for Slocum to draw back. “Sorry. I want to thank you, but I don’t even know your name.”

  “Ah Ming,” she said, bowing lower. For a moment Slocum wondered if this was some sort of answer in Chinese or if it were her name.

  “I’m John Slocum.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, John Slocum.” She bowed deeper.

  “And I’m right pleased to meet you, Ah Ming, since you pulled my bacon out of the fire.”

  “What
fire?”

  “Just a way of saying you saved me.”

  “Yes,” Ah Ming said, bowing again and backing off. “Please sit. Wait until I return.”

  She backed off another two paces, bowed a final time, turned and left. Although she never seemed to hurry, she vanished in an amazingly short time. Slocum looked around the small room. There was a chair and a blanket laid out on a hard plank of wood. That was all the furniture in the room. The solitary coal oil lamp sat on the floor near the chair. Slocum sank into the chair and leaned back, warily watching as the two hatchet men who had trailed him in the tunnel stood by the door. His eyelids drooped for a moment and when he snapped alert, they were gone.

  Uneasy about his surroundings, Slocum took the time to reload his Colt Navy. The pistol had gotten drenched in the flood that had saved his life. He used an edge of the blanket to dry and clean his six-shooter. Then he carefully reloaded, making sure the action worked smoothly. He rested the six-gun in his lap and closed his eyes again. His wounds throbbed, but his weariness overtook him once more.

  He dreamed his boots were being stolen. He protested a little, but soothing words calmed him. Soft touches on his arms and legs made him smile and then he rolled over and woke up.

  For an instant he was disoriented. The room was darker than he remembered. The lamp had been turned down, and he was lying in the bed. He sat up, dislodged his six-shooter and made a grab for it to keep it from hitting the floor. Swinging his legs around and putting his bare feet down made him dizzy for a moment. Then he noticed the rat bites on his arms and legs had all been swabbed with a pinkish lotion and the worst of the wounds bandaged.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” he murmured.

  “No, John Slocum, it was not.”

  “Ah Ming?” He looked around for her and almost missed her sitting in the chair. She was hidden in shadow. Her pale gray jacket provided perfect camouflage.

  “I saw that your wounds were tended by a healer. He said you were not seriously injured.”