Slocum and the Celestial Bones Page 3

  “How long have I slept?” Underground, in the darkness, he had no idea. He fumbled in his pocket and dragged out his watch. He peered at it, but it might be ten in the morning or ten at night.

  “A few hours. No more.”

  “I am in your debt. You saved me from my own stupidity.” The words burned on his tongue. How foolish to go on a binge and get knee-walking drunk the way he had. Losing Anne had been a shock, but she was not the first one he had loved and lost. He clutched the pocket watch a little tighter. It was his brother Robert’s only legacy. Robert had been killed during Pickett’s Charge. Slocum was lucky any of his older brother’s personal belongings had reached him because he had been in Kansas at the time, riding with Quantrill and his butchers.

  “You are,” Ah Ming said. “It is good you recognize this. Many Americans do not have your sense of honor.”

  This put Slocum on guard again. He slid his six-shooter into his holster and stood on shaky legs. A few steps convinced him he was going to be all right. The alcohol had burned itself out of his belly and brain, and his wounds were all covered by the cooling pink poultice.

  “Sounds like you want something from me,” he said.

  There was no answer. He felt the woman’s dark eyes fixed on him, waiting. For what?

  “Why did you save me? Just so I’d be in your debt?”

  “Yes. I watched you from late this afternoon. In spite of your drunken nature, you acquitted yourself well. Such skill is needed to rescue my father.”

  “Rescue him?”

  “He has been kidnapped.”

  Slocum heaved a sigh and sat. He had heard stories like this a thousand times. A man took off and the family wanted him back, sure he had been kidnapped. More often than not, the man wanted a new start. From what he had seen of the dark tunnels in Chinatown he would not blame any man for simply heading for the high country. Life in the Sierras would be miles better than eking out an existence in the middle of a knot of Chinamen intent on throwing axes at each other.

  “You do not believe me.”

  “I do,” he said. Slocum hoped he sounded convincing. “It’s just that men get itchy feet sometimes.”

  “Not my father.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t just light out and hunt for a better place to live.” Slocum studied the woman carefully. The light caught her in profile. She was quite pretty. Fragile. Exquisite like a fine porcelain doll, only her pale yellow skin made her seem even more exotic.

  “The Sum Yop tong has kidnapped him.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  Ah Ming nodded once.

  “They sent a note? They want ransom and you want me to conduct the exchange, swap your pa for however much they ask in ransom?”

  “It is not so simple, John Slocum.”

  He heaved another deep sigh. It was never simple. He cursed Ah Ming for seeing his one flaw. He was an honorable man and owed her a debt. She had saved his life back in the saloon and quite possibly her henchmen had saved him again in the streets as they fled from the sailors.

  “You have nothing to lose,” Ah Ming said softly. “You are honorable and your life means nothing.”

  This caused Slocum to pay more attention to the woman.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are, as the saying goes, ‘drowning your sorrow.’ A woman? You said more than once you have nothing to live for.”

  “You’re giving me a reason to go on?” Slocum laughed harshly. Ah Ming did not seem the type to go in for the rehabilitation of men she did not know. From the way she had effortlessly used the needle to kill Charlie in the saloon, she had no qualms about any man.

  Other than her father.

  “I am not careless,” Ah Ming said quietly. “You are a dangerous man. You have become a dangerous man who does not care if he lives or dies. I need such a one.”

  “You have an army of killers around you,” Slocum said, gesturing toward the door where a Celestial stood, arms crossed on his broad chest, a hatchet ready in his right hand.

  “They would never get close to the Sum Yop lair,” she said. “The Sum Yop would not expect a cowboy to be of any danger to them.”

  “So you figure if I get my head chopped off, so what?”

  She said nothing. That was good enough an answer for Slocum. That was precisely what she meant. Risking her own people in a frontal assault would give less chance of recovering her father than having a white man try.

  “How long did you follow me around?”

  The question surprised Ah Ming. She hesitated longer than Slocum thought she would.

  “For two days. Since you arrived on the stagecoach.”

  It was Slocum’s turn to be surprised. He had thought she picked him out simply because the gang of shanghaiers had gone after him, marking him as someone who would never be missed.

  “When do you want me to rescue your pa?”

  “Now. Quickly. The Sum Yop will not allow him to live for much longer, and he is an old man.”

  “They’re torturing him?”

  Again the woman remained silent, giving Slocum his answer.

  “How do I find him?”

  Ah Ming rose and gestured for him to follow.

  Anyone passing by might think it was an abandoned building, but Slocum had watched long enough to know the truth. At least four Celestials stood guard on the roof. Four more walked the streets along carefully laid out paths to always protect the single door off the alley. Windows were boarded up and the front door to the building had been sealed shut with brick and mortar. Rather than a dilapidated building, it was closer to a fortress.

  The headquarters of the Sum Yop tong.

  Slocum realized getting into the building was only part of his problem. Finding Ah Ming’s father was another because all the Chinese looked alike to him. A slow smile came to his lips. Not all. The tong killers were burly brutes. And Ah Ming was distinctive in any crowd. She was like a hothouse flower—a deadly one. If the daughter was so gorgeous and murderous, her father might be easier to recognize than Slocum feared.

  Slocum checked his pocket watch. It was only midnight. How much had happened to him since he had begun his binge around sundown! He had been drugged and avoided shanghaiers and sailors intent on feeding him to rats. Shaking his legs reminded him of the rat bites. The poultice Ah Ming had applied had worked miracles. His muscles were sore, but he moved easily. He would have to move fast if he wanted to get in and out of that building alive with the Sum Yop’s captive.

  From the patterns the hatchet men walked, Slocum knew luring them away would not be easy. Seldom had he seen army posts with such dedicated sentries, even in Indian country.

  He took out a quirley and lit it with a lucifer from a watertight tin in his pocket, which had preserved his matches. He sucked in the smoke from the quirley and blew a single smoke ring before sauntering across the street toward the front of the building. He stopped at the bricked-in front door and stared at it a moment. Small crevices showed where the tong watchmen peered out. Some of the holes were large enough for rifles and pistols to be thrust through to defend the building. Slocum puffed away contentedly and got only a hate-filled look from the nearest sentry.

  The man turned at the end of his guard route and started away. Slocum moved like lightning. The guard was most of thirty feet away, but he was not Slocum’s target. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a full stick of dynamite. He had personally crimped the fuse to the blasting cap to be sure it would detonate. One chance was all he was likely to get to rescue Ah Ming’s father.

  Slocum had cut the short black fuse so it would burn only ten seconds. He applied the tip of his cigar to the fuse, saw it begin to sputter, then turned and shoved the stick through a hole in the masonry.

  The patrolling guard realized something was wrong and turned back to Slocum. The flash of a hatchet was all the warning Slocum needed. He drew and fired. The Celestial dropped on the spot an instant before the explosion blew out the front of
the building. Bits of brick and mortar cascaded down on Slocum. He bent double to avoid any more falling, flaming splinters from the wood frame as he raced around the corner to the single way into the building.

  Let the tong rush its men to the front of the building to see who was attacking. Slocum would go in and find the kidnapped man and be on his way before they knew what was going on.

  That had been the plan. It began falling apart almost immediately after Slocum kicked in the door.

  Just inside stood two men with drawn six-shooters. Slocum shot the one on the left, but the other returned fire and ducked into the maze of crates piled within.

  Cursing, Slocum scooped up the pistol from the fallen tong killer and lit out after the fleeing guard he had failed to shoot. He twisted through the narrow paths made from the tall boxes, then stopped and listened. He heard the Chinaman yammering, someone barking out orders, others protesting.

  Slocum looked up and knew he had to take the high ground fast. They had laid out this labyrinth to trap anyone clever enough to get inside. There would be decoys that would lead to ambuscades, dangers devised by cunning Oriental minds he could not guess at. He scrambled up the crates and flopped belly-down atop the pile. From the sounds rising from floor level he knew where the bulk of the hatchet men were. He stood and surveyed the interior of the building. Walls had been pulled down, making a large warehouse. The spot where a prisoner might be kept most safely would be in the rear of the building. Jumping from crate to crate, Slocum made his way past, taking time to empty the captured six-gun at two tong members who happened to spot him on his aerial route.

  He dropped the empty pistol and drew his own trusty Colt. He had left most of the Celestials lost in their own maze by the time he jumped down next to an old man chained to an iron ring set in the brick wall.

  Dull eyes turned toward him. The man might have been a hundred years old, but from the amount of blood on the floor all around, his aged look might have come from dedicated and profound torture.

  “Ah Ming sent me,” Slocum said. He saw a spark of recognition in the old man’s eyes. He nodded once, as if he had expected this rescue.

  Slocum had no time to talk. He spun and fired when a huge hatchet man burst into sight, a deadly ax in each hand. His first shot hit the Chinaman in the chest. It hardly slowed him. The tong killer had the stamina and size of a mountain man. Slocum knew what to do. His second round blasted out a nickle-sized hunk of forehead, snapping the hatchet man’s head back. This killed the assassin instantly.

  Slocum grabbed one fallen hatchet and used it on the old man’s chains. The sound of steel on steel worried Slocum, but he finally cut through a link and freed the captive.

  “Sorry, but you’ll have to keep those shackles on a while longer,” Slocum said. “I’ll need more time and a hammer and chisel to get them off. When we get out of here, there’ll be time to worry about such things.”

  The old man painfully lifted his hands. Both thin wrists were circled by iron bands, but the chain holding him to the ring was severed. He smiled and nodded.

  “You know how to get out of here?” Slocum asked.

  The old man pointed.

  Slocum was not certain if Ah Ming’s father only pointed to what he thought was a way through the maze of boxes or if he was warning of danger. Getting away suddenly seemed less likely than fighting to stay alive.

  A half dozen Sum Yop tong killers swarmed from their rabbit warren of crates and rushed Slocum. All he could see rushing toward him were the uplifted, glitteringly sharp blades of their hatchets.

  3

  “Whoa there, little lady.”

  Lai Choi San looked out the window of the coach driving her through the San Francisco streets. At first she saw only the phantasms moving in the fog, then she saw the arm of a man thrust out on the street. Her driver. He must have died quickly and silently for her not to have noticed, although she felt she could be excused from such inattention due to the weighty matters on her mind.

  “You killed him,” she said in a sibilant voice.

  “Why don’t you get on out so we can get a good look at you?” The door opened and a grimy hand reached for her. She lithely avoided the grasping hand and stepped to the wet cobblestones. A single gas lamp burned down the street. Otherwise, all was cloaked in intense night. There were no policemen in view. Through this part of San Francisco they traveled in packs of five or more. Even the more brutal private police force known as Specials were loath to venture out alone.

  She stood with her emerald green silk shawl wrapped about her.

  “We got ourselves a chink whore,” cried the one who had tried to grab her. From around the coach came three more men. Each was uglier than the one preceding him. Lai Choi San stared at them with cold, dark eyes. After only a glance, she dismissed them as fools.

  “You are delaying my journey. I must not be late to the museum.”

  “Museum, is it? Them folks at this here museum, they like their whores to be yellow?”

  Lai Choi San remained impassive. She pulled her silk wrap a little tighter around her shoulders. The night was cold, and she was not accustomed to wearing clothing like this.

  “What’s a chink whore charge? Must be something to afford a coach like this one.”

  “It is rented,” she said.

  “Didn’t think a whore’d own it,” the first man said, moving closer. Lai Choi San’s nose wrinkled at the odor. Westerners needed to bathe more often. In this lout’s case, bathe more than once a year.

  “Reckon whoever hired her for the night’s fun is the one with all the money.”

  “Won’t hurt to search her and see what she’s got.”

  Lai Choi San did not move when he ran his fingers through her carefully coiffured hair and found one of the carved jade ornaments there.

  “This must be worth a few dollars.”

  “It is priceless,” Lai Choi San said.

  “Well, everybody’s got their price. What’s yours for spreading them fine legs?” Another man lifted her skirt and leered at her well-muscled legs.

  “Do not get any blood on my clothing,” she said quietly.

  “Blood? We ain’t gonna get blood on you, ’less you’re a virgin. But you’re too old for that. I heard them Celestials don’t value virgins, so you don’t have a cherry to bust no more.”

  “I was not speaking to you,” Lai Choi San said coldly.

  “She wasn’t—” The first road agent died in mid-sentence. The others whirled about, reaching for knives and slungshot. As one, they also died.

  “You, Sung,” she said, pointing to the dark-clad man who had silently approached and killed the robbers’ leader. “Drive me the rest of the way to the museum. And be quick. I do not want to miss the exhibit.”

  The huge Chinaman bowed deeply and dropped to hands and knees so his mistress could return to the coach. She stepped onto the middle of his back offered as her footstool and closed the door behind her. He hastily motioned to the other Celestials who had killed the road agents for them to remove the bodies, including that of the driver. Only when he was sure they obeyed his silent commands did he agilely climb into the driver’s box. For a moment, the reins and team confounded him, but he quickly figured out the arrangement and got the coach clacking along the cobblestone street.

  Lai Choi San leaned back inside the coach and fumed. Such delays should never happen. She was on a mission of the utmost urgency. Why did she have to come to such a lawless city as San Francisco to complete her quest? She needed to burn more joss sticks to appease the gods. Later. After she had recovered what had been stolen.

  Tess Lawrence wanted to scream. There were too many people crowded into the museum and not one in a hundred had the slightest idea what they were looking at. How much easier it was working in an office, dealing with Sir William’s papers, even setting up such showcases as this than it was actually coping with them.

  Tess bit her lower lip as she heard one matronly woman say “Why, they l
ook so…tawdry. And old. They are so very old-looking. Not new at all.” The matron thrust out her diamond-encrusted bracelet for all those nearby to admire. “Michael bought this for our anniversary. He had it made specially for me, of course, by the finest jeweler in all of Europe. It’s from Italy. Or was it France? I simply cannot recall.” She turned back to the case holding the jade ornaments and wrinkled her overpowdered nose. She sniffed and said, “Cheap-looking. Don’t you agree?”

  Of course the small knot of sycophants with her all agreed as they moved on, trailing the doyenne like a cloud of perfume, cloying and obvious. Tess closed her eyes and leaned against the cool plastered museum wall, wishing this ordeal were at an end.

  “There you are, my dear. Have you seen to the lackeys at the door? I have heard they are being rude to some of our guests.” Sir William Macadams never met her sapphire-colored eyes or appreciated her beauty. Tess wondered if he even knew her name, and she had worked for him almost six months.

  Sir William cut quite a dashing figure, though, in spite of his lack of social graces. A preeminent archaeologist, he had little trouble raising money for his expeditions. He was middle-aged and balding, but his quick wit and manner always gulled the rich out of a few dollars to finance his often odd travels. He was muscular and brave and daring and, Tess had to admit, quite handsome.

  Why wouldn’t he at least call her by name?

  “I’ll see to it, Sir William,” Tess said. “Uh, Sir William?”

  “Yes?” The sandy-haired man looked not at her but at the matron who had found it so difficult to believe anything old could be valuable. Tess saw the dollar signs in his eyes—or pound signs since he was British—as he estimated how much he could get from her husband for his next expedition.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  “Nonsense, my dear. Is it important?”

  “I wondered what you were doing after the exhibition. I thought we could—”

  “Always business, aren’t we, my dear?” He laughed. It was rich and endearing, except Tess did not find it so at the moment. She had hoped they could celebrate the success of the jade exhibition in a somewhat more private setting. Sir William’s hotel room would do nicely. All night long. With champagne and…Sir William beside her in the luxurious bed.