Pulp and Dagger Fiction
Webzine presents
4-Part adventure and intrigue in
early 20th
Century China
by
James
Brian King
Chapter One: Negotiations...Six-Gun Style
I froze when
I heard the clicking of revolver hammers being pulled back, then turned
slowly to look behind me, my hand well away from my own revolver
holstered low on my right thigh.
Drat. Bandits. They'd been concealed in a ditch that ran alongside the
road, and the hot, dry wind that continually blew off the Mongolian
plains had blanketed any sound of their approach.
We were taken by a ruse -- the man lying in the road who was
fashionably donned in European duds turned out to be Chinese; I suppose
the bandits rightly figured that a "long nose" white man wouldn't care
that there was a Chinese body in the road and would simply have gone
around and continued on.
There were too many bandits, too many guns aimed at both myself and my
boy, a Chinese youngster from Pao-ting-fu, who I could remember only as
Ping. So I smiled and slowly raised my hand -- my left hand -- and
casually waved in greeting. I well remember the first lesson I learned
between drinks in the lounge at the Peking Club: never show fear; a
white man must appear invincible, superior in every way. It's the only
way we stayed alive in a land where the natives would destroy the hated
"foreign devils" if they believed they could succeed.
The short -- well, shortest -- of the scowling Mongols was obviously
the leader. I knew him by description. He was dressed in the same
sheepskin clothing as the rest of his rugged looking bunch, but his
craggy, pitted complexion and small size gave him away. He was Ogara, a
renegade priest who was now a robber and a murderer -- though
apparently still a priest in the eyes of his followers. Once a lama
always a lama, I supposed. I was American, but I was also an Imperial
representative working for the superindendent of communications as a
troubleshooter and I had been sent north from Peking to negotiate with
Ogara or to kill him (yeah, just me -- and Ping, of course; sometimes
even I marvelled at the super-ego mentality of westerners in China).
Ogara, it seemed, didn't take to the poles and wire of the new
telegraph line that stretched across the open plains to the Mongolian
capital at Urga. He and his bandits might have been anywhere in the 900
miles between Kalgan and Urga, but I figured I'd find him in Chinese
controlled territory.
Ping and I had come the 150 miles by rail from Peking to Kalgan, where
we learned that the telegraph line was down again. We passed through
the arched gateway in the great wall into Inner Mongolia and, mounted
on sturdy Mongolian ponies, began our search. I expected the task to
require weeks, possibly even months before bribes and rumors would lead
us to our quarry. It had taken seven days for them to find us.
I resisted the western impulse to offer Ogara my hand, and instead
tipped my head to him; I certainly wasn't going to bow.
"Ogara," I began officiously in my poor Chinese, "My name is William
Kirsch. I am sent by the Imperial-"
"I know who sent you, white devil," the bandit leader interrupted.
Golly, news travels fast, even without telegraph lines. He smiled,
showing me his rotted teeth. It wasn't a friendly smile. "We do not
negotiate with the foreign dogs of the Manchus. We kill them." He spat
at my feet. A dribble of saliva clung to his chin, but he didn't seem
to mind. He obviously despised me, yet his repulsive smile remained to
spoil his otherwise plain Asian visage. His expression became
malicious, yet the smile persisted. "How should we kill you, white man?
Stake you to the ground, slit your stomach and watch while starving
dogs tear out your intestines?" He was watching me, I presumed hoping
for a fearful response. He didn't get it. "Perhaps a more fitting death
for an arrogant long nose would be to bind your hands and feet and drag
you over a field of sharp rocks." By his gleeful expression I believe
he liked that idea better. "Death would not come until the rocks
stripped the skin from your body, tore muscles, broke bones." He
nodded. "Yes, we will drag you."
He sounded quite sure of his intentions -- I was pretty sure of his
intent myself. For an odd moment, I wondered where the term
"troubleshooter" had originated from.
I surreptitiously glanced left and right, then over both shoulders.
There were eight of them. One of them smacked my boy's arm with the
butt of his rifle, forcing Ping to drop his own rifle to the ground.
Ping offered no resistance, but stood rigidly, his expression
undiscernable. Ogara and his chief lieutenant in banditry, Bokto I
believe he was called, faced me; neither one held a weapon in their
hands, though both headmen sported fine examples of Samuel Colt's .44
caliber Peacemakers in their belts. More than anywhere else in the
world, Asians of stature did not do their own dirty work -- it was the
six lowly bandits to the sides and behind me who loosely aimed their
firearms, two Winchester lever-action repeaters and -- wouldn't you
guess -- four more Peacemakers, at me. Why is it that, wherever one
goes in the world, the bandits are always armed to the teeth with
American-made firearms?
I had no intention of suffering a torturous death, but being gunned
down in a shootout against eight-to-one odds seemed hardly better. So I
would gamble -- and hope Ping would know what to do.
I hadn't always been an authorized representative of bureaucratic
government. In fact, it was booze, gambling, and guns that had made it
necessary for me to hastily leave Arizona and make my way to San
Francisco where, under an assumed name, I boarded a ship for the
Orient. Father Hopfinger, a plump, white-haired church man with a
bulbous nose who ran a mission in Peking, had informed me in very clear
language that booze, gambling, and guns were vices that would -- as God
is his witness -- one day kill me. Truthfully, gambling and guns made
more sense when booze was involved, but the booze was in my saddlebag
on a pony ten yards away. Maybe, without the booze, God would be on my
side and I would prove Father Hopfinger wrong; well, at least this time.
I smiled easily and raised my left hand in a conciliatory manner -- I
could tell Ogara was waiting for me to say something. I expect what he
really wanted was to hear me beg for my life before he slashed it out
of me over the rocks. Then, in a flash of movement, I snatched my own
Colt Peacemaker -- Americans had fallen in love with Sam Colt's
handguns long before Mongols did -- from its low slung leg holster. My
left hand, almost of its own volition, fanned the hammer back as I
brought the revolver on target and fired a round from the hip. Before
Ogara even started to fall I fanned the hammer again and lunged my
right foot forward and planted the barrel of my Peacemaker against
Bokto's forehead. Even as I did it I heard the crashing report of two
other weapons being fired. I wasn't hit, but the bandit standing next
to Bokto suddenly went down, grasping at his throat as crimson blood
jetted from his exploded neck.
"You live if I live!" I screamed in Chinese.
Bokto, his eyes so wide he could have passed for a tanned white man,
quickly raised his hands, screaming, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"
Actually, the words were in Mongolian, but I'm pretty sure that's what
he said.
The newly promoted bandit leader carefully pivoted his head on the
barrel muzzle of my revolver -- he didn't dare to back away -- and
gawked incredulously at the silently twitching corpse of Ogara. There
was a nice, neat, finger-sized hole in his forehead just above the
bridge of his nose. I wasn't a particularly young man. But the years
since that incident in Arizona had provided me a lot of experience.
True, much of that experience was with booze and gambling, but it was
also with guns. Ogara had just learned that experience had made me very
good with guns.
"Bokto, my friend, I think we should start over," I stated as best I
could in Chinese. "As a representative of the government of China, I am
authorized to make you rich. All you and your men have to do is leave
the telegraph lines alone from this day on." I hesitated meaningfully
and glanced at poor, dead Ogara. "There are, of course, other
alternatives . . ."
Next - Chapter 2: "He is to be Executed!"
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This story is copyright by James B. King. It may not
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author
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