Terry Part 13

"Major, I'm sorry you had no chances--" Lindsey began but the Major interrupted him.

"Chances! Chances? Sus-marie-hosep! Some of those pigs almost ran up my breeches!" He was as nearly excited as Lindsey had ever seen him, and they had served together in a Kansas regiment.

"Lindsey, I'm sure glad you asked me to come--I've seen something worth seeing. I've seen him shoot!"

He pointed to Terry. His borrowed rifle stood nearby against a tree and he was busy clipping fresh ammunition into his pistol magazines.

Five wild pigs lay in front of him near the opposite side of the clearing. Lindsey looked his unbelief.

"Yes, he did!" a.s.serted the Major. "I watched him do it--that's why I drew a blank. Five pigs, five shots,--and after each shot he holstered the gun till the next pig hove in sight! I've seen good shooting, but such drawing--such certainty--

"Sus-marie-hosep!" he wound up, lamely.

Terry, having replenished his magazine, clipped it into the big automatic with a deft snap, and turned round toward them. Noting their att.i.tude, he colored boyishly.

"Pretty lucky, wasn't I?" he said.

"Yes," agreed the Major, drily, "you were pretty lucky!"

The beaters had come up. Lindsey ordered them to carry the game for distribution among his villagers. The sun was dipping behind the hills as the three started back the trail through the dense woods, Lindsey leading the way and searching for signs of the wounded boar. Every few rods he found a pool of blood where it had paused in flight.

They entered the deep shadow cast by the spread of a great banyan tree from whose thick branches a score of accessory trunks were sent down to seek root in the soil. Rooting, they grew into smooth, heavy supports for the wide-spread limbs which towered above the surrounding forest. Terry paused a moment in the twilight of the tree, studying appreciatively the miniature forest of trunks parented by the one ancient growth. Suddenly a warning cry escaped his lips as he saw one of the long dark trunks, a foot in diameter, loosen from a branch where it hung suspended high over the Major's head.

"LOOK OUT, MAJOR!"

He leaped forward, expecting to find the Major crushed, but involuntarily halted midway in his stride as the heavy trunk, landing at the Major's feet with a slithering thud, writhed a terrible length into ma.s.sive folds. No eye could follow the inconceivably swift contortions that wrapped the Major in a triple fold.

Two heavy coils prisoned his legs, a third pa.s.sed round his back up over his right shoulder to curve to the trail in front of him and rear again in a length which terminated in a ma.s.sive head poised six feet from the Major's blanched face. Demon-eyed, unwinking, its thin lips bisected the thick-boned jaws in frightful, moist grimace.

Lindsey, horror-stricken, stood helpless while the hammer head catapulted at the sickened face of its victim. The Major's free left arm, raised instinctively to blot out the sight of the living horror, took the terrific impact, then dropped to his side, paralyzed. Still bearing that hideous grin the flat head drew back for another blow at the exposed face. The Major, faint with the terror of his helplessness and the crus.h.i.+ng weight of the quivering ma.s.ses of muscle about him, would have fallen but for their dread support. His consciousness fast deserting him, fascinated, he watched the monstrous leer as the head drew farther back, poised. He felt the agonizing pressure as the great muscles steeled for the blow, and in the moment before his senses departed, heard two cras.h.i.+ng shots that sounded from behind him. With the smas.h.i.+ng reports the poised head thudded to the ground, the folds fell from about him and he slid down among the great quivering coils.

Recovering consciousness, the horror crept back into his face but receded when he saw Terry standing by him. Still faint and sick he struggled to his feet, leaning against the trunk of the banyan and stamping his feet weakly to restore the still numb legs. Terry helped him hobble over to where the Bogobos, who had come up at the shots, were grouped about the dead monster. Lindsey, kneeling to examine the head of the great reptile, struck a match to point out the jagged wounds that had shattered the base of the head.

"Cut the spinal cord," he explained quietly. He was as pale as the Major. "Any other wound, even fatal,--it's death struggles would have--I hate to think of it, Major."

At the Major's questioning look he pointed toward Terry: "He shot it.

Pistol."

The Major surveyed Terry steadfastly, striving for appropriate expression of what was in his heart.

Then, "Terry, I am much obliged. If I ever--if ever you--I'm much obliged!"

It was dark when they reached the house. Later they heard the triumphant shouts which announced the arrival in the village of the men bearing the carca.s.s of the snake, which had haunted the neighborhood for a generation. The celebration of its pa.s.sing lasted far into the night. After dinner Lindsey and Terry strolled to the village to measure the python, and Lindsey ordered it skinned immediately.

You may still see the trophy in the Davao Club, its scaly length stretched along the molding on two sides of the library, where the Major asked Lindsey to place it with this legend:

This python attacked Major John Bronner, P.C., on the Lindsey Plantation.

Length................24 feet, 9 inches Greatest diameter.............14 inches

Major Bronner owes his life to the wonderful pistol marksmans.h.i.+p of his friend,

Lieut. Richard Terry, P.C.

The ride home through the dewy night stiffened the Major's sore muscles and strained joints intolerably. Terry called in the Health Officer, fat Doctor Merchant, who looked him over and p.r.o.nounced him uninjured, leaving some vile-smelling liniment. The Major winced under Matak's too efficient rubbing of bruised areas.

"Horse dope!" he snorted.

Later, dozing, he waked to see Terry's door close and open again after a few minutes. Puzzled as on the preceding night, he fell asleep over the problem.

Governor Mason had dropped the Major at Davao while he went on to Mati, planning to return for a short stop at Davao in forty-eight hours, but as they finished their leisurely breakfast they heard the whistle of his cutter approaching Davao from the south.

"Wonder what's up," said the Major. "He's twelve hours ahead of his schedule."

They walked slowly to the dock, the Major still stiff-legged, arriving just as the launch was lowered over the side of the trim white boat which lay anch.o.r.ed a half-mile offsh.o.r.e. As the launch neared sh.o.r.e they saw the Governor standing on the stern seat.

He stepped up on to the little dock and greeted the Major, then turned his smile upon Terry, apologizing:

"I planned to spend a day here with you all, but have been recalled.

As usual my departure from the capitol was the signal for a dato to start a row!"

A group of officials and more prominent natives had gathered at the pier. He shook hands with each, calling each by name, then gathered the officials about him in a brief conference which disclosed his grasp of conditions in the Gulf. At the end of the short discussion he drew Terry aside.

"No trouble yet with that gang of roughs--with Malabanan?"

"No, sir."

The Governor's face bore a look Terry had not seen in it, an unrelenting determination, a grimness: "Major Bronner has told you how I want this matter handled?"

"Yes, sir. Wait, let him make the first move, then move against them."

"Exactly! I want to demonstrate for all time that this province is as unhealthy now for criminals as during Army days!"

For a moment he studied Terry keenly, then his gaze traveled over the splendid vista of the Gulf appreciatively, mounting higher and higher till it rested on Apo's dim crest. A moment and he turned to Terry again, to find that he, too, was lost in a rapt contemplation of the Hills.

"Lieutenant, some day ... somehow...."

"Yes, Governor."

The Major fidgeted uncomfortably in the presence of the two dreamers.

Two short blasts of the cutter's whistle restored the Governor's urban manner. In a minute he and the Major had said their good-bys and were bobbing over the little seas toward the s.h.i.+p.

The group of Americans and natives split up as they returned toward the town but Terry lingered at the dock watching the cutter as it got under way and raced toward the horizon, leaving a white ribbon of wake on the blue gulf waters. Three large bancas were approaching the sh.o.r.e, belated fishermen returning with the night's catch: a fleet vinta, bearing Moro traders, bore toward Samal, its little sail glaring white in the actinic sunlight: the morning air was hot and filled with the heavy odors of sea and sh.o.r.e. It was a fair spot, Davao, productive, peaceful.... He looked up the coast toward the north where Malababan had settled with his unsavory crew.

He spent the day at the _cuartel_, correcting all the little defects the Major's stiff inspection had uncovered. The Macabebes responded eagerly--they, too, wanted to be perfect. They felt trouble in the air, scented impending combat, and Macabebes thrive on combat.