The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (44 page)

Indy cracked the whip, catching the first guard around the neck. He spilled forward, tripping the second guard. As the first Thug tried to stand, Indy kicked him in the head.

The second man stood, swinging his sword. Indy ducked and came up with his fist in the assailant’s belly. The guard doubled over as Indy dove for the unconscious man’s saber. Then Indy rolled to avoid a downthrust from the recovering guard’s blade. He stood quickly; the two men faced each other, ready to duel.

Indy suddenly realized he didn’t know a thing about this kind of sword. He hefted the flat, curved blade, held it out, up, over, trying to decide the best way to use it, when the enraged Thuggee guard shouted and charged.

Indy decided quickly that shouting was the way to go, so he made his own rather voluble, inarticulate noise and raised his scimitar to parry the attacker’s first slash.

The duel was on. Sparks erupted with each CLANG as the Thuggee swordsman lunged and feinted, and lunged again. Indy’s moves were more in the nature of blocks and flails, and then blocks and tackles: Indy took his opponent flying at the waist: the two of them rolled,
corps à corps,
along the rocky slope.

Indy came out on top when the tumble ended in some scrub. He punched the guard once with the iron knuckles of the sword-handle, and the fight was over.

He rose, ran back to the bridge, keeping the saber. Willie and Short Round were just about across. Indiana started out onto the rickety span.

He walked quickly, hanging on to the twine rails. Every few steps his boot would break through; he’d have to catch himself on these upper ropes. Consequently, he kept his eyes turned downward most of the way, looking to step over the weak boards. When he was nearing the middle, he heard shouting ahead. He looked up to see temple guards appear at the far end of the bridge.

Willie and Short Round were caught as soon as they stepped onto hard ground. They struggled with their captors, but it was futile. There were too many.

Indy paused, uncertain what to do next. Suddenly Willie called, “Indy, look out behind you!”

Indy turned. More guards rushed out of the tunnel behind him. He turned again. Two of the Thugs who’d captured Willie and Shorty were stepping onto the bridge ahead of him.

Indiana stood helpless in the center of the swaying bridge, with guards approaching from both sides, nothing but the crocodile-infested, rocky gorge far below, and the glorious heavens above.

Well, almost helpless. This was, after all, Indiana Jones.

The wind came up like an omen. Mola Ram, the High Priest, appeared on the far end of the bridge. He stood there in his priestly robes, smiling the smile of the man who holds all the cards. Beside him, Willie and Short Round were held fast by guards.

Indy staggered unsteadily in the buffeting wind. Bracing himself on the rope rails, he shouted to Ram. “Let my friends go!”

Mola Ram yelled to his men in Hindi. They started moving toward Indy from both sides of the bridge.

“That’s far enough!” Indiana commanded.

“You are in no position to give orders, Dr. Jones,” the High Priest remarked.

Indy pointed to the bag over his shoulder. “You want the stones, let them go and call off your guards! Or I’ll drop the stones!”

“Drop them, Dr. Jones,” said Mola Ram. “They will be easily found. But you won’t!” He called out to his henchmen: “Yanne!”—and made a short hand-motion. They moved farther along the swaying bridge, closer to the madman in the middle.

Why is nothing easy?
Indy wondered. Without further warning, he swung the sword he still held, cutting halfway through one of the bottom rope spans. The bridge reeled violently under the assault; the partially severed rope frayed, fiber by fiber, under the tension. The guards all stopped in their tracks.

Mola Ram nodded appreciatively. “Impressive, Dr. Jones,” he congratulated his adversary. “But I don’t believe you would kill yourself.” He motioned again. Somewhat more reluctant now, his guards stepped farther onto the bridge, moving closer to Indy from both ends.

Indy slashed his blade again, this time into the opposing lower rope span. It, too, partly severed, continued fraying slowly: slow, like an alarm clock.

The bridge jolted; again, the guards stopped, swaying, with Indy, in the jostling wind.

Mola Ram lost his smile. He shoved Willie and Short Round out onto the bridge, then followed with his dagger drawn. He put the knife to Willie’s back. “Your friends will die with you!” he bellowed.

Indiana looked at the guards in front and behind. He looked at Willie and Short Round ten feet out on the bridge, and at Mola Ram standing determined, at their backs. He looked at the land; he looked at the sky. And he shouted to all, in a voice meant to leave no doubt: “Then I guess we’re all going to take a big dive!”

Indy’s eyes met Short Round’s. Much transpired in that meeting: memories, regrets, promises, graces; and a real clear message: this ain’t no joke.

Willie saw it too. She looked wistfully at Indy: it might have been different, chum. She looked anxiously at Short Round . . . and noticed he was surreptitiously wrapping his foot around a loose rope support. Petrified—but also excited—Willie secretly did the same, twining an arm around one of the ropes as well.

Mola Ram roared like an angry priest: “Give me the stones!”

“Mola Ram,” called Indiana, “you’re about to meet Kali—in Hell!”

He swung the sword defiantly down. It swooshed through the air, then cut cleanly through top and bottom ropes on one side of the bridge.

Two guards fell off immediately, screaming all the way to their deaths. The rest began to flee in panic. Not quickly enough, though, for Indy slashed his sword down the other side, cleaving the span completely in two. The two halves separated, seemed to hang suspended in midair for a long, strange moment . . . and then fell apart.

Guards wailed horribly as they plunged three hundred feet to the valley. All tried desperately to cling to the remnants of rope bridge that were falling back to the cliffs; only some made it.

On the side that Indy was holding on to, three guards fell away in the first lurch. By the time the bridge finally crashed into the side of the cliff wall from which it now continued to dangle, only six people remained, grasping the fragile rope and slats: Mola Ram at the top, just several feet below the cliff-edge to which the bridge was attached; below him a guard; Willie; Short Round; another guard; and, at the very bottom, swinging precariously in space beyond an outswelling of rock, Indiana.

Willie and Shorty clung to their established footholds in the now vertical bridge. Everyone was motionless for a few seconds, realizing they were still among the living, swaying slightly, waiting to see if the ropes would hold, or settle.

Then Mola Ram began to climb. He reached very near the moorings of the rope ladder, when he grabbed a dry-rotted rung, which splintered in two. He skittered down ten feet, coming to rest finally between Willie and Short Round. In the process, he knocked off one of the guards, who fell past them all to the depth of the gully.

The ladder swung. Nobody moved.

Then Indy began to climb. He climbed past the guard, whose eyes and hands were tightly closed; he grabbed at Mola Ram’s legs, to try to throw the fanatic to his death. Ram kicked him in the face, though, and resumed his own ascent.

Indy went up after him, got his foot again. He jerked hard. Mola Ram lost his grip, crashing down to Indy’s level. They clutched each other and the ropes, nearly deranged with hatred. There they did battle.

Indy butted Ram in the chin with his head. Ram kneed Indy, then elbowed his neck back, then reached for his chest.

From above, Willie screamed, “Oh, my God! Indy, cover your heart!”

With sudden cold terror, Indy looked down to see Mola Ram’s hand starting to enter his chest—as he’d watched the priest once do to the sacrificial victim.

He grappled with Ram’s wrist, desperately holding the probing hand at bay. But slowly, fiendishly, the sorcerer’s fingers began to inch through Indy’s skin—into his body.

It was an icy, nauseating feeling. Not painful, really, just horribly violating his innermost spirit. It was rapacious, vile, lacerating. It made his forehead sweat; iridescent spots fluttered before his eyes. He swooned, almost fell.

But his sense of self-preservation was strong; he kept his nerve, and he forced Ram’s piercing fingers away from his heart, pushed them out of his chest. Knocked the hand back against Ram’s own face.

Furious, the High Priest climbed once more, while Indy took a moment to recuperate. Ram climbed only a few feet, though, to the level of his own last guard. He got an arm around the man’s throat, dislodged him from the ropes, and cast him down upon Indiana, in an attempt to knock Indy from the dangling ladder.

Willie and Shorty, near the top, shouted in unison. “Look out, Indy!”

The falling guard hit him square across the shoulders. Indy clung tightly; the hapless guard bounced, fell end over end, screaming all the way to his Maker.

Mola Ram laughed.

There were noises from across the gorge. Indy looked over to see a dozen more Thuggee guards streaming out of the tunnel on the other side, stranded there for lack of a bridge.

Mola Ram’s voice sailed across the chasm to his men: “Kill them! Shoot them!”

The Thuggees ran up a path to a small grove of trees on a plateau above where the crossing had been. They unslung bows and arrows and look up firing positions.

Indy pulled himself higher, managing to grab on to the bottom of the High Priest’s robe. Arrows began hitting all around him, though; one buried itself in the rung he was hanging on, grazing his hand. He had to let go of Ram.

Mola Ram took the opportunity to clamber up a few more steps. Shorty and Willie were waiting for him this time, however: they stomped on his hands as soon as he reached the slat they balanced on.

He let go, and fell.

Fell on top of Indy, breaking
him
loose of his hold. The two of them toppled another ten feet before catching on one of the bottom rungs.

Indy held on by his hands only. Ram didn’t waste any more time struggling with the infidel. Priestly duties had not prepared him for such acrobatics; he was beginning to tire. He just wanted to get to safety.

Pushing off from Indy’s head, he once again started his ascent.

Shorty finally made it to the top. He heaved himself up onto rocky ground, then turned and gave Willie a hand. They lay there panting a moment, hugging the earth, while arrows continued to fly all around them. Fortunately, all the guards on this side of the gorge had taken the plunge, so for the moment, at least, dodging arrows was all they had to worry about.

That wasn’t all Indiana had to worry about. He started to mount the rope ladder yet again, when his wounded hand cramped. He crooked one elbow over a rung and for a few seconds just oscillated in the breeze. What a way to earn a living.

Indy got that old sinking feeling. Across the canyon he could see the dozen archers loosing volleys of shafts toward him. He looked down. The frayed ropes released another lower slat, which flipped in the wind like a broken propeller. It took a long time to spiral all the way to the base of the cliff.

Resolutely, Indiana renewed his climb.

Mola Ram reached the top. He extended a hand over the edge, feeling for a stable hold . . . and Willie smashed his fingers with the meanest rock she could find.

The High Priest yelped in pain, slipping out of control down the ropes, until he was once again stopped by Indiana’s bulky form. They locked grips there, punching and wrestling and pivoting in the void.

On the cliff ledge above, Short Round and Willie watched the combatants powerlessly. Off to the right, Short Round heard a noise. He tensed, ready to run or fight.

“Willie, look!” he shouted.

She followed his gaze. There, horses were galloping through a narrow pass toward them. The British cavalry was returning.

“Well, come on. It’s about time,” she fumed.

Captain Blumburtt and the first troops drew up their horses, dismounting quickly. A fusillade of arrows forced everyone to take cover, but they immediately leveled their long rifles at the Thuggees across the gorge, and returned fire.

Willie and Short Round crawled back to the edge, to see if they could give Indy any help.

Indy and the priest were clearly in a death struggle now. They seemed to be giving no thought to the barrage of arrows or the danger of the swinging ropes. Their only concern was to destroy each other.

Indy slugged; Ram gouged. The bag holding the stones broke loose from Indy’s shoulder. He held on to the strap; but Mola Ram, remembering his treasure, grabbed the bag itself.

“No, the stones are mine!” charged the High Priest.

Indy uttered fiercely, “You have betrayed Shiva.” Then, his face just inches from Mola Ram’s, he began to chant Sankara’s warning in Hindi, over and over: “Shive ke vishwas kate ho. Vishwas kate ho. Vishwas kate ho.”

And then a remarkable thing happened. As Indy repeated the magical words, the stones began to glow through the bag.

They were painfully bright; they burned through the sack. They started falling.

Desperately, Mola Ram reached for them.

Indy kept pronouncing the incantation: “Vishwas kate ho. Vishwas kate ho.”

Ram caught one of the stones, but it burned intensely hot now, searing his hand. He dropped it, letting go with his other hand as well. Indy snatched the radiant Stone out of midair as Ram released it. But to Indiana’s hand, it felt cool.

For a protracted instant their eyes made contact—these last two cliffhangers—and Mola Ram looked, to Indy, as if he’d just awakened from a nightmare. Though it was a nightmare Indiana remembered only dimly, its images would haunt him forever. He felt a pang of sympathy for Mola Ram, who was balanced on the cusp of awareness of both worlds, with no future, and memories of his past sodden with horror.

The High Priest tipped backwards, his hand savagely burned. His feet broke through the splintered rung he’d been hobbling on; he pitched over, soaring down in his robes like a runaway kite, crunching at last into the jagged rocks at the bottom.