Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle Read online

  She was certain by now that some unidentifiable metal object must have been tossed into the engine to produce the groans and rattles that made conversation exhausting. She occupied herself by turning her head every few minutes to check the motorcycle's presence behind them, and behind them it remained, the splash of red shirt reappearing after every curve in the road, and always at the same distance behind them. Her watch told her that it was a quarter to eleven now; for half an hour she continued doing this, aware that beside her Bonchoo's eyes also strayed frequently to his rearview mirror. They reached a small plateau, passing rice paddies and two thatch-roofed houses. A woman carrying baskets on a pole across her shoulders walked toward them across the fields—she was glimpsed and then she was gone—and the road began climbing again through the forest.

  They had driven for another fifteen minutes in silence when Bonchoo suddenly shouted to her in an agonized voice, "I am going to stop, they follow behind us like fahrawng—thunderclouds! It puts butterflies in my stomach."

  "Stop?" she repeated doubtfully. "But why?"

  "I must!" He looked really upset.

  "But they stay behind us," she shouted back at him. He was slowing the truck, its rattles subsiding; she thought he was choosing a very poor place to honor his butterflies because the road was alarmingly empty and the forests on either side dense. "What if they stop, too?" she asked.

  "I have to find out," he cried. "If they are after us like bandits they will stop us anyway, soon or late, and it will be in a place they choose."

  She nodded; this she could understand. "What do you suggest doing?"

  "There is a monkey wrench there," he said, pointing under her seat. "A big one."

  She leaned over and brought it out as he steered the truck to the side of the road. When he turned off the engine the silence was so startling that it fairly screamed at her.

  "Stay," he said, taking the monkey wrench from her and opening the door beside him. "I am going into the bushes —they'll mink for the usual reason. You'll be safe in the truck. Lock the doors and stay."

  He slid out of the truck and a second later vanished into the dusty vines and tangles along the road, a few low palms quivering behind him. Mrs. Pollifax thought it gallant of him to insist that she remain in the truck and she thought the better of him for it, but she could not feel that being confined between a door and a gearshift would prove very interesting. If what Bonchoo suspected was true then she certainly didn't relish watching two young men descend upon Bonchoo in the forest, outnumbering him. It seemed pertinent to her own future to lighten the odds and become a presence on the scene.

  She stepped out of the truck just as the motorcycle overtook them. It slowed to a stop, which was either Samaritan-like or ominous, except that after a glance at the dark and hostile faces of the two young men she decided that it was ominous. Mrs. Pollifax nodded politely to them and strolled around the truck to kick a tire, observing them discreetly as she pretended concern for the tire. The two men exchanged words in Thai, laughed, climbed off the motorcycle, pushed down the kickstand and strolled to the edge of the road. Peering into the woods, they exchanged more words and then Red Shirt parted the shrubbery and went in after Bonchoo, leaving the other man at the edge of the road to watch him disappear and to wait.

  So Bonchoo was right, she thought, her heart beginning to beat faster, her adrenaline glands on the alert. She casually walked over to join the man at the edge of the road. "Good morning," she said conversationally. "Perhaps you can tell me how far it is to Chiang Rai now?"

  He turned and gave her an impatient glance. He didn't reply and she thought his eyes held an unhealthy joy as he stood and waited. With a shrug he turned back to the forest, and Mrs. Pollifax retreated several paces behind him and waited, too. Presently there came a cry, a scuffle, a grunt followed by a groan, a voice shouting, and Red Shirt's companion stiffened and took a step forward. He had overlooked Mrs. Pollifax, however, who had already assumed the basic stance that her instructor Lorvale called hachiji-dachi. Lifting her right arm, hand open, she struck the back of the man's neck with a quick decisive karate slash that sent him sprawling unconscious to the ground.

  There was a thrashing of dried grass and Bonchoo leaped out of the bushes, knife in one hand, monkey wrench in the other, a bloody gash across his scarred cheek. He came to a halt, gaping at the young man lying at her feet. "But—what happened?" he gasped.

  She said calmly, "I hit him."

  "You?" He looked from the man on the ground to Mrs. Pollifax and his mouth dropped open. "You—are you a witch?"

  "Karate, brown belt," she said crisply. "What about the other one?"

  "Knocked out with the monkey wrench but he was a tough one. He is still breathing, thank God, or I would have lost much merit." He sank down on a rock and put his head in his hands and to her surprise she saw that he was trembling. "I—Bonchoo," he groaned. 'To say Bonchoo is scared—mai dai, not good. This is not an auspicious day for me!"

  He suddenly seemed surprisingly human to her. She could sympathize with him—it was not an auspicious day for either of them—but she could be sympathetic only to a modest level. She said accusingly, "If they belong to the men who kidnapped Cyrus they should have gone after me but they didn't, they wanted to kill you, Bonchoo. Why?"

  He was not listening. He struck his forehead with a fist. "I didn't see, I didn't know—there is one smart man behind this, and me, I am amateur."

  "Well, I'm not," she told him sharply.

  He glanced up at her and then at the man lying unconscious on the ground; he said dryly, "No—no, you are not amateur and this I do not understand either."

  "Who is the 'smart man' behind this?" she demanded.

  He shook his head. "He was crafty as a naga to send gawngjohn after me."

  "I do think we should get out of here," Mrs. Pollifax pointed out. "We're supposed to be following the blue van, we have to catch up with Cyrus!"

  He said gloomily, "I can scarcely help you look for this Cyrus if I am dead."

  "But you're not dead," she reminded him matter-of-factly. "Why do they want to kill you, and who is gawng john?

  Bonchoo stirred, sighed and straightened his shoulders.

  "It means guerrilla band, robber gang, not a person." He stood up and looked around, removed his hat and scratched his head, revealing the fact that he was nearly bald, which gave him even more of a brigand look. "I do not like this," he announced.

  "Nor do I," said Mrs. Pollifax. "We can't leave this— this hoodlum and his motorcycle here," she pointed out.

  "No," he said, and they regarded each other measuringly. "You are not scared?"

  "At the moment I'm more 'scared' for Cyrus," she told him. "Do you think, please, we could get to work now before they wake up?"

  "Yes," he said, jammed his hat squarely back on his head and rose to his feet.

  Together they lifted Yellow Shirt and half-carried, half-dragged him into the underbrush to place next to his companion. The motorcycle was wheeled into the jungle a little farther down the road, a handful of sand and leaves was dropped into its gas tank, and while Mrs. Pollifax waited for him in the cab Bonchoo carefully rearranged bent saplings and twisted palms to conceal their invasion of the forest.

  "Feeling better?" she asked as he joined her.

  He gave her a rueful smile. "I guess." Climbing in beside her, he started the engine and they were off again.

  But something had subtly changed between them: each of them had become slightly more of a person to the other now, bringing interesting new dimensions to their thinking. Having proceeded on the uneasy basis of appearances, and a need for expediency, they were now more aware of what lay behind the other's facades: Bonchoo had openly admitted to being afraid, which surprised her and rendered him less threatening, while Bonchoo was finding her not quite the stereotype of Helpless American that he'd assumed. Mrs. Pollifax found herself going back over the scene in the Chiang Mai hut and applying friendlier aspects to it: he
might have killed Ruamsak but the fact that he had not abandoned her so far struck her now as an aspect of character rather than ominous. She thought that her instincts might have been sound after all when she had decided to accept Bonchoo and to continue on with him. Nevertheless it was becoming very important to break down his defenses soon and learn who the crafty naga might be who was behind the near-killing on the road. In the meantime she gazed thoughtfully out of the window at the road, at groves of bamboo rising in graceful columns, at a bald hilltop glimpsed in the distance that was planted with tiny new trees in rows like stripes of chenille across a brown cloth. A tiny bus charged down upon them at breakneck speed and was gone. Up ahead she saw a car that had stalled beside the edge of the road and she leaned forward, frowning. She said, "Bonchoo, isn't that—? and then, "It's blue!" she cried. "Bonchoo, look—it's a van, a blue van!"

  Bonchoo was already slowing the truck. "Yes!" he shouted back.

  From a distance it looked as if the car had run off the road into a ditch, except there were no ditches along the road. It leaned crazily to one side as if an axle had broken, or a wheel had been lost but there it was, shabby, old and unmistakably blue. She felt a flare of excitement.

  Bonchoo cautiously drove past the van and then turned around and drove back and parked behind it. "Empty," he said.

  "Yes, but Cyrus could still be in the back," she told him. "If they've had to abandon the van and walk—" Her heart was singing. "They could scarcely take an unconscious man with them, could they? Wouldn't they have to walk?" Without waiting for a reply she flung open the door and was out of the truck and running, with Bonchoo hurrying behind her. She opened the van's door and peered inside. Her hopeful heart constricted: Cyrus was not inside, the rear was empty.

  "He's not here," she said, tears rising in her eyes. "He's gone, they took him with them, but where?"

  Bonchoo looked thoughtful. "I do not think they walk along this road if they have stolen a man, not with a police block half an hour from here." At her startled glance he said, "Oh yes, we are in the north now, where police set up barriers to check for smugglers and insurgents. So long as they drive in a car they would have a good story for the police, but to walk, with this Cyrus between them—" He shook his head.

  "I wish you'd stop calling him 'this Cyrus,'" she said indignantly. "He was simply minding his own business, an innocent bystander carried off by unscrupulous people."

  Bonchoo looked at her with interest. "Was he?" he said softly. "You know no reason for this kidnapping?"

  "Certainly not," she said hotly.

  He smiled a little. "You are crying."

  "I'm not crying," she flung at him. "But if they didn't start walking along the road where would they go?"

  Bonchoo's gaze shifted to the forest. 'There," he said, and pointed.

  She turned and looked at what he pointed to: at the dense forest, and at level after level of dusty green rising beyond its edge. "There?" she said blankly. "But—that's jungle."

  "There are trails."

  "Where?"

  "Not far if we are now less than one hour from Chiang Rai." He glanced up at the sun and then at the road and then at the shape of the hills around them. "Very near," he said, and strolling past the blue van, he began examining the scrub along the shoulder of the road. "Here," he called out suddenly, pointing. "But not easy, it can be dangerous."

  "If you think that's where they went then it's where I go, even by myself," she added defiantly.

  He laughed. "You? By yourself? You'd be lost in an hour. Decide! Those two young naklengs will soon be sitting up and rubbing two sore heads."

  "You mean you'll go too, Bonchoo? To—" She hesitated. 'To gain merit?"

  "I have much merit to earn," he said, nodding, but she thought he looked amused again. "Much! Okay we go, but first we hide these cars, too."

  It proved impossible to move the blue van, even to roll it over, and so it was left where it stood by the side of the road, which pleased neither of them because it would be seen at once by the naklengs. Bonchoo's truck, however, was driven some distance down the road where it was carefully concealed behind a grove of bamboo trees and divested of eggs, bananas and colas, which they divided between their pockets and her purse.

  Following this, they approached the trail, leaving behind them—Mrs. Pollifax counted—one motorcycle, one truck, one blue van and two young men who might or might not be pursuing them soon.

  "Here," Bonchoo said, showing her the path almost obscured from the road by scrub and bushes.

  Mrs. Pollifax regarded it doubtfully; she'd not expected the trail to look so dark and forbidding, it was no more than a thread of tamped-down earth winding among towering trees and, worse, it soon slanted upward at a sharp angle. She glanced ruefully at the flimsy cotton shoes she'd chosen this morning, just because they matched her khaki slacks, and sighed over such vanity. Seeing a torn piece of paper next to her right shoe, she automatically picked it up, glanced at it curiously and found herself staring in shock at a slip of paper on which was etched the blue eye of a fish—one eye, one fin—and under it the letters DINES.

  "Sardines!" she cried. "Cyrus dropped this! Bonchoo, it's his!"

  Bonchoo came to her side and looked at it, puzzled. "He dropped this? What is it? How can you know?"

  "It's torn from a tin of sardines—he carried them in his camera bag—it's a message! This is where they went, and he's conscious and alive!

  "A very strange message," he said doubtfully.

  'Trust me," she told him eagerly, and at once the narrow path no longer looked forbidding. "They haven't harmed him, he must be walking now, and this is where they went!"

  "Very strange message," Bonchoo repeated, shaking his head.

  Brushing aside dusty palm leaves and vines, he held them back for her and with this they left behind the road to Chiang Rai and plunged into the jungle.

  CHAPTER

  7

  It was a green and claustrophobic world they entered. Close to the road every leaf and stem was red with dust that rose in clouds as they passed; a few hundred feet inside and they left both dust and road behind them, as well as every evidence of civilization, so that only the thought of Cyrus passing this way steadied Mrs. Pollifax. The vegetation was dense: columns of trees climbed skyward, but at ground level scrub and scraggly new growth formed a wall on either side of the narrow trail, rising out of tangles of dried grass and palms and bamboo that struggled toward the sun. There was no sky: the foliage of the trees met and formed an arch overhead, turning the trail into a tunnel where only an occasional stripe of sunshine broke through to pattern the forest floor.

  Bonchoo led the way. The stillness of the forest struck her at first as oppressive until a bird suddenly cried out overhead, and as it took flight she saw a flash of bright color high among the treetops. Leaves rustled and quivered at the bird's departure and then the forest became still again, but she felt a listening quality about it now, a sense of presences. As she trudged along behind Bonchoo she became aware that sometimes, far above them, trees stirred and leaves danced, and at such times a sweeter air drifted down to her but no breezes followed: on the forest floor it remained warm, humid, with a faint odor of earth and decaying roots.

  "Are there snakes?" she called to Bonchoo.

  She was becoming familiar now with his shrug. Over his shoulder he said, "Not so many as down on the plains, it's not as hot in the mountains. They come out only at night here."

  It was a reply that was not entirely reassuring.

  Occasionally the wall on either side thinned and if she removed her eyes from the trail, which increasingly hypnotized her, she saw clearings where a great tree had fallen, creating sun and space for new shoots of green to take root, where tiny white flowers grew over and around the fallen trunk. But presently her glance stopped wandering because they began to climb again, the path moving up toward the ridges that she'd seen from the road. Bonchoo was a fast walker: determined to keep up with him s
he tried not to notice that after half an hour she had begun to pant. She was also growing hungry and she was tiring but most of all she was thirsty. Stealing a glance at her watch, she saw that it was nearing noon, which gave her hope that soon Bonchoo might halt his relentless pace and consider rest and some food.

  Steadily they marched along until they emerged from woods into a clearing covered with tall imperata grass; they had reached the summit of this particular hill, and looking ahead she saw they must next walk downhill for perhaps half a mile and then climb to a still higher hill. She sighed. "Are there wild animals?"

  He turned to her. "Not many. Deer, a few bears. You are afraid?" he asked, looking at her seriously.

  "I just like to know what to expect," she told him, adding, "I'm thirsty, can we stop now?"

  "When we reach the next ridge," he said, pointing. "There has been a fire there, as you can see, and we will be able to see ahead and behind us."

  He meant, of course, that the two naklengs might already be following them but she did not care to think about that. She gave the ridge a hostile glance and fell into step behind Bonchoo again. Reentering the forest, she caught a glimpse of another brilliant-plumaged bird and wondered if Cyrus might have seen it, too, bird-watcher that he was, but it was not time to think of Cyrus, either. She still held in her hand the slip of paper with the fish eye and the letters D-l-N-E-S that was all of Cyrus that she possessed now but she sternly told herself it would only sap her flagging energy to go over and over why he had been abducted, and what those people wanted of him, and having sternly told herself not to think about this she at once began wondering why he'd been abducted and what those people wanted of him, whoever they were...

  Whoever they were... This was what she had to find out from Bonchoo when they reached the next ridge and rested. Cyrus had been mysteriously carried off, Ruamsak was dead in Chiang Mai and the only man who could explain any of this strode along the trail in front of her, his own life apparently in danger for reasons unknown to her. Presently—she glanced at her watch again—the two men who had tried to kill Bonchoo would have found the blue van parked at the side of the road and if they remained determined to kill Bonchoo they would guess where they had gone, and follow.