Chapter Six
Clare, Scraggy, and Betsy joined the shivering archaeologist on the shore. The very drunk young woman put her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes and said with a sigh reeking of alcohol, “What a romantic night!”
Indy pushed her away. Undeterred, eyes still closed, she spun to the next person and put her arms around Clare instead. Clare was too busy staring after the departing Nazi speedboat to notice. “Will they hurt Tyki?” she asked Indy.
He shook his head. As much as he hated to think of a black man in the hands of those Aryan supremacists, he knew they weren't stupid. “They know he's important to us,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the scroll, then remembering with relief that it was in Clare's possession and hadn't taken a bath with him. “They'll use him to bargain for the Pai Cho,” he continued. “They need him alive and intact.”
On Clare's shoulder, Betsy sighed again. “Indy, you smell so good! So masculine!”
Clare pushed her away. She spun and wrapped her arms around a bemused Scraggy.
“Will they be following us?” Clare asked, staring as the speedboat's wake subsided into tranquility once more.
Indy forced a smile. “Every step of the way.”
Betsy rubbed her face against Scraggy's bristly beard. “Mmmm, Indy. I love it when you don't shave. It's so sexy, so... rugged!” Scraggy pushed her away. Nearly losing her footing, she spun into a very full fisherman’s net.
Freed from distractions, Scraggy looked at Indy and Clare. “Pandoola, God of Purity, say... 'Always stay ten paces ahead of bad spirit.'”
“Exactly,” Indy said. “We can't let the Nazis get to the City first. If they do, they'll wipe out one of the greatest archaeological finds in history!” Something was out there, he knew that for sure now. Something he'd spent too long searching for already, but something that could save his career. And they needed to rescue Tyki regardless. He got to his feet and headed for the taxi, Clare and Scraggy rushing to follow.
Betsy didn't seem to notice their departure as she embraced the dead fish. “How ‘bout a little goodnight kiss?” she crooned, and followed her own suggestion without waiting for a response. Her lips parted, then broke into a girlish grin. “Mmmmm, Indy... you really know the way to a girl's heart!”
For the first time in a couple minutes she opened her eyes. Then she screamed and ran after the others.
“Sorry about your car,” Indy said, giving the taxi a once-over. Truth be told, it didn't look much worse than before.
“It still work,” Scraggy said, giving it a loving slap on the hood. “Holes make it go faster.”
“I have to admit, you were both wonderful out there, Dr. Jones,” Clare said as she climbed into the back. “That trick with the whip – I never learned anything like that in graduate school.”
“Just takes a bit of practice, is all,” Indy said, beaming as he climbed into the front passenger seat. “I'd be happy to give you a few pointers sometime.” He grabbed a towel from his suitcase and attempted to dry off, wincing every time he touched a bruise or cut, which was often.
“And Dashiell!” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Did you see how he shot that guy's arm, just like something out of a movie? I thought you were a goner, Dr. Jones. Hey, where'd he go anyway? We could use someone like him on this expedition. We should ask him to –”
“Aw, he's real busy runnin' the nightclub and stuff,” Indy said. He did feel a little bad about leaving his friend to extricate his boat from the wrecked warehouse on his own, but time was of the essence, really.
Scraggy started the car and, true to his word, it pulled away from the marina without falling apart. They re-entered the compound, where some animals were just getting back to sleep as others glared at the returning nuisances. Indy would stop at a phone to give the authorities an anonymous tip about the break-in, murder, and property damage. Even if he'd had the time to stick around and chat with them, there wasn't much he could actually do to help.
“I have to admit,” Clare said as they drove between the cages, “for all the dangers I anticipated with Tyki, with this expedition, Nazis weren't one of them.”
Indy laughed even though he saw nothing funny about the situation. “You thought they'd mind their own business and stay in Europe? Dr. Clarke, if you've managed so far to avoid their constant attempts at taking over the world with magic artifacts, I envy you. I really do.”
“I knew Hitler had a thing for the occult,” she said, “but mostly the Judeo-Christian variety. I would've assumed ancient Chinese myths were outside his interest.”
“Nothing is outside his interest,” Indy said, looking back at her, and his heart started to pound as if the adrenaline from the boat chase were just now catching up with him. “He'll believe anything. He's got fingers reaching everywhere, all over the world, trying to get a piece of every pie. So desperate, yet so confident. If we stop him this time, he'll try again, and again, and again. Trust me.”
Clare looked more alarmed than he'd seen her so far, and didn't have a response. They left the zoo and drove in silence for a few minutes until Betsy started to snore.
“So I guess there's just one more pressing question,” Clare finally managed to say. “Dr. Jones, how in the bloody hell did your hat stay on that whole time?”
“Hmm?” Indy reached up to touch the brim of his fedora, so much an extension of his own being that he'd forgotten it was there. Indeed, it did seem almost glued to him at times, and even when it did come off it had a knack for making its way back to him sooner or later. “I dunno,” he said, “feels like the cold water shrunk it and tightened it on there real good.”
Clare smirked. “Unbelievable. More like you've got a swelled head.”
Scraggy gave Indy a knowing smile, seeming to understand the bond between man and hat in a way that no prissy British woman ever could. “Keetongu, God of Precious Possessions, has blessed your hat so it stay with you forever, Indy.”
That seems like as good an explanation as any, he thought. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said, looking up through the bullet holes at the stars, “but someone up there must like me.”
***
Early morning sunlight sprinkled through the leaves of towering palm trees and sparkled on the waters of the Zambezi. Along its sides the sounds of screeching gibbons, exotic birds, chattering insects, and various other wildlife echoed from the dense jungle. Dwarfed though it was by the more famous Nile, this river was nonetheless the fourth largest in Africa, providing far more water than Indy had wanted to see after last night.
He stood at the wheel of a fifty-five foot tattered wooden riverboat, the Adobo, forehead beaded with sweat as he guided it along the twisting waters, the pain almost gone from his bandaged hand. Behind him, a motley crew of Mozambique natives rounded up by Scraggy sat and stood among various crates and barrels and supplies. Dirty, tattered, unkempt, armed with swords and daggers, Indy nonetheless trusted them with his life as long as he continued to pay them more than anyone else they might happen to run into.
One young man, looking surprisingly well-groomed and out of place, sat on a raft pulled behind the boat and sang a folk song to the accompaniment of his beaten guitar. Scraggy's Model T occupied most of the raft's space behind him. It wouldn't have been Indy's first choice for navigating the jungle, but it was all he had right now, and it had held up surprisingly well so far.
Clare exited a cabin, stenographer's notebook in hand, looking radiant as her red hair shimmered in the morning sun. Indy focused on his steering and pretended not to notice her even as she walked up beside him, crinkled her nose and asked, “What is that awful aroma?”
He suppressed a grin and pointed across the deck. “Scraggy’s takin’ a shower.”
Scraggy, fully dressed in the same clothes he'd worn when they met, was rubbing a large, fresh onion over his face and limbs. The pungent juice mingled with sweat and ran down his body.
“He believes that onions keep bad spirits from entering his body,” Indy explained. “I mean, he's probably right. They sure make me want to keep away.”
Clare looked befuddled, but nodded and hastily scribbled something in her notebook. “In all my years of anthropology,” she said, “I’ve never run across anyone or anything quite like Scraggy.”
“He’s a rare breed, that's for sure,” Indy said with a chuckle. Now the river straightened out for a few miles, and he turned and pretended to notice her for the first time. She seemed to have warmed back up to him since last night, after the excitement of translating the scroll and watching him risk his life to save Tyki. Perhaps it was soon enough to try his luck again. “You’re looking very lovely,” he said.
“You’re looking very lecherous,” she deadpanned.
Indy turned away and hoped she couldn't see his chagrin. “Just tryin’ to be friendly.”
“Save it for the schoolgirls,” she said, any real or imagined warmth evaporating in the sun.
So she hadn't let that go after all. Indy sighed, but at least the kid wasn't here to dispute his side of the story right now. “Look, Clare... Betsy's just an anxious archaeology student... she admires my work...” He shrugged. “Who can blame her? But it's just some kinda hero worship thing, a schoolgirl fantasy. She got the wrong idea about being my teaching assistant. There was never any romance.”
Betsy chose that moment to materialize on his other side and plant a kiss on his cheek. “I dreamed about our first night together!” she said, twirling on one foot.
Seriously? Indy glared at her. Clare shook her head and scrawled something else in her notebook. Indy did a double take. “You’re writin’ this down?”
Clare nodded, not looking up. “I’m keeping an accurate record of our journey.”
“What’s that got to do with my personal life?”
“Evidence,” she said, closing the notebook. “I plan on testifying at your child molestation trial.”
Indy couldn't tell if she was joking or not. In any case, Betsy wasn't a child, as much as she acted like it, but still... he shook his head and stared off into the distance. “Why do I do this to myself?”
“Do what?” Clare said. “I thought you didn't do anything?”
Betsy stopped twirling and stumbled over to her, clutching at her skull. “Hey, lady,” she said, “You're s'posed to be a doctor. You got any cures for a hangover?”
Clare nodded. “Of course, you poor dear. The best I’ve heard was used by a tribe in New Zealand.” She paused and furrowed her brow. “Let's see, it was one part crushed owl skull... two parts rhino saliva... and one part zebra dandruff.”
Betsy's face turned pale.
“No, no,” Indy interrupted, once again unsure if she was joking but happy to help out in either case if it changed the subject, “I found a foolproof recipe in Indonesia a few years back. Get a cup of donkey sweat... two spoons of skunk hair... and one pint of shredded lizard tongue.”
Clare raised an eyebrow. Betsy turned a light shade of green.
Scraggy, still showering, called over to them. “I always use old family cure! Two spoons chopped leeches... half cup horse mucous... two quarts crocodile urine!”
Betsy's throat spasmed. “Ex – cuse – me!” she said, and ran away. Clare, Indy, and Scraggy exchanged a shrug. Then Clare could no longer hold back her laughter.
Scraggy tossed the desiccated remains of his onion overboard, moved closer to the others than either of them would have preferred, and looked at the river ahead. “How far we travel, Indy?”
“Almost twenty miles,” Indy replied, trying not to follow Betsy's example.
“Any sign of the Nazis yet?” Clare asked.
Indy shook his head. “I couldn't find any more bugs. Long as we keep up this pace, they’ll have trouble tracking us.” But they will eventually, he thought. They always do. He just didn't see the need to worry her with unhelpful pessimism.
None of them saw or heard the crew member in the cabin behind them, hidden in the shadows as he watched them through the window, whispering into a small radio receiver. In perfect German.
***
Back in the hideout beneath the hotel, Gutterbuhg tinkered with his detached machine gun arm on the table before him as if making minor repairs to a motorcycle. The damage wasn't that hard to fix, really, and best of all it didn't even hurt. That verdammt American had gotten a lucky shot that wouldn't likely happen again. But he would continue to tinker, and upgrade, until this new part of his body was an unstoppable weapon.
Behind him, a group of soldiers supervised by Oberleutnant Mephisto listened to the radio transmission and charted out the Adobo's exact location on a large wall map. The pygmy, bound, gagged, and bruised, watched them from a corner.
The transmission ended. “We must leave,” Mephisto said. “Immediately.”
As the soldiers scattered, he hurried over to where Gutterbuhg sat tinkering.
“Still not ready?” he snapped.
“No, mein Herr,” Gutterbuhg said, feeling a chill from the man's proximity. “It's a simple repair, but it will take a few –”
“A simple repair,” Mephisto repeated. “Do you know what should have been simple, Wachtmeister? Making short work of Dr. Jones and his friends with that arm of yours.”
“With respect, mein Herr,” Gutterbugh said, heat rising in his face to counteract the chill, “you yourself pointed out that Dr. Jones has caused us many losses in the past. I am only one –”
“You are more than one man,” Mephisto said, placing fingers like ice on his orphaned shoulder. “You are a marriage of man and machine, an Übermensch in the truest sense. Do you know how much this technology cost me, cost the Reich? Do not make me regret giving you another chance at life, Wachtmeister.” Mephisto released his grip and marched away after the other soldiers.
Gutterbuhg regained his composure and returned to his work, trying to ignore his anxious heart. He never regretted this line of work, but some days... He knew the thought was unbecoming of a loyal Nazi, and that Mephisto would have killed him on the spot for having it, but it occurred to him that he hoped the others would fail to stop Dr. Jones. He wanted the pleasure of doing it himself.
He looked across the room to where the pygmy still stared at him with its blank, stupid eyes. How he longed to wipe that blank, stupid expression off its stupid face. But for now the mission trumped that desire. He would be patient. For his Führer.
***
Night fell fast over the jungle. Gazing out at the shore in the moonlight, Indy glimpsed a creeping panther, a sleeping white bat, a tense scorpion, and a family of crocodiles climbing out of the water. The local fauna seemed more relaxed, more willing to actually show itself at night. He could almost convince himself he was on a simple pleasure cruise for a change. At night.
He sat in a circle on the deck of the Adobo with Scraggly, Clare and Betsy, surrounded by crew members, eating cheap meat from tin cans. The surrounding lanterns cast an eerie light over them, and the young man with the guitar, now relocated to the boat proper, wasn't helping with his soft, melancholy tune.
Betsy looked up from her dinner to glare at him. “Don’t you know somethin’ else? Somethin’ upbeat?”
He ignored her, pretending he didn't speak English.
She sighed. “It's so hot. Stuffy. Do we have to stay on this stupid boat all night?”
Indy nodded. “We have to keep moving. The Nazis certainly are.” She was getting on his nerves, even if he did agree with her about the music.
“Can we at least jump in the water?” she pleaded. “Go for a swim?”
Clare smirked as she picked at her meat. “There's an old legend about the Zambezi. In ancient times, criminals were given their choice of execution... or swimming across the Zambezi.” She licked her spoon. “Most chose execution.”
“Clare’s right,” Indy said. “I saw crocodiles just a minute ago. We’ll be safer on the boat, so quit moanin’ and eat your food.”
Betsy stood up, tossed her tin can overboard, and got in his face. “You are so rude! I travel thousands of miles in a barrel of bananas just to be with you, and everybody treats me like dirt!” She rounded on Clare. “Nobody even talks to me without making some condescending remark they think I'm too stupid to understand! So maybe I don't know a lot about weird tribal dances. I'm still pretty good with anthropology and archaeology. Maybe I could even help you out, if somebody gave me a chance, clued me in to what it is we're doin' here.” She turned back to Indy. “'Cause whether you like it or not, Indiana Jones, I'm part of this expedition, too!”
Clare raised an eyebrow, the most positive reaction she'd given Betsy since they met.
Indy looked away. His verdict on liking it was a definite “not”, but she was right, he couldn't do anything about it, not unless he wanted a murder on his conscience.
Scraggy interjected with a hand motion to the crew members behind them who, with the exception of the guitar player, had watched Betsy's rant in silence. “My friends also curious about where we journey to, Indy.” They all nodded, staring at Indy.
He looked at Clare, and much to his surprise, she smiled. “Tell us all a bedtime story, Dr. Jones.”
He wouldn't turn down a direct request from her, especially if it meant showing off his considerable knowledge of the subject. The soundtrack wasn't ideal but he could live with it. He leaned back and stretched his legs, getting as comfortable as the hard wooden deck allowed, and spoke. “Long ago, a place known as the Flower Fruit Mountain, in the Chinese province of Ao-Lai, was struck by lightning. A stone monkey named Sun Wu-Kung was born.”
“This monkey, he could walk?” Scraggy asked. “Talk? Like human?”
“More than human,” Indy said, pleased to have his audience already so engaged. “He was blessed with countless heavenly powers, sort of a demigod. But it wasn’t enough. Sun Wu-Kung wanted to learn the secret of eternal life... of immortality...”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“Equipped with his Golden Hooped Rod to protect him, Sun Wu-Kung traveled the world for many years learning the secret philosophies and teachings of Eternal Youth. Eventually, he was granted entrance to heaven, where the Jade Emperor gave Sun Wu-Kung the title of 'Great Sage of the Heavens' and permitted him to oversee the Garden of Immortal Peaches.”
“The what?” Betsy asked. She too was engaged, enough that she had sat back down.
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Clare said. “Peaches that grant immortality to whomever consumes them.”
Betsy nodded, but her thoughts were somewhere else now. “That's what the Nazis want,” she said half to herself, suddenly looking much older than her twenty-one years. “Soldiers that never dies. A Hitler who never dies. My God.”
“Like I said last night while you were passed out, the Nazis want a lot of things,” Indy said, slightly annoyed to have his archaeological lecture bogged down in twentieth-century problems. “But this garden -”
“Dr. Jones,” Clare interrupted, “if I may interject? In my research I considered an interesting parallel between this and a more famous, at least in the West, mythological garden. Eden.”
“I noticed that too when I did my expedition,” Indy said, “but –”
Clare kept talking, too excited to care that she was drawing his story off on a relatively unimportant tangent, speaking mostly for Scraggy's and Betsy's benefit now. “The Garden of Eden story revolves around the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, of course, but most people don't notice that another 'magical' tree, if you will, is mentioned.”
“The tree of life,” Indy said, since there was no dissuading her.
“Yes. It's only mentioned quite briefly in our current Bible.”
Scraggy's eyes lit up, and he stroked his beard as he recited. “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
Everyone stared at him for a moment, then Clare beamed. “Yes, precisely! Genesis 3:22-24. Scholars have debated its intended meaning.”
“The Book of Mormon explains it a bit more,” Indy joked.
Clare perked up. “Really? What does it say?”
Indy restrained himself from rolling his eyes at her unwarranted enthusiasm. “Never mind,” he said, “I only work with authentic ancient texts. It's just that I lived in Utah for a few years.”
“Perhaps that explains your aversion to monogamy. But my point, Dr. Jones, Betsy, everyone, is that here we have another ancient story about fruit of eternal life, like Sun Wu-Kung's peaches. I postulated that there could be a connection.”
“There probably is,” Indy said, finally fed up with this tangent, “but that doesn't mean either story is literally true. They could have both evolved from a common source, or this could just be a recurring motif in human thought. People wanna live forever. I can't blame 'em, except sometimes with the way the world is going nowadays, I can't relate anymore.” He'd warmed up to Clare, but now he was starting to think again that her approach was irresponsible. Instead of treating these stories as interesting pieces of culture, she took them at face value as mutually corroborating evidence of something real for her to find. Yeah, he believed there was something, but not magical fruit.
“So God gave them the power to live forever,” Betsy said, half to herself, “an' then changed his mind an' took it away. Why?”
“I suppose they proved they couldn't be trusted with it yet,” Clare said, staring out at the dark water. “They failed the test. Sun Wu-Kung did not.”
“He stay in garden forever?” Scraggy asked.
“No,” Indy said, grateful to have control of his audience again. “After several years, the stone monkey returned to somewhere on Earth. Here he ruled an empire, a civilization of monkeys and human who supposedly had life spans of many hundred years.” He shrugged. “I figured a long time ago that there probably was some kind of civilization. And who knows, maybe they did have incredible longevity that got exaggerated in the retelling. Maybe a diet of peaches even helped with that.”
“So this civilization was somewhere in China?” Betsy asked.
“That was the logical assumption,” Indy said, “but its whereabouts have been a total mystery for hundreds, thousands of years. Almost nothing to go on... until Dr. Clarke discovered Tyki and the Pai Cho.”
Clare appeared to blush in the dim lighting. Scraggy, Betsy, and the crew members looked astonished as they hung onto his every word.
“I don't know if he's really two hundred years old,” Indy said. “But he's really something anyway, and he comes from some lost civilization or other.”
“Don't forget the peach pit and the fruit fly you senselessly murdered, Dr. Jones,” Clare said, but he thought he detected a trace of levity in her voice.
“Okay, I think I get it,” Betsy said. “We're tryin' to separate the facts from the fiction. What about Sun Wu-Kung? You think he was... real?”
“I don't think he was a demigod, if that's what you're asking,” Indy said. “But he could have been a stone idol, an actual monkey, a human being, something for the myth to coalesce around. Real or not, he's one of the most influential religious figures in history, and most Westerners have never heard of him. His remains may be somewhere in the lost city.”
He stifled a yawn, ready to turn in. Storytime was over and he hoped his audience wouldn't ask any more questions. They all seemed to be mulling over what he'd said. Suddenly a distant sound, a low, unearthly rumbling unlike anything he'd heard before, carried across the river and drowned out that damned guitar. After a few seconds it showed no sign of stopping.
Betsy and Clare jumped to their feet. Indy turned to Scraggy, who looked unsettled for the first time since they'd met. “Sound familiar?”
Scraggy shook his head, peering out into the darkness as if he could pinpoint the sound's origin by sight. “It is far, far away... many miles...”
Betsy swallowed as she glanced around at the darkness. “What is it? Some kinda weird animal?”
“No animal sounds like that,” Clare said, though she didn't sound convinced. She knew as well as anyone that many animals, especially in an environment like this, could yet remain undiscovered.
Scraggy still didn't look at the others as he spoke. “Could be Banseebaba.”
“Banseebaba?” Clare repeated.
He looked at her now, his withered face entirely blank. “Banseebaba is giant demon from hell. He is 50 feet tall. Breathe fire. Make sound like human never hear before. He is made up of all evil in the world!”
“Cheery thought,” Clare said, shivering and hugging herself. Indy stood up and reached to put a comforting arm around her, and to his surprise she didn't jerk away. If he hadn't been disturbed by the sound too, he would have been ecstatic.
He forced a smile. “So, he's joined up with the Nazis? Figures. Maybe they're giving him pointers on how to be even more evil.”
The sound stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Everyone on deck exchanged frightened, terrified glances; then the crewmen dispersed, murmuring as they looked for something to occupy themselves. Even the guitar player was too shaken to continue.
Indy withdrew his arm from Clare, deciding not to push his luck. He couldn't let on that the sound had shaken him too, not when the others were looking up to him and it had to have a perfectly natural and harmless explanation somewhere. “Whatever the hell it is,” he said, “it went to sleep for the night. Which is what we should do.” Please.
***
The Adobo didn't offer much in the way of sleeping arrangements. Most crew members lay scattered along the deck, while Scraggy was fortunate enough to have a hanging cot to himself. The onion he'd showered with encouraged the others to give him a wide berth. Indy's cabin was luxurious by comparison, but even so he expected to be awake for hours. He had a lot on his mind. The noise, sure, but before that, even more compelling issues.
He still thought Clare was being sort of irrational in her pursuit of the lost city, but what about his own? With all the artifacts and sites he'd looked for and/or found over the years, why had this one gripped him for so long, and why was he letting it pull him in yet again, if he didn't believe in the supernatural element?
And on that note, was he a fool to be so skeptical, considering the things he'd seen? Many, many ridiculous-sounding things he'd scoffed at to begin with, only to find them every bit as real and wondrous as claimed, if not more so. Anyone else, after experiencing this routine dozens of times, would break down and concede that magic was real, that every god and demon was real, that every religion and myth and legend from every culture in the world was true.
But Indiana Jones was not anyone else. He was a man of science. There were many things in the world he couldn't explain, but that wouldn't stop him from trying, and he would continue to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis if it killed him. Just because some sacred stones in India could glow and burn people's hands didn't mean an ancient Hebrew chest could incinerate people, and just because those and any number of other things had both turned out to be true didn't mean that a talking monkey could make people live forever.
Maybe he wanted to believe in the Garden of Immortal Peaches so badly that deep down, a part of him did. Maybe despite his best efforts he'd been gripped by the same obsession, looking for another culture's equivalenet of the immortality myth. Maybe a hereditary obsession for the two of them, or maybe something deeper still. He'd said it himself: people wanna live forever.
After pondering this for only a few moments he fell asleep, still drained by the chase last night.
He couldn't have slept more than fifteen minutes before his door creaked open and a shadow appeared on the wall by his bed. For a moment it was still, watching him. Then it approached.
The shadow drew closer and grew larger, deathly silent. It extended a hand as it fell over his sleeping form. Fingers wrapped around his blanket.
When someone else's skin brushed against his neck, Indy's eyelids fluttered open and without a thought he leaped out of bed and tackled the intruder to the floor. Not another wrestling match, he thought, but this intruder was quite a pushover compared to the soldiers he'd had to deal with. It let out a little squeak and offered no substantial resistance.
He stood and flipped on the cabin lamp. Betsy looked up at him from the floor with an innocent expression, her hair a bit mussed but otherwise none the worse for wear.
“Dammit, kid!” He reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Knock next time, will ya? I could have killed you!”
She gave him what she apparently thought was a flirtatious smile. “Couldn't sleep. The heat, I guess.”
“Well you'd better get used to it,” Indy said. “We're going to be here for a while.”
Her smile transitioned to a mock pout. “Dr. Indiana Jones, for being so academic an' all, you sure are stupid sometimes. How 'bout I just spell it right out for you: I'm in the mood for passion.”
“I’m in the mood for isolation,” Indy said, cursing the day he'd allowed her to become his teaching assistant, let alone the night he'd given into a momentary weakness she would never let him forget. He placed a firm hand on the small of her back and pushed her less than gently toward the open cabin door.
She planted her feet in the doorframe and twisted around, now just looking determined. “I'm not leaving,” she said. “Not till I get a kiss.”
Good ever-loving hell. “Betsy,” Indy began, not even sure where to begin explaining what was wrong with her demand.
“No, you listen. I've kissed a stupid monkey -”
“It was an ape.”
“Sorry, a stupid ape if you prefer, an' a dead fish, because of you. Ha ha, you got your little chuckles at my expense, good for you. But now I want the real thing that I remember.”
Indy rubbed his temples. “Betsy, are you drunk again? Please tell me you're drunk again.”
“One kiss,” she said, standing firm, though he saw in her eyes and her posture that she wanted much more than that. “Or I’ll scream. I swear. I’ll wake the whole boat.”
“You wouldn't.”
“Try me, Dr. Jones.”
She would. Indy figured he would have been better off taking his chances with Banseebaba than a Brooklyn girl. Still, if he could recover the Ark of the Covenant from a cold tomb filled with thousands of snakes, he could do this. “Okay. Just one, and then you go to bed and leave me alone for the rest of the trip, okay?” She nodded. He leaned toward her, then paused. “Keep your mouth closed.”
Their lips met. He would have liked to pull away as soon as possible, but she wrapped her arms around him, making it passionate. Then he felt her right foot rubbing against his ankle. The little tramp was probably hoping he'd get aroused and beg for more as soon as she came up for air. What strange delusional world did she live in, and how the hell could he drag her out of it before he went as crazy as she was?
Clare chose that moment to exit the bathroom across the hall, toothbrush in hand, and caught sight of them immediately. Her mouth fell open.
Indy opened his eyes, and they locked with hers.
The look that came over her face made the Nazi commander from last night look friendly. He didn't have to look at it long, though, as she swiftly marched into her cabin and slammed the door. He heard the clicking of a lock, then the scraping of a large piece of furniture.
Indy pushed Betsy away as hard as he could, not caring now if she was hurt in the process, and slammed his own door. If she tried to come in again, so help him God, he would throw her to the crocodiles and satisfy her unrequited death wish. His chance of getting back to sleep, at least a restful one, had declined somewhat.
Betsy sashayed back to her cabin in the moonlight, whistling “Night and Day” through the massive smile plastered over her face.
Next: Chapter Seven
Indy pushed her away. Undeterred, eyes still closed, she spun to the next person and put her arms around Clare instead. Clare was too busy staring after the departing Nazi speedboat to notice. “Will they hurt Tyki?” she asked Indy.
He shook his head. As much as he hated to think of a black man in the hands of those Aryan supremacists, he knew they weren't stupid. “They know he's important to us,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the scroll, then remembering with relief that it was in Clare's possession and hadn't taken a bath with him. “They'll use him to bargain for the Pai Cho,” he continued. “They need him alive and intact.”
On Clare's shoulder, Betsy sighed again. “Indy, you smell so good! So masculine!”
Clare pushed her away. She spun and wrapped her arms around a bemused Scraggy.
“Will they be following us?” Clare asked, staring as the speedboat's wake subsided into tranquility once more.
Indy forced a smile. “Every step of the way.”
Betsy rubbed her face against Scraggy's bristly beard. “Mmmm, Indy. I love it when you don't shave. It's so sexy, so... rugged!” Scraggy pushed her away. Nearly losing her footing, she spun into a very full fisherman’s net.
Freed from distractions, Scraggy looked at Indy and Clare. “Pandoola, God of Purity, say... 'Always stay ten paces ahead of bad spirit.'”
“Exactly,” Indy said. “We can't let the Nazis get to the City first. If they do, they'll wipe out one of the greatest archaeological finds in history!” Something was out there, he knew that for sure now. Something he'd spent too long searching for already, but something that could save his career. And they needed to rescue Tyki regardless. He got to his feet and headed for the taxi, Clare and Scraggy rushing to follow.
Betsy didn't seem to notice their departure as she embraced the dead fish. “How ‘bout a little goodnight kiss?” she crooned, and followed her own suggestion without waiting for a response. Her lips parted, then broke into a girlish grin. “Mmmmm, Indy... you really know the way to a girl's heart!”
For the first time in a couple minutes she opened her eyes. Then she screamed and ran after the others.
“Sorry about your car,” Indy said, giving the taxi a once-over. Truth be told, it didn't look much worse than before.
“It still work,” Scraggy said, giving it a loving slap on the hood. “Holes make it go faster.”
“I have to admit, you were both wonderful out there, Dr. Jones,” Clare said as she climbed into the back. “That trick with the whip – I never learned anything like that in graduate school.”
“Just takes a bit of practice, is all,” Indy said, beaming as he climbed into the front passenger seat. “I'd be happy to give you a few pointers sometime.” He grabbed a towel from his suitcase and attempted to dry off, wincing every time he touched a bruise or cut, which was often.
“And Dashiell!” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Did you see how he shot that guy's arm, just like something out of a movie? I thought you were a goner, Dr. Jones. Hey, where'd he go anyway? We could use someone like him on this expedition. We should ask him to –”
“Aw, he's real busy runnin' the nightclub and stuff,” Indy said. He did feel a little bad about leaving his friend to extricate his boat from the wrecked warehouse on his own, but time was of the essence, really.
Scraggy started the car and, true to his word, it pulled away from the marina without falling apart. They re-entered the compound, where some animals were just getting back to sleep as others glared at the returning nuisances. Indy would stop at a phone to give the authorities an anonymous tip about the break-in, murder, and property damage. Even if he'd had the time to stick around and chat with them, there wasn't much he could actually do to help.
“I have to admit,” Clare said as they drove between the cages, “for all the dangers I anticipated with Tyki, with this expedition, Nazis weren't one of them.”
Indy laughed even though he saw nothing funny about the situation. “You thought they'd mind their own business and stay in Europe? Dr. Clarke, if you've managed so far to avoid their constant attempts at taking over the world with magic artifacts, I envy you. I really do.”
“I knew Hitler had a thing for the occult,” she said, “but mostly the Judeo-Christian variety. I would've assumed ancient Chinese myths were outside his interest.”
“Nothing is outside his interest,” Indy said, looking back at her, and his heart started to pound as if the adrenaline from the boat chase were just now catching up with him. “He'll believe anything. He's got fingers reaching everywhere, all over the world, trying to get a piece of every pie. So desperate, yet so confident. If we stop him this time, he'll try again, and again, and again. Trust me.”
Clare looked more alarmed than he'd seen her so far, and didn't have a response. They left the zoo and drove in silence for a few minutes until Betsy started to snore.
“So I guess there's just one more pressing question,” Clare finally managed to say. “Dr. Jones, how in the bloody hell did your hat stay on that whole time?”
“Hmm?” Indy reached up to touch the brim of his fedora, so much an extension of his own being that he'd forgotten it was there. Indeed, it did seem almost glued to him at times, and even when it did come off it had a knack for making its way back to him sooner or later. “I dunno,” he said, “feels like the cold water shrunk it and tightened it on there real good.”
Clare smirked. “Unbelievable. More like you've got a swelled head.”
Scraggy gave Indy a knowing smile, seeming to understand the bond between man and hat in a way that no prissy British woman ever could. “Keetongu, God of Precious Possessions, has blessed your hat so it stay with you forever, Indy.”
That seems like as good an explanation as any, he thought. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said, looking up through the bullet holes at the stars, “but someone up there must like me.”
***
Early morning sunlight sprinkled through the leaves of towering palm trees and sparkled on the waters of the Zambezi. Along its sides the sounds of screeching gibbons, exotic birds, chattering insects, and various other wildlife echoed from the dense jungle. Dwarfed though it was by the more famous Nile, this river was nonetheless the fourth largest in Africa, providing far more water than Indy had wanted to see after last night.
He stood at the wheel of a fifty-five foot tattered wooden riverboat, the Adobo, forehead beaded with sweat as he guided it along the twisting waters, the pain almost gone from his bandaged hand. Behind him, a motley crew of Mozambique natives rounded up by Scraggy sat and stood among various crates and barrels and supplies. Dirty, tattered, unkempt, armed with swords and daggers, Indy nonetheless trusted them with his life as long as he continued to pay them more than anyone else they might happen to run into.
One young man, looking surprisingly well-groomed and out of place, sat on a raft pulled behind the boat and sang a folk song to the accompaniment of his beaten guitar. Scraggy's Model T occupied most of the raft's space behind him. It wouldn't have been Indy's first choice for navigating the jungle, but it was all he had right now, and it had held up surprisingly well so far.
Clare exited a cabin, stenographer's notebook in hand, looking radiant as her red hair shimmered in the morning sun. Indy focused on his steering and pretended not to notice her even as she walked up beside him, crinkled her nose and asked, “What is that awful aroma?”
He suppressed a grin and pointed across the deck. “Scraggy’s takin’ a shower.”
Scraggy, fully dressed in the same clothes he'd worn when they met, was rubbing a large, fresh onion over his face and limbs. The pungent juice mingled with sweat and ran down his body.
“He believes that onions keep bad spirits from entering his body,” Indy explained. “I mean, he's probably right. They sure make me want to keep away.”
Clare looked befuddled, but nodded and hastily scribbled something in her notebook. “In all my years of anthropology,” she said, “I’ve never run across anyone or anything quite like Scraggy.”
“He’s a rare breed, that's for sure,” Indy said with a chuckle. Now the river straightened out for a few miles, and he turned and pretended to notice her for the first time. She seemed to have warmed back up to him since last night, after the excitement of translating the scroll and watching him risk his life to save Tyki. Perhaps it was soon enough to try his luck again. “You’re looking very lovely,” he said.
“You’re looking very lecherous,” she deadpanned.
Indy turned away and hoped she couldn't see his chagrin. “Just tryin’ to be friendly.”
“Save it for the schoolgirls,” she said, any real or imagined warmth evaporating in the sun.
So she hadn't let that go after all. Indy sighed, but at least the kid wasn't here to dispute his side of the story right now. “Look, Clare... Betsy's just an anxious archaeology student... she admires my work...” He shrugged. “Who can blame her? But it's just some kinda hero worship thing, a schoolgirl fantasy. She got the wrong idea about being my teaching assistant. There was never any romance.”
Betsy chose that moment to materialize on his other side and plant a kiss on his cheek. “I dreamed about our first night together!” she said, twirling on one foot.
Seriously? Indy glared at her. Clare shook her head and scrawled something else in her notebook. Indy did a double take. “You’re writin’ this down?”
Clare nodded, not looking up. “I’m keeping an accurate record of our journey.”
“What’s that got to do with my personal life?”
“Evidence,” she said, closing the notebook. “I plan on testifying at your child molestation trial.”
Indy couldn't tell if she was joking or not. In any case, Betsy wasn't a child, as much as she acted like it, but still... he shook his head and stared off into the distance. “Why do I do this to myself?”
“Do what?” Clare said. “I thought you didn't do anything?”
Betsy stopped twirling and stumbled over to her, clutching at her skull. “Hey, lady,” she said, “You're s'posed to be a doctor. You got any cures for a hangover?”
Clare nodded. “Of course, you poor dear. The best I’ve heard was used by a tribe in New Zealand.” She paused and furrowed her brow. “Let's see, it was one part crushed owl skull... two parts rhino saliva... and one part zebra dandruff.”
Betsy's face turned pale.
“No, no,” Indy interrupted, once again unsure if she was joking but happy to help out in either case if it changed the subject, “I found a foolproof recipe in Indonesia a few years back. Get a cup of donkey sweat... two spoons of skunk hair... and one pint of shredded lizard tongue.”
Clare raised an eyebrow. Betsy turned a light shade of green.
Scraggy, still showering, called over to them. “I always use old family cure! Two spoons chopped leeches... half cup horse mucous... two quarts crocodile urine!”
Betsy's throat spasmed. “Ex – cuse – me!” she said, and ran away. Clare, Indy, and Scraggy exchanged a shrug. Then Clare could no longer hold back her laughter.
Scraggy tossed the desiccated remains of his onion overboard, moved closer to the others than either of them would have preferred, and looked at the river ahead. “How far we travel, Indy?”
“Almost twenty miles,” Indy replied, trying not to follow Betsy's example.
“Any sign of the Nazis yet?” Clare asked.
Indy shook his head. “I couldn't find any more bugs. Long as we keep up this pace, they’ll have trouble tracking us.” But they will eventually, he thought. They always do. He just didn't see the need to worry her with unhelpful pessimism.
None of them saw or heard the crew member in the cabin behind them, hidden in the shadows as he watched them through the window, whispering into a small radio receiver. In perfect German.
***
Back in the hideout beneath the hotel, Gutterbuhg tinkered with his detached machine gun arm on the table before him as if making minor repairs to a motorcycle. The damage wasn't that hard to fix, really, and best of all it didn't even hurt. That verdammt American had gotten a lucky shot that wouldn't likely happen again. But he would continue to tinker, and upgrade, until this new part of his body was an unstoppable weapon.
Behind him, a group of soldiers supervised by Oberleutnant Mephisto listened to the radio transmission and charted out the Adobo's exact location on a large wall map. The pygmy, bound, gagged, and bruised, watched them from a corner.
The transmission ended. “We must leave,” Mephisto said. “Immediately.”
As the soldiers scattered, he hurried over to where Gutterbuhg sat tinkering.
“Still not ready?” he snapped.
“No, mein Herr,” Gutterbuhg said, feeling a chill from the man's proximity. “It's a simple repair, but it will take a few –”
“A simple repair,” Mephisto repeated. “Do you know what should have been simple, Wachtmeister? Making short work of Dr. Jones and his friends with that arm of yours.”
“With respect, mein Herr,” Gutterbugh said, heat rising in his face to counteract the chill, “you yourself pointed out that Dr. Jones has caused us many losses in the past. I am only one –”
“You are more than one man,” Mephisto said, placing fingers like ice on his orphaned shoulder. “You are a marriage of man and machine, an Übermensch in the truest sense. Do you know how much this technology cost me, cost the Reich? Do not make me regret giving you another chance at life, Wachtmeister.” Mephisto released his grip and marched away after the other soldiers.
Gutterbuhg regained his composure and returned to his work, trying to ignore his anxious heart. He never regretted this line of work, but some days... He knew the thought was unbecoming of a loyal Nazi, and that Mephisto would have killed him on the spot for having it, but it occurred to him that he hoped the others would fail to stop Dr. Jones. He wanted the pleasure of doing it himself.
He looked across the room to where the pygmy still stared at him with its blank, stupid eyes. How he longed to wipe that blank, stupid expression off its stupid face. But for now the mission trumped that desire. He would be patient. For his Führer.
***
Night fell fast over the jungle. Gazing out at the shore in the moonlight, Indy glimpsed a creeping panther, a sleeping white bat, a tense scorpion, and a family of crocodiles climbing out of the water. The local fauna seemed more relaxed, more willing to actually show itself at night. He could almost convince himself he was on a simple pleasure cruise for a change. At night.
He sat in a circle on the deck of the Adobo with Scraggly, Clare and Betsy, surrounded by crew members, eating cheap meat from tin cans. The surrounding lanterns cast an eerie light over them, and the young man with the guitar, now relocated to the boat proper, wasn't helping with his soft, melancholy tune.
Betsy looked up from her dinner to glare at him. “Don’t you know somethin’ else? Somethin’ upbeat?”
He ignored her, pretending he didn't speak English.
She sighed. “It's so hot. Stuffy. Do we have to stay on this stupid boat all night?”
Indy nodded. “We have to keep moving. The Nazis certainly are.” She was getting on his nerves, even if he did agree with her about the music.
“Can we at least jump in the water?” she pleaded. “Go for a swim?”
Clare smirked as she picked at her meat. “There's an old legend about the Zambezi. In ancient times, criminals were given their choice of execution... or swimming across the Zambezi.” She licked her spoon. “Most chose execution.”
“Clare’s right,” Indy said. “I saw crocodiles just a minute ago. We’ll be safer on the boat, so quit moanin’ and eat your food.”
Betsy stood up, tossed her tin can overboard, and got in his face. “You are so rude! I travel thousands of miles in a barrel of bananas just to be with you, and everybody treats me like dirt!” She rounded on Clare. “Nobody even talks to me without making some condescending remark they think I'm too stupid to understand! So maybe I don't know a lot about weird tribal dances. I'm still pretty good with anthropology and archaeology. Maybe I could even help you out, if somebody gave me a chance, clued me in to what it is we're doin' here.” She turned back to Indy. “'Cause whether you like it or not, Indiana Jones, I'm part of this expedition, too!”
Clare raised an eyebrow, the most positive reaction she'd given Betsy since they met.
Indy looked away. His verdict on liking it was a definite “not”, but she was right, he couldn't do anything about it, not unless he wanted a murder on his conscience.
Scraggy interjected with a hand motion to the crew members behind them who, with the exception of the guitar player, had watched Betsy's rant in silence. “My friends also curious about where we journey to, Indy.” They all nodded, staring at Indy.
He looked at Clare, and much to his surprise, she smiled. “Tell us all a bedtime story, Dr. Jones.”
He wouldn't turn down a direct request from her, especially if it meant showing off his considerable knowledge of the subject. The soundtrack wasn't ideal but he could live with it. He leaned back and stretched his legs, getting as comfortable as the hard wooden deck allowed, and spoke. “Long ago, a place known as the Flower Fruit Mountain, in the Chinese province of Ao-Lai, was struck by lightning. A stone monkey named Sun Wu-Kung was born.”
“This monkey, he could walk?” Scraggy asked. “Talk? Like human?”
“More than human,” Indy said, pleased to have his audience already so engaged. “He was blessed with countless heavenly powers, sort of a demigod. But it wasn’t enough. Sun Wu-Kung wanted to learn the secret of eternal life... of immortality...”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“Equipped with his Golden Hooped Rod to protect him, Sun Wu-Kung traveled the world for many years learning the secret philosophies and teachings of Eternal Youth. Eventually, he was granted entrance to heaven, where the Jade Emperor gave Sun Wu-Kung the title of 'Great Sage of the Heavens' and permitted him to oversee the Garden of Immortal Peaches.”
“The what?” Betsy asked. She too was engaged, enough that she had sat back down.
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Clare said. “Peaches that grant immortality to whomever consumes them.”
Betsy nodded, but her thoughts were somewhere else now. “That's what the Nazis want,” she said half to herself, suddenly looking much older than her twenty-one years. “Soldiers that never dies. A Hitler who never dies. My God.”
“Like I said last night while you were passed out, the Nazis want a lot of things,” Indy said, slightly annoyed to have his archaeological lecture bogged down in twentieth-century problems. “But this garden -”
“Dr. Jones,” Clare interrupted, “if I may interject? In my research I considered an interesting parallel between this and a more famous, at least in the West, mythological garden. Eden.”
“I noticed that too when I did my expedition,” Indy said, “but –”
Clare kept talking, too excited to care that she was drawing his story off on a relatively unimportant tangent, speaking mostly for Scraggy's and Betsy's benefit now. “The Garden of Eden story revolves around the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, of course, but most people don't notice that another 'magical' tree, if you will, is mentioned.”
“The tree of life,” Indy said, since there was no dissuading her.
“Yes. It's only mentioned quite briefly in our current Bible.”
Scraggy's eyes lit up, and he stroked his beard as he recited. “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
Everyone stared at him for a moment, then Clare beamed. “Yes, precisely! Genesis 3:22-24. Scholars have debated its intended meaning.”
“The Book of Mormon explains it a bit more,” Indy joked.
Clare perked up. “Really? What does it say?”
Indy restrained himself from rolling his eyes at her unwarranted enthusiasm. “Never mind,” he said, “I only work with authentic ancient texts. It's just that I lived in Utah for a few years.”
“Perhaps that explains your aversion to monogamy. But my point, Dr. Jones, Betsy, everyone, is that here we have another ancient story about fruit of eternal life, like Sun Wu-Kung's peaches. I postulated that there could be a connection.”
“There probably is,” Indy said, finally fed up with this tangent, “but that doesn't mean either story is literally true. They could have both evolved from a common source, or this could just be a recurring motif in human thought. People wanna live forever. I can't blame 'em, except sometimes with the way the world is going nowadays, I can't relate anymore.” He'd warmed up to Clare, but now he was starting to think again that her approach was irresponsible. Instead of treating these stories as interesting pieces of culture, she took them at face value as mutually corroborating evidence of something real for her to find. Yeah, he believed there was something, but not magical fruit.
“So God gave them the power to live forever,” Betsy said, half to herself, “an' then changed his mind an' took it away. Why?”
“I suppose they proved they couldn't be trusted with it yet,” Clare said, staring out at the dark water. “They failed the test. Sun Wu-Kung did not.”
“He stay in garden forever?” Scraggy asked.
“No,” Indy said, grateful to have control of his audience again. “After several years, the stone monkey returned to somewhere on Earth. Here he ruled an empire, a civilization of monkeys and human who supposedly had life spans of many hundred years.” He shrugged. “I figured a long time ago that there probably was some kind of civilization. And who knows, maybe they did have incredible longevity that got exaggerated in the retelling. Maybe a diet of peaches even helped with that.”
“So this civilization was somewhere in China?” Betsy asked.
“That was the logical assumption,” Indy said, “but its whereabouts have been a total mystery for hundreds, thousands of years. Almost nothing to go on... until Dr. Clarke discovered Tyki and the Pai Cho.”
Clare appeared to blush in the dim lighting. Scraggy, Betsy, and the crew members looked astonished as they hung onto his every word.
“I don't know if he's really two hundred years old,” Indy said. “But he's really something anyway, and he comes from some lost civilization or other.”
“Don't forget the peach pit and the fruit fly you senselessly murdered, Dr. Jones,” Clare said, but he thought he detected a trace of levity in her voice.
“Okay, I think I get it,” Betsy said. “We're tryin' to separate the facts from the fiction. What about Sun Wu-Kung? You think he was... real?”
“I don't think he was a demigod, if that's what you're asking,” Indy said. “But he could have been a stone idol, an actual monkey, a human being, something for the myth to coalesce around. Real or not, he's one of the most influential religious figures in history, and most Westerners have never heard of him. His remains may be somewhere in the lost city.”
He stifled a yawn, ready to turn in. Storytime was over and he hoped his audience wouldn't ask any more questions. They all seemed to be mulling over what he'd said. Suddenly a distant sound, a low, unearthly rumbling unlike anything he'd heard before, carried across the river and drowned out that damned guitar. After a few seconds it showed no sign of stopping.
Betsy and Clare jumped to their feet. Indy turned to Scraggy, who looked unsettled for the first time since they'd met. “Sound familiar?”
Scraggy shook his head, peering out into the darkness as if he could pinpoint the sound's origin by sight. “It is far, far away... many miles...”
Betsy swallowed as she glanced around at the darkness. “What is it? Some kinda weird animal?”
“No animal sounds like that,” Clare said, though she didn't sound convinced. She knew as well as anyone that many animals, especially in an environment like this, could yet remain undiscovered.
Scraggy still didn't look at the others as he spoke. “Could be Banseebaba.”
“Banseebaba?” Clare repeated.
He looked at her now, his withered face entirely blank. “Banseebaba is giant demon from hell. He is 50 feet tall. Breathe fire. Make sound like human never hear before. He is made up of all evil in the world!”
“Cheery thought,” Clare said, shivering and hugging herself. Indy stood up and reached to put a comforting arm around her, and to his surprise she didn't jerk away. If he hadn't been disturbed by the sound too, he would have been ecstatic.
He forced a smile. “So, he's joined up with the Nazis? Figures. Maybe they're giving him pointers on how to be even more evil.”
The sound stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Everyone on deck exchanged frightened, terrified glances; then the crewmen dispersed, murmuring as they looked for something to occupy themselves. Even the guitar player was too shaken to continue.
Indy withdrew his arm from Clare, deciding not to push his luck. He couldn't let on that the sound had shaken him too, not when the others were looking up to him and it had to have a perfectly natural and harmless explanation somewhere. “Whatever the hell it is,” he said, “it went to sleep for the night. Which is what we should do.” Please.
***
The Adobo didn't offer much in the way of sleeping arrangements. Most crew members lay scattered along the deck, while Scraggy was fortunate enough to have a hanging cot to himself. The onion he'd showered with encouraged the others to give him a wide berth. Indy's cabin was luxurious by comparison, but even so he expected to be awake for hours. He had a lot on his mind. The noise, sure, but before that, even more compelling issues.
He still thought Clare was being sort of irrational in her pursuit of the lost city, but what about his own? With all the artifacts and sites he'd looked for and/or found over the years, why had this one gripped him for so long, and why was he letting it pull him in yet again, if he didn't believe in the supernatural element?
And on that note, was he a fool to be so skeptical, considering the things he'd seen? Many, many ridiculous-sounding things he'd scoffed at to begin with, only to find them every bit as real and wondrous as claimed, if not more so. Anyone else, after experiencing this routine dozens of times, would break down and concede that magic was real, that every god and demon was real, that every religion and myth and legend from every culture in the world was true.
But Indiana Jones was not anyone else. He was a man of science. There were many things in the world he couldn't explain, but that wouldn't stop him from trying, and he would continue to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis if it killed him. Just because some sacred stones in India could glow and burn people's hands didn't mean an ancient Hebrew chest could incinerate people, and just because those and any number of other things had both turned out to be true didn't mean that a talking monkey could make people live forever.
Maybe he wanted to believe in the Garden of Immortal Peaches so badly that deep down, a part of him did. Maybe despite his best efforts he'd been gripped by the same obsession, looking for another culture's equivalenet of the immortality myth. Maybe a hereditary obsession for the two of them, or maybe something deeper still. He'd said it himself: people wanna live forever.
After pondering this for only a few moments he fell asleep, still drained by the chase last night.
He couldn't have slept more than fifteen minutes before his door creaked open and a shadow appeared on the wall by his bed. For a moment it was still, watching him. Then it approached.
The shadow drew closer and grew larger, deathly silent. It extended a hand as it fell over his sleeping form. Fingers wrapped around his blanket.
When someone else's skin brushed against his neck, Indy's eyelids fluttered open and without a thought he leaped out of bed and tackled the intruder to the floor. Not another wrestling match, he thought, but this intruder was quite a pushover compared to the soldiers he'd had to deal with. It let out a little squeak and offered no substantial resistance.
He stood and flipped on the cabin lamp. Betsy looked up at him from the floor with an innocent expression, her hair a bit mussed but otherwise none the worse for wear.
“Dammit, kid!” He reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Knock next time, will ya? I could have killed you!”
She gave him what she apparently thought was a flirtatious smile. “Couldn't sleep. The heat, I guess.”
“Well you'd better get used to it,” Indy said. “We're going to be here for a while.”
Her smile transitioned to a mock pout. “Dr. Indiana Jones, for being so academic an' all, you sure are stupid sometimes. How 'bout I just spell it right out for you: I'm in the mood for passion.”
“I’m in the mood for isolation,” Indy said, cursing the day he'd allowed her to become his teaching assistant, let alone the night he'd given into a momentary weakness she would never let him forget. He placed a firm hand on the small of her back and pushed her less than gently toward the open cabin door.
She planted her feet in the doorframe and twisted around, now just looking determined. “I'm not leaving,” she said. “Not till I get a kiss.”
Good ever-loving hell. “Betsy,” Indy began, not even sure where to begin explaining what was wrong with her demand.
“No, you listen. I've kissed a stupid monkey -”
“It was an ape.”
“Sorry, a stupid ape if you prefer, an' a dead fish, because of you. Ha ha, you got your little chuckles at my expense, good for you. But now I want the real thing that I remember.”
Indy rubbed his temples. “Betsy, are you drunk again? Please tell me you're drunk again.”
“One kiss,” she said, standing firm, though he saw in her eyes and her posture that she wanted much more than that. “Or I’ll scream. I swear. I’ll wake the whole boat.”
“You wouldn't.”
“Try me, Dr. Jones.”
She would. Indy figured he would have been better off taking his chances with Banseebaba than a Brooklyn girl. Still, if he could recover the Ark of the Covenant from a cold tomb filled with thousands of snakes, he could do this. “Okay. Just one, and then you go to bed and leave me alone for the rest of the trip, okay?” She nodded. He leaned toward her, then paused. “Keep your mouth closed.”
Their lips met. He would have liked to pull away as soon as possible, but she wrapped her arms around him, making it passionate. Then he felt her right foot rubbing against his ankle. The little tramp was probably hoping he'd get aroused and beg for more as soon as she came up for air. What strange delusional world did she live in, and how the hell could he drag her out of it before he went as crazy as she was?
Clare chose that moment to exit the bathroom across the hall, toothbrush in hand, and caught sight of them immediately. Her mouth fell open.
Indy opened his eyes, and they locked with hers.
The look that came over her face made the Nazi commander from last night look friendly. He didn't have to look at it long, though, as she swiftly marched into her cabin and slammed the door. He heard the clicking of a lock, then the scraping of a large piece of furniture.
Indy pushed Betsy away as hard as he could, not caring now if she was hurt in the process, and slammed his own door. If she tried to come in again, so help him God, he would throw her to the crocodiles and satisfy her unrequited death wish. His chance of getting back to sleep, at least a restful one, had declined somewhat.
Betsy sashayed back to her cabin in the moonlight, whistling “Night and Day” through the massive smile plastered over her face.
Next: Chapter Seven
