Collection 1986 - Night Over The Solomons (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page B

making his way through the trees beside Ruanne.
    “Blond?” Besi John’s eyes were hard. “Why, there ain’t a blonde within miles but that Forbes girl!”
    “I think,” Donner said coolly, “we had better tie this man up until we investigate a little further. I found him trying to crawl into the hatch. A minute later and he would have been out of sight.”
    He turned.
    “Mataga, send a couple of men ashore at once. I don’t like the looks of things.” He hesitated. “I’ll go with you.”

----
    S TEVE COWAN, TIED to the rail on the starboard side, watched the sky grow gray. At first there had been some sounds ashore, but then the island had settled into silence.
    Nothing had happened. Down in the hold amidships the time bomb ticked on. Or had it stopped? Was all his work to be futile, after all? Cowan sat against the rail, gazing blindly ahead of him, weary as he had never been. On the deck, a few yards away, Joe Gotto, the exgangster was sitting beside. Chiv Laran.
    Past them, Cowan could see the open manhole in the deck. He stared, then slowly his weariness fell away. He looked at Joe and Chiv thoughtfully.
    “Who opened that manhole?” he demanded suddenly.
    Joe glanced up lazily, shifting his rifle.
    “That?” He shrugged. “Mataga. He said it would have to be cleaned. He’s as bad as Forbes was. Always cleaning something.”
    Cowan eyed the two again.
    “You don’t look to me like a sucker, Joe,” he said. “But your side of this deal doesn’t smell so good.”
    “Shut up,” Chiv said harshly. “We ain’t turnin’ you loose.”
    “You’d be smart if you did,” Steve Cowan declared. “What’s your cut on this deal? You ever think of how much you’ll get—
if
they split the dough they get for these planes? By the time each of you gets a cut, your end wouldn’t buy you a ticket to a safe port. I know that Mataga. He’d doublecross his own mother.”
    Joe looked at the Yank thoughtfully.
    “So what? If he don’t collect, we can’t.”
    “No?” Cowan glanced at Chiv, who was listening sullenly. “Why is Mataga keeping Forbes alive? Forbes has a cache of jewels aboard this ship, that’s why. Did Mataga tell you that? Or Donner?”
    Cowan glanced shoreward, but there was no sign of life.
    “Or did they tell you there was a war on? That the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor?”
    “Is that straight?” Gotto scowled. “Why, I’d like to—”
    “What’s it to you?” Chiv demanded. “The cops run you out, didn’t they?”
    “Sure,” Joe argued. “But what the devil! If the Japanese and Nazis take the States, my racket is sunk. I can’t compete with them guys. When I knock over a bank, I want to know there’s some dough in it.”
    “I know where the jewels are,” Steve Cowan said quietly, looking directly at Chiv. “We could get them and get out. Let Mataga have his crummy planes.”
    “Get out?” Chiv sneered. “You mean swim?”
    “No, I mean in my plane. I told Mataga it crashed, but it didn’t. It isn’t ten miles from here. We could grab those jewels, just the three of us, and take it on the lam.”

----
    J OE STUDIED HIM thoughtfully. Then he glanced sideward at Chiv, whose yellow eyes were narrowed.
    “You sound like a right guy,” he said. “I like the sound of it. Anyway, if the Japanese are going to use the planes against our gang, why—”
    “What the deuce do you care?” Chiv snarled. “Nuts! I don’t care who gets the planes. I want some dough! I’m no Yank.”
    “Those stones are close by,” Steve Cowan hinted. “We haven’t much time.”
    “Yeah?” Chiv sneered. “Suppose I let you loose? Then you’d get them! Don’t be a sap! Mataga will be back in a little while.”
    “Sure.” Cowan shrugged. “And then you get the dirty end of the deal. You think I’m a sap? Those stones are down in that manhole, Chiv, in a box back in the corner of the tank. That’s why Mataga opened it. That’s why I wanted to know.
    “He’s letting it