The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four Read Online Free PDF Page A

everything and say it is for the future. Whose future? What future? I do not understand them, for until they came, we were happy. All we wished was to tend our flocks in peace. Now they are moving into the mountains, more soldiers arrive every day.”
    “Batai Khan awaits us. Come, we will gather your flocks as we go, and you can live among us. I would not have my bride mourning her father on her wedding night.”
    Kushla handed him her bundle and they turned swiftly to the door. Then Kushla caught a cry in her throat, and Tohkta felt rage and despair crowding within him.
    The man who stood in the doorway was small with square shoulders and a neatly perfect uniform. Slender, he seemed to have that whiplike strength that resists all exhaustion. His cold eyes inspected Tohkta with careful attention.
    “Greetings.” He stepped into the ruins of the room, and behind him were two soldiers armed with submachine guns. “Greetings to Yakub and his lovely daughter. Greetings to you, hillman. That is what you are, am I correct?” He spoke Tungan, and spoke it well. Tohkta said nothing.
    “Answer me…” He pulled a small automatic from a holster. “Or I will shoot Yakub in the foot.” He flicked the gun’s safety off.
    “Yes,” said Tohkta. “I am from the hills.”
    “Very good. I am Chu Shih.” He said this as if it were a fact that explained itself. “We have been waiting for you. Waiting quite awhile. We knew that this woman was betrothed to a young man from the Kunlun. I could have sent her and her father to a labor camp, but I wanted to meet you. Our destinies are intertwined, you see. Would you like to know how?”
    Tohkta quietly assented. He was listening, listening to Chu Shih and listening for sounds from outside the building. There were more men out there, but how many he didn’t know.
    “You can have the opportunity of serving the people of China. I’m sure you do not care…but you will. There is a secret track over the mountains to India. It is the track used by Abu Bakr in the sixteenth century when he fled from Khotan. It is also my gateway to the mountain people. Do you know this track?”
    “It is idle talk…bazaar talk. There is no track. There are only a few mountain pastures and fewer people. All you will find in the mountains are granite and ice, glaciers and clouds.”
    “If you were to show me the track, which is important to my future plans, I might permit you to keep your bride, and would let her father go free.”
    “Such stories are the talk of fools,” Tohkta said. “They are the idle talk of goatherds.”
    To know men, Batai Khan had taught him, is the knowledge of kings. Tohkta looked into the eyes of Chu Shih and saw no mercy, only ruthless ambition. To refuse would mean torture and death. Torture he could stand; what he feared was torture for Kushla, or for her father.
    “I do not believe,” Chu Shih said, “that stories of the ancient route are talk. If you wish to go free, you will show me the track. If you do not show me, another will.”
    “I will show you what is there, but it may not be to your liking.”
    This man, Tohkta told himself, must die. I must kill him or return to kill him. If he lives our mountains will never be free. If need be Tohkta’s people could wait for years before they came again to the oasis towns, and by that time, these might be overthrown, or their ideas changed. Young though he was, Tohkta had learned all things change; the Tochari had learned patience from their mountains.
    Chu Shih’s command brought in two more soldiers. Tohkta had a moment of sharp panic when he saw them, wanting to plunge at the door and fight his way free, but he fought down the feeling. He must think of Kushla and her father, who might be killed. Escape they must…somehow.
    Out upon the street, the bridge of his wishing fell into the gorge of despair, for they had Tola Beg also. Two soldiers gripped the arms of the old yak hunter, and there was blood welling from an