The Golden Skull: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

"Don't bother about silence," Scotty said. "We'll just hit and run. If they hear us coming it won't matter, because they won't be sure what we're after."

"How about those Ifugao natives from the village?" Tony asked. "They're probably swarming over the road like flies."

"We not go near them," Chahda replied. "The truck is a different way. Come on, load rifles. We go."

Rick was driving the lead jeep, Chahda on the seat next to him. Tony and Dog Meat were in the rear seat. Scotty was with Angel in the other jeep. The road was reasonably good, although narrow and winding. Rick roared down into the valley as fast as prudence and Newton's laws of motion allowed. Had he gone any faster the jeep would have tipped over on some unexpected corner.

"Soon we there!" Chahda shouted.

Rick kept a sharp watch ahead. The yellow cones of light seemed lost in the vast darkness of Banaue. There were no other lights.

"Watch for fork in road, go left," Chahda relayed Dog Meat's instructions.

The fork appeared. Rick swung left – and almost bashed into the truck. It was parked with lights out, close to a village.

Both jeeps slid to a stop. Scotty and Chahda jumped out, rifles ready, and ran to the truck. "The keys!" Rick yelled. "Are they in it?"

"Don't need keys!" Scotty yelled back. "Turn around, quick!"

Angel was already turning his jeep. Rick followed suit, and his headlights swung in an arc across the Ifugao village and reflected from spear tips. The natives here had been alerted!

The truck roared into life. Rick pulled to one side and motioned Scotty by. Then, as the truck went past, Rick triggered off a half-dozen shots, aiming high. Tony did the same with the shotgun, sending loads of bird shot whistling through the red leaves of the dangla bushes.

A screaming madman leaped at them, spear extended. It was Nangolat, face distorted with hatred and fury. He thrust at Tony, but the archaeologist knocked the spear aside. Then, as Nangolat's thrust carried him close, Tony let loose a roundhouse that caught the Ifugao squarely on the jaw, whirled him sideways, and dropped him like a log in the dust of the road. Then Rick let out the clutch and the jeep leaped ahead. A spear went through the windshield and showered glass on him, but he only squinted his eyes against the flying splinters and fed the jeep more gas.

Ahead were the red taillights of the truck and the other jeep. The plan had worked, all right. He didn't know whether or not their supplies were in the truck, but they would soon find out.

"I'll say one thing about being a Spindrift scientist," Tony said from beside him. "It is never dull. Do you wild Indians go in for this sort of thing often?"

"Only when necessary," Rick said. "Of course it has been necessary pretty often. So we're in practice, you might say."

Tony chuckled. "I'm grateful. You know what Nangolat is working up to, I presume?"

Rick didn't, and said so.

"He planned to force me to locate the golden artifacts with the earth scanner. Then, the find was to be celebrated with the sacrifice of a head. That was the part I objected to most. You see, the head was to be mine!"

CHAPTER XIII

The Peaceful Profession

The Spindrift campfire blazed high, and its warmth was welcome in the cold mountain night. Balaban and Dog Meat were out on patrol, although it was unlikely that any Ifugao had followed the invaders over the mountain.

Camp had been pitched in a grove of trees on the Igorot side of the divide. The boys and Tony had taken suitable clothing from their supplies and were now equipped with sturdy trail clothes and warm leather jackets. Chahda, similarly dressed in spare clothes, now resembled an Igorot only because of his haircut.

Tony sipped steaming coffee from a battered mug. He grinned at the faces around the fire: Rick, Scotty, Angel Manotok, Chahda, and Pilipil, whose wounded leg had been treated with supplies from the first-aid kit.

"Archaeologist at work," Tony commented. "Digs in musty old tombs all day, and now and then gets excited about a clay jug or something else he uncovers. The archaeologist has nothing but old jugs or beetles or stuff like that to get excited about. It's a peaceful profession, boys. That's why I like it. Calm, quiet, orderly."

Pilipil didn't get the irony in Tony's voice, but the others laughed.

Scotty nodded agreement. "That's the popular idea of an archaeologist, all right! Sounds like a recruiting ad, doesn't it? Be peaceful and quiet. Live to a ripe old age. Be an archaeologist. Reminds me of the recruiting poster that hooked me once. Join the Marines, it said. See the world. Learn a trade. I joined. Saw the world while snaking on my belly through the South Pacific. Learned a trade, too. How to fire a rifle. Very few peacetime riflemen needed, however."

"We'll combine our trades," Tony said. "You might say we did, earlier tonight."

As Rick put more wood on the fire he said, "We're together, for the first time. Before, either Tony or Chahda was missing. Now what do we do?"

Tony considered. "I must admit I was not giving much thought to the purpose of the expedition when you came after me. I spent most of my time imagining how my skull would look on the knick-knack shelf in the hut."

"What knick-knack shelf?" Chahda asked.

"You wouldn't have noticed," Tony told them. "It was high in the rear of the hut, above the opening you made. A shelf full of skulls. I kept trying to flatter myself that surely my head would be prettier than those. But I didn't really believe it."

"Do you really believe the Ifugaos would have taken your head?" Rick asked.

"You bet I do! You should have seen Nangolat. He shed civilization with his clothes. He got down to a breechcloth and he was all primitive. He's got a bad case of bats in the belfry, believe me. I'd say he was a true fanatic."

"Yes," Angel Manotok said positively. "You remember I tell you about those eyes of his? The doctor is right. Nangolat is crazy. He is a killer."

Rick remembered the crazed, distorted face of Nangolat rushing for the jeep with spear extended. "I vote Nangolat for nuts, too. Insane and dangerous."

"This being Mountain Province, Philippines, I don't think it would do much good to call the men in white coats to bring a strait jacket," Scotty observed. "So, what do we do? We can ignore him, avoid him, or shoot him. The first is hard, since he carries a sharp spear. The second may be possible. The third I reject as being un-scientific and unkind, not to mention illegal."

"One more possibility," Chahda offered. "Catch him, tie him up, have Scotty talk him into stupor."

Rick chuckled. "You may have an idea there, Chahda. Seriously, Nangolat is guilty of kidnaping. That makes him a criminal. Surely it isn't wrong to catch an escaped criminal and turn him over to justice."

"Not wrong," Tony said, "but maybe just a little bit impractical."

Rick pressed the point. "Why? If we thought faster, we could have picked him up tonight. You knocked him colder than a penguin's pocketbook. We could have tossed him into the back of the jeep like a sack of bones."

"Yes, Rick. But chances like that don't come twice. Catching him now would mean making a definite attempt. It would mean an expedition. I doubt that he'd stay around to be caught."

"Guess you're right," Rick admitted. "Then, to get back to Scotty's question, what do we do now? Apparently Nangolat has his people up in arms against us. There's no law enforcement worthy of the name up here, so we can't call for help. So what next?"

Tony poured himself another mug of coffee from the steaming pot. "We continue after the cache of artifacts."

The boys stared. Chahda shook hands with the scientist. "Now I see why Rick and Scotty call you Tony. Number One regular guy. Why let little thing like whole nation of head-hunters scare you off?"

"Archaeology is certainly a peaceful profession," Rick said admiringly. "Scotty and I don't scare easily, but it didn't occur to me that we should proceed as though nothing had happened."

"You're getting the wrong impression," Tony said mildly. "Let's consider the situation. There's Nangolat, the principal troublemaker. What is his reason for behaving as he does?"

"Well," Scotty began, "he certainly was the one who tried to kill you on the boat."

"I think he was. He would have known all about the expedition from Okola. He would have known what ship we were on, and a phone call to the agent of the line would have told him our arrival time, from which he could easily have figured what time we would enter Manila Bay. He would also have known that I was the archaeologist for the expedition. After all, I signed the correspondence we had with Okola, and he was Okola's assistant."

"But why would he want to kill you?" Rick asked.