Rick Brant - The Golden Skull Part 14

"Yes. But not in such a little plane. Only the big PAL planes."

The air-lines office was open now. Rick got his keys, arranged for gasoline, and they moved the Sky Wagon into position. There was plenty of gas for a short trip, but he was taking no chances. He wanted a full tank.

It took time to recheck the plane carefully, to make sure Nangolat had not sabotaged it. Then, finally, they were on their way. Scotty had a map spread across his knees and Angel had another. Scotty's map showed topographical details like the height of mountains and their contours.

Angel had an excellent road map distributed by one of the American gasoline companies that maintained service stations in many parts of the islands.

Angel watched the roads and Scotty the mountains, and they got on the Bontoc Road with no trouble. Rick climbed until they could see for miles. It was the only way to follow the tortuous route of the road as it wound between mountains, hugged the side of high peaks, and dipped into forested valleys.

Now and then they could see an Igorot village far below, but this was mostly uninhabited country. On Scotty's map, not so far away, were great white patches marked with a single word: UNEXPLORED. It seemed incredible that after nearly fifty years of American Government and a few years of independence, the island of Luzon, seat of the capital, had unexplored areas. But it was true.

Rick knew that he need not watch the road carefully for a little while, except to follow it. If the truck and sedan were headed for Bontoc and Banaue they had a good start. He doubted that they were traveling together.

"You know," he said, "we're not so smart."

"I've always known it," Scotty replied. "But what have we done that's especially stupid?"

"We could have phoned the first gate and asked if the truck and sedan had pa.s.sed through."

Scotty groaned. "You are so right!"

Angel spoke from the rear seat. "True, true! It is my fault. I am ashamed to you that I did not think of it."

Rick suspected that it hurt Angel to be so humble and admit that he was ashamed. He looked like a proud man, one used to holding his head high.

"We liked Nangolat," he said. "We thought he was Angel Manotok. He had all your papers. We didn't doubt him because he looked like a fine man.

We were taken in, all right."

Angel seemed to cheer up a little. "Yes? Then perhaps you understand how it was easy for him to catch me and try to kill me when I also liked him and thought he was my friend."

"That's easy to understand," Scotty told the Filipino. "No one could blame you, Angel."

"You are good to say it," Angel replied. He seemed relieved.

Rick knew that they had made a friend by expressing their understanding.

Before, Angel would have done his best because of Okola. Now, he thought, Angel would do his best because he knew they were friendly and understood how a man's pride can be hurt even when it is not his fault.

"We'd better start keeping an eye peeled," Scotty advised.

They flew in silence, inspecting the road below. There was almost no traffic. Since leaving Trinidad Valley they had seen only the Bontoc bus, a brilliant orange speck on the road below, and two jeeps. They had identified the gates easily. Once they pa.s.sed a gate where a south-bound panel truck waited. Rick knew that the truck driver couldn't know what kind of vehicle he waited for, but from the air it could be seen that the Bontoc bus was the only moving thing between the two gates.

The Sky Wagon was just above the tops of a series of mountain peaks and steep ridges. The road clung to the sides of the peaks like a dusty brown ribbon. Rick turned up the heater a little because it was cold at eight thousand feet.

Then he lost the road. So did Angel and Scotty. Astonished, Rick circled. He picked up the road again, followed it, lost it once more.

"Where does it go?" he wondered.

"Let's go see," Scotty suggested.

Rick examined the terrain. Their quarry might be on the lost section of the road. He had the choice of going down for a look, or finding where the road emerged and circle for a while. He elected to go down.

The Sky Wagon lost alt.i.tude in a long slip toward the valley floor. Rick and the others kept an eye on the point where the road vanished, and in a few moments the mystery was solved. The road reached a cliff approximately a mile long and a half mile high. The road was about two thirds of the way up. To get past the cliff it had been necessary to cut a shelf into the cliff itself.

"Wow! Notching that cliff must have been some job!" Scotty exclaimed.

"No wonder we couldn't see the road from the air."

Rick flew parallel to the cliff until he had to climb to get over a ridge. Below, the road emerged from the overhang and was clearly visible again. He gained alt.i.tude.

"Just had a happy thought," he said. "Wouldn't it be nice if the weather closed in? Here we are flying visual contact through some of the trickiest mountains I've ever seen. I'm going to keep an eye on the compa.s.s. You two concentrate on the road. If we do get weather, I want to be able to fly a reasonable course back to Baguio."

"Didn't you get a weather briefing at the airport?" Scotty asked.

"Yes. Such as it was. Mostly it was local Baguio conditions and a brief report on Manila."

"Something ahead," Angel called.

"I see it," Scotty answered. "A truck of some kind. Take a look, Rick."

Rick surveyed the landscape ahead, saw that he would not get into difficulty by losing alt.i.tude, and went down for a look. He couldn't get closer than a thousand feet, but that was ample. It was a load of lumber, although the truck was much like theirs.

"What color is it?" Scotty asked.

"Hard to tell. Ours was gray. This one looks brown."

"Could be dust," Angel offered. "Dirt road below, plenty dusty. But there are lumber mills up in this part of the province. Perhaps that is just one of their trucks. You had no lumber, did you?"

"No. Our truck had only two crates on it. Besides, Angel--I mean Nangolat--must be far beyond this point. He left last night early."

"How do you know?" Angel asked curiously.

"Yeah," Scotty echoed. "You sound sure."

"He got the scanner, didn't he? There was a risk that we might find out that it was gone. He wouldn't hang around the airport knowing that we might find out about the theft, would he?"

"Good point," Scotty agreed.

"I heard of this earth scanner," Angel said. "Dr. Okola told me. It takes pictures of what is inside the ground, no?"

"Not exactly pictures," Scotty said. "It shows a kind of wave pattern.

You'll see how it works."

Rick snorted. "Optimist. What makes you so sure?"

"We'll get it back," Scotty said calmly. "No smart Ifugao is going to do us in the eye, chum. Not without a fight. We'll find Tony and we'll find the scanner. Then we'll clobber pal Nangolat--or let Angel do it--and get to work."

"What do we do with Nast?"

"We get nasty with Nast."

Rick groaned. "That pun, pal, is strictly cornball."