The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [132]
He got angrier when Li Lan whacked him in the legs with her walking stick. He leaped in the air, snarling and snapping, and rushed toward her legs. She stepped back and swung at him again, missing him by an inch as he somersaulted backward. Another monkey rushed at her from the side. Neal couldn’t swing at it with his stick without hitting Li, so he kicked at the monkey, which retreated up the path and hunched into a threatening crouch. The rest of the monkeys contributed screams and howls of intimidation and hilarity and waited for the next round.
Neal pulled the pistol from his waistband. He leveled it at the lead monkey, who sat staring at it curiously and issued a low growl. He might not have recognized a gun, but he knew a threat when he saw one. He started to back away, still growling. His gang followed him as he scrambled back up the hill into the bamboo.
Neal pulled the pistol up and blew into the barrel before sticking it back in his pants.
Li didn’t get it.
“You’ll be okay now, ma‘am,” Neal said, “as long as I’ve got this here Winchester.”
Then a small stone hit him in the side of the head. This was followed by a barrage of rocks, sticks, nuts, and fruit that followed Neal and Li as they retreated about fifty feet down the path.
Son of a bitch, Neal thought. The bastards understand firepower.
Sure enough, four monkeys were still launching missiles while their comrades hustled around the hillside collecting ammunition. Neal picked up a handful of small, sharp stones and flung them toward the monkey battery on the hillsides. He found the resulting cries of indignation extremely satisfactory, especially when his adversaries retreated up the hill.
Joe Graham is wrong, Neal thought. I can outsmart an ape.
He found this wasn’t exactly true, however, when it became apparent that all the monkeys had done was set their blockade up on the next switchback. Two of the largest were sitting in the middle of the path, grinning with immense glee while their supporting troops crouched in the bamboo, ammunition already at hand—or paw.
“Uh, how many switchbacks are there?” Neal asked, aware that this could go on all day.
“Many.”
“What do the monkeys want?” Maybe it would be easier to pay the toll and get on with it.
“Food.”
“Do we have any?”
“No.”
“Right. I’m going to shoot one.”
“No!”
“We could collect the reward.”
“For a live monkey only.”
“We don’t have time to fuck around here, Li.”
She looked at him curiously and with a trace of indignation until he realized that she hadn’t understood the idiom.
“I mean we have to get going.”
The monkeys, fully aware of the humans’ hesitation, sensed victory and inched closer. Great grimaces of dominance spread across their faces and they scratched vigorously.
“You may not shoot them,” Li said firmly.
Besides, Neal thought, I probably couldn’t hit one anyway. And they are kind of cute, in a repulsive sort of way. He drew the gun anyway and pointed it at the leader. The leader didn’t show any signs of intimidation this time, unless rubbing one’s genitals could be interpreted as a sign of terror. Then he shot back, so to speak, with a stream of urine.
“That does it,” Neal said. “Can you stand them off for a few minutes?
“I think so.”
Neal retreated down to the edge of the last curve and then headed up the hill through the bamboo. He scratched his way up to the next level of the path until he was looking down at the monkeys. He gathered up rocks, sticks, and fruits and then headed down toward the spot where the monkey gang was in its standoff with Li Lan. He snuck from tree to tree, being as quiet as a city-bred klutz can be in a bamboo jungle, until he stood about twenty feet above the gang.
He took a Ron Guidry windup and launched a rock at the leader, scoring a strike on its haunches. The monkey yelped more with surprise than with pain and turned to see where the rock had come from. Neal then threw as many of his missiles as he could get off, and screamed obscenities.
The startled monkeys froze