Skin Deep td-49 Page 3

  The old man looked sadly into the brush. "He is a leper," he said. "He knows me."

  ?Chapter Four

  The birds were thick as snowdrifts around them.

  "A leper?"

  Chiun nodded. "And a Hawaiian. He is probably from the colony at Molokai, but I must see the rest of the tribe before I can be sure."

  "Wait. Hold on," Remo said. "What is this about lepers? What do you know about lepers, anyway? And you've never even been to Hawaii. You told me that yourself once."

  "One sand pit is like another," Chiun said. "But all Masters of Sinanju know of the lepers of Molokai. And they know us. Sit. I will tell you of the Decree of the great Master Hun Tup." He motioned toward a fallen tree.

  "Hun Tup? Wasn't he the guy you said went to China with Marco Polo?"

  Chiun beamed. "You remember well, for a white thing."

  Remo grimaced. "The story," he said. "Can the insults."

  "Long, long ago," Chiun began, using the mystic storyteller's voice that meant he was settling into one of his windier legends, "the people of my village of Sinanju in Korea were so poor, and their catch from the ocean so meager, that they were forced to conserve rations by sending their babies back to the sea."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know that part about drowning the babies. What about Wing Tip?"

  "Hun Tup," Chiun corrected. "I am coming to him. Do not interrupt. You have made me lose my place." His voice shifted back into the storyteller's whisper. "Long, long ago...

  "I know, Chiun. They sent their babies back to the sea, and so the first Master of Sinanju had to rent himself out as an assassin to the highest bidder and send his paychecks back to the village, which is what every Master since has been doing."

  Chiun fixed him with an angry, unblinking stare. "These legends are better when told properly," he said.

  "Sorry. I just wanted you to get to the part about Marco Polo."

  "A nobody," Chiun said. "A drunk. A meateating sailor with a nagging wife and a houseful of squealing white children. It was no wonder he wanted to go to China. It just surprised me he did not try to reach the moon."

  "Was Hun Tup working for Marco Polo?" Remo asked, trying to steer Chiun back to the subject. "I mean, was he a bodyguard or something?"

  "Really, Remo. Now, that is an insult. The Master of Sinanju does not work as a bodyguard. This is work for thugs, beasts. Even a white man can be a bodyguard. Perhaps even you could."

  "Just asking," Remo said.

  "Hun Tup went along on the expedition as the esteemed guest of Marco Polo and his sponsor, a powerful ruler of Venice, in whose service the Master had performed many valuable deeds. As no one in Europe knew where China— or, as it was then known, Cathay— was, Hun Tup agreed to show Marco Polo the way in exchange for carrying the Master's trunks of tribute from the Venetian ruler. There was much tribute. Emeralds, diamonds, fine rubies. All were to be delivered to Sinanju along with Hun Tup once China was 'discovered.' By Marco Polo, that is. The Koreans had discovered it long before."

  "Hmmm," Remo agreed. "The Japanese, too, I guess."

  Chiun's eyes narrowed into flinty hazel slits. "They don't count," he said.

  "Okay, so Hun Tup led Marco Polo to China, and then Marco took the Master and his tribute from Italy back to Sinanju, and everybody lived happily ever after, right?"

  "Wrong. When they reached China, the Europeans were greeted by the Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan himself. This upstart appeared to be a kind and generous man, sharing with the explorers the secrets of gunpowder and silk. Polo himself was having such a wonderful time that he stayed in Peking for twenty-four years. He was white. It probably took that long for him to get over his shock at seeing people who bathed."

  "Long time to wait for a ride home," Remo admitted.

  "It was worse than that. For despite their warm welcome at the Chinese court, Hun Tup knew the Emperor Kublai Khan to be a deceitful, lying thief— a man of no honor and in whom the truth was not to be found."

  "What'd he do that was so terrible?"

  "Him? Nothing. But his ancestor, Genghis Khan, once used the services of a previous Master of Sinanju, and weighted his tribute chest with bricks at the bottom to lessen the payment. The descendants of such a man are not to be trusted," Chiun said with an air of injured dignity. "Therefore, Hun Tup stole away in the night with his heavy tribute, before the Chinese emperor could take it and deprive the village of Sinanju of its lifeblood."

  "Hun Tup sounds pretty paranoid," Remo said.

  "He was correct," Chiun snapped. "Kublai Khan's soldiers followed him, as he had feared, seeking to rob the Master of his riches. Deep in the hills of China, they ambushed him. Hun Tup sent them all into the Void, of course, but he himself was left with wounds which the fetid Chinese air, combined with the Master's weakness from the long journey, did nothing to cure.

  "At last he found himself near a swamp, weary and with the knowledge of death close to his heart. He dropped the chest of tribute he had carried on his back for many days, certain that he would never live to see again his beloved shores of Sinanju."

  "What happened?" Remo asked, getting caught up in the story. "Did he die?"

  "Nearly. He was found by a tribe of lepers who had been driven out of their communities and forced to live near the swamp. The lepers nursed him back to health, protected him and, when he was well, sent an escort of two of their number to carry the tribute back to Sinanju.

  "Once back in his village, Hun Tup, who was in his tenth decade, charged his successor to move the lepers to a dry and comfortable place, away from the filth and stink of the Chinese swamp. Before he died in his one hundred and fourteenth year, after the lepers had all migrated to the island of Molokai in Hawaii, he decreed that all subsequent Masters were forbidden to kill the Molokai lepers, for by their kindness was the village of Sinanju spared a terrible fate."

  Remo smiled. "Nice, Chiun," he said. "Really."

  The old man flushed with pride. "There has been much beautiful Ung poetry written about Hun Tup the Grateful." Closing his eyes, Chiun swayed as he chanted Korean verses in a tuneless singsong.

  "The only thing is, this is Florida. What are the Molokai lepers doing here?"

  Chiun shrugged. "One cannot know the answers to all things at once. The boy will tell his chief about us. We will be brought to their village. Watch and listen. All will be made clear in time."

  "Wish they'd hurry up," Remo said, but Chiun was chanting again. Remo looked around at the tropical isle. Except for the quiet menace of the birds, it was as close to heaven as he'd ever seen. White and purple orchids, beaded with droplets of water from the frequent rains, hung delicately near banana trees with their pendulous burdens of fruit, and the ground was covered with the fragrant boughs of...

  Boughs? He looked again. The entire forest floor seemed to be strewn with broken twigs and leafy branches. He swept a small area clear. Beneath the sand was something hard and smooth... and black.

  "Tar," he whispered. "Chiun, come look at this." The old Oriental stopped his singing and followed Remo into the forest. "This is macadam," Remo said, "it's a road."

  A few birds came along, their talons clack-clacking against the surface. "What I can't understand is, why would anyone build a road that leads directly into the ocean?"

  Chiun was looking up, toward the thick upper growth of leaves on the trees. Too thick, Remo thought.

  "Notice the pattern of the branches at the tops of the trees," Chiun said.

  Remo did. The configuration of the leaves was somehow out of place, the branches too thick. Then he saw it. A gleaming stump of white tree trunk, very high up, nearly— but not quite— connecting with the branches overhead. He widened his pupils to see farther into the dense forest. There were more trees in the same odd condition, their tops sawn off twenty feet above ground. All of the trees lining the artfully concealed road had been cut.

  Picking up a rock, Remo aimed it at a high branch running directly across the roadway beneath. The roc
k struck. The branch fell to the road with a crash. Remo walked over to the felled branch to examine it. Its base, like the tops of the trees along the roadway, had been cut cleanly. Overhead, he saw the patch of sky the branch had obscured when in place.

  In place. That was it. "These trees are here for camouflage," he said.

  "Exactly," Chiun agreed. "Someone worked very carefully to conceal this road."

  "It's no road, Chiun." Remo swished away another section of leaves and twigs of covering the sticky pavement. "This is an airstrip. If my guess is right, the missing F-24 is somewhere right on this island."

  He was exploring deeper into the forest when the dim shape of a human figure came into view out of the jungle mist. Remo stood still, nearly mesmerized by the sensual, rhythmic walk of the girl. She was graceful and slim and moved with an inner stillness and dignity rare in young women. Her black waist-length hair swayed behind her as she walked, her legs as strong and muscled as the flanks of a jungle animal.

  Now brace yourself, Remo thought, anticipating the wasted face that would inevitably go with the perfect body.

  He blinked when he saw it. The Polynesian face was flawless. Her complexion was creamy and sun-bronzed, setting off two wing-shaped dark eyes that twinkled with intelligence above the high, angular planes of her cheekbones. Below them rested a straight nose with slightly flaring nostrils and a full-lipped mouth naturally tinted the pink-red of good health.

  "I am Ana," the girl said, warmly but not smiling. She turned to Chiun and bowed her head respectfully. "If you will follow me, Master, I will take you to our village."

  Chiun watched her but did not speak. She turned and retraced her path through the forest. As the three of them walked noiselessly over the underbrush, Remo took another look at the concealed and apparently new macadam surface.

  "Excuse me," he said, The girl stopped. "Do you know when that airstrip was built? And who built it?"

  The girl's eyes seemed to glaze. She spoke softly. "No one," she said enigmatically. "No airstrip. No airplanes."

  "Yes, there is. I saw it," Remo persisted. "Right over there..."

  "No airstrip," Ana repeated, and moved on.

  Remo sighed and followed her. She led them through a jungle paradise of lush flowering greenery and spills of cascading water. Above, against the clear blue sky, magnificent parrots and cockatoos screeched and soared, showing off rainbows of iridescent color.

  "What is that noise?" Chiun asked. Remo listened. A muted roar was coming from the east.

  "It is the sound from the place of perfection," Ana said. "Would you like to see it?"

  Chiun nodded. The girl veered away from the small path and took them uphill through some dense growth as the noise grew louder. When at last they emerged, they were a few hundred feet from a breathtaking waterfall. The cliff where it orginated was of tremendous height, seeming to jut straight out of the sky, and the torrent of water spilling over it crashed like thunder onto huge boulders below.

  "The fall is nearly two hundred feet," the girl said.

  Chiun smiled. "Beautiful," he said.

  The girl's voluptuous lips turned upward at pleasing the old Oriental. "Yes," she said. "Come. My brother, Timu, is waiting in the valley. He is the head of our village."

  She escorted them back onto the narrow path, and they walked downhill until they could see the thatched roofs and smoking fires from a small settlement ahead, in a clearing past the last stand of trees.

  "Are you sure these people are lepers?" Remo whispered to Chiun in Korean. "I mean, the girl looks all right. Better than all right. She's gorgeous. Maybe they're just a bunch of cultists or something..."

  But as they entered the clearing, Remo saw for himself that Chiun had been right. Women with babies, squatting over their cooking pots, young boys playing in the open, a cluster of old men arguing with one another— all stopped whatever they were doing when the strangers entered.

  And all, down to the smallest child, were ravaged and mutilated with disease.

  The girl took a few steps away from Remo and Chiun, as if to position herself apart from them and with the disfigured members of her tribe. Oddly, the villagers themselves backed away when she neared them, mothers pulling their young behind them, but Ana did not appear to notice. She opened her arms wide to Remo and Chiun in the classic gesture of hospitality. But when she spoke, there was a terrible irony in her words.

  "This is our home," she said. "Welcome to the Valley of the Damned."

  ?Chapter Five

  Three men stood by a hut near the center of the village. Their bodies were covered with oozing lesions, but the young man in the middle was tall and fierce looking, somehow majestic in his corroded ugliness. He spoke.

  "I am Timu, chief of my people. We welcome you and your honored son, O Master of Sinanju."

  "I am Chiun." The old Oriental approached the chief with a small bow. Timu returned it, then looked inquiringly at Remo.

  "Remo. Nice place you've got here," Remo said, trying to avoid staring at the disintegrating faces of the lepers.

  "Tour son is not accustomed to viewing our sickness," Timu said, with a trace of humor.

  "He is not accustomed to acting civilized," Chiun said, tossing a beady glance toward Remo. He added, whispering, "He is white." The chief nodded sagely. "I am honored that you have remembered my ancestor, Hun Tup," Chiun said.

  "We do not forget those who have befriended us," Timu said. "The fellowship of suffering has kept our legends alive. The kindness of the Master Hun Tup in delivering my people from the swamps of China to the beautiful land of Molokai will be remembered forever. It was our Promised Land. On Molokai, there were fine clinics and doctors who helped us to lead good, long lives."

  Remo was puzzled. He looked at the grass huts hiding the dying, their lingering coughs from the disease's damage to their lungs ringing despairingly through the still air. There was no hospital or clinic in sight. Small children walked around with limbs already decayed or amputated.

  "Excuse me," he said politely, "but if Molokai had everything you needed, why are you all here, where there's nothing to help you? There isn't even a doctor here."

  The chief exchanged looks with his two cronies. Haltingly he said, "There is a doctor here. Also a— a medical facility." As he spoke, the two old men flanking him stared at the ground. Timu bowed to Chiun again. "Thank you, honored Master, for your visit. But I must now ask you to leave, before you are in danger of contracting our disease."

  Chiun smiled. "You wish us to leave, but not because of your sickness. Even Hun Tup, in the thirteenth century, knew that leprosy is not contagious by air. It can only be passed along through an open wound. We are in no danger from you."

  Timu looked abashed. "Forgive me, O Master. I should have known you were the wisest of men. But still, you must leave. There is danger here. Not from us. But danger."

  "The birds," Remo said.

  A low chatter rose from the villagers. "No birds," Timu said, his eyes hard.

  "They're everywhere," Remo continued. "Huge white seagulls. I've never seen anything—"

  "No birds!" Timu snapped, cutting off the discussion. He closed his eyes and sighed. "Please go," he said quietly. "Go before you learn too much. The Valley of the Damned is no place for the Master of Sinanju. Quickly, before the sun sets. It is for your own good."

  Chiun laid a hand on the chief's shoulder. "We will stay," he said. "We will eat with you. We will spend the night here. Tomorrow we go."

  A stricken silence settled over the village. "Wait a minute," Remo said in Korean. "Maybe we'd be better off in the hills. That way, if anything goes on—"

  "We stay here," Chiun said stubbornly.

  Ana, the girl who had brought them to the village, stepped forward. "I am not a leper. I will serve you your meals myself. Afterward, you may have my hut to sleep in. You will be safe," she said to Remo with disdain.

  * * *

  Toward nightfall they dined on fruit with the entire
village, gathered in the clearing. The lepers danced, if haltingly, for their visitors, and sang ancient songs, and recounted old legends for the benefit of their new friends. Amid the music and festivities, Remo was ashamed of the revulsion he had first felt for the brave tribe.

  Ana must have sensed it. While the villagers were clapping and singing, she clasped his hand briefly. "You understand already," she said.

  Timu shot her a terrible look, and she quickly withdrew her hand. "Leave us," the chief ordered. In a moment she was gone, disappeared into the brush.

  "Why'd you send her away?" Remo asked. "She wasn't doing anything."

  "My sister is a strange girl," the chief said almost apologetically. "Smart. She completed a year of medical school before joining us in our colony. She has been of great assistance to us. But do not touch her." His eyes were fearful and desperate.

  "I wasn't going to take her away."

  "There are things I cannot explain. But I warn you, do not befriend Ana. Do not go near her. Never. Do you understand?"

  Remo took a quick look over his shoulder to the jungle, now quiet, where the girl had run, then said, "Shove it."

  "Silence, Remo," Chiun said. "Their ways are not your ways."

  "I just wish I knew what the hell was going on in this place," Remo muttered.

  Suddenly the dancers disbanded in a frenzy. Someone pointed toward a high cluster of rocks forming a dome in the distance. Screams and hushed warnings rose up from the villagers as they scrambled to their feet, spilling the sweet fruit on the ground. Some ran into the rain forest. Others took shelter in their rough huts.

  Instinctively Remo whirled around to see on all sides.

  "In here," Timu commanded, gesturing toward his hut. Chiun was already being ushered inside.

  "Do as he says," Chiun hissed over his shoulder. "Now, before you are seen."

  From inside the hut, they watched a double line of six white soldiers goose-stepping in a worn path from the thick bushes near the giant rock cluster.

  "Who are they?" Remo whispered.