Goodwin Harold Leland
The Golden Skull: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

CHAPTER VIII
The Bontoc Road

"Dr. Okola instructed me in what I was to do," the real Angel Manotok said. "Nangolat was present. He was very helpful. He even gave me the name of an Ifugao priest who would help us. A man by the name of Poison."

Angel didn't seem to think the name was odd, so Rick said nothing.

"I live alone," Angel continued. "I went home that evening to pack my stuff, so I would be ready to go to the hotel to meet you early in the morning. Nangolat was waiting, and he had a gun. He made me turn around, then he said, 'Angel, I am sorry. I only do this for the good of my people, not for myself.' There was a great blow on the back of my head and I knew nothing more. I woke up in the St. Luke Hospital. They said I had a fractured skull, at first. But they were wrong."

"Thank heavens," Rick said. "You were lucky."

"So lucky," Angel agreed. "What I can never know is why Nangolat did not take my head. Before, I thought he was very civilized and intelligent. But when I saw him in my nipa hut, he was crazy. He did not talk crazy, but he was. It was in his eyes. When I saw him and the gun in his hand, and then I saw his eyes, I knew I was dead. But I did not know why, because he was my friend."

"Do you know why now?" Scotty asked.

"No. It does not matter. It only matters that he was my friend and he gave me no chance. He did not fight me, although we are evenly matched. He struck me from behind. I will go with you now to the Ifugao country, and perhaps we will find this Nangolat. When I find him I will know what to do."

Angel's tone was not angry, nor did he sound as though he were threatening. It was as though he had said that tomorrow it would rain. But Rick and Scotty decided that they would not like to be in Nangolat's shoes.

"Did you tell Dr. Okola?" Scotty asked.

For the first time, Angel's eyes fell. "No. I was ashamed to him."

Rick recognized the odd phrase as a literal translation of a Spanish idiom. He also understood why Angel had not told Okola. The Filipino archaeologist had entrusted the Americans to Angel's care, and Nangolat had taken his place. It didn't matter that Angel couldn't help it. He had lost face. He would not return to Okola until he had made amends.

"If your head was so badly hurt that the doctors thought your skull was fractured, I'm surprised that they let you out of the hospital," Rick said.

"They did not let me. I walked out. Then I caught rides until I got into Baguio a few minutes ago. If you had not been here, then I would have followed you to Bontoc."

Scotty asked, "Angel, what do you know of Mr. Irineo Lazada?"

Angel spat. "He has power. He has many friends. All his friends are thieves. Some are mighty thieves, but he is the greatest one of all. The Secretary, who is his boss, is a fine man, and he will believe no evil of this Lazada. No one will speak against him so the Secretary and President can hear, because if such words are spoken, the body of the speaker will be found floating down the Pasig next morning. This is understood by all, and those who have proof are afraid. I have no proof, or I would speak myself. To know is one thing. But to prove is another."

"Do you know an American named Nast?"

"Yes. He is a smuggler. Again, there is no proof. Sometimes the ones who smuggle for him are caught, but he is not, because he does no smuggling himself."

"What does he smuggle?" Rick asked. He was searching for some clue that might be useful.

"Anything. Chinese who cannot get visas to enter the Philippines. He brings many of them up from Borneo. Crude rubber. Gems from Siam. He used to run guns, but the supply ran out. They were American war surplus guns, stolen by the truckload after the war and sold to smugglers like Nast. Now there are no more."

"What's Lazada's tie-up with Nast?"

Angel shrugged. "This is gossip. Lazada has a yacht. Who would search the private yacht of the great Assistant Secretary? Even though it was well known that the yacht had been to Macao or Hong Kong and was loaded with contraband?"

Rick swiftly outlined the events of the morning to Angel. "We must find Dr. Briotti," he concluded. "What do you suggest?"

Angel thought it over, now and then raising a hand gingerly to his bandaged head. "Everything Nast wants is in the Ifugao country, no? He can only want the gold, and it is there. When Dr. Okola told me of this golden skull you seek, I was afraid, for there are still many bad men in the Philippines who want gold. Now Nast is after it. Maybe others. I do not think Nangolat wants gold, but he is an Ifugao. Also, his interest is in the Ifugao country. It can be nowhere else."

Angel's English sometimes had a queer, rather formal phrasing, but it was clear. And so, apparently, were his thoughts. Rick accepted his idea about everything pointing to the Ifugao country.

"Then we should go to Ifugao."

"You have a plane. We should fly over the road to Bontoc and look for the truck and the sedan with Dr. Briotti. If we see them, we can come back to Baguio and telephone. The road to Bontoc is one way only. Only one car at a time can travel."

"One way?" Scotty inquired. "You can't mean that. How would people get back and forth?"

"I am not clear," Angel apologized. "What I mean is the road is too narrow for cars going both ways. So the road has been divided in parts by gates. Maybe a car is going to Bontoc. It arrives at Gate One. The gatekeeper lets it through, then he calls Gate Two and says he has let a car come north. Maybe another car is going from Bontoc to Baguio. He reaches Gate Two, and the gatekeeper makes him wait until the car from Gate One reaches him. Then he lets the car to Baguio go through and calls the gatekeeper at Gate One and says a car is coming. Then he lets the car going to Bontoc go through his gate and he calls Gate Three and says that a car is coming."

"I see," Scotty nodded. "One gate at a time. A car might be able to go through three or four gates, and then have to wait for a car coming the other way."

"That is it. There are many gates. I forget exactly how many. Also, to get from Bontoc to Banaue there is a road with gates."

Banaue was in the Ifugao country, in the heart of the rice terraces. It was their destination.

"Let's go," Rick said.

He had worked out a plan. The plane could scout the road quickly and easily. By air it was only a short distance to Bontoc, but by road it was several hours of driving because of the twists and turns. If they could spot the truck or a sedan with four men in it, they could return to Baguio and phone, and the vehicles could be held up at one of the many gates.

Scotty's thoughts were apparently the same, because Rick knew exactly what he meant when he said, "The sedan will give us trouble. We'll just have to hope that we can fly low when we see one, and try to catch a look at the people in it."

"That won't be very satisfactory," Rick said. "When we get to the airport, we'll have Angel pump those workmen some more. If they're still there. Like a pair of real meatheads, we forgot to ask for details, such as what color the sedan was."

They were fortunate. The workmen were still pecking away at the runway shoulders. And they did recall the color of the sedan. It was dark green. But they didn't know enough about cars to know the make, and they had noticed no special details.

"Have you flown before?" Rick asked Angel.

"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 passed 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 passed 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 altitude 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 altitude.

"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 compass. 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 altitude, 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."

"I've always wanted to be a pun pal," Scotty said.

Far ahead, green shelves gave a regular pattern to the base of one mountain. Rick pointed them out to Angel. "What's that?"

"Igorot rice terraces."

"Igorot? I thought the rice terraces were Ifugao."

"The Igorots have them, too. They are not so – I don't have the word for it. Big, make one open the eyes in wonder, very fine. The kind of thing that makes you feel surprise here." Angel put his hand on his stomach.

"Breath-taking?" Scotty suggested. "Spectacular?"

"Yes. Both. These Igorot terraces are nothing. Wait until you see the terraces at Banaue."

Three pairs of eyes scanned the road ahead. It was deserted.

"Tell us about rice," Rick asked. "There was rice below when we flew to Baguio, too."

"Yes. A great deal of rice. You passed over Pampanga Province, which is called the rice bowl of the Philippines. That rice is grown in paddies, which are fields with little earth walls around them called dikes. The paddies can be flooded. Rice needs much water. Down there, though, the land is flat."

Scotty pointed to a razorback ridge. "This land sure isn't flat."

"No, but the Igorot and Ifugao workers make it flat by building terraces. Each terrace is like a little paddy. It can be flooded, just as the lowland paddies are. The water comes from the mountains in pipes made of bamboo."

"It must be quite a water system," Rick observed.

"Yes. There are miles of bamboo pipes, but no water is wasted. The water is put into the upper terraces, then it runs by itself through openings down to the lower terraces."

"Is the rice the same?"

"Nearly. There is another kind called highland rice that is planted like wheat. We have a little wheat, too, but not enough to feed many people. The highland rice is not very good. Paddy rice is better."

Rick was interested. He continued his questioning. "Are the paddies flooded all the time?"

"Oh, no. They are flooded before the rice is planted. You know we do not plant seed in the paddies? We plant baby rice plants which are grown in special places. The little plants are pushed into the mud after the paddy is flooded. Then the water is left for a while. But if we left it all the time, the plants would rot. So after a while we let the water out and only let in enough to keep the rice growing."

They were over the terraces now. Beyond them, Rick saw brown houses that looked like beehives. It was an Igorot village.

"We'll reach Bontoc soon," Angel said.

"No truck and no sedan," Scotty added unhappily. "They couldn't have reached Bontoc, could they?"

"The truck could have, easily, if Nangolat drove during the night."

"Then we'll have to keep hunting past Bontoc right into Banaue."

Angel tapped Rick on the shoulder and pointed ahead. "There is Bontoc."

Nestled in the mountains on the bank of a river was the town of Bontoc, a small cluster of wooden and grass houses. Rick saw that the dirt road had changed to a black top.

"I'm going to look for a place to land."

Scotty nodded. "Good idea."

Rick waited until the town was directly below, then he sized up the terrain and began to lose altitude in a tight spiral. It was in situations like this that the Sky Wagon's flaps came in handy. He pulled the control down and the movable sections on the trailing edges of the wings moved down in response. He began to lose speed.

When he was five hundred feet over the town he flew parallel with the road, searching for wires and other hazards. There were wires, but they entered the town from the south, then branched west, toward Banaue. To the north there were no wires, nor any other hazards he could see. And the road looked level. He picked a stretch at the edge of the little town where the houses were far apart. They were primitive little dwellings made of straw tied together in bundles. He hoped his prop wash wouldn't blow them apart.

"Hang on," he said. "Here we go."

The movement of rice stalks in a paddy near the road gave him wind direction. He should land from the north. He circled, got into position, and started in. Scotty leaned forward, eyes peeled for obstructions.

There was excitement in the town below. People in Western clothes and in scant breechcloths or tight skirts of Igorots were running into the open to see what was making the racket. Rick hurried the landing a little, afraid the people would clutter up the strip of road he had chosen. He put the Sky Wagon down with no sign of a bump and braked to a stop. Then, because children were getting near, outstripping their elders in haste to see the plane, Rick cut the engine.

Two Igorot boys, perhaps fourteen years old, were the first to reach the plane as the three climbed out. The Igorots had the chopped-off bowl haircut, and they wore breechcloths and nothing else. They stared at the plane, wide-eyed, then one said something to his friend in guttural Igorot.

Angel Manotok grinned. Rick asked, "Did you understand?"

"Yes. I speak Igorot."

Scotty said, "They probably were talking about the great sky bird. That right, Angel?"

Angel's grin broadened. "Not exactly. The English equivalent would be slang. What he said corresponded to 'Hey, bud, get a load of the real snazzy four-place job. And dig that retractable landing gear!'"

The boy who had spoken looked at Angel with suspicion. "You no Igorot," he accused.

Angel chuckled. "You no Englishman, but you speak English."

The boy laughed. "Okay, Mac. My name Pilipil. I learn plenty plane stuff at Clark. Dig holes there for pay. See many plane."

Rick and Scotty got over their amazement. It was obvious that the boys were more than fourteen years old. Their short stature and unlined faces were deceptive.

"How old are you, Pilipil?" Rick asked.

"Eighteen."

Rick wanted to know more about the boy who had worked as a laborer at the American Air Force Base at Clark Field, but there was no time because the rest of the crowd had arrived. The boys found themselves surrounded by Filipinos and Igorots, all chattering with obvious excitement and interest.

A Filipino who was obviously someone of importance pushed his way through the crowd. He was dressed in a business suit, complete with starched shirt and tie, an odd rig for such a primitive village as Bontoc, Rick thought. The man was smoking a cigar with one hand and carrying a cane with the other. He hung the cane over the wrist on the cigar hand and held out the other.

"I am the district road commission. Leocadio de los Santos, at your service. Mr. Lazada informed me by letter that I was to place my entire resources at your disposal. You are Mr. Brant, Mr. Scott, and Dr. Briotti?"

"Dr. Briotti is not with us," Rick replied. "This is Mr. Manotok."

"Ah. Delighted. Please come to my office so we may talk quietly."

Rick looked doubtful. "We shouldn't leave the plane."

"Do not fear. It will be perfectly safe."

Santos switched to the native language, speaking briefly and with authority. The crowd obediently fell back a few paces, leaving a cleared area around the plane. The road commissioner had the situation under control, all right.

Nevertheless, Angel Manotok said, "I will wait here."

Rick nodded. That was best. He and Scotty followed Santos to the office, a few hundred feet down the street. The office was on the second floor of a frame building. The first floor was a work area filled with tools, including a bulldozer and a road scraper.

Before discussing business, Santos insisted on refreshment. He clapped his hands and a dungaree-clad Filipino workman appeared. Santos spoke. In a few moments the workman reappeared. Both boys were surprised when he offered them their favorite American beverage. It seemed strange to be sipping coke in a place inhabited by primitive people clad in breechcloths, some of them armed with short spears.

Rick got down to business. "Can you find out if a truck and a green sedan have passed through Bontoc?"

"What kind of truck, please?"

Rick described it. "We don't have the make of the sedan. It may have had five men in it." He couldn't believe that the sedan had reached Bontoc, however.

Santos picked up his phone, reached down, and whirled a crank. The phone rang. He spoke Ilokano into it, then received a reply from the other end. He spoke again, then hung up. "That was the gateman at the edge of town. No truck and no sedan passed through here today."