In my sleep, I had just laid Bambi (the Saint Bernard)!!!
Chapter Nine
Bambi (the dog) was nothing if not grateful. She slobbered all over me with gratitude. It s happened to me before. When it does, you have to take a firm line. You have to resign yourself to coming on like a heel.”
“I’m not looking for any long-term involvements, I told her brutally.
She pressed against me and panted.
“It was fun, but that’s all it was, fun.”
She licked my hand and snuggled closer.
“It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to get too attached to me; I have to be free.”
She nodded her head in understanding, but her tongue hung out pitifully.
“I’m just not a one-woman man—I mean a one-dog man!”
She whined pleadingly.
“It’s no good begging. It’s over.”
She growled.
“And threats will get you nowhere. When a thing is over, it’s over. That’s all.”
She bared her teeth.
“Please. Don’t give me a rough time. Let s part friends.”
She leaped quickly, landing on top of me, her bared fangs at my throat.
“Maybe we could give it another try.’ I weakened.
She nuzzled me affectionately.
“But mind you, I’m not promising anything.”
She nodded and licked my face understandingly.
“Let’s get some sleep and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Bambi (the dog) curled up obligingly and soon she was snoring lightly. Bambi (the girl) was snoozing on my other side. Between them, sleep eluded me. I had too many problems keeping me awake.
Would Dickson succeed in finding us a guide to lead the way through the treacherous mountains surrounding Läger Shang? Even if he did, would we survive the journey if we were encumbered by the three-hundred-ninety-pound box of gold bars? And if we did reach civilization, would we be able to resolve the kidnapping of Alicia and the threat of “Insecticide”? Even when I finally did fall asleep, these problems continued to plague my dreams.
The next morning my ankle was a lot better. Bambi (the girl) left early to make breakfast for her husband. Bambi (the dog) was sleeping the deep sleep of the sexually satisfied. Dickson reappeared to tell me of the arrangements he’d made.
The lady he’d been with had agreed to guide us from Läger Shang back to civilization. At this very moment, while we were talking, she had slipped out of Läger Shang to a small village in the Swiss countryside where she was hiring two native Swiss bearers and necessary sleds and toboggans to haul us and the gold over the treacherous mountains. We were to be ready to leave that evening.
We reckoned without Bambi (the dog) and Bambi (the girl). As we started down the winding trail leading to the perilous rope bridge which spanned the gorge which separated Läger Shang from the rest of the world—the only way in or out of the mountain Utopia—we encountered Bambi (the dog). There could be no mistaking the look she shot me. She realized immediately that I was running out on her. She was not about to take the rejection lying down.
Hell hath no fury like a Saint Bernard bitch scorned. She took off at a gallop. A quarter of an hour later she reappeared, blocking our way to the rickety bridge, a shotgun between her teeth.
Versatile as she was, Bambi (the dog) was not quite dextrous enough to aim and fire the weapon. Of course I’m not sure whether she meant to do that, or if she merely intended to threaten me to make me stay with her. In any case, she had brought along Bambi (the girl) to help her stop me from leaving and-presumably-—to wield the shotgun.
Using a shotgun, however, was against the principles of Bambi (the girl). She had accompanied Bambi (the dog) only to prevent violence, not to foment it, So when the dog passed her the shotgun, Bambi (the girl) hurled it over the side of the cliff into the abyss below. She then ordered Bambi (the dog) to return to Läger Shang. To my surprise, albeit reluctantly, the dog did as she was told. Shooting me a mournful look of love-turned-bitter, she vanished around the bend in the trail leading back to her homeland.
Bambi (the girl) also wanted to warn us against trying to leave Läger Shang. “It’s not allowed,” she told us earnestly. “And those few who have tried to leave have perished from the cold, or the avalanche, or the wild beasts of the mountains.”
“What wild beasts? This is Switzerland,” I reminded her.
“The Abominable Snowman!” she whispered.
“He’s in the Himalayas, not the Jura Mountains,” I reminded her.
“So how far is that by jet these days?”
“She’s just trying to delay us,” Dickson said. “She probably sent that [expletive deleted] mutt for help.”
He might have been right. I couldn’t be sure. “All right. Then let’s be on our way,” I told him.
“She goes with us.” All of a sudden there was a knife in Dickson’s hand.
“What for?” I wanted to know.
“As a [adjective omitted] hostage. In case the [expletive removed]-suckers try to stop us.”
I didn’t like it. Not one little bit. Still, he had the knife. And he was close enough to her to use it before I could get it away from him. I made another effort at talking him into letting her go, but it was to no avail. Finally he prodded her with the knife to move down the trail and across the wooden bridge. I had no choice but to follow.
Our “guide” was waiting for us at the small native village. Dickson introduced us. Her name was Dorianne Brey.
“The point that I wish to make,” Dickson said, “is that she is one hundred and eight [expletive removed] years old. Would you believe that?”
“She doesn’t look a day over ninety-eight,” I granted.
It was true. The crone was a bag of brittle old bones and a hank of gray hair held loosely together by a skin like that of a dead goat that’s been left out in the sun too long. Her mouth was toothless, but her rheumy, sunken eyes shone with her infatuation for Dickson. As we used to say wonderingly of those who voted for Dickson for President, there’s no accounting for taste.
The metal box containing the gold bars was strapped onto a toboggan. The two native bearers Dorianne had arranged for carried the toboggan between them. Dorianne led the way down the mountainside. The bearers followed her. Bambi (the girl) was in back of them with Dickson directly behind her with the knife. I brought up the rear.
It was an extremely diffficult climb. In some places the ledge was no more than a few inches wide with the cliff rising straight up on one side of us and a sheer drop of several thousand feet on the other. The bearers had evidently made it before; they seemed quite sure-footed. So did Dorianne and Bambi. Only Dickson was more unsure of himself than I as we leaped from one ledge to another and tried to ignore the chasm below our nervous feet.
At night we made camp in a small cave. The crone, Dorianne, couldn’t do enough to ingratiate herself with Dickson. She was really smitten with him. He, on the other hand, while not loath to use her, responded not at all to her advances and generally treated her like dirt. Still, he gave in to the one thing above all others that she wanted of him.
Dickson gave her his dirty socks!
To each his own. Dorianne Brey’s was sock-sniffling. The old hag crooned and moaned happily to herself as she lay in a corner of the cave with her nose buried in Dickson’s dirty socks.
Across the cave, Bambi and I huddled together. “Do you know why Dorianne agreed to do this?” Bambi asked me.
“Because she’s ape over him,” I answered, indicating Dickson.
“That’s only part of it. She confided the other part of it to me yesterday before she left Läger Shang to get the bearers.”
“She confided it to you?” I looked at Bambi in surprise. “Why you?”