Patan Chapter Three
Alone and penniless in Nepal, Marion finds herself in desperate circumstances.
They never spoke of that evening, or of Indiana Jones, again. Marion felt grateful for that. To have had Abner constantly throwing it up to her would have made the hurt much worse. She knew that, rightly or wrongly, her father held her blameless in the matter, and she never once doubted his sincere love for her. The only legacy of that time was that, from then on, Abner seemed to keep a sharper eye on his daughter, and any young man who took too great an interest in her found himself subtly but firmly banished from Professor Ravenwood's inner circle of students. There was no need for this as far as Marion was concerned. Indiana Jones was a lightning that had struck only once. The other young men held little interest for her.
Time passed. Life went on. And the gaping void that Indy's departure had left gradually filled in. Daniel Peterson was awarded the assistant professor's job that would have been Indy's. Abner threw himself into his work. His research concerning the lost city of Tanis and the Ark of the Covenant gradually began to assume more importance in his life until, in 1931, he retired from his teaching post at the University of Chicago to devote himself to his field work full time. The end of Abner's academic career and steady income put an end to Marion's college education part way through, but, as Abner had pointed out, formal schooling had little more to offer her anyway. After her de facto apprenticeship with her father, Marion had been dreadfully bored sitting through undergraduate archeology classes.
The crash of '29 and the resulting Depression had made money tight and grants, especially for project as speculative as Abner's, were impossible to get. Abner sold the house to raise the funds for his proposed digs, not getting anywhere near its true value. Marion felt sorry to see the old Victorian pile go. She had grown up there, and the house held memories, even though there were some that she would have been happier to forget.
From time to time, news of Indy filtered back to them through various acquaintances. He was teaching at some obscure college in Connecticut. He had delivered a paper at a seminar in Paris. He had been seen on a dig in South America… Syria… Honduras… Madagascar… The list went on. But never a word from the man himself. Marion's eighteenth birthday came and went, then her twenty-first. And gradually she had to admit that her father had been right: Indiana Jones was never coming back.
Time had healed the wound, as much as a wound like that could be healed. Whenever she thought of Indy now, it was with a vague sadness for a time of lost innocence, although there was a certain amount of resentment mixed in. Not about the sex part of it. She had long ago decided that if she had to lose her virginity, it was better lost to Indy than to some self-styled teenage Lothario in the backseat of a car. She had seen enough of that kind of disaster in college-boys who treated their conquests like dirt and shot their mouths off about it afterwards or, worse, left them pregnant-and she thanked heaven for small favors.
But Indy had been older and presumably wiser, better versed in matters of the heart. With the reckless optimism of adolescence, Marion had been convinced that their romance would have a happy ending, that even if she and Indy were caught, her father and the rest of society would simply toss out several thousand years worth of rules and morality and grant their approval, persuaded by the magic of her first love. She knew now that she had been an utter fool, dangerously naïve. There was only one possible ending for their affair-misery and heartbreak-and Indy should have known that and been strong enough for both of them. And he should never have made that stupid promise.
And so, Marion had followed her father on his quest to sites all over the face of the Holy Land and the Middle East. Egypt one year, Palestine the next. Then further and further east, watching with helpless disbelief as Abner's obsession consumed and finally destroyed him. Which was how she had come to be in a filthy flea infested inn on the slopes of the Himalayas without a single loved one left to her in the world. They were all gone now-her mother, bled to death in the course of an afternoon; Abner, swallowed up by the earth in the space of time it took her to turn her head; and Indy, just plain… gone. Not coming back. In the words of that goddamned stuffed raven downstairs, nevermore.
Marion knew from bitter experience that no one ever died of a broken heart, no matter how tempting the prospect might seem. There was nothing left for her to do but pick herself up and move on. Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She found her shoes and put them on, methodically knotting the laces. She washed her face at the room's chipped china wash bowl, breaking a thin layer of ice to do so, and rebraided her hair. Still feeling weak in the knees, she made her way downstairs to the bar room.
"Miss Ravenwood! Back among the living, I see," said Farrell from behind the bar as she entered. "Would you care for a cup of tea?"
Marion nodded, and the innkeeper poured a cup from the large copper kettle he kept steaming at the room's open fireplace. He motioned her over to a corner table away from the hubbub of the daytime drinkers, setting the cup down and seating himself as well. He watched her expectantly while she drank.
"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Farrell?" she finally asked.
"Well, Miss Ravenwood, as a matter of fact…" he began hesitantly, "I do hate to bring up something so indelicate in your time of bereavement, but there is the small matter of your bill."
Marion nodded wearily and drained her cup. "Of course, Mr. Farrell, if you'll come with me, I'll take care of it." The money from the sale of the house had dwindled alarmingly over the past few years, despite their attempts at economy, but she calculated that there should be several thousand dollars left, enough to settle accounts with Farrell and get her home to the United States with a small amount left over to get her back on her feet again.
Outside the door to her father's room, Farrell pulled out a giant ring of keys. "I've kept the room locked ever since… the accident. Two days ago."
Marion nodded. Had she been out of it that long? As Farrell unlocked the door and pushed it open, a fresh wave of grief flooded over her. The smell of old dusty books, pipe smoke, and Windsor soap, a combined odor she had always associated with Abner, filled her nostrils. The trunks where he stored his notes and collection of Tanis artifacts stood in the corner. His spare jacket hung neatly on a peg by the bed, and his notebook lay open on the desk, the handwriting trailing out halfway through an entry. She had the haunting feeling that Abner might come walking into the room at any minute.
Ignoring the tightness in her throat, she said, "One moment, Mr. Farrell, and I'll have your money for you."
She checked the pockets of his coat with no success and then began looking through the trunks. She was halfway through her search of the first one when the awful realization hit. Grief must have clouded her thinking to make her forget. In the past year, Abner, justifiably nervous about the possibility of thieves in a rat-hole such as this one, had taken to wearing their cash in a money belt around his waist.
"Oh, my God…" she said and sat down hard on the bed.
"Miss?"
Marion swallowed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Farrell, but all our money is up on the mountain. With my father."
"Under a thousand tons of rock and snow." Something in Farrell's face turned hard. "It seems we have a problem here, Miss Ravenwood."
We? What do you mean we? she wanted to scream at him. Instead she said, "We Americans take care of our own, Mr. Farrell. I'm sure the Consul-"
"There's no American Embassy in Patan," Farrell interrupted. His attitude was no longer deferential.
"But in Lucknow or Chungking-"
"You haven't looked out the window lately, have you? While you were up here dead to the world, the winter snows came. The high passes are all closed. You, along with everyone else in Patan, are going to be here until next spring. So we have not only your current bill to consider, but your room and board for the whole winter as well."
"I'm sure I'll find a way to pay you, Mr. Farrell."
"Not until spring, you won't. And the hard fact is I'm running a business here, not a charitable foundation for foreign ladies of reduced circumstances."
Marion's mouth hardened. "Then I can work for my keep."
"Yes… I suppose you could at that." He sat down on the bed beside her and eyed her up and down in an appraising way which she didn't like at all. "Having a girl about the place might be useful."
"You mean, to serve the drinks and clean up?" she said carefully.
"Mohan and I take care of that end of the business just fine," he told her. "I mean, you could make yourself friendly."
Her eyes hardened. "Friendly…? You mean, to you?"
He laughed. "No, my dear. Mohan and I take care of that just fine as well. I never did fancy the ladies much, not even the pretty, boyish ones like yourself. To put it gently, it was my love for my fellow man that got me thrown out of the army and landed me in this hell hole. What I meant was, having a pretty girl about the place making herself agreeable to the men would bring in enough extra custom to be worth your added expense to me. And anything above that, you can keep for yourself. What do you say?"
If looks could kill, Farrell would have dropped on the spot. "I say you're beneath contempt!" Marion hissed, getting up and taking herself as far away from the man as the small room would permit.
He shrugged. "I won't quarrel with that assessment. You're certainly not the first to say it."
Marion felt herself grow desperate. There must be some way to satisfy this man other than by prostituting herself. She pulled open Abner's second trunk and began to rummage through it.
"Perhaps I could trade you this," she said, holding out a heavy, disk shaped object. It made her heart sick to think of this… creature pawing over the prize piece of her father's collection, but she had no other choice.
"Brass and glass," he said dismissively. "It's worthless to me."
"No, it's not," Marion said, trying to keep the pleading note out of her voice. "It's thousands of years old-Egyptian-it's worth a lot for its historical value alone!"
"To the right man, perhaps. Some sort of collector. I don't see many of that type around here."
Marion felt like flinging the bronze headpiece at Farrell's head. Instead she returned it to the trunk, trying desperately to fight off tears.
Something in Farrell's demeanor seemed to soften slightly. "Look, Miss Ravenwood, I have nothing against you personally. I don't mean to be cruel. But look around you. The people here are poor. We all live life on the edge here, and everyone has to pull his weight. No one in Patan can afford to give you charity. If they did, they'd go under themselves. I'm giving you a chance to survive."
"I'd rather die!" Marion snapped.
"Well, that is the alternative, isn't it?" he observed matter of factly.
"To hell with the snow and to hell with the passes! I'm going to walk out of here. I'll make it by myself-you'll see!"
Farrell just shook his head. "Suit yourself. Some traveler will find what's left of you come spring. Meanwhile, I'll just lock this room again. Who knows? Maybe this stuff will be of some use to me yet. Remember, you're always welcome to come back here if you want. Under my terms, of course."
"You can go straight to hell!" Marion told him.
"Too late, my dear, I'm already there." Farrell laughed bitterly. He took her father's jacket and tossed to her. "Here, take this, you'll need it. You've got guts-I'll give you that much."
Marion tugged on the coat as she stalked downstairs and passed through the bar room without wasting a glance on the men drinking there. Out in the street, a light snow was falling. It didn't seem so bad. The road stretched away to the east, rising up through the mountains to the high pass to China.
As Marion trudged eastward through the village, she took her first real notice of the dire poverty of her surroundings. Farrell had not been exaggerating. Marion had seen similar conditions or worse during her travels with her father, but her reaction to the squalor had always been ameliorated by the knowledge that she was just passing through and could always go home.
As the houses thinned out, Marion, no longer sheltered by walls on either side, could feel a sharp wind coming down out of the mountains and blowing directly into her face. The snow was falling faster now, and she could make out the boundaries of the roadway only by the tall piles of rocks on either side. The road was a wide one, fairly well paved under its two foot blanket of snow. It would have accommodated automobile traffic had there been any cars in the village. No car could have made it through the deep snow in any case. Marion put her head down and pushed on into the teeth of the wind.
About a mile from the outskirts of the village, the grade became steeper and Marion began to encounter huge drifts across the road. The storm came at her with full fury now, slashing at her face with particles of driven snow. Her eyes filled with tears which ran down onto her cheeks and froze. Abner's coat, pulled tightly around her, was totally inadequate against the weather, and even her stout leather hiking boots were having a difficult time finding a purchase in the rapidly deepening snow. She could no longer feel her hands, and the only sensation from her feet was a dull, frozen ache. Halfway up the side of a mammoth drift, she slipped and fell, unable to go on in the waist deep snow. Up ahead was a solid wall of white. Looking back over her shoulder, she was alarmed to discover that she could barely make out the village.
Marion lay in the snow gasping for breath, her heart pounding. She was beaten. It had been madness even to try.
"Oh, damn… damn!" she screamed, her voice lost in the wind off the high peaks.
With a motion that was half rolling, half a floundering swim, she began to extricate herself from the drift. At last, she found a precarious footing. Even with the wind at her back, the trip back to the village was a nightmare. She slogged through snow that clutched at her feet and ankles like molasses, and she was trembling with cold and fatigue by the time she reached the winding streets of Patan.
Clinging to the rough walls of the huts for support, she desperately sought some kind of shelter. At last she ducked into a spot where two walls came together forming a corner. A primitive roof had been put up over the area and an emaciated yak was tethered beneath it. Marion was out of the wind but it was still bitterly cold. She pressed up against the yak, burying her hands in the woolly fur along its bony back. She stayed there until some feeling had returned to her fingers and the worst of her shivering had subsided. The beast regarded her with huge, doleful brown eyes.
A big mongrel dog was tied to the opposite wall with a short rope. At its feet lay its dinner, a few pieces of moldy bread and a bone with a few scraps of meat still clinging to it. Marion's stomach began to rumble. If Farrell was to be believed, it had been over two days since she had last eaten, and she realized that her present state of exhaustion had as much to do with lack of food as her recent exertions in the snow. With a feeling of sick disgust at the depths to which she had sunk, she began to edge stealthily toward the food at the animal's feet. Immediately, the dog leapt to its feet and snapped viciously. Marion shrank back as the dog set up a clamor, growling and barking at the top of its lungs.
A door opened and a woman poked her head out. Seeing Marion cowering in the makeshift stable, her expression turned angry. She began to scream and curse at Marion in an incomprehensible tongue, and she picked up a piece of frozen filth and shied it at Marion with deadly accuracy.
Holding her arms across her face to shield herself Marion ran off down the street. It was all beginning to take on a dreamlike quality. This couldn't be happening to her-she was an American! Sadly, she understood that out here her nationality counted for nothing.
After a while, lightheaded with cold and hunger, she stopped and leaned against a wall. Opening her eyes, she saw that she had reached the far end of the village, and she found herself staring up at the spot on the mountainside where the avalanche had claimed her father. The snow had covered the ugly scar left by the slide, and the area seemed almost compelling and peaceful in its whiteness, like a bed laid out with fresh sheets and a soft blanket. It would be so easy to lie down there and rest…
Why not? she asked herself. What else was left? She had always heard that freezing was an easy death, so very peaceful. Just like going to sleep…
Marion and felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. A big Sherpa she recognized as one of the regulars at the Raven was smiling at her through stained and broken teeth. He had a bottle of some kind of liquor in his hand, which he offered to her companionably. With the other hand, he reached out to stroke her cheek, all the while speaking to her in a leering, cajoling tone. She didn't understand his words, but the meaning was perfectly clear. Word travels fast in a small place, she thought sardonically.
She turned back to the snowy mountain side where her father lay. Well, here's a fine mess you've got me into Abner. Some choice I have! Either I go back to the Raven with this man and sell my body, or I go up on the mountain and lie down to sleep with you.
And then a strange, dark thought, no doubt prompted by her hunger-induced trance, popped into her head. Maybe, Dad, that's what you wanted all along.
She shook her head and laughed bitterly. No, I'm not going to give up and die, she told herself with a defiant strength flowing into her from God knows where. I'm going to do whatever I have to do to survive. And I'll get out of this place and go home, and I'll never think about it again. And I will never let another man use me as long as I live!
Forcing herself to smile, she turned to face the Sherpa, accepting the bottle from his outstretched hand. She drank deeply. Whatever the liquor was, it was only a few drops removed from pure alcohol. It burned her throat all the way down, but at least it warmed her and stilled the pangs of hunger somewhat. Taken on an empty stomach, it went to her head almost immediately, and, like any good anesthetic, it helped. Marion giggled and let the big man put his arm around her and lead her back through the snowy streets to the Raven Bar.
At least he was warm and had a strong arm to lean on. The liquor was really taking hold now making her feel fuzzy headed and deadening her emotions. I can go through with this, she told herself bravely. I'll just close my eyes and pretend it's Indy. It'll be easy!
Back at the Raven, conversation stopped for a beat when Marion and the Sherpa entered. She could feel the eyes on her, hungry and calculating, and it gave her an itchy, uncomfortable feeling, like being covered with cockroaches. She sneaked a glance at Farrell as her big companion propelled her across the room and up the stairs, expecting to see him gloating, but to her amazement, there was no hint of triumph or malice in his face. That was the real horror of it. These men were not being deliberately cruel or brutal towards her. They merely chose to disregard the possibility that there might be any human feelings in this newest object of their pleasure.
The room he took her to was her own room, the one she had awakened in that morning. That was a blessing, really. She could not have endured what was about to happen to her in a room that still smelled of Abner, with his abandoned possessions serving as silent witness to her degradation. No sooner had the door shut then the big Sherpa was all over her, pawing at her breasts with his meaty hands and trying to force his tongue into her mouth. His breath was foul and his hair smelled of stale sweat and rancid oil. Marion had begun to feel sick to her stomach, and she staggered to the bed and fell back onto the pillow, too dizzy from the liquor to remain standing. Her companion, mistaking this for enthusiasm, threw himself down beside her and began tearing at her clothing. His dirty fingernails were ragged and they scratched the tender skin of her belly and inner thighs as he undid her buttons and pulled down her trousers and underwear. Marion squeezed her eyes shut and a single tear cut a hot trail down the side of her face and lay wetly on the pillow next to her earlobe.
One final tug at her clothing and she was naked and exposed to him. He straddled her, breathing hard in the darkness above her and fumbling with the fastenings of his breeches. It was all she could do not to whimper and shrink away from his him as she felt his body descending on to hers.
Think about Indy, she told herself. Think Indy.
He entered her roughly, with no attempt at preliminaries. There was no way, not at all, that she could pretend it was Indy.
The weight of his body crushed her, and he pounded into her roughly, jarring her stomach. She clenched her teeth hard, fighting down waves of nausea as the liquor tried to come back up and her body instinctively sought to vomit out the alien, intruding flesh. In time, she hoped, she would learn the trick of shutting off her mind and taking herself somewhere else at moments like these. But until then, she took refuge and thoughts of the man whose image had not been strong enough to shield her from her present wretchedness.
Oh God, Indy! she thought. Why didn't you come back for me? If you had kept your promise, I would have gone with you. I'd be with you now. Not here, with this happening to me!
Goddammit, Indy, why didn't you come back?
It was then that she began to hate him.
They never spoke of that evening, or of Indiana Jones, again. Marion felt grateful for that. To have had Abner constantly throwing it up to her would have made the hurt much worse. She knew that, rightly or wrongly, her father held her blameless in the matter, and she never once doubted his sincere love for her. The only legacy of that time was that, from then on, Abner seemed to keep a sharper eye on his daughter, and any young man who took too great an interest in her found himself subtly but firmly banished from Professor Ravenwood's inner circle of students. There was no need for this as far as Marion was concerned. Indiana Jones was a lightning that had struck only once. The other young men held little interest for her.
Time passed. Life went on. And the gaping void that Indy's departure had left gradually filled in. Daniel Peterson was awarded the assistant professor's job that would have been Indy's. Abner threw himself into his work. His research concerning the lost city of Tanis and the Ark of the Covenant gradually began to assume more importance in his life until, in 1931, he retired from his teaching post at the University of Chicago to devote himself to his field work full time. The end of Abner's academic career and steady income put an end to Marion's college education part way through, but, as Abner had pointed out, formal schooling had little more to offer her anyway. After her de facto apprenticeship with her father, Marion had been dreadfully bored sitting through undergraduate archeology classes.
The crash of '29 and the resulting Depression had made money tight and grants, especially for project as speculative as Abner's, were impossible to get. Abner sold the house to raise the funds for his proposed digs, not getting anywhere near its true value. Marion felt sorry to see the old Victorian pile go. She had grown up there, and the house held memories, even though there were some that she would have been happier to forget.
From time to time, news of Indy filtered back to them through various acquaintances. He was teaching at some obscure college in Connecticut. He had delivered a paper at a seminar in Paris. He had been seen on a dig in South America… Syria… Honduras… Madagascar… The list went on. But never a word from the man himself. Marion's eighteenth birthday came and went, then her twenty-first. And gradually she had to admit that her father had been right: Indiana Jones was never coming back.
Time had healed the wound, as much as a wound like that could be healed. Whenever she thought of Indy now, it was with a vague sadness for a time of lost innocence, although there was a certain amount of resentment mixed in. Not about the sex part of it. She had long ago decided that if she had to lose her virginity, it was better lost to Indy than to some self-styled teenage Lothario in the backseat of a car. She had seen enough of that kind of disaster in college-boys who treated their conquests like dirt and shot their mouths off about it afterwards or, worse, left them pregnant-and she thanked heaven for small favors.
But Indy had been older and presumably wiser, better versed in matters of the heart. With the reckless optimism of adolescence, Marion had been convinced that their romance would have a happy ending, that even if she and Indy were caught, her father and the rest of society would simply toss out several thousand years worth of rules and morality and grant their approval, persuaded by the magic of her first love. She knew now that she had been an utter fool, dangerously naïve. There was only one possible ending for their affair-misery and heartbreak-and Indy should have known that and been strong enough for both of them. And he should never have made that stupid promise.
And so, Marion had followed her father on his quest to sites all over the face of the Holy Land and the Middle East. Egypt one year, Palestine the next. Then further and further east, watching with helpless disbelief as Abner's obsession consumed and finally destroyed him. Which was how she had come to be in a filthy flea infested inn on the slopes of the Himalayas without a single loved one left to her in the world. They were all gone now-her mother, bled to death in the course of an afternoon; Abner, swallowed up by the earth in the space of time it took her to turn her head; and Indy, just plain… gone. Not coming back. In the words of that goddamned stuffed raven downstairs, nevermore.
Marion knew from bitter experience that no one ever died of a broken heart, no matter how tempting the prospect might seem. There was nothing left for her to do but pick herself up and move on. Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She found her shoes and put them on, methodically knotting the laces. She washed her face at the room's chipped china wash bowl, breaking a thin layer of ice to do so, and rebraided her hair. Still feeling weak in the knees, she made her way downstairs to the bar room.
"Miss Ravenwood! Back among the living, I see," said Farrell from behind the bar as she entered. "Would you care for a cup of tea?"
Marion nodded, and the innkeeper poured a cup from the large copper kettle he kept steaming at the room's open fireplace. He motioned her over to a corner table away from the hubbub of the daytime drinkers, setting the cup down and seating himself as well. He watched her expectantly while she drank.
"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Farrell?" she finally asked.
"Well, Miss Ravenwood, as a matter of fact…" he began hesitantly, "I do hate to bring up something so indelicate in your time of bereavement, but there is the small matter of your bill."
Marion nodded wearily and drained her cup. "Of course, Mr. Farrell, if you'll come with me, I'll take care of it." The money from the sale of the house had dwindled alarmingly over the past few years, despite their attempts at economy, but she calculated that there should be several thousand dollars left, enough to settle accounts with Farrell and get her home to the United States with a small amount left over to get her back on her feet again.
Outside the door to her father's room, Farrell pulled out a giant ring of keys. "I've kept the room locked ever since… the accident. Two days ago."
Marion nodded. Had she been out of it that long? As Farrell unlocked the door and pushed it open, a fresh wave of grief flooded over her. The smell of old dusty books, pipe smoke, and Windsor soap, a combined odor she had always associated with Abner, filled her nostrils. The trunks where he stored his notes and collection of Tanis artifacts stood in the corner. His spare jacket hung neatly on a peg by the bed, and his notebook lay open on the desk, the handwriting trailing out halfway through an entry. She had the haunting feeling that Abner might come walking into the room at any minute.
Ignoring the tightness in her throat, she said, "One moment, Mr. Farrell, and I'll have your money for you."
She checked the pockets of his coat with no success and then began looking through the trunks. She was halfway through her search of the first one when the awful realization hit. Grief must have clouded her thinking to make her forget. In the past year, Abner, justifiably nervous about the possibility of thieves in a rat-hole such as this one, had taken to wearing their cash in a money belt around his waist.
"Oh, my God…" she said and sat down hard on the bed.
"Miss?"
Marion swallowed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Farrell, but all our money is up on the mountain. With my father."
"Under a thousand tons of rock and snow." Something in Farrell's face turned hard. "It seems we have a problem here, Miss Ravenwood."
We? What do you mean we? she wanted to scream at him. Instead she said, "We Americans take care of our own, Mr. Farrell. I'm sure the Consul-"
"There's no American Embassy in Patan," Farrell interrupted. His attitude was no longer deferential.
"But in Lucknow or Chungking-"
"You haven't looked out the window lately, have you? While you were up here dead to the world, the winter snows came. The high passes are all closed. You, along with everyone else in Patan, are going to be here until next spring. So we have not only your current bill to consider, but your room and board for the whole winter as well."
"I'm sure I'll find a way to pay you, Mr. Farrell."
"Not until spring, you won't. And the hard fact is I'm running a business here, not a charitable foundation for foreign ladies of reduced circumstances."
Marion's mouth hardened. "Then I can work for my keep."
"Yes… I suppose you could at that." He sat down on the bed beside her and eyed her up and down in an appraising way which she didn't like at all. "Having a girl about the place might be useful."
"You mean, to serve the drinks and clean up?" she said carefully.
"Mohan and I take care of that end of the business just fine," he told her. "I mean, you could make yourself friendly."
Her eyes hardened. "Friendly…? You mean, to you?"
He laughed. "No, my dear. Mohan and I take care of that just fine as well. I never did fancy the ladies much, not even the pretty, boyish ones like yourself. To put it gently, it was my love for my fellow man that got me thrown out of the army and landed me in this hell hole. What I meant was, having a pretty girl about the place making herself agreeable to the men would bring in enough extra custom to be worth your added expense to me. And anything above that, you can keep for yourself. What do you say?"
If looks could kill, Farrell would have dropped on the spot. "I say you're beneath contempt!" Marion hissed, getting up and taking herself as far away from the man as the small room would permit.
He shrugged. "I won't quarrel with that assessment. You're certainly not the first to say it."
Marion felt herself grow desperate. There must be some way to satisfy this man other than by prostituting herself. She pulled open Abner's second trunk and began to rummage through it.
"Perhaps I could trade you this," she said, holding out a heavy, disk shaped object. It made her heart sick to think of this… creature pawing over the prize piece of her father's collection, but she had no other choice.
"Brass and glass," he said dismissively. "It's worthless to me."
"No, it's not," Marion said, trying to keep the pleading note out of her voice. "It's thousands of years old-Egyptian-it's worth a lot for its historical value alone!"
"To the right man, perhaps. Some sort of collector. I don't see many of that type around here."
Marion felt like flinging the bronze headpiece at Farrell's head. Instead she returned it to the trunk, trying desperately to fight off tears.
Something in Farrell's demeanor seemed to soften slightly. "Look, Miss Ravenwood, I have nothing against you personally. I don't mean to be cruel. But look around you. The people here are poor. We all live life on the edge here, and everyone has to pull his weight. No one in Patan can afford to give you charity. If they did, they'd go under themselves. I'm giving you a chance to survive."
"I'd rather die!" Marion snapped.
"Well, that is the alternative, isn't it?" he observed matter of factly.
"To hell with the snow and to hell with the passes! I'm going to walk out of here. I'll make it by myself-you'll see!"
Farrell just shook his head. "Suit yourself. Some traveler will find what's left of you come spring. Meanwhile, I'll just lock this room again. Who knows? Maybe this stuff will be of some use to me yet. Remember, you're always welcome to come back here if you want. Under my terms, of course."
"You can go straight to hell!" Marion told him.
"Too late, my dear, I'm already there." Farrell laughed bitterly. He took her father's jacket and tossed to her. "Here, take this, you'll need it. You've got guts-I'll give you that much."
Marion tugged on the coat as she stalked downstairs and passed through the bar room without wasting a glance on the men drinking there. Out in the street, a light snow was falling. It didn't seem so bad. The road stretched away to the east, rising up through the mountains to the high pass to China.
As Marion trudged eastward through the village, she took her first real notice of the dire poverty of her surroundings. Farrell had not been exaggerating. Marion had seen similar conditions or worse during her travels with her father, but her reaction to the squalor had always been ameliorated by the knowledge that she was just passing through and could always go home.
As the houses thinned out, Marion, no longer sheltered by walls on either side, could feel a sharp wind coming down out of the mountains and blowing directly into her face. The snow was falling faster now, and she could make out the boundaries of the roadway only by the tall piles of rocks on either side. The road was a wide one, fairly well paved under its two foot blanket of snow. It would have accommodated automobile traffic had there been any cars in the village. No car could have made it through the deep snow in any case. Marion put her head down and pushed on into the teeth of the wind.
About a mile from the outskirts of the village, the grade became steeper and Marion began to encounter huge drifts across the road. The storm came at her with full fury now, slashing at her face with particles of driven snow. Her eyes filled with tears which ran down onto her cheeks and froze. Abner's coat, pulled tightly around her, was totally inadequate against the weather, and even her stout leather hiking boots were having a difficult time finding a purchase in the rapidly deepening snow. She could no longer feel her hands, and the only sensation from her feet was a dull, frozen ache. Halfway up the side of a mammoth drift, she slipped and fell, unable to go on in the waist deep snow. Up ahead was a solid wall of white. Looking back over her shoulder, she was alarmed to discover that she could barely make out the village.
Marion lay in the snow gasping for breath, her heart pounding. She was beaten. It had been madness even to try.
"Oh, damn… damn!" she screamed, her voice lost in the wind off the high peaks.
With a motion that was half rolling, half a floundering swim, she began to extricate herself from the drift. At last, she found a precarious footing. Even with the wind at her back, the trip back to the village was a nightmare. She slogged through snow that clutched at her feet and ankles like molasses, and she was trembling with cold and fatigue by the time she reached the winding streets of Patan.
Clinging to the rough walls of the huts for support, she desperately sought some kind of shelter. At last she ducked into a spot where two walls came together forming a corner. A primitive roof had been put up over the area and an emaciated yak was tethered beneath it. Marion was out of the wind but it was still bitterly cold. She pressed up against the yak, burying her hands in the woolly fur along its bony back. She stayed there until some feeling had returned to her fingers and the worst of her shivering had subsided. The beast regarded her with huge, doleful brown eyes.
A big mongrel dog was tied to the opposite wall with a short rope. At its feet lay its dinner, a few pieces of moldy bread and a bone with a few scraps of meat still clinging to it. Marion's stomach began to rumble. If Farrell was to be believed, it had been over two days since she had last eaten, and she realized that her present state of exhaustion had as much to do with lack of food as her recent exertions in the snow. With a feeling of sick disgust at the depths to which she had sunk, she began to edge stealthily toward the food at the animal's feet. Immediately, the dog leapt to its feet and snapped viciously. Marion shrank back as the dog set up a clamor, growling and barking at the top of its lungs.
A door opened and a woman poked her head out. Seeing Marion cowering in the makeshift stable, her expression turned angry. She began to scream and curse at Marion in an incomprehensible tongue, and she picked up a piece of frozen filth and shied it at Marion with deadly accuracy.
Holding her arms across her face to shield herself Marion ran off down the street. It was all beginning to take on a dreamlike quality. This couldn't be happening to her-she was an American! Sadly, she understood that out here her nationality counted for nothing.
After a while, lightheaded with cold and hunger, she stopped and leaned against a wall. Opening her eyes, she saw that she had reached the far end of the village, and she found herself staring up at the spot on the mountainside where the avalanche had claimed her father. The snow had covered the ugly scar left by the slide, and the area seemed almost compelling and peaceful in its whiteness, like a bed laid out with fresh sheets and a soft blanket. It would be so easy to lie down there and rest…
Why not? she asked herself. What else was left? She had always heard that freezing was an easy death, so very peaceful. Just like going to sleep…
Marion and felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. A big Sherpa she recognized as one of the regulars at the Raven was smiling at her through stained and broken teeth. He had a bottle of some kind of liquor in his hand, which he offered to her companionably. With the other hand, he reached out to stroke her cheek, all the while speaking to her in a leering, cajoling tone. She didn't understand his words, but the meaning was perfectly clear. Word travels fast in a small place, she thought sardonically.
She turned back to the snowy mountain side where her father lay. Well, here's a fine mess you've got me into Abner. Some choice I have! Either I go back to the Raven with this man and sell my body, or I go up on the mountain and lie down to sleep with you.
And then a strange, dark thought, no doubt prompted by her hunger-induced trance, popped into her head. Maybe, Dad, that's what you wanted all along.
She shook her head and laughed bitterly. No, I'm not going to give up and die, she told herself with a defiant strength flowing into her from God knows where. I'm going to do whatever I have to do to survive. And I'll get out of this place and go home, and I'll never think about it again. And I will never let another man use me as long as I live!
Forcing herself to smile, she turned to face the Sherpa, accepting the bottle from his outstretched hand. She drank deeply. Whatever the liquor was, it was only a few drops removed from pure alcohol. It burned her throat all the way down, but at least it warmed her and stilled the pangs of hunger somewhat. Taken on an empty stomach, it went to her head almost immediately, and, like any good anesthetic, it helped. Marion giggled and let the big man put his arm around her and lead her back through the snowy streets to the Raven Bar.
At least he was warm and had a strong arm to lean on. The liquor was really taking hold now making her feel fuzzy headed and deadening her emotions. I can go through with this, she told herself bravely. I'll just close my eyes and pretend it's Indy. It'll be easy!
Back at the Raven, conversation stopped for a beat when Marion and the Sherpa entered. She could feel the eyes on her, hungry and calculating, and it gave her an itchy, uncomfortable feeling, like being covered with cockroaches. She sneaked a glance at Farrell as her big companion propelled her across the room and up the stairs, expecting to see him gloating, but to her amazement, there was no hint of triumph or malice in his face. That was the real horror of it. These men were not being deliberately cruel or brutal towards her. They merely chose to disregard the possibility that there might be any human feelings in this newest object of their pleasure.
The room he took her to was her own room, the one she had awakened in that morning. That was a blessing, really. She could not have endured what was about to happen to her in a room that still smelled of Abner, with his abandoned possessions serving as silent witness to her degradation. No sooner had the door shut then the big Sherpa was all over her, pawing at her breasts with his meaty hands and trying to force his tongue into her mouth. His breath was foul and his hair smelled of stale sweat and rancid oil. Marion had begun to feel sick to her stomach, and she staggered to the bed and fell back onto the pillow, too dizzy from the liquor to remain standing. Her companion, mistaking this for enthusiasm, threw himself down beside her and began tearing at her clothing. His dirty fingernails were ragged and they scratched the tender skin of her belly and inner thighs as he undid her buttons and pulled down her trousers and underwear. Marion squeezed her eyes shut and a single tear cut a hot trail down the side of her face and lay wetly on the pillow next to her earlobe.
One final tug at her clothing and she was naked and exposed to him. He straddled her, breathing hard in the darkness above her and fumbling with the fastenings of his breeches. It was all she could do not to whimper and shrink away from his him as she felt his body descending on to hers.
Think about Indy, she told herself. Think Indy.
He entered her roughly, with no attempt at preliminaries. There was no way, not at all, that she could pretend it was Indy.
The weight of his body crushed her, and he pounded into her roughly, jarring her stomach. She clenched her teeth hard, fighting down waves of nausea as the liquor tried to come back up and her body instinctively sought to vomit out the alien, intruding flesh. In time, she hoped, she would learn the trick of shutting off her mind and taking herself somewhere else at moments like these. But until then, she took refuge and thoughts of the man whose image had not been strong enough to shield her from her present wretchedness.
Oh God, Indy! she thought. Why didn't you come back for me? If you had kept your promise, I would have gone with you. I'd be with you now. Not here, with this happening to me!
Goddammit, Indy, why didn't you come back?
It was then that she began to hate him.