He shook his head at Chahda. Not yet. He motioned to Scotty and together they examined the stairs, which ran down the outside of the framing. Scotty gestured toward the boxes stacked at one corner of the house. They examined them. The boxes were full of a special kind of sea shell used commercially in the Philippines. They were fairly heavy.
Working together, they piled a few boxes on the stairs. Anyone not watching his footing might fall over them.
Then Scotty motioned to a stack of bamboo poles just outside the house pilings. He whispered, "You help Chahda. I'll use one of these." He selected a long one about two inches in diameter and held it in both hands like a lance. With Scotty standing beside the stairs, the pole would reach almost through the door of the hut.
Scotty nodded. Rick stepped to a position beside Chahda and nodded.
Chahda flexed his muscles, wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle of his bolo, spread his feet and swung.
The steel blade hit the bamboo floor and sliced through, flying in a great arc.
There were yells from the men upstairs. Chahda swung again as running feet made the floor vibrate. Scotty gave a wild yell and charged like a knight attacking an enemy. The bamboo pole caught Nast in the stomach and drove him back into the hut.
The box containing the skull slid and caught.
Chahda swung again, in desperation, and the box dropped through! Rick caught it, and the weight would have driven him to the ground had not Chahda given a hand.
They rushed the box to its prearranged hiding place, then Rick gave a piercing whistle. They ran, all three of them, in three different directions.
Chahda headed for the jeep. He ran quietly. Scotty headed south, yelling as he went; Rick ran north, giving an occasional bellow. That was to draw the pursuit away from Chahda, so he could get to the jeep undisturbed.
The pursuit had organized, apparently, because both Nast and Lazada were barking orders. Rick kept yelling, but he was now in the brush. Scotty was yelling, too.
Rick pushed his way through the brush and emerged on the bank of a river or estuary of some kind. Beyond, on the opposite bank, were rows of wooden forms that marked the outline of salt pans. Water was let into the square pools in the early morning, and by nightfall it had evaporated, leaving its salt behind.