"_N-73 Clear!_"
"You fly, of course?" demanded Governor Drake.
Smithy nodded. "Unlimited license--all levels."
They had spent the night in the executive mansion, and now the
Governor had burst precipitately into the room where Smithy and his
father had just finished dressing. The two had been deep in an earnest
conversation which the Governor's entrance had interrupted.
"I am drafting you for service," said the Governor. "I want you to go
out to Field Number Three. A fast scout plane--National Guard
equipment--will be ready for you--"
He broke off and stared doubtfully at a paper in his hand, a
radiophone message, Smithy judged. "I'm in a devil of a fix," the
Governor exclaimed, after a pause. Then:
"I don't doubt your sincerity," he told Smithy. "Never saw you till
yesterday, but your father's 'O.K.' goes a hundred per cent with me.
Old 'J. G.' and I have been through a lot of scraps together." His
frowning eyes relaxed for a moment to exchange twinkling glances with
the older man.
"No, it isn't that," he added, "but...." Again he stared at the flimsy
piece of paper.
"What's on your mind, Bill?" asked Smith senior. "That stuff the boy
told us was pretty wild"--he laid one hand affectionately upon
Smithy's shoulder--"but he's a poor liar, Gordon is, and, knowing his
weakness, he usually sticks to the truth. And there's no record of
insanity in the family, you know. If there's something sticking in
your crop, Bill, cough it up."
And the Honorable William B. Drake obeyed. "Listen to this," he
commanded, and read from the paper in his hand:
"'Replying to your inquiry about the doings at Seven Palms.
Some Indians did that job. No help needed. I can handle
this. Posse organized and we are leaving right now.--Signed,
Jack Downer, Sheriff, Cocos County.'"
"That sounds authentic," said Smithy drily. "I've met the sheriff."
"Now, if it _was_ Indians that got tanked up and came down off the
reservation, burned Seven Palms and cleaned up your camp--" began
Governor Drake.
"It wasn't!" Smithy interrupted hotly. "I told you--" He felt his
father's hand gripping firmly at his shoulder.
"Steady," said Smith, senior. "Let him talk, son."
"There's an election three months from now, J. G.," said the
Governor, "and you know they're riding me hard. Let me make one false
move--just one--anything that the opposition can use for a campaign of
ridicule, and my goose is cooked to a turn."
* * * * *
Gordon Smith shook off his father's restraining hand and took one
quick forward step. His face, even through the tan of the desert sun,
was unnaturally pale.
"Election be dammed!" he exploded. "Dean Rawson has been captured by
those red devils--he's down there, the whitest white man I ever met!
I've been to the sheriff; now I've come to you! Do you mean to tell me
there isn't any power in this state to back me up when--"
He stopped. There was a tremble in his voice he could not control.
"Good boy," said Governor Drake softly. "Now I know it's the truth.
Yes, you'll be backed up, plenty, but for the present it will be
strictly unofficial. Now pull in your horns and listen.
"You know the lay of the land. I want your help. Go out to Field
Three; there'll be a man there waiting for you. Don't call him
'Colonel'--he's also strictly unofficial to-day. The sheriff and his
posse will be there at Seven Palms inside an hour; I want you to be
there, too, about five thousand feet up.
"Tell Colonel Culver--I mean Mr. Culver--your story; tell him
everything you know. He'll be in charge of operations if we have to
send in troops; he'll give you that private and unofficial backing I
spoke of if we don't.
"Now get down there; keep your eye on the sheriff's crowd and see
everything that happens!"
But Smithy's parting remark was to his father; it was a continuation
of the subject they had been discussing before.
"You can buy at your own price," he said. "They've got rights to the
whole basin. But they've quit; I'm not treating them to a
double-cross."
And he added as he went out of the room: "Buy it for me if you don't
want it yourself."
* * * * *
It was a two-place, open-cockpit plane that Smithy found had been set
aside for him. Dual control--the stick in the forward cockpit carried
the firing grip that controlled the slim blue machine guns firing
through the propeller. Behind the rear cockpit a strange, unwieldy,
double-ended weapon was recessed and streamlined into the fuselage.
The scout seemed quite able to protect itself in an emergency.
Beside the plane a tall, slender man in civilian attire was waiting.
He stuck out his hand, while the gray eyes in his lean, tanned face
scanned Smithy swiftly.
"I'm Culver. Understand I'm to be your passenger to-day. How about
it--can you fly the ship? Seven hundred and fifty DeGrosse
motor--retractable landing gear, of course. She hits four-fifty at top
speed--snappy--quick on the trigger."
Smithy shook his head dubiously. "Four-fifty--I'm not accustomed to
that. But you can take the stick, Mr. Culver, if I get in a hurry and
jump out and run on ahead. You see I'm used to my own ship, an
_Assegai_--special job--does five hundred when I'm pressed for time."
The lean face of Mr. Culver creased into a smile. "You qualify," he
said. "But keep your hands off the dead mule."
At an inquiring glance he pointed to the heavy, half-hidden weapon
that Smithy had noticed. "Can't kick," he explained, "--hence 'dead
mule.' It's the new Rickert recoilless; throws little shells the size
of your thumb--but they raise hell when they hit."
"Sounds interesting." Smithy climbed into the rear cockpit and
strapped himself in. "Show me how it works, then I won't do it."
* * * * *
A pistol grip moved under Culver's reaching hand and the strange
weapon sprang from concealment like something alive. The pistol grip
moved sideways, and the gun swung out and down, its muzzle almost
touching the ground. Smithy was suddenly aware that a crystal above
his instrument board was reflecting that same bit of sun-baked earth.
A dot of black hung stationary at the crystal's center.
"That's your target." Culver's voice held all the pride of a child
with a new toy, but he released the grip, and the ungainly gun swung
smoothly back to its hiding place.
He settled himself in the forward cockpit. "You will find a helmet
there," he said. "It's phone-equipped; you can tell me all about that
wild nightmare of yours while we jog along."
The white beam from the despatcher's tower had been on them while they
talked. Other planes were waiting on the field. Smithy smiled as he
settled the helmet over his head. "For a strictly unofficial flight,"
he thought, "we're getting darned good service."
He taxied past a hangar where uniformed men pointedly paid them no
attention. He swung the ship to the line as Airboard regulations
required.
"N-73" was painted on the monoplane's low wings that seemed scraping
the ground. "N-73 Clear!" the despatcher's voice radioed into Smithy's
ears. Then the seven-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower DeGrosse let loose
its voice as Smithy gunned her down the field.
* * * * *
Whatever doubts Colonel Culver may have had of Smithy's ability were
dissipated as they made their way cautiously through the free-flying
area under five thousand. Everywhere were mail planes, express and
passenger ships taking off for the transcontinental day run, and
private planes scattering to the smaller landing areas among the
flashing lights of the flat-topped business blocks. Among them Smithy
threaded his way toward the green-lighted transfer zone, where he
spiraled upward.
At ten thousand he was on his course. He set the gyro-control which
would fly the ship more surely than any human hands, and the air-speed
indicator crept up to the four hundred and fifty miles an hour that
Culver had promised. Not till then did he give the man in the forward
cockpit the details of his "nightmare."
He had not finished answering the other's incredulous questions when
he throttled down to slow cruising speed and nosed the ship toward a
distant expanse of sage-blurred sand.
Outside the restricted metropolitan area he had already dropped out of
the chill wind that struck them at ten thousand. Behind them and off
to the right was the gray rampart of the Sierra. Ahead a rough circle
of darker hills enclosed the great bowl he had learned to know as
Tonah Basin.
* * * * *
Some feeling of unreality in his own experiences must have crept into
his mind; unconsciously he had been questioning his own sanity. Now,
at sight of the sandy waste where he and Rawson had labored, with the
dark slopes of desolate craters looming ahead and a blot of burned
wreckage directly below to mark the site of their camp, the horrible
reality of it gripped him again.
He could not speak at first. The air of the five-thousand level was
not uncomfortably warm, but Smithy was feeling again the baking heat
of that desert land; again he was with Rawson in the volcanic crater;
Dean was calling to him, warning him....
A sharp question from Culver was repeated twice before Smithy could
reply.
He side-slipped in above the crater's ragged rim, heedless of
down-drafts--the power of the DeGrosse motor would pull them out of
anything in a ten-thousand-foot vertical climb if need arose. Smithy
was pointing toward a confusion of shining black rock.
"Over there," he told Culver. Then he was shouting into the telephone
transmitter. "It's open," he said. "That's where Dean went down--and
there they are! Look, man, there--there!"