The Thunder Bird Page 10

  CHAPTER TEN

  LOCHINVAR UP TO DATE

  In the Tucson calf pasture adjoining the shed now vested with thedignity of a hangar, the Thunder Bird came to a gentle stand. Blandslid limply down and leaned against the plane, looking rather sick.Mary V pushed up her goggles and looked around curiously, for oncefinding nothing to say. Johnny unfastened his safety belt andstraddled out.

  He had done it--the crazy thing he had been tempted to do. That is, hehad done so much of it. Unconsciously he repeated to Mary V what hehad said to Bland down in the Indiana corn patch.

  "Well, here we are."

  Mary V unfastened herself from the seat, twisted around and stared atJohnny, still finding nothing to say. A strange experience for Mary V,I assure you.

  "Well," said Johnny again, "here we are." His eyes met Mary V's with acertain shyness, a wistfulness and a daring quite unusual. "Get out.I'll help you down."

  "Get--out?" Mary V caught her breath. "But we must go back, Johnny!I--I never meant for you to bring me away up here. Why, I only meant alittle ride--"

  "Now we're here," said Johnny, "we might as well go on with it--getmarried. That," he blurted desperately, "is why I brought you overhere. We'll get married, Mary V, and stop all this fussing about whenand how and all that. When it's done it'll be done, and I can go aheadthe way I've planned, and have the worry off my mind. There's time yetto get a license if we hurry."

  Bland muttered something under his breath and went away to the calfshed and reclined against it disgustedly, too sick from the exhaust inhis face all the way to speak his mind.

  "But Johnny!" Mary V was gasping. "Why, I'm not ready or anything!"

  "You can get ready afterwards. There's just one thing I ought to tellyou, Mary V. If you do marry me, you can't take anything from yourdad. I can't buy you a new automobile for a while yet, but I'll do thebest I can. The point is, your dad is not going to support you or do athing for you. If you're willing to get along for a while on what Ican earn, all right. I guess you won't starve, at that."

  "Well, but you said you wouldn't get married, Johnny, until you'dpaid--"

  "I changed my mind. The best way is to settle the marrying part now.I'll do the paying fast enough. Are you coming?"

  Mary V climbed meekly out and permitted her abductor to lift her to theground, and to kiss her twice before he let her go. Events were movingso swiftly that Mary V was a bit dazed, and she did not argue thepoint, even when she remembered that a white middy suit was not heridea of the way a bride should be dressed. The very boldness ofJohnny's proposition, its reckless disregard of the future, swept heralong with him down the sandy side street which already held curiousstragglers coming to see what new sensation the airplane could furnish.These they passed without speaking, hurrying along, with Bland, like afootsore dog, trailing dejectedly after.

  They passed the hotel and made straight for the county clerk's office,too absorbed in their mission to observe that their passing had broughtthe three newspaper men from the hotel lobby. Bland fell into stepwith one of these and gave the news. The three scented a good storyand hastened their steps.

  In the county clerk's office were two strangers who glancedsignificantly at each other when Johnny entered the room with Mary Vclose behind him and with Bland and the three reporters following likea bodyguard.

  "Here they are," said a short, fat man whom Mary V recognized vaguelyas the sheriff. He gave a little, satisfied, nickering kind ofchuckle, and the sound of it irritated Johnny exceedingly. "Old man'sa good guesser--or else he knows these young ones pretty well. Ha-ha.Well, son, you can get any kind of license here yuh want, except amarriage license." Place a chuckle at the end of every sentence, andyou will wonder with me what held Johnny Jewel from doing murder.

  "And who the heck are you?" Johnny inquired with a deadly sort of calm."You ain't half as funny as you look. Get out." With a jab of hiselbow he pushed the sheriff and his chuckle away, guessing that the manwith an indoor complexion and a pen behind his ear was the clerk. Himhe addressed with businesslike bluntness. He wanted a marriagelicense, and he could see no reason why he should not have it. The manwith the chuckle he chose to ignore, instinct telling him that hastewas needful.

  The clerk was a slow man who deliberated upon each sentence, eachsignature. Eager prospective bridegrooms could neither hurry him norflurry him. He took the pen from behind his ear as a small concessionto Johnny's demand, but he made no motion toward using it.

  "Are you sure this is the couple?" he cautiously inquired of thesheriff.

  "Sure, I am. I knew this kid of Selmer's--have known her by sight eversince she could walk. It's the couple, all right. The girl's eighteenon the twenty-fourth day of next January, at five o'clock in themorning. If you like, Robbins, I'll call up Selmer. I guess I'dbetter, anyway. He may want to talk to these kids himself."

  The clerk put his pen behind his ear again and turned apologetically toJohnny. "We'd better wait," he said mildly. "If the young lady's ageis questioned, I have no right--" He waved his hand vaguely.

  "You bet it's questioned," chuckled the sheriff. "Her dad 'phoned theoffice and told us to watch out for 'em. Made their getaway in thatflying machine there's been such a hullabaloo about. He had a hunchthey'd make for here." He turned to Johnny with a grin. "Pretty cute,young man--but the old man's cuter. Every town within flying distancehas been notified to look out for you and stop you. Your wings," headded, "is clipped."

  Johnny opened his mouth for bitter retort, but thought better of it.Nothing could be gained by arguing with the law. He whirled instead onBland and the three reporters, standing just within the open door.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded hotly. "Who asked youto tag around after me? Get out!" Whereupon he bundled Bland outwithout ceremony or gentleness, and the three scribes with him; slammedthe door shut and turned the key which the clerk had left in the lock."Now," he stated truculently, "I want that marriage license and I wantit quick!"

  The sheriff was humped over the telephone waiting for his connection.He cocked an eye toward Johnny, looked at his colleague, and jerked hishead sidewise. The man immediately stepped up alongside the irate oneand tapped him on the arm.

  "No rough stuff, see. We can arrest--"

  "Don't you _dare_ arrest Johnny!" Mary Y cried indignantly. "What hashe done, for gracious sake? Is it a crime for people to get married?Johnny and I have been engaged for a long, long while. A month, atleast!--and dad knows it, and has thought it was perfectly all right.I told him just this afternoon that I intended to marry Johnny. He hasno right to tell everybody in the country that I am not old enough.Why didn't he tell me, if he thought I should wait until after mybirthday?"

  "If that's my father you're talking to," she attacked the sheriff whowas attempting to carry on a conversation and listen to Mary V also,"I'd just like to say a few things to him myself!"

  The sheriff waved her off and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Your girl,here, says she wants to say a few things . . . What's that? . . . Oh.All right, Mr. Selmer, you're the doctor."

  He turned to Mary V with that exasperating chuckle of his. "Yourfather says he'd rather not talk to you. He says you can't getmarried, because you're under age, and you can't marry without hisconsent. So if I was you I'd just wait like a good girl and not makeany trouble. Your father is coming after you, and in the meantime I'lltake charge of you myself."

  "You will like hell," gritted Johnny, and hit the sheriff on the jaw,sending him full tilt against the clerk, who fell over a chair so thatthe two sprawled on the floor.

  For that, the third man, who was a deputy sheriff as it happened,grappled with Johnny from behind, and slipped a pair of handcuffs onhis wrists. The deadly finality of the smooth steel against his skinfroze Johnny into a semblance of calm. He stood white and very stilluntil the deputy took him away down a corridor into another buildingand up a steep flight of dirty stairs to a barren, sweltering l
ittleroom under the roof.

  Baffled, stunned with the humiliation of his plight, he had not evenspoken a good-by to Mary V, who had looked upon him strangely when hestood manacled before her.

  "Now you've made a nice mess of things!" she had exclaimed, halfcrying. And Johnny had inwardly agreed with her more sweepingly thanMary V suspected. A nice mess he had made of things, truly!Everything was a muddle, and like the fool he was, he went right onmuddling things worse. Even Mary V could see it, he told himselfbitterly, and forgot that Mary V had said other things,--tender,pitying things,--before they had led him away from her.

  He had no delusions regarding the seriousness of his plight.Assaulting an officer was a madness he should have avoided above allelse, and because he had yielded to that madness he expected to paymore dearly than he was paying old Sudden for his folly of the earlysummer. It seemed to him that the rest of his life would be spent inpaying for his own blunders. It was like a nightmare that held himstruggling futilely to attain some vital object; for how could he everhope to achieve great things if he were forever atoning for pastmistakes?

  Now, instead of earning money wherewith to pay his debt to Sudden, hewould be sweltering indefinitely in jail. And when they did finallyturn him loose, Mary V would be ashamed of her jailbird sweetheart, andhis airplane would be--where?

  He thought of Bland, having things his own way with the plane.Dissipated, dishonest, with an instinct for petty graft--Johnny wouldbe helpless, caged there under the roof of their jail while Bland madefree with his property. It did not occur to him that that he couldcall the law to his aid and have the airplane stored safe from Bland'spilfering fingers. That little gleam of brightness could not penetratehis gloom; for, once Johnny's indomitable optimism failed him, he felldeep indeed into the black pit of despair.

  Strangely, the failure of his impromptu elopement troubled him theleast of all. It had been a crazy idea, born of Mary V's presence inthe airplane and his angry impulse to spite old Sudden. He had knownall along that it was a crazy idea, and that it was likely to breedcomplications and jeopardize his dearest ambition, though he had neverdreamed just what form the complications would take. Even when helanded it was mostly his stubbornness that had sent him on after themarriage license. He simply would not consider taking Mary V back tothe ranch. It was much easier for him to face the future with a wifeand ten dollars and a mortgaged airplane than to face Sudden'simpassive face and maddening sarcasm.

  Darkness settled muggily upon him, but he did not move from the cotwhere he had flung himself when the door closed behind his jailer. Hestill felt the smooth hardness of the handcuffs, though they had beenremoved before he was left there alone.

  He did not sleep that night. He lay face down and thought and thought,until his brain whirled, and his emotions dulled to an apathetichopelessness. That he was tired with a long day's unpleasantoccurrences failed to bring forgetfulness of his plight. Until themorning crept grayly in through his barred window he lay awake, andthen slid swiftly down into slumber so deep that it held no dreams tosoothe or to torment with their semblance of reality.

  Two hours later the jailer tried to shake him awake so that he couldhave his breakfast and the morning paper, but Johnny swore incoherentlyand turned over with his face to the wall.