Skyrider Page 4

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A THING THAT SETS LIKE A HAWK

  Six days are not many when they are lived with companions and thenumberless details of one's everyday occupation. They may seem a month ifyou pass them in jail, or in waiting for some great event,--or atSinkhole Camp, down near the Border.

  Three days of the six Johnny spent in familiarizing himself with the twoor three detached horse herds that watered along the meager little streamthat sunk finally under a ledge and was seen no more in Arizona. Hecounted the horses as best he could while they loitered at their wateringplaces, and he noticed where they fed habitually--also that they rangedfar and usually came in to water in the late afternoon or closer to dusk,when the yellow-jackets that swarmed along the muddy banks of the streamdid not worry them so much, nor the flies that were a torment.

  He reported by telephone to his employer, who seemed relieved to knowthat everything was so quiet and untroubled down at that end of hisrange. And once, quite inadvertently, he reported to Mary V; or was goingto, when he recognized a feminine note in the masculine gruffness thatspoke over the wire. And when she found he had discovered her:

  "Oh, Johnny! I've thought of another verse!" she began animatedly.

  Johnny hung up, and although the telephone rang twice after that he wouldnot answer. It seemed to him that Mary V had very little to do, harpingaway still at that subject. He had been secretly a bit homesick for theranch, but now he thanked heaven, emphatically enough to make up for anylack of sincerity, that he was where he was.

  He got out his aviation circulars again and went over them one by one,though he could almost repeat them with his eyes' shut. He tried to dreamof future greatness, but instead he could only feel depressed andhopeless. It would take a long, long time to save enough money to learnthe game. And the earning was dreary work at best. The little adobe cabinbecame straightway a squalid prison, the monotonous waste around him avoid that spread like a great, impassable gulf between himself and thedreams he dreamed. He wished, fervently and profanely, that the greaserswould try to steal some horses, so that he could be doing something.

  People thought the Border was a tumultuous belt of violence drawn fromCoast to Gulf, he meditated morosely. They ought to camp at Sinkhole forawhile. Why, he could ride in an hour or two to Mexico--and see nothingmore than he could see from the door of his cabin. He wished he could seesomething. A fight--anything that had action in it. But the revolution,boiling intermittently over there, did not so much as float a wisp ofsteam in his direction.

  He wished that he had not "hung up" on Mary V before he had told her afew things. He couldn't see why she didn't leave him alone. The Lordknew he was willing to leave _her_ alone.

  A few days more of that he had before he saw a living soul. Then aMexican youth came wandering in on a scrawny pony that seemed to have itsheart set on drinking the creek dry, before his rider could drink it all.Johnny watched the boy lie down on the flat of his lean stomach with hisface to the sluggish stream, and drink as if he, too, were trying tocheat the pony. Together they lifted their heads and looked at Johnny.The Mexican boy smiled, white-toothed, while deep pools of eyes regardedJohnny soberly.

  "She's damn hot to-day, senor," he said. "Thank you for the so good waterto drink."

  "That's all right. Help yourself," Johnny said languidly. "Had yourdinner?"

  "Not this day. I'm come from Tucker Bly, his rancho. I ride to see ifhorses feed quiet."

  "Well, come in and eat. I cooked some peaches this morning."

  The youth went eagerly, his somewhat stilted English easing off into amixture of good American slang and the Mexican dialect spoken by peonsand some a grade higher up the ladder. He was not more than seventeen,and while Johnny recalled his instructions to put any greaser on the run,he took the liberty of interpreting those instructions to please himself.This kid was harmless enough. He talked the range gossip that proved toJohnny's satisfaction that he was what he professed to be--a young riderfor Tucker Bly, who owned the "Forty-Seven" brand that ranged just eastof the Rolling R. Johnny had never seen this Tomaso--plain Tom, he calledhim presently--but he knew Tucker Bly; and a few leading questions servedto set at rest any incipient suspicions Johnny may have had.

  They were doing the same work, he and Tomaso. The only difference wasthat Johnny camped alone, and Tomaso rode out from the Forty-Seven ranchevery day, taking whatever direction Tucker Bly might choose for him. Butthe freemasonry of the range land held Johnny to the feeling that therewas a common bond between them, in spite of Tomaso's swarthy skin.Besides, he was lonely. His tongue loosened while Tomaso ate and praisedJohnny's cookery with the innate flattery of his race.

  "Wha's that pic'shur? What you call that thing?" Tomaso pointed aslender, brown finger at a circular heading, whereon a pink aeroplane dida "nose dive" toward the date line through voluted blue clouds.

  "That? Say! Didn't you ever see a flying machine?" Johnny stared at himpityingly.

  Tomaso shook his head vaguely. "Me, I'm never saw one of them things. Mybrother, he's tell me. He knows the spot where there's one fell down. Mybrother, he says she's awful bad luck, them thing. This-a one, she's fell'cross the line. She's set there like a big hawk, my brother says. Nobodywants. She's bad luck."

  "Bad luck nothing." Johnny's eyes had widened a bit. "What you mean, onefell across the line? You don't mean--say what 'n thunder _do_ yuh mean?Where's there a flying machine setting like a hawk?"

  Tomaso waved a brown hand comprehensively from east to west."Somewhere--me, I dunno. My brother, he's know. He's saw it set there.It's what them soldiers got lost. It's bad luck. Them soldiers most deadwhen somebody find. They don't know where that thing is no more. Theydon't want it no more. My brother, she's tol' me them soldiers flew likebirds and then they fell down. It's bad luck. My brother took one hammerfrom that thing, and one pliers. Them hammer, she's take a nail off mybrother's thumb. And them pliers, she's lost right away."

  Johnny's hand trembled when he tried to shake a little tobacco into acigarette paper. His lips, too, quivered slightly. But he laughedunbelievingly.

  "Your brother was kidding you, Tom. Nobody would go off and leave anairplane setting in the desert. Those soldiers that got lost were awayover east of here. Three or four hundred miles. He was kidding you."

  "No-o, my brother, she's saw that thing! She's hunt cattle what gotacross, and she's saw that what them soldiers flew. Me, I _know_." Helooked at Johnny appraisingly, hesitated and leaned forward, impelled yetnot quite daring to give the proof.

  "Well, what do you know?" Johnny returned the look steadfastly.

  "You don't tell my brother--I--" He fumbled in his trousers pocket,hesitated a little longer, and grew more trustful. "Them pliers--I'mgot."

  He laid them on the table, and Johnny let his stool tilt forward abruptlyon its four legs. He took up the pliers, examined them with one eyesquinted against the smoke of his cigarette, weighed them in his hand,bent to read the trade-mark. Then he looked at Tomaso. Those pliers mayor may not have come from the emergency kit of an airplane, but theycertainly were not of the kind or quality that ranchmen were in the habitof owning. To Johnny they looked convincing. When he had an airplane ofhis own, he would find a hundred uses for a pair of pliers exactly likethose.

  "I thought you said your brother lost 'em," he observed drily.

  Tomaso shrugged, flung out his hands, smiled with his lips, and frownedwith his eyes. "S'pose he did lost. Somebody could find."

  Johnny laughed. "All right; we'll let it ride that way. I ain't going totell your brother. Want to sell 'em?"

  Tomaso took up the pliers, caressed their bright steel with his longfingers, nipped them open and shut.

  "What you pay me?" he countered.

  "Two bits."

  Tomaso turned them over, gazed upon them fondly. He shook his headregretfully. "_No quero._ Them pliers, she's _bueno_," he said. "Youcould find more things. My brother, she's tell lots of things is wherethat sets like a hawk. Lots of things.
You don't tell my brother?"

  "Sure not. I don't want the things anyway. And I don't know yourbrother."

  Tomaso thoughtfully nipped the pliers upon the oilcloth table cover. Helooked at the airplane picture, he looked at Johnny. He sighed.

  "Me, I'm like see those thing fly like birds. I'm like see that what setsover there. My brother, she's tell me it's so big like here to that waterhole. She's tell me some day it maybe flies. I go see it some day."

  Johnny laughed. "You'll have some trip if you do. You take it from me,Tom, I don't know your brother, but I know he was kiddin' you. It wasaway over east of here that those fellows got lost."

  After Tomaso had mounted reluctantly and ridden away, however, Johnnydiscovered himself faced southward, staring off toward Mexico. It wasjust a yarn, about that airplane over there. Of course there was nothingin it--nothing whatever. He didn't believe for a minute that an airplanewas sitting like a hawk on the sands a few miles to the south of him. Hedidn't believe it--but he pictured to himself just how it would look, andhe played a little with the idea. It was something new to think about,and Johnny straightway built himself a dream around it.

  Riding the ridges in the lesser heat of the early mornings, his physicaleyes looked out over the meager range, spying out the scattered horseherds grazing afar, their backs just showing above the brush. Behind hiseyes his mind roved farther, visioning a military plane sitting, inertbut with potentialities that sent his mind dizzy, on the hot sand ofMexico--so close that he could almost see the place where it sat.

  This was splendid food for Johnny's imagination, for his ambitions even,though it was not particularly good for the Rolling R. He was notbothered much. Evenings, the foreman or Sudden would usually call him upand ask him how things were. Johnny would say that everything was allright, and had the stage driver made a mistake and left any of his mailat the ranch? Because he had been to the mail box on the trail and therewas nothing there. The speaker at the ranch would assure him that nothinghad been left there for him, and the ceremony would be over.

  Johnny was fussy about his mail. He had spent twenty-five dollars for acorrespondence course in aviation, and he wanted to begin studying. Hedid not know how he could learn to fly by mail, but he was a trustfulyouth in some ways--he left that for the school to solve for him.

  Tomaso rode over again in a few days. This time he had a mysteriouslooking kind of wrench in his pocket, and he showed it to Johnny with aglimmer of triumph.

  "Me, I'm saw that thing what flies. Only now it sets. It's got wheels infront--little small wheels. Dos--two. My brother, he's show me. I'm findthees wranch. It's got wings out, so." Tomaso spread his two arms. "Someday, I'm think she's fly. When wind blows."

  Johnny felt a little tremor go over him, but he managed to laugh. "Allright; you've been looking at the pictures. If you saw it, tell me aboutit. What makes it go?"

  Tomaso shook his head. "She don't go," he said. "She sets."

  "All right. She sets, then. What on,--back of the wheels? You said twowheels in front. What holds up the back?"

  "One small, little leg like my arm," Tomaso answered unhesitatingly."Like my arm and my hand--so. Iron."

  Johnny's eyes widened a trifle, but he would not yield. "Well, where domen ride on it? On which wing?"

  "Men don't," Tomaso contradicted solemnly. "Men sets down like in little,small boat. Me, I'm set there. With wheel for drive like automobile.With engine like automobile. My brother, she's try starting that engine.She's don't go. Got no crank nowhere. She's got no gas. Me, I'm scare mybrother starts that engine. I'm jomp down like hell. I'm scare I maybewould fly somewhere and fall down and keel. _No importa._ She's jus'sets."

  Johnny turned white around the mouth, but he shook his head. "Prettygood, Tommy. But you better look out. If there's a flying machine overthere, it belongs to the government. You better leave it alone. There'sother folks know about it, and maybe watching it."

  Tomaso shook his head violently. "_Por dios_, my brother she's fin' outabout that," he said. "She's don't tell nobody, only me. She's fin' outthem _hombres_ what ride that theeng, they go _loco_ for walking too muchin sand and don't get no water. Them _hombres_, they awful sick, theydon't know where is that thing what flies. My brother, she's fin' outthat thing sets in Mexico, belongs Mexico. Thees countree los'. Jus' likeship what's los' on ocean, my brother she's tell from writing. Mybrother, she's smart _hombre_. She's keep awful quiet, tell nobody. She'stheenk sell that thing for flying."

  "Huh!" Johnny grunted. "What you telling me about it for? Your brother'dskin yuh alive if he caught you blabbing it all out to me."

  Tomaso looked a little scared and uneasy. He dropped his eyes and beganpoking a hole in the sand with his toe. Then he looked up very candidlyinto Johnny's face.

  "Me, I'm awful lonesome," he explained. "I'm riding here and I'm seeyou jus' like friend. You boy like me. You got picshurs them thing whatflies. You tell me you don't say nothing for my brother when I'm tellyou that things sets over there." He waved a dirty, brown hand to thesouthward. "Me, I'm _trus'_ you. Tha's secret what I'm tell. You don'ttell no-_body_. You promise?"

  "All right. I promise." Very gravely Johnny made the sign of the crossover his heart.

  Tomaso's eyes lightened at that. More gravely than Johnny he crossedhimself--forehead, lips, breast. He murmured a solemn oath in Spanish,and afterwards put out his hand to shake, American fashion. All thisimpressed Johnny more than had the detailed description of the thingwhich sat.

  If he still laughed at the story, his laugh was not particularlyconvincing. Nor was his jibing tone when he called after Tomaso when thatyouth was riding away:

  "Tell your brother I might buy his flying machine--if he'll sell itcheap!"