Skyrider Page 7

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FINDER, KEEPER

  From the crest of a low, sandy ridge that had on it a giant cactusstanding with four spiney, knobbed fingers uplifted like a warning hand,Johnny surveyed with wide, red-rimmed eyes the hidden basin that held hisheart's desire. Tomaso's brother sat his sweaty horse beside Johnny andeyed both the gazer and the object of his gaze. A smile split whitely theswarthiness of Tomaso's brother's face.

  "She's settin' there jus' like I told," he pointed out with a wilted kindof triumph, for the day was hot.

  "Unh-hunh," Johnny conceded absent-mindedly. He was trying to make thething look real to him after all the visions he had had of it.

  He had had his spells of doubting the probity of Tomaso's brother; ofsecretly wondering whether the story of the plane might not be a ruse tolure him away from Sinkhole. But then, how would Tomaso or his brotherknow that Johnny would care anything about whether an airplane "sat" overin Mexico within riding distance of the Border? Johnny did not think ofTex as a possible factor in the proposition.

  Well, there it was, anyway, not a quarter of a mile away. Between him andthe object of his quest the sand lay wrinkled in tiny drifts, with hereand there a ragged gray bush leaning forlornly from the wind. One wing ofthe machine was tilted, as though it had careened a little in the winds,but from that distance Johnny could not tell what damage had been done.He kicked Sandy in the ribs and led the way down the hill. Tomaso'sbrother, still grinning, followed close behind.

  "It's going to be some sweet job getting the thing home," Johnny growled,trying to disguise his excitement. "I expect I've had my trip fornothing. She don't look to be in very good condition."

  The grin of Tomaso's brother changed its expression a bit, but he did nottrouble to answer. Tomaso's brother knew far better than did Johnny allthe rules of commerce. Johnny's clumsy attempt to depreciate what hewanted very much to buy merely convinced Tomaso's brother of the extremeyouthfulness of Johnny.

  "Well, I might as well give her the once-over, now I'm here," Johnnyadded with a fine air of indifference, and urged Sandy into a trot.

  Now Sandy had discovered the secret hangar for Johnny without having theslightest imagining of the use which Johnny hoped to make of it. That heshould ever have to face a thing like this was beyond his most feveredimagination. He had been a tired, sweaty, head-hanging horse when hestarted down the slope. He had trotted along with his half-closed eyeson the ground before him, picking the smoothest path for his desert-wearyfeet. He did not look up until Johnny pulled sharply on the reins andgave a startling whoop built around the word "Whoa."

  Sandy's bulging eyes got a full-front, close-up view of the "thing whatset." He saw a wicked nose with a feeler about twice as high as he was.He saw great, terrible, outspread wings and a long slim body. It lookedpoised, ready to come at him and snatch him with one frightful swoop, ashe had seen prairie hawks snatch little birds from the grass.

  Sandy forgot that he was a tired, sweaty, head-hanging horse. He forgoteverything except the four unbroken legs under him. He wheeled half awayand went lunging up the far side of the little basin as if he felt thehorrible creature close behind him.

  Johnny's mind had been so absorbed by the airplane that it took him a fewseconds to comprehend that Sandy was actually running away with him. Ittook him a few seconds longer to realize that Sandy's jaw was set likeiron, with the bit gripped tight in his teeth. By the time he wasthoroughly convinced that Sandy was going to be hard to stop, Sandy hadtopped the rise and was streaking it across an expanse of barrenness thatrose gently in spite of the fact that it looked perfectly level. Asliding streak of gray dust rising into the heat waves marked hispassing.

  Nearly a mile he ran before the slight grade and a rocky strip slowed himdown to a heavy gallop. Johnny had been in the mind to let the fool runhimself down just for punishment, but the rocks and an eagerness toreturn to the stranded plane urged him to forego the discipline.

  He stopped just where the scattered rocks ended abruptly in a wall thatrimmed a sunken, green valley, narrowing near where Johnny stood lookingdown, but broadening farther along, and seeming to extend southward withmany twistings and windings. Johnny viewed the place with a passingsurprise, familiar though he was with the freakish topography of Arizona.It was the greenness, and the little winding creek, and the huddle ofadobe buildings among the cottonwoods that struck him oddly. The creekmight be a continuation of Sinkhole Creek, that disappeared into thesands away back there near his camp. There was nothing particularlystrange about that, or the green growth that water made possible whereverthe soil held latent fertility. It was the fact that those poor devilswho lost the airplane--and themselves--should have wandered on and on,crazed with hunger and thirst when food and water and perhaps a guidewere to be found within a mile or so of where they landed.

  It was a pity, thought Johnny. But, being very human, he also thoughtthat if the airmen had found this place, that plane would not be sittingback there waiting his grave if inexpert inspection. So with his pitycooled a little with self-interest, Johnny turned the puffing Sandy uponthe backward trail and followed his tracks across the apparently levelstretch of barrenness to the basin where waited the plane and Tomaso'sbrother. Only for Sandy's tracks, Johnny knew he might have had a littletrouble in finding the place again, the country looked so unbroken andmonotonous.

  However, he found it too soon for Sandy's comfort. There it sat--thegiant bird that had seemed ready to swoop and rise. But now its back wasturned toward him, and it did not look quite so fearsome. He circled andplunged awhile, and even made shift to pitch a little, tired as he was.But man's mastery prevailed, just as it had always done, and Sandy foundhimself edging closer and closer to the thing. The horse of Tomaso'sbrother, standing quiet in the very shade of a great wing, reassured himfurther, so that presently he stood subdued but wall-eyed still, whereJohnny could dismount and hand the reins to the brother of Tomaso whilehe examined the prize.

  His manner was impressive, and the brother of Tomaso stopped grinning tohimself and began to look somewhat worried. He watched Johnny's face--andI assure you that Johnny's face would have been worth any one's watching.A cigarette slanted from the corner of his boyish lips, and the eye onthat side was squinted to keep out the smoke; which was merely animpressive bit of byplay, because there was no smoke. The cigarette wasnot burning, though Johnny had made a hasty dab at it with a lightedmatch. The other eye was as coldly critical as was humanly possible whenthe whole heart of Johnny was swelling with ecstasy. His head was tilteda little, his hands were on his hips except when he used them to push andtest and try some reachable part.

  Johnny thrust out a foot and gently kicked the flattened tire on onewheel. "Umh-humh," he muttered to himself. "Flat tire." Never in his lifehad Johnny enjoyed the privilege of kicking a wheel on the landing gearof an airplane, but you would have thought that this was his business,and that it bored him intensely to do so. He took one hand off his hiplong enough to lift the drooping wing that canted toward the south."Mhm-hmh--busted skid," he observed, in a tone which, to the brother ofTomaso, shaved several dollars off the coveted fifty. Close behind Johnnyhe stayed, following him around the plane in a secret agony ofapprehension.

  Johnny, primed by the two rides he had taken--for a price--the fallbefore, stepped nimbly up and straddled into the pilot's seat. He foundout, by actual experimentation, what wires tilted the ailerons, whichones operated the elevators. "Mhm-hmh--dep control here," he commented;whereupon the brother of Tomaso squirmed, thinking Johnny had discovereda fatal flaw somewhere.

  With one eye still squinted against cigarette smoke that did not rise,Johnny climbed out and walked back along the fuselage to the tail."Mhm-hmh--I thought so!" he ejaculated, staring severely at theelevators. "This is bad--pret-ty darn bad! They musta done a tail-slideand pancaked. That's ba-ad." He removed the smokeless cigarette from hislips, looked at it, felt for a match, and shook his head slowly while hedrew the match across a hot rock at his feet.
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  "Jus' broke little small," Tomaso's brother's voice came pleadingly frombehind Johnny. "You can feex him easy. She's fine airship, you bet!"

  Johnny turned and looked at him pityingly. "Say, where do you get thatstuff?" he inquired. "A hell of a lot _you_ know about airships--bringingme off down here to see _this_! Say! where's the fuselage at?" heabruptly demanded.

  Tomaso's brother gazed at the machine with tragic eyes. "Me, I'm seen ithere ontil this time I come," he declared virtuously. "I'm not touchnotheeng. That fuz'lawge, she's right here las' time I'm here. I'm nottouch notheeng but one little small hammer, one pliers. You find him upthere, I bet." Tomaso's brother pointed to the pilot's seat.

  "Hunh! a lot you know about it!" snorted Johnny, and turned and walkedaway to the other side of the machine where Tomaso's brother could notsee him grin.

  "No matter what kind of a cheese you are, you must know an airplane can'tfly without a fuselage," he grumbled to the unhappy brother of Tomaso."Without that the plane's no good to me or anybody else. You better getbusy and hunt it up."

  Tomaso's brother tied the horses to the nearest bush and got busy,volubly protesting all the while that he had not touched a thing, andthat if Tomaso really had carried off the fuz'lawge, he would presentlymake that young devil wish he had never been born.

  "Maybe the aviators dropped it back there on the edge of the basin whenthey were coming down," Johnny suggested, and laid himself down in theshade of the plane to smoke and dream and gloat. He felt that he wouldburst into insane and costly whoops if he attempted another minute'srepression. And he knew that Tomaso's brother would bleed him of his lastdollar if he guessed one half of Johnny's exultation; wherefore the ruseto send Tomaso's brother off on a senseless quest.

  "Oh, golly! Oh-h, good golly!" he murmured ecstatically, his eyes takingin the full sweep of the great wings. "It's too good to be true. No, itain't; it's too good _not_ to be true! You wait. I'll show the Rolling Rbunch--you wait!"

  He rolled to an elbow and looked back along the fuselage to the tail, hiseyes dwelling fondly on the clean lines of her, the perfect symmetry, theglossy, unharmed covering. His glance went farther, to where the brotherof Tomaso plodded toward the basin's rim, peering here and there, pausingto look under a bush, swerving to make sure the lost fuselage was notbehind a rock.

  Johnny's grin widened. Presently it exploded into a laugh, which hesmothered with both hands clapped over his mouth. He writhed andkicked and rolled in the sand. His round, blue eyes grew moist with thetears of a boy's exuberant mirth. From behind his palms came muffled_who-who-who-oo-oos_ of laughter.

  He believed that he was laughing at the trick he had played on Tomaso'sbrother. He was doing more than that: he was making up for all the soberlonging, for all the fears and the discouragements of his barren life.There had been so much hoping and sighing and futile wishing--it had beenso long since Johnny Jewel had really laughed--and he was young, andyouth is the time of carefree laughter. Now nature was striking a balancefor him.

  Tomaso's brother went up over the rim of the basin, disappeared, and thencame plodding back through the heat. Johnny had laughed all that while;laughed until his sides were sore; until his eyes were red with the tearshe had shed; until he was so weak he staggered when he first crawled outfrom under the plane and stood up. But it did him good, for all that, tohave laughed so hard and so long over an impish trick that came from theboy in him.

  "Me, I don't find him that damn fuz'lawge," said the brother of Tomaso,wiping his swarthy countenance that was beaded with sweat. "That Tomaso,he has took, I bet. He brings it to you queeck when I'm through withhim." He looked at Johnny expectantly. "I'm promise you it comes backall right, if perhaps Tomaso has take. Perhaps now you pay twenty-fi'dollar?"

  "No, I don't; I pay you ten dollars now." Johnny, remember, had a fulltwo days' acquaintance with the brother of Tomaso. He was taking acertain precaution, rather than an unfair advantage. He honestly believedthat the brother of Tomaso was best dealt with cautiously.

  "When this airplane is safe at Sinkhole, and you've brought me everydarned thing that's been packed off, I'll pay you the rest of the fifty.There's more," he added meaningly, "that's missing. The fuselage ain'tall."

  The brother of Tomaso seemed unhappy. He took the ten dollars with asigh, promised himself much unpleasantness for Tomaso, and wearily setabout making camp, too dispirited to care that Johnny spent the time infussing around the machine, making a thin pretense of looking it over forbreakages and defects when all the while he was simply adoring it.

  "At daybreak," Johnny announced with a new dignity in his voice--thedignity of one having valuable possessions and a potential power--"we'llstart back. But I don't think much of your idea that we can drag thismachine home with our saddle horses. We can't--not and have anything buta bundle of junk when we get there. There's a ranch over south here, amile or so. Better see if you can't get a wagon and team. We'll have tohaul it home somehow."

  The brother of Tomaso started perceptibly. "A rancho? But that is notpossible, senor!"

  "Oh, ain't it? I'll show yuh, then."

  "Oh, no! _No importa._ If it is a rancho in this countree, me, I'm findit without trobles for you."

  Even Johnny's absorption in his treasure-trove could not altogetherblind him to the fact that Tomaso's brother was perturbed. He wondereda little. But after all, there was only one thing now that reallyinterested him, and he straightway returned to it, leaving the Mexicanto find the ranch and hire a team. He was not afraid that the brother ofTomaso would fail him in that detail. Thirty American dollars look big toa Mexican.

  He knew when Tomaso's brother mounted and rode away in the direction ofthe ranch, and he knew when he returned. But he failed to observe thatthe brother of Tomaso was gone long enough to have crawled there and backon his hands and knees, and that he returned in a much better humor thanwhen he had left.

  "The wagon and mules, it will come at daytime," was his brief report. Hecrawled into his blankets and left Johnny perched up in the pilot's seat,planning and dreaming in the moonlight. The brother of Tomaso lifted hishead once and looked at Johnny's head and shoulders, which was all of himthat showed. Through half-closed lids he studied Johnny's profile and thelook of exaltation in his wide-open eyes.

  "Tex, he's one smart _hombre_," Tomaso's brother paid tribute. "The planit works aw-right, I bet."