CHAPTER XIII
"_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 theGovernor had burst precipitately into the room where Smithy and hisfather had just finished dressing. The two had been deep in an earnestconversation which the Governor's entrance had interrupted.
"I am drafting you for service," said the Governor. "I want you to goout to Field Number Three. A fast scout plane--National Guardequipment--will be ready for you--"
He broke off and stared doubtfully at a paper in his hand, aradiophone message, Smithy judged. "I'm in a devil of a fix," theGovernor exclaimed, after a pause. Then:
"I don't doubt your sincerity," he told Smithy. "Never saw you tillyesterday, 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." Hisfrowning eyes relaxed for a moment to exchange twinkling glances withthe older man.
"No, it isn't that," he added, "but...." Again he stared at the flimsypiece of paper.
"What's on your mind, Bill?" asked Smith senior. "That stuff the boytold us was pretty wild"--he laid one hand affectionately uponSmithy's shoulder--"but he's a poor liar, Gordon is, and, knowing hisweakness, he usually sticks to the truth. And there's no record ofinsanity in the family, you know. If there's something sticking inyour crop, Bill, cough it up."
And the Honorable William B. Drake obeyed. "Listen to this," hecommanded, 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 thereservation, burned Seven Palms and cleaned up your camp--" beganGovernor Drake.
"It wasn't!" Smithy interrupted hotly. "I told you--" He felt hisfather'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 theGovernor, "and you know they're riding me hard. Let me make one falsemove--just one--anything that the opposition can use for a campaign ofridicule, and my goose is cooked to a turn."
* * * * *
Gordon Smith shook off his father's restraining hand and took onequick 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 bythose 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 methere 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 bestrictly unofficial. Now pull in your horns and listen.
"You know the lay of the land. I want your help. Go out to FieldThree; there'll be a man there waiting for you. Don't call him'Colonel'--he's also strictly unofficial to-day. The sheriff and hisposse will be there at Seven Palms inside an hour; I want you to bethere, too, about five thousand feet up.
"Tell Colonel Culver--I mean Mr. Culver--your story; tell himeverything you know. He'll be in charge of operations if we have tosend in troops; he'll give you that private and unofficial backing Ispoke of if we don't.
"Now get down there; keep your eye on the sheriff's crowd and seeeverything that happens!"
But Smithy's parting remark was to his father; it was a continuationof the subject they had been discussing before.
"You can buy at your own price," he said. "They've got rights to thewhole basin. But they've quit; I'm not treating them to adouble-cross."
And he added as he went out of the room: "Buy it for me if you don'twant it yourself."
* * * * *
It was a two-place, open-cockpit plane that Smithy found had been setaside for him. Dual control--the stick in the forward cockpit carriedthe firing grip that controlled the slim blue machine guns firingthrough 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 facescanned Smithy swiftly.
"I'm Culver. Understand I'm to be your passenger to-day. How aboutit--can you fly the ship? Seven hundred and fifty DeGrossemotor--retractable landing gear, of course. She hits four-fifty at topspeed--snappy--quick on the trigger."
Smithy shook his head dubiously. "Four-fifty--I'm not accustomed tothat. But you can take the stick, Mr. Culver, if I get in a hurry andjump 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," hesaid. "But keep your hands off the dead mule."
At an inquiring glance he pointed to the heavy, half-hidden weaponthat Smithy had noticed. "Can't kick," he explained, "--hence 'deadmule.' It's the new Rickert recoilless; throws little shells the sizeof your thumb--but they raise hell when they hit."
"Sounds interesting." Smithy climbed into the rear cockpit andstrapped himself in. "Show me how it works, then I won't do it."
* * * * *
A pistol grip moved under Culver's reaching hand and the strangeweapon sprang from concealment like something alive. The pistol gripmoved sideways, and the gun swung out and down, its muzzle almosttouching the ground. Smithy was suddenly aware that a crystal abovehis 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 childwith a new toy, but he released the grip, and the ungainly gun swungsmoothly back to its hiding place.
He settled himself in the forward cockpit. "You will find a helmetthere," he said. "It's phone-equipped; you can tell me all about thatwild nightmare of yours while we jog along."
The white beam from the despatcher's tower had been on them while theytalked. Other planes were waiting on the field. Smithy smiled as hesettled 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 noattention. He swung the ship to the line as Airboard regulationsrequired.
"N-73" was painted on the monoplane's low wings that seemed scrapingthe ground. "N-73 Clear!" the despatcher's voice radioed into Smithy'sears. Then the seven-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower DeGrosse let looseits voice as Smithy gunned her down the field.
* * * * *
Whatever doubts Colonel Culver may have had of Smithy's ability weredissipated as they made their way cautiously through the free-flyingarea under five thousand. Everywhere were mail planes, express andpassenger ships taking off for the transcontinental day run, andprivate planes scattering to the smaller landing areas among theflashing lights of the flat-topped business blocks. Among them Smithythreaded his way toward the green-lighted transfer zone, where hespiraled upward.
At ten thousand he was on his course. He set the gyro-control whichwould fly the ship more surely than any human hands, and the air-speedindicator crept up to the four hundred and fifty miles an hour thatCulver had promised. Not till then did he give the man in the forwardcockpit the details of his "nightmare."
He had not finished answering the other's incredulous questions whenhe throttled down to slow cruising speed and nosed the ship toward adistant expanse of sage-blurred
sand.
Outside the restricted metropolitan area he had already dropped out ofthe chill wind that struck them at ten thousand. Behind them and offto the right was the gray rampart of the Sierra. Ahead a rough circleof darker hills enclosed the great bowl he had learned to know asTonah Basin.
* * * * *
Some feeling of unreality in his own experiences must have crept intohis mind; unconsciously he had been questioning his own sanity. Now,at sight of the sandy waste where he and Rawson had labored, with thedark slopes of desolate craters looming ahead and a blot of burnedwreckage directly below to mark the site of their camp, the horriblereality of it gripped him again.
He could not speak at first. The air of the five-thousand level wasnot uncomfortably warm, but Smithy was feeling again the baking heatof 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 couldreply.
He side-slipped in above the crater's ragged rim, heedless ofdown-drafts--the power of the DeGrosse motor would pull them out ofanything in a ten-thousand-foot vertical climb if need arose. Smithywas pointing toward a confusion of shining black rock.
"Over there," he told Culver. Then he was shouting into the telephonetransmitter. "It's open," he said. "That's where Dean went down--andthere they are! Look, man, there--there!"