Old Faithful Plot

by Dora Benley

  Edward feared the enemy would soon catch up. So he cleverly turned right onto a connector road and not Route 66. He drove paralleling the Mother Road for some miles. They sent a flock of magpies flying off in front of them. A huge rabbit that she supposed must be a jackrabbit took off across the road. Edward finally caught up with Route 66 some miles later. But by then Edward's pursuers were nowhere to be seen.

  Exhausted they pulled off the highway at the Old Log Cabin Restaurant. They just sat there for a few moments looking at each other before they even climbed out of the car. Who knew if the fiends might show up in the parking space next to them? They seemed to have the ability to materialize out of nowhere at a second's notice.

  Chapter 15: Marshalltown, Iowa

  Edward had tried his best to conceal the car from street view behind a truck. But there was only so much he could do at a diner designed to be visible from the transcontinental highway. Edward was famished, but she could almost laugh at the way he looked at the workers behind the counter as they prepared the food. He was so accustomed to a different ambience in England that he was having a hard time adapting. But again his military background, his life in the desert with Lawrence of Arabia, always came to his aid now as it always did. If he could eat around a campfire at Petra out in the open with Bedouins as dining companions he could eat in a diner in Illinois with the locals in red aprons with matching caps.

  "What do you have on the menu?" Edward said, almost afraid to ask.

  Everyone in middle America always gaped at him in stupefaction once they heard his British accent.

  "Loose meat sandwiches," the waiter replied once he recovered from his shock.

  Edward cast him a blank look as if to say what on earth does that colloquialism mean.

  "Very good," Edward sighed. "Order two of them. As long as I do not have to shoot anything, it is all right with me."

  "It is not meat on the run or on the hoof. It is loose meat sandwiches," Dora pointed out as she whispered in his ear after the waiter had taken their order.

  Another customer slipped a coin into the jukebox. The top hits blared out one by one: The Last Round Up, Smokes Gets In Your Eyes, Love Is The Sweetest Thing, and The Old Spinning Wheel. Edward was looking as if he might rather be back on the road getting chased when he glanced to the side and dropped the remains of what was called his "loose meat" sandwich.

  "What is it, Edward? You look as if you see a ghost!" Dora exclaimed.

  "I wish it were a ghost. I might be better able to deal with it." Edward threw down the money.

  Dora leaped up. She knew the routine. They had been lucky to be able to finish their meal even if it was only loose meat — well almost.

  Edward charged forward through the kitchen with her instead of taking the customer' s exit through the front door, which now seemed way too risky.

  The cook gaped at Edward and Dora in stupefaction.

  "Sorry, sir," Edward said without stopping. "We will be out of your way very soon. I am afraid that the other route is blocked."

  Dora could see why. Just as the back door was shutting she could hear the German spies talking to each other and the waiters in low alto tones. The waiter must be totally bemused, first getting a customer with a British accent and then with a German accent all in the same afternoon and in the middle of the Lincoln Highway in Marshalltown, Iowa of all places!

  Edward and Dora were back on the road within the hour charging ahead. But of course so were the von Wessels not far behind. Edward was a font of clever ideas. He zoomed on ahead looking for still another one.

  "What are you going to do next?" Dora pressed.

  He shrugged. "They will wear us into the ground to get what they must have — those Lawrence maps. They obviously do not care if our car crashes — please duck down, Dora! — because they will be able to snatch the maps all the more easily in a car wreck as long as we do not go up in flames."

  As he said "duck" a bullet whizzed overhead to underline their murderous German intent as if it needed underlined.

  Edward tried his tactic of suddenly taking an exit and then doubling back to the main road later to see if his pursuers could follow him. This time he had gotten himself about ten good minutes to think of something else to do that might hold off his trackers a little big longer.

  Farmers were just ahead with their truck parked along the road. Their clothes looked threadbare. They appeared even less prosperous than the veterans Edward had run into a few states back. Their plow seemed broken. They were working on it. Their corn stalks looked as high as the ones a few blocks back down the highway, but not many fields were planted. The huge lot seemed to be largely fallow.

  Edward pulled over to the side of the road and came to a halt. He got out his wallet. She rolled down her window all the way to listen as Edward approached the farmers.

  She was beginning to follow his line of thinking. But she was not him. The plan would not quite come clear for her.

  "I was wondering if you men could do me a favor." Edward approached the little group with his British accent again commanding their immediate attention.

  "Sir, what are you doing in these parts?" one of the farmers asked.

  "I am in the United States visiting my wife's family." Edward nodded at Dora. "We own some valuable items which have attracted the attention of bandits," he explained, which was not far from the truth. "And some ne'er-do-wells caught sight of them and started tracking my wife and I some miles back. They tried to rob us. And then they attempted to ram the fender of the car." He had parked the car so he could demonstrate this fact. It was the exact truth. The fender was scraped. Only his deft maneuvering had prevented it from being dented even worse.

  Dora was glad that she had rolled her window all the way down. Now she was on display, too, as his wife so she tried to force a smile. She was glad she had just thought to comb her hair and reapply her lipstick. She always liked playing that role. It was like her stage props. She wondered if she would ever achieve the title of "Dora, Lady Ware" in reality with all these constant obstacles which so far had delayed their wedding from 1915 to 1933 — a whopping eighteen years so far!

  The farmers nodded. Edward had managed to strike a cord. When he tried he was not a bad politician. But then military officers had to be in a pinch. They had to move mass numbers of troops around all the time. They had to know how men thought and how to appeal to them.

  One farmer said, "With times the way they are, lots of folks have turned to robbery and worse. Shame on them. They should trust to the Lord, but they just steal instead."

  "As your new President just said a couple of months ago, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself', Edward quoted Roosevelt. "It makes men do things that ten years ago they would have been ashamed to do."

  The nodded in complete agreement.

  Then he pulled out a fifty dollar bill for each man and thrust it at them. "I was wondering if you could move your heavy machinery and your truck into the middle of the road for about half an hour or so," Edward said. "The highway robbers ought to be by this way any time now, and if they complain you can just tell them you are fixing the road or fixing your truck or whatever. They won't know the difference." He glanced down at his watch. "That ought to give my wife and I time to get out of here."

  The farmers nodded again as if it were all in a day's work, and they had not seen many of those lately.

  Edward shook their hands and leaped back into his Cadillac. He drove ahead a little to allow them room to move their old plow, their truck, and their other farming equipment into the roadway. Too bad if some honest tourist wandered past in his automobile. He would just have to wait or figure it all out for himself the way Edward had to all the time.

  Edward had acted just in time. No sooner did the farmers have their equipment in the road — Dora could see this all through the rearview mirror as if on a stage — than t
he von Wessels appeared. Edward charged ahead. They drove as far as they could on a single tank of gasoline.

  Chapter 16: McLean, Texas

  Dora and Edward hardly stopped at all for the next two hundred and fifty miles. Edward kept on saying they had to push on as far as they could with the road clear ahead of them. Nobody was following them right now at least as far as they could tell. They had to make the most of it.

  It was night time when they entered St. Louis, Missouri by crossing the newly opened Chain of Rocks Bridge built in 1929 across the Mississippi River. Dora could hardly believe where she was or how far she had come since leaving Manhattan. She had never seen the Mississippi before. The Lawrence maps did take them to odd places. They passed the Gateway Arch downtown. It was past midnight as they pulled into the first hotel they could find. They did not even know its name.

  The next morning early they were up eating breakfast at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. It was an unlikely thing to eat for breakfast, but they could not be picky. Dora bought a postcard. She did not know if she would get a chance to send it to her parents. It might reveal too much about where they had been. Who knew? She quickly filed it away in her handbag.

  But when she came out of the rest room where she was washing her hands while Edward was paying the bill, Dora felt somebody's eyes on her. It took courage to look up. She was staring straight at a table across the room by the window (they had avoided sitting near the window on purpose!). The glamorous lady spy was garbed in still another Coco Chanel inspired outfit. She was wearing a form fitting black dress with about ten to fifteen strands of gleaming white pearls around her neck. On her head she sported a jaunty black cap. The creature was staring straight at Dora.

  Dora froze. She immediately tapped Edward on the shoulder. He was still standing in line to pay. She pointed at the nefarious couple. He slapped the money down on the counter and followed her out the door to the car. They were off again before they could even be confronted.

  "How did they know where we were?" Dora asked.

  Edward shrugged. "Informants, I suppose. They must ask everywhere they stop along the way if anybody has seen a blue Cadillac V16 like ours or has seen people who resemble us."

  She gulped. That meant everybody was a potential informant against them.

  Dora looked down as her lamentable clothes as they drove along and contrasted them with the lady spy. Well . . . maybe not exactly rags, but she had not changed her own costume since New York. She was supposed to change at least in Pittsburgh, but she had left more quickly than she had expected from there, too, and dashed out the door of her old house in the exact same costume she had worn to the pier in New York to greet Edward arriving in America. She did not know exactly how much longer the outfit would last despite the fact that it had started out as an Elsa Schiaparelli original. But she certainly could not change it right now.

  They drove from end to end through Oklahoma. The less they stopped the better. That meant the fewer the number of people who would either notice them or remember them.

  It was certainly an odd road full of landmarks and shops that tried to lure them off the highway. Dora could have sworn that they speeded past a tall totem pole. There was a giant blue whale figure immersed in a fake river. Lots of trading posts and pseudo museums of various types crowded near the roadway. The pavement was flattening out. They could see for miles and miles in every direction, which was not good. That meant their blue Cadillac V16 could potentially be seen from far off, too.

  For their next meal they pulled into the Rock Cafe in Stroud, Oklahoma. Made all of native rock the building was all lighted up outside with green and yellow lights. They sat in a dark corner and ordered cheese and macaroni with stewed tomatoes, another American favorite that Edward would have to put up with. They were constantly on alert to see if any German spy would appear. Dora had put a ban on Edward opening his mouth to attract attention to himself. She would do the talking, thank you. And they always tucked their car behind the building.

  They drove into Oklahoma City and its Lincoln Motel to spend the night in one of its several auto court units. It was very plain and did not look like it would attract much attention. They locked their door and closed all their drapes.

  The next day they were up early to take on the big state of Texas. Things were beginning to look spooky out there. Though it was still June suddenly the big skies over Texas had darkened and turned leaden gray. The landscape was definitely turning more barren and wide open. Edward called it badlands. Rocks in all sorts of twisted shapes were projecting into highway. Signs called it the Yano Estacado, or high plains about three thousand feet above sea level.

  It started to get windy just as they stopped for gas at the Phillips 66 Station in McLean, Texas near a sign that advertised "You are welcome to take photos of 25 Cages of Live Snakes. Souvenirs". The station owner came racing up to them. "Get off the highway! Follow me!" He waved his arms wildly about over his head.

  "Sir?" Edward exclaimed in his British accent, which made Dora cringe.

  "It's a twister!" the man pointed at the leaden sky where the clouds did seem to be looking rather monstrous. "Follow me down to the storm cellar."

  That was all Dora needed — a tornado. Edward took her hand and yanked her down the steps into the dark hole in the ground. It was black down there for sure.

  Listen to those howling winds!" the station owner proclaimed. "What a racket! You just made it in time. Good thing you showed up here. You could have been blown off the highway."

  Dora did not hear anything except some sort of rumbling in the distance, but then she was not an expert on tornadoes on the High Plains in Texas.

  A few minutes later the station owner shouted dramatically, "Sounds like a hellcat!"

  Dora heard the same vague rumbling.

  Edward squeezed her hand and whispered into her ear. "I wonder what is really going on here? I hear a noise, but I can't imagine it is a tornado."

  Dora was beginning to wonder herself. Was this a ruse to steal their Cadillac or what?

  "Sir, I think the lady and I need to get going," Edward excused himself after a few more minutes of this confinement in the cellar underground. He pushed his way around the man and headed toward the stairway.

  "That sounds real dangerous!" the owner warned them. "You should stay right here."

  Dora thought, Even more dangerous to stay put in this dark hole in the ground.

  They thought they were the only ones here besides the station owner. But Dora thought she heard unexplained footsteps following them.

  They finally thrust open the door at the top of the stairs. Behind them at the bottom of the stairway Dora saw that they had been keeping company with the lady spy and her accomplice in the fancy summer suit. These were the same two they had seen around Chicago — and they had gotten here before them! And certainly the camera men were the detectives who had filmed them at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. They were crouched in the corner. The two male spies who had first caught up to them in Gettysburg were looking right at them from only a couple of feet away.

  The detectives began to flash photos. They were the ones Dora must have heard approaching them.

  In other words they could not have come to a worse place. So this is why the station owner had tricked them to go down there. A set up! He had obviously been bribed big time. Without having to say a word as the spies and detectives started to come after them, Edward yanked her off the stairway and out into the parking lot.

  Certainly Dora did not see any overturned cars or trucks as they raced along. Everything was parked where it was before including their Cadillac right by the pumps not far away from those rattlesnake cages with the hissing monsters that made her cringe.

  But what had been making that rumbling noise that she had heard down in the shelter? Over by the station building stood a man with an outdoor vacuum cleaner. He was just turning it
off. It sounded like all the winds of hell until its cord was yanked from the socket. Cyclone Texas style.

  Chapter 17: Glenrio, Texas

  As Dora and Edward leaped into their car, the spies jumped out of the basement and started shooting at them. They thrust dollar bills at the man with the vacuum cleaner, who did not seem at all startled by the gunfire. All in a day's work to him and his confederates. No doubt he and his friends had been paid to waylay people of their description and to help trap them. People were desperate for any kind of money at all, and they would do virtually anything for it. Edward had been paying homeless, out of work people just recently himself. And what other work could there be in the middle of Nowhere, Texas?

  Fortunately Edward had been able to fill his tank before the fake twister episode. So they could zoom right off down Route 66 with Michael's detectives chasing them to the ends of the parking lot flashing away. Dora ducked down practically onto the floor of the automobile. She did not want to appear in the gossip section of the Pittsburgh, New York, or London papers dressed in clothes that looked as if they had been slept in and in the midst of such wild scenery. Michael was Pittsburgh oriented. He wanted her parents to see the gossip. It would drive Dora's mother crazy, and that would drive Dora crazy even more. She would not be able to talk to her own mother for months.

  Dora thought it was too bad that they were human and had to eat, sleep, and fill up the gas tank. If they did not have to do any of those inconvenient things, they would be at the Stone Tree House in the Petrified Forest by now. They would have already met with Churchill's operative. Edward would have already turned over the Lawrence maps. They would have left everybody else in the dust. Nobody would be able to catch them.

  Practically every time they had to stop it was bad luck. But their stomachs were growling something awful by the time they pulled into the Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo, Texas with a giant cowboy in the parking lot holding up the sign. Edward had not eaten much all day. He gave into the temptation to order the seventy-two ounce steak despite the fact that it was Texas style and Texas-sized. The ad for the giant-sized steak was surrounded inside the restaurant by mannequin cowboys complete with hats and fake guns which Edward snubbed on his way to the table hidden in the darkest corner they could find.