Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  Hugh beckoned her to sit down on a rock, then sat down beside her.

  “Back in 1745,” he said, “Bonnie Prince Charlie led a Jacobite uprising against the King. He was beaten in battle and hunted the length and breadth of Scotland.”

  “These Jacobites,” said Dixie. “They like Democrats?”

  “Something like,” said Hugh, smiling. “The King offered a big reward for his capture. But not a single Highlander betrayed the Prince. Flora Macdonald was one of the main people who took care of him, helping him to escape back to France.”

  “All over the country, protected by a woman even though he was a prince?” mused Dixie.

  “Yes. But he made it eventually,” said Hugh. “He escaped to France.”

  “Did they ever meet again?”

  “No. Not as far as I know.”

  “That’s often the way of it,” said Dixie, standing up. “People come from far off, get together. Then they never see each other again.”

  Hugh looked down at the ground. “Yes,” he said. “That’s often the way of it.” He watched her move slowly off in front of him towards her quarters.

  “But it doesn’t have to be,” he said, under his breath.

  A fat globule of warm rain hit Hugh on the forehead, bringing him back to the present. Within seconds the rain was rushing down, as if from a celestial tap, hissing through the still desert air. The pace dropped to a crawl as runners, blinded by the warm torrent, slowed in order to focus clearly on the slippery muddy road ahead. Packs which had been glued together for the first ten miles were prised apart by the blinding rush of water. Hugh’s vest and shorts clung stickily to his body.

  The runners, who had up till that point run sparingly, output exactly balancing input, now found their breathing rhythms broken as they breathed in rain through nose and mouth. Worse still, the road had already started to break up, as the rain gouged and cut across the softer portions of its surface, creating networks of tiny streams. It was really no longer a road but a mixture of mud and stream, and what had started as a road-run had become a cross-country.

  As the rain lashed down, Kate was glad that she had tied back her hair, though the rest of her was wet through, and her nipples were already showing clearly through her wet bra. At least, she thought, she was wearing dark briefs underneath her shorts. It was amazing how her concern for modesty remained she thought, even in the lashing rain on a desert road with a thousand sweating sodden athletes. Beside her, Charles Fox was now struggling, for his old legs simply could not take the changing contours of the increasingly slimy road. His rhythm broken, he was beginning to breathe heavily and his short regular stride had dropped to an erratic, choppy pecking action.

  “On you go, lass,” gasped Fox. “I’ll catch you up later.”

  Kate nodded and Fox dropped back.

  At the front of the field, Muller had built up a half-mile lead at fifteen miles, but it was now impossible to see him: they were now running through solid walls of rain. Suddenly they heard

  Willard Clay’s voice through the loudspeaker system.

  “Flash flood!” he shouted. “Flash flood ahead, two miles on. The road is down. Repeat, the road is down. Cut south at the point of breakdown. Repeat. Cut south at the point of breakdown, five miles to bridge, and make your own way north back to the main Vegas road.”

  The information was swiftly passed back down the field by word of mouth until it reached Doc and his group.

  “Hell,” said Doc, the rain streaming down his face. “That means another two hours’ running.”

  Soon Doc, McPhail, Morgan and the rest of their group had reached the point of the flood. The rains had etched a thirty-foot wide, six-foot deep chasm, ripping away the road. Doc stopped, took off his cap and from inside it took out what looked like a watch. He replaced his cap and looked sideways at Morgan, Hugh and Martinez, then back at the watch.

  “You know what this is?” he said.

  There was no answer.

  “Then I’ll tell you. This is a compass. This might mean a mile, and maybe a thousand dollars to us.”

  They slithered right, south into the desert, the mud turning their once-tight shoes into brown, slimy clogs. Cactus and yucca ripped at their legs as they stumbled and staggered through the lashing rain. They ran parallel to the roaring flash flood on their left, which had broken through the road east to Las Vegas, and they had travelled about half a mile downstream before Doc shouted to them through the noise of the rain.

  “There!” he shouted, gesturing to the narrowest point in the brown rush of water, only about twelve yards across. They stopped and gathered round him.

  “Here’s how I see it,” gasped Doc, the rain rolling down his cheeks and into his mouth. “We make a chain across the stream with Mike leading, Juan and I next, and Hugh as anchor holding on to that yucca.” He pointed to a stout twisted yucca on their side of the flood whose roots had not yet been loosened by the flood. “When Mike manages to get a firm grip on that yucca on the far side, Hugh lets go and we pull each other across. I reckon it’s about a four-man-span – just over ten yards.”

  There was no reply from the others, only the hiss and splatter of the rain as following runners began to slither south past them.

  “Well?” yelled Doc. “What the hell is this? A staring competition? Jesus, we can pick up a couple of hours on that Kraut!” Doc walked forward a few yards and then looked back expectantly at the others.

  They moved off towards the stream’s edge and linked hands, with Hugh mooring himself firmly to the yucca. He nodded to Doc, who tapped Morgan on the shoulder.

  “Here goes nothing,” said Morgan, stepping first into the brown torrent, with Martinez and Doc following, holding each other firmly at the wrist. Morgan trod cautiously, feeling with his feet for broad stones on which to balance. He was lucky, for on his first tentative steps he at once made contact with firm, gritty surfaces, and the chain of runners made its way painfully across the stream, constantly buffeted by the warm, gushing water.

  “Right!” shouted Morgan through the roar of rain and river. “Got it!” He had made contact with the tree-branch on the far side of the stream. As Morgan shouted, the yucca tree on which Hugh was holding himself firm, its roots at last eroded by the flood, tumbled into the stream, taking Hugh with it. Doc, caught between stones, hung on tight to Hugh, but was ripped from Martinez’s grasp and tumbled helplessly downstream, still clasped in the Scotsman’s firm grip.

  “Jesus!” said Morgan, dragging Martinez on to the muddy bank, where he lay gasping like a stranded fish. “Jesus.”

  Morgan looked desperately around him. He stood up and pulled savagely at a yucca tree at his side, but the twisted, wiry branch would not break.

  “Come on, you bastard,” he snarled, continuing to heave.

  At last the branch broke, throwing Morgan backwards. He got to his feet and half-slithered, half-ran down the side of the stream, which fortunately curved, cutting down the distance between Morgan and the two in the water.

  Meanwhile Doc and Hugh tumbled crazily downstream, swallowing rainwater from the heavens as well as gritty mouthfuls of the muddy flash flood. Doc had been submerged several times but still Hugh held grimly on, attempting to swim with his free right arm. Doc, however, a non-swimmer, had become a dead weight. Hugh felt himself weakening.

  Then above the brown swell he saw a blurred Morgan at the stream’s edge, about ten yards downstream.

  “Here!” shouted Morgan, reaching out into the stream with the yucca branch. Hugh was still on the right side of Doc, who had gone under yet again, and had to spin in the water over Doc on to his back to get closer to the branch.

  At last he reached out, only to miss it completely, and rolled further downstream, still clinging leech-like to Doc’s wrist with his left hand. Morgan cursed and dashed on a further twenty yards downstream to the next curve and again held out the branch.

  Hugh managed to get his fingers firmly round the branch, but the force of
the flood and Doc’s pull on him were too great: he lost his grip and again the two men tumbled downstream, the skin of their backs ripping as they hit the gravelly bottom of the stream.

  Hugh surfaced again, pulling Doc with him and saw, almost above him, the yucca branch and Morgan’s face. He clawed for the branch and this time his grip held firm, though their bodies were swung downstream by the force of the current. Morgan grabbed the Scotsman’s other arm and pulled slowly: Hugh, still holding Doc, was dragged on to the bank.

  The young Scot sat gasping against a rock; but Doc lay still, on his back, on the bank. Immediately Morgan pushed Doc on to his front placing his head to the left and started to pump his upper back, forcing water and grit to erupt in great spurts from his mouth. Only moments later Doc started to groan. Then he coughed, and Morgan pulled him roughly into an upright position.

  “You all right?” he asked. Doc spat out a stream of muddy water and stood up uncertainly, leaning on both Hugh and Morgan.

  “Of course I’m all right,” he growled, shaking his head. “Take more than that to finish me.”

  “You never died a winter yet,” said Hugh.

  Doc grinned and spat out more water. “How much time d’you reckon we lost?”

  “I reckon about twenty minutes,” said Morgan.

  Doc coughed again. “Then we still got plenty of time in hand.” He gave a wheezy cough and started to hop from foot to foot. “Then we got ’em. We goddam got ’em!” he chuckled. “Muller and his boys will run a good ten miles before they can get back on the Vegas road.”

  They walked back slowly to Martinez, who was standing a couple of hundred yards upstream. Doc had almost fully recovered, though he still spat out grit and water as he walked along.

  “You said we’d save two hours, coming across the flood,” said Morgan mockingly.

  “Okay, okay,” said Doc, “so I’m no Johnny Weissmuller. Five’ll get you ten that none of the others will try to make it across.”

  Doc was right. No other runner ventured across the flood, choosing instead to stumble and slide almost five miles downstream to a stout bridge, there to turn to run north five miles back across the desert to the main Las Vegas road. Doc and his friends had gained well over an hour’s lead, and all within the race rules.

  “Right,” said Doc, as they stood shivering in the warm rain. “We’ve got more than twenty miles to go into Vegas. So we can do one of three things. First, we can race our nuts off all the way for the prize money. A couple of us will pick up the big money, but we’ll all be pooped for the next desert stages past Las Vegas.”

  “What else can we do?” asked Hugh.

  “We can take it easy for, say, fifteen miles, staying close, then run for the money over the last five miles.”

  “And what’s your last option?” said Morgan cautiously.

  “For us to make it into Vegas real easy, and split the prize money between us.”

  “A lot of people have come into Vegas to see a race,” said Hugh. “Not a fix.”

  “You got a point,” said Doc. “But this ain’t the United States senate. We’ve got to decide – now.”

  Martinez shrugged his shoulders while Hugh looked back at Doc uncertainly.

  “You know a kid’s game?” asked Morgan suddenly.

  No one spoke.

  “You know,” said Morgan. “We all put one hand behind our back. We got a choice of showing one, two or three fingers. Majority takes it.”

  “So if we want to race all the way it’s one finger, two fingers for the last five miles, three fingers for a share-out?” asked Doc.

  “That’s it,” said Morgan. “Game?”

  This time they all nodded.

  Each man put his right hand behind his back. There was a moment’s pause.

  “Now!” shouted Morgan.

  All four men thrust out their right hands. Each one showed two fingers.

  They laughed. Then they trotted together up towards the main road, the road to Las Vegas.

  11

  The Meadow with Many Streams

  As the Trans-America ended its first week on the road to New York Flanagan had some reason for satisfaction. True, the two-thousand-man field had almost been halved, but though unexpected this had in many ways been a blessing. He had no desire to carry the halt, the lame and the weary all the way across the Mojave to Las Vegas and beyond. He had realized from the outset that in Doc Cole he had a star performer, but Morgan and McPhail had been unexpected bonuses. Muller, though lacking charisma, had also provided journalists with plenty of copy, as had Martinez. Kate Sheridan had been a complete surprise to him; he had not expected any female competitor to survive the initial stages, but now, by chance, he had his first female star, an athlete who would keep the Trans-America on the front pages of newspapers the world over as long as she stayed in the race.

  Flanagan would have been less happy had he known of an occurrence almost three thousand miles away in Washington D.C., just a few days before.

  There, in a still, high-ceilinged office, the tranquillity of presidential aide Gerald H. Gruber’s Monday morning had been rudely disturbed. As was his custom, he was busy at work on the crossword in that day’s Post. The clue for ten down ran, “Festival initiated by a French nobleman”, and was eight letters. Gruber, sitting in an office only a few feet away from the Oval Room, had been struggling with it for over ten minutes when the telephone rang. Gruber put down his pencil and picked up the White House telephone.

  “Toffler here,” a voice announced at the other end, without explanation.

  For a moment Gerald Gruber was at a loss. “Mr Martin P. Toffler,” repeated the caller, slowly stressing the “P”. Gruber’s neat mind finally produced the required information. The caller was one of the party’s biggest supporters in the mid-West. Gerald Gruber listened with attention, sharpened pencil poised over his pad.

  Toffler was for some unknown reason talking about a race. Gruber could not tell if it was a horse-race, a car-race or for that matter the human race. He listened patiently, hoping that Toffler would somehow explain himself.

  Eventually Toffler did – at least to a degree. The race was called the Trans-America, so it could hardly be a horse race. So far, so good. Strangely the race’s very existence concerned Mr Toffler, though for the moment Gruber could not see why.

  “Let me write this down, Mr Toffler,” he said, scribbling on his pad. “The Trans-America. Exactly what nature of race is this?”

  Toffler bellowed his answer down the phone.

  “I see,” said Gruber patiently, writing on his pad. “A professional foot-race from Los Angeles to New York. Quite an undertaking. Now what exactly do you wish the president to do about it? Are you telling me that these athletes are breaking certain federal laws?”

  No, it did not appear that they were. Mr Toffler, it further appeared, was speaking (and very loudly) as a member of the United States Olympic Committee responsible for the staging of the 1932 Los Angeles summer Olympics. This Trans-America race, if successful, would, he said, both seriously damage the world of Olympic track and field in general and next year’s Olympic Games in Los Angeles in particular.

  For Gerald Gruber the mists were beginning to clear.

  “And precisely what action do you wish the president to take?” he asked politely.

  Mr Toffler’s request was not one which Gerald Gruber could put to the president without considerable modification. In short, it was that if he wanted any further goddam contributions to party funds, that he would have to put every possible barrier in the way of those Bunion Derby sonofabitches.

  Gruber finished his notes, scoring out certain words and underlining others.

  “Thank you, Mr Toffler. I think I have the full picture now. I will pass your message to President Hoover and am sure that he will give it every consideration.”

  Gruber put down the telephone he had been using and immediately picked up one to its right.

  “Carter, find out everyth
ing you can about the Los Angeles to New York Trans-America foot-race. And have its precise route on my desk by this afternoon. I want to know every town, every village, through which the race passes.”

  Gruber then put down the internal telephone, sucked his pencil, and resumed his crossword. He smiled, and slowly pencilled in the word, “Olympics”.

  After that things had happened quickly. Within a week the president’s office was in touch with FBI director Edgar Hoover, and for the first time the Trans-America came under the scrutiny of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Two days before Flanagan’s men had even reached Las Vegas the immediate fruits of Toffler’s work began to show. Federal agent Ernest Bullard, a lean, swarthy man in his late thirties, faced his superior, Charles Finley, across the heavy brown oak table of Finley’s sparsely furnished office.

  Bullard opened the bulky grey file marked “Trans-America” on his knee. “I knew most of this before, sir,” he said. “I’m a track fan. I’ve been following the race since that guy Flanagan announced it last January. The papers and the radio have been full of it.”

  Finley nodded, his face expressionless.

  “But it’s a pretty thin lead, sir,” complained Ernest Bullard, pulling his belt up a notch. “Over a thousand runners, and one of them just might be a killer.”

  Charles Finley, a thin, humourless department head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, looked at his agent across the table and frowned.

  “There’s more to it than that, Bullard,” he said. “But first let’s have a look at what we’ve got on file.” He rifled through a pile of papers in front of him, selected one, then stood up, holding it in both hands.

  “28 March 1929, Clairton, Pennsylvania. Money fight with fists, Starr’s Warehouse. Nick Wieck versus Chuck Petrack, the Bronx Bomber: Wieck goes down in the first round, dies a week later. Petrack blows town. Manslaughter, possibly more. Either way, we want Petrack.”

  “But what do we have to go on, sir?” said Bullard. “One anonymous call – which didn’t even give us any real details. So Petrack just might be in this race – but how do we know Petrack is his real name?”