by John Blaine
One chance remained, and Rick knew it was a slim one. But it gave a choice. Die slowly, or perhaps quickly.
“All or nothing,” he said hoarsely.“Maybe both.”
CHAPTER XVII
High Jump
The long rope attached to the front of Rick’s belt harness had been Jimmy’s idea, in case he could land on the table rock and pull the girls up. But Rick had rejected the idea because he knew there wouldn’t be enough time. Now, though, the rope would come in handy.
He slashed off lengths of it, then took the parachute and directed the girls to hold part of the canopy stretched between them. He sliced with his knife, cutting between the pie-shaped gores that formed the chute, obtaining long pieces more than a yard in width. The girls helped silently, knowing that conversation would only slow them down.
Rick cut off two more pieces, making them square as he could without delaying, and told the girls, ‘Put them on. Like the scarfs you wear when your hair’s a mess. Only leave flaps to pull down over your faces.”
As the girls followed instructions, he bent his knees and picked up the water can. A flaming brand landed on the back of his hand and fell off, leaving a streak of black. It hurt. He shook the hand and then ignored it.
The girls had tied on the parachute scarfs. He unscrewed the top of the can and opened it over Jan’s head. Water cascaded down, drenching her. He moved to Barby and gave her the same treatment, leaving water in the can for more soaking.
For the first time, he noticed that the girls were wearing their jodhpurs. He was grateful for that. The twill cloth would protect their legs, but he made sure by drenching them in turn. A little water was left. He opened the can over his own head, making sure the water ran mostly down his front. There was a steady rain of burning twigs now, and the fire was so loud he had to raise his voice.
“Jan, arms over your head.” As she held her arms up, he wound one of the long cloths around just below her armpits, leaving enough for a secure knot. Then he took one of the lengths of rope and wound that around the cloth, tying it tightly, but leaving long ends dangling.
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“Your turn, Barby!” he shouted.
His sister obediently held up her arms and Rick tied her tightly into the folded parachute cloth. Without the cloth padding, the ropes would cut into them cruelly. Even with the cloths, it wouldn’t be fun. He roped Barby tightly, again leaving ends dangling.
“Now both of you come close to me, in front.”
They crowded against him. He took the loose ends of rope and tied them to the rope rings through his harness armholes, the ropes to which the parachute had been fastened. When he was sure they were secure, he handed Jan his scout knife.
“Hold onto it. We may have to cut ourselves loose.”
A big branch crashed to the ground behind him, and Rick looked up in time to see the tree overhead burst into flame. Steam was rising from the wet cloth as he gave final directions.
“Barby, hold onto Jan.You’ll hang a little below me, but you must stay in front or the exhaust will burn you.”
Barby’s voice was steady. “Can we make it?”
Numbers ran through Rick’s head like a flash. At full thrust the belt could just lift about five hundred pounds. The three of them together weighed nearly four hundred. He didn’t know how much fuel they had-how long he could maintain full thrust.
“We can try.”
“We’ll make it,” Jan said confidently. “I’m lucky. And I’m especially lucky to know two people like you.
Let’s go, Rick. It’s getting hot.”
Rick reached for his controls. He glanced upward, searching his mind for details. If he could rise above the trees, then turn left, he could land on the lower part of the cliff just beyond the tall table rock. The extra height of the taller portion was too chancy.
“Bury your faces as best you can,” he ordered. “I have to face the cliff, which means you’ll be partly exposed.”
The heat and smoke were so bad it was hard to breathe. Rick’s eyes were watering as he checked the position of the vector control, then slowly opened the thrust control. He felt thrust build, felt the load of the belt lighten. He kept adding thrust, and lifted into the air. The ropes holding the girls to him tightened and they grabbed each other. He lifted higher, and Jan’s head was just below the control handle, while Barby’s rope was a bit longer, leaving her head just above his belt.
Rick held his breath, trying by sheer will power to start them moving. He opened the throttle wide and they lifted upward, the girls clinging to each other.
Full thrust, and they accelerated the slightest bit. It was like some of his dreams, running away from some unknown terror, legs slogging through air like molasses. He willed them upward, saw the cliff face move slowly downward, like the view from an ancient elevator. They reached treetop height, and the Page 68
blast of heat from the flaming pine tops shriveled the skin on his legs even through his trousers.
He looked upward and saw that he was nearly clear. When he shifted direction, he would lose a little altitude. Maybe it would be a lot, with this extra load. He kept climbing, while sweat poured from him and dried almost instantly in the terrible heat. He moved the vector control, and saw by the cliff that he had lost a little altitude. He angled upward, ever so slowly, almost holding his breath.Maximum fuel flow.
How much was there left?
He knew the risk. He had known it when they began the last jump. If the fuel cut out now, they would drop to the rock below. Luck, if that happened, would be to die quickly.
Feet to go, now.Ten feet, nine, eight, seven, six.He had to angle a bit more.Just a bit.Eight feet. They had lost ground.Seven. Six, five, four, three, two . . .
Rick’s face came even with the cliff top. His whole body was racked with the strain of trying, foolishly, to lift them.
His waist was even with the top now. The top was rough. They had about four feet of fairly clear space before the boulders began.
He was higher than the cliff now, but the girls weren’t. He had to get higher! The cliff top was five feet in front of him. Higher!
He looked down. Barby’s feet were lowest, and they would clear. Only he would lose altitude when he moved them in.
Four feet above cliff level for Barby’s dangling feet. It was time. Let it be quick!
He brought the vector control to near level, and they shot ahead, losing altitude. Quickly Rick corrected.
They were over the cliff now. Over it! But he had to let down slowly. He couldn’t risk hurting the girls now that they were almost safe. He started to retard the thrust-and the fuel ran out.
For perhaps a half second Rick’s strength was near superhuman as adrenalin slammed through his bloodstream. Without conscious thought, he grabbed the girls and hauled them upward and outward, swinging them on the pivot formed by the tying ropes.
They were in the air when he hit.
He hit hard and one leg twisted under him. He heard it break, felt the lancing pain through his thigh as he drove forward toward the reaching rock with the full weight of the belt and the girls on him.
Rick couldn’t break his fall. His hands were full of girl. The edge of his crash helmet splintered as it met rock, then the cushioned front part above his forehead crushed at the full impact.
Rick didn’t even feel it. The blackness was instantaneous.
CHAPTER XVIII
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A Suggestion for Scotty
The four in the helicopter had been silent, horrified witnesses to the whole affair, hanging above the clearing as Rick plummeted to the earth below, breathing at last when his parachute opened, then holding their breath again at the wild gyrations that preceded his shift from parachute to rocket belt.
Scotty, leaning far outward, oblivious to the rising heat and smoke, had seen Rick try to dig, had watched his failure, and had instantly understood his friend’s intention when the slicing of parachute cloth began.
“No
!” Scotty shouted. “You haven’t enough fuel!”
But the husky ex-Marine knew, as Rick had known, that there was no other chance. Once Rick had found they could not dig trenches that would provide at least partial protection from the reflecting furnace of cliff and burning forest, it was either take the slim chance or cook right where they were.
Scotty raged at his own helplessness, sometimes shouting aloud, but his words were lost in the noise of the beating rotors that kept them suspended as witnesses to the events below. The boy knew only that three of the people who meant most to him inall the world were trapped below and he was unable to do a thing but watch. He had never in his life felt so useless.
The Brants, Jan, and the rest of the Spindrifters were the only family he had. They had adopted him and made him one of them, and he would gladly have given his life to get them out of the holocaust below, but there was absolutely nothing he could do.
With a calmer part of his mind, Scotty knew that it had been right for Rick to make the jump. Rick had more experience with the rocket belt, and that slight margin of extra skill had made the difference. Scotty was sure he couldn’t have recovered as Rick had managed to do.
Scotty watched the lift on the overloaded belt, and what to Rick had been a slow, tortured flight had looked smooth and fast from the plane. Then Scotty had yelled as the belt cut out, and he saw the final spasm as Rick swung the girls upward to safety. He saw Rick slam forward and lay quietly, and his heart almost stopped beating.
The girls were apparently all right. Scotty couldn’t see what Jan had in her hand, until he saw her slash her way free, then move to cut Barby loose. He groaned aloud as he saw Barby’s arm dangle oddly, and knew that it was broken.
Scotty strained to see more clearly. Rick, inert and with the heavy belt on his back, was hard to turn over, but Jan managed to do it, without disturbing the leg doubled under him. In fact, the way the girl turned him relieved the pressure on the leg, which Scotty was sure was badly broken. She was a good first- aider, and her training showed now, when she needed it most, Scotty thought.
Jan unbuckled the crash helmet and lifted it off, and Barby slid her one good arm under her brother’s head and cradled it in her lap.
Scotty could see that Rick’s forehead was bright with blood, and his nails bit into his palms as he saw Jan bend and put her head against his chest. Only when she nodded to Barby did Scotty breathe again.
He wasn’t even conscious that blood was oozing from his own hand, so tightly had he closed it.
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The pipe controls were bent crazily, where they had helped a little to break Rick’s fall. Jan bent one back and forth until it broke loose, then pulled until the cable came free. The girl moved as though in pain, but she moved with purpose. She took the cloth in which Barby had been wrapped, refolded it to use for padding, put it against the blond girl’s arm, used the pipe for a splint and lashed it in place with the rope Rick had used to tie her to him.
Below the cliff, the fire was burning itself out, flame vanishing and smoke increasing.
Jan wiped blood from Rick’s face, then took the square piece she had worn as headgear, folded it, and placed it over Rick’s thigh. Scotty wondered why, then decided it must be because Rick was bleeding.
He couldn’t be sure, because Rick was wearing dark slacks. Jan wasn’t satisfied. She tried to straighten him a little, and apparently felt something. Scotty saw her turn Rick a bit and reach into his side pocket.
Scotty knew what she would find. The little walkie-talkie! Had it been broken? He turned swiftly and saw that Captain Aster was watching, too. The officer turned on his own walkie-talkie.
Scotty held out his hand. Aster hesitated for a moment, then recognizing Scotty’s prior right to knowledge of his friends’ condition, handed it over.
Jan had never seen the walkie-talkie before, but its controls were simple. She turned the single knob on and kept turning it to high volume, then pushed in the button on the side. Apparently she realized she had forgotten something, because Scotty could hear the circuit click off again. She pulled out the fishing-rod antenna, section by section, then pushed the button again.
“Can anyone hear me?”
“This is Scotty, Jan.In the helicopter. Is Rick all right?”
The girl’s soft voice was a bit shaky, but clear. “He’s alive, Scotty. But he’s badly hurt. And he has a compound fracture of the thigh. It’s bleeding, but I don’t dare put pressure on it because the bone ends might do more damage. Barby and I are fine. Her arm is broken, but it’s not compound. Please get help, Scotty. Please? I’m afraid. Rick hasn’t moved once. We must have a doctor right away.”
While Scotty listened to Jan, Captain Aster had been talking to Jimmy.
“I’ve called for help,” Jimmy told him. “Two more choppers are on the way with a squad of paramedics and a flight surgeon. The choppers are equipped with winches and stretchers, and I think the air is quieting enough so the medics will be able to get down by the time they arrive. Have Scotty tell Jan that.”
Aster relayed the message to Scotty, who relayed it to Jan.
“We’ll stay right here,” Scotty told her.“Just to keep an eye on you and save the other choppers from having to hunt.” Then, to help her keep her mind off Rick’s condition for a moment, he asked, “How did you and Barby get into the jam?”
“It was the bug,” Jan said. “We found it right away. First we turned on Barby’s transistor to a noisy station, and started looking. We knew it wasn’t any use looking in the obvious places, but we also knew it would be somewhere near where people might talk. So we started with the table. Do you know how those tables open up so leaves can be put in to make them bigger? That was where we found it, in the little well where the two halves separate. It was taped to the side, and we could tell it was a transmitter.”
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The circuit clicked off for a moment. When Jan came back on she said, “Rick just groaned once, but he’s still unconscious. I hope those people hurry!”
“They’re hurrying,” Scotty assured her.“Go on, Jan.”
“All right.We didn’t disturb the bug. Mrs. Winston was in the lodge, so she didn’t even see it. We started to phone you, and then when we got near the Jones cabin we heard the same station we had tuned in on Barby’s radio. It was coming from one of the trucks. We sneaked up and looked in, and there was one of the Joneses. He was sitting in front of a cupboard, and there was a set inside the cupboard, but it wasn’t an ordinary receiver. And it had a tape recorder hooked up to it, although the tape wasn’t moving. He saw us at the same time we saw him, and he let out a yell and started for us. We ran, but the other Jones came out of the cabin and got between us and the lodge. We had to keep running because they looked . . . well, awful.”
Scotty could imagine.
“We knew the little transmitter was good only for short distances, and it had to be the Joneses who had put it there. And you could tell they knew that we knew, and we were scared, Scotty.”
“I believe it. I would have been, too. What did you do?”
“We ran for the woods, and they kept behind us. But we could run faster, and we got among the pines.
We saw those old people, but they couldn’t help us, so we just kept moving. The Joneses stopped after a while, and we did, too. We could see them talking together. Then they separated, and Scotty-they began lighting fires I”
Scotty’s lips thinned to a white line. “Go on.”
“I guess they knew we couldn’t get away. The fires spread awfully fast, and we started running, to go around them. But we had farther to travel than the Joneses. They could cut across and block us. So we decided to move right up the mountain. We didn’t know about the cliff. When we reached it we moved along it until we got to the place where you found us.
We went into the woods a few times, trying to find a way past the fire, but it was set in a kind of semicircle, and all the little fires had joined into one big one. So we
had to go back and wait. We tried to climb the cliff, but we couldn’t.”
Jan paused. “Scotty, it’s the Joneses’ fault Rick is hurt. When the other helicopters arrive, why don’t you take Jimmy to the lodge and see if you can find them?”
Only the slight tremor in Scotty’s voice showed the terrible, seething rage inside. “I may do that, Jan.
Can I say hello to Barby?”
“Of course.”
Looking down, Scotty could see Jan holding the walkie-talkie so that Barby could speak and hear.
“Hello, Scotty. We’re so worried about Rick. And Jan is hurt, too, even if she won’t admit it.”
“We’ll soon have help,” Scotty told her. “Just keep your chin up. Has Rick moved?”
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“No. He groaned once, but he hasn’t moved. That’s why I’m scared, Scotty. His head hit so hard that he crushed the helmet, and it keeps bleeding.”
Aster tapped Scotty on the shoulder and pointed to where two helicopters had just crossed the mountain.
“Help is here,” Scotty said. “You’ll see the choppers in a minute. Tell Jan to stand up and hold up a bit of cloth so they can see how the wind is blowing.”
The other helicopters swooped in under them, and Scotty heard Jimmy on the intercom. He saw the first chopper descend toward the cliff top where Jan was standing with a piece of parachute cloth hanging rather limply from her hand. The wind had died to a breeze.
Scotty switched to the intercom. “Jimmy, the Jones Boys set that fire deliberately to trap the girls.”
“Why,” Jimmy said, “I think that calls for a bit of action on our part, don’t you? We can’t do any more good here. Where do you think these Jones Boys might be?”
“At the lodge,” Scotty said grimly. “Acting as though they didn’t know what had happened.”
Jimmy turned the chopper at once and put it into a long, slow glide toward the lodge. Scotty spoke into the walkie-talkie. “We’ll be seeing you shortly. We’re going to pay a visit to the Jones Boys.”