by Don Wilcox
We finished just before dawn. We were sure we’d tramped it deep enough that the sunrise would turn it into a line of purple shadows. If my handwriting—or rather, footwriting—was legible, it would read:
Wells—where R U?
Give us a sign.
We scooted for cover at the first break of gray in the east, for those wingmen were still at it, swooping around the pinnacle like June bugs around a porch light. We climbed a few yards up from the base, to have a little elevation from which to view the sand writing when the sun peeked over.
I dozed for an hour. Then I came to, with Maxie nudging me, whispering, “Wake up, Pudding-puss, and get an eyeful.”
I shook out of it and gazed out at the sand. The message was just crooked enough to tie a snake in knots, and still plain enough to be read.
But Maxie and Slim weren’t looking at it—they were looking up.
High above us that weird procession of wingmen was still playing merry-go-round near the top of the pinnacle. Then I saw.
Orchid Wings was among the group. In fact, she was the leader. And in her talons, looking to be of sound mind and body, was one Lieutenant Gene Wells!
If he was in agony, you couldn’t tell it. If he was struggling to break free and spill down over the mountainside, you couldn’t notice it.
Be he did see our sand-writing. You could tell, by the way he suddenly jerked his loose hanging arms and swung his head, and stared down like a baby being carried away from its playthings, that he had got it.
We figured that was the moment for us to act, even at the risk of our necks. We jumped out of hiding and ran down onto the flat where he couldn’t help seeing us.
It was a dizzy run, keeping our eyes turned to gauge Wells’ reactions. Running and waving and shouting and drawing a pistol.
It was Maxie who had the gun. I wondered if he could clip a wing from this distance—or if he would miss and bring the whole band of wingmen swooping down to sink their talons in our flesh.
Wells saw Maxie draw that pistol, and I’ll swear he waved the flat of his hand down at us, as if to say, No, don’t sheet!
Maxie didn’t shoot. He stumbled in the deep-cut sand letters and went sprawling. For a moment the procession was almost squarely above us. Then Orchid Wings banked and sailed off to the north. She shifted her burden a little, as if taking a firmer grasp with both talons around Wells’ midsection. He straightened his body like a diver, streamlined to the points of his toes.
Then he looked back at us and his hand swung in a gesture that was not so much a salute as a farewell wave.
Off they sailed into the cloudless north sky.
The other wingmen no longer followed. They circled, gathering altitude, and swung back southward along the range of peaks. Two of them—the elderly female and a male—alighted on a peak less than a mile away. The others flew on toward the octagon in the invisible distance.
Slim was still gazing northward, and his face was so long he might have bumped it on his knees.
Where the hell is she taking him?” he asked. “Why the hell didn’t he put up a scrap?”
I didn’t try to answer. I only joined him in gazing. Soon Orchid Wings and Wells were only a speck above the north horizon, then the speck was out of sight.
By that time there was a small dust storm rising in our comer of the desert, caused by Maxie. He was running around over the sand kicking hell out of the letters.
CHAPTER XV
Slim Clears the Air
That was one of the bluest mornings of all my life. It left me numb like a pillar of stone. And that’s the way I remained for a good many days to come.
Time hobbled on—days and days of time—time that meant less to me than it means to the lifer in the pen. What had happened had knocked me into a cocked hat.
Among the three of us who had witnessed the strange ceremonial departure of that morning a bond of secrecy formed. An almost unspoken bond. For not one of us admitted aloud what all three of us knew: that Lieutenant Gene Wells had voluntarily deserted us for the company of a winged girl.
He must have deliberately hidden from our sight until that morning. He must have scorned our efforts to find him. Our good intentions to pull a rescue must have been a joke to him.
Not one of us spoke these thoughts aloud. I’d have smacked anyone in the mouth who had dared. So would Maxie—or Slim. That’s how deep our loyalty to Wells was rooted.
But the deepest of secrets, you know, will find their way to the surface with the passing of time. The words you hold back, the sentences you cut short, the little tell-tale expressions that flit across your face with unexpected turns in the conversations—such things make your companions start asking questions. Little by little they begin to weave the threads of implications.
Once, watching through binoculars from the eastern mountains, they had seen Wells picked up and carried away by Orchid Wings. Now they gathered that it had happened again. And that Wells was doubtless still alive, existing in some remote region, under some strange spell which those flesh-eating monsters had cast over him.
As days and weeks passed and no more was seen of him, the gang dropped all hope of rescuing him.
Sergeant Cobert strutted around the camp, barking enough orders to remind us he was in command. He had a nonsensical notion that our predicament was temporary; that sooner or later some wandering plane would fly over and discover us; and that we would be rescued and honored. If that happened, he would have the pleasure of receiving a medal for holding us together and keeping up our discipline.
The poor illusioned fool! He should have had an earful of the inside dope we’d got from the German professor. This desert was of the earth but not on it!
But the egotistical sarge didn’t use the right approach toward the professor.
“I’ll give you one more hour to loosen up that damned tongue and tell us what you’re doing here,” he threatened. “We’ve got guns, you know. But not much patience. You’re a prisoner of war. A prisoner that won’t talk is a nuisance.”
The German groaned, and asked that we’d invent something more comfortable than the homemade rope with which he was now tied. Then, failing to make any impression on the sergeant, he went on mumbling numbers and algebraic formulas to himself.
That “one more hour” threat was never carried out. When Sarge Cobert returned an hour later, accompanied by Privates Hammerstein and McCorkle, the German professor turned out to be the little man who wasn’t there. The homemade ropes had been cut.
That was a bad night for Franz Cobert. He was almost too mad to know what he was doing.
“Somebody’s going to be court-martialed and shot,” he said through clenched teeth. “There’s a traitor among us.”
The gang of us gathered around and watched him in comparative silence. He paced and cursed and worked himself up into a frenzy. When any of us tried to quiet him he snapped us off.
Finally Slim Winkle got a word in edgewise. “Are you sure that one of us cut him loose, Sarge? Are you positive?”
“Whoever did it,” said Cobert, “did it to insult me. It’s not only treason, it’s insubordination. I’m going to find out who did it, and give him what’s coming to him.”
“You may be right about one of us doing it,” said Slim. His bold words put the sarge in a listening mood. “Maybe one of us did it to remind you—”
“Yes?”
“That we ain’t afraid of you, none of us.”
The sergeant went white with rage. But now he listened, and Slim talked on in his easy, droll manner.
“That’s how it is, Sarge. We don’t mind you bein’ in command. In some ways maybe you’re good for us. But it wouldn’t be healthy for you to lord it over us too much. This desert is big. We’re all learnin’ how to live in it. I figure we’re gonna be here the rest of our natural lives.”
“That’s absurd! They’ll rescue us!” the sergeant blazed.
“If you’re gonna be our leader,” said Slim, “you’
d better be practical. You’d better take our opinions into consideration. I think we’re stuck here. And, speakin’ frankly, I think Lieutenant Wells is of the same opinion.”
That blast shook all of us. I heard Maxie give a sort of choking sound like he’d tried to swallow and couldn’t. I don’t think Slim knew he was going to say it. It sounded like an admission that Wells had thrown us over. But before Cobert could say so, Slim sidetracked him.
“We’re not afraid of you, Cobert. You know that, now. We’ve been scared silly by these wingmen. Everyone of us lives in a sort of suppressed terror, knowing that at any hour they may swoop down and choose one of us for a feast. That’s enough to be scared of. If we can keep outa reach of their claws—and keep peace among ourselves—that’s all we can hope for. We’re finding almost enough to eat. We’ve got enough drinking water—except on the days that Maxie washes his socks in the basin.”
Cobert might have let it go at that. The rest of us, I believe, were pretty well satisfied with what Slim had said—even though it wasn’t an easy prospect to face.
Cobert’s thin lips twisted into a scowl. His proud authority had been squarely defied by Slim. He spoke with a bite in his words.
“What you say doesn’t shed much light on the German’s escape.”
“What’s the difference if he did escape?” said Slim. “The desert’s big. Let him go out and forage for himself as long as he doesn’t bother us.”
“So you cut him loose,” said Cobert. “I did not.”
“I think you did,” Cobert growled. “You’re just the sort of a son-of-a—” Nobody helped Slim Winkle do what he then did, because nobody needed to. Slim had two good fists of his own, and enough power behind them to put over some history-making blows. He proceeded to make history, and before he got through, Cobert’s map was changed.
CHAPTER XVI
I Take to the Air
I can’t recall that Cobert ever tried to give another order after that night. And I don’t believe we ever bothered to call him sergeant again. No one went to the trouble to remove the chevrons from his sleeve. At best, all our clothes were falling apart fast enough.
What Slim had said served as a sort of unofficial honorable discharge for all of us. If we were here for life it was high time to forget we had been Private so-and-so, subject to the command of an officer.
Within four months after the morning of Wells’ departure, accordingly, we had begun to find ourselves more or less resigned to the fates. We were here, making what adjustments we could to the problems of keeping our sunbaked bodies and withered souls together.
The seven of us lived together about as peaceably as you could ask. Allowing for the fact that there were no O’Briens or O’Tooles, and only one McCorkle, we were nevertheless a pretty good gang.
The two Smiths were not related. One was “Marco Polo” Smith, a talkative chap who liked to claim that he had been all over the globe. He was good natured and enjoyed spinning lies as a picturesque pastime. Sometimes he’d get carried away by his yarns and slide out of his share of the work, but nobody seemed to mind.
“Kid” Smith was one of these helpful guys. He liked to be complimented when he’d done you a favor. But the minute he figured you were taking advantage of him you lost his good will.
For instance, when Franz Cobert got laid up with an infected foot and had to have a lot of hot water applications, it was Kid Smith who stuck by him like a faithful slave. He stuck, that is, until he overheard Cobert boasting too loud.
“As long as that sap will run my errands for me I’ll keep limping,” Cobert said to Marco Polo. “I’ve got him
right where I want him.”
At that moment, so I was told, Kid Smith appeared at the corner where our path turned into the hillside shelter. He had three or four desert rodents, cleaned and ready for cooking. It was late in the afternoon and Franz Cobert was hungry.
“You can cook mine rare,” Cobert said, trying to hide his surprise at Kid Smith’s untimely entrance.
Kid Smith gave his usual good natured smile but said nothing. He went to the clay shelf and helped himself to a few matches, picked up a canteen, and turned to Marco Polo.
“Tell Slim and the others I’ll see them later,” Kid Smith said. “I’m in the mood for a long walk.”
He slung his meat supply over his back, then, and walked off.
“Come back here with that food!” Cobert yelled. He started to hobble after the Kid.
“Better get off that foot,” Kid Smith yelled back.
That evening Maxie and Whitey Everett and I stumbled onto the Kid making his own camp within a half mile of the hillside shelter. We had some nuts and roots, and soon Marco Polo came along with a clay crock full of berries. While we feasted, Marco gave us the story of the Kid’s walkout, and we all had a good laugh, the Kid included.
“I may be soft on the outside,” the Kid said, “but there’s a limit to my good nature—and if Franz Cobert is smart he won’t forget it.”
None of us would forget it. Cobert was left to his own devices. Right away he discovered that his foot was well and that he could help gather fruits the same as the rest of us.
The camp gradually spread into a series of stopping places along the hills where we felt safe to build fires and sleep overnight unarmed. The more we spread out, the less we got in each other’s hair. And the more hermit-like our existence became.
But you could usually find either Franz Cobert or Whitey Everett, or both, holding down the original fort under the hill ledge. This was our central stronghold. Whitey Everett stayed close to home base because he was haunted by memories of Biddle and Charrington.
He had known them well. Their misfortune had rooted a fatalism firmly in his mind. You could see it in the furtive way he watched the skies. He rarely walked out in the open in daylight. He took dozens of little precautions, when he bedded down for the night, to lessen the danger that a passing band of wingmen might choose him.
When wingmen did fly along the peaks from time to time, you could see Whitey go pale. It got on your nerves. It was as if he knew he was marked for the next feast.
Well, the next feast came, one day, and it didn’t happen to involve Whitey—or any of the rest of us, thank heaven.
Instead, it made a victim of someone I had never seen before—someone I never could have seen if I hadn’t come to this strange desert.
Of the seven of us who now lived in the hills, I was the only one to witness this gruesome event. And I got in on it only because I was a friend of Lieutenant Gene Wells.
You may readily guess that Slim, Maxie and I often talked of our first visits to the goddess of white flames, and were intrigued by the accuracy of the information she had given about Wells’ “nesting” place.
The three of us had often gravitated northward at night to try to communicate with her again. Our efforts weren’t successful. Somehow she refused to appear before our eyes as she had done before.
I suspected that Maxie and Slim may have made an occasional visit to this well of fire in private. I couldn’t forget that Slim had seemed to see her more clearly than I. But neither of the fellows gave out any news, if they picked up any from this source of wisdom.
Among ourselves we never spoke of her without recalling the danger that she might sweep us into the flames.
“It’s a damned good place to stay away from,” Maxie would say.
I went back alone late one night, impelled by my deep burning curiosity about Wells.
It was almost dawn as I ascended the round-topped hill. The first streak of pink in the graying sky threw into silhouette two figures. One was a female with wings. The other was Wells.
The wings moved gracefully, about to take the air. I froze in my tracks. I knew at once, then, that this well of fire was known to Wells and Orchid Wings. They were just now taking their leave from visiting it.
It was a picture—these figures silhouetted against the pink sky—Wells, half naked, strong and muscular,
and his weirdly beautiful companion, with streaming hair and breath-taking curves.
Slim sprang into the air, flew low along the brow of the hill. As she circled over Wells, he leaped, and her taloned arms caught him up. Then they sped away through the gray skies.
I looked after them, wondering all the things I had wondered a thousand times before.
I hurried to the top of the hill. If Orchid Wings and Wells had communed with the goddess, perhaps I would find her too . . .
“You came . . . to me,” she whispered with the soft flutter of her warm breath, “because . . . I sent for you . . . Did you see . . . your friends?”
“Friends?” I said, puzzled that she should make it plural. “I saw Wells.”
“She . . . would also . . . be your friend.”
My heart pounded almost as loud as her whisper. “She—she would be my friend? How?”
“You . . . must trust,” she said. “You . . . must trust him . . . and her. . . They need you . . . He has asked . . . for you . . . to come.”
“Come where?” I was whispering too, for the simple reason that my voice was gone.
“Listen closely,” she said. “I will tell you . . . where to go . . . Someone . . . with wings . . . will be there . . . to meet you . . . Do not be afraid . . .” I climbed the Green Tooth mountain from the sunny side, to keep out of sight of our hill camps. This was something I mustn’t confide to anyone, not even Maxie.
The morning sun was hot on the back of my neck as I neared the pinnacle. I paused. Here were the openings that led down into the cinnamon roll tunnels.
Click . . . Click . . . Click . . . The feet of a wingman were approaching from the darkness of those depths. I could hear, too, the soft swoosh of wings against the rock walls.
He emerged and walked right up to me. His face was heavily whiskered, his forehead was wrinkled; his eyes, although oldish, were bright with a very human alertness and a hint of a twinkle.
With one talon he reached under his wing for a small clay jug. Then, in a low, leathery voice he enumerated a good English word.