by Don Wilcox
“On some mission, perhaps. Knowing that you will return to the desert That was when my lungs began to feel like I had walked into a line of sledge hammers.
I looked down at the beautiful green countryside, then cast a sour glance at the whiskery face of my winged rescuer. “Who says I’ll go back?”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” said Rattle Whiskers. “Maybe I shouldn’t have followed you. Probably I wouldn’t have if I had known that Orchid Wings was trapped.”
“I don’t understand.”
“As we came through the black whirl,” said Rattle Whiskers, “I passed a few words with the two boys who were supporting the German. I think you were unconscious at the time. What they told me would have taken me right back to the desert if there had been enough power in my wings to get back. They said that the tunnels of the Green Tooth were sealed, closed by the landslides.”
“That’s true,” I said. “I saw the pinnacle shatter.”
“Orchid Wings is trapped in there.”
“Ye gods!” I gulped. “Alone?”
“I think so. Your friend Wells won’t know about it. He had already been captured by Thunder Splitter’s huskies . . . What he’ll face I’d hate to say.”
“Then no one knows . . . about Orchid?”
“Franz Cobert and one or two others were seen near there.”
I felt my blood turn cold. “Cobert isn’t to be trusted. He’d never lift a hand to rescue her. He—” broke off. With a horror that filled me to the fingertips I recalled the warning of the goddess.
“I very much fear,” said Rattle Whiskers, “that Cobert will try to make a deal with Thunder Splitter, who is determined to destroy Orchid. What’s more, Cobert may find it to his interest to offer your gang of comrades, one by one, for feasting purposes.”
I was silent for the space of a few miles. We were down near the surface now, flying westward over bright roofs and green tree tops. You might think my heart would be jumping with joy to be back to a land where things grow green and you don’t have to live on sand rats and desert berries.
But my heart couldn’t jump for joy, because it was still in the desert. It was still with Wells, Slim, Maxie, and the gang—yes, and with poor Orchid Wings!
“How soon,” I said, “can you take me back?”
Rattle Whiskers smiled as if he’d Known it all along. Then he shook his head and began to answer in riddles. From what I made of his talk’, it wasn’t easy to get back. There were no scheduled return trips. We might have to wait for years.
“Our best chance,” he said finally, “is to try to find the German professor again. He’s sure to go to work on another gun. Unfortunately, you and I couldn’t keep pace with his team of young wings. He steered them away from us as we were coming down through the haze. My eyes couldn’t follow.”
“We’ll find him,” I said, “if we have to comb every continent. We’ve got to get back.”
“Much will happen before we can get back. All may be lost.”
“I’ll go back,” I said, “if it’s only to give Wells’ bleached bones a decent burial.”
“In a Green Tooth cavern beside the body of Orchid Wings would be an appropriate place,” said Rattle Whiskers. “They are husband and wife, you know . . . That’s a strange look you’re giving me . . . Really, hadn’t you guessed?”
I can’t remember that I said anything. For some miles it was only Rattle Whiskers who talked.
“Don’t you remember that night when the little tribal ceremony was held at the top of the Green Tooth—when we circled round and round until dawn—and your friend Maxie started to shoot, and fell in the sand—and Orchid Wings and Wells soared away to the north?”
Did I remember? Every detail had left an indelible impression.
“I know you must think it strange,” Rattle Whiskers went on, “that a winged girl like Orchid would fall in love with a human creature with clumsy legs and no wings. But his handicaps were no bar to their true love. He was so eager to understand the mysteries of the desert. And so ready to help her fight the ugly superstitions.
“That was why she had the courage to defy the whole tribe and risk the awful anger of Thunder Splitter. Because there was love between her and Wells from the start . . . Now they will both pay. No miracle can save them.”
“We’ll go back,” I repeated. “We’ll find the German and go back.”
I’ve been repeating that pledge every hour since. And Rattle Whiskers and I are hopping all over the country following clues in search of the professor.
That brings us up to date, I guess. Thanks a lot for listening. It’s a great weight off my mind to get to tell all this to someone—in confidence, of course.
Toby McCorkle folded his hands back of his head, drew a deep breath, and closed his eyes. I, David Burton, who had listened to him recount this most fantastic yarn, had been deeply impressed by his sincerity.
“When you return to the desert, Mr. McCorkle,” I said, “I want to go with you. Do you think it can be arranged?”
The little Irishman’s eyes took on a pleased squint. He walked over to the window, thrust his head out into the rain-washed air, and called aloft.
“Did you hear that, Rattle Whiskers?”
“I heard everything,” came the low easy voice of our unseen guest on the roof. “It can be arranged. If Mr. Burton is sure he wants to go.”
To which I replied, “I’d go anywhere to see this girl, Orchid Wings—to convince myself such a creature can be beautiful. But I do have one serious doubt. Suppose they kill Wells before we get there?”
Toby McCorkle, still standing at the window, held his questioning eyes on me. Absently he took the tray of empty dishes handed down through the darkness to him by a shining wet yellow talon.
“If they kill Wells at once,” I pursued, “isn’t it probable, Mr. McCorkle, that the tribe will then forgive and forget their grievances against Orchid Wings? Their change of heart will lead to her rescue, she will come back into the fold, and never again will she have anything to do with human beings. If so—”
“You’re all wrong, Mr. Burton,” said Toby McCorkle. “You don’t know Orchid Wings. And you don’t know Thunder Splitter.”
Then the low voice from the roof came again:
“There is something else—quite important—that you should both know . . . Wells and Orchid Wings are expecting a baby.”
It was nearly midnight and we three trespassers were almost ready. Toby McCorkle gave me a wink with his Irish eyes and another with the flashlight as we finished tying the big, red-faced German professor in his bed.
“He’s a peaceful sleeper,” I observed. “Always has been,” Toby whispered. “You should have heard his pleasant snore echo through the caves at the desert.”
“Never to happen again, I hope. This ought to discourage him from going back.”
“He’ll blow a fuse,” said McCorkle. “But he’s a hard man to discourage. All I hope is, he’ll not wake up and start bellowing.”
“All set?” said Rattle Whiskers.
“All but this.” I scribbled a bold heading on our farewell note.
“BEWARE! IF YOU LEAVE THIS ROOM TOO SOON YOU WILL BE KILLED!”
I switched the center light on. The sleeping professor wrinkled his nose. He tried to turn over but couldn’t budge. His lips parted and he began snoring gently.
McCorkle pocketed his flashlight. He motioned to Rattle Whiskers to come closer. The wingman’s huge gray-brown wings rustled, his talons clicked lightly on the bare floor. He and McCorkle bent over the bed to read the note, as I now pinned it to the string from the center light.
McCorkle, remembering that Rattle Whiskers wasn’t familiar with the printed word, read in a low voice:
“Beware! If you leave this room too soon you will be killed! You will hear the first explosion at midnight. But don’t leave your bed until you hear the second—at one minute after.
“The first blast will be the gun. You built it to send yourself
and your band of Nazi thugs to the desert beyond the earth—to steal the land. When it goes off we will be on our way—to save the people. Sorry we can’t take time to pay you for the passage.
“The second blast, one minute later, may shake you out of your ropes but it won’t hurt you. It is a time bomb in the basement. It will simply blow up your laboratory and destroy your gun so you won’t take a silly notion to follow us. Too bad to mess up your nice equipment—but take our advice and don’t make any more! You’ll be safer here on the earth.
(Signed)
Toby McCorkle David Burton.”
“That does it,” said McCorkle. “We should have your claw print on it, Rattle Whiskers, to make it official.”
The wingman was nervous. “We’d better get to the gun.”
He led the way down the stairs to the laboratory room. The German professor had been much too trusting, thinking no one would find him out in this deserted mid-western town. This building had once been a community recreation hall, and the basement basketball court had contained a solid concrete floor—just the thing the professor required as a base for his chromium-bright, barrel-shaped gun.
At midnight we shot off in a cloud of pink smoke.
We trusted that the German professor wouldn’t follow—and he didn’t.
CHAPTER XXIV
Orchid Wings Doomed
Here was the moment I had looked forward to. As a writer eager for new settings for adventure stories this lost desert would be my dish.
A colorful landscape? It was terrific. I blinked my eyes against the riot of color. McCorkle had told me about this, but he hadn’t done it justice. On first glance I had the sensation of opening my eyes in a beautiful color movie—a. veritable fantasia of lofty sun-lined spires of stone. Several of these abrupt mountain peaks were ornamented with patches of pale green vegetation. Surrounding the bases of every towering mountain were huge piles of broken stones—purple, red, orange, blue, slate, yellow, even crystal white—slabs that had been shaken down by the recent earthquake.
In all directions from the bases of these colored peaks extended the endless floor of bright gold sand, bordered by blue shadows that stretched in flat, jagged patches eastward from the mountains.
“No time for mooning,” McCorkle said. “Into the heavy bushes first. Did the fall hurt you? You look dazed.”
“It’s the scenery,” I said. “It knocked me for a row of ten pins.”
I followed McCorkle into the thick gray-green brush that smelled like perfumed sage. Here we were to wait through the remainder of the afternoon while Rattle Whiskers sailed off to see how the land lay.
We had come prepared. McCorkle and I each wore camouflage—a lot of whiskers, and a pair of artificial wings strapped to our shoulders, fixed to spread when we lifted our elbows.
The first minutes after landing on this desert could be dangerous—yes, fatal. To be seen as human beings might bring down an immediate mass attack. On McCorkle’s previous arrival, several months before, two of his fellow soldiers had been seized for a ceremonial feast, and their white bones had been picked clean.
“Rattle Whiskers got around in a hurry,” I observed. “Here he comes.” I started up to wave.
“Get down!” McCorkle snapped. “That’s not Rattle Whiskers.”
“He’s got a whiskery face, and gray-brown wings, and he’s coming—”
“There are dozens of wingmen with whiskers and gray-brown wings. But we don’t want to meet them.”
The wingman came and went, never seeing us.
Every male wingman I saw that afternoon, whether he flew far or near, reminded me of Rattle Whiskers. And every female that happened to fly past made me ask, “Could that be Orchid Wings?”
“She’s more beautiful than that,” McCorkle would say, “if she’s still alive.”
He tried to appear calm, but his quick eyes were on the jump, trying to take in everything. Many weeks had passed since the storm had hurled him out of this lost land, and he was literally starved to know what had happened in the meantime.
Well, fortunately, some very revealing gossip came our way during our afternoon’s wait. That ledge of rock about twelve feet above our heads became the chance meeting place of some wingwomen.
Five of them came together in the air, greeted, and then circled over our heads, never seeing us. They alighted with clicking talons, kicking a few pebbles down on our heads. Then they began to talk.
“Which one was Orchid?” I whispered.
McCorkle gave me a look of disgust. “Just be patient. You’ll know when you see her. One look and you’ll be out of breath.”
“Out already, thank you,” I said. “Those two young females weren’t bad. Pretty hair, graceful curves—”
“The desert’s full of them.”
“I think I’m going to like the desert.” McCorkle quieted me. He wanted to hear what the three older females were talking about up there. I listened too, for he had been teaching me the wingman language during the past few weeks. Now and then I could catch a word.
Then the chattering voices retreated almost out of hearing. So McCorkle tried to climb a niche in the wall to eavesdrop.
“Give me a boost, Burton,” he said. “Let me stand on your shoulder.”
He did better than that. He leaned against the wall and stood smack on the top of my head. And knocked dust down on my false whiskers. And gave me that, “Sssh! Sssh!”
“What’ll I do if someone sees me?” I whispered.
“Your wings are spread, aren’t they?” he retorted. “You’re standing knee deep in bushes. Just pretend you’re a wingman and don’t do anything silly to attract attention.”
“You’re standing on my head,” I said. “Your left sandal is smashing my left ear.”
“When you learn the language I’ll let you stand on my head. Now—quiet!” In a few minutes he whispered again. “They’re talking about Orchid! . . . She’s still alive!” Then, later, “Everybody’s excited about her . . . She’s been imprisoned by Thunder Splitter and the tribe.”
“I thought she was trapped in the Green Tooth tunnel.”
“She was—but Franz Cobert sold her to Thunder Splitter—”
“Sold her?”
“For a price. I didn’t get it. Sssh.” What he was hearing must have made him uncomfortable. He was doing a tap dance on my skull. He tried to climb higher and succeeded in hooking an elbow over a bit of rocky shelf.
“Did you get that?” he called in a low voice.
What did he mean—the rock he knocked down on my noggin, or the rapid jabber that echoed down over the ledge?
“They’re going to sacrifice Orchid,” he said. “But before she dies there’ll be some sort of public exhibition—to disgrace her. S-s-sh!”
He didn’t need to s-s-sh me. The hard news was enough to silence me. I felt that I knew Orchid Wings. What McCorkle had told me enabled me to think of her not as a creature with a peculiar body, but a person with a very courageous heart, willing to risk her life for her convictions.
So there I stood, forgetting that my left ear was being flattened against my skull, because what I felt for Orchid went a lot deeper. It was the worst time in the world for anyone to scare me out of my weighty thoughts.
“Whoo-ookee!”
The shrill female voice called to me out of the air. I whirled to see a winged female swoop past within ten yards of me.
“Whoo-ookee!” she called again, and gave me a backward glance as if she expected me to follow her. Those darned artificial wings of mine! I’d been mistaken for a wingman!
The shock must have shaken the legs out from under me. Staring after that wing girl—and she was easy on the eyes—I discovered that I had dropped down in the bushes and hidden like a child afraid of being kidnapped.
A hiss brought me out of my absent-minded retreat.
“Shades of St. Patrick, and how do you think I get down?”
Poor McCorkle was hanging from his elbow, flopping lik
e a fish.
“You’ve got wings,” I said. “Fly!”
CHAPTER XXV
Midnight Alarm
That night Rattle Whiskers returned and he took us, one at a time, to the camp of Slim and Maxie. Good sociable fellows. They were darned glad to shake hands with someone from back home.
“Wings for camouflage!” Slim laughed. “Terrific idea! And such whiskers! Didn’t happen to bring any extra shaving soap, did you? I’ve borrowed the last of Franz Cobert’s.”
McCorkle had come loaded with soaps and razor blades, matches, first aid equipment, and a host of other desert luxuries. Maxie said he wasn’t sure which he was gladder to see, Corky or the supplies.
Whitey Everett moved in from the darkness stealthily. He stood at a distance from the fire until Slim told him to come on up and see who was here.
Whitey made you feel uneasy, as if he were aware that enemies were all around, ready to pounce. He looked suspiciously at the artificial wings that McCorkle and I had shaken off and piled in the comer of the cave. He stared at me suspiciously.
“We’ve brought lots of news from the earth,” I volunteered. “Anyone want to know how the state elections went? Or who won the series?”
“We’ve got plenty of news here to hold us,” said Maxie. “Captures and feasts and plans for executions. Have you heard about Orchid Wings and Wells? The whole desert’s heated up over that affair.”
“Or have you heard,” said Slim, “about our friend Marco Polo Smith?”
“Don’t tell it,” said Whitey Everett. “Don’t talk about it.”
There was a strained silence. Someone kicked a clump of dry roots on the fire, and by the flare-up you could see the horror-lighted eyes of Everett.
They didn’t talk any more about Marco Polo, but later McCorkle got the lowdown from Maxie and passed it on to me. Marco Polo had gone the way of Charrington and Biddle.
Thunder Splitter had captured him and made a feast of him through the lowdown scheming of Franz Cobert. What Cobert was making out of these deals the others didn’t know. But they were out for him, ready to hang him or shoot him on sight.