by Неизвестный
Three-Feathers brought the Winchester to his shoulder, and taking a short breath, lined the barrel up and fired a second round that flew true: into the monster’s throat. Green blood exploded outward, and the thing clawed at its ruined throat until it feebly lost all strength in its limbs and fell over. The tail half continued to twist for another few seconds before the monster was completely motionless.
Nervously, the Range Rider swiveled his rifle in an arc, sweeping the building to either side of the street and before him in anticipation of a third reptile attacker. All seemed quiet. He stood up and patted his horse’s flank to calm the animal, grateful it hadn’t bolted when it threw him. It was a good friend, and they had covered a lot of country together.
He saw the girl getting to her feet, and he walked to her, being sure to do so easily and with a friendly smile on his rough hewn face.
“Are you all right, miss?”
“Uh, huh,” the girl acknowledged, mopping away raven dark hair off her dirty face. “Who are you, mister?”
“Name’s Charlie Three-Feathers. I’m a soldier in the army.”
She squinted her eyes, then nodded. “I remember seeing you in Papa’s shop a few months ago buying supplies.”
“Are you Clem Randon’s child?”
“My name is Darcy Randon.”
“Darcy, what happened here? Where’s your father and the rest of the folks who live here?”
“Those snake critters attacked us last night,” she used her big handgun to point at the dead things in the road. “Must have been dozens of them.”
Three-Feathers looked up and down the deserted street at the empty buildings. “Are they all dead?”
“No, sir. They just took them away.”
“Took them away? What do you mean?”
“There were too many to fight, and lots of our friends were shot; some even died. But the snake-men didn’t want to kill people. They herded them all on wagons they brung with them. Like they was prisoners. Papa hid me in the root cellar, gave me his gun, and said not to come out till daylight. That’s what I done.”
Three-Feathers scratched his chin, his mind trying to fathom where the snake-men had come from and what their purpose was, in taking the townspeople. It was a mystery too important and complex for him to reason out. He would have to notify his commanders immediately.
“Do you know which way they headed?” he asked Darcy.
“Well, I was in the cellar so I didn’t see, but when I came outside this morning, all the wagon tracks looked to be going east.”
The veteran solider smiled, impressed by the girl’s own talent and calmness. “Smart girl.”
“Are you gonna help get my parents back from the snake-men?”
“That’s the plan, little miss. But not alone. We have to get us some help.”
With that he picked up the young girl and sat her on his saddle, and then he set his foot in the stirrup and climbed up behind her. Taking he reins, he looked down at her. She was still holding the big Colt. “Want me to hold that for you?”
“I feel safer with it. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, Miss Randon. You just keep holding on to it.”
He kicked the horse’s sides gently, and they rode away toward the foothills, leaving the empty town and its ghosts behind.
They rode for most of the remainder of the day, with Three-Feathers well aware the snake-men he had killed would be missed by whatever group had deployed them in the first place. He assumed they would send out patrols to find the creatures and determine their fate, which was why he wanted to be as far away from Adobe Wells as possible by the time sunset waned.
The foothills were rough going, the shale ground treacherous, but his mare had been reared in this arid wilderness. Along with Three-Feathers’s deft hands on the reins, she proved as sure-footed as a mountain goat.
The girl was quiet most of the time. When, after several hours on the trail, her head began to droop, he gently took the Colt from her hands. He slipped it into the back of his belt, and wrapping one arm around her shoulder, let her sleep. He knew the ordeal she had endured would have exhausted an adult, and he truly admired her courage and fortitude.
They stopped once, as the trail began to climb deeper into the craggy terrain. They drank from his canteen and ate a few pieces of deer jerky from his saddle bags. As the last rays of the red sun began sinking into the western horizon, the Range Rider directed his mount into a very narrow ravine that twisted and turned like a pretzel, until it ended at a small gap between two huge boulders.
Darcy, having awakened from her second nap, watched in curiosity as he rode them into the pitch-black hole. Three-Feathers knew she would experience a feeling like the Earth was about to swallow them up. But she remained quiet. They continued into the darkness for several minutes. Then a bright light appeared before them, and they heard the sound of falling water.
They entered into a vast cavern that was Charlie Three-Feathers’s hidden base of operations. The girl sat up straighter as she took in the huge open grotto that could easily have accommodated several of the dwellings back in Abode Wells. To her right was a small corral in which were kept four other horses, several chewing from a trough filled with oats. Next to this was a natural pool that was fed from an underground stream, which spilled out of the rock face, down into the rock depression that was the pool, and then continued out through an exit cut in the opposite wall.
“Wow,” the girl said softly. “Is this where you live?”
Three-Feathers dropped off the horse and turned to help her down. “Yes. My father first brought me here long ago, when I was about your age. There are cave paintings on the walls the further back you go.” He pointed to the corridors that branched off from the main one. To their left were small stacks of wooden crates, and next to these, a long wooden table on which was set a huge short-wave radio, headphones, and a microphone. Surrounding the equipment were various geographical maps.
Darcy turned her head to look back at the darkened tunnel behind them and asked, “Where’s the light come from in here?”
Three-Feathers pointed to several mirrors tacked to the walls, and then up where several rays of weakening sunshine were still visible.
“There are open crevices toward the rear of the grotto, allowing both air and light to enter. I’ve set up those mirrors to reflect it from one cavern to another. At night, I use torches.”
The girl took this in and finally commented, “Oh. That’s really neat.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be safe here,” he said to comfort her. She looked up at him and smiled for the first time. “There’s some lye soap in that little box by the pool, and some towels if you want to clean up.”
“I do. What are you going to do?”
Three-Feathers pointed to the radio apparatus. “Me? I’m going to make a phone call.”
The hybrid B-54S bomber circled over the sparkling blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean as it dropped altitude. Using captured Martian technology, mechanics and engineers of the Army Air Corp had built the unique bomber to both fly in skies and in the airless void of outer space. The ship had then been given over to Captain Jack ‘Bomber’ Paris, the best pilot in the corp. Now, as he returned from another test run, he kept the controls steady. He could see the opening gates to the secret subterranean military command base that had been constructed under Coney Island, the famous New York entertainment palisades that jutted out over the sandy beach.
It was night time, and he could see the strip lights over the underground runway as he aimed the nose of his heavy bomber to the tarmac between them. As he flew under the elevated steel girders, chief mechanic Rex Walters, seated in the co-pilot’s seat, whistled loudly, ducking his head as he did every time they came down.
“Inches to spare,” Paris laughed, easing up on the throttle as the massive rubber wheels hit the ground with barely a skip. Then they were rolling toward the center of the base, their speed decreasing rapidly as he applied the ai
r-brakes.
Several of the ground crew appeared from various locations and guided Paris to park his aircraft at a designated open bay. Once there, he killed the four engines, took a deep breath, and removed his headphones.
“Time for some coffee and chow,” Rex grinned, happy to be back on solid ground.
“I’m with you,” Paris agreed, climbing out of his seat. “And then I’m heading into town to see Josie and hear some cool Harlem Jazz.”
But Paris, as always, was the last man to exit his aircraft, a habit he’d learned from his flight instructors in Alabama, at the start of the war. The B-54S Spacefortress, labeled the “Stars & Garters” was his baby, and he was ultimately responsible for it and the crew that flew her. He would never leave her until each of his six man crew had gone before him. After losing his last crew over Germany, on a mission that went sour with his former tail gunner ratting them out to the Martians, Paris had acquired a whole new crew, starting with Rex, who served double-duty as both his co-pilot and the chief mechanic.
As Paris was walking behind Rex and tail gunner Cpl. Joe Williams, a brown motorcycle with a side-car came racing up through the massive hangar and stopped before him. The driver, wearing a tight leather cap and goggles, was a lovely W.A.C., and she snapped off a quick salute for him. “Captain Paris?”
“That’s me, Corporal,” Paris confirmed. His men were watching the exchange puzzled.
“I’m to take you to Command HQ immediately. General MacArthur’s orders.”
“Really?” He turned to Rex and shrugged. “Alas, duty calls. You guys go on without me. If I can, I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Roger that, Skipper.”
Paris moved around the front of the bike, climbed into the side-car, and gave the pretty driver a nod. “Ready when you are.”
She twisted the gas knob, raised her foot back on the strut, and the bike rolled around Paris’s men and then sped away into the bowels of the hidden base.
Waiting for Captain Paris in the main conference room was General Douglas MacArthur, sitting at the end of a long table, smoking his corn-cob pipe—an affectation the newsreel people absolutely loved. Although there was room for twenty people at the table, there was only one other person in the room, seated to the General’s right. The man wore a gray overcoat and a matching fedora, with his face covered in medical bandages. Paris recognized Hunter Noir, the mysterious leader of the elite commando group called the Martian Killers, of which he was a member.
As he walked past the empty seats to the left of the mahogany table, Paris noticed one other figure present. He was a tall being, half hidden behind the American flag standing the corner of the room. Almost six and a half feet in height, he wore a military uniform and helmet, with his entire face hidden behind an old-fashioned gas mask with opaque lenses. This was the silent half-breed known as Mr. Mask, a hybrid of the alien race and mankind. Although they had met, this particular ally always gave Paris the creeps. With his hideous gas mask, he looked like a giant ant-eater.
Standing before his superior, Paris came to attention and saluted. “Captain Paris reporting as ordered, sir.”
MacArthur looked up from a folder he had open before him and nodded, returning the salute casually. “There’s some coffee over there on the buffet table, Captain. Get yourself a cup, take a seat, and we’ll begin with the proceedings.”
“Yes, sir.” Setting his cap on the table and acknowledging Hunter Noir with a slight nod, Paris went to pour himself a cup of steaming hot black coffee. By the time he returned to the conference table, the General had risen to stand before a giant wall map of the United States tacked to the back wall. He did so methodically. He was still getting used to the mechanical prosthetic that was where his left should have been.
Taking a wooden pointer from a wood tray under the map, MacArthur slapped the tip over the Southwest. “As you men know, we have continued to monitor this enemy-held territory along the border of the Free West, by employing mounted scouts called the Range Riders. Two days ago, one of them filed a report about mutant snake-men raiding a refugee town here in the Arizona region. His report went on to state all the inhabitants, save one, were hauled off to some unknown destination for God knows what.”
“Mutant snake-men,” the bandaged Hunter Noir looked from MacArthur to the stoic Mr. Mask still in the corner. “This sounds like more of the aliens dabbling with weird genetics again.”
At that, Mr. Mask stepped out from behind Old Glory and simply folded his arms over his broad chest. He tilted his head forward in accord.
“That’s what HQ intelligence is thinking,” the General continued. “If the Martians have set up some kind of secret camp for more of their hellish experiments, then we have a two-fold mission, gentlemen.”
MacArthur tapped the map once. “First, to locate this facility and gather whatever data about it we can.” He hit the map again. “And two, destroy it completely, so they can never produce any more of these so called snake-men.”
Paris raised his right hand slightly. “You said there was a survivor to the raid?”
MacArthur put down the pointer and went back to the table to look down at his reports. “Yes, a young girl whose parents hid her when the attack was launched. She was discovered and saved by the Range Rider, one sergeant Charlie Three-Feathers. She’s in his safe keeping now.”
“This seems like a simple enough mission, sir,” Hunter Noir verbalized. “But considering the distance to the locale, the toughest part is going to be getting there undetected.”
“Which is why I’ve asked Captain Paris to join us, Agent Noir. It will be his assignment to fly you and Mr. Mask to a designated drop zone, where you will join up with sergeant Three-Feathers. You’ll have 36 hours on the ground before Paris collects you at the designated rendezvous.”
“But sir,” Paris had only managed to take one sip of his coffee; the meeting was moving fast. “Even in the new ‘Stars & Garters’ the Martians will spot us long before I can get them anywhere near there. We’re talking a couple thousand miles flying over enemy-held territory.”
General MacArthur took a slow draw on his pipe, gray smoke curling up from the bowl. A tiny grin played over his face as he said, “But you won’t be flying any of our aircraft, Captain Paris.”
As a child, Jack Paris had a fondness for bakery pastries. One of his favorites were the round, chocolate cake sandwiches with the cream filling called moon pies. Whenever he took his first bite out of one, he would look at the crescent shape left in his hand and grin from ear to ear. Of course, at that time he never dreamed he would one day be flying a Martian warcraft built in that exact crescent shape over occupied American soil.
He and the Martian Killers had captured the speedy alien flying ship on their first mission together in Germany, during their daring escape from the Martian Overlord. To his credit, Paris had deciphered the ship’s controls swiftly and managed to get them back home in one piece. Naturally, High Command had been delirious with his having snatched one of the enemy’s prized fighting machines. They had been studying it for the past few months now. Part of what they had learned went into the construction of the ‘Stars & Garters.’
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Hunter Noir said, looking over Paris’s shoulder. He and Mr. Mask were standing in the back of the small, cramped fighter, because there was only one seat in the thing, and that was for the pilot.
“Are you kidding?” the flyboy chuckled. “This thing can easily outmaneuver most conventional Earth planes, and her firepower is unlimited.”
“I remember,” Noir’s voice was grim through his bandages. “How close are we to the drop zone?”
Captain Paris checked his panel instrumentation and peered through the huge alien-glass windshield at the land speeding by below them. The dwindling moon was but a tiny sliver in a starlit sky, and the rocks and mesas appeared shapeless beneath them as they continued to fly westward toward the coordinates provided by the Range Rider, sergean
t Three-Feathers.
“We’re about five minutes away now. You two should get ready to jump.”
“Gotcha.” Hunter Noir started to turn toward the rear of the ship.
Just then a crackling squawk sounded over the loudspeakers and all three men froze.
“Now what the hell is that?” Paris grumbled looking to the speakers on his control board. More garbled sounds filled the tight cockpit. It was a Martian’s voice, and it sounded very, very agitated.
“Look!” Hunter Noir pointed out the window to their front. Another Martian fighter plane, exactly the same as theirs, was approaching from the southeast on an intercept course.
“Damn it!” Paris cursed. “Looks like the jig is up boys. Unless either of you knows fluent Martianese or whatever.”
Both the pilot and Hunter looked back at Mr. Mask, who in turn simply shrugged.
“What I thought,” Paris said, turning his attention back to the rapidly nearing enemy ship. “Okay, looks like we’re going to have to play it the hard way after all.”
“What’s your plan?” the espionage agent asked, ready to comply with whatever the flyboy suggested.
“We’re almost at the drop zone. I’m going to keep us on course. When I give the word, you two jump as planned.”
“Hmm, right. But won’t that make us sitting targets for our friend over there?”
“Ever see a stage magician, Noir? I’m hoping the second our pal sees your chutes open up, he’ll forget me for a few minutes.”
“At which point…”
“Exactly.” A tiny red button began to blink on the console. “That’s it, we’re coming up on the Ranger’s coordinates. Get ready to go!”
Hunter Noir patted Paris’ shoulder for good luck, turned, and moved to the rear of the tiny cabin. Mr. Mask was grappling with the inner hatch. With a forceful shove, he pushed the door outward and up. Cool night air flooded the cabin.