Flying Eagle

by Tim Champlin

  Jay took another deep breath and a shout of pure exhilaration burst from his lips. Hall and Cutter both looked at him as if he were demented, but he didn’t care. He was giddy with the sheer joy of flying high and free. Miles and miles of mountains and plains were spread below him. No king could have felt mightier. And, best of all, they had gotten cleanly away from the raiders.

  Jay turned to ask how high they were, and the question died on his lips at the sight of what lay south and east of them. Rugged mountains seemed so close he could almost make out individual trees. Conifers blanketed their massive slopes.

  Fletcher Hall was also staring at this range of mountains, and then looking intently upward at the balloon and down at the rolling foothills that were steadily creeping closer.

  Jay watched him for a minute, and finally asked, “What mountains are those?” As soon as he said it, the question sounded irrelevant. What he should have said was, “Are we high enough to clear them?” But he held his tongue.

  Hall finally turned around, and realized what had been asked.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I don’t have a map for this part of the country. I only carry detailed maps of places I’m expecting to be flying.” His tone was sarcastic. He bumped his foot against Marvin Cutter who was now sitting up and looking around. “Get this man out of the way. I have work to do.”

  Jay slid his hands under Cutter’s arms and helped him to his feet. Even though the man was relatively slight of build, Jay felt a twinge in the muscles of his lower back as he lifted. The adrenalin was ebbing and he was beginning to feel the effects of his mighty effort to save this man’s life.

  “We’ll talk later,” Jay said, looking into the lean face that was beginning to regain its normal color. The thief nodded, raking the hair back from his eyes and leaning back against the side of the five-foot-square basket. The inside lip of the basket was draped with several rows of sandbags, secured with twine. In each of the four corners was strapped an upright metal canister of compressed hydrogen gas—apparently for emergency use, as Hall had indicated earlier. Besides the tanks, the wicker gondola held a pair of field glasses Hall was presently using, two long, coiled ropes, a two-quart canteen that hung by a strap on one of the canisters, and the Wells Fargo box.

  Marvin Cutter had slumped to a seat on the upturned treasure box, leaning his elbows on his knees.

  Jay turned again to see how far they had come. In the distance he could just make out a straight line cutting across the high valley and then a slightly heavier line atop it that must be the disabled train. They had already flown a good fifteen miles or more. He pulled the Elgin out of his watch pocket. A few minutes past six. He had no idea what time it was when they took off. But, by looking straight down several hundred feet to the ground, he tried to estimate their speed. The terrain seemed to be flowing past at a pretty steady clip. It was hard to judge from this height, but he guessed they must be traveling at least as fast as an express train.

  Fletcher Hall was still studying the mountainous terrain ahead of them through the field glasses, and ignoring the two of them as if they were not there.

  Jay looked at the silent Cutter. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

  Marvin Cutter raised his head and looked at Jay. “I had to get away,” he said simply. “If I had stayed there, I would’ve had a hard time explaining who I was and why I didn’t have a ticket after the excitement died down and those robbers got whatever they came for. Then, I would have been put off the train that came to rescue us, or they would have done some more checking and I’d a’ landed in jail. They might even have mistook me for one of those masked robbers who got left behind.” He shrugged. “When all that shooting started, I tried to hide. Then that dynamite blew the door off the end of the car. I was behind the freight on the other end, or I mighta been killed. Hurt my ears something fierce as it was. I slipped out and hid underneath. Just crawled along the ties under the cars until I got to the caboose and stayed there until the balloon was about to go. I saw my chance to grab on at the last second, but the knot came loose and it shot up so quick, I almost missed it. Just able to grab hold of the line.”

  “And came closer to gettin’ yourself killed than if you’d stayed behind,” Jay added.

  “But I’m here now. You’re responsible for me. I’m your prisoner, remember? You were going to turn me in at Omaha, so I guess I’m no worse off here.” He managed a slight smile.

  Jay didn’t reply. Whatever fate was in store, the three of them were in it together—at least until this balloon landed, wherever and whenever that might be.

  The sun was sliding down over the low mountains on the western horizon, suffusing the sky with red and gold. The clouds were nearly gone now, and the day was ending beautifully. Jay took another deep breath and tried to ignore the thought of where they might be going. He concentrated, instead, on savoring the moment—the great, panoramic view of the southern Wyoming Territory, the cool air, the breathtaking sunset. So far, at least, it beat being locked into an express car with nothing to see and little to do. What an adventure! Wait until he got back to San Francisco and told Fred Casey about this! It would make even Casey’s job as a policeman in Chinatown seem dull by comparison.

  His reverie was interrupted by the stocky aeronaut who bumped him aside to get hold of one of the dozen or so sandbags suspended inside the basket’s rim. He hefted the bag up, worked open the drawstring at the neck, and spilled about half the sand over the side.

  “Get over there and help me dump part of the sand from those other bags,” Hall ordered.

  For once, Jay didn’t resent the peremptory tone. He saw immediately what was happening. They had to lighten the basket if the balloon was to gain enough altitude to clear the upcoming mountains.

  Marvin Cutter sat on the upturned Wells Fargo box and watched them without moving.

  Several minutes later the task was complete. Jay looked again at Hall for some sign that their efforts were having some noticeable effect on the balloon. Hall was intently studying the green bulk of the mountain range looming up directly into their path. Their only choices were to clear it or crash into it. It didn’t appear that the wind was going to cooperate and change direction in time for them to fly parallel to the flank.

  “Most of the time these air currents are in layers,” Hall mused aloud, studying the ragged remnants of clouds above them. “Sometimes only a few hundred feet thick. If we can gain some altitude, I think we’ll not only clear those mountains, but also pick up an eastward flow.”

  Jay took the field glasses and trained them on the mountains ahead. They seemed to jump close and frightening in the twin lenses as he adjusted the focus. He could identify spruce and fir in the higher elevations that were slightly above where the level flight of their balloon would take them if they stayed on their present course. Ridges of naked rock cut through the almost-solid covering of evergreens. Splashes of gold now took on the identity of isolated groves of aspen, their leaves a bright yellow with the coming autumn. On the lower slopes, thick stands of lodgepole pine thrust thousands of tall tops toward the sky. Jay had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew what a sailor must feel when gazing on the rocks of a lee shore. He lowered the glasses and the mountain range seemed to retreat to a safe distance. He took a deep breath and turned the other way.

  “Can you still see the train from here?” Cutter asked, standing up. “What a view!” he exclaimed, finally overcoming his shock and fear and seeming to take an interest in his surroundings.

  Jay brought up the glasses once more and looked back in the direction from which they had come.

  The train was still visible as a dark line across the valley, miles to the northwest. He wondered if the people on the train could still see the balloon. At their height and in this clear air, he suspected they probably could. The balloon was still in the sunlight while the valley floor was now all in shadow as the sun dropped almost below the horizon. He adjusted the focus slightly and
swept the glasses slowly back toward himself. Suddenly he checked them and looked again, finely adjusting the focus. There was a small dust cloud. Maybe a herd of wild horses; they were fairly common in this part of the country. But, as he looked, he saw that the horses had riders. And they were coming in a straight line, not veering at all. He lowered the glasses and could still see the small cloud of dust with his naked eyes.

  The train robbers were still after them.

  Chapter Ten

  Hall looked at him curiously and then glanced back in the direction of the train. “They’ll damn sure catch us, too, if we go down in those mountains,” he grunted. “All they’ll have to do is walk in and take the box, ‘cause we’ll be in no shape to stop ’em,” he added, almost to himself as he turned back to studying the balloon and trying to gauge their speed and direction.

  “We don’t seem to be gaining any height,” Jay ventured after a minute or two.

  “We’re not. Dump the rest of that sand.”

  In less than two minutes, all the remaining sand had been jettisoned, and the bags hung limply from their cords.

  Jay and Marvin Cutter both watched tensely as Hall again scrutinized the underside of the balloon, the ground below, and the sky.

  “Didn’t do a damn thing,” he finally stated. “That should have let us rise up several hundred feet. But, as far as I can tell, we’re at the same height or lower. I have a sneakin’ hunch that several of those bullets punctured the envelope. We’re leaking gas somewhere, and it must be up higher than I can see.”

  “How big is this balloon?” Jay wanted to know.

  “Average size. About forty thousand cubic feet. Big enough to make a good show and be visible at high altitudes, and small enough to be manageable, especially when it’s time to pack up and transport it.”

  Jay noted the pride in his voice as he spoke of his flying machine.

  “Can you use anything besides hydrogen in it?” Jay asked, more to keep his mind off what was coming than for information.

  Hall leaned on the suspension lines and said, “Yeah. I’ve used coal gas from some of the gasworks in the eastern cities. It’s cheaper and if it’s for some big public celebration, they’ll donate the gas as often as not. Doesn’t have the lifting power of hydrogen, though.”

  Cutter had resumed his seat on the Wells Fargo box.

  “But I won’t have to worry about any public celebrations with this balloon anymore if we hit that mountain,” Hall added, sadly. He seemed more concerned with the welfare of his equipment than he did with his own safety.

  “Any chance we could get the gas in these tanks into the balloon?” Jay asked.

  Fletcher Hall shook his head. “No way to lift those heavy tanks up there. But, most importantly, all the connections were left behind.”

  “Anything we can do?” Jay finally asked.

  “Well, our only hope is to lighten this load. And, even then, we may not make it, depending on how much gas we’re losing.” He looked around him. “How heavy is that box?”

  “That box isn’t going over the side,” Jay stated, flatly.

  “I’m not talking about what’s in it. I mean the box itself. We could dump the stuff into one or two of those empty sandbags.”

  Jay considered the idea for only a few seconds before pushing Cutter off the upended Wells Fargo box and fishing the padlock key out of his pants pocket. Cutter’s eyes glinted at the sight of the stacks of greenbacks and bank notes and the soft clinking of gold coins inside the doeskin bags that Jay quickly transferred to the two canvas sandbags, pulling the draw­strings tight. He left the bags hanging by their cords to the lip of the basket. He lifted the empty wooden box by its end handles and balanced it on the rim of the basket, and gave it a shove. “There she goes. A good fifteen pounds lighter.” He leaned over to watch the box sail, end over end, down and away from them. As it grew smaller and smaller, Jay got a sense of how high they really were. The empty box disappeared into the trees below. They were over the wrinkled foothills of the mountains. The land was gradually rising, and the balloon was gradually dropping.

  “What we really need is to drop the weight of one or two bodies,” Hall said.

  Jay looked at him, sharply. “You got your parachute stashed in here?”

  “In there.” He pointed at a sealed container built into the side of the basket, the folding top of which served as a small table to spread navigation maps on.

  “You actually thinking of jumping out of this thing before we go down?” Jay asked incredulous.

  “I’ve never jumped in free flight before. Always stationary.”

  “I can’t land this thing,” Jay protested, fear beginning to tighten his stomach.

  But Hall shook his head. “No, we’ll take her down together. I’m not leaving my balloon, crippled or not.”

  “Let’s drop these gas canisters,” Jay suggested.

  “Never!” Hall snapped quickly.

  Jay said no more, but even to his inexpert eyes, unless there was a drastic change in the wind or lift of the balloon, there was no doubt they were going right into the side of the mountain. Since he was expecting no miracles, he was already preparing mentally for the inevitable. Their lives were in the hands of God, and of Fletcher Hall, who would need all his skill as an experienced aeronaut to set them down on this rugged, forested mountainside in a spot that would keep them from being killed. But Jay’s heart sank as he looked again, for there appeared to be no open spots or grassy meadows on this side of the formidable range of mountains.

  Suddenly, Jay felt the basket lift under his feet. The slight pressure was steady. “We’re rising!”

  Hall nodded.

  Jay couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t excited.

  “I was expecting it,” the aeronaut said. “The air current is flowing up and over the mountain just like water flowing over a rock in a stream.”

  “We’ll make it over, then?” Jay asked, hopefully.

  Hall shook his head. “Afraid not. We’re already too low. Look.” He pointed up at the balloon. Jay could see the balloon had changed shape; it wasn’t as distended. The wind had pushed the deflating envelope into a more elliptical shape. The cord netting was much looser than before. The gas was escaping too fast through the bullet holes. The raiders probably didn’t know it yet, but they had shot the eagle out of the sky.

  A forested ridgetop was coming toward them. The bottom of the basket brushed through the pine tops with a whispering sound and suddenly the valley floor was several hundred feet below them again.

  “Throw those mooring lines over the side,” Hall ordered. “We should have dropped them earlier.”

  Jay and Marvin responded quickly, gathering up the piles of loose line in the bottom of the basket.

  “Make sure it’s not tangled,” Hall yelled, keeping his hand on the cord that connected the release valve. His voice was unnecessarily loud in the windless air, even though he had his back to them, looking ahead at the mountain.

  Jay was dropping the line over the side, a little at a time, making sure the loops and coils fell out smoothly, without snarls.

  “Quick, man! Get a move on!” Hall snapped, looking back over his shoulder.

  Jay felt a flash of anger. If the man was going to use this line, why hadn’t he said something earlier about coiling it down neatly? But this was no time to argue. So, keeping his voice steady, he simply asked, “What is this for?”

  “It’ll help slow us down. If it should snag in the treetops, it’ll give us a helluva jolt, but it may stop us or slow us enough so we can descend gently.”

  Jay finally got all the line out—all three hundred feet of it. He looked over the side and saw it, along with the line Cutter had let out, hanging straight down and sailing along, well clear of the treetops. So they were still more than three hundred feet up.

  Jay shivered and not just from the cold. The sun was below the rim of the world and, though the sky was still bright, the foothills below were in deep shadow a
s the early autumn night closed in. The darker it got, the tougher it was going to be to see, as Hall tried to maneuver as best he could to some kind of crash landing. As the deeply seamed and forested flank of the mountain came up to meet them, it seemed to be rushing by at a greater speed. Jay almost wished they were going in now. It was getting darker by the minute. He at least wanted to be able to see what he was going to hit.

  He glanced over at Marvin Cutter. There was fear etched on the stubbled, pinched countenance. Jay looked away, thinking that his own face probably reflected the stomach-tensing fear he was feeling himself.

  The air was still rushing up the slope, but the balloon was sinking even faster. Fletcher Hall had his hand on the cord that was releasing gas from the escape valve. If they couldn’t ride over the summit, he at least would try to pick the place where they would come down. A glance upward showed the balloon being squashed into an elongated shape by the wind.