by B. M. Bower
“Los An—” the stranger gurgled, still drinking.
“Yuma!” snapped Foster. “You shut up, Mert. I’m running this.”
“Better—”
“Yuma. You hit the shortest trail for Yuma, Bud. I’m running this.”
Foster seemed distinctly out of humor. He told Mert again to shut up, and Mert did so grumblingly, but somewhat diverted and consoled, Bud fancied, by the sandwiches and coffee—and the whisky too, he guessed. For presently there was an odor from the uncorked bottle in the car.
Bud started and drove steadily on through the rain that never ceased. The big car warmed his heart with its perfect performance, its smooth, effortless speed, its ease of handling. He had driven too long and too constantly to tire easily, and he was almost tempted to settle down to sheer enjoyment in driving such a car. Last night he had enjoyed it, but last night was not today.
He wished he had not overheard so much, or else had overheard more. He was inclined to regret his retreat from the acrimonious voices as being premature. Just why was he a simp, for instance? Was it because he thought Foster owned the car? Bud wondered whether father-in-law had not bought it, after all. Now that he began thinking from a different angle, he remembered that father-in-law had behaved very much like the proud possessor of a new car. It really did not look plausible that he would come out in the drizzle to see if Foster’s car was safely locked in for the night. There had been, too, a fussy fastidiousness in the way the robe had been folded and hung over the rail. No man would do that for some other man’s property, unless he was paid for it.
Wherefore, Bud finally concluded that Foster was not above helping himself to family property. On the whole, Bud did not greatly disapprove of that; he was too actively resentful of his own mother-in-law. He was not sure but he might have done something of the sort himself, if his mother-in-law had possessed a six-thousand-dollar car. Still, such a car generally means a good deal to the owner, and he did not wonder that Foster was nervous about it.
But in the back of his mind there lurked a faint dissatisfaction with this easy explanation. It occurred to him that if there was going to be any trouble about the car, he might be involved beyond the point of comfort. After all, he did not know Foster, and he had no more reason for believing Foster’s story than he had for doubting. For all he knew, it might not be a wife that Foster was so afraid of.
Bud was not stupid. He was merely concerned chiefly with his own affairs—a common enough failing, surely. But now that he had thought himself into a mental eddy where his own affairs offered no new impulse toward emotion, he turned over and over in his mind the mysterious trip he was taking. It had come to seem just a little too mysterious to suit him, and when Bud Moore was not suited he was apt to do something about it.
What he did in this case was to stop in Bakersfield at a garage that had a combination drugstore and news-stand next door. He explained shortly to his companions that he had to stop and buy a road map and that he wouldn’t be long, and crawled out into the rain. At the open doorway of the garage he turned and looked at the car. No, it certainly did not look in the least like the machine he had driven down to the Oakland mole—except, of course, that it was big and of the same make. It might have been empty, too, for all the sign it gave of being occupied. Foster and Mert evidently had no intention whatever of showing themselves.
Bud went into the drugstore, remained there for five minutes perhaps, and emerged with a morning paper which he rolled up and put into his pocket. He had glanced through its feature news, and had read hastily one front-page article that had nothing whatever to do with the war, but told about the daring robbery of a jewelry store in San Francisco the night before.
The safe, it seemed, had been opened almost in plain sight of the street crowds, with the lights full on in the store. A clever arrangement of two movable mirrors had served to shield the thief—or thieves. For no longer than two or three minutes, it seemed, the lights had been off, and it was thought that the raiders had used the interval of darkness to move the mirrors into position. Which went far toward proving that the crime had been carefully planned in advance. Furthermore, the article stated with some assurance that trusted employees were involved.
Bud also had glanced at the news items of less importance, and had been startled enough—yet not so much surprised as he would have been a few hours earlier—to read, under the caption: Daring Thief Steals Costly Car, to learn that a certain rich man of Oakland had lost his new automobile. The address of the bereaved man had been given, and Bud’s heart had given a flop when he read it. The details of the theft had not been told, but Bud never noticed their absence. His memory supplied all that for him with sufficient vividness.
He rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and with the paper stuffed carelessly into his pocket he went to the car, climbed in, and drove on to the south, just as matter-of-factly as though he had not just then discovered that he, Bud Moore, had stolen a six-thousand-dollar automobile the night before.
CHAPTER FIVE
BUD CANNOT PERFORM MIRACLES
They went on and on, through the rain and the wind, sometimes through the mud as well, where the roads were not paved. Foster had almost pounced upon the newspaper when he discovered it in Bud’s pocket as he climbed in, and Bud knew that the two read that feature article avidly. But if they had any comments to make, they saved them for future privacy. Beyond a few muttered sentences they were silent.
Bud did not care whether they talked or not. They might have talked themselves hoarse, when it came to that, without changing his opinions or his attitude toward them. He had started out the most unsuspecting of men, and now he was making up for it by suspecting Foster and Mert of being robbers and hypocrites and potential murderers. He could readily imagine them shooting him in the back of the head while he drove, if that would suit their purpose, or if they thought that he suspected them.
He kept reviewing his performance in that garage. Had he really intended to steal the car, he would not have had the nerve to take the chances he had taken. He shivered when he recalled how he had slid under the car when the owner came in. What if the man had seen him or heard him? He would be in jail now, instead of splashing along the highway many miles to the south. For that matter, he was likely to land in jail, anyway, before he was done with Foster, unless he did some pretty close figuring. Wherefore he drove with one part of his brain, and with the other he figured upon how he was going to get out of the mess himself—and land Foster and Mert deep in the middle of it. For such was his vengeful desire.
After an hour or so, when his stomach began to hint that it was eating time for healthy men, he slowed down and turned his head toward the tonneau. There they were, hunched down under the robe, their heads drawn into their collars like two turtles half asleep on a mud bank.
“Say, how about some lunch?” he demanded. “Maybe you fellows can get along on whisky and sandwiches, but I’m doing the work; and if you notice, I’ve been doing it for about twelve hours now without any let-up. There’s a town ahead here a ways—”
“Drive around it, then,” growled Foster, lifting his chin to stare ahead through the fogged windshield. “We’ve got hot coffee here, and there’s plenty to eat. Enough for two meals. How far have we come since we started?”
“Far enough to be called crazy if we go much farther without a square meal,” Bud snapped. Then he glanced at the rumpled newspaper and added carelessly, “Anything new in the paper?”
“No!” Mert spoke up sharply. “Go on. You’re doing all right so far—don’t spoil it by laying down on your job!”
“Sure, go on!” Foster urged. “We’ll stop when we get away from this darn burg, and you can rest your legs a little while we eat.”
Bud went on, straight through the middle of the town without stopping. They scurried down a long, dismal lane toward a low-lying range of hills pertly wooded with bald patches of barren earth and rock. Beyond were mountains which Bud guessed was the Tehachapi ra
nge. Beyond them, he believed he would find desert and desertion. He had never been over this road before, so he could no more than guess. He knew that the ridge road led to Los Angeles, and he did not want anything of that road. Too many travelers. He swung into a decent-looking road that branched off to the left, wondering where it led, but not greatly caring. He kept that road until they had climbed over a ridge or two and were in the mountains. Soaked wilderness lay all about them, green in places where grass would grow, brushy in places, barren and scarred with outcropping ledges, pencilled with wire fences drawn up over high knolls.
In a sequestered spot where the road hugged close the concave outline of a bushy bluff, Bud slowed and turned out behind a fringe of bushes, and stopped.
“This is safe enough,” he announced, “and my muscles are kinda crampy. I’ll tell the world that’s been quite some spell of straight driving.”
Mert grunted, but Foster was inclined to cheerfulness. “You’re some driver, Bud. I’ve got to hand it to you.”
Bud grinned. “All right, I’ll take it—half of it, anyway, if you don’t mind. You must remember I don’t know you fellows. Most generally I collect half in advance, on a long trip like this.” Foster’s eyes opened, but he reached obediently inside his coat. Mert growled inaudible comments upon Bud’s nerve.
“Oh, we can’t kick, Mert,” Foster smoothed him down diplomatically. “He’s delivered the goods, so far. And he certainly does know how to put a car over the road. He don’t know us, remember!”
Mert grunted again and subsided. Foster extracted a bank note from his bill-folder, which Bud observed had a prosperous plumpness, and held it out to Bud.
“I guess fifty dollars won’t hurt your feelings, will it, brother? That’s more than you’d charge for twice the trip, but we appreciate a tight mouth, and the hurry-up trip you’ve made of it, and all that It’s special work, and we’re willing to pay a special price. See?”
“Sure. But I only want half, right now. Maybe,” he added with the lurking twinkle in his eyes, “I won’t suit yuh quite so well the rest of the way. I’ll have to go b’-guess and b’-gosh from here on. I’ve got some change left from what I bought for yuh this morning too. Wait till I check up.”
Very precisely he did so, and accepted enough from Foster to make up the amount to twenty-five dollars. He was tempted to take more. For one minute he even contemplated holding the two up and taking enough to salve his hurt pride and his endangered reputation. But he did not do anything of the sort, of course; let’s believe he was too honest to do it even in revenge for the scurvy trick they had played him.
He ate a generous lunch of sandwiches and dill pickles and a wedge of tasteless cocoanut cake, and drank half a pint or so of the hot, black coffee, and felt more cheerful.
“Want to get down and stretch your legs? I’ve got to take a look at the tires, anyway. Thought she was riding like one was kinda flat, the last few miles.”
They climbed out stiffly into the rain, stood around the car and stared at it and at Bud testing his tires, and walked off down the road for a little distance where they stood talking earnestly together. From the corner of his eye Bud caught Mert tilting his head that way, and smiled to himself. Of course they were talking about him! Any fool would know that much. Also they were discussing the best means of getting rid of him, or of saddling upon him the crime of stealing the car, or some other angle at which he touched their problem.
Under cover of testing the rear wheel farthest from them, he peeked into the tonneau and took a good look at the small traveling bag they had kept on the seat between them all the way. He wished he dared—But they were coming back, as if they would not trust him too long alone with that bag. He bent again to the tire, and when they climbed back into the curtained car he was getting the pump tubing out to pump up that particular tire a few pounds.
They did not pay much attention to him. They seemed preoccupied and not too friendly with each other, Bud thought. Their general air of gloom he could of course lay to the weather and the fact that they had been traveling for about fourteen hours without any rest; but there was something more than that in the atmosphere. He thought they had disagreed, and that he was the subject of their disagreement.
He screwed down the valve cap, coiled the pump tube and stowed it away in the tool box, opened the gas tank, and looked in—and right there he did something else; something that would have spelled disaster if either of them had seen him do it. He spilled a handful of little round white objects like marbles into the tank before he screwed on the cap, and from his pocket he pulled a little paper box, crushed it in his hand, and threw it as far as he could into the bushes. Then, whistling just above his breath, which was a habit with Bud when his work was going along pleasantly, he scraped the mud off his feet, climbed in, and drove on down the road.
The big car picked up speed on the down grade, racing along as though the short rest had given it a fresh enthusiasm for the long road that wound in and out and up and down and seemed to have no end. As though he joyed in putting her over the miles, Bud drove. Came a hill, he sent her up it with a devil-may-care confidence, swinging around curves with a squall of the powerful horn that made cattle feeding half a mile away on the slopes lift their startled heads and look.
“How much longer are you good for, Bud?” Foster leaned forward to ask, his tone flattering with the praise that was in it.
“Me? As long as this old boat will travel,” Bud flung back gleefully, giving her a little more speed as they rocked over a culvert and sped away to the next hill. He chuckled, but Foster had settled back again satisfied, and did not notice.
Halfway up the next hill the car slowed suddenly, gave a snort, gasped twice as Bud retarded the spark to help her out, and, died. She was a heavy car to hold on that stiff grade, and in spite of the full emergency brake helped out with the service brake, she inched backward until the rear wheels came full against a hump across the road and held.
Bud did not say anything; your efficient chauffeur reserves his eloquence for something more complex than a dead engine. He took down the curtain on that side, leaned out into the rain and inspected the road behind him, shifted into reverse, and backed to the bottom.
“What’s wrong?” Foster leaned forward to ask senselessly.
“When I hit level ground, I’m going to find out,” Bud retorted, still watching the road and steering with one hand. “Does the old girl ever cut up with you on hills?”
“Why—no. She never has,” Foster answered dubiously.
“Reason I asked, she didn’t just choke down from the pull. She went and died on me.”
“That’s funny,” Foster observed weakly.
On the level Bud went into neutral and pressed the self-starter with a pessimistic deliberation. He got three chugs and a backfire into the carburetor, and after that silence. He tried it again, coaxing her with the spark and throttle. The engine gave a snort, hesitated and then, quite suddenly, began to throb with docile regularity that seemed to belie any previous intention of “cutting up.”
Bud fed her the gas and took a run at the hill. She went up like a thoroughbred and died at the top, just when the road had dipped into the descent. Bud sent her down hill on compression, but at the bottom she refused to find her voice again when he turned on the switch and pressed the accelerator. She simply rolled down to the first incline and stopped there like a balky mule.
“Thunder!” said Bud, and looked around at Foster. “Do you reckon the old boat is jinxed, just because I said I could drive her as far as she’d go? The old rip ain’t shot a cylinder since we hit the top of the hill.”
“Maybe the mixture—”
“Yeah,” Bud interrupted with a secret grin, “I’ve been wondering about that, and the needle valve, and the feed pipe, and a few other little things. Well, we’ll have a look.”
Forthwith he climbed out into the drizzle and began a conscientious search for the trouble. He inspected the needle valve with much
care, and had Foster on the front seat trying to start her afterwards. He looked for short circuit. He changed the carburetor adjustment, and Foster got a weary chug-chug that ceased almost as soon as it had begun. He looked all the spark plugs over, he went after the vacuum feed and found that working perfectly. He stood back, finally, with his hands on his hips, and stared at the engine and shook his head slowly twice.
Foster, in the driver’s seat, swore and tried again to start it. “Maybe if you cranked it,” he suggested tentatively.
“What for? The starter turns her over all right. Spark’s all right too, strong and hot. However—” With a sigh of resignation Bud got out what tools he wanted and went to work. Foster got out and stood around, offering suggestions that were too obvious to be of much use, but which Bud made it a point to follow as far as was practicable.
Foster said it must be the carburetor, and Bud went relentlessly after the carburetor. He impressed Foster with the fact that he knew cars, and when he told Foster to get in and try her again, Foster did so with the air of having seen the end of the trouble. At first it did seem so, for the engine started at once and worked smoothly until Bud had gathered his wrenches off the running board and was climbing it, when it slowed down and stopped, in spite of Foster’s frantic efforts to keep it alive with spark and throttle.
“Good Glory!” cried Bud, looking reproachfully in at Foster. “What’d yuh want to stop her for?”
“I didn’t!” Foster’s consternation was ample proof of his innocence. “What the devil ails the thing?”
“You tell me, and I’ll fix it,” Bud retorted savagely. Then he smoothed his manner and went back to the carburetor. “Acts like the gas kept choking off,” he said, “but it ain’t that. She’s O.K. I know, ’cause I’ve tested it clean back to tank. There’s nothing the matter with the feed—she’s getting gas same as she has all along. I can take off the mag. and see if anything’s wrong there; but I’m pretty sure there ain’t. Couldn’t any water or mud get in—not with that oil pan perfect. She looks dry as a bone, and clean. Try her again, Foster; wait till I set the spark about right. Now, you leave it there, and give her the gas kinda gradual, and catch her when she talks. We’ll see—”