by B. M. Bower
“Oh, golly! Oh-h, good golly!” he murmured ecstatically, his eyes taking in the full sweep of the great wings. “It’s too good to be true. No, it ain’t; it’s too good not to be true! You wait. I’ll show the Rolling R bunch—you wait!”
He rolled to an elbow and looked back along the fuselage to the tail, his eyes dwelling fondly on the clean lines of her, the perfect symmetry, the glossy, unharmed covering. His glance went farther, to where the brother of Tomaso plodded toward the basin’s rim, peering here and there, pausing to look under a bush, swerving to make sure the lost fuselage was not behind a rock.
Johnny’s grin widened. Presently it exploded into a laugh, which he smothered with both hands clapped over his mouth. He writhed and kicked and rolled in the sand. His round, blue eyes grew moist with the tears of a boy’s exuberant mirth. From behind his palms came muffled who-who-who-oo-oos of laughter.
He believed that he was laughing at the trick he had played on Tomaso’s brother. He was doing more than that: he was making up for all the sober longing, for all the fears and the discouragements of his barren life. There had been so much hoping and sighing and futile wishing—it had been so long since Johnny Jewel had really laughed—and he was young, and youth is the time of carefree laughter. Now nature was striking a balance for him.
Tomaso’s brother went up over the rim of the basin, disappeared, and then came plodding back through the heat. Johnny had laughed all that while; laughed until his sides were sore; until his eyes were red with the tears he had shed; until he was so weak he staggered when he first crawled out from under the plane and stood up. But it did him good, for all that, to have laughed so hard and so long over an impish trick that came from the boy in him.
“Me, I don’t find him that damn fuz’lawge,” said the brother of Tomaso, wiping his swarthy countenance that was beaded with sweat. “That Tomaso, he has took, I bet. He brings it to you queeck when I’m through with him.” He looked at Johnny expectantly. “I’m promise you it comes back all right, if perhaps Tomaso has take. Perhaps now you pay twenty-fi’ dollar?”
“No, I don’t; I pay you ten dollars now.” Johnny, remember, had a full two days’ acquaintance with the brother of Tomaso. He was taking a certain precaution, rather than an unfair advantage. He honestly believed that the brother of Tomaso was best dealt with cautiously.
“When this airplane is safe at Sinkhole, and you’ve brought me every darned thing that’s been packed off, I’ll pay you the rest of the fifty. There’s more,” he added meaningly, “that’s missing. The fuselage ain’t all.”
The brother of Tomaso seemed unhappy. He took the ten dollars with a sigh, promised himself much unpleasantness for Tomaso, and wearily set about making camp, too dispirited to care that Johnny spent the time in fussing around the machine, making a thin pretense of looking it over for breakages and defects when all the while he was simply adoring it.
“At daybreak,” Johnny announced with a new dignity in his voice—the dignity of one having valuable possessions and a potential power—“we’ll start back. But I don’t think much of your idea that we can drag this machine home with our saddle horses. We can’t—not and have anything but a bundle of junk when we get there. There’s a ranch over south here, a mile or so. Better see if you can’t get a wagon and team. We’ll have to haul it home somehow.”
The brother of Tomaso started perceptibly. “A rancho? But that is not possible, señor!”
“Oh, ain’t it? I’ll show yuh, then.”
“Oh, no! No importa. If it is a rancho in this countree, me, I’m find it without trobles for you.”
Even Johnny’s absorption in his treasure-trove could not altogether blind him to the fact that Tomaso’s brother was perturbed. He wondered a little. But after all, there was only one thing now that really interested him, and he straightway returned to it, leaving the Mexican to find the ranch and hire a team. He was not afraid that the brother of Tomaso would fail him in that detail. Thirty American dollars look big to a Mexican.
He knew when Tomaso’s brother mounted and rode away in the direction of the ranch, and he knew when he returned. But he failed to observe that the brother of Tomaso was gone long enough to have crawled there and back on his hands and knees, and that he returned in a much better humor than when he had left.
“The wagon and mules, it will come at daytime,” was his brief report. He crawled into his blankets and left Johnny perched up in the pilot’s seat, planning and dreaming in the moonlight. The brother of Tomaso lifted his head once and looked at Johnny’s head and shoulders, which was all of him that showed. Through half-closed lids he studied Johnny’s profile and the look of exaltation in his wide-open eyes.
“Tex, he’s one smart hombre,” Tomaso’s brother paid tribute. “The plan it works aw-right, I bet.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
OVER THE TELEPHONE
That night Johnny spread his blankets in a spot where he could lie and look at his airplane with the moon shining full upon it and throwing a shadow like a great, black bird with outstretched wings on the sand. He had to lie where he could look at it, else he could not have lain there at all. He was like a child that falls asleep with a new, long-coveted toy clasped tight in its two hands. He worried himself into a headache over the difficulties of transporting it unharmed over the miles of untracked desert country to Sinkhole. He was afraid the mules would run away with it, or upset it somehow. It looked so fragile, so easily broken. Already the tail was broken, where the flyers in landing had swerved against a rock. He pictured mishaps and disasters enough to fill a journey of five times that length over country twice as rough. He wished that he could fly it home. Picturing that, his lips softened into a smile, and the pucker eased out of his forehead.
But he couldn’t fly it. He didn’t know how, though I honestly believe he would have tried it anyway, had there been even a gallon of gasoline in the tank. But the tank was bone dry, and the tail was knocked askew, so Johnny had to give up thinking about it.
When he slept, the airplane filled his dreams so that he talked in his sleep and wakened the brother of Tomaso, who sat up in his blankets to listen.
“That plan, she’s work fine, I bet!” grinned the brother of Tomaso when Johnny had droned off into mumbling and then silence. “That Tex, she’s smart hombre.” He laid himself down to sleep again.
Speaking of Tex; that same night he lay awake for a long while, staring at the moon-lighted window and wishing that his eyesight could follow his thoughts and show him what he wanted to see. His thoughts took the trail to Sinkhole, dwelt there for a space in anxious speculation, drifted on to the Border and beyond and sought out Johnny Jewel, dwelling upon his quest with even more anxious speculation. Then, when sleep had dulled somewhat his reasoning faculties, Tex began to vision himself in Tucson—well, perhaps in Los Angeles, that Mecca of pleasure lovers—spending money freely, living for a little while the life of ease and idleness gemmed with the smiles of those beautiful women who hover gaily around the money pots in any country, in any clime.
For a hard-working cowpuncher with no visible assets save his riding gear and his skill with horses, the half-waking dreams of Tex were florid and as impossible, in the cold light of reason, as had been the dreams of Johnny Jewel in that bunk house.
That night others were awake in the moonlight. Down at Sinkhole camp five or six riders were driving a bunch of Rolling R horses into the corral where Johnny kept his riding horse overnight. They were not dreaming vaguely of the future, these riders. Instead they were very much awake to the present and the risks thereof. On the nearest ridge that gave an outlook to the north, a sentinel was stationed in the shade of a rocky out-cropping, ready to wheel and gallop back with a warning if any rode that way.
When the horses were corralled and the gate closed, one man climbed upon the fence and gave orders. This horse was to be turned outside—and the gate-tender swung open the barrier to let it through. That horse could go, and that and that.
“All right, boys. We kain’t afford to be hawgs, this trip. Straddle your hosses and take ’em over to that far corner where we laid the fence down. Remember what I said about keepin’ to the rocky draws. I’ll wait here and turn these loose, and foller along and set up the fence after yuh. And keep agoin’—only don’t swing over toward Baptista’s place, mind. Keep to the left all you can. And keep a lookout ahead. Yuh don’t want that kid to get a squint at yuh.”
One answered him in Mexican while they slipped out and mounted. They rode away, driving the horses they had chosen. Unobtrusive horses as to color; bays and browns, mostly, of the commonplace type that would not easily be missed from the herd. The man on the fence smoked a cigarette and studied the horses milling restlessly below him in the corral.
From the adobe cabin squatting in the moonlight came the shrill, insistent jingling of a bell. The man looked that way thoughtfully, climbed down and went to the cabin, keeping carefully in the beaten trail.
The door was not locked. A rawhide thong tied it fast to a staple in the door jamb. With the bell shrilling its summons inside, the man paused long enough to study the knotting of the thong before he untied it and stepped inside. He went to the telephone slowly, thoughtfully, his cigarette held between two fingers, his forehead drawn down so that his eyebrows were pinched together. He hesitated perceptibly before he took down the receiver. Then he grinned.
“Hello!” His voice was hoarse, slightly muffled. He grinned again when he caught the mildly querulous tones of Sudden Selmer, sharpened a little by the transmitter.
“Where the dickens have you been? I’ve been trying all evening to get you,” Sudden complained.
“Huh? Oh, I just got in. I been fixing fence over west of here. Took me till dark—No, the stock’s all in—wind had blowed down a couple of them rotten posts—well, they was rotten enough to sag over, so I had to reset them—Had to reset them, I said! Dig new holes!” He turned his face a little away from the transmitter and coughed, then grinned while he listened.
“Oh, nothing—just a cold I caught—Don’t amount to anything. I’m doctoring it. I always get hoarse when I catch a little cold—Sure, everything’s all right. I’m going to ride fence tomorrow—That so? It blowed to beat the cars, down here all night—Why, they’re lookin’ fine—No, ain’t saw a soul. I guess they know better than to bother our stock—All right, Mr. Selmer, I will—and say! I might be late in getting in tomorrow, but everything’s fine as silk—All right—G’ bye!”
He hung up the receiver before he started to laugh, but once he did start, he laughed all the time he was re-tying the door in the same kind of knot Johnny had used, and all the while he was returning to the corral.
“Fell for it, all right. Nothing can beat having a cold right handy,” he chuckled when he had turned out the stock, whistled for the sentinel, and mounted his horse. “Guess I better happen around tomorrow evening. They won’t be back—not if they bring it with ’em.”
While he waited for the guard to come in, he eyed the corral and its immediate neighborhood, and afterward inspected the cloud-flecked sky. “Corral shows a bunch of stock has been penned here,” he muttered. “But the wind’ll raise before sun-up. I guess it’ll be all right.”
The sentinel came trotting around the corner. “How many?” he asked, riding alongside the other.
“Fifteen, all told. Tomorrow night we’ll cull that bunch that ranges west of here. Won’t do to trim out too many at a time, and they may be back here tomorrow night. They will if they can’t get it over. I don’t much expect they will, at that—unless they bring it in pieces. Still, yuh can’t tell what a crazy kid’ll take a notion to do; not when he’s got a bug like Tex says this one has got.”
“Tex is pretty cute, aw-right. Me, I’d never a thought of that.”
The boss grunted. “Tex is paid for being cute. He’s on the inside, where he’s got a chance to know these things. He wouldn’t be worth a nickel to us if he wasn’t cute.”
“And it’s us that takes the chances,” readily agreed the guard.
“Yeah—look at the chance I took jus’ now! Talked to old Sudden over the ’phone, stalling along like I was the kid. Got away with it, at that. I’d like to see Tex—”
“Aw, Tex ain’t in it with you. When it comes right down to fine work—” So, feeding the vanity of the boss with tidbits of crude flattery, which the boss swallowed greedily as nine tenths of us would do, they jogged along down the pebbly bottom of Sinkhole Creek where it had gone dry, turned into the first rocky draw that pointed southeastward, and so passed on and away from the camp where Tex’s thoughts were clinging anxiously.
When they had carefully mended the fence that had been opened, and had obliterated all traces of horses passing through, they rode home to their beds perfectly satisfied with the night’s work, and looking forward to the next night.
A hot, windy day went over the arid range; a day filled with contented labor for some, strenuous activity for some others—Johnny Jewel among these—and more or less anxious waiting for a very few.
That day the fifteen stolen horses, urged forward by grimy, swearing Mexicans and a white man or two, trotted heavily southward, keeping always to the sheltered draws and never showing upon a ridge until after a lookout had waved that all was well.
That day Mary V rode aimlessly to the western hills, because she saw three of the boys hiking off toward the south and she did not know where they were going.
That day Johnny Jewel suffered chronic heart jumpings, lest the four wide-blinkered mules look around again and, seeing themselves still pursued by the great, ungainly contraption on the lengthened wagon they drew, run away and upset their precariously balanced load.
That day the man who had so obligingly answered the telephone for Johnny busied himself with various plans and preparations for the night, and retraced the trail down the rocky draws to the fence where horses and riders had crossed, to make sure, by daylight, that no trace had been left of their passing, and met Tex over by Snake Ridge for a brief and very satisfactory conference.
So the day blew itself red in the face, and then purple, with a tender, rose-violet haze under its one crimson, lazily drooping eye. And at last it wrapped itself in its royal, gemmed robe, and settled quietly down to sleep. Night came stepping softly across the hills and the sandy plains, carrying her full-lighted lantern that painted black shadows beside every rock and bush and cut-bank.
With the deepening of the shadows and the rising drone of night sounds and the whispering of the breeze which was all that was left of the wind, the man came riding cautiously up through a draw to the willow growth just below Sinkhole watering place. He tied his horse there and went on afoot, stepping on rocks and grass tufts and gravelly spots as easily as though he had practiced that mode of travel.
Sinkhole cabin was dark and quiet and lonesome, but still he waited for awhile in the shadow and watched the place before he ventured forth. He did not go at once to the cabin, but always treading carefully where imprints would be lightest, he made a further inspection of the corral. The wind had done its work there, and hoofprints were practically obliterated. Satisfied, he returned to the cabin and sat down on the bench beside the door, where he could watch the trail while he waited.
The telephone rang. The man untied the door, went in, and answered it hoarsely. Everything was all right, he reported. He had ridden the fence and tightened one or two loose wires. Yes,
the water was holding out all right, and the horses came to water every night about sundown, or else early in the morning before the flies got too bad. His cold was better, and he didn’t need a thing that he knew of. And good-bye, Mr. Selmer.
He went out, very well satisfied with himself; re-tied the door carefully with Johnny’s own peculiar kind of hitch, stooped and felt the hard-packed earth to make sure he had not inadvertently dropped a cigarette butt that might possibly betray him, and rolled a fresh smoke before leaving for home. He had just lighted it and was moving away toward the creek when the telephone jingled a second summons. He would have to answer it, of course. Old Sudden knew he couldn’t be far away, and would ring until he did answer. He unfastened the door again, cursing to himself and wondering if the Rolling R people were in the habit of calling Johnny Jewel every ten minutes or so. He stumbled over a box that he had missed before, swore, and called a gruff hello.
“Oh, hello, cowboy!” Unmistakably feminine, that voice; unmistakably provocative, too—subdued, demure, on guard, as though it were ready to adopt any one of several tones when it spoke again.
“Oh—er—hello! That you, Mr. Selmer?” The man did not forget his hoarseness. He even coughed discreetly.
“Why, no! This is Venus speaking. May I ask if you expected Miss Selmer to call you up?” Raised eyebrows would harmonize perfectly with that tone, which was sugary, icily gracious.
“Oh—er—hello! That you, Miss Selmer? Beg your pardon—my mistake. Er—ah—how are yuh this evenin’?”
“Oh—lonesome.” A sigh seemed to waft over the wire. “You see, I have quarreled with Mars again. He would drink out of your big dipper in spite of me! I knew you wouldn’t like that—”