“I was hunting in the jungles for I was a warrior then . . .” And as I crept along tracking the deer a man appeared before me with a suddenness that is only possible to god-things. I fell upon my face for lo! he was different from other men; he had wings like the condor!
“He bent and helped me to my feet and then I found that he had pressed a piece of silver into my hand. ‘I have paid for your labor,’ said he, ‘your labor belongs to me’. I nodded for that is our custom. He named then a place where we should meet and with his great wings he rose straight into the sky.”
“And did you meet him?” I asked.
The peon nodded. “Ay . . . ay . . . had he not paid me for my labor? I bid good bye to my wife, my little ones and my friends, and I went to the place where he had bidden me go. There were others there, all fine strong men like me. He was there and with him many of his kind. With them they had a great hammock of woven bark shaped like a canoe and we were hidden to take our places therein. There were fifty of us.
“We did not hesitate but sat in the hammock. Then the men with wings each took a hold of the air-boat, for such it was and together they bore us up and over the trees! For many hours we sailed more smoothly than a boat sails the river, and with the setting of the western sun we descended. We found ourselves on a vast plantation, and we were given food and drink and a place to lay our heads.
“Ah, never before was there such a farm. This poor cultivation that you see here in these hills is not like that. How far it stretched there was no way of telling. There I worked in the fields with my fellow men for a year and again the flying men came to bring us back here to our friends and our families.”
You can imagine how I felt when I heard this. The winged men therefore had settlements, plantations and what not.
“Were there many winged men?” I asked.
Pedro shook his head. “I know not their number. They brought us and they took us away, but how many there were, I know not. They did not live near us. They but came and went as they pleased. Sometimes they came by night, sometimes by day, and they carried off with them great sacks of the foods we raised, of the sheep we herded, of the fruits we gathered. Ay . . . the weight of the sacks that they bore off . . . twice the weight that even the strongest of us could bear!”
“Where did they carry it?”
Pedro shrugged his shoulders. “Is it for me, a lowly peon, to speak of god-things? Does one ask where the Sun dwells? Nay . . . I know not, senor. I know only that they will come again . . . and it will be to lead us back . . . to give us what belongs to us!”
And no further questioning could bring another word from the old fellow. It was enough, though. Not more than a day’s flight away dwelt the flying men. That would mean then that their plantation was in Bolivia instead of Brazil, however, for Arequipa is parallel to the Bolivian border. It appeared later that I made a mistake, in not realizing that in his hundred odd years old Pedro had not always lived in this locality but in reality he had lived farther to the north.
Futile Searching
AFTER returning to Arequipa we spent two days in flying over a portion of Bolivia. However, all of the western part of that country is mountainous, and we began to think that Pedro had led us astray, for not once did we catch so much as a glimpse of a winged creature except a number of condors who made their homes among the mountain peaks.
We decided then to fly back to Cuzco and continue our search from there. We heard nothing of much interest in the city, but more planes were arriving to take up the search. We, however, were determined to get ahead of them all and headed out over the vast jungle country. Below us lay the montana, the jungles on the eastern slopes of the Andes and which is known as the Upper Amazon Basin.
Flying over the wild country that rolled below us, for the first time we felt qualms of doubt. How were we to ever find the settlement of the alated in this wide stretch of unexplored land? No plane had as yet located anything that looked as if it might be inhabited—the jungle presented nothing but miles and miles of tangled masses of tropical vegetation and massive trees, gentle slopes and occasionally a bald spot of leprous white amid the sea of green.
Rivers wound through over-grown banks appearing and disappearing, lakes blinked up at us, swamps and deserts stretched below. We saw a few spirals of smoke that set our hearts beating, only to discover them to be nothing but the cooking fires of a poor sort of Indian village. Once on a low hilltop we saw something we took to be a city which turned out to be merely some Inca ruins.
What if after all these winged men had no base, but like the Indians were a wandering people moving day by day. Suppose that Pedro Majes after all merely dreamed that he had been carried off by flying men, that his imagination had been fired by the tales he had heard of the men with wings? Only the fact that they had a great many women, kidnapped women, and a number of children perhaps, made us think that they had some fixed dwelling place. How large their settlement might be, we could not guess.
For two days we flew and in that time descried only one of our quarry. He immediately flew straight into the bright ball of the burning sun so we lost sight of him, even though we put on smoked glasses. He faded completely out of our vision.
Disappointed we sulked in Cuzco. We decided that we were wasting our time. We must go on foot into the country and search on the ground. We hired a band of Indians to guide us through the jungles and went to sleep determined to start out in the morning on this new venture. We did not start that morning, however, for some of our Indians had decided they did not wish to go. We spent the day in gathering a new band.
The Clue
ABOUT four o’clock that afternoon some fresh news came and again our plans were changed! A radio report had come in from a questing pilot. Flying low through the jungles not more than ninety miles from the border of Peru, he had suddenly come upon a great band of flying men! He judged there were perhaps a thousand and they had appeared to be going through some aerial drill, flying in formation with a leader at their head.
He had come upon them from the rear, but the noise of his engine announced his presence. Immediately as if at a signal the large party separated but still keeping a formation they flew upward and outward straight into the sky until a great circle a thousand feet above the plane was spread.
“Were they to attack me in a body,” said the broadcaster from his plane, “they could by laying hands upon the machine bear it down to the ground, but it is evident that they wish me to go my way. For some reason I suspicion that I am close to their base. I lay this position to be about seven degrees below the equator and . . .”
There the voice of the pilot ended and it was believed for the moment that he had been attacked by the flying men, and, as the aviator had conjectured, had borne his plane to the earth. However, five minutes later his voice was again heard.
“I am losing control of my machine . . . I can no longer guide it . . . for it moves . . . and swings about crazily . . . as if . . drawn by some great power . . . moving faster than before . . . Overhead the flying men watch . . . God . . . my hands . . . they are growing cold . . . my feet . . . why . . . there is frost on the instrument board! My God . . . the propeller is frozen fast . . . and yet . . . yet . . . the plane continues to move irresistibly toward some goal. The earth is swinging around . . . It is cold . . . horribly cold . . . and dark . . . the sky is black . . . I can see nothing . . . I . . . I . . .”
And there ended the radiogram. The receiving stations waited for hours but no more was heard. The pilot was evidently dead, but he had managed to give the world some tangible news at last. We knew now where to look.
D’Arcy, Norton and Wormley and I started out before dawn and this time we headed ninety miles east on the seventh degree of latitude. Others started shortly after we did, but ours was uncommonly fast so that we led the race. It was I who discerned a large band of flying men gathered together several miles ahead. They sighted us and quickly spread out fan fashion until they disappeared al
together into the blue sky. We were happy. We had found them out.
CHAPTER THREE
Caught
D’ARCY leaned toward me. “I suggest that we go in search of some likely place and proceed on foot . . . If these fellows have some means of destroying the plane . . . we’ll be in a hell of a fix!”
Acting on his suggestion I caught up one of the ear-phones that communicated with the driving seat; for D’Arcy and I were riding in the passenger cabin while Norton rode with Wormley, the pilot.
Immediately we commenced circling down looking for a clearing in which to land. We saw two clearings that were not very large and appeared too irregular for our purpose. Then the trees, great giants, spread out before us without a single break mile after mile. We turned about then for we did not wish to get too close to the village of the winged men. We recalled the fate of the pilot who had!
It was Norton who called my attention to a sight below. On the highest tree top we could make out a figure and it was waving to us, beating both arms over its head. D’Arcy cried out. “It’s a woman!”
It was a woman and Wormley dropped lower so as to pass close to her when as suddenly as she had appeared she vanished from our sight into the thick foliage of the trees, pulled from below. We could do nothing but stare at the place she had been, as we skimmed overhead. We did not doubt but that she was indeed a captive, one of the hundreds of girls who had been abducted in the last few months.
We were wild with joy now. The search was over. Below us we would find our quest. We knew at the same time that if we now returned to Cuzco with the news and brought out a squadron of rescue planes we would have been heroes indeed. But fired, rather, by the eagerness to carry out our own mission we decided in favor of landing, if we could only park our plane somewhere! We had no way of knowing then that our decision was to cost our party two lives, but on the other hand our own plans would have carried no weight at all in the next turn of events.
Turning back we continued to look for a clearing, but the winged men had already a different scheme for us. We had no sooner turned about when we heard murmurs through our communication lines from Wormley. We could not understand what he was saying, but it became noticeable to D’Arcy and myself that the plane was acting queerly. Then we almost took a nose dive, but with a superhuman effort Wormley held the nose up. He spoke into his phone.
“I’m losing control,” he said.
We held on to our seats not knowing what was coming. It was D’Arcy who first noted that he was cold and I began to feel the chill in the air, a northern chill that did not belong to the equator. Then Wormley lost entire control of the ship. D’Arcy let out a yell. “We’re moving backwards!”
It was true, the plane was actually running backward, and in a circling motion, the earth seeming swinging about the trees slipped from under us grotesquely and the propeller was whirling crazily. Too, it was growing dark around us although it was only about ten o’clock in the morning! I could see the sun shining as if through a haze.
When the propeller stopped we stared at the big motionless blades blankly. The engine was dead, but we continued to move around in a great circle as though we were being pulled along on a string! The chill was increasing each minute and we were shivering. I remembered the words of the pilot who had managed to broadcast the course of events before he fell to . . . what? What was happening to us? Were we to die under the hands of the men we had come to discover?
Now with the engine stalled we were moving faster and faster until below us through the growing darkness we could see the jungle sweeping crazily around in a blurred vision. It had become so cold that I was entirely numbed, my sense of feeling gone.
Then: “God! We’re falling . . . falling . . .”
The trees were coming up to meet us. I had a glimpse of a big wall crashing toward us. I covered my face with my hands. The crash came and our screams reverberated in my ears as I sank into darkness that swept over me. And through it I heard voices and dreamed of giant eagles who were ripping my flesh from my bones.
The Toll
WHEN I came to consciousness I wondered at finding myself in a hospital room. I recalled after racking my brains what had happened. I remembered the day’s flight, the flying men, the peculiar antics of our plane and the fall. Beyond that I could remember nothing and wondered now how I had been transported back to the city.
For some minutes I lay staring at the sky-light overhead, through which diffused a sunlight like that of northern skies. Then turning my head I stared at the four walls, and the white beds of which there were five beside mine. Two, I saw, were occupied. For a moment I did not recognize the bandage swathed face of the figure in the next bed to mine as that of Howard Wormley.
“Hello,” I said, addressing that hidden face, “could you tell me what I am doing here, and how I arrived?”
The figure turned over and when he spoke I recognized him. “Well, it’s about time you came to, old fellow. I hasn’t been pleasant lying here for seven days watching to see if you breathed or not!”
“Oh, it’s you Wormley,” I said, “Where’s Norton and D’Arcy?”
I heard him sigh through his bandages, “Norton died immediately . . . and there’s D’Arcy in the other bed. He’s been suffering horribly and it is doubted whether he will live or not! We’ve feared for you, afraid that you would go, too . . .”
As he was speaking I was realizing that I ached severely in many quarters. I felt as though I had been through a meat grinder. I shuddered when he spoke of Norton and D’Arcy. They were good fellows, two of the best reporters on the News, and good sports too. I peered over at the quiet form lying stiffly without movement on the third bed.
“Just what happened?” I asked, “and how did we get back here to Cuzco?”
“One at a time . . . and not so much at once, please. Who said anything about Cuzco?”
I looked about . . . “Why this hospital . . . this . . .”
“Yeh . . . this is a hospital, but not in Cuzco, my boy. You might as well know it now. You’re a prisoner! At present you are in the underground hospital of the city of Number One of the nation of Mentor, old man, the headquarters of the people alated-homo . . . or what have you! But anyway the service is pretty fair!”
My pulse quickened. “So we did find them?”
“No,” said Wormley, “They found us; we’re invited guests!”
“Invited, hum? That was a fine invitation card they presented us with. Did you learn what sort of a contraption they used to make us fall? Must be a devilish thing. Perhaps we can arrange to buy it for the United States of America!”
“Not on your mug-print, feller. We’re captives here and not somehow. Death to him who attempts escape! I asked about that woman we saw signalling us, but from what I judge she got . . .” and he passed his hand over his throat and uttered a colorful, “Quirk . . .”
“Hum . . . well, I’ll have to get out to take the story back home . . . Walls do not a prison make . . . or iron bars a something-or-other. We shall see . . . Howard Wormley . . . . we shall see. Well, tell me something more about this Number One city . . .”
“Not so fast, not so fast . . . You’re just recovering from a lot of what-not . . . do you think I’m going to talk you into a fever. No sir, you keep your mouth shut. I’m calling a nurse now, and after that we’ll see what’s what! And when you see the nurse . . . oh boy!”
As he spoke Wormley was reaching up to the head of his bed from which a bell cord hung. He pressed the button. “This isn’t such a bad billet at that, Jimmy. They aren’t a bad lot and are willing to treat us right if we do our part . . .”
“And what is our part?” I demanded.
“Simply to take upon ourselves a mate and help propagate the nation of Mentor!”
“Oh . . .!”
Lois
FURTHER conversation stopped with the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor outside our door. Somehow I had never thought of the possibility of there b
eing winged women. The papers had been full of winged men, but none had ever mentioned women with wings. Nor could I have dreamed that she could be so like an angel!
First I saw the gold of her close cropped hair, the blue of deep far-seeing eyes, a face such as Harris Fishel might seek in vain. Clothed in the tight fitting smock and snug trousers of Mentor she was a picture to behold and needed only the pair of beautiful rainbow-hued wings to make an angel of her.
She carried her wings as angels should, the tips appearing just at the shoulder line, the end feathers, long and fine, dragging several inches on the ground behind her. (Such Mentorites as have gone a-kidnapping usually cut those long ends to prevent detection). Her hands were long and slender with the blue veins outlined under the sun-browned skin. It always puzzled me (I noted these last items at a later period) how the tall girl (she was five feet and nine inches tall without heels) managed to walk so easily and lightly on the tiny little feet she possessed which were so beautifully molded that they did not appear to have been constructed for use. Her shoes, incidently, were but flat soft pieces of tanned bird skins of about two dozen thicknesses, held on the bare foot by straps that crossed and recrossed.
She had come directly to the side of my bed and when she smiled brightly I thought I should cry out with the pain of it. (And me a case-hardened reporter). “Ah,” she said in an angel’s voice, “at last you have awakened. We feared for you, Jim Kennedy.”
My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, else I might have said some silly insane thing. But I could only grin foolishly. Wormley, however, did the honors for me.
“It’s not easy to kill these reporter fellows, Miss Lois,” he said from behind his bandages.
“No?” she queried. “Are reporters a breed different then from other men?”
Wormley burst out into a wild guffaw that ended abruptly in the middle. His bandages were not there for decoration; his face was pretty well shattered, and secretly I was tickled that he had hurt himself for his cussed remark.
Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks) Page 3
