by Alan Lemay
Other books by Alan LeMay:
THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN
SPANISH CROSSING
THE SMOKY YEARS
WINTER RANGE
Foreword
Death Rides the Trionte
Mules
The Killer in the Chute
Sentenced to Swing
The Fourth Man
The Fiddle in the Storm
Terlegaphy and the Bronc'
Gunfight at Burnt Corral
A Horse for Sale
Pardon Me, Lady
Six-Gun Graduate
Range Bred
West of Nowhere
In the dusky prairie skies west of nowhere Alan LeMay, my father, was putting the finishing touches on a long day of solo flying. The year was 1938, and the Kansas plains had few towns or highways to guide an amateur pilot. The sun was setting in his eyes, which he figured was a good thing since his dead-reckoning navigation was intended to take him back to California. As it grew dark, he saw in the distance the welcome sight of lights marking the boundaries of the dirt-strip airfield that was today's destination. All was well. Another triumph of man over cross wind.
But then the lights went out. The field that had been so clearly outlined in the distance disappeared. The sun was gone-there was no moon the high overcast blanketed the stars, and the lonely prairie ate the airfield. As he drew near the vanished target, a line of widely spaced red lights appeared, and off to the side was a dim glow from the window of the fixed-base operations shack. Dad buzzed it, revving the tired engine as a signal to get the lights on for a landing. No response. He circled back, and, after a lot more engine signaling, the door opened and a man stood in the dim splash of light, waving. One more pass and the man went back inside. But still no field lights.
So Dad lined up on the red lights, eased the throttle back, and glided in to the field he could not see. The plane settled down until the red lights flashed past close below on one side. He pulled the stick back, keeping the plane just above the level of the lights, raising the nose to stall the taildragger into a three-point landing. But the plane did not touch down. There was a sickening several seconds of free fall, followed by the major crunch that comes from stalling thirty feet too high.
Miraculously the landing gear survived. The lights had not been at runway level, they were on the tops of the power poles that seemed always to appear near short airstrips. So in the appropriate mood of one who has just nearly killed himself, Dad stormed into the operations shack to ask why they couldn't spare ten minutes of power for the welcome lights.
"I'll bet you make a living straightening bent airplanes."
"Why, you bend yours? I didn't think your landing was that noisy. All four bounces sounded right side up."
"Well, I guess I could do that blindfolded, because that's what it's like out there. What's the deal here, incoming pilots have to pay in advance for a little electricity? You don't put out much of a welcome mat."
"Sorry about the misunderstanding. A fella just left on a night flight to Dallas. You probably saw the field lights when he took off. Then, when you buzzed us, we thought it was him, waving good bye. Anyways, good thing you didn't take those red lights as runway center line, that could have left us without power for our coffee pot."
Dad's cross-country solo, Boston to San Diego, would be routine today. But in a fabric-covered Tailorcraft, lacking decent weather reports and carrying minimal navigation equipment, it was a challenge. He had few hours in the air, but he was getting experience the way he liked it: fast and first-hand. He was thinking about writing some flying stories, but first he had to do it himself.
He mostly wrote Westerns because they dealt with people, places, and a way of life that he knew and loved. He knew horses because he spent a lot of time with them. He rode them in the heat of the Carrizo desert, rounding up wild horses. He rode them in polo matches, wearing out a half dozen horses a game. He rode them on Sunday morning paper chases with us kids. He rode them at night in freezing rain when his herd of pregnant whitefaces needed a cowboy midwife. He owned a horse that he could talk to, and one that would bite him if he turned his back. When he wrote of the jarring wake-up call a bronc' gives his rider to start the day, the description rings true because he always topped off his own bronc's.
And it was that way with the flying: first the experience, then the writing. Connoisseurs of Westerns claim that the term Western denotes an action style with heroes winning out over villains, and covers a lot more than just the horseborne era in the grandeur of the American West. So the title piece of this collection happens to be about airplanes and pilots, rather than horses and cowboys, but I would still call it a Western. And you can be sure that the background is authentic and based on the author's first-hand experience, because it is by Alan LeMay.
Dan LeMay Fallbrook, California
I
"BACK FROM THE DEAD"
Buck Williams's bar echoed to the shouting and laughter of a dozen hard-eyed men who gathered about Wade Jeffries. They had returned from an expedition that had ended entirely to the satisfaction of Jeffries.
A range king, immaculate in expensive soft-brimmed Stetson, silk shirt, and doeskin chaps and vest, he smiled as he touched his thin lips with a small glass. It was a mirthless smile, a cold, emotionless widening of the lips. It was a smile that might have been painted beneath frowning eyes on the mouth of a statue.
"Yore enemies don't seem to last long, Wade," gloated Lin Walters, a tall, lanky gunny with a huge nose and small, shifty eyes. "That's the last we'll see o' Dale Manley unless his ghost gits up and walks. He died a lot easier'n that dog o' his'n. I had to shoot the danged brute four times before it let loose o' my leg."
Gar Dixon, a heavy, powerful man with a shock of red hair and a livid scar running from forehead to chin, glanced about him. "Yuh ought to buckle up that lip o' yore'n, Lin," he growled. "We ain't advertisin' what we done today."
"We're all friends here," retorted the tall gunman, "and anything goes. Besides, yuh know it wasn't us that wiped out Dale Manley. Oh, no! It was that masked outfit o' rannies that stuck up the stage last week, and run off them three-year-olds that Wade had over on the branch. We got a deputy sheriff with us, so what the hell?"
A grim, black-eyed man, with a silver star glittering on his cowhide vest, nodded. "I figger the law wanted Dale Manley," he remarked with a ghost of a smile. "He was shot while tryin' to escape. It's an old Spanish custom."
Jeffries sipped the liquor in the thin glass. His attitude was one of power and extreme satisfaction satisfaction with himself, satisfaction with the world. The last of his enemies had gone down in a red ruin. Dale Manley, who had blocked his plan for taking over the entire Trionte Valley that lay like a green gem between two ranges of smoky hills, with its miles of smooth, grass-covered prairie and low, lush hay land, was gone forever.
A cattle king and a cold, ambitious killer was Wade Jeffries. He rode over men as he rode over the great range. Whoever should stand in his way must die. Wade Jeffries was the All Highest of the Trionte. His will was the law.
First had gone Bliss Hathaway. Next Dan Morgan, a gentleman who had called everyone his friend, had died face downward in a fire. Dale Manley had followed today. There were lesser ones, such as Bart Connel and Jim Lessert of the Cross C, but they did not count.
Sometimes there had been a woman at stake, for Jeffries was a noted squire of dames. The crime of Dale Manley had been two-fold. He had owned the Flying Q, and Stella Carter had smiled upon him, instead of upon Wade Jeffries.
"So far," Gar Dixon threw out viciously, "there ain't nobody got the best o' Wade except them masked hombres that held up the stage last week and took the payroll. Who do yuh suppose they are, anyway? Where do they come f
rom?"
"From hell!" snapped Jeffries as he crashed the glass down on the bar. "And they're goin' back, if it's my last act. I'll hound 'em...."
He stopped speaking, stared at a man who had entered silently and now stood motionless in the doorway. A bloody bandage was tied about his head, and his face was white as the pallor of the grave. He stood with folded arms and did not speak.
"Dale Manley!" gasped the cattle king.
All eyes followed his, and silently the wide-eyed men stared at this man who they had left for dead on the grasscovered slope of the Flying Q.So complete was the silence that the ticking of the old Seth Thomas clock over the bar was clearly audible.
Gar Dixon began swearing softly hoarse, violent oaths that seemed to come from deep down in his throat.
The young man in the doorway spoke between tense, drawn lips. "I followed yuh, Wade Jeffries. Yuh and yore rotten gunnies. I know who yuh are. I know every one of yuh. Let's have it out right now, Jeffries. That's what I come for. Go for yore gun. Let's see what yuh can do to a man with yore hired killers keepin' out of it. Have yuh got the nerve to shoot it out with me?"
The cattle king licked his dry lips. His hands remained conspicuously away from the holster that swung low against his thigh. He shot a swift glance at Gar Dixon, who was his fastest gunman, and who drew fighting wages the year around.
Dixon's brows narrowed as he stared at Dale Manley. Then his hand shot down, and his gun flashed in the lamplight.
Manley half turned. A streak of flame stabbed out from under his arm, and the crash of a .44 shattered the stillness. Dixon's knees buckled. The gun dropped from his hand, and he sank to the floor.
Manley dropped flat as Jeffries's men came to life. Flaming guns appeared in their hands. Again a .44 roared. The big lamp careened crazily and crashed to the floor in a stream of burning oil that splashed out over the men. Lin Walters screamed as his clothing burst into flames.
Manley backed out of the doorway into the darkness. He staggered as he made his way to the hitch rack in front of the saloon. A stream of warm blood trickled down from underneath a bandage. The lights in the little street seemed to be waving up and down and around in incomplete circles.
A horse loomed before him. Mechanically he loosed the two half-hitches that tied it, and climbed into the saddle. With the touch of a spur it leaped forward into the street. A bullet whipped by him, and then another. He lay close to the horse's back and wondered how he might escape the horde that would come pounding on his trail. Then he questioned if he really wanted to escape, or if he should turn and see how many of Wade Jeffries's killers he could stop before a bullet brought him face to face with the long trail.
The last light of the little town slipped by, and he was out on the prairie headed straight for a great star that hung low in the western sky. He wondered about that star. Night after night he had watched it, and had noticed how much brighter it was than its fellows.
Again and again he heard the grim whine of bullets. Turning weakly, he could see the hazy outline of a dozen mounted men following in the darkness. He knew Jeffries's men were well mounted, and that he could not escape from them on the little pinto. Then he realized he was not on the pinto. That head, with ears erect, the easy stride that ate up the miles tirelessly, could belong to but one animal on the Trionte. By mistake he had taken the Thoroughbred bay gelding for which Wade Jeffries had paid five thousand dollars. Manley grinned to himself and sat straighter in the saddle. By the irony of fate he was escaping on the horse of his enemy the only horse that could outrun the mounts of the angry men behind.
The star loomed big and bright ahead. Manley thought he must be gaining on it, for it seemed bigger than a moment before. He began to laugh and shout hysterically. He emptied his gun into the air.
Wade Jeffries! Hang Wade Jeffries! What cared Dale Manley for the cattle king who had hounded him from his home? Here was night and a star. A magnificent horse strained beneath him. A cool wind blew against his face, drying the blood that still trickled out from under the red bandage.
He turned and jeered at the men behind, and there was no answer. Already he had outdistanced them. Straight toward the hills the gelding dashed. Why the hills? Why not? Manley did not care where the sweating, lathering, dashing animal took him. Why should he?
The star was jumping crazily about in the heavens. The dark outline of the hills weaved in a weird and strange motion like a Gargantuan dance of giant things that were beyond the knowledge of men.
Manley shouted again. What cared he? Let all creation dance. Let the hills tumble down over the earth. Let them bury him and Wade Jeffries beneath the ruin of the world and he would be content.
Weakness assailed him, and he sank forward in the saddle, gripping the horn with both hands. He knew the horse was covered with foam and was panting for breath, and that its red nostrils were dilated to the utmost with the killing pace. Slowly he spoke the quiet words that he had often used to soothe cattle at night. He found the reins and pulled gently. The hills seemed to leap forward, and the next moment he was among them.
Gradually the pace slackened, and the heaving animal came to a stop.
Manley remained a moment with the stars whirling above him, and then fell gently from the saddle. He did not hear voices that came out of the night. He did not feel the hands that lifted him. He did not know when he was placed in a horse litter made from two saplings and a blanket. He did not know when they stopped at a little cabin hidden away among a thick growth of spruce in the fastness of the hills.
II
"THE HOOT-OWL TRAIL"
Morning in the blue hills. Morning! With the slender fingers of dawn stabbing upward into a brazen sky. The chatter of a mountain jay in a pine tree. The scolding of a gray squirrel that had been disturbed at his labor of hoarding piiion nuts.
Manley gazed about him, his eyes wide with bewilderment. He was lying on a cot covered with a blanket. A tiny shaft of pale sunlight flickered in through a window of a cabin of clean logs. He breathed in the pungent odor of spruce and pine, and the pure ozone of the hills.
A man moved softly. Dale looked up into the eyes of Jim Lessert who he believed had gone to Montana after being driven from the Trionte by Wade Jeffries.
"Jim!" he exclaimed in a feeble voice.
"Yeah, that's right, Dale," the other answered softly. "Yuh shore busted into the right place, boy."
"How did I git here?"
Briefly Jim told him, and also told him of the warfare that a little company of five persecuted and dispossessed ranchers was carrying on against the man who had hounded them from their homes.
"We can't fight him in the open," Lessert explained, "so we're fightin' him under cover. We're after his payrolls and his cattle. We'll bum him out if we git a chanct. We got two more hide-outs as good as this one. If they git too hot on our trail, we'll disappear and turn up in another place."
A man entered the room, treading softly. His stem face broke into a smile when he saw that Manley was awake and conscious.
"Hyah, Dale?" he greeted.
"Howdy, Bart." Here was Jim Lessert's partner who was supposed to have given up the struggle and departed for regions unknown.
"yuh shore had a close squeak, cowboy," Bart Connel told Manley, "but yuh'll be all right now. We had Doc Fine out from Whip Lash. Doc's a friend o' our'n and keeps our scratches patched up."
"I'm feelin' fine," remarked Manley, as he raised himself to one elbow. "Who else is here?"
"Willis Horton, Johnny Royce, and Cal Stewart. They're away now, but'll be back tonight. We got a reg' lar underground way o' gittin' information, Dale. You'll be s'prised to see how many people is tyin' in with us to git Wade Jeffries. Bill Randall, the sheriff, is one of 'em."
"But this robbery and rustlinn...."
Connel's dark face clouded. "We're only takin' back what's our'n, Dale. When the law goes rotten, there's only one thing honest men kin do. Might is right on the Trionte, an' we're payin' back Wade
Jeffries in his own coin."
Manley learned many things during the days that he gathered strength before taking his place in the saddle. He learned that Bill Randall, the sheriff, was gathering evidence against Jeffries and was secretly aiding the dispossessed ranchers. He learned of a mysterious rider who, with black mask and black horse, took part in the raids and then disappeared.
"We don't know who he is," Lessert told Manley. "We leave a note under a rock about two miles from here, tellin' him where we're goin', and he always shows up. He only spoke once, and that was to tell us not to kill Wade Jeffries. He says that, when the time comes, Wade is his."
Johnny Royce rode in one day with information that Jeffries had put the monthly payroll in the safe at the ranch house on the Cross C.
"That money ought to be Jim's and mine," stated Connel seriously. "The ranch is still our'n even though Wade is runnin' it. I vote that we pay him a visit. Wade's payroll cash is big enough to interest `most anybody. We shore got a right to go in our own house and open our own safe."
"Yeah, but how are we gonna blow open a safe?" cal Stewart asked.
"That's the joke," Connel told them. "It's our of safe, and Johnny Royce kin open it no matter where the combination is set. He used to come over in the winter time and fool with it hours at a time, jest like a little kid with a toy gun."
Royce's huge mouth widened in a grin. "Yeah, that's right. The of tin box kinda fascinated me. It gives out a faint click when it reaches the right spot. I kin open her, all right. Sometimes I think I spoiled a good safecracker to make a danged poor cowpoke."
It was long past midnight. A brilliant moon shed its white light over the prairie and turned night into day.
Six riders drew up on a hill and looked down a long, gentle slope. The silent corrals of the Cross C, with the rambling, one-story adobe house, lay spread out below them in the moonlight, a huge, misshapen scar on the dark green of the plain.
