A Barnstormer in Oz

by Philip José Farmer

  The eagle that came from behind and sank its talons into Hank's leather helmet was almost as surprised as Hank. It must have been much more disappointed. The strap of the helmet was loose. Though the talons went through the leather and gashed the top of Hank's head, the helmet came off. Hank threw himself on the ground, crawled away, turned, and removed the BAR from his shoulder. The eagle was somewhere in the darkness, doubtless trying to get its talons loose from the helmet.

  Others had not been as lucky as he. They were screaming and battling desperately with the birds trying to rip out eyes and gash faces. Hank decided that it was too dangerous to shoot in the dark. He reversed the BAR to use as a club and brought it down on the back of a hawk that had a man on the ground. Though its back was broken, the hawk's talons did not come loose. Man and bird rolled away into the night.

  The three who had cleared the bridge galloped up waving their swords. Hank could not see them very well, but he could make out three bulks. He reversed the rifle again and shot the riders off the saddles. The deer, though disciplined to fight, ran away at the explosions.

  Hank located three more battling couples and killed the birds. By this time, the soldier who had gotten across the ditch charged. He cut down Smiirn, who was stabbing a hawk whose talons were sunk into his chest. Hank shot the soldier and his deer.

  Sharts and Blogo had managed to slay their attackers and to pull the talons out of their flesh. They aided Hank and soon had put an end to four more birds. Hank came across the eagle with the helmet caught in his claws. He shot it, but he had no time to get his helmet back. Three deer and riders who had struggled up from the mess on the bridge roared in. Hank shot two. Blogo leaped onto the back of one and slashed his throat.

  It took a while to kill the other birds, but it was done. Of Sharts's band, all except three were dead, unconscious, or blinded. The only ones who could walk were Sharts, Blogo, and Hank.

  From an indeterminate distance to the south came the faint notes of a bugle.

  "They must have heard us!" Blogo said. "They'll be ripsnorting up the road now! We haven't got much time!"

  Sharts said, "We can't leave them at the mercy of Erakna!"

  He pointed at the blinded and the badly wounded.

  "Right you are!" the Rare Beast cried.

  Before Hank could protest, Blogo had cut the throats of the blind men and was starting on the others.

  "I don't like it, but it has to be done," Sharts said.

  "Yes, I suppose so," Hank said wearily.

  The thunder and lightning had ceased shortly before the attack, though it was still raining. He took Blogo's lantern and searched until he found the eagle. After trying to get the helmet loose, he gave up. The two men were threatening to leave him behind if he did not stop fooling around. He trudged after them, and they reached the farmhouse within twenty minutes. They had to go at a wolf trot to do it, run fifty steps, walk fifty. Sharts halted when they got to the gate. The light from the lantern fell on a ghastly figure. His face was deeply gashed, blood was spattered over his face and clothes, and his shirt was torn to shreds.

  "What's the matter, boss?" Blogo said. "We shouldn't stop now!"

  "You know what the matter is," the giant said.

  Blogo said, "Oh, yeah. Sure."

  He took off his knapsack and removed a paper-covered package. After tearing open the top, he took out a purple-and-gold-striped shirt with an exquisite white lace collar and cuffs. Meanwhile, Sharts had taken off his jacket and the ruined shirt.

  "For God's sake!" Hank said.

  Blogo looked up at him.

  "Every time he gets into a fight... well, you can see for yourself. That's why..."

  "Why what?" Sharts said angrily.

  "Nothing, boss."

  If he had not been so weary, Hank would have laughed. That was just as well. Sharts would undoubtedly have attacked him, and he would have been forced to shoot Sharts. Shoot Sharts. Alliterative and attractive idea.

  The giant, now reattired, said, "Blogo, you go down to the house and tell the farmer that he and his family should take off for the hills. They can watch from there to see if the Gillikins come here."

  "Sure, boss, only... there isn't any doubt they will. Once day comes, the hawks'll be all over this area like pepper on soup. They'll spot Jenny, and the whole army'll be here."

  "They can't do that until dawn," Sharts said, very patiently for him. "If the weather clears by then, we can fly off in her."

  "Not if there are a lot of hawks here," Hank said. "The moment we get in the plane, they'll attack. We won't have a chance to get off the ground if they are here in great numbers."

  "Do you want to flee into the hills?" Sharts said. "That army will be beating the bush, and the chances are they'll find us."

  "It's twelve one way and a dozen the other. No, I don't want to run for the woods. Not until I have to. I'm for waiting until dawn to see what the weather's like."

  "If a patrol finds us, a hawk will be sent to Wugma to bring the garrison army here."

  "There's your patrol now," Hank said.

  He pointed at the swinging lanterns far down the road.

  Blogo left to notify the farmers. The two men waited until they could hear the clop-clop of hooves and see a dim mass moving toward them. Hank emptied the rest of his magazine and expended five rounds from the fresh supply. Some of the lanterns were dropped on the road, where a broken one burned. What was left of the patrol had retreated, though several wounded men were screaming. After a while, the cries gradually got fainter. The soldiers had sneaked back and carried off the wounded.

  The Rare Beast came running and out of breath. "What happened?"

  Sharts told him.

  "Where's Bargma?" Hank said.

  "Gone hunting. She'll be back just before dawn."

  Hank did not think that Terrestrial owls went hunting in such foul weather. They would not want to get wet, there was so little light that even an owl could not see well, and the prey would be staying out of the open. But here the animal kingdom did not behave exactly as on Earth. Bargma could be walking through the woods now, trying to find some holed-up rodent. Her sentiency would enable her to hunt in a manner her other-world cousins would never dream of.

  Sharts sent Blogo after some food and hot berry juice. When he returned with a large basketful, he said, "They're gone."

  Sharts said, "You sound as if you'd like to go with them."

  "Not me!" Blogo said. He thumped his barrel chest with a fist. "You know me. Did I ever run away from a fight? Hell, boss, you and I have taken on and licked twenty men! And look at what havoc we worked among the Gillikins tonight! They must be filling their britches just thinking about tackling us! Maybe I ought to go down the road and tell them who we are! That'd shake them up!"

  "Yeah," Hank said. "All ten thousand of them."

  "Numbers don't scare me," Blogo said.

  Hank had to listen to much more boasting. He was tired of it, but it did keep him awake. That and his mental images of how he would like to kick the two in the rear while they were bent over looking down a cliff.

  When dawn was almost due by his wristwatch, the sky was still black. Moreover, the thunder had come hack, and lightning was running fiery fingers over the pages of the earth. Hank hoped that it was not looking for his name.

  Carrying the lantern, Hank walked on the down-slanting road. When he came to the level ground, he cut across the field. He stopped under the oak tree and said, "How are you, Jenny?"

  "Fretting and fuming, very worried. I knew that three of you had gotten back because I asked Blogo when he went by. But he wouldn't tell me what had happened."

  She sounded hurt.

  "Sorry," Hank said. "We've been very busy."

  He sketched the raid and then said, "I'm going to untie you even if the wind is still strong. We'll take off at dawn or a little after. We don't have any choice. I'll let you handle the taxiing and the takeoff, but when we're ten feet off the ground, I'll take ove
r. Understand?"

  "Yes," Jenny said. "What then?"

  "Some action. Maybe."

  He patted her cowling and returned to the gate. By then the east was paling, though not much. Hank could see a dark mass of men a half-mile away on the road. He supposed that there were many more under the trees along the road.

  Two minutes passed before what he had been waiting for came. A hundred or so hawks and eagles appeared. They did not attack, but settled down a quarter of a mile away on the branches of the oaks to Hank's right and left. One hawk flew back along the road. She would be reporting the number and location of the defenders.

  "I'll bet that Erakna is here, directing the army," Hank said. "She'll be furious because of what we did, her narrow escape and all. And she'll want to make sure that her soldiers don't screw up again."

  Blogo said, "I hope she doesn't use her magic against us."

  "She shouldn't think it's necessary," Sharts said. "She'll want to save her energy."

  Hank pointed at the birds sitting quietly but glaring at the three men. He said, "You agree, Sharts, Blogo, that we don't have a mammoth's chance on thin ice of getting off the ground while those birds are still there?"

  The giant looked narrow-eyed at Hank. "They'll swarm over us as soon as we get into the cockpits. You can kill a lot of them, but they'll keep coming."

  "Yeah, and as soon as I run out of ammunition, which will be quickly, we'll have had it."

  "It's evident you have a plan," Sharts snapped. "What is it?"

  Hank reached into the knapsack and brought out the hemisphere. Sharts's and Blogo's eyes widened.

  "The Golden Cap which controls the Winged Monkeys," he said triumphantly.

  Sharts should have been happy, but he frowned and bit his lip and began whistling. He was reproaching himself for not having seen it.

  "Wow!" Blogo said. "Maybe we could trade that to the queen for an immediate pardon!"

  "I think they call you the Rare Beast because you're rarely intelligent," Sharts said. "Why should she bargain with us when she can get it at the expense of a few lives?"

  "Sometimes, I think you don't like me," Blogo said. "But... yes... I see what Hank is getting at. I think."

  "This is the main reason why Erakna will be personally commanding the army," Hank said. "She knows what we'll do with it if we have any brains. O.K. Here goes."

  The inscriptions inside the rim of the Cap were unreadable by Hank, but he did not need to have to decipher them. At least, he hoped he wouldn't.

  "Memory, don't fail me now!" he muttered.

  He put the Cap on his head. It was too small to stay on without a helping finger. Feeling silly, he lifted his right leg and stood on his left foot.

  "Ep-pe! Pep-pe! Kak-ke!"

  "That's from the language of the Long-Gones," Sharts said to gape-mouthed Blogo.

  Hank stood on his right foot.

  "Hil-lo! Hol-lo! Hel-lo!"

  Hank planted both feet firmly on the ground.

  "Ziz-zii! Zuz-zii! ZIK!"

  Though the anticipated happened, Hank still had difficulty believing that it had. He was facing the west, and there suddenly appeared before him in the air a multitude of winged creatures. It sounded like a vast shooting gallery as they came out of nowhere. The air abruptly displaced by their presence made small explosions, a detail which Baum had neglected to describe when he wrote the first Oz book. Or perhaps he had forgotten it.

  The entire horde must be here; it speckled the sky before him as if God had dumped a vast pepper shaker. The chattering and the yelling were terrifying. It shook the three men, and it scared the watching hawks and eagles from their perches.

  Glinda had told him that each of the four rows of inscriptions commanded a different type of operation. One called the Monkeys in a limited number to the operator. The second summoned all the Monkeys no matter how widely scattered they were. The third could send the Monkeys in a limited number to a certain spot if the operator had been there. The fourth would send the whole horde to a certain area if the operator had once been there.

  Hank knew only one, and that was because he had read the operation directions in Baum's book and his mother had also told him about it. When he was young, he had played at being in Oz and had gone through the ritual with a paper Golden Cap many times.

  Baum had mentioned only one row of inscriptions, and he had said that Dorothy could read that. Actually, Dorothy had managed to surreptitiously read the directions in the notebook of the West Witch. The Witch had been very old, and her memory had been drying up as fast as her body. She had had mnemonics all over the castle.

  Hank glanced at Erakna's birds. One was flying off to bring the news of the Monkeys to the queen.

  A big Monkey landed near Hank and walked up to him.

  "I am the king," he said. "King Iizarnhanduz the Third, you son of a bitch."

  The king had to obey Hank, but he did not have to like it. It was evident from the loud and bitter complaints of his subjects that they, too, did not care for their sudden displacement. Whatever they had been doing, sleeping, eating, excreting, mating, playing, they had been snatched away to do some hard and probably dangerous task. It must have been very disconcerting to be snoozing away and suddenly find oneself a thousand miles away and falling through the alien air.

  Hank told him exactly what must be done.

  "For God's sake!" the king said. "If this keeps up, we'll become extinct!"

  Hank felt sorry for him, but he said, firmly, "Get going! Now!"

  Iizarnhanduz (Iron-handed) jabbed a finger at the simians on the field.

  "Women and children, too? Have a heart, man!"

  "No," Hank said. "They can stay out of it."

  "Sure. And what will they do when all their menfolks are killed?"

  "All I want is for those birds there to be killed or run off. And a little holding action... I told you what to do!"

  "Yeah, and afterwards, if there is any afterwards, we have to fly all the way back home. You know how far that is?"

  Whatever it was in the Golden Cap that moved and controlled the Monkeys, it must be losing its power, Hank thought. He suspected that there was some kind of machinery enclosed in the walls of the Cap and this was activated by the words he had spoken. What the energy source was, he had no idea. In any event, the king was showing much more reluctance than he had in any reported situation before.

  "The last time the Cap was returned to you, by my mother, by the way," Hank said, "you people were supposed to be free forever from control by others. But you weren't smart. You didn't hide the Cap, and so it was stolen. I'll tell you what. I promise that after you carry out my orders, I'll put it some place where no one will ever find it. Will that make you happy?"

  The king grinned, his long sharp teeth a fearsome sight.

  "Very."

  He turned and ran on all fours to his people. After a lot of jabbering, he arranged his males in formation on the meadow. Then, starting at the southeast corner, going into the wind, they began running. Their wings flapping, they leaped into the air and slowly ascended. Some seemed to be too heavy or too slow; they had to retreat to the corner and try again.

  When the lead row had turned and was coming with the wind carrying them toward the birds now circling nearby, Hank led the two men to Jenny. Bargma, who had been hiding on the floor of the front cockpit, fluttered up to sit on the windshield edge.

  "You get back there with Sharts and Blogo for now," Hank said.

  Sharts, at Hank's direction, primed the carburetor with ether. He also spun the propeller when Hank yelled, "Contact!" so that Jenny would not have to use so much energy to get the engine started. It caught at once, and presently the 150-horse-power Hisso engine was roaring. Sharts and Blogo waited until the engine was warmed up, then they yanked out the logs that chocked the wheels. They ran to climb aboard while Jenny was moving slowly towards the takeoff point. She had to skirt the edge of the meadow because all of the male Monkeys had not yet gotten off
the ground.

  The trees protected the plane from gusts, but when she got into the open, she would be subject to ground loops. Hank depended upon her reflexes and the fact that she could use energy to lift or lower her wings to cancel the gusts.

  By then the hawks and eagles had closed with the Monkeys. Most of them, anyway. Some of the birds had figured that there was no use being brave against such numbers. They fled, and, within a minute or two, those birds who could extricate themselves did so. None headed towards the east. They made a wide half-circle and sped southward. They did not care to face the queen's anger.

  The farmland was on a lower level than the road on this side of the gate. Hank could not see what was happening there. However, he surmised that the Gillikin soldiers had charged. The Monkeys were flapping towards the road. All they had to do was to check the Gillikins' advance until Jenny was airborne.

  The plane got to the takeoff point without dragging either end of its wingtips against the ground. She moved slowly into the wind, then began rolling forward swiftly. And she was up. He knocked on the instrument panel to indicate that he was now the pilot. After clearing the trees on the hills beyond the farm, he banked sharply and brought her around in line with the road. As he passed over the meadow, he noted that the Monkey females and children were jammed into the southeast comer. They were waiting until the plane had gone over before they started the southward migration.

  He dipped Jenny's nose until she was only ten feet above the ground. Then he raised it, and he came up over the gate with the wheels a few feet above the fence. To the Gillikins and Monkeys struggling ahead of him, it must have looked as if the plane had been shot by a rocket from the landing field. He brought Jenny up sharply, remembering suddenly that there might be some Monkeys in the air. It would be ironic and not at all funny if he collided with a Monkey.

  All of them, however, were on the ground in close combat with the van of the army.