Frost nodded abstractedly. He wasn’t particularly concerned with that. It was the woman. His last hope, for the present, had fled. She had been his responsibility, his personal charge, and to return to Gentry without her likely would cause complications. She could be one of a thousand places. He rephrased Stuart’s words: he had been a damn fool.
And the Old Man. He’d raise hell. Well, what the hell? He’d just have to raise it, that was all. There wasn’t anything they could do about it now. Anyway, it was partly his fault. He’d never brought her over if the Old Man hadn’t written that letter. “Let her have a look at Algadon by night,” he had said. The exact words. Let her have a look by night…. Well, she’d had one.
Frost damned his thoughts and turned to Stuart. “Should I have kept her there and taken a chance?” he asked. “Didn’t I do the right thing when I told her to get out?”
“Sure,” said Stuart broadly, consolingly. Under his breath he rasped: “I’d like to sock this gang in the nose!”
Back at the boundary the Customs officers said no woman had passed since Frost and Stuart were last there, and the Rangers swore roundly and stamped across the bridge. There were headed for the police department in Gentry.
Fifteen minutes later the telegraph wires of the Border country were humming a message, soon to be broadcast over the nation:
KIDNAPED IN ALGADON, MEXICO, ON THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY ELEVENTH: WOMAN ANSWERING TO NAME OF HELEN STEVENS, REPRESENTATIVE OF MANHATTAN NEWSPAPER SYNDICATE OF NEW YORK CITY. ABOUT FIVE FEET FIVE INCHES, HUNDRED TEN POUNDS, LIGHT BROWN HAIR, BLUE EYES, TEETH UNMARKED, WEARING BROWN COAT AND SKIRT, FLAT-HEELED TWO-TONE SHOES. NOTIFY TEXAS AIR RANGERS, CAPTAIN JERRY FROST GENTRY, TEXAS.
Stuart and Frost then went to the barracks of Hell’s Stepsons and dived into bed. George Stuart, again exhibiting remarkable mental control, went immediately to sleep.
Not so Frost. He rolled, pitched, tossed and fretted at his impotence.
Within seventy-two hours the Manhattan Syndicate, Inc., of New York City, had taken official cognizance of the disappearance of one of its representatives by bringing the matter to the attention of the ranking officer of the sovereign State of Texas. Powerfully allied, as are all important syndicates, it lost no time in applying all the pressure at its command.
Messages were exchanged and the austere Mexican government moved, as a gesture of courtesy, a detachment of rurales into Algadon. Nobody, of course, expected them to achieve results.
Helen Stevens had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed her.
Yet the law, tank-like in its motion, rumbled on.
The spotlight was fixed on Hell’s Stepsons, and its glare was not favorable. The spectacular work done in the past was forgotten.
On the fourth day after her disappearance there was a conference within the great, gilt-domed state capitol at Austin, in the inner office of the governor’s suite. There were three men there: the Great Man himself, the Adjutant-General and Captain Frost.
“It is unfortunate,” the Governor was saying; “most unfortunate.” He was tapping his glasses against his chin: a dignified patriarch, product of the expansive state he represented—rugged, sincere and honest.
“Yes,” the Adjutant-General agreed. He was commander of that crack constabulary, the Texas Rangers, the personification of the ideals of that brigade. Big and gaunt he was; you knew at a glance, the sort of an official who would, if needs be, climb into the saddle himself and take the trail.
“The woman,” the Governor went on, “is well connected. We cannot, in any event, let up in the search.”
“But, sir,” mildly demurred the Adjutant-General, “we are trying. I feel,” he went on, “somewhat responsible in a personal sense. I insisted Captain Frost take her across.”
“No,” Frost said quickly; “the fault was mine.”
“Well,” the Governor declared, “whose fault it was is beside the point. We have got to do something at once.”
“They’re a tough lot,” Frost mused. He spread his hands on the desk. He was, for obvious reasons, highly uncomfortable. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I agree that we are being made to look bad. But what else can we do?”
“It has been my experience,” said the Adjutant-General, “that this gang never strikes blindly. There always is a motive back of every crime. What was it in this case? Why did they kidnap Helen Stevens? Revenge? Hardly. Ransom?” He shook his head. “No—something else. Some reason we don’t know yet.”
Frost nodded. “If I had the slightest idea where she was,” he said, “I’d go get her—no matter where that happened to be.”
Silence.
Then the Governor said, “Perhaps we ought to ask for a bigger appropriation for the Ranger force. Increase them. Move some of them south.” He looked sagacious. “The only bad feature about movement like that is the publicity. Our opponents always construe that as inefficiency. It gives them something to talk about. I dislike having this case noised around.”
“Well,” Frost said bluntly, “the only way to keep it in the family is to let me have a crack at it alone.”
Then the unbelievable happened. The immense, carved door swung open noiselessly, and the Governor’s secretary entered.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he addressed the Great Man, “but I’ve a message for Captain Frost.”
“For me?” Frost asked.
“Yes, sir—forwarded from Gentry.”
The Governor said: “Come in, Leavell, come in.”
The secretary walked to Captain Frost and handed him the message. Frost made no move to open it until the secretary had departed.
“May I—”
“Certainly,” said the Governor.
A deep silence fell. Frost read the message without even a blink of the eye and passed it over the desk to the Governor.
He put on his glasses and read aloud:
COAST GUARD CUTTER FORTY-NINE SIGHTED RUM-RUNNER CATHERINE B LONGITUDE NINETY-SEVEN EAST LATITUDE TWENTY-SEVEN NEAR BROWNSVILLE WITH WOMAN ABOARD ANSWERING DESCRIPTION STEVENS STOP CUTTER OUTDISTANCED STOP RUM BOAT ONE OF FORMER AL THOMAS FLEET.
O’Neill.
The Governor removed his glasses and tapped them against his chin again. The Adjutant-General looked at Frost. Frost looked out the window.
“I sort of thought so,” he soliloquized.
“Al Thomas,” mused the Governor. “Who is that?”
“A gunman killed in a plane smash a couple of months ago after a dogfight with Hell’s Stepsons,” Frost replied. “His men seem to be carrying on.”
“ ‘Cutter outdistanced,’ “ the Governor went on. “I wonder how—”
“Please, sir,” Frost put in. He was on his feet now. Hours of inactivity, of recrimination, of criticism, rushed to a climax which crystallized his attitude. “Please, sir—I’d like to play this alone. Single-handed. It started mine and—” his voice was grim— ”I’d like it to finish the same way. I don’t want any help.”
“But, Captain—” he began.
“Of course, Jerry,” said the Adjutant-General in a placating voice. “You can’t go streaking off like this!”
Frost raised his hand. His face was in a cast of resolve. “Please,” he said again, firmly. He looked at the Adjutant-General and the Adjutant-General understood. “I’ve got to go it alone.”
The Governor nodded; Frost saluted and went out.
As the door closed the Adjutant-General smiled and offered an observation to his chief. “I’d hate like hell to have him after me.”
Coast Guard Cutter Forty-Nine’s base was at Corpus Christi, and it was towards there that Frost turned when he hopped off from Austin. He was at Cuero in fifty minutes, stopping only long enough to wire Jimmy O’Neill that he was on his way and to notify Hans Traub he again was temporarily in command of the Air Rangers.
“I’m riding alone on the Stevens case,” he telegraphed.
Two hours and fifty minutes after he had circled the dome of the state capitol,
he dipped into the airport at Corpus Christi and taxied his battle plane into a hangar. He got O’Neill on the phone at the government docks.
“Coming right over, Jimmy.”
“Great,” said O’Neill. “Ox Clay is here. You’ll like him.”
Frost did like Ox Clay. That name ought to awaken memories of sporting page devotees because Ox Clay was pretty well known back in ‘21 and ‘22 when he was ripping football lines to shreds for the Middies: little, square-jawed, built like a bullet, and innumerable laugh wrinkles around his eyes. “Hello, Jerry,” he greeted the flyer. “I’ve heard so damn much about you I feel as if we’re old friends.”
“You’re no stranger yourself.” Frost returned. He said to O’Neill: “Well, Jimmy, I’ve just left one of those high and mighty conferences. Believe you me, Missus Frost’s young son has got to do something and do it pronto. “What’s it all about?”
“Ox can tell you more than I can, Jerry. He was riding Forty-Nine himself.”
“I’ll say I was,” Clay retorted with a grimace. “And the way that baby slipped away from Forty-Nine was nobody’s business. We took a couple of shots—it wasn’t good target practice. We only scared her faster.”
“What about the woman?”
“I was getting to that. It’s that Stevens skirt—no two ways about it. They let us get pretty close—and then kidded us by pulling away. But nobody can tell me I didn’t see her during those first few minutes—brown suit, brown hair—”
“Right!” said Frost. “Sounds like my little playmate. What about the boat?”
“Well, she used to belong to the Singleton outfit. Name’s the Catherine B. Lately taken over by Thomas, and then his gang got it when you fellows rubbed him out. She’s the prize of the Gulf, can store about three thousand cases and make close to forty knots. We’ve never got her because she’s fast and then there are hundreds of little coves along the coast she ducks in when trouble appears. When we saw her she was heading to sea.”
“We’ve got plenty of dope on that outfit,” O’Neill said. “But so far it hasn’t done us any good. We know they load on the stuff at Tampico, Vera Cruz and God knows where else—and about a hundred miles out they transfer it to the launches.”
“I see,” Frost said. “The launches don’t dare get out farther than that?”
“Exactly,” Clay put in. “They work close to the Mexican side. There must be five hundred coves between here and the Laguna de la Madre.”
“If we could grab the Catherine B,” O’Neill said; “we’d stop a lot of the smuggling. What’s your idea about this, Jerry?”
“Well, I’m going to have a look for her,” Frost said quietly.
They thought he was kidding.
“Bring your bathing suit?” Clay asked.
“I’m serious,” Frost said.
“Really?” Incredulously.
“Hell, yes, Why not? I’ll get pontoons and try to take her. She can’t outrun my boat.”
“It’d be suicide,” said Clay, shaking his head.
Frost laughed. “Lissen, Ox—I admit it may seem funny to you, but it doesn’t to me. Besides, I’ve got to do it. How am I going to know when I see her?”
“Easy,” said Clay. “Brass taffrails. She’s ebony black all over but for her taffrails. You can see ‘em rain or shine. She carries one funnel, looks perfect alow and aloft, has a heavy stern and her cutwater and bow lines are as pretty as I ever saw.”
Frost laughed. “I don’t get that conversation,” he said. “But I did understand about the brass. I don’t guess I can miss her.”
“You can’t,” O’Neill said.
“Definitely made up your mind to go it alone?” asked Clay.
“Yep. Would it be possible for me to requisition silencers?”
Ox Clay swung open a drawer and took out two pistols fitted with longish muzzles. “Presto!” he said. He handed them to Frost. “I’ll let you use mine.”
Frost stared at them curiously. “This,” he said, “is the first time I ever saw a silencer. Are they apt to jam?”
Clay grinned. “The first shots will be all right. After that you gamble. Hope they’ll do you, Jerry. They’re my contribution to your success.”
Frost took an automatic out of his hip-holster and one from under his chamois jacket. He said: “I’ll trade for the time being. Now one thing more and I’ll blow a bugle over your grave. Will you phone Roland at the field that I’m on my way and be sure and be in.”
“I’ll phone, but don’t think that gang on the Catherine B will be a pushover. It’s a tough mob.”
“I know.” Frost shook hands with each of them. “Well,” he said; “so long.”
“So long. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
He sheathed his pistols and walked out. Ox Clay looked at Jimmy O’Neill.
“Lotsa guts,” he observed.
“You said it!”
Major Oliver Roland, commander of the flying field at Corpus Christi was a stout admirer of Jerry Frost personally and professionally, being a veteran airman himself, but he thought Frost’s plan to take the air in an effort to locate the kidnaped woman was a wild idea.
“It’s all wet,” as he put it.
Frost said no.
“Ridiculous—and dangerous.”
“Neither,” Frost retorted crisply. “I can’t afford to think of either one.”
“You ought to.” Sternly: “Just because you’ve had a lot of success along the Border you think you’re invulnerable That makes you cocky and breeds overconfidence. You mustn’t get that way.”
Roland’s tone was firm, but inoffensive, and Frost grinned. “I’m not overconfident. I’ve got good reasons not to be.” He was thinking of that time not so long ago when he escaped in an enemy plane, to think he had the world by the tail on a down-hill pull, and was promptly shot down by his companions. “I’m not overconfident,” he repeated. “But I am curious—curious as hell. It’s up to me to get that woman—and with your help I intend to!”
Oliver Roland knew flyers. He looked into Frost’s eyes—clear. He looked at his mouth— tight. He looked at his chin—square under pressure of the jaws. He decided the young man knew what he was doing.
“Very well,” he surrendered. “Want a flying boat?”
“Nope, pontoons. Just pontoons. Will you fit me?”
Roland nodded. “On the condition that you forget where you got ‘em.”
“My memory’s awful,” Frost smiled.
It required little more than two hours to fit the pontoons and service the ship; and then the silver-winged bird cascaded through the Gulf of Mexico, left the water in a stream of fume, and turned its eager wings southward.
That bird was a fighting ship of the Texas Rangers, carried two thousand rounds of ammunition, a veteran pilot who had a brace of silencer-equipped pistols, and, what was infinitely more important, a stout heart.
Jerry Frost was riding alone. He climbed to fifteen thousand feet better to deaden the roar of his motor, and swung down the jagged coast line. The Gulf lay beneath, a somber expanse as far as his eyes could see, its surface rippling with whitecaps: long, thin, broken lines like the foreground of an etching. Far down the lanes he could see the funnels of a boat which seemed to hang on the edge of the world, so slowly did it move.
The coast line was dotted with innumerable coves and the waves rolled against them to be broken into effervescence. Frost reflected that Ox Clay had been entirely correct. There were so many of these serrated sanctuaries which afforded natural shelter for the lawless they could well defy the maps. No cartographer possibly could have marked them all.
Frost rocketed down the coast line for a hundred miles and then veered over the Gulf in a wider flight. Already he had come to realize that finding the Catherine B out here was no sinecure for a young man who wanted action. There was, however, one consoling thought: he, at least, was in the air with a definite objective.
The Catherine B had been seen in Longitu
de 97 east and Latitude 27. He consulted the map on his board. That would be, as near as he could roughly estimate, fifty miles out of the Laguna de la Madre in a line with Rockport and Vera Cruz. Of course, she wouldn’t be there now. But she had started—and there was a reason why. It was not, manifestly, chance. She was on her way to keep a rendezvous.
Frost kept cudgeling his brain seeking a motive for the kidnaping of Helen Stevens. It probably was the least remunerative thing the gang could have done. What could they hope to gain? Didn’t they know they would only attract official attention? And that the less attention they attracted the more success would attend their missions?
It seemed, to Frost, inconsistent, imbecilic. But—they had her. He couldn’t very well get away from that—they had her. And it was up to him.
It seemed simple. “Two and two,” he said to his instrument board; “make four.”
A long way out from the Mexican coast his eyes were caught by a tiny boat that was slipping through the water, leaving a long wake, and he deduced she must be running all of thirty knots. Even from his height he knew the speed was unusual. His heart jumped. He came as close as he dared and maneuvered to get the sun on her. He looked closely. No brass reflection. A rumrunner, but, now, inconsequential. Frost was not interested.
He rolled back closer to the coast and maintained his vigil for thirty more minutes. Then he looked down and was surprised to see another boat. Bang, like that. He had been looking away for only a moment and when he gazed below the boat was there.
He thought probably the lowering sun was playing tricks on him, so he stared intently. No mistake. A boat. Speeding southwest; occasionally outlined against wide swells. If the first launch he saw was speeding there was no adjective for this one. She was, comparatively, doing more than that. And she looked capacious and businesslike now that he could see well. Worth investigating.
He turned the nose of his ship up and climbed. Over to the left was a perfect cirro-cumulus formation which invited him with its natural protection, and he went for it. As he took a gap in the fleece his eyes caught a reflection.
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps Page 11
