V 11 - The Texas Run

by George W Proctor (UC) (epub)

  Neither of the muzzles drooped. Scoggin shrugged and turned his attention to the terrain.

  “Why the shrubbery tied to the back of the jeep, old man?” Rick glanced at the mesquite branches trailing the vehicle.

  “Haven’t watched too many cowboy movies, have you, son?” Scoggin wrestled the brim of his cap close to his face and smiled. “If you had, you’d know it’s an old trick the Comanches used to cover a trail. Visitors would spot my tires tracks from half a mile up if I didn’t erase ’em as I went.”

  More Texas history. Rick groaned inwardly as he settled back for the ride. First from Sheryl Lee and now from this old man. Is that all Texans can talk about?

  “Now, friend,” Sheryl Lee said, “why don’t you tell us about yourself?”

  Charlie Scoggin needed no further encouragement. For the next hour he related a full family history, including an account of his great-grandfather’s career as a West Texas sheriff in the late 1800s. He then gave a thumbnail sketch of his grandfather’s and father’s lives as ranchers and the discovery of oil on the family land after World War II.

  “Which wasn’t as important to me as what broke out halfway around the world in a place called Korea,” Charlie Scoggin said. “I joined up and found myself in pilot trainin’.”

  He explained that he was shipped overseas with the Eighteenth Fighter-Bomber Group. “The Eighth, Thirty-fifth, and Forty-eighth all flew Mustangs durin’ the early days of the war. However, the Eighteenth stuck with P-51s until January 1953. There’s no denyin’ the excitement of takin’ the joystick of a jet, but it didn’t compare to a Mustang. That baby got into my blood and never left.”

  When Charlie’s air force career ended, he entered commercial aviation, flying passenger liners and moving on to the big jets. “West Texas and raisin’ cattle just weren’t excitin’ enough to compete with the skies.” He met his wife, Thelma, on a flight from Atlanta to Houston. “We had us two fine boys. Both live up north with their own families now—thank the Lord. Didn’t like it when they left Texas, but it’s worked out for the best. ” “Where’s Thelma now?” This from Sheryl Lee. Charlie swallowed and tears misted his eyes as they glanced at the reds and oranges that streaked the western sky in a magnificent sunset. “She died in Houston. It was durin’ the Visitors’ first attempt to take over.” Thelma was undergoing minor surgery in a Houston hospital when the Visitors temporarily cut electrical power to the Gulf city as a display of their power. The hospital had emergency generators, Scoggin said, but by the time they were cut in, it was too late to save his wife.

  “It was then that I joined the resistance,” he said. “After the Visitors were driven away, I left our home and Houston and returned to the family ranch.”

  Sheryl Lee’s energy pistol lowered as the sun sank below the horizon. Neither she nor Rick asked any further questions while Charlie maneuvered the jeep south through the dusk that covered the plains.

  “About ten minutes more.” Charlie glanced at his two companions. “We’ve got to cut onto the highway to get down the Caprock. Usually stay clear of paved roads. Visitors keep an eye peeled on them.”

  Driving lightless through the night, the Korean War veteran wheeled the jeep onto a wide ribbon of asphalt highway. Rick felt the older man’s foot nudge the accelerator closer to the floor. The highway dropped abruptly in a sharp angle of decline. Even in the light of a waning moon, Rick could see the ragged rock formations highway engineers had cut through to lay their road up to the Caprock.

  When the road leveled, Charlie turned north and drove along the base of the escarpment for a couple of miles before maneuvering the jeep into a canyon that sliced westward into the Caprock. “Home, sweet home.” Rick peered into the murky night ahead. If a house or

  even a shack stood within the canyon, he missed it. All he saw were canyon walls, rock, sand, and cedars and mesquite growing to each side near the talus that spilled from the Caprock.

  “Sand’s light here, covering solid rock,” Charlie said. “Makes for a natural runway. The canyon also provides the perfect cover. Unless you know what you’re lookin’ for, it’s impossible to spot my place from the air.”

  From the ground too. Rick still couldn’t see any sign of a house or other indication that man had ever been within the canyon.

  “Thelma and I built us a getaway here during the early seventies. With all the hoorah about ecology, it seemed to make sense that the place should blend into the country as much as possible.” Charlie drove around a rise of sand and rock that pushed from the ground at the end of the canyon. “We decided on one of them underground homes. Didn’t take but a few dollars more

  to make my hangar part of a matching pair. Rock and sand are cheap in this country.”

  Rick whistled softly. The west side of the false mound revealed a door and a wide picture window in an underground dwelling that faced the western wall of the canyon. Beside the house, much in the manner most homes have attached garages, was an open single-plane hangar containing the Mustang the Californian had first seen fending off the skyfighter that had brought Wanda Sue to the ground.

  Charlie wheeled into the hangar’s darkness and halted beside the P-51’s wing tip. He slid from the jeep and motioned to a door on his left.

  “House is through there. I keep the curtains drawn up front, so you can switch on the lights. You’ll find coffee on the stove. Go on in and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be along in a minute or five. Got to close up for the night.”

  Sheryl Lee accepted the old man’s invitation, but Rick sat in the jeep staring up at the Mustang’s shadowy form. Inside, Sheryl Lee switched on the lights. A soft yellow glow intruded into the darkness, highlighting the old fighter’s naked metal body. Even on the ground the plane looked like a shark of the air.

  “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” Charlie grinned as he walked to a switch on the wall near the entrance of the hangar. He pushed an oversized black button and the building’s door rolled noisily down from the ceiling. “She’s a damn sight fancier than the one I flew in Korea. Called a Cavalier Mustang III. After the war a Florida company modified a lot of the surplus Mustangs for military use in Central and South America. Got a Rolls-Royce turboprop engine capable of four hundred seventy knots dash speed. Those are six fifty-caliber machine guns in her wings, son.”

  When the hangar door closed, Charlie switched on the lights, revealing the fighter in its full splendor. Rick noticed that five carefully drawn red squares had been painted on the aircraft’s fuselage just in front of its elongated canopy. At the center of each square was a black “ I —the emblem under which the Visitors

  came to dominate Earth.

  “Have to paint another one of those on her before I go up again,” Charlie said with a chuckle. “Like to see every damn inch of her painted like that before we make our last flight together.”

  “Six kills,” Rick said without trying to disguise his admiration. “If this were standard battle, that would make you an ace plus one.”

  “Ain’t no war standard, son. And ace don’t mean a hill of beans, especially to me.” Charlie’s gaze ran lovingly over the gleaming hull of the fighter. “Bought her as surplus in Mexico in ’sixty-five. Always intended to donate her to the Confederate Air Force, but once I got her back into shape, I couldn’t bear to part with her. Raced her a bit when I had the time.”

  Rick listened to the old man talk, remembering an article he had read about the Confederate Air Force. The group of Texas businessmen and sportsmen restored and maintained World War II war-birds and kept their prizes at an airport in far South Texas. For a moment, he visualized a fighter wing composed of men the caliber of Charlie Scoggin.

  It was an impossible daydream, Rick realized. The Visitors were firmly entrenched in South Texas. If the lizards had heard of the flying museum, he was certain they had destroyed it.

  “What about the machine guns?” Rick asked as he stepped from the jeep and stretched. “I’m certain the government frowned on
that part of the restoration. ” “I was always of the opinion that what Uncle Sugar didn’t know about didn’t hurt him.” Charlie chuckled as he walked back toward the jeep. “After we first drove off the Visitors, I made a flight down to Mexico City. Only took a couple of days to locate six operational machine guns and the ammo to go with them. Don’t know why I felt like I needed them, though. Guess I just didn’t want to get caught with my pants draggin’ around my ankles again.”

  Charlie’s feeling was shared by a majority of Americans, Rick realized. After the red dust sent the Visitors back into space, purchasing rifles and pistols had become a national pastime.

  “I smell coffee.” Charlie motioned him toward the door. “No need wastin’ any more time out here.” Together they entered a house that was compact and surprisingly modem in its design. Where Rick expected to find antiques, he saw chrome, glass, and plastic. If the home’s interior and the fighter that sat in the hangar were an indication of their owner, Charlie Scoggin, with his

  West Texas drawl and good-ol’-boy manner, disguised a man of hidden complexities.

  They found Sheryl Lee seated at a circular kitchen table, nursing a mug of coffee. Two more mugs sat steaming on the table. Rick sank into a chair on her right and sipped from a mug. The coffee, strong and hot, rolled down his throat and into a welcoming stomach.

  “Unless you two managed to catch yourselves an armadillo and ate shell and all, I didn’t catch a sign of you having eaten today,” Charlie said as he tugged open a refrigerator door. “Ain’t got a thing to offer you, except maybe some steak and eggs. I live pretty simple. ”

  “Steak and eggs. I’d kill for steak and eggs right now.”

  Rick grinned. He could almost hear Sheryl Lee’s mouth watering as she spoke. He knew he felt his own mouth watering.

  “Need some help?” Sheryl Lee started to rise, but Charlie waved her back to her seat.

  “ Ya’ll just sit and rest. Won’t take but a few minutes to whip this up. How you like your beefsteak cooked?” Charlie lifted three slabs of deep-red meat from the refrigerator.

  “Rare,” Rick piped up, and received the sort of stares from his two companions that were normally reserved for transgressors of society’s most rigid taboos.

  Fifteen minutes later he understood why. While he gratefully savored a thick, juicy steak smothered in four eggs, Sheryl Lee and Charlie gnawed contentedly at steaks that had been so overcooked the meat looked dry and gray.

  “Must raise ’em different in California.” Charlie shook his head as he watched Rick cut another bite from his meal. “Don’t know why your momma even bothered cookin’ for you, son. Hell, been easier to turn you loose to run alongside the steer and just let you take a bite anytime you got hungry.”

  “It is a mite bloody, Surfer Boy.” Sherly Lee’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “You’re in Texas now. Ought to leam to eat meat in a civilized manner. It would make it easier on the rest of us.”

  Rick ignored the gibes, sliced another bite of the red meat, and popped it into his mouth. “And you two might as well be eating charcoal.”

  Neither answered, only shook their heads again as though to say that there were some people beyond help. Rick smiled and hungrily cut into the steak again, topped it with egg yellow, and stuffed it into his mouth.

  “You’ve let me pretty well talk myself out about myself.” Charlie washed down a mouthful with a swig of coffee. “But you haven’t told me a thing about yourselves or what you were doing in that old C-47.” “Smuggling medical supplies into Dallas and Fort Worth,” Sheryl Lee answered between bites.

  She quickly recounted the flight to Los Angeles, how she and Joe Bob had broken into a medical warehouse, and their chance meeting with Rick. Charlie listened without interrupting, only nodding and mming occasionally.

  “Once we were in the air, everything was going fine until we ran into that skyfighter,” she said. “After that, you know what happened.”

  “Seems to me,” Charlie paused to drain the last of his coffee, “that ya’ll’ve done most of the hard work bringin’ them supplies this far. Ought to be some way of gettin’ them the rest of the way into Fort Worth, if not Dallas.”

  “Ought to be.” Sherly Lee pushed back from the table. An empty plate glistened before her. “But I haven’t come up with any ideas yet.”

  “If something ain’t done soon, it’ll be too late,” Charlie mused aloud as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Visitors’ll be lookin’ for that skyfighter. When they find it, they’ll find your medical supplies too.”

  Neither Rick nor Sheryl Lee answered. Charlie shoved himself away from the table and stood.

  “Seems to me it would be a sin to let the snakes get their hands on those supplies after you’ve hauled ’em so far, lil lady.” Charlie waved an arm to the interior of the house. “Ya’ll make yourselves comfortable. There’s a drop or two of bourbon in that cabinet. And beds if you want to catch up on a little shut-eye.”

  Charlie started toward the door leading to the hangar when Sheryl Lee called to him. “Charlie, what’s the matter? Where you goin’?”

  “To check on a couple of things,” he answered. “Don’t want to get your hopes up, but I got me half an idea about how we might just be able to get those supplies of yours.”

  “How?”

  “Give me an hour or three,” he replied. “If it works, then we’re in business. If not, then we’re no worse off than we are now.”

  With that, he opened the door and stepped into the hangar. Outside, Rick heard the massive door rambling open. Moments later the jeep started, purred for a few seconds, then trundled away into the night.

  Rick looked at Sheryl Lee with eyebrows raised in question. He received a shrug in answer. For a moment they just sat there, neither speaking nor moving. Sheryl Lee finally broke the silence.

  “Think I’ll take the old man at his word and make myself comfortable.” She looked around. “There’s bound to be a bathroom somewhere, and a nice hot shower sounds like a bit of heaven right now.”

  As she rose, Rick pushed from the table and motioned to the liquor cabinet. “Want a drink waiting when you get out?”

  “Surfer Boy, I can’t think of a nicer touch. About two fingers of bourbon—no water or ice.” She smiled and strode off in search of the bath.

  Rick turned his attention to the liquor cabinet and found half a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. He poured a couple of healthy shots into each glass and diluted his with an equal amount of water. With drinks in hand, he wandered from the kitchen into the living room. Placing Sheryl Lee’s bourbon on a glass table, he sank into the cushions of a sofa and inhaled half his own drink.

  Somewhere behind him, he heard the sound of running water. He smiled; Sheryl Lee had found her shower. Taking another sip, he closed his eyes and imagined the water was a gentle spring rain, although he suspected cooling rains were a rarity in this dry, rugged country.

  Caprocks, mesquites, Texas! He let another sip of the bourbon and water trickle soothingly down his throat. So much had happened, so much had changed. It was hard to believe that less than twenty-four hours ago he had followed Mike Donovan through a rent in the fence surrounding John Wayne International Airport.

  “You’re not failin’ asleep on me, are you?”

  Rick opened his eyes and turned. Sheryl Lee walked into the living room wrapped in a white terry-cloth robe that was obviously Charlie Scoggin’s size. She crossed to the sofa, lifted her drink, and plopped down beside Rick.

  “Feel like a new woman.” She grinned, tipped her glass to him, then drained the drink in a single swallow that ended with a pleased sigh.

  Rick contained a chuckle that tried to push from his throat. Sheryl Lee Darcy constantly amazed him. The khaki-clad angel who had doctored his leg wound was gone. Now in her place was a radiant woman. He inhaled, the clean aroma of soap coyly taunting his nostrils.

  “I’m not sayin’ you turned ripe or anything out in the sun to
day Surfer Boy, but you might consider a little soap and water yourself, ” she said as she leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. “You need to be careful with that leg. Keep it clean so it doesn’t get infected.”

  “I might take you up on that if I can convince my body it can still move.” He drained the rest of his drink and placed the empty glass on the table.

  “How’s the leg? Still hurt?” She spoke without opening her eyes.

  “Pain’s gone. Walked it out, I think.” He flexed his right leg. “Still a bit stiff, especially when I let it rest. But I think your earlier diagnosis was correct. I’ll live.” He smiled and turned to the young redhead just in time to see her head slowly roll to the right until it came to rest against his shoulder. Throaty purring sounds accompanied the nestling nudges of her head, then there was only the steady, deep rhythmic breathing of sleep.

  Careful not to disturb her, Rick lifted his arm and wrapped it about her shoulder, protectively drawing her to his side. The warmth of her body suffused the layers of fabric separating them. He closed his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. It was a feeling he could easily grow accustomed to.

  Chapter 10

  Commander Garth of the Houston Mother Ship stood in the K deck control room. Beyond the chamber’s sweeping windows squad vehicles entered and exited the ship in a steady stream. Garth silently nodded his approval of the scene. A sense of pride filled his chest. The same scene was presently being repeated on every flight deck in the gargantuan vessel.

  Outside, fatigue crews scurried to each landing vessel and swung open its side hatch. Immediately, portable conveyer belts were dollied into position. One by one translucent capsules emptied from the belly of each ship. The process would continue throughout the night as the Mother Ship accepted the daily harvest from Texas’ processing centers.

  Garth turned from the panoramic view of the flight deck and strolled to the rear of the control room to step into a waiting elevator. There his voice command closed the door and sent the lift shooting up ten levels, where it halted abruptly, and the door hissed open again.