by B. M. Bower
He wished that he had not “hung up” on Mary V before he had told her a few things. He couldn’t see why she didn’t leave him alone. The Lord knew he was willing to leave her alone.
A few days more of that he had before he saw a living soul. Then a Mexican youth came wandering in on a scrawny pony that seemed to have its heart set on drinking the creek dry, before his rider could drink it all. Johnny watched the boy lie down on the flat of his lean stomach with his face to the sluggish stream, and drink as if he, too, were trying to cheat the pony. Together they lifted their heads and looked at Johnny. The Mexican boy smiled, white-toothed, while deep pools of eyes regarded Johnny soberly.
“She’s damn hot today, señor,” he said. “Thank you for the so good water to drink.”
“That’s all right. Help yourself,” Johnny said languidly. “Had your dinner?”
“Not this day. I’m come from Tucker Bly, his rancho. I ride to see if horses feed quiet.”
“Well, come in and eat. I cooked some peaches this morning.”
The youth went eagerly, his somewhat stilted English easing off into a mixture of good American slang and the Mexican dialect spoken by peons and some a grade higher up the ladder. He was not more than seventeen, and while Johnny recalled his instructions to put any greaser on the run, he took the liberty of interpreting those instructions to please himself. This kid was harmless enough. He talked the range gossip that proved to Johnny’s satisfaction that he was what he professed to be—a young rider for Tucker Bly, who owned the “Forty-Seven” brand that ranged just east of the Rolling R. Johnny had never seen this Tomaso—plain Tom, he called him presently—but he knew Tucker Bly; and a few leading questions served to set at rest any incipient suspicions Johnny may have had.
They were doing the same work, he and Tomaso. The only difference was that Johnny camped alone, and Tomaso rode out from the Forty-Seven ranch every day, taking whatever direction Tucker Bly might choose for him. But the freemasonry of the range land held Johnny to the feeling that there was a common bond between them, in spite of Tomaso’s swarthy skin. Besides, he was lonely. His tongue loosened while Tomaso ate and praised Johnny’s cookery with the innate flattery of his race.
“Wha’s that pic’shur? What you call that thing?” Tomaso pointed a slender, brown finger at a circular heading, whereon a pink aeroplane did a “nose dive” toward the date line through voluted blue clouds.
“That? Say! Didn’t you ever see a flying machine?” Johnny stared at him pityingly.
Tomaso shook his head vaguely. “Me, I’m never saw one of them things. My brother, he’s tell me. He knows the spot where there’s one fell down. My brother, he says she’s awful bad luck, them thing. This-a one, she’s fell ’cross the line. She’s set there like a big hawk, my brother says. Nobody wants. She’s bad luck.”
“Bad luck nothing.” Johnny’s eyes had widened a bit. “What you mean, one fell across the line? You don’t mean—say what ’n thunder do yuh mean? Where’s there a flying machine setting like a hawk?”
Tomaso waved a brown hand comprehensively from east to west. “Somewhere—me, I dunno. My brother, he’s know. He’s saw it set there. It’s what them soldiers got lost. It’s bad luck. Them soldiers most dead when somebody find. They don’t know where that thing is no more. They don’t want it no more. My brother, she’s tol’ me them soldiers flew like birds and then they fell down. It’s bad luck. My brother took one hammer from that thing, and one pliers. Them hammer, she’s take a nail off my brother’s thumb. And them pliers, she’s lost right away.”
Johnny’s hand trembled when he tried to shake a little tobacco into a cigarette paper. His lips, too, quivered slightly. But he laughed unbelievingly.
“Your brother was kidding you, Tom. Nobody would go off and leave an airplane setting in the desert. Those soldiers that got lost were away over east of here. Three or four hundred miles. He was kidding you.”
“No-o, my brother, she’s saw that thing! She’s hunt cattle what got across, and she’s saw that what them soldiers flew. Me, I know.” He looked at Johnny appraisingly, hesitated and leaned forward, impelled yet not quite daring to give the proof.
“Well, what do you know?” Johnny returned the look steadfastly.
“You don’t tell my brother—I—” He fumbled in his trousers pocket, hesitated a little longer, and grew more trustful. “Them pliers—I’m got.”
He laid them on the table, and Johnny let his stool tilt forward abruptly on its four legs. He took up the pliers, examined them with one eye squinted against the smoke of his cigarette, weighed them in his hand, bent to read the trade-mark. Then he looked at Tomaso. Those pliers may or may not have come from the emergency kit of an airplane, but they certainly were not of the kind or quality that ranchmen were in the habit of owning. To Johnny they looked convincing. When he had an airplane of his own, he would find a hundred uses for a pair of pliers exactly like those.
“I thought you said your brother lost ’em,” he observed drily.
Tomaso shrugged, flung out his hands, smiled with his lips, and frowned with his eyes. “S’pose he did lost. Somebody could find.”
Johnny laughed. “All right; we’ll let it ride that way. I ain’t going to tell your brother. Want to sell ’em?”
Tomaso took up the pliers, caressed their bright steel with his long fingers, nipped them open and shut.
“What you pay me?” he countered.
“Two bits.”
Tomaso turned them over, gazed upon them fondly. He shook his head regretfully. “No quero. Them pliers, she’s bueno,” he said. “You could find more things. My brother, she’s tell lots of things is where that sets like a hawk. Lots of things. You don’t tell my brother?”
“Sure not. I don’t want the things anyway. And I don’t know your brother.”
Tomaso thoughtfully nipped the pliers upon the oilcloth table cover. He looked at the airplane picture, he looked at Johnny. He sighed.
“Me, I’m like see those thing fly like birds. I’m like see that what sets over there. My brother, she’s tell me it’s so big like here to that water hole. She’s tell me some day it maybe flies. I go see it some day.”
Johnny laughed. “You’ll have some trip if you do. You take it from me, Tom, I don’t know your brother, but I know he was kiddin’ you. It was away over east of here that those fellows got lost.”
After Tomaso had mounted reluctantly and ridden away, however, Johnny discovered himself faced southward, staring off toward Mexico. It was just a yarn, about that airplane over there. Of course there was nothing in it—nothing whatever. He didn’t believe for a minute that an airplane was sitting like a hawk on the sands a few miles to the south of him. He didn’t believe it—but he pictured to himself just how it would look, and he played a little with the idea. It was something new to think about, and Johnny straightway built himself a dream around it.
Riding the ridges in the lesser heat of the early mornings, his physical eyes looked out over the meager range, spying out the scattered horse herds grazing afar, their backs just showing above the brush. Behind his eyes his mind roved farther, visioning a military plane sitting, inert but with potentialities that sent his mind dizzy, on the hot sand of Mexico—so close that he could almost see the place where it sat.
This was splendid food for Johnny’s imagination, for his ambitions even, though it was not particularly good for the Rolling R. He was not bothered much. Evenings, the foreman or Sudden would usually call him up and ask him how things were. Johnny would say that everything was all right, and had the stage driver made a mistake and left any of his mail at the ranch? Because he had been to the mail box on the trail and there was nothing there. The speaker at the ranch would assure him that nothing had been left there for him, and the ceremony would be over.
Johnny was fussy about his mail. He had spent twenty-five dollars for a correspondence course in aviation, and he wanted to begin studying. He did not know how he could learn to fly by
mail, but he was a trustful youth in some ways—he left that for the school to solve for him.
Tomaso rode over again in a few days. This time he had a mysterious looking kind of wrench in his pocket, and he showed it to Johnny with a glimmer of triumph.
“Me, I’m saw that thing what flies. Only now it sets. It’s got wheels in front—little small wheels. Dos—two. My brother, he’s show me. I’m find thees wranch. It’s got wings out, so.” Tomaso spread his two arms. “Some day, I’m think she’s fly. When wind blows.”
Johnny felt a little tremor go over him, but he managed to laugh. “All right; you’ve been looking at the pictures. If you saw it, tell me about it. What makes it go?”
Tomaso shook his head. “She don’t go,” he said. “She sets.”
“All right. She sets, then. What on,—back of the wheels? You said two wheels in front. What holds up the back?”
“One small, little leg like my arm,” Tomaso answered unhesitatingly. “Like my arm and my hand—so. Iron.”
Johnny’s eyes widened a trifle, but he would not yield. “Well, where do men ride on it? On which wing?”
“Men don’t,” Tomaso contradicted solemnly. “Men sets down like in little, small boat. Me, I’m set there. With wheel for drive like automobile. With engine like automobile. My brother, she’s try starting that engine. She’s don’t go. Got no crank nowhere. She’s got no gas. Me, I’m scare my brother starts that engine. I’m jomp down like hell. I’m scare I maybe would fly somewhere and fall down and keel. No importa. She’s jus’ sets.”
Johnny turned white around the mouth, but he shook his head. “Pretty good, Tommy. But you better look out. If there’s a flying machine over there, it belongs to the government. You better leave it alone. There’s other folks know about it, and maybe watching it.”
Tomaso shook his head violently. “Por dios, my brother she’s fin’ out about that,” he said. “She’s don’t tell nobody, only me. She’s fin’ out them hombres what ride that theeng, they go loco for walking too much in sand and don’t get no water. Them hombres, they awful sick, they don’t know where is that thing what flies. My brother, she’s fin’ out that thing sets in Mexico, belongs Mexico. Thees countree los’. Jus’ like ship what’s los’ on ocean, my brother she’s tell from writing. My brother, she’s smart hombre. She’s keep awful quiet, tell nobody. She’s theenk sell that thing for flying.”
“Huh!” Johnny grunted. “What you telling me about it for? Your brother’d skin yuh alive if he caught you blabbing it all out to me.”
Tomaso looked a little scared and uneasy. He dropped his eyes and began poking a hole in the sand with his toe. Then he looked up very candidly into Johnny’s face.
“Me, I’m awful lonesome,” he explained. “I’m riding here and I’m see you jus’ like friend. You boy like me. You got picshurs them thing what flies. You tell me you don’t say nothing for my brother when I’m tell you that things sets over there.” He waved a dirty, brown hand to the southward. “Me, I’m trus’ you. Tha’s secret what I’m tell. You don’t tell no-body. You promise?”
“All right. I promise.” Very gravely Johnny made the sign of the cross over his heart.
Tomaso’s eyes lightened at that. More gravely than Johnny he crossed himself—forehead, lips, breast. He murmured a solemn oath in Spanish, and afterwards put out his hand to shake, American fashion. All this impressed Johnny more than had the detailed description of the thing which sat.
If he still laughed at the story, his laugh was not particularly convincing. Nor was his jibing tone when he called after Tomaso when that youth was riding away:
“Tell your brother I might buy his flying machine—if he’ll sell it cheap!”
CHAPTER FIVE
DESERT GLIMPSES
Mary V was indefatigably pursuing a new and apparently fascinating avocation, for which her mother expressed little sympathy, no enthusiasm whatever, and a grudgingly given consent. Mary V was making a collection of Desert Glimpses for educational purposes at her boarding school. She had long been urged to do so by her schoolmates and teachers, she told her mother, and now she was going to do it. It should be the very best, most complete collection any one could possibly make within riding distance of the Rolling R. Incidentally she meant to collect jackrabbit ears and rattlesnake rattles, for the purpose of thrilling the girls, but she did not tell her mother that. Neither did she tell her mother just why her quest always lay to the southward when there was plenty of desert to be glimpsed toward the north and to the east and the west. She did not even tell herself why she did that.
So Mary V, knowing well the terrific heat she would have to face in the middle of the day, ordered her horse saddled when the boys saddled their own—which was about sunrise. She did not keep it standing more than half an hour or so before she came out and mounted him. She was well equipped for her enterprise. She carried a camera, three extra rolls of film, a telescoped tripod which she tied under her right stirrup leather, a pair of high-power Busch glasses (to glimpse with, probably), two duck-covered canteens filled and dripping, a generous lunch of sandwiches and cake and sour pickles, a box-magazine .22 rifle, a knife, a tube of cold cream wrapped in a bit of cheesecloth, and a very compact yet very complete vanity case. Jostling the vanity case in her saddle pocket were two boxes of soft-nose, .22-long cartridges for the rifle. Furthermore, for special personal protection she had an extremely businesslike six-shooter which she carried in a shoulder holster under her riding shirt; a concession to her father, who had made her promise never to ride away from the ranch without it.
For apparel Mary V wore a checked riding coat and breeches, together with black puttees. The suit had grown a bit shabby for Los Angeles, and Mary V’s mother believed that town cast-offs should be worn out on the ranch. Mary V did not mind. She hated the cumbersome riding skirts of the range girl proper, and much preferred the breeches. When she had put a little distance between herself and the ranch, she usually removed the coat and tied it in a roll behind the cantle. She looked then like a slim boy—or she would have, except for the hat. Mary V cherished her complexion, which Arizona sun and winds would have burned a brick red. In cool weather she wore a Stetson like the boys; but now she favored a great, straw sombrero such as you see section hands wear along the railroad track in Arizona. To keep it on her head in the winds she had resorted to tying a ribbon down over the brim from the front of the crown to the nape of her neck; and tying another ribbon from the back of the crown down under her chin. Thus doubly anchored, and skewered with two hatpins besides, the hat might be counted upon to give Mary V no trouble, but a great deal of protection. Worn with the checked riding breeches and the heavy, black puttees, it was not particularly becoming, but Mary V did not expect to meet many pairs of critical eyes. Rolling R boys were too much like home folks to bother about, having been accustomed to seeing Mary V in strange and various guises since she was a tiny tot.
Southward she rode, and as swiftly as was wise if she valued the well-being of her horse. Movies will have it that nothing short of a gallop is tolerated by riders in the West; whereas Mary V had been taught from her childhood up that she must never “run” her horse unless there was need of it. She therefore contented herself with ambling along the trail at a distance-devouring trail-trot, slowing her horse to a walk on the rising slopes and urging him a little with her spurred heels on the levels. She did not let him lag—she could not, if she covered the distance she had in her mind to cover.
Away over to the south—almost to Sinkhole Camp, in fact—was a ridge that was climbable on horseback. Not every ridge in that country was, and Mary V was not fond of walking in the sand on a hot day. The ridge commanded a far view, and was said to be a metropolis among the snakes that populated the region. Mary V had, very casually, mentioned to the boys that some day she meant to get a good picture of a snake den. She said “the girls” did not believe that snakes went in bunches and writhed amicably together in their dens. She was going to prove
it to them.
A perfectly logical quest it was therefore that led her toward that ridge. You could not blame Mary V if the view from the top of it extended to Sinkhole Camp and beyond. She had not made the view, remember, nor had she advised the snakes to choose that ridge for their dens. She was not even perfectly sure that they did choose it. The boys had told her that Black Ridge was “full up” with snake dens, and she meant to see if they told the truth.
Wherefore her horse Tango laboriously carried Mary V up the ridge and kept his ears perked for the warning buzz of rattlers, and his eyes open for a feasible line retreat in case he heard one. Tango knew just as well as Mary V when they were in snake country. He had gone so far as to argue the point of climbing that ridge, but as usual Mary V’s argument was stronger than Tango’s, and he had yielded with an injured air that was quite lost upon his rider. Mary V was thinking of something else.
They reached the top without having seen a single snake. Tango seemed somewhat surprised at this, but Mary V was not. Mary V thought it was too hot even for rattlesnakes, and as for the dearth of lizards—well she supposed the snakes had eaten them all. She had let Tango stop often to breathe, and whenever he did so she had looked south, scanning as much of the lower level as she could see, which was not the proper way to go about hunting snake dens, I assure you. But at the top she permitted Tango to walk into the shade of a boulder that radiated heat like a stove but was still preferable to the blistering sunlight, and there she left him while she walked a little nearer the edge of the rimrock that topped the ridge on its southern side.
Once more she scanned the sweltering expanse of sagebrush, scant grass, many rock patches and much sand. She saw a rider moving along a shallow watercourse, and immediately she focused her glasses upon him. She gave an ejaculation of surprise when the powerful lenses annihilated nine tenths of the distance between them. One would judge from her manner and her tone that, while she had not been surprised to see a rider, that rider’s identity was wholly unexpected.
