The Thunder Bird

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SUDDEN MUST DO SOMETHING

  "I been thinking, bo, what we better do." Bland climbed down from themotor and approached Johnny eagerly, casting suspicious glances hereand there lest eavesdroppers be near. That air of secrecy was a habitwith Bland, yet it never quite failed to impress Johnny and lend weightto Bland's utterances. Now, having been put on the defensive by MaryV, he was more than ever inclined to listen.

  "Shoot," he said glumly, and sent a resentful glance back at the house.At least, Bland showed some interest in his welfare, he thought, andregretted that it had not occurred to him to tell Mary V that and seehow she would take it.

  "Well, bo, all this limelight stuff is playing right into your mitt. Ididn't spill who I was to them news hounds, and I don't have to. I letyou take all the foreground. I was the mechanic--see? So it's youthat will have to put this over; and put it over strong, I say.

  "Now first off you want some catchy name for the plane, and you've gotit ready-made. All yuh need is paint to put it on with. Across thetop of the wings you want to paint THE THUNDER BIRD--just like that.Get the idea? And we'll go back to Tucson and clean up a piece ofmoney. While you work into the exhibition stuff we can take uppassengers and make good money. Ten minutes of joyride, at ten dollarsper joy--you mind the mob that follered us to the hotel just for alook-in? Say one in ten takes a ride, look at the clean-up! You take'em yourself, bo--do the flunkey work and look wise. I never mentionedthe joyridin' at first, because I look on that as side money, andexhibition flyers don't do nothing like that. They think it cheapens'em, and it does. But right now it means quick money, see. With allthis publicity, and the Injun name--say, it's a cinch, bo! They'llfall over theirselves to git a ride.

  "My idea is to get the name painted on right now, before we go back.Then we'll circle over town and do a few flops and show our sign. Soright away the name'll stick in their minds and make good advertising.Then when we land, the mob'll be there--I'll say they will! Andthey'll take a ride, too. I wonder is there any lampblack on theplace?"

  Johnny smoked a cigarette and studied the proposition. It lookedfeasible. Moreover, it promised ready money, and ready money wasJohnny's greatest, most immediate need. Not a little of hiscaptiousness with Mary V was caused by his secret worry over his emptypockets. He grinned ruefully when the thought struck him that, if thebald truth were known, he himself did not have much more than the priceof one joyride in his own machine! He had been seriously consideringasking Curley for a loan when that staunch little friend returned fromthe search, but it galled his pride to borrow money from any one.Bland's idea began to look not only feasible but brilliant. It wouldestablish at once his independence and furnish concrete proof to Mary Vthat his determination to fly was based on sound business principles.Supposing he only took up four or five passengers a day, he would makemore money than he could earn in two weeks at any other occupation.

  Bland seemed to read this thought. "You can count on an average of tena day, bo--that's a hundred dollars. Sometimes, like on Sundays, itwould run to two and three hundred bones. I guess that will let youthrow your feet under the table regular--what?"

  "What about you?" Johnny asked, looking up at him studiedly.

  "Me? I'll tell yuh, bo. You give me the second ten bucks you take in.You keep the rest until the tenth passenger, and give me that, and thenthe fifteenth. And you pay all expenses. That's fair enough, ain'tit? I'll make good money when you make better. Any exhibition work,you give me half, because it'll really be me that's pulling off thestunts. The public needn't be wise to that. You as Skyrider Johnny,see. I'm just anybody, for the present."

  "Why all this modesty to-day? When you first wanted to go in with me,I couldn't call you no violet, Bland. You said then that your name wasworth a lot."

  Bland's loose lips parted in a crafty grin. "It is worth a lot, bo--tokeep it under cover right now. One of them newspaper guys reminded meof somebody. I don't think he remembered me--but it wouldn't do us nogood now to joggle his memory, bo. I ain't saying he's got anything onme--only--"

  "Only he has," Johnny rounded out the sentence dryly. "All right. I'mwilling to play that way till I find out more about you. We'll tryyour scheme out. It can't do any hurt."

  He went off to the shed where all sorts of things were stored, lookingfor lamp black. And Bland, seeing ready money just ahead, overlookedJohnny's blunt distrust of him, and pulled the corners of his mouth outof their habitual whining droop and whistled to himself while hetinkered with the motor.

  Johnny was up on a stepladder laboriously painting the R on THUNDERwhen old Sudden drove into the yard with half the Rolling R boys packedinto the big car. They had heard the strident humming of the planewhen Johnny made his homing flight, and craning necks backward, hadseen him winging away to the Rolling R. They had guessed very close tothe truth, and for them the search ended right there. So, aftersignalling the other searchers, many of the boys had ridden back in thecar, leaving patient, obliging little Curley to bring home their horses.

  Bud and Aleck, who had ridden uncomplainingly from dawn to dark,looking for Johnny's remains, straightway pulled him, paint-pot andall, from the stepladder and began to maul him affectionately and callhim various names to hide their joy and relief. Which Johnny acceptedphilosophically and with less gratitude than he should have shown.

  "What yo' all doin', up there?" Bud wanted to know when the firstexcitement had subsided. "Writin' poetry for friend Venus to read?I'll bet that there's where Skyrider has been all this while! I'll bethe's been visitin' with Venus and brandin' stars with the Rollin' Rwhilst we been ridin' the tails off our hawses huntin' his mangledree-mains. Ain't that right, Eyebrow?"

  Bland grinned sourly. "Us, we been gawdin' amongst the Injuns," hestated loftily. "We sure had some time. I'll say we did! Say, we'regoin' to be ready to do business now pretty quick. Don't you birdswant to fly? Just a little ways--to see how it feels?"

  Halfway up the stepladder Johnny stopped. "What's the matter with you,Bland?" he asked sharply. "You crazy?"

  "We're out to do business. That's right, boys. Now's your time tofly. All it takes is a little nerve--and ten dollars."

  "Shut up!" growled Johnny. "Don't be a darned boob."

  The boys looked at one another uncertainly. It might be some obscurejoke of Bland's, and they were wary.

  "Fly where?" Bud guardedly sought information.

  "Anywheres. Just a circle or two, to show yuh how this ranch looks toa chicken hawk, and down again," Bland persisted, in spite of Johnny.

  "Yeah--it's that _down again_ I wouldn't much hanker for," Aleck putin. "I seen how you and Skyrider come down, once."

  "That there was him learnin' not to pick nice, deep, soft sand for alandin'," Bland explained equably, glancing up to where Johnny waspainting a somewhat wobbly B. "He ain't done it lately, bo."

  "Lemme up there, Skyrider, and see what it is yo'all are paintin' on,"Bud pleaded. "If it's po'try, maybe I can sing it."

  Johnny relaxed into a grin, but he did not answer the jibe. He wasdisgusted with Bland for having such bad taste as to drum up trade hereon the ranch, among the boys who had ridden hard and long, believinghim in dire need. He hoped the boys would not guess that Bland was inearnest; a poor, cheap joke is sometimes better than tactlesssincerity. He was even ashamed now of the name he was painting on thewings. That, too, seemed cheap and pointless. He felt nauseated withBland Halliday and his petty grafting.

  A little more and he would have told Bland so and sent him about hisbusiness. At that moment of revulsion against Bland he was almost inthe mood to give up the whole scheme and do as Mary V wished him to do:settle down there at the ranch and work out his debt where he had madeit. Looking down into the grimy, friendly faces of those who hadbraved desert wind and sun for him, the sallow, shifty-eyed face ofBland Halliday seemed to epitomize the sordid avariciousness of the manand made him wonder if any measure o
f success would atone for theforced intimacy with the fellow. Mary V, had she known his mood then,might have won her way with him and altered immeasurably the future.

  But Mary V knew only that he was staying down there with thatunbearable Bland Halliday, fussing around his horrid old airplaneinstead of coming to the house and telling her he was sorry. Besides,there was her dad, who had gone to all that trouble and expense forhim, not so much as getting a word of thanks or appreciation fromJohnny. Instead of coming right away to see her dad, he was down therefooling with the boys. What, for gracious sake, ailed Johnny lately?He ought to have a good talking to, she decided. Perhaps her dad couldtalk some sense into him--she was sure that she couldn't.

  So she stopped her dad when he was on the point of going down whereJohnny was, and she told him what perfectly crazy ideas Johnny had, andhow he had refused to listen to a word she said, but instead had takenup with Bland Halliday again. And wouldn't dad please talk to Johnny?

  "He keeps harping on owing you for those horses he lost," she saidimpatiently. "I've told him and told him that you don't care and wouldnever hold it against him, but he won't listen. He keeps on talkingabout paying it back, and making good before we can be married and allthat. And he simply will not consent to come and make good on theranch, and pay you out of his salary, if he feels he must pay.

  "He says ranching is too tame for him--dad, think of that! Too tame,when he knows very well it would mean-- But he doesn't seem to carewhether we're together or not. He says he can make a fortune flying,and he said he might go in partnership with Bland Halliday. He says wecan't think of being married until he has paid you--and he imagines hecan earn the money with that airplane! And I know perfectly well hecan't, because if he does make a cent Bland Halliday will cheat him outof it. And dad--" Mary V's voice trembled "--he went off that morningwith that fellow, exactly in the opposite direction from the ranch! Henever intended to come, and he didn't care enough to tell me, even. Hejust went as if nothing in the world mattered! And we were allhunting--"

  "Well, if you look at it that way it's easy enough to handle him,"Sudden observed. "I've been thinking myself the young imp showedmighty little thought for you. Of course you don't want to marry afellow like that."

  "Why, I do too! What, for gracious sake, ever put that idea into yourhead? But I don't want him to act like a perfectly crazy lunatic. Iwish you'd speak to him. He won't listen to me--we just quarrel when Itry to reason with him."

  Sudden smoothed down his face with his hand. "I expect you do, allright. The dove of peace is going to find mighty poor roosting on yourroof, babe, if I'm any judge."

  "I suppose you mean I'm quarrelsome, but you simply don't understand.It was Johnny who quarrelled with me because I wanted him to have somesense. I wish you'd speak to him, dad."

  "Oh, I'll speak to him," her dad promised grimly.

  Still, he did not immediately proceed to speak. Instead, he drove thecar down to the garage and put it away, passing rather close to theairplane without giving much attention to Johnny. His casual wave of ahand could have meant almost anything, and Johnny felt a small tremorof apprehension. When he was merely one of the men on the payroll hehad stood just a bit in awe of old Sudden, and he could not all at oncethrow off the feeling, even though Sudden had willingly enoughacknowledged him as a prospective son-in-law. He allowed a blob ofblack paint to place a period where no period should be while he staredafter Sudden's bulky form in the dust-covered car.

  Sudden busied himself in the garage, turning up grease cups and goingover certain squeaky spots with the oil can while he studied theproblem before him. He had once before likened Johnny Jewel to athoroughbred colt that must be given its head lest its temper bespoiled for all time. Just now the human colt seemed inclined to boltwhere the bolting threatened disaster to Mary V. The question of usingthe curb or giving a free rein was a nice one; and the old car wasgiven an astonishing amount of oil before Sudden wiped his hands on abit of waste with the air of a man who had just made an importantdecision.

  "If you've got time," he said to Johnny, when he approached the groupat the plane, "I'd like to have a little talk with you. No hurry,though. Glad to see you got back all right. You had the whole countryguessing for a while."

  Johnny scowled, for the subject was becoming extremely unpleasant."I'm sorry--but I don't see what I can do about it, unless I go off andsmash things up to carry out the program as expected," he retorted, andit did not occur to him that the words sounded particularly ungracious.The thing was on his nerves so much that it seemed to him even Suddenwas taunting him with the trouble he had caused.

  "No, the show's over now, and the audience has gone home. No useplaying to an empty house," Sudden drawled.

  Johnny looked at him quickly, suspiciously. He had an overwhelmingwish to know just exactly what Sudden meant. He climbed down and tookthe ladder back to the shed near by.

  "I'm ready for the talk, Mr. Selmer," he said when he came back.Whatever Sudden had in his mind, Johnny wanted it in plain speech. Awhite line was showing around his mouth--a line brought there by thefeeling that his affairs had reached a crisis. One way or the otherhis future would be decided in the next few minutes.

  He followed Sudden to the house and into the office room fronting thecorrals and yards. Sudden sat down before his desk and Johnny took thechair opposite him, his spirits still weighted by the impending crisis.He tried to read in Sudden's face what attitude he might expect, butSudden was wearing what his friends called his poker expression, whichwas no expression at all. His very impassiveness warned and steadiedJohnny.