The Thunder Bird

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  JOHNNY MAKES UP HIS MIND

  "No political prejudices--hunh!" Johnny was filling the gas tank, andwhile he did it he was doing a great deal of thinking which he was notpaid to do. "This newspaper business--say, she's one great business,all right. It's nice to have a boss that jumps your wages up a coupleof hundred at a lick, and tells you you needn't think, and you mustn'thave any political prejudices. Fine job, all right. Will I fly bymoon-light? Will I? And them government planes riding on my tail likethey've been doing the last two trips? Hunh!"

  Cliff came then with a bundle under his arm. Johnny cast a suspiciouseye down at him, and Cliff held up the package.

  "I want to take this along--rockets; to let them know we're coming.Then they'll have flares for us to land by."

  "Been planning on some night-riding, hunh?"

  "Naturally; I would plan for every contingency that could possiblyarise."

  "Hunh. That covers them planes that have been line-riding over thisway, too, I reckon." Johnny climbed down and prepared to pump a littlemore air into one tire.

  "Possibly. Don't let those airplanes worry you, old man. They have tocatch us, you know."

  "No? I ain't worrying about 'em. The one that does the thinking onthis job can do the worrying. I'm paid to fly." Johnny laughed sourlyas he glanced up from where he squatted beside the wheel.

  "Let it go at that. Are you about ready? It will be dark in anotherhalf hour--dark enough to fly, at least." Cliff was moving aboutrestlessly in the gloom under the tree. For all his earlierexhilaration he seemed nervous, in haste to be done.

  "You said moonlight," Johnny reminded him, putting away the pump.

  "I know, but it's best to get out of here and over the line in thedark, I think. The moon will be up in less than an hour. Be ready toleave in half an hour--and don't start the motor until the very lastminute. Mateo has not come back yet. If they are holding him--"

  "I'm ready to go when you are. Let's run her out before it's plumbdark under here. She can't be seen in this light very far--and if aman comes close enough to see her, he'd get wise anyway. Uh course,"he apologized quickly, "that's more thinking than I'm paid to do, butyou got to let me think a little bit now and then, or I can't fly notwo thousand dollars worth to-night."

  "I meant thinking about my part in the game. All right, I've got herright, on this side. Take up the tail and let's run her out."

  In the open the children were running back and forth, playing tag andsquealing over the hazards of the game. When the Thunder Bird rolledout with its outspread wings and its head high and haughty, they gave afinal dash at one another and rushed off to get wheelbarrow and stickhorses. They were well trained--shamefully well trained in the game ofcheating.

  Johnny looked at them glumly, with an aversion born of their uncannyobedience, their unchildlike shrewdness. Fine conspirators they wouldmake later on, when they grew a few years older and more cunning!

  "Head her into the wind so I can take the air right away quick," heordered Cliff, and helped swing the Thunder Bird round.

  Dusk was settling upon the very heels of a sunset that had no clouds toglorify and therefore dulled and darkened quickly into night, as is theway of sunsets in the southern rim of States.

  Already the shadows were deep against the hill, and in the deepeststood the Thunder Bird, slim, delicately sturdy, every wire taut, everybit of aluminum in her motor clean and shining, a gracefully potentcreature of the air. Across her back her name was lettered crudely,blatantly, with the blobbed period where Johnny had his first mentalshock of Sudden's changed attitude toward him.

  While he pulled on his leather helmet and tied the flaps under hischin, and buttoned his leather coat and pulled on his gloves, Johnnystood off and eyed the Thunder Bird with wistful affection. She wasgoing into the night for the first time, going into danger, perhapsinto annihilation. She might never fly again! He went up and laid ahand caressingly on her slanted propeller, just as he used to strokethe nose of his horse Sandy before a hard ride.

  "Good old Thunder Bird! Good old Mile High! You've got your work cutout for yuh to-night, old girl. Go to it--eat it up."

  He slid his hand down along the blade's edge and whispered, "It's youand me for it, old girl. You back my play like a good girl, and we'llgive 'em hell!"

  He stepped back, catching Cliff's eye as Cliff took a last puff at hiscigarette before grinding it under his heel.

  "Thought I saw a crack in the blade," Johnny gruffly explained hisaction. "It was the way the light struck. All right; turn her over,and we'll go."

  He climbed in while Cliff went to the propeller. Never before hadJohnny felt so keenly the profanation of Cliff's immaculate, glovedhands on his beloved Thunder Bird.

  "Never mind, old girl. His time's short--or ours is," he mutteredwhile he tested his controls. "All right--contact!" he calledafterwards, and Cliff, with a mighty pull, set the propeller whirlingand climbed hastily into his place.

  The kiddies, grouped close to watch the Thunder Bird's flight, blinkedand turned their faces from the dust storm kicked up by the exhaust.The plane shook, ran forward faster and faster, lifted its littlewheels off the ground and went whirring away toward the dark blur ofthe mountains that rimmed the southern edge of the valley.

  Johnny circled twice, getting sufficient altitude to clear the hills,then flew straight for the border. In the dark Cliff would not knowthe difference between one thousand feet and five thousand, and Johnnywanted to save his gas. He even shut off his motor and glided down toone thousand before he had passed the line, and picked up again andheld the Thunder Bird steady, regardless of the droning hum, that wouldshout its passing to those below.

  "Isn't this rather low?" Cliff turned his head to shout.

  Johnny did not read suspicion in his voice, but vague uneasiness lestthe trip be brought to a sudden halt.

  "It's all right. They can't do anything but listen to us go past.I've got to keep my landmarks."

  Cliff leaned and peered below, evidently satisfied with theexplanation. A minute later he was fussing with the flare he meant toset off for a signal, and Johnny was left free to handle the plane anddo a little more of that thinking for which he was not paid.

  The night sky was wonderful, a deep translucent purple studded withstars that seemed closer, more humanly intimate than when seen fromearth even in the higher altitudes. The earth was shadowy, remote,with now a growing brightness as the moon slid up into sight. Beforeits light touched the earth the Thunder Bird was bathed in its glow.Cliff's profile emerged clear-cut from the dusk as he gazed toward theeast. Johnny, too, glanced that way, but he was not thinking then ofthe wonderful effect of the rising moon upon the drifting world below.He was wondering just why this trip to-night should be so important toCliff.

  It would not be the first time that Johnny had gone ahead with his eyesshut, but that is not saying he would not have preferred travellingwith them open. His lips were set so stubbornly that the three tinydimples appeared in his chin,--his stubborn-mule chin, Mary V had oncecalled it,--and his eyes were big and round and solemn. Mary V seeinghim then would surely have asked herself, "What, for gracious sake, isJohnny up to now?"

  But Mary V was not present, and Cliff Lowell was fully absorbed in hisown thoughts and purposes; wherefore Johnny's ominous expression wentunnoticed.

  In the moonlight the notched ridge showed clear, and toward it theThunder Bird went booming steadily, as ducks fly south with the firststorm wind of November. A twinkling light just under the notch showedthat Cliff's allies were at home, whether they expected him or not.Johnny veered slightly, pointing the Thunder Bird's nose straighttoward the light.

  Cliff half turned, handing something back over his shoulder.

  "Can you drop this for me, old man, when we are almost over thehacienda? The fuse is lighted, and I'm afraid I might heave it on tothe wing and set us afire."

  Johnny heard only ab
out half of what Cliff was saying, but heunderstood what was wanted and took the bomb-like contraption andbalanced it in his hand. Cliff had said rockets, but this thing wasnot like any rocket Johnny had ever seen. Some new aerial signal bomb,he guessed it, and thought how thoroughly up-to-date Cliff was in allhis tools of trade.

  He poised the thing on the edge of the cockpit, waited until they wererather close, and then gave it a toss overboard. For a few secondsnothing happened. Than, halfway to the ground a great blob of redlight burst dazzlingly, lighting the adobe building with a crimson glowthat floated gently earthward, suspended from its little parachute.

  Cliff handed back another, and Johnny heaved it away from the plane.It flared white; the third one, dropped almost before the door of themain building, revealed three men standing there gazing upward, theirfaces weird in its bluish glare. Red, white and blue--a signal usedsacrilegiously here, he thought.

  Johnny circled widely and came back to find the landing place lightedby torches of some kind. He was not interested in details, and whatthey were he did not know or care. The landing was marked for himplainly, though he scarcely needed it with the moon riding now abovethe low rim of hills.

  He came down gently, and Cliff, remembering to give Johnny his money,climbed out hurriedly to meet the florid gentleman who had never yetfailed to appear when the Thunder Bird landed. Johnny did not know hisname, for Cliff had never mentioned it. The two never talked togetherin his presence, but strolled away where even their voices would notreach him, or went inside the adobe house and stayed there until Cliffwas ready to return. News gathering, as Johnny saw the news gathered,seemed to be mighty secret business, never to be mentioned save in awhisper.

  The florid gentleman came strolling toward them through the moonlight,smoking a big, fat cigar whose aroma reminded Johnny of somethingdisagreeable, like burning rubbish. Tonight the florid gentleman'sstroll did not seem to match his face, which betrayed a suppressedexcitement in spite of the fat cigar. He reached out, caught Cliff'sarm, and turned back toward the house, forgetting all about his strollas soon as he began to speak. He forgot something else, for Johnnydistinctly heard a sentence or two not meant for his ears.

  "I've put it through all right. I got them to sign with theunderstanding that they don't turn a hand till you bring the money.You can take--"

  That was all, for even on that still night the florid gentleman's voicereceded quickly to an unintelligible mumbling. They went inside, andthe door closed. Johnny and the Thunder Bird were once more shut outfrom their conference.

  Johnny spied a Mexican who was leaning against the wall of a smallerbuilding, smoking and staring pensively across the moonlighted plaintoward that portion of the United States where the Potreros hunchedthemselves up against the stars.

  "Bring me some gas, you!" he called peremptorily.

  The Mexican pulled his gaze away from the vista that had held himhypnotized and straightened his lank form reluctantly. From a benchnear by he picked up a square kerosene can of the type madeinternationally popular by a certain oil trust, inspected it to see ifthe baling-wire handle would hold the weight of four gallons ofgasoline, and sauntered to a shed under which a red-leaded iron drumlay on a low scaffold of poles. A brass faucet was screwed into thehole for a faucet. He turned it listlessly, watched the gasoline runin a sparkling stream the size of his finger, went off into amoon-dream until the oil can was threatening to run over, and then shutoff the stream at its source. He picked up the can with the air of onewhose mind is far distant, came like a sleepwalker to where Johnnywaited, set the can down, and turned apathetically to retrace his stepsto where he could lean again.

  "That ain't all. Bring me a can of water as fast as you brought thegas. We may want to go back to-night."

  "Si," sighed the Mexican and continued to drift away.

  "Don't be in a hurry. Come and lift the can up to me."

  The Mexican returned as slowly as he had departed, and picked up thecan. Johnny dropped a half dollar into it, whereat the Mexican's eyesopened a trifle wider.

  "What's the name of that red-faced friend of Cliff's?" Johnny asked,taking the can and beginning to pour gas into the Thunder Bird's tank.

  "Quien sabe?" murmured the listless one.

  Johnny paused, and another coin slipped tinkling into the can.

  "What did you say?"

  The Mexican hesitated. He would like very much to see that other coin.It had sounded heavy--almost as heavy as a dollar. He turned his headand looked attentively at the house.

  "Quien sabe, senor." The senor he added for sake of the coin he hadnot seen. "Mucho name, Ah'm theenk."

  "Think some more." Johnny poured the last of the gas and causedanother clinking sound in the can. The Mexican's eyes were as wideopen now as they would ever be, and he even called a faint smile to hiscountenance.

  "Some-_times_--Sawb," he recollected, and reached for the can.

  "Sawb--What y'mean, Sawb? That's no name for a man. You mean Schwab?"

  "Si, senor--Sawb." He glanced again at the house distrustfully, as ifhe feared even his murmur might be overheard.

  "All right. Get the water now."

  "Si, senor." And he went for it at a trot, that he might the soonerinvestigate the source of those clinking sounds.

  "Schwab! Uhm-hm--he looks it, all right." He stepped down to theground, pulled a handful of silver from his pocket and eyed itspeculatively, glancing now and then after the receding Mexican. "He'dtell a lot to get it all," he decided. "He'd tell so much he'd make upabout four thirds of it. I guess those birds ain't taking greaserslike him into their secrets, and he's spilled all he knows when hespilled the fellow's name. Four bits more will do him fine." Wealth,you will observe, was inclining Johnny toward parsimoniousness.

  He got the water from the hopeful Mexican, gave him the half dollar andbrief thanks, filled the radiator, and waited for Cliff. And in a veryfew minutes Cliff came out, walking as though he were in a hurry. Theflorid gentleman stood framed in the doorway, watching him as friendlyhosts are wont to gaze after departing guests, out west where guestsare few. Like a departing guest Cliff turned for a last word.

  "I'll be back soon as possible," he called to the man Schwab. "Alittle after sunrise, probably. Better wait here for me."

  Schwab nodded and waved his cigar, and Johnny grinned to himself whilehe straddled into his seat.

  Cliff went straight to the propeller. "Take me to Los Angeles, oldman. You can light where you did before; there won't be any bean vinesin the way this time. I had the Japs clear off and level a strip for alanding. It's marked off with white flags, so you can easily see it inthis moonlight. Luck's with us; I was afraid we might have to waituntil morning, but this is fine. Several hours will be saved."

  "I've got you," Johnny said--and he did not mean what Cliff thought hemeant. "All ready? Contact!"