The Thunder Bird, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  AND THE CAT CAME BACK

  "Why, hello, Bland," Johnny exclaimed after the first blank silence."I thought you was tied up in a sack and throwed into the pond longago!"

  The visitor grinned with a sour droop to his mouth, a droop whichJohnny knew of old. "But the cat came back," he followed the simile,blinking at Johnny with his pale, opaque blue eyes. "What yuh doinghere? Starting an aviation school?"

  "Yeah. Free instruction. Want a lesson?" Johnny retorted, only halfthe sarcasm intended for Bland; the rest going to the town that hadfailed to disgorge a buyer for what he had to sell.

  "Aw, I suppose you think you could give me lessons, now you've learnedto do a little straightaway flying without landing on your tail," Blandfleered, with the impatience of the seasoned flyer for the novice whothinks well of himself and his newly acquired skill. "Say, that wassome bump you give yourself on the dome when we lit over there in thatsand patch. I tried to tell yuh that sand looked loose--"

  "Yes, you did--not! You was scared stiff. Your face looked like theinside of a raw bacon rind!"

  "Sure, I was scared. So would you of been if you'd a known as muchabout it as I knew. I knew we was due to pile up, when you grabbed thecontrol away from me. You'll make a flyer, all right--and a good one,if yuh last long enough. But you can't learn it all in a day, bo--takeit from me. Anyway, I got no kick to make. It was you and the planethat got the bumps. All I done was bite my tongue half off!"

  Boy that he was, Johnny laughed over this. The idea of Bland bitinghis tongue tickled him and served to blur his antagonism for the trickyaviator who had played so large a part in his salvaging of this veryairplane.

  "Uh course you'll laugh--but you wasn't laughing then. I'll say youwasn't. I thought you was croaked. Cost something to repair theplane, too. I'm saying it did. Had to have a new propeller, and a newcrank-case for the motor--cost the old man at the ranch close to threehundred dollars before I turned her over to him, ready to take the airagain. That's including what he paid me, of course. But I guess youknow what it cost, when he handed you the bill."

  This was news to Johnny, news that made his soul squirm. Lying theresick at the Rolling R ranch, he had not known what was taking place.He had found his airplane ready to fly, when he was at last able towalk out to the corrals, but no one seemed to know how much therepairing had cost. Certainly Sudden Selmer himself had suffered alapse of memory on the subject. All the more reason then why Johnnyshould repay his debt.

  "What I'm wondering about is why you aren't in Los Angeles," he evadedthe unpleasant subject awkwardly. "Old Sudden gave you money to go,and dumped you at the depot, didn't he? That's what Mary V told me."

  "He did--and I missed my train. And while I was waiting for the next Imust 'a' et something poison. I was awful sick. I guess it was tendays or so before I come to enough to know where I was. I've had hardluck, bo--I'll say I have. I was robbed while I was sick, and only fora tambourine queen I got acquainted with, I guess I'd 'a' died.They're treacherous as hell, though. Long as she thought I hadmoney--oh, well, they's no use expecting kindness in this world. Orgratitude. I'm always helpin' folks out and gittin' kicked and cussedfor my pay. Lookit the way I lived with snakes and lizards--lived in acave, like a coyote!--to help you git this plane in shape. You was totake me to Los for pay--but I ain't there yet. I'm stuck here, sickand hungry--I ain't et a mouthful since last night, and then I only hada dish of sour beans that damn' Mex. hussy handed out to me through awindow! Me, Bland Halliday, a flyer that has made his hundreds doingexhibition work; that has had his picture on the front page of big citypapers, and folks followin' him down the street just to get a look athim! Me--why, a yellow dawg has got the edge on me for luck! I mightbetter be dead--" His loose lips quivered. Tears of self-pity welledup into his pale blue eyes. He turned away and stared across thebarren calf lot that Johnny used for a flying field.

  Johnny began to have premonitory qualms of a sympathy which he knew wasundeserved. Bland Halliday had got a square deal--more than a squaredeal; for Sudden, Johnny knew, had paid him generously for repairingthe plane while Johnny was sick. Bland had undoubtedly squandered themoney in one long debauch, and there was no doubt in Johnny's mind ofBland's reason for missing his train. He was a bum by nature and hewould double-cross his own mother, Johnny firmly believed. Yet, therewas Johnny's boyish sympathy that never failed sundry stray dogs andcats that came in his way. It impelled him now to befriend BlandHalliday.

  "Well, since the cat's come back, I suppose it must have its saucer ofmilk," he grinned, by way of hiding the fact that the lip-quiver hadtouched him. "I haven't taken any nourishment myself for quite sometime. Come on and eat."

  He started back toward town, and Bland Halliday followed him like alonesome pup.

  On the way, Johnny took stock of Bland in little quick glances from thecorner of his eyes. Bland had been shabby when Johnny discovered himone day on the depot platform of a tiny town farther down the line. Hehad been shabbier after three weeks in Johnny's camp, working on theairplane in hope of a free trip to the Coast. But his shabbiness nowsurpassed anything Johnny had known, because Bland had evidently madepitiful attempts to hide it. That, Johnny guessed, was because of thehussy Bland had mentioned.

  Bland's shoes were worn through on the sides, and he had blackened hisragged socks to hide the holes. Somewhere he had got a blue sergecoat, from which the lining sagged in frayed wrinkles. His pocketswere torn down at the corners; buttons were gone, grease spots and beerstains patterned the cloth. Under the coat he wore a pink-and-whitesilk shirt, much soiled and with the neck frankly open, imitating sportstyle because of missing buttons. He looked what he was by nature;what he was by training,--a really skilful birdman,--did not show atall.

  He begged a smoke from Johnny and slouched along, with an aimlessgarrulity talking of his hard luck, now curiously shot with hope.Which irritated Johnny vaguely, since instinct told him whence thathope had sprung. Still, sympathy made him kind to Bland just becauseBland was so worthless and so miserable.

  At a dingy, fly-infested place called "Red's Quick Lunch" whitherJohnny, mindful of his low finances, piloted him, Bland ordered largelyand complained because his "T bone" was too rare, and afterwardsbecause it was tough. Johnny dined on "coffee and sinkers" so that hecould afford Bland's steak and "French fried" and hot biscuits and pieand two cups of coffee. The cat, he told himself grimly, was notcontent with a saucer of milk. It was on the top shelf of the pantry,lapping all the cream off the pan!

  Afterwards he took Bland to the hotel where his room was paid for untilthe end of the week, led him up there, produced an old suit of clothesthat had not seemed to wear a sufficiently prosperous air for the ownerof an airplane, and suggestively opened the door to the bathroom.

  Bland took the clothes and went in, mumbling a fear that he would dohimself mortal injury if he took a bath right after a meal.

  "If you die, you'll die clean, anyway," Johnny told him grimly. SoBland took a bath and emerged looking almost respectable.

  Johnny had brought his second-best shoes out, and Bland put them on,pursing his loose lips because the shoes were a size too small. ButJohnny had thrown Bland's shoes out of the window, so Bland had to bearthe pinching.

  Johnny sat on the edge of the dresser smoking and fanning the smokeaway from his round, meditative eyes while he looked Bland over. Blandcaught the look, and in spite of the shoes he grinned amiably.

  "I take it back, bo, what I said about gratitude. You got it, afterall."

  "Huh!" Johnny grunted. "Gratitude, huh?"

  "I knowed you wouldn't throw down a friend, old top. I was in thedumps. A feller'll talk most any way when he's feeling the aftereffects, and is hungry and broke. Now I'm my own man again. Whatnext? Name it, bo--I'm game."

  "Next," said Johnny, "is bed, I guess. You're clean, now--you cansleep here."

  Bland showed that he could feel the sent
iment called compunction.

  "Much obliged, bo--but I don't want to crowd you--"

  "You won't crowd me," said Johnny drily, "I aim to sleep with theplane." Bland may have read Johnny's reason for sleeping with hisairplane, but beyond one quick look he made no sign. "Still nuts overit--I'll say you are," he grunted. "You wait till you've been in thegame long as I have, bo."

  With a blanket and pillow bought on his way through the town, Johnnydisposed himself for the night under the nose of the plane with thewheels of the landing gear at his back. He was not by nature asuspicious young man, but he knew Bland Halliday; and to know Bland wasto distrust him.

  He felt that he was taking a necessary precaution, now that he knewBland was in Tucson. With the landing gear behind him, no one couldmove the airplane in the night without first moving him.

  Now that he thought of it, Bland had been left fifty miles farther downthe line, to catch his train. Tucson was a perfectly illogical placefor him to be in, even for the purpose of carousing. One wouldcertainly expect him to hurry to the city of his desires and take hispleasure there. Johnny decided that Bland must still have an eye onthe plane.

  That he was secretly envious of Bland as an aviator did not add to hismental comfort. Bland could speak with slighting familiarity of "thegame," and assume a boredom not altogether a pose. Bland had drunkdeep and satisfyingly of the cup which Johnny, to save his honor, mustput away from him after a tantalising sip or two. Not until Bland hadsaid, "Wait till you've been in the game as long as I have," had Johnnyrealized to the full just what it would mean to him to part with hisairplane without being accepted by the government as an aviator.

  At the Rolling R, when his conscience debt to Sudden pressed soheavily, he had figured very nicely and had found the answer to hisproblem without much trouble. To enlist as an aviator with hisairplane, or to sell the plane in Tucson, turn the proceeds over toSudden to pay his debt and enlist as an aviator without the machine,had seemed perfectly simple. Either way would be making good themistakes of his past and paving the way for future achievements.Parting with the plane had not promised to so wrench the very heart outof him when he fully expected to fly faster and farther in airplanesowned by the government; faster and farther toward the goal of allred-blooded young males: glory or wealth, the hero's wreath of laurelor the smile of dame Fortune.

  Mary V stood on the heights waiting for him, as Johnny had planned anddreamed. He would come back to her a captain, maybe--perhaps even amajor, in these hot times of swift achievement. They would all beproud to shake his hand, those jeering ones who called him Skyrider fora joke. Captain Jewel would not have sounded bad at all. But--

  There is no dodging the finality of Uncle Sam's no. They had notwanted Johnny Jewel to fly for fame and his country's honor. And if hesold his own airplane, how then would he fly? How could he ever hopeto be in the game as long as Bland had been? How could he do anythingbut go back meekly to the Rolling R Ranch and ride bronks for Mary V'sfather, and be hailed as Skyrider still, who had no more any hope ofriding the sky?

  Gloom at last plumbed the depths of Johnny's soul, and showed him wheregrew the root of his unalterable determination to combat Mary V's planto have him at the ranch. Much as he loved Mary V he would hate goingback to the dull routine of ranch life. (And after all, a youth likeJohnny loves nothing quite so much as his air castles.) As a rider ofbronks he was spoiled, he who had ridden triumphant the high air lanes.He had talked of paying his debt to Sudden, he had talked of hisself-respect and his honesty and his pride--but above and beyond themall he was fighting to save his castle in the air. Debt or no debt, hecould never go back to the Rolling R and be a rancher. Lying thereunder his airplane and staring up at the starred purple of the night heknew that he could not go back.

  Yet he knew too that once he had sold his airplane he would be almostas helpless financially as Bland Halliday, unless he returned to theonly trade he knew, the trade of riding bronks and performing thevarious other duties that would be his portion at the Rolling R.

  Johnny pictured himself back at the Rolling R; pictured himself ridingout with the boys at dawn after horses, or sweating in the corrals,spitting dust and profanity through long, hot hours. There was a lure,of course; a picturesque, intangible attraction that calls to the wildblood of youth. But not as calls this other life which he had tasted.There was no gainsaying the fact--ranch life had grown too tame, toostale for Johnny Jewel. And there was no gainsaying that otherfact--that Mary V would have to reconcile herself to being an aviator'swife, if she would mate with Johnny.

  He went to sleep thinking bitterly that neither he nor Mary V needconcern themselves at present over that point. It would be some timebefore the issue need be faced, judging from Johnny's present prospects.