Chapter 9
HILLE VIDEO DOESN'T OWN A whirlybird, although we do have two light planes used for photographic work, plus a cargo job. The planes are housed at Bdl Davis' airport, near Redlands. After a bit of argument, Bill let us have a 'coptor for the trek to Santa Nino canyon. At least it was better than walking. An airplane was out, but I fully believed we could set down the 'coptor between those narrow walls without too much trouble. Unless the air currents were worse than I thought.
It was comparatively easy, getting good photos from the bubble. That was Ben's job.
I circled low at the Salt Creek tableland, where Tohee lived. Children waved at us and the sheep ran pell-mell, frightened by the chopper. I was about to dip down between the walls when I saw a dark blotch on the desert near the rim. In a 'coptor, a fellow can take his sweet time. I got down a sagebrush level and there was the wolf I had killed. He sprawled just as he had fallen. Pretty soon the vultures would get to him.
It was a bit tricky going down. But once in the canyon I relaxed. There was the big boulder, and the cairn of rocks where I had buried Geri. I couldn't keep the lump out of my throat, looking at that temporary grave. Ben's camera was whirring.
I tapped his shoulder, pointed to the shale slide.
"Nice grave!" Ben said.
We climbed now, to clear the wedge. There we were over the desert again. There was the Collins shack, and the old mine tipple where I had tied up Zeke. I swung Northwest, where Jane Trovillion had herded the sheep. There was no life there now. The line-shack seemed deserted; the chuck wagon was gone, too. Evidently Jane was still searching for greener pastures and more water. I still had her rifle, I remembered. Some day I'd take it back. Back in the canyon again, and the topography changed. The black basalt was gone. The cliffs were just as steep, but the color of the rock itself was changing. We were nearing the eroded area.
Suddenly Nan was tapping my shoulder, pointing downward. Something moved down in the canyon men, and two pack mules.
"We'll have company," Ben said, and grinned.
More eroded cliffs, and a widening chasm below us. Then at last Rita pointed downward.
"That's Santo Nino," she shouted, to make herself heard over the noise of the craft.
I circled, amazed at the terrific wall facing us. It was something like Canyon de Chelly. However this wasn't red granite, but a wall that sparkled in the sum, reflecting light like obsidian.
"Crazy looking cliffs!" Ben said. "Real crazy!"
"Chalk," Rita said. "My father explained it as an old marine area. Chemically the cliffs are almost pure calcium carbonate, with millions of tiny marine organisms encrusted in it."
"We have a geologist aboard!" I said, grinning.
We circled, set down at last on a level wind-swept area at the base of the wall. Back of us I noticed an old mine shaft, and the remains of what had once been a small mining community.
"I love ghost towns," Nan said, as we climbed out.
"You won't love this one!" Rita replied wryly.
Once out of the 'coptor, the heat struck us like the blast of a furnace. I could see why. The reflection from the wall was terrific at this time of day, with the sun at the right position.
Suddenly I was asking myself a question: would this wall fool a pilot, flying at night! Say he was in trouble, losing altitude. Would he mistake the wall for something it was not-an optical illusion, perhaps-and crash into it?
Or what about moonlight, reflecting from the wall? Would it resemble a barren tableland, a place to set down?
The wall stretched away into the distance. I looked at the base. The shale was piled high, attesting to the constant erosion.
We lugged out the gear and set up camp. I squinted at the sun, decided there would be shade near the wall in an hour or so. This was as good a spot as any for the camp.
"There's a spring, near the mine," Rita said.
"Okay, you gals start the food. Ben and I will check on the wall."
"Get back before the sun sets," Nan said. "It's more fun eating when one can see the plate."
"You have a point, honey," I said, and pulled her tight.
"Look at him," Ben quipped, "hugging a million dollars!"
Anyone but Ben making that crack was ready for some new dental work. But I merely grinned.
Ben walked over to Rita, scooped her up in his arms, patted her in a forbidden place.
"I got a million too-in merchandise," he said, and winked.
"You put me down!" Rita protested. He smothered her outburst with his lips and held her, squirming like an eel, until he was good and ready to release her.
"Oh, you men!" Rita said, adjusting her blouse.
"She's dynamite." Ben confided as we headed down the wall. "But I love her like hell!" He pulled up to face me. "Crazy, isn't it, Steve? You meet a hundred gals, nothing happens. Maybe a little hanky-panky from some stacked chick that arouses the hormones, but nothing really happens. Then you meet a gal and bingo, right between the eyes!"
I grinned at him in full under standing. I had gotten it right between the eyes too.
We worked along the wall, checking the huge shale piles. I had brought along a small rock-hound's hammer. I pecked at the cliff face at different spots. It was something like macadem, or stiff gumbo. The hammer went in very easily.
Suddenly I stood back, amazed at the size of this wall, at this deposit of mineral so different from any other outcropping of the area. I turned to Ben, with a look of futility on my face.
"What are we hunting, Ben-a needle in a haystack?"
"I was thinking the same thing," Ben agreed. "We could check this for days and never get to first base."
The answer was visual, right here before us. An impossibility.
But the feeling persisted that this was the place of the fatal plane crash. I stood back, and looked at the mighty wall.
"Ben, visualize this," I said. "See if you agree. Two men flying from Las Vegas, with all that money in the plane and the law hot on their tail. Excited, tense, nervous. Then something happens. The people in Arroyo Seco saw the plane, old Toyee heard the plane headed toward the canyon, already out of control-"
"Right into die wall, and bingo the whole cliff face shattered by the impact comes down, covering the plane entirely."
"My thoughts exactly."
At the moment my mind was back at the boulder, shooting at that needle. And suddenly down came the debris, burying Zeke. The same thing could have happened here. Even more violent, for here was a plane head-on into the wall, perhaps a violent explosion as it struck.
But where?
Somewhere under one of these shale piles was the remains of an airplane and two men, plus a lot of money.
All we had to do was move several billion tons of debris.
Back in the days of the Egyptians they might have tried it, putting several thousand slaves to the task. After twenty or thirty years the job would be done. But this wasn't for two puny men. , Suddenly, strange as it seems, I didn't care too much.
Don't ask me why this sudden feeling possessed me.
We could never prove that the plane's graveyard was right here. But this seemed the only logical spot where it could have happened, without leaving a trace of the plane. Hundreds of men don't comb an area over a long period of time and come up with exactly nothing unless there is a dominant reason.
The rotten chalk cliffs were the reason. Rita said that some of the old desert rats still living at the ghost town had heard an explosion. But they had found nothing. A lot of people had heard the explosion. No one had found a trace of the wreck.
Of course not! It was here, tight against the wall, covered with tons and tons of debris.
In that grave was my brother. And a companion who had once been Nan's sweetheart.
They had robbed a casino.
Let this be their grave for all time.
What would we gain, if we did find the plane?
Eight hundred thousand dollars, to return to a gambling syndicate.
The names of two men, now forgotten, dragged back into headlines.
Suddenly this was of no consequence. Something else, far more important, took its place. Nan and me, Ben and Rita.
We turned, retraced our steps toward the 'coptor, and camp. Already the sun was sinking low, and the shadows were lengthening against the wall. By the time we got to camp, it was dusk.
We came up from the wall hungry, at ease, big as life.
A rifle shot whizzed over our heads.
"Pull up, and stand still!" a voice ordered.
It didn't quite make sense, but there he was with the gun. There were two of them. I saw their pack mules, to the left. Then I remembered we had seen them down in the canyon as we came in.
"The man with the rifle is Sammy Morello," Ben said.
"And the other one is the bartender, Lou Fink."
I saw something else now. Rita sat back of Fink. She had her hands tied. But where was Nan?
"It's out there, isn't it?" Fink said, and grinned. He was a big sloppy man, a typical beer-pusher whose only exercise was bending his arm.
"You talking about the plane?"
"That's what we're talking about."
"Yes, it's out there-and all that money."
His eyes widened. The greed was so obvious he couldn't control it.
"You'll show us where it is. Then you can take off in your whirlybird, and never come back."
Ben laughed, and the rifle in Morello's hand swung quickly to cover him.
"What's so funny?" Fink asked.
"You tell him, Steve," Ben grinned.
"We don't know where the plane is," I admitted. "There's more than a mile of cliff line, and a jillion tons of shale at the base. Get a shovel and start digging. You might find it-in twenty or thirty years."
"Quit stalling! You know exactly where it is!" Fink said. His loose mouth hardened. "Maybe you'd better tell us in a hurry, for your own good."
I shook my head.
He reached back, yanked Rita to her feet none too gently. "We got your woman. We can make you talk."
I was watching Ben's face more than Fink. The anger was building there, fast. But he was under Morello's gun.
"Don't do anything foolish." I whispered to him.
The light was fading fast now, as the sun dipped behind the wall. I was watching the old mine shaft, far back of us.
Suddenly I saw Nan, and my heart came up in my throat. She was stealing up to the camp. Evidently she knew what had happened. But what could she do, a lone girl?
I couldn't motion her back They were watching us like hawks. If she came up they'd grab her as well, and we'd be in a worse mess than ever.
Ben was quite an artist, talking like a ventriloquist, his lips immobile.
"I'm going to dive for him," he said to me, just above a whisper.
"No!" I hissed. "You can't make it. And Nan's coming up."
I saw his eyes raise. Evidently he hadn't seen her. Fink pulled Rita closer now. There was a fistful of dress in his hand. "Better start talking-right now!" he said. Neither of us said a word.
Suddenly his big hand ripped down, and Rita lost the front of her blouse.
"Ben, don't!" I said. He stood there, trying to control his rage.
Rita never moved. Her breasts were bare-very beautiful, sharply-coned, topped with large aureoles that gave them an even more exotic look.
Evidently she was terrified. Fink took out a knife. "Real pretty, ain't she?" He swung toward us. "You want her to stay that way? Then tell us."
Nan was coming up faster now, relying on the gloom to conceal her movements. She walked like a cat, not a sound. And I said a silent prayer for old Toyee, who evidently had taught her all the tricks he knew.
Rita stood there, her protrusive breasts rising and falling under her excited breathing. "I'm going to get to him, Steve." Ben said. "Wait! Watch Nan!"
She was within forty feet of them now. Thirty. She raised her arm. The rock sailed through the air, struck Morello back of the neck. It flipped him, and the gun boomed as he pitched forward.
We dived, Ben for Fink, me for Morello.
The rock hadn't knocked him out, but It dazed him. By the time he recovered his senses, I put a stinger on the point of his chin. I stiffened my hand, sliced the edge across his windpipe, and he gurgled like a pig. He went down, and I put my shoe into his kidney just for good measure. He was out. I grabbed up the gun.
Ben was taking his sweet time, making a production out of his slow but methodical method of mayhem. He was raging. But even when he is angry, there is method in his fighting. He worked over the bartender, starting at the man's nose and stopping at his groin. When he was done, Fink wasn't interested in anything but his own misery.
Ben towered over the still conscious man. "The next time you lay a hand on my gal, I'll cut out your tongue!" he said. Then for good measure his foot came down hard, and Fink groaned some more.
We heard it now. It started with a low insistent whine, rather a mournful sound that was neither human or animal.
"What is it?" Nan asked.
Rita grinned, trying to repair the damage to her blouse.
"Wind. It starts each night like this."
Suddenly I was thinking of the 'coptor, its safety.
"Sometimes it blows harder. Then it turns into a real duster that spreads over the desert."
"How do you live, down here?"
Rita pointed at the ghost town at the far end of the canyon. "You don't-for very long."
We ate in silence, then repacked the gear.
Lou Fink was sitting morosely against a shale pile, nursing his many tender places, trying to repair his bleeding nose. Morello sat nearby, nursing a bellyache.
I went over to them, deliberately broke the rifle over a rock and scattered the shells.
I pointed to the wall with a grand gesture.
"It's all yours. Enjoy yourself."
Ben stooped, pulled up Fink by the front of his shirt.
"I'm still going to cut out your tongue some day!" he growled. He let go of Fink, and the sloppy man went down like a sack of potatoes.
We were in the air at last. The 'coptor really stirred up the dust as we wind-milled upward toward the rim.
"Look at those pack mules run'" Rita chuckled.
"You'll choke the men!" Nan said.
"Wait until the real blow hits them about three o'clock in the morning," Rita said vengefully.
Once above the canyon, there still was enough light to distinguish landmarks. But in the canyon itself, night had already clamped down.
I turned to Rita. "You knew about these dust storms. Yet you let us go down there, never warned us-"
Her smile was enigmatical. "I thought it might be fun at the ghost town, when the wind came up."
I had no answer to that but a fond memory. It had been fun for Jane and me in that line shack.
I circled, took one last look at the darkening canyon.
Down there, beneath some shale pile, was a grave. But somehow there was no emotion in me at all.
"Close the book," some little voice bid. "Don't reopen it."
I had no intention to. I had something more precious. So did Ben.
I headed toward Arroyo Seco's tiny air-strip.
"Hey, what gives?" Ben asked.
I snaked an arm about Nan's waist.
"I know a preacher there," I said, grinning, "who might like to do a little extra-curricular work for a few bucks."