Chapter 10: Plumb Loco

The sheriff of Cocos County was reacting exactly as Rawson had anticipated. Smithy stood before him, a disheveled Smithy, grimy of face and hands. He had made his way to the highway and caught a ride to the nearest town, and now that he had found Jack Downer, sheriff, that gentleman leaned back in his old chair behind the battered desk and regarded the younger man with amused tolerance.

“Now, that’s right interesting, what you say,” he admitted. “Tonah Basin, and the old crater, and red devils settin’ fire to everything. I’ve heard some wild ones since this Prohibition went into effect and some of the boys started makin’ their own, but yours sure beats ‘em all. Guess likely I’ll have to take a run up Tonah way and see what kind of cactus liquor they’re makin’.”

“Meaning I’m drunk or a liar.” Smithy’s voice was hot with sudden anger, but the sheriff regarded him imperturbably.

“Well, I’d let you off on one count, son. You do look sort of sober.”

Smithy disregarded the plain implication and fought down the anger that possessed him.

“May I use your phone, Mr. Downer?” he asked.

He called the office of Erickson and his associates in Los Angeles and told, as well as he could for the constant interruptions from his listener, the story of what had occurred. And Mr. Erickson at the other end of the line, although he used different words, gave somewhat the same reply as had the sheriff.

“I refuse to listen to any more such wild talk,” he said. “If our property has been destroyed, as you say, there will be an accounting, you may be sure of that. And now, Mr. Smith, get this straight, you tell Rawson, wherever he is hiding, to come and see me at once.”

“But I tell you he has been captured,” said Smithy desperately. “He’s gone.”

“I rather think we will find him,” was the reply. “He had better come of his own accord. His connection with us will be severed and all drilling operations in Tonah Basin will be discontinued, but Mr. Rawson will find that his responsibility is not so easily evaded.”

The sheriff could not have failed to realize the unsatisfactory nature of the conversation; he must have wondered at the satisfied grin that spread across Smithy’s tired face.

“Do you mean you’re through?” he demanded. “You’re abandoning Rawson’s work?”

“Exactly,” was Mr. Erickson’s crisp response.

Smithy, as the telephone clicked in his ear, turned again to the sheriff. “That unties my hands,” he said cryptically. “One more call, if you please.”

Then to the operator: “Get me the offices of the Mountain Power and Lighting Corporation in San Francisco. I will talk with the president.”

The sheriff of Cocos County chuckled audibly. “You’ll talk to the president’s sixteenth assistant secretary, son,” he told Smithy. “And I take back what I said before--now I know you’re plumb loco. By the way, son, it costs money for telephone calls like that. I hope you ain’t, by any chance, overlookin’--”

But Smithy was speaking into the telephone unmindful of the sheriff’s remarks.

“Is Mr. Smith in his office?” he was inquiring. “Yes, President Smith ... Would you connect me with him at once, please? This is Gordon Smith talking.”

“Hello, Dad,” he said a moment later. “Yes, that’s right. It’s the prodigal himself. Now, listen, Dad, here’s something important. Can you meet me in Sacramento and arrange for us to see the Governor--get his private, confidential ear? I’ll beat it for Los Angeles--charter the fastest plane they’ve got...”