Chapter 13: "N-73 Clear!"

“You fly, of course?” demanded Governor Drake.

Smithy nodded. “Unlimited license--all levels.”

They had spent the night in the executive mansion, and now the Governor had burst precipitately into the room where Smithy and his father had just finished dressing. The two had been deep in an earnest conversation which the Governor’s entrance had interrupted.

“I am drafting you for service,” said the Governor. “I want you to go out to Field Number Three. A fast scout plane--National Guard equipment--will be ready for you--”

He broke off and stared doubtfully at a paper in his hand, a radiophone message, Smithy judged. “I’m in a devil of a fix,” the Governor exclaimed, after a pause. Then:

“I don’t doubt your sincerity,” he told Smithy. “Never saw you till yesterday, but your father’s ‘O.K.’ goes a hundred per cent with me. Old ‘J. G.’ and I have been through a lot of scraps together.” His frowning eyes relaxed for a moment to exchange twinkling glances with the older man.

“No, it isn’t that,” he added, “but...” Again he stared at the flimsy piece of paper.

“What’s on your mind, Bill?” asked Smith senior. “That stuff the boy told us was pretty wild”--he laid one hand affectionately upon Smithy’s shoulder--”but he’s a poor liar, Gordon is, and, knowing his weakness, he usually sticks to the truth. And there’s no record of insanity in the family, you know. If there’s something sticking in your crop, Bill, cough it up.”

And the Honorable William B. Drake obeyed. “Listen to this,” he commanded, and read from the paper in his hand:

“‘Replying to your inquiry about the doings at Seven Palms.

Some Indians did that job. No help needed. I can handle

this. Posse organized and we are leaving right now.--Signed,

Jack Downer, Sheriff, Cocos County.’”

“That sounds authentic,” said Smithy drily. “I’ve met the sheriff.”

“Now, if it was Indians that got tanked up and came down off the reservation, burned Seven Palms and cleaned up your camp--” began Governor Drake.

“It wasn’t!” Smithy interrupted hotly. “I told you--” He felt his father’s hand gripping firmly at his shoulder.

“Steady,” said Smith, senior. “Let him talk, son.”

“There’s an election three months from now, J. G.,” said the Governor, “and you know they’re riding me hard. Let me make one false move--just one--anything that the opposition can use for a campaign of ridicule, and my goose is cooked to a turn.”

Gordon Smith shook off his father’s restraining hand and took one quick forward step. His face, even through the tan of the desert sun, was unnaturally pale.

“Election be dammed!” he exploded. “Dean Rawson has been captured by those red devils--he’s down there, the whitest white man I ever met! I’ve been to the sheriff; now I’ve come to you! Do you mean to tell me there isn’t any power in this state to back me up when--”

He stopped. There was a tremble in his voice he could not control.

“Good boy,” said Governor Drake softly. “Now I know it’s the truth. Yes, you’ll be backed up, plenty, but for the present it will be strictly unofficial. Now pull in your horns and listen.

“You know the lay of the land. I want your help. Go out to Field Three; there’ll be a man there waiting for you. Don’t call him ‘Colonel’--he’s also strictly unofficial to-day. The sheriff and his posse will be there at Seven Palms inside an hour; I want you to be there, too, about five thousand feet up.

“Tell Colonel Culver--I mean Mr. Culver--your story; tell him everything you know. He’ll be in charge of operations if we have to send in troops; he’ll give you that private and unofficial backing I spoke of if we don’t.

“Now get down there; keep your eye on the sheriff’s crowd and see everything that happens!”

But Smithy’s parting remark was to his father; it was a continuation of the subject they had been discussing before.

“You can buy at your own price,” he said. “They’ve got rights to the whole basin. But they’ve quit; I’m not treating them to a double-cross.”

And he added as he went out of the room: “Buy it for me if you don’t want it yourself.”

It was a two-place, open-cockpit plane that Smithy found had been set aside for him. Dual control--the stick in the forward cockpit carried the firing grip that controlled the slim blue machine guns firing through the propeller. Behind the rear cockpit a strange, unwieldy, double-ended weapon was recessed and streamlined into the fuselage. The scout seemed quite able to protect itself in an emergency.

Beside the plane a tall, slender man in civilian attire was waiting. He stuck out his hand, while the gray eyes in his lean, tanned face scanned Smithy swiftly.

“I’m Culver. Understand I’m to be your passenger to-day. How about it--can you fly the ship? Seven hundred and fifty DeGrosse motor--retractable landing gear, of course. She hits four-fifty at top speed--snappy--quick on the trigger.”