Читать книгу The Flaming Falcons: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 5
ОглавлениеUGLY BIRD BLAZING
It did not happen as instantaneously as it could be told, but filled an interval of several seconds, during which there were several bloodcurdling sidelights to the incident.
First, there was the sheet of flame, so utterly white as to be searing to the eyes, and hot enough that the heat could be felt on the face, even at that distance. The flame enveloped the whole bird. It was like old-fashioned photographic flashlight powder burning.
Secondly, there were the sounds of the girl as it went up in flame. The noise lasted only a moment, but it was quite impressive—it was several minutes before Hobo Jones’ hair felt as if it had stopped standing on end.
Third, there was the smoke, a spurting cloud of it that jumped upward and swirled around the ceiling of the room, then came drifting toward the door, and poured outside, dense and black, looking so much as if it was alive that Jones made several wild wallops at the stuff with the long piece of devil’s-walking-stick.
“Great grief!” he said.
He realized that Fiesta was no longer at his side. She had departed in haste. Hobo Jones raced after her, overtook her, and got her by the arm.
“What’s the idea,” he asked, “of turning race horse?”
“I’m scared,” said Fiesta.
“Did you see what I saw back there?” asked Jones.
“I saw a big gray bird as hideous as a witch’s chicken, and I saw the bird turn into fire and smoke. Is that what you mean?”
“Thanks,” said Hobo Jones. “I was beginning to doubt my sanity.”
At this point it was apparent that the shack inside the strawstack had caught fire, since smoke was pouring from the doorway, and this was reddened by the flicker of flames. Jones ran back, practically dragging a dubious Fiesta, and discovered that the wall was smoldering. Fortunately, there was a bucket of water in one corner, and he sloshed this judiciously over the flames, extinguishing them. He peered at the charred boards.
“That was sure a hot flame that bird turned into,” he muttered.
Of the witch’s chicken, as Fiesta had termed the bird, there was not a trace that Jones could find, although it was true some of the ashes scattered about might be the remains of the thing.
“Good riddance,” said Jones. He gnawed his lower lip nervously. “However, I would just as soon it had not vanished just the way it did.”
“What is your name?” asked Fiesta.
“Hobo Jones. I forgot to tell you.”
“Mr. Hobo Jones, does what happened make sense to you?”
“No.”
“Me, neither,” said Fiesta. “What do we do next?”
Jones considered. “I’m going to have a look at the basement,” he decided.
There was a trapdoor in the floor, below this some steps, and then a rectangular concrete room which held some boxes of canned food, and a nationally known brand of motor-generator which was coupled to a Diesel motor that was running in efficient silence, and a tank of fuel for the motor, but nothing else.
“This must supply current for the electrified fence,” said Fiesta.
“By the way,” Jones remarked, “you were inside the electrified fence when I found you. How come?”
“I crossed with two long wooden stepladders, which I set up on either side of the fence,” Fiesta said meekly.
“Good. If things keep on the way they are, I think we shall leave in great haste by that route.” Jones pondered.
“However,” he added, “there is one thing I wish you to see before we go—the patch of sticky fruit,” said Jones.
As nearly as Hobo Jones could tell, the small field of strange yellow, thornless-cactuslike vegetables were as much a mystery to Fiesta as they had been to himself. He struck some matches so Fiesta could see the plants, and he tore one open and let her get the pulpy insides on her fingers, so she could see what sticky stuff it was.
Then they progressed through the semidarkness until they found Fiesta’s two stepladders, and by climbing one of these and descending the other, it was a simple matter to negotiate the electrified fence without discomfort.
Jones said, “I was hoping there was a telephone around here. It might save a long walk, particularly as I don’t know which direction to go to find a sheriff.”
“You’re going to a sheriff?” Fiesta asked.
“Of course.”
Hobo Jones thought that Fiesta seemed pleased by this information, and that thereafter she treated him with a little more warmth.
“There is no telephone,” Fiesta explained. “I happen to know.”
It had been occurring to Hobo Jones that Fiesta happened to know several things, and she hadn’t explained why she knew any of them. He broached the subject.
“Am I your friend?” he asked.
“So far you haven’t been so bad,” admitted Fiesta, “but it remains to be seen.”
“Then why not tell me all?” asked Jones.
Fiesta said, “I’ve been considering that—”
“Fine. Go ahead. Tell all.”
“—and I’ve decided not to tell you anything,” continued Fiesta.
Jones was injured. He said, “What provoked such a decision?”
“A suspicious nature,” Fiesta informed him. “After all, I hardly know you.”
“We’ll let a sheriff introduce us,” said Jones, and he took her arm, and they started off.
Fiesta said, “I have a car. That is, it used to be. I only paid nineteen dollars for it. I told the man I would give him a dollar for every year of my age, because it was my birthday, and we made a deal.”
“Where is this birthday-cake car?”
Fiesta pointed generally southward. “Over yonder, behind a rock.”
There were five or six men waiting behind the rock also, they learned, and these were unpleasant fellows with guns and bad intentions.
Jones thought he’d heard something just before they reached the rock, and he’d stopped to listen, and Fiesta had walked on ahead. This explained how they happened to be separated in the darkness when a deep bull voice roared an order.
“Get your hands up!” said the voice.
Jones stopped, wishing it wasn’t so infernally dark. “Sheriff!” was his thought. “Sheriff and deputies. How fortunate.”
That this was a misapprehension became evident as the situation developed.
“Shall I shoot ’em?” growled another voice.
“Sure!” said the bull voice. “Shoot ’em!”
A gun roared. A bullet fanned Hobo Jones’ face. He was suddenly glad it was so dark.
It wasn’t any sheriff and his deputies. Not much. Following the shot, a series of things happened with the speed of a bad automobile accident.
Fiesta threw herself flat on the ground.
“Run, Jones!” Fiesta screamed. “They’ve seized me! Run!” They hadn’t exactly seized her yet, but it looked as if they as good as had done so. “They’ve got me! Run, Jones!” she shrieked. “Run, you fool!”
She heard Jones go tearing off through the sagebrush, cactus and mesquite. He sounded like a mowing machine. A rifle crashed. The bullet hit a rock, climbed into the dark sky with the howl of a wolf. A sawed-off shotgun turned loose two ear-splitting blasts. Men yelled profanity.
A peculiar thing happened—one of those accidents that occur when people are excited and doing things wildly.
Fiesta had informed Jones that she had been seized because she had wanted him to believe that he could not help her, and save himself. Fiesta had made it so lifelike that Jones had believed her.
Actually, the bull-voiced man and all his helpers likewise presumed that Fiesta had been seized. It was very dark. They couldn’t see one another. Each of them thought one of the others was holding Fiesta, so they went charging away in pursuit of Hobo Jones.
Fiesta was left scot-free. She got up off the sandy ground, amazed, and stood listening to the gun-bangings, yells and other bedlam that accompanied the pursuit of Jones.
She clenched and unclenched her hands, feverishly anxious, trying to think of something she could do to help Jones. There was nothing. She was unarmed. She had never fired a gun in her life, anyway. And there were at least five blood-thirstily determined men chasing poor Jones, all armed—and shooting freely, by the sounds. Fiesta stared at the cloud-cluttered sky and emitted a prayer.
“Let it stay very dark,” she said.
It did.
In the course of a few minutes, Fiesta decided that Hobo Jones, as a foot racer, was more than the match for the group of men who had waylaid them. Jones obviously had gotten away. The disgusted swearing of his pursuers must be audible as far as New Mexico.
Fiesta climbed into her birthday-cake car. It was time she was making her own escape. She turned the switch, breathed another prayer, stepped on the starter, and there was a miracle and the motor began running, sounding as if a charivari was in progress. She turned on the headlights, which furnished about the same illumination as lightning bugs, put the car in gear, and drove down the road. She drove fast. If one did not mind noise, the car would go fast, up to forty miles an hour.
Fiesta looked around from time to time, and this was how she happened to discover that a bird was following her.
