Читать книгу The Flaming Falcons: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 6
ОглавлениеUGLY BIRD FOLLOWING
Having seen the bird—the clouds had parted again and there was some moonlight—Fiesta involuntarily emitted a screech of horror. Then she endeavored to get hold of herself.
“I’ve got birds on the brain,” she assured herself. “Anyway, this is just a little old dinky bird.”
She looked backward again.
The bird had seemed small only because it was some distance away, but it was coming closer, and there began to be no doubt about it being a very big bird.
“Oh!” said Fiesta. “Oh, oh!” And she stepped on the gas.
She drove in a frenzy, around a curve, down into a gully and out again, then onto a straight stretch where she dared again remove her eyes from the road long enough to glance behind.
“It’s the witch’s chicken!” gasped Fiesta.
Back in the strawstack shack, the horrible bird sitting on the chair—if this wasn’t that bird, it was its twin brother—had appeared to be about the size of a small goat. Flying behind the car, pursuing Fiesta, it looked as large as an airplane.
The hideous skull-colored thing flew like a bat, silently flapping its wings, malevolent head extended on the end of a long neck.
Fiesta stamped the accelerator.
“Hurry, car!” she said wildly.
Unfortunately, they were just beginning the ascent of a long hill, and one of the things that Fiesta had already learned about her birthday car was that it didn’t like hills, often preferring to stop and cool off halfway up them.
Fiesta looked around. After that, she decided not to do it again. She didn’t want to faint.
She could smell the flying hag—frightful. Its shadow, limned in starlight, actually fell over her. A cold wave traveled up and down Fiesta’s spine.
“Go away!” she shrieked. “Shoo!”
That the bird was after her was absolutely apparent. That it would get her seemed a complete certainty, because its foul odor was choking her, and its great flapping bulk was no more than a yard above her, and its hideous beak was reaching down, and its blood-sac eyes were contemplating her uncharitably.
And then the car topped the hill, headed down a long slope beyond, and ran like it had never run before. The hill was very long, very steep, and as for Fiesta’s old car—well, it was doubtful if Sir Malcolm Campbell could have made better time in the Bluebird.
The bird was outpaced. Pretty soon, it gave up and turned back.
Fiesta was still shaking when she walked into her hotel in the Arizona metropolis where she was staying.
“Did you ever have a bird follow you?” she asked the clerk.
The clerk glanced over her with approval.
“A lot of different kinds of birds must try to follow you,” he remarked.
“You’ve no idea,” said Fiesta.
And she shuddered so hard she almost fell.
The room which Fiesta had obtained in the hotel was one of the most economical the hostelry afforded, and it was all right, although the plumbing was of the arm-strong variety—you opened the window and threw the water out after you washed—and the mattress was stuffed, she suspected, with kindling wood.
Fiesta sat on the edge of the bed. She cupped her shapely chin in a palm. She thought deeply.
“This is once,” she remarked finally, “that I outsmarted myself.”
She considered the statement, nodding soberly.
“I should have called this Doc Savage,” she said, “first thing.”
Fiesta’s boots, laced breeches and trim sweater were all somewhat the worse for violent contact with the desert, and she had the sickening suspicion that she could detect traces of the smell of the bird on the garments, so she changed hastily into a frock. A neat rust-colored frock, with suitable accessories, that set her figure off particularly. She arranged her hair in the mirror, reflecting that there were now few traces of a violent and incredible night. Hobo Jones would have especially liked her now.
Thinking of Hobo Jones gave Fiesta a wave of worry. Hobo Jones was a young man who had evidenced some capacity for taking care of himself, but she could not help being deeply concerned.
“I should tell the sheriff,” said Fiesta.
Then she shook her head at her own remark.
“No. No, that would mess it up,” she added. “The sheriff would spoil everything, as likely as not. This is a very mysterious matter, and it requires a touch that a sheriff might not have.”
She gave her hair a final pat—she had the feminine characteristic of keeping her appearance in mind, no matter how drastic a situation she was in—and went over to sit on the edge of the bed again. Suddenly, she got up, put on her coat, went downstairs and addressed the desk clerk.
“I’m practically broke,” said Fiesta. “I have almost absolutely no money, and I want to make a long-distance telephone call to New York City. I want the hotel to stake me, and I will pay back, getting the money somehow.”
“Telephone call to New York?” said the clerk. “You want us to pay?”
“Yes. It’ll be awfully sweet of you.” Fiesta smiled.
The clerk didn’t smile. He shook his head.
“What kind of a sucker do you take us for?” he asked. “The answer is no. No!”
“So you’re going to be ungenerous,” said Fiesta.
“Yes,” agreed the desk clerk. “And furthermore, you must pay in advance for your room, or we will have to ask you to vacate.”
Fiesta gasped, “But I told you I didn’t have any money.”
“I heard you.”
“But how am I going to telephone Doc Savage?” Fiesta cried furiously, and ran outdoors. Most of the dark clouds had gone away, and the moon had come out. Fiesta gazed at the moon resentfully.
“See what I get,” she said, “for being frank.”
One of the big transcontinental airlines had a field at this Arizona town, and Fiesta walked—she had no money for a taxi—to the airport, where she confronted the young gentleman whose occupation it was to dispense tickets.
“I’m going to be frank just once more,” said Fiesta.
“Eh?”
“I am without funds, and it is very important that I get to New York City, since I cannot telephone,” explained Fiesta. “I wish the airline to trust me for a ticket to New York. I will pay back, because I am honest.”
The ticket seller batted his eyes several times.
“Do you think,” he inquired, “that I came out of a tree?”
“You mean—do I think you’re a sap?” asked Fiesta.
“Exactly.”
“I will pay back—”
“No, no, NO! Great Scott, the idea is preposterous!”
Fiesta was near tears.
“But how am I going to see Doc Savage?” she cried desperately, and whirled and ran out of the airport waiting room, and hurried back to the hotel, where she got a large pleasant shock.
The hotel clerk was all smiles—he had been all frowns when Fiesta left.
“I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” said the clerk, bowing very low. “I want to apologize abjectly, most abjectly. You may telephone New York City long distance. The hotel will pay the bill, and you can pay us back just whenever you like, with no hurry, no hurry at all. And as for your room rent, don’t worry about that. No, don’t worry. And we want you to move into our best suite of rooms. The rent will be the same as you’re paying for that little room you’re in now.”
“Goodness,” said Fiesta. “What did you say?”
“You may telephone New York and we will pay.”
“And—”
“We want you to have our finest suite of rooms, at the same rent you’re now paying, and don’t worry about when you have to pay for it.”
“Gracious,” said Fiesta.
At this point, the ticket seller from the airport rushed in. He was out of breath. He had an envelope in his hand.
“Here’s your airplane ticket to New York,” he puffed.
“What?” said Fiesta.
“We’re giving you a special plane,” explained the airport man, “because we have no regular ship scheduled to leave immediately.
“But,” reminded Fiesta, “I have no money.”
“That’s perfectly all right. That’s perfectly all right. We—er—trust you.”
Fiesta looked at the hotel clerk, then at the young man from the airport. She tapped the floor thoughtfully with one foot.
“Just what,” she asked, “changed your minds so quick?”
“You mentioned Doc Savage,” said the hotel clerk.
“Yes, you mentioned Doc Savage,” agreed the airport man.
“You mean,” said Fiesta, “that—well—”
“Yes,” said the hotel clerk, “we’ve heard of Doc Savage.”
“That’s it,” said the airport man. “We’ve heard a little bit about Doc Savage.”
At this point, a lean brown man who was almost naked, turned from the hotel window and took to his heels. The hotel window was open, the semiclothed brown man had been listening, and had heard what was said. He had also been following Fiesta almost from the moment she arrived in town.
The brown fellow, his dark color making him almost indistinguishable in the darkness, scampered industriously to a hiding place where there was a white man waiting, but the white man wore dark clothes and had a black handkerchief over his face, so he was not very noticeable in the night, either.
“She go to New York. Airplane,” said the brown one.
“Swell. Good riddance.”
“She go see fella name of Doc Savage,” added the brown one.
“She—what? Who did you say she’s gonna see?”
“Doc Savage.”
“Oh, great grief!” groaned the white man. He sounded as if he had just discovered that someone had cut off both his legs.
He began swearing. He swore up and down the scale, and in at least four different languages, and when he finished, he grabbed his brown-skinned cohort and gave him an unjustified shaking.
“You get back to the hotel,” he snarled. “You know how to tap a telephone wire, don’t you?”
“Yes. Know how tap telephone,” assured the brown one.
“Tap it. Get the girl’s plans.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got to stop that girl. We can’t have her reaching that Doc Savage.”
“Who this Doc Savage fella?” asked the brown one.
The white man just swore at him.
