Flying Eagle Page 6

  Jay hoisted the heavy box by its handle on one end. He set it down and, squatting, gripped it by both leather handles on the ends, and lifted.

  A rifle shot exploded somewhere. Then a fusillade of shots followed. Jay glanced out the partially opened side door. His stomach knotted as his worst fears were realized. The raiders were galloping toward the train, firing as they came. He was trapped with the treasure box before they could get the balloon airborne.

  Chapter Eight

  Jay experienced panic as he debated whether he should unlock the box and throw its contents back into the safe. He took another quick look. There were the same seven riders and they were coming at a steady gallop but still a good distance away. He thought maybe he could make it to the balloon. He staggered to the ruined end door with the heavy box and tumbled it off onto the side away from the raiders. Moving as fast as he could, he climbed over the twisted metal of the platform and dropped lightly to the ground beside the box.

  As he wrestled the box into his grip again, he saw Buckskin Donovan running toward him alongside the train. Without a word, the lean hunter grabbed the handle on one end of the box while Jay grabbed the other, and the two of them were able to go at a stumbling half-run with their burden. Even so, the inflated balloon seemed a long way off, and Jay heard the shots getting ever closer. He was dimly aware of the cries of the passengers as they fled back into the coaches.

  The defenders were crouched behind the cover of the flatcar and the two wagons atop it. But they were not returning fire. What few cartridges that remained among them were apparently being saved for a last-ditch effort.

  The balloon was stretched tight inside its cord netting and bulked huge above the train, the painted eagle glaring fiercely down at the humans below. The wind was tugging at the flying machine that was tethered short by two manila lines. The wicker basket rode a bare two feet above the edge of the flatcar.

  Hoofbeats and shots were getting closer. They were coming with an allout assault this time. Jay had no doubt the raiders were laying down a covering fire until they got close enough to dynamite the defenders into submission.

  He ducked instinctively as a slug shattered a coach window above him. His feet were slipping and sliding in the slope of soft, sandy soil along the roadbed. The box bumped awkwardly against his legs as he and Donovan tried to keep up a crouching run. The grip was cutting into his fingers and his back was aching from stooping. He was breathing hard.

  He glanced up and saw Fletcher Hall holster his gun and come running to help. But he got in the way more than he helped. They hoisted the box up onto the flatcar and then jumped up and heaved it up and over the lip of the gondola.

  “Let’s move!” Hall said, urgently, peering around one of the wagons. The horsemen were only about fifty yards away now, but Lieutenant Ormand was still having the men hold their fire.

  Hall cupped his hands and held them low to give Jay a step up to the basket. Jay sprang to the lip of the basket and pulled himself between the support lines and down inside. He grabbed the wooden box and stood it on end, shoving it to one side to clear as much room as possible for Fletcher Hall who was muscling his way up, elbows hooked over the edge of the basket. The man was short, but very strong, Jay noted. Hall grasped the lines and swung his legs into the basket that bobbed like a boat under their weight.

  Just then an order was shouted by the lieutenant and the pistols of the defenders crashed as one. One of the horses stumbled and went down, pitching the rider over its head. The others saw the fire coming from the flatcar and swerved their mounts directly toward the express car.

  “Cast off! Cast off!” Hall was yelling at the men below him. But everyone was looking the other way, crouching out of the line of fire of the attackers. Jay dug in his side pocket for his pocket knife. He got it out, snapped open the blade and leaned out and began sawing at one of the one-inch lines holding them.

  “Stop it! What are you doing?” Hall screamed, grabbing his arm. “We’ll need those lines later.”

  Jay snapped his knife closed just as Decker crawled over on his hands and knees and began to work on the knots.

  The raiders were clustered at the express car, partially obscured from view. There was a lull in the firing because the defenders were short of ammunition and the attackers knew they were out of the angle of fire. Besides, Jay reasoned, the outlaws had the express car and that’s what they had come for. Were they setting a charge to blow the safe? They must be convinced the defenders were only trying to protect their own lives and had abandoned the treasure. He glanced out into the desert and saw only the form of a dead horse to show for the three volleys from the protected defenders. It took an excellent marksman or a lucky shot with a handgun to hit anything as small as a man moving fast on horseback at forty or fifty yards. For whatever good it would do, Jay had given his shotgun to Roger Decker who, admittedly, wasn’t much of a shot.

  Decker was now joined at the other mooring line by Lieutenant Ormand. Hall was beside himself and almost jumped out of the gondola to help. “Why the hell did you tie them in knots that pulled tight? You idiots!” he screamed. No one paid him any attention.

  The raiders swung their horses away from the express car and Jay expected to hear the dynamite blow the safe in the next few seconds. The riders weren’t riding away from the train to get out of range of the impending blast or the defenders’ fire. Instead, they were riding around the far end of the express car and coming toward them on the south side. Then Jay remembered and his heart sank. He had forgotten to close the safe after he had emptied it. He had blundered by not delaying them at all. One glance and they knew the treasure was gone.

  Lieutenant Ormand saw them coming. He pulled the last of the knots loose and flung the line off. “Everyone on the other side! Quick!” he shouted, leaping up into one of the wagons.

  The other mooring line remained fast as Decker scrambled away to cover. The two men in the wicker basket were suspended like targets in a shooting gallery. Almost without thinking about it, Jay had his Lightning in his hand and was firing over the rim of the gondola at the approaching horsemen. Then, a sudden, crashing volley of fire erupted from the guns of the defenders. The horsemen veered away, firing as they went. They galloped just out of effective pistol range and circled wide around the back of the caboose. It was obvious to Jay that the gunmen were convinced the treasure box was in one of the wagons on this flatcar or in the gondola, since the defenders were all clustered here.

  Jay crouched to punch the empty shells out of his Colt. Hall was still cursing under his breath and firing. “You’re not shooting up my gear and getting away with it!” he gritted as his .45 erupted. Pungent powder smoke blew back into Jay’s face. “See what you think of this!” His eyes were blazing as he fired again. There was no fear in this man, Jay thought, as he squatted out of sight to thumb in fresh cartridges. Rage, not fear, was in those eyes and all because the robbers had the audacity to shoot at his balloon.

  Jay, himself, felt coolly detached, as if he were watching all this happen to other people. He realized his heart was hardly beating much faster than its normal rate. He recognized the symptoms; the same phenomenon had often occurred just at the beginning of football matches and wrestling bouts during his college days. This peculiar ability to almost control his adrenalin and call on it for bursts of strength and speed may have accounted for his success as an athlete in track, wrestling, and football.

  But this was only a fleeting thought as Jay cautiously raised his head above the rim of the wicker basket—a basket that would hardly slow a lead slug. Suddenly the basket lurched and they were airborne, shooting up and away on the stiff wind. Jay looked over the side. A man was clinging to the manila mooring line, about eight feet below the basket.

  “Let go! Drop off!” he yelled, vaguely aware that Hall was also shouting something at his elbow. But, even as the words left his mouth, he knew it was too late. They were already nearly a hundred feet up, and rising fast. If the man let g
o now, he would very likely be killed. Jay saw puffs of smoke, but could not hear the shots as the robbers fired in their direction. The balloon made a big target. The disabled train was beginning to look like a miniature as it receded below and to the north of them. In an instant the scene was fixed in his mind’s eye as if on a camera plate—the short string of cars, the upturned faces staring at them, the isolated locomotive, the blasted remains of the trestle. He had the strangest sensation, since they were moving at the same speed as the wind, that he was standing still and the earth and the train were falling rapidly and silently away from him. It made him slightly dizzy and he took an involuntary step backward from the rim of the gondola, holstering his Colt for fear of dropping it over the side. His movement rocked the basket and he grabbed the sus­pension lines to get his balance. Jay clung to the lines and looked up at the huge sphere that was bearing them ever deeper into the blue sky, a sky now shot with only a few ragged clouds. Then, somehow fascinated and repelled at the same time, he moved again to grip the padded edge of the basket and look down. The man was still clinging to the mooring line directly below. Hall’s constant yelling was echoing in his ears, but his numb brain did not comprehend what the aeronaut was saying.

  Fletcher Hall was shaking him by the shoulder.

  “Dammit! Pay attention to what I’m saying! We’ve got to get that man up here before he falls!” He jerked Jay to the edge, rocking the gondola like a boat. Jay forced himself to look over the side once more. The figure still clung to the rope, but he had slipped down four or five feet and was slowly twisting around. The slim figure in the dark pants and jacket looked familiar as it sailed along against the background of the dun-colored, brushy landscape far below.

  Then the man turned an anguished face upward between straining arms, and Jay felt an almost physical shock as he recognized the thief, Marvin Cutter.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hang on! We’ll pull you up!” Hall shouted down.

  Cutter continued to stare up with an expression that plainly implored them to hurry.

  The rope was secured at the rim of the basket, then ran downward through a brass ring at the outside bottom before trailing more than a hundred feet off into space.

  Hall turned to Jay. “Here, grab hold as far down as you can reach and I’ll get a grip just above your hands,” he ordered. “When I give the word, heave back as hard and as far as you can and hold it until I can get another grip”

  Both men leaned over the edge and took hold.

  “Ready?”

  Jay nodded.

  “Now!”

  They pulled as one, leaning backward, legs and backs straining. It was heavy, but the rope came in a few feet.

  Hall let go, leaving Jay to hold what they had gained and sprang forward for another handhold. As soon as he had a firm grip, Jay joined him and they repeated the process.

  “Heave!” Their backs bent and they brought the rope in a few more feet over the lip of the basket.

  The third time they leaned across, Jay saw Cutter’s hands only about six feet below the bottom of the basket.

  “I can’t hold on.” The man’s head was down, but the weak voice still came clearly to them in the windless air. Jay saw his hands begin to slide slowly downward.

  “No! Hold on! We’ve almost got you!” Jay shouted desperately. The thin hands continued to slide inexorably, his strength ebbing and his weight pulling him toward the final plunge.

  “Don’t jerk the rope. Just an even, strong pull,” Hall gasped, leaning far out and wrapping his fingers around the line once more.

  “Okay, now! Easy; don’t jerk it out of his hands.”

  Jay’s breath was coming quicker with the tension and the effort.

  “Once more, and I think I can grab him,” Hall gasped.

  “Hold on!” Jay yelled again. “Just a few more seconds!”

  One more heave brought Marvin Cutter’s hands almost to the brass ring at the bottom of the basket.

  “Can you reach him?” Jay asked, holding the slack they had gained and eyeing Fletcher Hall’s efforts to stretch his five-foot, six-inch frame far enough out to reach the dangling figure. Hall hooked himself at the bend of his waist to the rim and leaned down. But even with his feet several inches off the floor, his hand was still a good foot short of the hanging man. For one terrifying second, as the basket jiggled, Jay thought the aeronaut was going to be overbalanced and pitched out, headfirst, into space. Jay quickly secured the slack of the line to one corner of the gondola where a shroud was attached. Then he grabbed Hall by the back of his belt and held him. Finally, the shorter man slid back inside with a grunt. His face was red and perspiring. “Can’t get him.”

  “Let me try.”

  “No. I’m more used to this than you are.”

  Jay couldn’t argue with that. “Is there something in here we can lower to him to grab?”

  “There is,” Hall nodded. “But he’d never be able to do it. If he lets go of that rope, even with one hand, he’s gone.”

  Jay had to agree as he looked over the side again and saw Cutter’s bloodless knuckles beginning to slip again. The man’s head was up and he was looking at the basket like a drowning man at a lifeboat. But there was despair in his eyes, as if he knew he would never reach it.

  There was a moment of indecision as the two men pondered their next move.

  “If that rope didn’t run through that little ring, we could pull him all the way up,” Jay mused. “Look, I’m taller than you are by several inches. Hold my legs and let me try.”

  Jay could see that Hall was opening his mouth to object, but then finally closed it, and nodded. Jay stripped off his jacket and slid carefully over the padded lip of the gondola. He felt Fletcher Hall step between his feet and lock an arm around each ankle. Trying not to look down any farther than the dangling figure, he almost crawled headfirst down the outside of the basket. It would be up to this stocky aeronaut to pull both of them up once he got a grip on Marvin Cutter. Thank God the pickpocket probably didn’t weigh more than a hundred and forty pounds with a full load of pilfered gold watches.

  Now he was almost completely outside the basket, and his shins were hurting where the rim of the basket was digging into them, as Hall leaned back to balance his weight.

  “Cutter!” he yelled.

  His head came up and Cutter looked into his eyes, no more than four feet away. Jay reached for the thin wrists sticking up from the sleeves of the ragged jacket. He was still several inches short. He wiggled closer, conscious that Hall was locked onto his ankles with a death grip, cutting off the circulation. If he could just stretch a little farther! The blood was rushing to his head, and he could feel the pressure behind his eyeballs. He took a deep breath and strained. His fingers touched but he couldn’t grip. He called on all his athletic ability. It became a personal challenge. This man would not die if he could help it. He knew he could reach farther if he tried with only one arm instead of both. He squirmed another precious inch or so out of Hall’s grip and then let himself go completely limp, trying not to think of where he was, trying to concentrate only on the task at hand. Then he twisted slightly to the left and stretched as far as he possibly could, reaching down with his right hand only. He touched a hand, then his fingers closed around a wrist. He had him! But did he have the strength to hold him with only one hand? He gasped, took another deep breath and held it. The muscles in his back and arm strained as he pulled the dead weight straight up toward him. One inch, two inches, three. His head was pounding and his vision blurring. Through slitted eyes he saw where Cutter’s other hand still clung to the rope. He continued to pull until every nerve and muscle screamed for relief. Then, with one lightning move, Jay’s left hand shot out and gripped Cutter’s other wrist, locking it securely. It was a catch worthy of a circus aerialist.

  “Pull!” he managed to gasp. “Pull up. I’ve got him.”

  Hall began a steady pull on his locked ankles, and Jay gritted his teeth at the pain of
his shins being scraped slowly across the rim of the basket and his knees being bent backward. Finally, his knees were over the edge and back inside and Hall pulled the rest of his body inside to counterbalance the body of the man still outside. The battle was won. Once Jay got his feet back on the floor, Hall reached over the edge and the two of them quickly hauled Marvin Cutter up the rest of the way. The thin man collapsed to the bottom of the basket, his face as pale as death. He lay there, half-gasping and half-sobbing.

  Hall stepped to one side, trying to get a better look, but Cutter’s tangled hair obscured part of his face.

  “Who the hell is he?” he asked. “One of the passengers on the train? I sure don’t remember him.”

  Jay quickly sketched in the details of Marvin Cutter and the reasons for his presence on the train.

  Fletcher Hall heard him out without comment and then said, “That doesn’t account for why he jumped on that mooring line as we took off.”

  “You’ll have to ask him that,” Jay said, slipping his arms back into his jacket. “As I told you, I lost track of him in all that hullabaloo.”

  Cutter did not appear to be in any condition for questioning at the moment. He still lay in a heap on the floor as Hall turned his attention to the flight of the balloon.

  For the first time since he had seen Marvin Cutter hanging below them, Jay got a chance to look around. What he saw was magnificent. The sun was low on the western horizon, resting just above a line of low hills. To the north, at a distance of what must have been a hundred miles or more, he could make out the jagged outline of some green mountains. Beneath him, stretching for many miles in all directions, was a great valley, straddling the Continental Divide and covered with grass, tanning with the first frosts of autumn and sprinkled thickly with gray-green sage and grease-wood. Just below was the winding trace of a road, faintly scratching the landscape. He guessed it might be the old stage road. The land showed small waves, or ridges, that Jay assumed must be higher than they looked from this lofty altitude. The planet was sliding steadily northward from under them. It was cool up here, and the low clouds had nearly all blown away to the south, leaving some mares’ tails of high cirrus clouds streaking east and west. It seemed very odd to him, as he took a deep lungful of the clean air, not to be experiencing some sort of wind. But only a faint puff of a crosswind fanned his cheek now and then as the balloon and its cargo was being carried southeast at the same speed as the fresh breeze.