Skyrider

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DREAMS AND DARKNESS

  Johnny dreamed two separate dreams. The first dream was confused andfragmentary. He seemed to hear certain sentences spoken while he waswhirling through space with the Milky Way flinging stars at him. Asnearly as he could remember afterwards, this is what he heard.

  Mary V's voice: "Don't be so stupid! If a girl happens to bring in twoperfectly bandittish outlaws that imagine they are kidnaping her, whymust she be lectured, pray tell? If a man had done it--"

  Mumble, mumble, and a buzzing in Johnny's head.

  Bland's voice: "I don't know as I could tell. He could, if he should cometo. We got 'em headed this way--"

  Bill's voice: "--and I seen him hittin' for the line and headed himoff--"

  More mumbling.

  Mary V's voice: "I can't see why he doesn't hurry! Why, for gracioussake, must a person lie forever out in the sun when he's all smashed--"

  Bland's voice: "--not as much as yuh might think, in all this brush.I ain't gone over it yet--" (mumble) "--short circuit--" (mumble,buzz-buzz) "went past me so close I could feel the wind--" (mumble) "--Idunno. I've seen 'em hurt worse and get over it, and I've seen 'em diewhen you'd think--"

  After that it was all mumble and buzz, and then more stars, and blacknessand silence.

  Piecing together the fragments, as Johnny could not do, here is theinterpretation.

  The three riders whom Johnny had seen as the plane was dipping to itsfinal fall were Mary V, Tomaso, and Tomaso's brother. Mary V had goneoff to ride the country which Tex had said was too difficult forher--"and it was _not_ too difficult for a person who had any brains orany gumption and who did not lose all the sense a person had," etc. Shehad gone some distance toward the southeast boundary, and Jake wasbehaving like a perfect dear. She had seen a few horses, and they had allrun every which way when they got sight of her, so she was keeping rightalong and planning to just gently urge them toward Sinkhole as she cameback.

  Well, and on the way back she had seen the young Mexican riding along,and he had looked perfectly harmless and innocent, and he had a rag tiedaround his head besides, and kept putting his hand up, and wabbling inthe saddle exactly as though he was just about ready to fall off hishorse. And how, for gracious sake, was a person going to know he wasonly pretending and not sick or hurt a speck, but merely taking a low andmean advantage of a person's kindness of heart?

  Well, and so she had let him come up to her, and he had asked her if shehad any water with her. And she had, and so she twisted around in thesaddle to untie the canteen, and Jake kept stepping around, so the youngMexican just reached out and held Jake by the bridle while she got thewater--and how was a person to know that he was not trying to help butwas kidnaping a person's horse and herself in the most treacherous mannerever heard of?

  Just when she had got the canteen untied, and was unscrewing the cap togive it to the boy, another Mexican rode up behind, and he had the mostinsipid smile on his face, and a detestable way of trying to be polite.And he said it was a nice horse she was riding, and he would like to showthat horse to his brother, if she would be so kind to come with him. Itwould not be far, he said, and they would show her the way. And they wenton talking in the most detestable manner, and actually forced her to goalong with them. They had guns, and they said they would shoot her in aperfectly polite way.

  So Mary V had gone back with them toward the line fence, because the fatone rode behind her with a gun and the boy had a gun, too, and they saidthey would not tie her hands if she would be good, because there was aswarm of gnats and little flies that kept pestering so, and she had tobrush them away from her face.

  They kept down in hollows, and mostly they had to go single file, withthe boy in front and the detestable one behind. But after awhile they hadto climb over a ridge, and the horses were picking their own way, and thehorrid one got off to one side, where Mary V could see him out of thecorner of her eye. And he was not watching her very closely, and the gunwas not pointing at her as she naturally supposed it would be, from whathe said.

  So Mary V very carefully turned in her heel, and watched her chance, andgave Jake a kick in the ribs. And Jake did exactly as a person expected,and gave a big jump against the horse of the boy. And the fat one did notshoot after all, because he thought it was Jake that did it himself.

  So Mary V, having reached into her riding shirt and got her gun, whirledJake around and took a shot at the fat one before he saw what she meantto do. And she hit him in the hand where he was holding the gun acrossthe saddle horn, which was careless of him, but, of course, he never_dreamed_ that Mary V had a gun and would use it.

  So the gun dropped on the ground, and the man tried to grab his hand andhis side at the same time, because the bullet hit his side too. And thenMary V got Jake down off his hind feet where he had stood with surprise,and made the boy drop his gun. And they were there on the ground yet,just where they dropped them, because Mary V thought they were saferthere than being picked up by any one present.

  So that was all there was to it. The fat one was all wilted down in thesaddle, and their ponies were used to shooting and just stopped and stoodthere thankful that they had an excuse, because the poor things wereterribly hot and sweaty and tired. And Mary V made the boy get off andback up to her, which was some trouble on account of Jake and the gun shehad to hold ready to shoot, so she only had one hand for Jake, really.And she was going to take the rag off his head to tie his hands the bestshe could under the circumstances, but the boy would not do as she said,but instead tried to run away and duck into the bushes. And that was howthe boy got shot in the leg. It seemed a pity to do it, still a personcouldn't surely be expected to tie outlaws and hold a gun and hold Jakeand everything, and not mess them up any. He seemed a kind of nice boy,and his tricky ways were no doubt because he had not been raisedproperly.

  So she made him get on his horse, which was difficult on account of beingshot in the leg, and then it seemed cruel and unnecessary to tie him,because they had both been sufficiently shot by her to know what theymight expect if they did it again. And that was how it happened that shedrove them both ahead of her without being tied or anything, as a personwould naturally expect outlaws and horse thieves and kidnapers would be.But Mary V would like to know how, for gracious sake, a person could do_everything_ right, with a horse to manage and a gun to hold, and onlytwo hands to their name?

  What Bill had said was that he had kept an eye on Tex, because it lookedto him like Tex was at the bottom of the whole business. He had seen Texworking away from the others, innocent as a hen turkey with a nest hidout in the weeds. Bill had done some innocent kinda sidlin' off himself,and he had seen Tex suddenly duck into a narrow wash and disappear.

  Wherefore, knowing the country even better than did Tex, Bill had duckedinto another draw that would intercept Tex, if Tex was going where Billguessed he was aiming to go. Tex must have aimed that way, because Billgot him and brought him back with his hands tied behind him and his gunriding in Bill's holster, and with no bullet holes in his person such asMary V's captives carried.

  Johnny did not know that the other boys had been signaled back withshots, and that the prisoners had been turned over to them while Bill,Bland, and Mary V stayed with Johnny and waited for Sudden to negotiatethat rough stretch of country with the Ford. That was what Mary V's voicereferred to when she couldn't see why he didn't hurry.

  Between times, Bland told their side of the adventure, as far as Blandunderstood it. He told of the horses they had scared back, and of thehorse thieves left afoot several miles across the line. He did not knowjust where, however. He told of the rancho they had flown to thatmorning, the rancho Johnny had discovered a short mile from where hehad got the plane in the first place.

  The horses which they had turned loose from the field would probably maketheir way back, Bill said. So would the last little bunch. But he wouldsend the boys down after them just as soon as they had put the threeprisoners away in the c
abin with a guard until the sheriff could come andget them. Which would be easy, Bill said. They'd telephone to the ranchand have the message repeated on the town line.

  Everything was easy, Bill said, except getting Skyrider to a doctorquick, without shaking him up too much. And getting the flying machineouta there--though he guessed mebby Skyrider wouldn't want no more flyin'in his. He guessed mebby Skyrider would aim to keep one foot on solidground hereafter--if he didn't go clean under it. That shore was a badlookin' head he had on 'im.

  Which brought forth questions from Mary V, and the somewhat qualifiedcomfort of Bland's experience.

  Johnny's next dream was a nightmare of pain and jolting. He did not knowwhere he was, but it seemed to him that something kept pounding him onthe head; something very hot and very heavy--something he could notescape because his head was being held in a vice of some sort. The painand the jolting seemed to have no relation to this steady beating. Thedream lasted a long, long while. And after that there was darkness andsilence.

  That came when he had been put to bed at the Rolling R ranch house, in aguest room that faced north. A doctor was there, waiting for them whenthey arrived, because Sudden had telephoned him when he had finishedcalling for the sheriff. The boys had told him soberly that Skyrider wasbad off, and that his whole head was smashed, and that the flyin' machinewas busted all to pieces. They didn't hardly think it would be worthwhile getting a doctor to the ranch, because they didn't see how Skyriderwas goin' to last long enough for a doctor to git to work on him. It wasa damn shame. Skyrider was one fine boy--and did anybody know where hisfolks lived?

  But the doctor was sent for just the same, and he was ready to do whatcould be done. It looked at first as though that was not much. Mary V hadkept cold cloths on Johnny's head during the whole drive, and the doctortold her that she had made it a little more possible to pull the youngman through. He certainly had received a terrible blow, and--well, thedoctor refused to predict anything at all. Johnny was a strong-looking,healthy young man--it took a lot to kill a youngster like that. Headvised a nurse, and gave the name of a young woman who was very good,he said.

  Sudden telephoned straightway for the nurse, and Mary V locked herselfinto her room to cry about it.

  The nurse came that night, and went briskly in and out of the guest room.She wore her hair parted and slicked back from her face, and rubberheels; and she smiled reassuringly whenever she saw Mary V or Mrs. Selmeror any one else who looked anxious. And she never once failed to closethe door of the guest room gently but firmly behind her. Mary V hatedthat nurse with a vindictiveness wholly out of proportion to the cause.

  None of these things did Johnny know. Johnny lay quietly on his back witha neat, white bandage around his head. His eyes were closed, his face wasplacid with the inscrutable calm of death or deep unconsciousness. Thenext day it was the same, and the day after that--except that his cheeksbegan to hollow a little, and his eye sockets to deepen and darken.

  And that pesky nurse wouldn't let Mary V stay in the room two minutes!She just shooed her out with that encouraging smile of hers, that Mary Vwanted to slap. Did she think, for gracious sake, that Mary V was goingto murder Johnny? Mary V was just going to tell the doctor that she hadlearned all about nursing, in her "Useful Knowledge" class at school. Sheshould think she was just exactly as well qualified to moisten thatbandage with whatever it was they put on it, and keep the flies out ofthe room, and little things like that, as any old tow-headed nurse thatever shook down a thermometer.

  But when the doctor came he looked so sort of sober that Mary V wasafraid to ask him anything at all. She went out into the hammock on theporch, where she could see the curtains flapping gently in the openwindow of Johnny's room. And after awhile the doctor came out and lookedat her and smiled a little, and said, "Well, have we captured any morebandits? By George, I'd hate to be one and run across you, young lady. Ihad the honor of repairing the damage you did to 'em; and I will say, youare so-ome bone smasher!"

  Which was all very well--but what did Mary V care about the damage doneto those Mexicans? She looked at the open window with the flappingcurtains, and then she looked at the doctor. She did not ask a singlequestion, and I don't think she dreamed how wistful her eyes were.

  "Well, our young aviator seems to be--holding on," the doctor observedvery, very casually, seeming not to see the question Mary V's eyes wereasking because her lips would not form it in words. "Better, on thewhole, than I expected."

  "Then you think--"

  "I think we won't worry about it until we have to. They're tough, theseyoung devils."

  Mary V tried and tried to wring encouragement from the words, but it wasvery hard, with Johnny lying like that and never moving.

  They brought the airplane to the ranch, much as Johnny had brought it upfrom "the burning sands of Mexico." Mary V went out to look at it, but itseemed too terrible to think of how high Johnny's hopes had been, how hehad worshiped that thing--and what it had done to him. She went to herledge on the bluff, and sat there and cried heart-brokenly.

  There it stood, reared up on its silly little wheels, with its brokenpropeller still pointing straight up at the sky. Its tail was brokentoo--and served it right for thrashing around like that in the brush.

  She had not known her dad was having it brought in, until she saw themcoming with it. Little Curley had driven the team, and he had looked asthough he was driving a hearse. She did not even know what her dad wasgoing to do with it. He hadn't said a word to anybody, about anything. Hejust went ahead as if taking care of Johnny and Johnny's airplane waspart of the regular work on the ranch. Even Bill did not appear to know,nor Bland. Perhaps Sudden himself did not know. It seemed to Mary V thatthe whole ranch was just waiting, minute by minute, for Johnny to openhis eyes, or stop breathing. The unbearable part of it was, no one saidanything much about it. They just waited.

  The doctor came again, and he did not say anything at all to Mary V. Hestayed at the ranch all night, mostly in the room with Johnny. The nextday another doctor came, and the nurse went in and out of the roomsterilizing things and looking very mysterious and important--but alwayswith that intolerably reassuring smile. Mary V gritted her teeth everytime she saw that nurse.

  They were going to operate, the nurse said, when Mary V simply could notstand it another minute. She went and sat all curled up in the hammock,not letting it swing, but just keeping very, very still, and listening.There were voices in there mumbling sentences she could not catch. Afterawhile a sickly odor came drifting through the window, and more mutteringbetween the two doctors. Sudden came wandering up, tiptoed to his chairon the porch, and sat down rather heavily and twirled a cigar in hisfingers without lighting it. Mary V pulled a magazine toward her andbegan turning the leaves idly, her lips pressed tight together, her earsstrained and listening still.

  Ages passed. Twice Mary V placed her fingers over her lips to stifle animpulse to scream. Then--

  "We can't make it. Damn that brush," said a new voice--Johnny'svoice--quite clearly.

  Mary V dropped the magazine and went and put her arms around her dad'sneck and pressed her face hard against his shoulder. Her dad held hertight, and swallowed fast, and said never a word.