Clive Cussler (10 page)

There were happy good-byes all around, and Sheriff Mugwump promised to have the reward money from the railroad sent to their farm in Castroville.

And then they were in the air once more, flying toward the Northeast and New York. There were white fluffy clouds that dropped a light sheet of rain and made a beautiful rainbow that Vin Fiz flew under.

It was a glorious day, and New York was only hours away.

Vin Fiz made a great sweeping turn and flew over the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, hugging the shoreline of Lake Erie. They soared above the water and darted around a fleet of sailboats with white, blue and red sails that were racing across the lake. Puffed by the breeze, the boats skimmed the waves like dancing butterflies. Soon Vin Fiz passed over the mouth of a wide river that ran into the lake.

"Where are we now?" asked Casey for the tenth time that morning. "What's that city below?"

Lacey knew without consulting her map. "We're over Buffalo," she said happily. "We've crossed into New York. It won't be long now before we see the Atlantic Ocean."

"Vin Fiz should be turning to the east, but she seems intent on flying us north up the river."

"I wonder why," said Lacey.

"What river is it?"

"The Niagara. It's the boundary between the United States and Canada."

They gazed at the wide winding river below whose banks rose up and met lush green fields and forests. Before long, they spotted white mist rising into the sky and heard a huge rumbling sound that became louder and louder until they beheld the awesome beauty and spectacular view of Niagara Falls, where the mighty river fell over cliffs 176 feet high. The Niagara actually split into two rivers. One flowed around Goat Island, forming the American Falls on one side, and the other flowed over Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Almost eight hundred thousand gallons of water rushed over the falls every second.

Lacey and Casey stared in rapture at the river with its surging dark blue water turning into a mixture of white and turquoise as it fell and crashed onto the rocks far below. They could feel the thunder of the falls as the water billowed in a great cloud of white mist.

"Do you think Vin Fiz brought us out of the way to see the falls?" Casey shouted above the roar of the water.

"I don't think so," Lacey shouted back. "Look, she's turning and carrying us upriver."

The enchanted airplane had an amazing sense of danger and flew rapidly above the raging water that traveled faster and faster before tumbling over the rocky ledge. Five hundred yards past the falls, Lacey and Casey saw a small rowboat with two teenage girls in it being carried toward the falls. People along the shore were shouting and screaming helplessly as the little boat and its occupants were swept by a thirty-mile-per-hour current toward the boiling brink.

"We must do something to help," cried Lacey, "or they will surely die!"

"Vin Fiz will know what to do," yelled back Casey. "See, already she's turning on a course toward the boat."

Vin Fiz knew exactly what to do. The enchanted airplane with the mystical powers somehow sensed there would be a tragedy at Niagara Falls, and only she could prevent it. Lower and lower she came to the water. Closer and closer came the boat to the falls, until only three hundred yards remained.

As Vin Fiz slowed and began hovering over the boat, the girls looked up and saw the airplane and the twin pilots. The girls were terrified and clinging to each other; the falls were only two hundred yards away and coming nearer with each passing second. There seemed no way they could be saved from going over the falls.

The airplane began to drop closer to the boat, and Casey saw what Vin Fiz was trying to do. He shouted down to the girls, "Grab on to our landing skids and hold tight!"

But the girls were frozen in fright. They made no move to reach up and save themselves.

With less than two hundred yards to go, Casey climbed down from his seat and straddled the landing wheels and skids, reaching out for the girls.

Still they sat huddled in sheer panic.

Now, with only a hundred yards before the thunderous drop-off, Vin Fiz took matters into her own hands, or should we say wheels. She dropped until her landing skids were only inches from the girls' upturned faces. Time was running out.

"Grab on!" Casey bellowed. "Now!"

Finally, the girls shook off their terror and reached up. Casey grabbed the wrist of each and yelled again as he saw the water fall into the great churning void not fifty feet ahead. "Clutch the landing skid in your other hand. I can't hold you both."

At last, realizing their horrifying journey over the falls was a mere ten feet away, they seized the skids with their free hands, and not a second too soon. Vin Fiz soared out over the booming roar of the falls as tons of water hurtled beneath the airplane and cascaded onto the rocks far below.

Casey was holding on to the girls with all his might, but he wouldn't be able to keep his grip on their wrists more than another minute. His grip was slipping from the water splashing around him. Vin Fiz was well aware of the situation and dove toward the water that crashed into the great mass of rocks in a white cloud of blinding spray.

A boat filled with tourists who had paid to see the falls from the bottom of the gorge appeared out of the mist. Lacey could read the letters on the side of the deck railing. The name of the boat was Maid of the Mist.

Without coaxing from Lacey, Vin Fiz settled over Maid of the Mist and slowly descended until she was hovering ten feet above the main deck. The people on board quickly realized what was happening and reached up toward the two young girls. Seeing that helping hands were less than a foot away from their feet, Casey said, "You can let go, girls. You're safe now."

They released their grip on the wheel skids at the same time that Casey released their wrists. Both girls fell safely into the waiting arms of the boat's passengers. As Casey climbed back into his seat, the girls shouted, "Thank you, oh, thank you!" The passengers waved and applauded along with all the people lining the shore who had witnessed the rescue.

Vin Fiz acted as though she were human, dancing and waggling her wings in the sky. Lacey and Casey marveled at her antics while wondering how an airplane could have such mystical vision. They would never know how she knew those two girls were about to go over the falls.

She and the twins made one more pass over the thunderous cascade before Vin Fiz turned her wings toward the Atlantic Ocean and the end of their long journey.

The sun began to set behind Vin Fiz's tail, and darkness was creeping over the land when Lacey and Casey saw the lights of New York City blinking in the distance. They gazed in awe as the lights sparkled from the windows of the tall buildings that seemed to touch the sky. Looking down and seeing the streets crawling with thousands of cars was a spectacular sight.

Vin Fiz seemed as if she was enjoying the sight too. She swooped playfully around the tops of the buildings, many of which had lush roof gardens.

"Look, Casey," said Lacey excitedly, "there's the Empire State Building."

"I see it," replied Casey. "The big open part of the city is Central Park."

"The lights of Broadway are beneath us."

"And here comes Wall Street."

When Vin Fiz reached the tip of Manhattan Island called the Battery, she banked out over the Hudson River and flew past the Statue of Liberty.

"Isn't she beautiful?" gushed Lacey. "I didn't know she was green." She paused to point at several large brick buildings on a nearby island. "What is that?"

"Haven't you seen pictures of Grandpa Nicefolk? When he came from Europe, he had to go through Ellis Island with all the other new people who came here. He took a picture of his first day in America standing in front of the main building under the flag."

It was getting dark now, and the twins began looking for a place to land. Luckily for them, a full moon rose across the heavens. It was so bright, Lacey could read her map.

"There's a nice sandy beach by the seashore. We can land there and spend the night, since it's so comfortable and warm."

"That would be fun," said Casey, "going to sleep looking at the stars and moon while we listen to the waves roll in from the ocean."

"I'd really like that," Lacey said dreamily.

Casey put his hands on the control levers, wishing he could once again control the airplane, which had been flying itself since leaving Castroville. Vin Fiz sensed what was on Casey's mind and allowed him to level out before slowly gliding in toward a wide sandy beach. The wheels touched down in the soft sand, and the skids plowed to a stop. The engine went quiet, and the propellers ticked over slowly before finally coming to a rest.

"We've done it, sister," Casey said happily. "We've flown across the great United States."

"With no small help from Vin Fiz," Lacey reminded him.

He patted the wing with affection. "True. Without her we'd still be back in Castroville, only dreaming about the places we've seen from the clouds."

"So much happened, it doesn't seem real." Floopy jumped from his box and ran up and down the beach and around the airplane out of happiness at being on the ground again. He had often accompanied the Nicefolk family on picnics to the beach at Castroville. Being a dog, without the ability to think great thoughts, Floopy thought he was on a Pacific Ocean beach, surely not on one more than three thousand miles away. To him, if you'd seen one beach, you'd seen them all. He lay down on his stomach in the sand and promptly fell asleep.

.

As the twins lay in the sand and stared up at the moon and stars, Lacey said, "I hope we don't have so many adventures on the flight home. We've already had enough to last us a lifetime."

"Not likely," said Casey. "The trip will probably be boring."

"Do you think Mother and Father are worried?"

"I don't think so. We camped by the river in the forest for three days only a month ago."

"I miss them."

"We'll see them soon," Casey consoled her.

"Look, a shooting star," said Lacey, pointing at a streak through the sky.

"I wonder if we'll ever ride a rocket ship to the stars."

"Maybe Mr. Sucop could make us one."

"A rocket ship to the stars," said Casey, his eyelids beginning to droop. "That might be asking too much."

"We could try, couldn't we?" asked Lacey, letting her lively imagination flow unhindered.

"Yes . . ." Casey answered, two blinks away from sleep. "We can try. But let's get some sleep first. We'll want to take off early in the morning."

Then, under a moon as bright as a big round beacon and beneath a carpet of stars, the twins drifted off to sleep to the sounds of the waves curling in from far at sea

When Lacey woke up the next morning, it wasn't to the sound of the surf but to the sound of the Nicefolk family rooster. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and stared around her.

She was back in her own bed in her own room on the farm.

In a daze and not knowing what to make of going to sleep on a beach in New York and waking up in Castroville, she climbed from her bed and looked out the window. The herb fields still surrounded the family farm. She also gazed thoughtfully at the mystical barn from where she and Casey had left on their journey across country.

Vin Fiz was nowhere to be seen.

Her mind adrift, she walked down the hall to her brother's room, truly believing she had awakened from an exciting and wonderful dream. She found Casey sitting on the side of his bed staring dumbly at his pajamas, wondering when he had put them on.

"We're home," he said, bewildered.

"Of course we're home," she echoed.

He looked at her. "I had the most wonderful dream."

"So did I."

"I dreamed we flew across the United States to New York. On the way, we helped rescue a Western town's citizens from working as slaves in a gold mine and saved a steamboat from being struck by a runaway barge."

"That was before we stopped a runaway train and saved two girls from going over Niagara Falls," Lacey said in growing wonder.