Feast for Thieves (33 page)

“Mr. Denton had a few too many,” I said with a nod to the backseat. “We’re taking him back to his plane. Mr. Farnsworth flew in on a charter, so he’ll be accompanying Mr. Denton back to Oklahoma. They’ve got some business together in that city. Mayor Floyd told us to use his Caddy for the trip so the men could ride in style. We’ll be bringing it right back.”

The fella nodded without a word, tipped his hat to Bobbie, and opened the gate. We drove through and down the rest of the driveway, hit the main road, and turned right. When we reached Highway 2 we turned south and headed through Cut Eye. Everything was quiet and dark, and no one was out yet this time of the morning. I hoped we’d pass the sheriff or at least Deputy Roy making an early round, but nothing stirred. The sheriff undoubtedly would be worried sick when he found out Bobbie hadn’t
come home last night from our trip up to Rancho Springs, but he was a solid sleeper and probably wouldn’t be awake to discover the fact for another two to three hours at least.

We passed by the laundry mat and hardware store, the filling station and city hall, the mercantile, the café, the Sugar House Tavern with the school across the street, and the baseball fields. That was the town. Passed right through and I hadn’t thought of a solution to our predicament. I glanced over at Bobbie. Her face was grave, her eyes shut tight as if in prayer. When we reached Lost Truck Road we turned left and headed east.

Workers were already out at the monstrosity and working the graveyard shift. The airstrip sat toward the rear of the construction site, and a large corrugated hangar had hastily been built next to it already. The entire site was gated and guarded, and when I pulled up in Oris Floyd’s Cadillac, the fella at the gate shot me a snappy salute like I was an officer in the military. I rolled down the window.

“Just taking Mr. Denton and Mr. Farnsworth back to Mr. Denton’s plane,” I said. “Mr. Farnsworth is going to fly him home.”

The guard nodded and we were through. We drove around the edge of the site and circled around to the airstrip.

“That’s his,” Crazy Ake said. “The Beechcraft Bonanza.”

In spite of our dire predicament, I let out a low whistle. It was a honey of an aircraft—that much was sure. I’d read about these last month in a magazine at the barbershop. The Bonanza was brand-new for 1947. This one must have been right off the lot, and already it set the standard for stylish yet well-equipped private planes. Mr. Denton’s plane was colored a shiny silver with a red nose and two red stripes down the side. A single prop sat out front. Two broad wings sat on either side like a regular plane. A strange V-tail wing configuration brought up the rear.

I remembered the theory of the V-wing, according to the magazine article. The two surfaces of the wing would reduce
weight and drag compared with a regular three-surface straight tail design. This would make the Bonanza faster and more maneuverable in the sky, although some fellas had already nicknamed the tail the “doctor killer” due to a propensity to yield accidents, both on the ground and in the air.

“Leave the fat man here,” Crazy Ake said with a thumb jerk toward Mr. Denton. “All we needed him for was to get us on the lot.”

“You fly?” I asked.

“Second highest marks at Chanute Field. They trained me on the P-51 Mustang. If I can fly a fighter plane, I can certainly fly this lump of tin.”

“How’d you end up in the mortar squad?”

Crazy Ake chuckled. “The colonel’s daughter turned out to be fifteen.” He tossed me the duffel bag—we hadn’t opened this one yet. He carried the other two.

“Let’s leave her here, too,” I motioned toward Bobbie. “She got us inside the mayor’s house, just like you wanted. She doesn’t need to be involved anymore.”

“No. That would never do,” Crazy Ake said with a laugh. “You’d get lonely. Besides, she’d just run home to Daddy and tip him off to where I’m going. Climb aboard.”

Time was ticking, so I opened the passenger door on the right side of the plane. It was positioned behind the low side of the wing. Bobbie felt safer sitting next to the door, so I got in first then helped her climb aboard. Crazy Ake climbed in after us and shimmied his way over us and up to the pilot’s seat. He set the revolver on his lap. In front of him sat a dashboard full of gauges—altimeter, vertical speed, fuel, oil temperature, oil pressure, amperes—I only caught a glimpse of a few as I snuck a peak. There was only one steering column and it swiveled to either side.

The cockpit looked too snug up front for two large men to sit shoulder to shoulder and I figured Crazy Ake could fly the
plane well enough by himself, so I sat in the back with Bobbie instead. It was snug in the back too, and our knees touched side by side. I helped her fasten her seat belt and fastened mine as well. Altogether the plane sat five, but the farthest rear seat had been removed and a small wet bar installed. The sign next to the window read in bold red letters: “Warning: verify door is properly latched before takeoff.”

Crazy Ake began to flip switches. The Beechcraft’s front prop turned and coughed and its engine sputtered to life. I’d never piloted a plane before; I didn’t know what he was doing. Crazy Ake hit some more switches, tapped on the foot pedals a couple of times, and pulled out the throttle, I guessed it was. The plane started rolling down the field. At the end of the airstrip the plane turned around and stopped a moment. All at once the motor roared and the plane quivered and shook.

“Here we go,” I said to Bobbie. Faster and faster we rolled until the plane gave a little jump and we were off the ground. I looked out the window and saw the hanger go streaking past. We were soaring through the air now and doing a climbing turn. I could see lights from the town of Cut Eye beneath us. Bobbie reached over, squeezed my hand tightly, and held on. I gathered it was her first time in an airplane.

The plane leveled off and we began to fly what I guessed to be due south. Crazy Ake hit some more switches and a vibrating sound was heard as the landing gear sucked back into the belly of the plane. It felt like we were riding in a car except we were high over what I guessed to be clouds. It was hard to tell exactly where we were because of the darkness all around us.

“Attention—attention. This is your captain speaking.” Crazy Ake laughed as he yelled back to us. “Our trip’s six hundred miles as the crow flies. The Bonanza cruises about 160 m.p.h. We should be at the telegraph office in Pachuca before breakfast. You like
tequila with your scrambled eggs?” He laughed again and looked forward.

Bobbie and I said nothing. For some time we were quiet and my mind churned on various plans. When I played them all forward in my mind, none seemed to work. I stared out the window. The sky was black. Bobbie’s eyes were closed.

In about an hour and a half, a streak of color began to show low across the western horizon. It showed as an intense red at first. The red stayed on the horizon and a band of orange lay out across it. In a few seconds the sky streaked with yellow rays. Darkness changed to blue, the scattered clouds became white, and all around us looked far off and immense, like we were hurtling along through heaven itself.

Bobbie opened her eyes, squeezed my hand tighter, and spoke. “
Who hast set thy glory above the heavens. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
”

We were quiet for some time to come, both looking at the sunrise. Then I asked, “Was that Radchenko again—the Russian?”

She tried to smile. “King David. Psalm 8. Don’t you ever read your Bible?”

“Not enough, I reckon.”

Her voice was low over the engine, just low enough for me to hear her, and I saw her smile fade in the eerie light from the dashboard. “Rowdy,” she said, “you ever wonder what Jesus was talking about when he told folks to turn the other cheek if they get hit?”

“I wondered about it a few times,” I said. “That was tough teaching for me to reckon with while I was slugging it out at the tavern all those nights, trying to get all those fellas to come to church. I know some folks believe it means we should never fight nor protect ourselves, but I’m a man who’s been to war. I’ve seen how unchecked evil can ruin innocent lives. So I confess I’m not
in harmony with pacifist ways of thinking, no.”

“I’ve thought about Jesus’ words quite a bit,” she said, “and, as a rule, I believe the Bible says what it means. Yet when you grow up in Texas and your Daddy’s a sheriff, you learn to broaden some interpretations. I believe Jesus was telling folks to overlook matters of personal insult, not assault, because later on he told his disciples to buy swords. Whether those swords were so they could be classified as transgressors, or for them to protect themselves when he wasn’t around, I’m not certain. But I do know one thing for sure—and that’s regarding the direness of our circumstances at this moment.”

“What’s that?”

“Crazy Ake will not let us live. I’m not sure he’ll let Sunny live, either. Not when we’ve come this far with him. We know too much now for him to ever let us return to our former ways of living.”

A drop of sweat rolled down my forehead and I clutched Bobbie’s hand. “No, you’re wrong about that. We will live through this, and so will Sunny. We just need to help get him to Pachuca, then he’ll let us go. I don’t know how it’s all going to turn out, but we’re all gonna stay alive. Trust me on this. I didn’t take a bullet in Holland just so I could die in Mexico.” My heart hammered, and I hoped the words I spoke were true.

Bobbie was silent, her brow furrowed, then she said, “There’s another verse of Psalm 8 that comes to mind, and it’s not nearly as nice as what I just quoted.”

“How’s that?”

“
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger
.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked. “All that talk about stilling an enemy?”

“It means,” said Bobbie, “that if Crazy Ake hits your right cheek again, Rowdy, that Jesus wouldn’t want you to turn to him your left.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

W
e were three and a half hours into the trip, flying low over the Sierra Madres, when Crazy Ake pulled out a bungee cord from the side compartment near the window, and tied the controls fast. We were flying low on purpose, Crazy Ake had explained earlier during one of his many rants, since it was harder for radar to pick up our location. With the plane now on a crude sort of autopilot, he turned around from the front seat and stared at us, the revolver in his left hand.

He didn’t move or lunge. All he did for about five minutes was hold his gaze steady. The foam out his mouth was dribbling again although he hadn’t told a story in at least half an hour, and I glanced out the window to gain our bearings and saw the craggy formations underneath us in the morning sunlight. The land looked to be weathered by long periods of sun and erosion. Large blocks of plateaus were lifted up out of the ground, and deep gorges were formed in the valleys between peaks of rock. The entire earth below looked angular and full of canyons.

“Well, it’s time at last,” he said finally while looking at his watch. “Look behind you in that big duffel bag—the one we ain’t touched yet.”

“Time for what?” I asked.

“Time for you to keep doing what I say. We can’t waltz up to any old airport in a stolen aircraft. But I’ve been anticipating this all along. Exactly three minutes from now we’ll come to an area
of some deep outcroppings. The locals call it Cañón de Fresa—the Strawberry Canyon. We’ll find a Ford pickup waiting for us at the bottom. The keys are inside, hidden under the seat. It’s a straight shot on a dirt road south to Highway 85. That’ll lead us all the way into Pachuca. When we get to Pachuca, we need to send a message to Sally Jo at the Rancho Springs telegraph office.”

“She’ll be at the Rancho Springs office?” I said. “How come you’re telling us her whereabouts now?”

“As a gentleman and a crook, I am both unoriginal and cheap,” said Crazy Ake. “When I ordered Sally Jo to drive around with Sunny all day, she wanted extra for gas money.” He laughed. “That wasn’t going to happen, so I told her just to go park in the shade, and then drive over to Rancho Springs at noon. I’m telling you this because I want you to know I’m a man of my word, rotten to the core though I may be. There’s the thin chance one of us ain’t gonna survive this next step of the plan, and although I’m no stranger to murdering folks, you were my cellmate once, and decent about it. Besides, I don’t want the ghost of your dead daughter haunting me the rest of my life.”

I was thankful for the slim revelation, but still I began to sweat, sensing what lay before us next. I needed to ask to make sure. “Just how you propose we reach a deep canyon while flying in an airplane?”

“We won’t by flying in, of course, which should be no problem for an ex-paratrooper such as yourself. As for the young lady—” He glanced at Bobbie. “I’m afraid the first time jumping out of an airplane can come as quite a shock. Inside that last duffel bag are three parachutes, Rowdy. I packed them myself. Get ’em out.”