Johnny’s hand trembled when he tried to shake a little tobacco into a cigarette paper. His lips, too, quivered slightly. But he laughed unbelievingly.
“Your brother was kidding you, Tom. Nobody would go off and leave an airplane setting in the desert. Those soldiers that got lost were away over east of here. Three or four hundred miles. He was kidding you.”
“No-o, my brother, she’s saw that thing! She’s hunt cattle what got across, and she’s saw that what them soldiers flew. Me, I know.” He looked at Johnny appraisingly, hesitated and leaned forward, impelled yet not quite daring to give the proof.
“Well, what do you know?” Johnny returned the look steadfastly.
“You don’t tell my brother—I—” He fumbled in his trousers pocket, hesitated a little longer, and grew more trustful. “Them pliers—I’m got.”
He laid them on the table, and Johnny let his stool tilt forward abruptly on its four legs. He took up the pliers, examined them with one eye squinted against the smoke of his cigarette, weighed them in his hand, bent to read the trade-mark. Then he looked at Tomaso. Those pliers may or may not have come from the emergency kit of an airplane, but they certainly were not of the kind or quality that ranchmen were in the habit of owning. To Johnny they looked convincing. When he had an airplane of his own, he would find a hundred uses for a pair of pliers exactly like those.
“I thought you said your brother lost ‘em,” he observed drily.
Tomaso shrugged, flung out his hands, smiled with his lips, and frowned with his eyes. “S’pose he did lost. Somebody could find.”
Johnny laughed. “All right; we’ll let it ride that way. I ain’t going to tell your brother. Want to sell ‘em?”
Tomaso took up the pliers, caressed their bright steel with his long fingers, nipped them open and shut.
“What you pay me?” he countered.
“Two bits.”
Tomaso turned them over, gazed upon them fondly. He shook his head regretfully. “No quero. Them pliers, she’s bueno,” he said. “You could find more things. My brother, she’s tell lots of things is where that sets like a hawk. Lots of things. You don’t tell my brother?”
“Sure not. I don’t want the things anyway. And I don’t know your brother.”
Tomaso thoughtfully nipped the pliers upon the oilcloth table cover. He looked at the airplane picture, he looked at Johnny. He sighed.
“Me, I’m like see those thing fly like birds. I’m like see that what sets over there. My brother, she’s tell me it’s so big like here to that water hole. She’s tell me some day it maybe flies. I go see it some day.”
Johnny laughed. “You’ll have some trip if you do. You take it from me, Tom, I don’t know your brother, but I know he was kiddin’ you. It was away over east of here that those fellows got lost.”
After Tomaso had mounted reluctantly and ridden away, however, Johnny discovered himself faced southward, staring off toward Mexico. It was just a yarn, about that airplane over there. Of course there was nothing in it—nothing whatever. He didn’t believe for a minute that an airplane was sitting like a hawk on the sands a few miles to the south of him. He didn’t believe it—but he pictured to himself just how it would look, and he played a little with the idea. It was something new to think about, and Johnny straightway built himself a dream around it.
Riding the ridges in the lesser heat of the early mornings, his physical eyes looked out over the meager range, spying out the scattered horse herds grazing afar, their backs just showing above the brush. Behind his eyes his mind roved farther, visioning a military plane sitting, inert but with potentialities that sent his mind dizzy, on the hot sand of Mexico—so close that he could almost see the place where it sat.
This was splendid food for Johnny’s imagination, for his ambitions even, though it was not particularly good for the Rolling R. He was not bothered much. Evenings, the foreman or Sudden would usually call him up and ask him how things were. Johnny would say that everything was all right, and had the stage driver made a mistake and left any of his mail at the ranch? Because he had been to the mail box on the trail and there was nothing there. The speaker at the ranch would assure him that nothing had been left there for him, and the ceremony would be over.
Johnny was fussy about his mail. He had spent twenty-five dollars for a correspondence course in aviation, and he wanted to begin studying. He did not know how he could learn to fly by mail, but he was a trustful youth in some ways—he left that for the school to solve for him.
Tomaso rode over again in a few days. This time he had a mysterious looking kind of wrench in his pocket, and he showed it to Johnny with a glimmer of triumph.
“Me, I’m saw that thing what flies. Only now it sets. It’s got wheels in front—little small wheels. Dos—two. My brother, he’s show me. I’m find thees wranch. It’s got wings out, so.” Tomaso spread his two arms. “Some day, I’m think she’s fly. When wind blows.”
Johnny felt a little tremor go over him, but he managed to laugh. “All right; you’ve been looking at the pictures. If you saw it, tell me about it. What makes it go?”
Tomaso shook his head. “She don’t go,” he said. “She sets.”
“All right. She sets, then. What on,—back of the wheels? You said two wheels in front. What holds up the back?”
“One small, little leg like my arm,” Tomaso answered unhesitatingly. “Like my arm and my hand—so. Iron.”
Johnny’s eyes widened a trifle, but he would not yield. “Well, where do men ride on it? On which wing?”
“Men don’t,” Tomaso contradicted solemnly. “Men sets down like in little, small boat. Me, I’m set there. With wheel for drive like automobile. With engine like automobile. My brother, she’s try starting that engine. She’s don’t go. Got no crank nowhere. She’s got no gas. Me, I’m scare my brother starts that engine. I’m jomp down like hell. I’m scare I maybe would fly somewhere and fall down and keel. No importa. She’s jus’ sets.”
Johnny turned white around the mouth, but he shook his head. “Pretty good, Tommy. But you better look out. If there’s a flying machine over there, it belongs to the government. You better leave it alone. There’s other folks know about it, and maybe watching it.”
Tomaso shook his head violently. “Por dios, my brother she’s fin’ out about that,” he said. “She’s don’t tell nobody, only me. She’s fin’ out them hombres what ride that theeng, they go loco for walking too much in sand and don’t get no water. Them hombres, they awful sick, they don’t know where is that thing what flies. My brother, she’s fin’ out that thing sets in Mexico, belongs Mexico. Thees countree los’. Jus’ like ship what’s los’ on ocean, my brother she’s tell from writing. My brother, she’s smart hombre. She’s keep awful quiet, tell nobody. She’s theenk sell that thing for flying.”
“Huh!” Johnny grunted. “What you telling me about it for? Your brother’d skin yuh alive if he caught you blabbing it all out to me.”
Tomaso looked a little scared and uneasy. He dropped his eyes and began poking a hole in the sand with his toe. Then he looked up very candidly into Johnny’s face.
“Me, I’m awful lonesome,” he explained. “I’m riding here and I’m see you jus’ like friend. You boy like me. You got picshurs them thing what flies. You tell me you don’t say nothing for my brother when I’m tell you that things sets over there.” He waved a dirty, brown hand to the southward. “Me, I’m trus’ you. Tha’s secret