Rocket Jumper Read online

  Jan was on the other end again. She knew Scotty’s fighting ability, and his intense loyalty to his friends.

  She knew perfectly well what Scotty had in mind. “Say hello to them from Barby and me,” she requested.

  “I’ll do that,” Scotty promised.

  Jimmy put the helicopter down next to the boys’ jeep. The four in the chopper got out and climbed into the vehicle, Scotty in the driver’s seat. He swung at once into the lodge road and stepped on it.

  When they arrived at the lodge, Mrs. Winston was standing at the end of the row of cabins, looking into the forest. John Gordon and Parnell Winston were with her.

  Scotty outlined quickly what had happened, assured Mrs. Winston that the girls were banged around some but all right, and then asked, “Have you seen the Jones Boys?”

  They hadn’t, but the elderly people in the next cabin had. The Joneses had come sneaking back, climbed into one of the trucks and had driven away. The man added he was sure they were trying to get away from the two military policemen who had asked about them.

  “Two of my boys,” Aster stated.“I was wondering what had happened after I gave orders to pick up the Joneses.”

  “They got away,” Scotty said bitterly.

  “The heck they have,” Jimmy exploded. He asked the old man, “How long ago did they leave?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes.Not more. The two military police left about ten minutes after they did. They’d been hunting for the Joneses among the fire fighters, I guess, but the Joneses sneaked around them.”

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  “Nearly fifteen minutes to the main road, and five minutes on it at about sixty miles an hour,” Jimmy mused. “But which way did they go?North? Or into Vegas”

  “I’ll vote for Vegas,” Aster said. “That truck is too distinctive. They’ll have to ditch it, and that can only be done where they can get other transportation.Which means Vegas. ”

  “I’m for that, too,” Scotty said. “Let’s go!”

  Winston called, “Wait! Where will the helicopters take Rick and the girls?”

  “ScarletLake,” Jimmy replied.

  “Then we’ll go there.” The two scientists and Mrs. Winston hurried toward Winston’s car. Scotty turned the jeep and roared back toward the helicopter.

  Jimmy kept an eye on his watch as they drove, and was still consulting it as they got into the helicopter and took off.

  As Scotty plugged in his headset, Jimmy came on the intercom. “Say ten minutes to the main road, and ten miles down it before we got the word. Add another ten miles just for an extra precaution. My guess is that we’ll intersect them at about theCharleston Peak road.”

  Scotty figured rapidly. “That sounds about right.”

  “I’m taking a shortcut, heading straight for there, so we won’t see the road until we’re almost on it. Then I’ll climb, and we’ll be able to see for several miles in both directions.”

  The pilot sent the helicopter in a beeline for the intersection where Route 39 turns from Route 95. Scotty waited as patiently as he could. As they lifted high over the mountains, he saw that others were on the cliff with his three friends, and he knew everything possible would be done for Rick.

  ScarletLakeHospital.Scotty shook his head. It would be Rick’s second trip. Once before he had ended up in the tiny, but efficiently staffed and equipped base infirmary, while solving The Scarlet Lake Mystery.

  Jimmy took them across the mountains, crossing the ridge only a few feet above the rocks. Then the ground fell away sharply to the desert slopes once more.

  As the helicopter came within sight of the road, Jimmy spoke. “Look north. I’ll bank a little. You can see the caravan coming.” There was quiet satisfaction in his voice.

  Scotty looked out and down as the chopper turned. He saw the distinctive pink of the Jones truck about three miles away. A mile behind were two cars with the domes of police lights on top. One was an Armed Forces police car painted Air Force blue, and the other was the white of the Nevada State Police.

  Jimmy swung around again and headedSouth . “We need to block the roadway, and I think I see a way to do it.”

  Scotty saw it, too. Just passing theCharleston turnoff was a big trailer truck.

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  The helicopter pilot swooped down ahead of the big truck and the driver braked to a stop. Aster jumped out and ran to the truck. In a moment the driver turned the big rig, completely blocking the highway. Aster stayed with the truck, waving Jimmy on.

  The chopper lifted, and flew along the highway, only twenty feet in the air. Scotty couldn’t see ahead now, so he took the safety belt and resumed his position at the door. By the time he was holding to the safety handle again, Jimmy had covered most of the ground. The Jones truck was roaring down on them at top speed. Scotty got a glimpse of the two men as they passed underneath. Jimmy spun the helicopter around at once, and followed.

  The Joneses saw the truck. They pulled over and stopped before they reached it, and started running.

  One headed towardCharleston Peak . The other headed into the valley. Scotty thought he knew what they had in mind. By separating, they would pull pursuit two ways, increasing their chances for escape.

  He set his lips grimly. The Joneses might not know it, but their time was up.

  “Let’s take the one going downhill,” Scotty said over the intercom.

  “Roger,” Jimmy acknowledged. He paused. “How do we do this?”

  “Hover over him and leave it to me,” Scotty said tightly.

  Jimmy thought about it, meanwhile putting the chopper on the heels of the fugitive.“Looks as if he’s carrying a gun.”

  “What kind?” Scotty couldn’t see, even though he leaned out into the windstream .

  “Handgun.Shiny.Could be a .38.”

  Scotty looked around the cabin for a weapon. There was none he could see, but his eyes fell on the cushions that padded the seats. They were square, about two inches thick, and fairly heavy.

  “Can heshoot us down?” he asked.

  “With luck.But he’d have to hit me or a vulnerable spot in the motor. Preferably the motor, now that we have a copilot ready to take over.”

  “Go high so he can’t hit the motor, then lower down on him. If he shoots he’ll hit the undercarriage.”

  “Or you,” Jimmy reminded him.

  “No,” Scotty said. “Not me. He won’t get a clear shot.” He unsnapped the safety belt and got two of the cushions. One he held in his right hand. The other he put at his feet, handy in case he missed with the first one.

  Jimmy climbed. In a moment he said, “He’s directly under us. What now?”

  “Lower to a few feet over his head, then move sideways so I can see him.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

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  “I do.”

  “Okay.Moving in.”

  The helicopter settled, then tilted slightly. Scotty watched as the ground slid past, sideways. He saw Jones just as the man saw him and snapped a shot in his direction. It wasn’t even close. Scotty threw the heavy pillow and it caught Jones’ arm as he tried to get off another shot. And then the boy left the doorway in a feet-first spring.

  Jones tried to duck, but he was too late. Scotty’s flying body caught him, feet first, slamming him to the ground. Jones grunted, rolled, and got to his feet while Scotty did a tumbler’s roll and came upright again.

  Jones was just standing upright when Scotty’s fist, with all his powerful body and pent-up fury behind it, caught him squarely on the nose. Jones went over backward, as though hit with a baseball bat. Scotty landed, knees first, on his stomach. The man’s breath went out in a strangled whoosh.

  Scotty got to his feet and waited. “Get up,” he begged. “Fight back.”

  Jones was no softy. He got to one knee and shook his head to clear it. His nose, mashed to a shapeless wad, was bleeding freely. He dove forward suddenly, reaching for the boy. Scotty helped him. He took the outstretched han
d and pulled, falling backward as he went. His feet lifted smoothly into the pit of Jones’ battered stomach, and he thrust with all his great strength. Jones flew like a great white-clad frog.

  He crashed into a cholla cactus, face first, and screamed as the barbed spikes speared into him. He was still screaming when Jimmy and the copilot ran up.

  Each move Jones made only sank the wicked barbs deeper. Finally he stopped trying.

  “If you’d like to confess to espionage and attempted murder, well free you,” Scotty said.“Talk.”

  “I’m innocent!” Jones yelled.

  “Let’s leave him there for a while,” Jimmy suggested. “It may help his memory.”

  “All right!All right! Just get me loose. I’ll talk. I’m being killed.”

  “You’ll live,” Scotty said shortly.“Unfortunately.” He looked around and saw the pistol where Jones had dropped it. He retrieved the weapon and blew dirt away. The barrel was clear, and there were three shots left.

  “Get me out,” Jones wailed.

  There was no easy way, and Scotty wasn’t in the least sorry. They pulled Jones free, leaving a fair amount of hide on the cholla barbs.

  “Now let’s go get brother,” Jimmy suggested. “Any rope around to tie up this bird?”

  There was none. Scotty took off his belt and lashed the man’s elbows together behind his back. They lifted him into the helicopter, and Jimmy and the copilot got back into their seats.

  But by the time the helicopter returned to the road, the situation was under control. The other Jones had been caught climbing over a rocky outcrop, and a bullet through the leg from a trooper’s handgun had Page 76

  pinned him in place.

  The Armed Forces police took the first Jones off Scotty’s hands.

  “Now,” Scotty said to the pilot, “let’s head forScarletLake . We have to see how Rick is doing.”

  “I’ll find out as soon as we get some sky under us,” Jimmy told him. As they lifted, he got on the radio.

  “Red Three to Red Five or Six.Do you read?”

  “This is Red Five. Go ahead, Jimmy.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Circling to followSix intoScarletLake . We have the kids aboard. The girls are okay, but the boy is still unconscious. Doc splinted his leg and stopped the bleeding, but he’s not in good shape.”

  “What’s the outlook?”

  “Can’t tell.Doc says he has to be X-rayed. It may be a depressed fracture.”

  “Will he live?”

  “If he doesn’t, those two girls will want to die with him. He saved their lives, I guess.”

  “You guess right.”

  “Okay, Jimmy.Going in now. See you later. Red Five out.”

  “Thanks, Dick. Red Three out.”

  Scotty stared ahead grimly. The satisfaction of getting the Jones Boys was gone now. The big question remained. How was Rick?

  CHAPTER XIX

  The Patient

  Drums beat in Rick’s head. They were huge drums, great hollowed logs upon which gigantic bronze men beat with sledge hammers. Each beat brought lancing pain that stabbed through his head.

  He endured the drums because he had no choice. He didn’t know the measured strokes were only the steady rhythm of his own heartbeat, pushing his bloodstream through damaged tissue. He didn’t even know that he was alive.

  Little by little, his great vitality brought him nearer to the edge of consciousness, and he became aware of Page 77

  sounds besides the drums, of voices like bright splashes against the dark background of pain. He couldn’t understand the voices. He was not yet conscious enough to try.

  “You’re exhausted, Jan. Go climb into the bed next to Barby and rest.”

  “No, Scotty. I’m going to stay right here.”

  “You can’t help Rick by getting sick with exhaustion, Jan.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Scotty. I’ll be fine.”

  Once there was a great, sudden pang of sheer relief, and consciousness surged upward until Rick opened his eyes, then quickly closed them again as brilliant light lanced into them. In that one instant he had a blurred impression of white, faceless people bending over him before he sank down into darkness again.

  “He responded.”

  “Good. The pressure relief will help. Lucky thing the dura wasn’t ruptured. There’s no sign of subdural hemorrhage, so we won’t need to go in.”

  The conversation meant nothing to Rick. The words were blurred rumbles interrupting the drumbeats.

  He didn’t know an Air Force surgeon was skillfully repairing his battered head.

  Then came a time when he seemed to start swimming upward, endlessly, toward a dim light far above.

  The darkness around him lessened and he became aware gradually that he had a body, and that it ached.

  Something was tugging at him, pulling him by one leg, but he sensed that he wasn’t moving. The thing wasn’t strong enough to drag him away.

  He moved one hand, very slowly, and it was captured and held, gently and warmly.

  “Rick, Rick, can you hear me?”

  He opened his eyes to blurred semidarkness, and far away, like something seen through the small end of a telescope, he saw a face framed in dark hair, bending over him. He knew that face. He whispered, almost inaudibly, “Hi, Jan.”

  He closed his eyes again and let himself sink into the quiet warmth of normal sleep.

  When Rick finally came back to full consciousness, a gray-haired stranger was holding his wrist. The stranger was in Air Force uniform, and he had silver eagles on his collar. He said, “So you finally decided a week’s sleep was enough?”

  His voice didn’t work very well.“A week?”

  “Well, not quite, although it seems that way.It’s three days, to be exact. How do you feel?”

  Rick thought about it. He didn’t really know, except that his head, chest, and leg hurt.

  “Are Barby and Jan okay?” he asked huskily.

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  “I’ll let you see them for exactly one minute and you can ask them yourself. They’re waiting in the hall.

  They insisted on staying with you, so we put them next door. One of them has been with you every minute except when we were treating you.”

  The colonel went to the door and opened it. “One minute,” he stated.

  Jan, Barby, and Scotty came in. They walked to the bed and looked down at Rick.

  He examined their faces silently. The girls were pale from the long days and nights indoors, worrying, but they were unscarred. Barby’s arm was in a cast, but Jan showed no sign of damage at all.

  “Both all right?” he asked slowly.

  They nodded, and as though at a signal, both of them burst into tears and turned and hurried out.

  Scotty shook his head. “What a pair! They’ve stood up like Marines under fire until just now. They know you’re going to be okay, so they relax and come apart.”

  “The Jones Boys?”Rick asked.

  “In jail.Both banged up a little, one with a bullet in his leg and the other chewed up by a cactus. They set the fire, Rick.”

  Rick noticed that Scotty wore a large-size adhesive bandage over the knuckles on his right hand. “Did you get hurt?”

  “One of the Joneses resisted a little.”

  Scotty didn’t have to elaborate.

  The girls came back just in time to be shooed out with Scotty by the colonel. “That’s enough for now.

  He’s going to sleep. If he’s well enough by tonight, you can bring in your trays and have dinner with him.”

  As the officer came back to the bedside, Rick asked, “What happened? I remember feeling a bone in my leg break and then I slammed forward.”

  “Compound fracture of the lower thigh.You’re in traction, if you haven’t noticed.”

  Rick hadn’t. He lifted himself for an instant, just long enough to see the pulley at the end of the bed from which a weight was suspended, pulling against the powerful thigh mus
cles. The slight effort had exhausted him.

  “Your crash helmet saved your life. It crushed in, but it cushioned the impact. You had a depressed skull fracture, with the bone pushing in on the brain.

  We operated and relieved the pressure. The bone is wired in place, and healing nicely. But don’t touch the bandages.”

  Rick was sinking into sleep rapidly. He managed to ask, “Chest? It hurts.”

  “Bad bruise on the sternum. That’s your breastbone.Painful, but not serious. Your fall was cushioned a Page 79

  little by the pipes on your rocket belt; otherwise, it would have been worse. Now go to sleep. You’re going to be fine, although I admit you hadus worried for a few days.”

  “Thanks,” Back whispered. He drifted off into exhausted sleep.

  Improvement was rapid from then on. The girls were with him during his waking hours, and at mealtime he had Jimmy, Aster, Gordon, the Winstons, or Scotty besides the girls. His parents and Steve Ames phoned daily.Once Tommy, the parachute rigger from Nellis, dropped in for a chat. Soon Rick was strong enough to sit up, and he and Jan played chess to pass the hours. She beat him by a slight margin of six games out of each ten, and he was both pleased with her, and a little chagrined.

  A week after the fire Rick went back to the operating room. Traction had pulled the broken bones back into place, permitting the surgeon to operate. He used a new technique, repairing the break surgically with a heavy splint of specially processed bone-taken, appropriately, from a ram. Then he closed the wound and held the thigh rigid with an aluminum splint. After three days he was satisfied that no infection had taken place, and Rick’s leg was put in a plaster cast that ran from just below his hip to the bottom of his foot.

  The heavy bandages on his head gave way to a small pad, and he was given a plastic skullcap to wear for a week. He was practicing walking with crutches when the young, redheaded lieutenant arrived with Captain Aster.

  Aster introduced them, grinning. “You’ve met before, but not formally.”

  The redhead looked embarrassed. “I’m glad you were on the job,” he told Rick. “It’s hard to tell how long I might have lain there in the lot if you hadn’t found me.”