Sky vs. Spies

Fiction by Frank Knebel

Chapter 4

The front door of Summer Smithers’ house was thrown open and an unarmed Deputy Amy Cole, her arms held on either side by Rowlands and Klee, was hustled in. Bradford, Amy’s revolver in his hand, followed keeping a watch on the road to be sure they were not seen. He closed the door behind them.

     “Nobody out there,” he reported to Rowlands. He nodded toward Amy. “What about her?”

     “I got some ideas,” said Klee, leering at the shapely deputy. “She’s really a hot one!”

     “Relax, or I’ll let her scald you,” said Rowlands flatly. He noticed her belt. “Here.”

     He passed the arm he was holding to Bradford and unsnapped a case on her belt just behind her empty holster. He drew out her handcuffs.

     “Put her hands together behind her,” he ordered.

     Klee grinned as he and Bradford forced the woman’s hands together. Rowlands applied the cuffs, making sure he closed them securely around her small wrists.

     “Was that all the rope you found in the garage?” he asked Bradford.

     The big man nodded.

     Rowlands chuckled mirthlessly.

     “I’m just a city boy, but this is some strange ranch with no rope around.” He turned to Klee. “Go into the bedroom and find some things to tie her up with.”

     “Like what?” asked Klee. He looked blankly at Rowlands.

     “Use your imagination,” Rowlands said irritably. He turned to Bradford. “Hold her.”

     Amy looked down and said nothing as the big man held her by the arm. Rowlands disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later carrying a chair with red plastic covered seat and backrest. The chair legs and the backrest stiles were of gleaming metal pipes. He set the chair down a few feet from the sofa where the trussed and helpless Summer Smithers lay. Bradford laid Amy’s revolver on an end table and prodded the girl forward.

     “Sit down, Deputy,” said Rowlands.

     “What’re you going to do?” Amy asked.

     “Nothing much, if you cooperate,” he replied. “We’re just going to tie you up good to slow you down a little, that’s all.”

     “But if you’re a bad little girl,” added Bradford softly, “we’ll go outside and leave you with our friend for a while.”

     Amy looked at him. His big, rather dark and impassive face made his quiet words more chilling than any wild threats. She sat in the chair. Bradford looked at Rowlands and winked.

     Klee returned from the bedroom with an armload of odds and ends trailing to the floor.

     “I found these,” he announced.

     There were a number of nylon stockings, the fabric belts from several dresses and a terrycloth bathrobe, scarves, and a sheet and pillowcase.

     “Good. Let’s get to work.”

Fred Merrill paused in his walk to the Hummingbird to watch the two ambulances depart. The remaining Sheriff’s patrol car and the tan and white station wagon with the wood paneling on the sides and the Flying Coronet logo on the front doors immediately followed them. He turned back to the plane and started walking again.

     “All set, Sky,” he called to his boss. “How’s it goin’ there?”

     Sky and Copper were securing a clear plastic emergency windshield to stanchions above and below the shot-out window on the passenger side. The tall rancher turned.

     “Almost done, Fred,” he said. “We’ll be down in a second.”

     Merrill waited as they finished their work. The two climbed down from the plane.

     “The deputies have taken everybody away,” Merrill reported. “The Doc’s gone back to town. Joe, Wes, and I will stay with the captain and her driver until you get back.”

     “Good work, Fred,” said Sky. He scanned the paling skies. “There’s only a couple hours’ light left, but I need to help find the rest of those men if I can.”

     “We need to find those men,” Copper interjected. “I’ve got a score to settle with anyone who tries to strangle me then blow me up!”

     Sky regarded with niece with amusement.

     “All right, we’ve got a score to settle. Are we ready?”

     Copper looked at her uncle with amazement, then grinned. He had not made any objection to her going along.

     “Race you for it!” she cried scampering back to the plane door.

     Both men laughed. Sky had half turned when his foreman stopped him.

     “Sky…” Merrill began. The big man tried to speak a couple times but could not. He looked down at his feet. “Could you check and see that Summer Smithers is all right? Those men headed south, you know, and they might have gone past her ranch…”

     He trailed off. Sky smiled.

     “I think that Winch sent a car past there already, Fred. But if you think it’s important, I sure will.”

     “I know I’m just a hired hand, Sky,” the big man said haltingly, “but I just couldn’t bear the thought of her…I mean of those men finding her and maybe…”

     Sky gripped his foreman’s hand.

     “It’s the least I can do for someone who saved me and my niece and my ranch. You must have been something to see in the hedgerow country in Normandy.”

     Merrill looked up and grinned as they shook hands.

     “Oh, those fellas weren’t much. They didn’t even have any Tiger tanks with ‘em.”

     “Take care of things while I’m gone.”

     Copper had started the plane’s engines. Sky turned and made his way to the door. Merrill watched them take off, giving them a wave as they headed south.

Deputy Amy Cole sighed as she looked down at her own helpless form. After having her lift her cuffed hands over the low back of the kitchen chair, the three men had used torn strips of the sheet to tie her to the chair back and seat. The dress and bathrobe belts bound her legs at the ankles and knees, and one of the stockings connected, and pulled, her bound feet to her hands. Rowlands wadded one of the scarves into a ball and rolled the ball inside another scarf he had folded into a long band.

     “Aren’t ya gonna let me do that?” asked Klee.

     “We’ve got to find you a more useful hobby,” Rowlands said dryly as he worked. “You two get to the car and start the engine.”

     Klee shook his head as he looked over the bound Deputy Cole and helpless Summer on the couch. Bradford had used another of the nylons to hogtie the rancher. The left shoulder strap of her bra had slipped down, partially exposing a nipple.

     “They sure do have some good-lookin’ women around here.”

     Rowlands looked at Bradford. “Get him outta here.”

     Bradford put a hand on Klee’s shoulder and prodded him toward the door. Klee started to react angrily, but one look at the solemn, dangerous face stopped him. They left.

     “You’re not going to get away with this, you know,” Amy said unconvincingly.

     “Crime doesn’t pay?” asked Rowlands. “Just be glad it wasn’t any worse than this.”

     Amy looked up. “I am. Thanks for that. But I still don’t like being left in my own handcuffs and all tied up.”

     “And you’re gonna like this even less,” said Rowlands as he thrust the gag wad into her mouth. He stepped behind her and bound the scarf ends tightly at the back of her neck.

     There were several items left from Klee’s haul in the bedroom. Rowlands looked at the pile and picked up the pillowcase. Spreading the sides out as far as they would go, he dropped it over Amy’s head like a hood. The shapely deputy shrieked as her vision was cut off.

     Rowlands picked up Amy’s pistol from the table where Bradford had laid it and looked at it and her thoughtfully. With a practiced move he flipped the cylinder open and emptied the cartridges into his hand. He put the bullets into his pocket, closed the cylinder and laid the pistol on a table. He then went out the front door.

     Rowlands closed the door behind him. He could hear the station wagon’s running engine around the corner of the house. Before going to it, he stopped at Amy Cole patrol car. He pulled the radio handset jack out of its socket and tossed the set into some nearby bushes, then did the same with the ignition keys. He walked quickly around the side of the house, and climbed into the passenger seat. Bradford was at the wheel, Klee in the back.

     “Drive,” he said.

Once in the air Sky pointed the nose of the Hummingbird due south.

     “Why are you following the road, Sky?” Copper asked. “The Sheriff will probably be miles west of here by now. Why don’t you cut across to the southwest?”

     “Just a little promise I made to Fred Merrill,” said Sky. “He asked me to check on Summer and make sure she was all right. I want to follow the road to be sure those men haven’t hidden for a little while then doubled back.”

     “Oh, sure, I see,” the girl replied. She gave Sky a sideways look. “I think that Fred’s got it pretty bad for Summer, don’t you?”

     Though his niece had attempted to make her remark sound innocent, Sky caught the look she was giving him, a look that suggested that anyone with a conscience would stay out of the way of the two love birds. Copper had always acted particularly jealous when Summer and Sky had spent time together.

     “You’re probably right about Fred,” said Sky. “But I doubt that Summer knows anything about how he feels.”

     “Well, she is very attractive,” said Copper, continuing to feign that she was not trying to make a point. “If she didn’t get so much attention from important ranchers around here, she might notice what a fine man Fred is. And he might feel a little freer to tell her how he feels.”

     “Maybe you two should have coffee one morning so you can advise her,” Sky replied with a twinkle.

     Neither said anything more. The junction was in sight and there were no cars visible in any direction. He banked the plane smoothly to the east.

     “We’ll just have a quick look at her place,” Sky said. “But the deputies have been by and I’m sure there couldn’t be anything wrong.

Deputy Amy Cole lowered her head forward and shook it vigorously. She had already tried bending to either side and wiggling and shaking to get the pillowcase off without success. This attempt did no better. The pillowcase hung so far down that weight of the fabric gathered at the edges was enough to keep it in place. Of course, since the fabric was a couple inches from her eyes and was not especially heavy, the young deputy was not in total darkness. She could see light coming from a kitchen window a few yards ahead. And if she turned to her right, she could just make out the dark shape of the couch only three feet away.

     If Summer could somehow get off that couch and free the ties that held Amy in the chair, the deputy felt that she could slip her cuffed wrists under her rump, legs and feet to get her hands in front of her. Once that was done, Amy could free herself easily from the hood and gag, and get the spare handcuff key from its hiding place in the lining of her belt. But nothing would work while she remained tied to the chair. And her gag, while hardly soundproof, made any communication with Summer impossible.

     Summer Smithers lay on her tummy on the couch. The blindfold had prevented her from seeing what had happened earlier, but she had clearly recognized the voice of her fellow prisoner as Amy Cole’s. As best she could interpret the noises, the men had brought a chair from the kitchen and bound Amy to it very close to where Summer lay. She hoped that once the men were gone she would be able to help to free Amy. But one of the men had rolled her face down, bent her legs back and connected her wrist and ankle bonds in a hogtie. Now getting off the couch would be very difficult. The pull on her shoulder had caused the bra strap to fall off, and she could feel the fabric against her left nipple. It was going to be hard, but it was their only hope.

     She inched here knees toward the edge of the couch. Somehow, she was going have to try to slide off.

     Deputies Norris and MacKeever were heading back west. They had checked the three ranches the Sheriff had mentioned along the east/west road and were now doubling back. A car approached them, on the same road headed in the opposite direction.

“Hey, Rowlands,” said Bradford. “Somebody’s coming.”

     Rowlands squinted at the tiny shape ahead.

     “What about it? It’s a public road.”

     “The cops’ll be looking for three men,” Bradford said.

     Rowlands nodded.

     “Yeah. Even if this is a different car, we’d better play it safe.” He turned to Klee. “Get your head down back there.”

     Again, Klee looked blankly at him.

     “What for?” he asked.

     “Just do as he says, Klee,” said Bradford, raising his voice meaningfully.

     Klee hunkered down in the back seat. Rowlands removed his hat and slid down below the level of the dash. Twenty seconds later the patrol car sped past them.

Copper Ryder was keeping a sharp lookout.

     “There’s her ranch, Uncle Sky!” said the girl. “That’s funny. I don’t see any blue sedan, but I don’t see her station wagon either.”

     Sky nodded.

     “She usually parks it beside the house if she’s going to use it.” He pointed. “And look there.”

     “It’s one of the Sheriff’s cars,” said the girl.

     Sky reached for the radio handset.

     “We’d better find out if Winch sent anyone to keep an eye on Summer,” he said.

Summer Smithers inched herself toward the edge of the couch knowing that falling off was the only way she could help free Deputy Cole and herself, but aware that, bound as she was, she would have no way to break her short fall to the floor. Though the blindfold prevented her from seeing, her efforts to get to the edge had pulled two of the couch cushions away from the backrest. As she tried to wiggle herself off, the cushions came with her. When she finally did get her bound knees to the edge, the cushions tipped toward the floor and turned her fall into a slide. She could not help a slight twist to her left side as she slid, but the landing was a fairly soft one. Once on the floor, she used a slow hula type motion, alternating pushing with her knees and chest, to edge herself sideways to Deputy Cole’s chair.

“No, Sky,” said the voice of Sheriff Winchell from the speaker. “I didn’t send anyone to stay with Mrs. Smithers. It could be MacKeever and Norris. They might have stopped there on their way back to join the rest of us searching to the west. Over.”

     “This is Norris in Car Two, Sheriff,” said another voice. “We’ve started back west on Rock Canyon Road. We’re still about five miles east of her place. We can stop and check it out. Over.”

     Sky looked at the patrol car again.

     “This is Hummingbird,” he said. “Has anyone heard anything from Amy Cole lately? Over.”

     “Car Four. Car Four, this is Sheriff Winchell in Car One. Do you read me? Over.”

     There was silence for several seconds. Winchell tried again with no result.

     “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Winch,” said Sky. “I’m going down for a look. Over.”

     “Roger, Sky,” Winchell answered. “Car Two, stop at the Smithers ranch and help him out. Over.”

     “Willco that, Sheriff. Car Two out.”

     Sky looked at the ground behind Summer’s house. He edged the yoke forward.

     “We can put down just south of the corral, I think. Hold on, Copper. It could be a little rough.”

     The Hummingbird descended toward the dusty field.

Klee looked out the back windows of the station wagon.

     “I don’t see any cops,” he reported, looking less nervous.

     Rowlands looked toward the west, but his face was angled upward.

     “And I don’t see that guy’s plane either,” he said. “That’s what worries me more.”

     “Do you think he’d be able to get it off the ground so soon?” asked Klee. “Old Buster shot out the windshield before they got him.”

     “Poor Buster,” grunted Rowlands. “If this guy Ryder is smart enough to turn our ambush into one of his own he’s probably got a shed full of spare parts. I don’t think it’ll stop him for long.”

     “In that case,” said Bradford, “we’d better get rid of this car pretty quick too.”

     Rowlands thought for a moment.

     “Let’s get back to the hideout,” he said. “We’ll have to hide this car until dark. Then you two can take it and one of the other ones out to the other side of the county and leave it somewhere. Use the other one to get back. I’ve got to report to the boss lady.”

     “She ain’t gonna be happy,” observed Klee innocently.

     Bradford almost chuckled. Rowlands looked at Klee in the rearview mirror.

     “How do you think that Buster and Semels and Bice feel about it?” he said. “She’ll just have to think of something else.”

The Hummingbird came to a stop about two hundred yards from the house, but the engines did not stop. Sky reloaded his revolver with bullets from a box in the plane’s map compartment and stuffed a few more rounds in his pants pocket.

     “You stay here,” he told Copper. “If I wave my hand in a circle, you can cut the engines and come on in. If I make any other motions to you, no matter what they are, I want you to take off and radio for the Sheriff.”

     Copper gulped and nodded.

     “I understand, Sky, but can’t I come too? I want to help.”

     “They’ve already tried to ambush us once today,” Sky replied. “You can come in when I’m sure it’s safe.”

     This time it was Copper who made no argument.

     “Okay,” she said.

     Sky slipped out of the plane and took cover behind the corral fence. Using cover and concealment as much as possible, he made his way to the back door.

Amy Cole waited helplessly as Summer Smithers tried to find some way to attack the deputy’s bonds. The blindfold kept the attractive rancher from locating any of the knots in the sheets that held Amy in the chair. Summer had to reach blindly hoping to run into something. Being hogtied on the floor meant that her reach was very limited. Amy could hear Summer grunting with exertion and feel her bumping the chair legs but, hooded with the pillowcase and tightly gagged as she was, she could neither see nor direct Summer’s efforts.

     There was a noise at the back door. Both women mewed into their gags in alarm, then froze. They heard the door open very quietly. Soft and careful feet made their way across the kitchen into the living room.

     Someone was crouching in front of Amy. She could feel something touch the pillowcase. It was lifted off, and she found herself looking into the face of Sky Ryder. In his right hand was a pistol at the ready. She closed her eyes for a moment, mewing in relief into her gag. He reached behind her head with his left hand and loosened the gag knot enough to pull down the tie. She pushed the wadding out of her mouth and took in a deep breath.

     “Are they gone?” Sky whispered.

     “Yes,” she gasped, nodding for emphasis.

     She watched as he went to the back door and stepped outside, waving his hand in a circle overhead.

“I’m sure glad that everybody’s all right,” said Sheriff Winchell to the assembled group in Sky Ryder’s living room, “but I’d feel even better if I knew what this was all about.”

     Copper came in from the kitchen. She had a tray of mugs and a pot of coffee. Sergeant Connie Wade followed her carrying another tray loaded with bottles of cola and ice-filled glasses.

     “Coffee, Sheriff?” Copper asked brightly.

     The beginning of the group meeting was delayed as all participants crowded around for drinks. Copper poured coffee into mugs as the sergeant passed out soft drinks. As the members of the meeting received their drinks, they returned to their places. Sky sat in his favorite armchair; Winchell sat in a matching chair across from him. Captain Atkins, Copper, and Summer shared the couch. Sergeant Wade moved to the wooden chair that served Sky’s desk across the room, and next to her, in the little swivel chair on wheels that stood at the radio set was Deputy Amy Cole. Harry Tyler, chief deputy of the day shift, stood near Sergeant Wade. Fred Merrill stood by the end of the couch where Summer Smithers sat. When all were ready, Winchell stood up again, sipped from his cup and repeated his opening statement. All eyes went to Julie’s end of the couch. Sky sat only inches away.

     “Sheriff,” Julie began, “Sky and I talked a long time about how we were going to handle this. But before we do anything, everybody in this room has to understand that this is an important government operation and must be handled with absolute secrecy.”

     “Of course, Sheriff Winchell had to be included,” continued Sky. “And we decided that as few people as possible would know the situation, and either he or I would have to vouch for everyone here.”

     He looked intently at the circle of faces.

     “So you can be flattered that you’re in the room tonight. This is a very exclusive group.”

     Captain Atkins spoke again.

     “Does everyone understand the need for complete secrecy?”

     There were nods and murmurs of assent all around.

     “The reason I’m here,” said Julie, “and the reason those men came to this ranch this afternoon, is that the Air Force has lost a bit of property.”

     She went on to describe the balloon and its cargo without divulging its exact purpose, something of how it had been lost and the Air Force’s guess that it had fallen somewhere on either Sky’s ranch or possibly on Summer’s.

     “On my ranch!” Summer gasped in alarm. She put a hand to her breast. “You mean those men are agents of a foreign government and they might come back again to look for this whatever-it-is attached to the balloon?”

     Sky smiled reassuringly.

     “I don’t think they’d come to the house and attack you,” he said. “There’d be no reason to think that you had it sitting in the living room. But they might have men search your fields and any place that doesn’t get much traffic.”

     Winchell added:

     “We know the identities of the men killed or taken into custody today. They’re mostly small-time criminals with long records, not enemy agents. We figure that they were just hired for the job and really don’t know what they’re involved in. So without mentioning anything you’ve heard here tonight, have Ken and your other men on the lookout for any strangers poking around and for anything that looks like the wreckage of a balloon. ”

     “Oh, I will, Sheriff!” Summer replied. She lowered her eyes demurely and added: “I’d hate to have to ask Sky to save me again.”

     “Well, I didn’t really do very much this afternoon,” said Sky. He looked at Merrill. “The one who really risked his life to save you last time was Fred.”

     She looked up at the big foreman and patted his arm.

     “I guess that’s true. I never really did thank you properly, did I, Fred?” she said. She turned immediately back to Sky.

     Copper had been watching the exchange between Summer and her uncle, as well as checking Julie’s reactions, like someone watching a tennis match. She caught a glimpse of an expression of near-rapture flitting across Merrill’s face.

     “Yes, that was terribly brave of Fred, don’t you think?” the girl put in. “I mean it looked like the house was about to go up in flames with you and Deputy Cole inside all tied up and gagged and---“

     “We don’t need to go into anymore detail about us when we were rescued,” interrupted Amy Cole. She looked at Copper and added: “Or about you either.”

     Sky and Winchell laughed. Harry Tyler, who had only heard the story, grinned. Amy smiled slightly. Merrill’s suntanned face turned noticeably red. He looked at Summer uncertainly. She smiled up at him. The two Air Force women looked puzzled.

     “Is there something we don’t know about, here?” asked Julie.

     Copper noticed Sky’s frown in her direction.

     “Some other time,” said Copper.

     “For now, the important thing is to keep Captain Atkins safe,” continued Sky. “To do that, Sheriff Winchell is going to detail a team to stand guard at their motel while they’re there and a female officer to stay in the room with them.”

     Winchell looked at Deputy Cole.

     “That’s either you, Amy, or Sue,” he said.

     “Right, Sheriff,” said Amy with a nod.

     “The team on guard will escort Captain Atkins car from the motel to Sky’s ranch in the morning,” said Winchell, “and a team from the second shift will take them back to town every evening.”

     Harry Tyler nodded.

     “Everybody got the plan?” asked Sky. When all had acknowledged he concluded: “So we start it tomorrow. With any luck, Operation Recovery should go very smoothly.”

Rowlands stood in the beautifully furnished living room of the ranch, his hat in his hand as the icily beautiful brunette considered his report.

     “So you let this man Ryder foil your ambush and drive you away without getting our Captain Atkins, did you?” she said. “Not a very brilliant job on your part, Rowlands.”

     If Rowlands had quailed before her imperious glance and tone in the afternoon, he was in no mood to do so now.

     “We didn’t let him do anything, Mrs. Dorrin,” he said flatly. “Somehow he got wise to us and had his own men and the Sheriff surprise us.”

     “And the two women were left alive as well,” she said. “They saw me and you too, Rowlands. That is very serious indeed.”

     “Bradford couldn’t get the bomb ready in time,” said Rowlands, “and there wasn’t time to do anything else. We barely got away as it was.”

     “You were worried about saving your own skins---“ she began.

     “Three of my men were killed as it was,” he interrupted with heat, “and two more wounded and taken by the Sheriff. If we didn’t do well enough, you can risk your own precious hide next time.”

     Mrs. Dorrin regarded him with surprise. He had more backbone than she had at first thought.

     “Very well. What steps have you taken since then?”

     “If you want us to get that lady captain for you, we’re going to need more men. I sent Duncan into Tucson to get a couple guys he knows and I called L. A. to a friend of mine. We should have four or five more men tomorrow.”

     “And what of Captain Atkins and her friends?”

     “Hammer and I watched them for a few hours tonight. They had some kind of big powwow at Ryder’s ranch. The Captain and her driver went back into town guarded by a couple Sheriff’s cars. They’re staying at a motel called ‘Amzie’s’ with two of the sheriff’s men watching and a female deputy in the room.”

     “Anything else?”

     “Bradford and Klee are dumping that car we stole from the lady rancher on the other side of the county. I hope it’ll convince Ryder and the Sheriff that we’ve left town.”

     “Good.”

     She rose from her comfortable chair and walked toward a large sliding glass door covered, at the moment, by a thick curtain.

     “It is a good thing you will have more men tomorrow,” she said musingly. “But I think that the job we have here calls for a woman’s touch.”

     She strolled to the edge of the curtains and pulled on the drawstring. The curtains parted to show a swimming pool set in a flagstone deck illuminated by torches. Two young women were laughing and frolicking in the water, but when they heard Mrs. Dorrin slide the glass door open they both turned to her. One was a fresh-faced brunette the other an angelic blonde. Both were quite beautiful and the brief bikinis they wore covered very little of their luscious bodies.

     “Did you want something, Aunt Joanna?” asked the blonde.

     Joanna Dorrin turned to Rowlands. The man looked awestruck.

     “And my nieces,” she said with a superior smile, “are just the women we need.”