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Title: Fire of retribution
Author: Laurence Donovan
Release date: August 9, 2024 [eBook #74215]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Frank A. Munsey Company, 1928
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRE OF RETRIBUTION ***
[Illustration: He heard the old man’s voice and knew he was all right]
FIRE OF RETRIBUTION
For a man who never flew before to step from an airplane into
space thousands of feet above the earth--that takes nerve! Yet
old Beth knew that was the only slim chance for his fire-trapped
logging crew
By LAURENCE DONOVAN
“Slow timed fire bombs started the blaze--we run onto one of them that
hadn’t exploded! Whoever done it knew a cross-fire would trap th’ men at
the camp--”
Old Beth’s gaunt face worked with a grim tightening around his lips.
“Reckon you boys could fly ’round the fire ’fore it hits th’ camp. I
ain’t ever been up in a plane, but I’ve heard you could drop a man
anywhere with one of them parachutes--I’ll take a chance. We gotta put
an intake valve on that engine, load th’ men an’ make a run for it down
th’ mountain.”
Nick Mims, fire patrol pilot, demurred at first, not because he lacked
the guts to go, but orders were orders.
According to the old logger, Beth, his camp high on Round Top mountain
was cut off by the fire from all the trails leading down. And once the
flames sweeping up the slopes had reached the camp, there was no escape.
“But, Nick, we gotta do it.”
Five or six times during old Beth’s recital, Jack Singer, mechanic and
relief pilot, had reiterated this. In the back of young Singer’s mind
was the thought of his wife, Nellie. She was camping with friends in the
Priest Lake vicinity. Last year there had been a bad fire there, too.
Supposing Nellie were trapped? Jack kept thinking of that.
“We gotta do it,” he affirmed, impatiently.
“Yeh,” agreed Nick at last, reluctantly. “An’ if we crash, it’s curtains
for our jobs--if we get out.”
“Them boys must be facin’ hell up there right now,” said Beth. “They can
see the blaze for miles. The dinky-engine will come hell-beltin’ down
th’ grade through th’ cutover stuff--she might make it if we could only
get her started. But th’ dinky’s settin’ on a mile of level track--gotta
have that intake fixed ’fore they could fire ’er.”
“Who’d you think set the fires?” asked Nick, his gray eyes glinting.
“You sort o’ put a crimp in Hinton’s monopoly by gettin’ the rail right
o’ way ’cross his cutover land an’ runnin’ logs to the lake, didn’t
you?”
“Hinton wouldn’t murder my boys,” said Beth. “He’s my enemy, not
theirs.”
“Let’s go,” said the older pilot. “It’s a chance. We’ll fly around an’
volplane down over the mountain top. There ain’t ozone enough in the
draft over that fire to keep the motor turnin’.”
* * * * *
Old man Beth was making his first flight. He had had the parachute
strapped on, asking for detailed instructions about its use. He feared
the height; and the idea of jumping into two or three thousand feet of
space was appalling. But a score of his boys were in the fire-rimmed
camp. Old man Beth would give them their one slim chance of escape or he
would die with them.
Jack saw there was no shaking his intention.
“Dinky engineer there,” he asked, “to put in the valve and get ’er out?”
“I’ll get ’er patched up,” evaded the old man. “I been ’round dinky
engines a lot”
Jack knew then it was as he suspected. The dinky engineer was not in the
camp. Probably not a man there was mechanic enough to install and adjust
an intake valve properly, let alone drive the dinky down that perilous
ten-mile grade to the terminal at the mouth of the St. Joe on the lake.
If old Beth were sure the jump meant death, he’d jump out of the plane
regardless.
“You’ll likely land in a tree-top,” Nick told Beth. “Don’t try to slip
through if you do. The ’chute will hang you up. Grab on, cut your straps
an’ climb down if you can. Cut your cord as soon as you jump. I’ll zoom
the ship so you’ll be safe enough.”
Nick sent the plane along the Cœur D’Alene lake shore until they were
directly opposite the mouth of the St. Joe River and the circling fire
on Round Top mountain above it. He banked the Stearman, pulled the
control stick hard back and climbed.
Beth groaned when the plane had topped the drifting gray smoke. The
flames had been rushing up the mountain at greater speed than he had
figured. Less than two miles, as nearly as he could judge, separated the
logging camp site from the fire.
Jack watched Beth, and he knew when the old man turned sick. The draft
of hot air from the flames, roaring over the mountain top made the going
bumpy. The big Stearman rocked, dropped, caught the air cushion and
bounced along through the air holes. Jack’s own stomach was not sitting
so pretty and he was aware that Beth was having a bad time of it.
This form of air sickness is closely akin to seasickness and it requires
all of a man’s nerve to keep a stiff upper lip. But Beth’s mouth was a
straight line. He was looking down through the floor windows and he
touched Jack’s shoulder.
Jack had a glimpse of white through the trees a mile or so down the
mountainside. The camp then was still untouched, but at any moment a
drifting brand borne on the wind might jump the fire along for the extra
mile or two.
At a point about fifteen hundred feet above the mountainside, where he
dared swing no closer to the dangerous updraft from the fire, Nick idled
the engine for an instant and called out:
“Close as we can come--get set an’ jump when I swung!”
Although his face was tinged with a grayish pallor, old man Beth arose
and stood ready while Jack unlatched the door. Jack saw that Beth did
not look down and he knew why. Sheer grit is required to step off into
nothingness. The old man was looking only at the door. His right hand
was on the ’chute’s rip cord.
Nick gave the motor the gas and tilted the wings sharply.
“Now!” he shouted and waved his hand.
* * * * *
Beth took one firm step toward the door and vanished over the side. Jack
turned instantly, touched Nick’s shoulder, and before the older pilot
could remonstrate, dropped out the open door after the old man.
Nick was not so surprised as Jack expected he might be. He had known all
the time that Jack would take the jump. He had kept silent because he
did not want Jack to know that he knew. Nick swung the plane back toward
the mountain top.
It was his job to get back to the mouth of the St. Joe and have
emergency facilities ready. They would be needed if the desperate
attempt at rescue succeeded.
Jack was relieved when he saw that Beth’s ’chute had opened. Two or
three hundred feet below him the round top of the ’chute was swinging in
the wind. Underneath he caught a glimpse of Beth’s swaying body. He saw
all of this in the split seconds it required him to fall head downward
past Beth’s ’chute. He wanted Beth to know he was with him, so he did
not rip his cord until he was a hundred feet or so under the old man.
When his umbrella spread, he waved his hand and shouted. He heard the
old man’s voice and knew he was all right.
The wind created by the miles of solid fire front below swept the
’chutes swiftly toward the mountain side. The worst moment of their
descent was at hand. Jack had been hung in the spike-topped cedars on
previous occasions. But he was the lucky one of the pair this time. The
edge of his ’chute twisted off a branching limb, and although Jack
landed with a jolt, he was on the ground unhurt. Old man Beth was less
fortunate.
Beth’s umbrella was spiked squarely in the top of a slender cedar. Jack,
freeing himself from the straps, got under the tree. Beth was fumbling
with the cords and Jack saw he was cutting them.
A hard object came hurtling through the air and narrowly missed Jack’s
head. Jack smiled grimly. It was the new intake air valve for the dinky.
“Get th’ valve--don’t wait for me--I’ll make it down--”
Despite his own perilous situation, Beth’s mind was fixed on getting the
log train engine working. But Jack stayed below until he saw the old man
had freed himself and was making his way slowly down the tree. Beth
reached the lower limbs of the cedar and was attempting to cling to the
trunk when a branch snapped. He fell heavily at Jack’s feet, and Jack
grew sick as he saw how the old man’s leg had twisted under him.
Heedless of Beth’s protests, Jack got him to his shoulder and started
down the mountain toward the camp. He was making slow progress when he
heard a crashing in the bush. Four or five of the logging crew had seen
the plane and the ’chutes. They contrived a rough sling for old man
Beth, and one of the men hurried ahead with Jack to the camp.
Occasional brands and sparks were falling near by. Jack looked along the
twisting log track, with its light, rusted rails, and his heart sank.
Men of the logging crew crowded around, a new hope succeeding the black
despair with which they had watched the crawling blaze. Jack had the
pipes apart and the intake valve in place when Beth was brought in. His
fractured leg did not prevent the old man from thinking.
“Grab down the canvas an’ souse it in the springs,” he directed. “Get
the wet canvas an’ all th’ gunny sacks we’ve got onto the cars--when we
get goin’, every man wrap himself up--it’ll likely be hotter’n blue
hell, but the wet rags’ll help.
“The track doesn’t hit the heavy timber--goes across the cutover land,
so it ain’t likely there’ll be any trees blockin’ ’er. The cutover’ll be
hot, but we couldn’t go through th’ tall stuff.”
* * * * *
Plenty of willing hands piled wood into the firebox when the valve job
was done. Whether they survived or perished, Jack was glad he had come.
Inexpert hands, he was sure, could not have installed the intake valve.
Jack’s only twinge of conscience concerned Nellie. But had she known,
she would have had him do as he did. She was game, was Nellie.
Jack watched the needle creep up on the steam gauge. The suspense of
waiting for power to move was worse than all the rest had been. Jack
helped get the dripping tent canvas on the cars to help protect the men.
Bearded, silent, overgrown boys they were. Some had the strained look
around their eyes that told what the hours of watching the approach of
the blazing death had meant.
At last the steam hissed from the safety cock. Beth advised that they
haul three of the flat cars. He figured it would give the men more room
to fight the blaze, if the wet canvas proved insufficient to safeguard
them. With two men stoking the firebox, Jack tested the throttle. The
dinky coughed and its four teetering wheels bit into the rails. They
were beginning to move.
Some one shouted from the rear car. A brand had fired the woods directly
behind them and the blaze was spreading. They were moving in the nick of
time. Some of the men shouted again, and Beth called to Jack to stop.
Jack could not hear distinctly, but when he had shut off the steam, Beth
told him to wait for a minute.
“Three or four campers from up on the mountain just got into the
clearin’,” Beth explained across the top of the tender. “They’re gettin’
’em covered with canvas on our last car. There--they’re all clear--let
’er go.”
The dinky coughed and the wheels spun again. Jack got no reassurance as
to the light engine’s stability from the rocking movement over the
poorly built track, even at its first slow speed. The track ran for a
mile on a level grade around the mountainside. This had been the loading
spur. The dinky dragged the flats at a speed of less than ten miles an
hour. To Jack, accustomed to the rushing take-off of his planes, they
seemed scarcely to move. The acrid tang of the wood smoke drifted into
the open cab and stung Jack’s nostrils and throat.
He should have provided himself with one of the wet sacks or a strip of
canvas. But old man Beth had thought of that, too. A lumberjack came
climbing over the wood on the tender, dragging a wet canvas. Jack
wrapped one end around his shoulders and trailed the remainder for the
stocky little Irishman who was poking wood into the firebox.
The dinky puffed nobly and its wheels slipped and screamed on the rails
as it strove to gather speed, despite the dragging weight of the flat
cars. The chuffing exhaust drowned all other sound. The tall cedars and
Ponderosa pine trees began to move past more swiftly. It was like riding
a smoke-filled tunnel.
Just before the dinky reached the downgrade curve, a vagary of the wind
swept the smoke back. Jack had a view of thin rails that dipped suddenly
over the brink and corkscrewed down the mountain. He figured he would
hold the dinky to low speed until they actually entered the heated zone.
But the brakes?
Good Lord! He had not thought of that.
* * * * *
The logging train was not equipped with air appliances. Hand brakes on
the flats were used to ease the loads of logs down the mountain. Jack
sent his fireman back over the tender to instruct the men about the
brakes. And, if they got into fire so hot that the men could not expose
themselves, well--Jack refused to think further along that line.
Jack had thought he had taken extreme risks in the planes. But up in the
air you could see something. Now the smoke closed in again and he was
compelled to draw a corner of the wet canvas across his mouth and nose.
They were on the very brink of the grade. Instead of the dinky pulling
the flats, Jack could now feel the shoving weight of the cars. The dinky
was leaping ahead and down. If he had only thought of those brakes
sooner. But the wheels squealed and grated on the rails. The men of the
logging crew knew their stuff. For a mile they eased along, the smoke
lifting and dropping, alternately shutting off Jack’s wind and giving
him a chance to breathe.
Jack’s fireman crouched under the corner of the damp canvas. The dinky
and the flats would run by gravity all the way to the transfer pier on
the St. Joe River, if they held the rails.
The smoke lifted. For an instant Jack had a sense of relief. But the
reason for the sudden swirling of the smoke wiped that out. A sheeted
wall of flame leaped across the track ahead. The men on the cars had
seen it, too. Jack felt the dinky lurch forward. The brakes on the flats
had been released.
It seemed to Jack that the weight behind must hurl the rolling little
engine from the rails. But the drive-wheel flanges were tapered for just
that sort of thing. The wheels screeched, but they held.
The flames sent a stinging tongue through the cab window. Jack
instinctively jerked the corner of the canvas over his face. The hot
wind tore at him like a breath from a furnace. He smelled the hair
singeing on the backs of his hands. The little Irishman crawled close to
his legs under the canvas. The dinky and the flats had become a blind
rocket rushing down the mountainside.
The dinky rocked and lurched. Jack prayed inside that there might be
nothing across the rails. He groaned as he thought of what would happen
if a burned tree had fallen to block their way. He hoped that if they
failed that he might be utterly destroyed. That would be better for
Nellie than having him brought home afterward.
Jack risked a look ahead. The corner of the wet canvas was steaming. In
front on either side the blaze was leaping and licking at short growth
trees. Beth had been right. Only the fact that this was cutover land,
small stuff, might save them. In the heavier timber of the virgin forest
they would not have had a chance.
Their rushing speed now was more like the swift dash of an airplane. But
a plane could go up. The dinky and the flats could only become a twisted
mass of wood and iron if they were ditched. A blast, hotter than all the
others, scorched Jack’s face. He got his head under the wet canvas again
before he breathed, which was well. One draught of that blaze into his
lungs and whether they held the track or plunged into the superheated
ground would not have mattered to him.
It seemed like an hour or more they had been tearing along, hemmed in by
the blaze. Probably it was no more than a minute, for the swathe of the
fire was less than a mile in width. A quick cooler draught struck Jack’s
face. He pulled away the canvas. For the first time since leaving the
upper level he could see the track ahead. Two snaky rails were running
toward him and disappearing under the dinky.
Jack heard the wheels squeal again. The men were striving to set the
brakes. Their speed did not seem to lessen perceptibly. He heard a loud
snap on one of the flats. A brake chain had parted. One of the men came
crawling over the top of the tender, clinging to the swaying sides.
“We can’t hold ’er!” he shouted. “Don’t try brakin’ th’ dinky--you’ll
pile ’er up.”
* * * * *
Curves where the track disappeared shot up the mountain toward them, and
miraculously disappeared under the engine and cars just when Jack was
sure they would be catapulted into the wall on one side or over the
precipice on the other.
“If she holds we kin check ’er on th’ loadin’ pier--gotta mile run
there,” said the lumberjack in Jack’s ear.
A long straight stretch of track, steeply pitched, loomed ahead. They
were out of the fire zone now. Bushes and small trees became a weaving
wall of green on either side. The dinky plunged into a cut. Jack
breathed easier.
“Cross th’ highway just ahead,” yelled the lumberjack. “State road
’round th’ lake.”
Jack had a flash of the road. It wound up alongside the track on one
side before it crossed. On the other it disappeared abruptly behind the
wall of the cut. Jack thought of his whistle, but the steam was down.
The whistle made no sound.
The automobile roadster that shot from behind the wall of the cut almost
cleared the rails ahead of the rushing dinky. Jack thought it had,
until, in a brief backward glance, he saw the little car turning over
and over down the steep bluff below the highway. That same flashing view
revealed another car coming down the highway and then the dinky shot
around a curve and the scene was shut off.
“God!” cried Jack, “I hope nobody’s killed.”
“Musta heard th’ dinky,” said the lumberjack. “Can’t be helped now--only
a mile to go--’round that next bend--I’m goin’ back--we’ll try an’ stop
’er.”
The dinky and the flats, with brakes grinding, stopped on the long level
stretch of the transfer tracks. Nick was among the first to reach the
dinky. Jack felt strangely light and a confused blur of faces danced
before him.
“Jack! Oh, Jack!”
He opened his eyes with warm, moist lips on his own. Nellie? It couldn’t
be Nellie down here. She was camping up at Priest Lake.
But it was. She had been with the party that had gone for the trip up
Round Top mountain. She was one of the party that had been under the
canvas on that last flat.
Jack struggled to his feet despite the protests of Nellie and Nick. He
saw old man Beth lying on a stretcher ready to be placed in a car. Beth
reached out his hand. He tried to speak, but no words came.
A man came hurrying across the transfer pier from the office. He came
straight to Beth.
“Hinton’s killed,” he said. “Just got the phone message from the fire
warden. He’d been chasing him. His roadster went off the highway, turned
over. Had a case of fire bombs in the back. Some of them
exploded--burned up the car--Hinton was caught underneath.”
“The mills of the gods,” said old man Beth in a hushed voice, his
fingers tightening on Jack’s hand.
THE END
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October 20, 1928 issue
of Argosy All-Story Weekly magazine.]
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