Read an Excerpt
Sky Birds Dare!
Breeze Callahan came into the hangar. He saw two things in the gloom, each one representing an entirely different emotion.
One was his soaring ship, ready for the trial flights.
The other was Badger O’Dowell.
Breeze Callahan swung six feet of brawn into action behind two sets of ferocity-hardened knuckles.
Badger O’Dowell had not been expecting this. He heard the rush of feet behind him. He heard a snarl which reminded him of a mother bear about to protect a foolish cub. And then Badger O’Dowell took off backwards, catapulted by the impact of meeting. Badger O’Dowell did a neat outside loop and then crashed.
For a man built on the proportions of a stuffed sausage, Badger O’Dowell moved very quickly. Dust swirled and he was on his feet. His two protruding eyes searched for the door. When he had oriented himself sufficiently and had directed his footsteps in that direction, Badger O’Dowell discovered too late that Breeze Callahan had all the skyway in that direction.
It was all very unfortunate for Badger O’Dowell. He tried to stop his rush before Breeze Callahan misconstrued his intention, but he could not.
It appeared to the lank tower of shivering, awe-inspiring rage that Badger was charging back to the fray.
Breeze Callahan was very obliging. He set himself. He let go one from the knees and did a spot landing on Badger’s chin. Badger completed a wingless soaring record, skidded to a stop in the corner of the hangar and screamed.
“Don’t hit me! For God’s sake don’t hit me!”
But Breeze wasn’t a man to enquire deeply into things when his new soaring plane was in question, and he suspected, with very great reason, that Badger O’Dowell had been discovered in the act of sabotage. Breeze advanced and Badger screamed.
Breeze snatched at O’Dowell’s collar, and then it became apparent that he had walked into a trap. A six-inch spanner soared up out of the dust, came down and laid open the side of Callahan’s face.
Breeze staggered, spouting blood and nerve-shaking oaths. Badger O’Dowell threw the spanner away, leaped to his feet and sprinted for the exit.
Callahan cleared the red film from his eyes. Everything was suddenly zero-zero to him, and he had no beam to guide a blind pilot. He heard a motor snarl into life. He heard gears clash. He heard Badger O’Dowell leave there at about seventy miles an hour.
Which was just as well.
Breeze swabbed his face with some dirty cotton waste, and his curses simmered down to ineffectual “Dirty so-and-so, lousy bum, good-for-nothing . . .”
Another silhouette appeared in the hangar door. “Hey, what’s going on in here?” said Pop Donegan. “I thought I heard . . . Hell, you’re all cut up, Breeze. What happened?”
“That little sawed-off, mangy . . . That guy Badger O’Dowell was in here fooling with the Chinook.”
Pop Donegan looked up at Breeze. Everybody had to look up at Breeze, and almost anybody had a good chance of looking through him.
Pop Donegan was all concern for the soaring plane, but he smiled—he always smiled—and said optimistically, “Well, he didn’t have time to do anything, no matter how much he wanted to.”
“Is that so,” said Breeze. “Don’t stand there looking helpless. Get busy and inspect the thing. My God, the wings are torn off and he’s kicked holes in the fuselage, and he’s jimmied the controls. . . .”
This was not altogether true, and Breeze was not exactly qualified to pass upon it, as he could not see through the blood which kept coming out of the cut. But he was very certain that these things had happened, and anybody who knew Badger O’Dowell, and who knew just why he hated Breeze Callahan, would have agreed with Breeze without further remark.
Pop Donegan looked at the soaring ship, with his hands in his pockets. To inspect it thoroughly a man would have to crawl under it and somehow—because of rheumatism, Pop said—he never crawled under anything that looked like work. Pop shifted a healthy chew, spat so that a small geyser leaped out of the dust, and cocked his head on one side.
“She looks all right, Breeze. Perfectly all right.”
By this time Breeze had gotten to a water faucet and had thrust his head into the tub beneath, and by buckling his helmet tight, he managed to keep his sight clear. He rambled over to the Chinook and began to run practiced fingers over the sleek wings and frail body of the motorless plane.
After a little he was satisfied that Badger O’Dowell had done nothing wrong. Breeze stood up straight, lighted a cigarette and leaned on the cockpit.
“Have they come yet?”
“Patty came a little while ago. She’s trying to start the tow car for you. Oh, don’t you worry, Breeze. They’ll be along directly. We’ve waited and worked for months over this thing, and they won’t stay away now. And we can’t fail this time. No sir, we can’t fail. Why with you at the Chinook’s controls, them Navy fellers will see that a soaring plane can do things a power plane never thought of doing, and then we’ll be all set.”
“Hmph,” said Breeze, dragging smoke into his lungs. “I haven’t had her off for a week and there’s plenty of wind today. I wish they’d get here. I’m nervous.”
“Now you just calm yourself, Breeze. They can’t help but think that this is the finest thing which has happened in the way of training. I’m willing to bet you . . .”
Voices came from outside. Breeze stood up straight and rambled toward the door.
