Seven Lies South

13

Someone had once told Beecher of a scientist who had had a dream of a universal formula which would solve all the world’s social and economic problems. Waking in dazed excitement, the scientist had scribbled down the precious equation before falling back into contented sleep. In the morning he had eagerly snatched up the pad from his bedside table. He had found this one sentence: “The world smells vaguely of tinctured iodine.”

Beecher thought about this; in some way it seemed to illuminate his own condition. He was breathing, so he must be alive; but the air he breathed was sharp with an acrid, virtuous odor, the worthy stench he had always associated with chemistry classes. His world smelled vaguely of tinctured iodine, and he took a confused comfort from that; things could not be altogether bad as long as students were still creating such volatile horrors in their test tubes.

He didn’t know whether he was sitting, standing, or lying flat on his face. Finally he opened his eyes. This didn’t help him; he seemed to be completely without physical orientation, perceptions blurred by nausea and pain. The desert stood like a wall before him, green and roughly surfaced, slanting sharply upward to a white sky. The effect was illusory, he decided, blinking his eyes; he was lying on his stomach, cheek resting on metal and staring out the doorway of the airplane. The position of his head and eyes gave him a foreshortened view and caused the earth to leap skyward at a steep, dizzying angle.

The noise of the fire had died away, but the ship was thick with a ropy, oily smoke; it swung in thick, luxuriant loops, heavy with moisture.

There was motion beyond the range of his eyes; a draft stirred slowly, and the beadings of moisture in the air sparkled in the sunlight. The curtains of smoke parted: Beecher saw a pair of slender ankles swinging toward him. There was the tap of high heels, the nylon shine of swiftly moving legs, and then the slight pressure of a knee against his shoulder, the softness of a small hand on his forehead.

He turned his head slightly and stared into Ilse’s face. There were smudges on her forehead and cheeks, and her thick black hair was in disorder; it hung loosely on her shoulders, and when she leaned forward a strand of it brushed his lips.

“Mike?” she said.

“Yes?”

“The fire is out. I used the thing — the red can with the hose.”

“The fire extinguisher.”

“Yes.”

Beecher lay without stirring, the pressure of her knee against his shoulder, the strand of hair touching his face. He waited like a man with his head on the block.

“Are you all right, Mike? Can you stand?”

Beecher got unsteadily to his feet, with her hands at his elbow. He pulled away from her and braced himself in the open door of the plane. There was nothing but the desert beyond the shining ledge of black shale; the cactus stretched away like rows of rank cabbage, and everything was hot and motionless under the white sky. Inside the plane there were creaking, twisting noises, as metals strained fitfully against the cooling pressures of the extinguishing chemicals. The hairs were burned from the backs of his hands, and his fingers found a raw, sticky lump above his right ear.

Finally he turned and stared at Ilse. The interior of the ship was clearing, the smoke drifting in thick coils toward the draft at the open doorway. She was smoothing down her slim black skirt.

Beecher caught her wrist, and twisted it until she cried out in sudden pain and anger.

“Stop it!”

“Why did they leave you here?”

“They didn’t know I was on the plane. Stop it, Mike. God! Stop it!”

Beecher didn’t believe her for an instant; this was the old bitter pattern, another trick, a fresh deception. “I want the truth,” he said.

She twisted desperately against him, but he tightened his grip until tears started suddenly in her eyes, and the tendons in her throat stood up like fine knives under the smooth skin.

“They left you here,” he said. “Are they coming back?”

“I don’t know! I tried to keep you out of it.”

“You knew all along what Don Willie was planning?”

“Yes! Yes! I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t hurt him. But I tried to save you. To keep you out of it.”

Beecher released her arm. She sat down on the arm of a charred seat and began to cry. “I hate to give you this satisfaction,” she said weakly. The tears ran through the smudges on her cheeks, and her lips trembled like those of a hurt but defiant child. “It’s all any of you want. To make us crawl to you.”

Beecher took out his cigarettes and lit one. “Let’s have your story,” he said.

She wet her lips. “Can I have a cigarette?”

“No. Start talking.”

“I knew Don Willie was stealing this plane.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “He and Lynch talked about it. I heard them. Then I learned they could not use the Frenchman. He was too borracho. They talked about you.” She shook her head quickly. “I thought I could save you without hurting Don Willie. I went to your villa for cigarettes. I tried to say things that might make you think the job was not good. But it was no use. The next morning I went to Don Julio and told him the lies about the black market. I thought he would arrest you, hold you in Mirimar until the plane was gone. But it made me too ashamed. I could not go on lying. Last night I left for Madrid in Don Willie’s car. But I couldn’t run away. I came back and left the car at the Black Dove. I took a cab to the airport. I don’t know what I was thinking about. You were all inside. The plane was standing alone in the darkness.”

Beecher remembered that he had heard a cab drive up to the airport while he and Lynch had been waiting in the lounge. The pilot and co-pilot had been there, too, drinking coffee at the dimly lighted bar.

“Good God!” he said.

“What is it?”

Beecher looked up and down the length of the plane. Thin trails of smoke stirred innocently in the air. The door of the baggage compartment was open; this space was empty, he saw, except for a few sacks of mail. Beecher had felt that nothing but selfish concerns could ever touch him again. But he remembered the dark-haired pilots, and their talk at the airport. One had a mother-in-law problem. But it hadn’t been a cartoon situation. He’d been worried about the old woman’s happiness. But he obviously couldn’t make Pepa see that.

And he never would, Beecher knew. Because both pilots were dead. The knowledge made him feel weak and sick. It must have happened while Laura was sitting beside him at the co-pilot’s control column. He remembered the sudden drastic lurch of the plane; Lynch must have got the door open against the wind-stream and pushed or thrown both men into the sea.

“What is it?” Ilse asked again.

“Go on with your story,” he said hoarsely.

“I went onto the plane. No one saw me. The baggage compartment was full of boxes and mail bags. I hid in the back of it. I thought I could talk to Don Willie when the plane landed. But I was afraid. I stayed hidden. I didn’t think they would all go. But the fire started, and they went away in the truck. I took the fire thing—” She shrugged wearily. “I don’t remember what you call it. I put out the fire. That’s all.”

“And you did this for me? Just to save poor stupid old Mike Beecher’s neck?”

“I didn’t want you to be killed. You or any other innocent man.” She looked bitterly at the mark of his hand on her wrist. “It wasn’t personal.”

“Pure altruism, eh? It’s rare these days.”

“I don’t care if you believe me.”

“Whether I believe you or not doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. And why you stowed away doesn’t interest me at all.” Beecher flipped his cigarette out the door. “You’re all a pack of liars. If you make a fool of me again it’s my own goddamn fault. Get this straight; there’s nothing on my mind but staying alive. My only interest is whether you’re going to help or hurt my chances.” Beecher realized that his voice had risen; he was shouting at her now, and he could see fear in her eyes. That was fine, he thought; he was sick of being the only frightened rabbit in the garden. “Have you got that straight?”

“How can I help? What can I do?”

“Collect everything in the plane we might be able to use. Water bottles, blankets, first-aid kits, clothing of any kind. Look around under the seats and in the wash rooms. Candy, gum, matches, don’t miss anything, you understand?”

She nodded slowly.

The ship’s emergency ladder was hooked to the threshold of the doorway. Beecher climbed down to the ground. He walked around the plane and studied the props, the engines and tail assembly. There were stones the size of coconuts wedged in front of the tires. He kicked them out of the way, and checked the landing gear. The plane might still fly; if the fire hadn’t burned out the electrical system, he could probably get it into the air. But there was damn little gas left. About twenty gallons, he guessed. He could expect about a mile to the gallon, and that would still leave him seventy miles from Goulamine. When the gas ran out he’d be no better off than he was now. And to fly those twenty pointless miles he’d have to risk getting the ship into the air, and finding a level spot to put it down.

The sky was wide and empty. He was already perspiring uncomfortably after a few minutes exertion. The heat was intense now, and the only break in the silence was an occasional stir of wind on the dry ground. He stood in the shade of the port wing and stared around at the horizon. It was a clear white line, a million miles away. There were mountains in the distance that looked as smooth and soft as butter. But they were unlike any mountains he had ever seen; they were beautiful and quiet and dead. The last thing made the difference, he thought; those calm waves of sand had never known or supported life.

Beecher became aware of thirst; the dryness in his throat was sharpening in the hot dry air. It was only imagination, he knew, a residual fear stemming from the folklore of motion pictures: legionnaires throwing themselves in howling rage at baking water holes; men in lifeboats clawing at each other like animals for the last trickle in a canteen or bottle.

In the Air Force he had studied survival manuals, and he tried to remember some of their statistics and injunctions. In the shade you could live a couple of days with a quart of water. But sun and exertion cut the time in half. The survival range of a quart of water was fifteen to twenty miles. You could walk that far providing there was occasional shade to rest in. Keep calm, keep your head; all the booklets agreed on the wisdom of that. Don’t exert yourself unnecessarily. No push-ups or tap-dancing, Beecher thought. He could imagine an officer in pinks typing out survival information. With a glass of iced tea at his elbow.

There was coffee on the plane, Beecher thought. And he wondered if Ilse was drinking it. He climbed back into the ship.

Ilse had piled supplies in the clearing in front of the baggage compartment. There were first-aid kits in canvas sacks, two suitcases which he knew belonged to Lynch and Laura, and an aluminum stretcher with the name IBERIA printed on the sailcloth rigging. He saw the bag of sandwiches and thermos of coffee.

Ilse was watching him. “You look hot,” she said. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Is there some left?”

“I didn’t drink any.” She turned from him and sat on the arm of a seat. “I left it for you. You want to live so much more than I do.”

Beecher shrugged and looked out the door at the desert. He had said it didn’t make any difference whether or not she was telling the truth; but that wasn’t the case. If Don Willie had left her here there was a chance he’d be coming back. Beecher realized he would have to take the plane up, if only to put the twenty miles between himself and Don Willie. Then he remembered the diamond-bright flash he had seen below them as they flew south into the desert from Goulamine. Trees circling a bowl-shaped depression, and a gleam of something through scrubby branches. It might be shale or mica or lime-rock, he knew, but the trees were evidence of water somewhere in the area. How far back was that little oasis? With just twenty minutes of flying time, there wouldn’t be any tolerance for errors. He’d have to hit it like an arrow. But Lynch had given him only one heading out of Goulamine, and it would be simple to turn that bearing around one hundred and eighty degrees and fly back to the oasis on a northern course. How close he’d get would depend on gas.

Beecher went forward to the pilot’s compartment and tested the control column and electrical system. If he could get the ship into the air, if he found water, if he could make it to Goulamine in some manner...

Curiously, he wasn’t thinking at all of Don Willie or Laura or the Englishman. They were like strangers who had turned a corner and walked from his life. This must be the kind of maturity Don Julio had talked about, he thought; a contained and constant concern for your own hide, the refusal to let your emotions explode in irrelevant passion. Someone had said that revenge was a dish a connoisseur preferred cold; this too was maturity, Don Julio would agree.

Ilse came to the door of the cockpit and watched him with a curious little frown.

Beecher said: “I’m going to try to get this crate into the air. You want to come along?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You can stay here.”

“If I stayed here and died of thirst it wouldn’t matter to you.”

“That’s beside the point.”

She stared at him with a faint, bitter smile touching her lips. “It’s almost funny,” she said. “I tried to help you because you were so kind and innocent — like a helpless child compared to the others. I didn’t know you, did I?”

Beecher made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Are you coming along?”

“Yes. There’s nothing to wait for here. Don Willie isn’t coming back. That’s true, whether you believe it or not. I’d rather crash in the plane than die of thirst.”

“We aren’t going to crash,” Beecher said. “I’m due for some luck about now.” He went aft and locked the door in the bay of the ship, then returned to the pilot’s compartment. He started the port engine, flipping on the master switch and booster, and throwing on both magnetos. The prop stream sent sand screeching across the black shale. The starboard engine caught with a roar. Beecher swung the ship around, pointed its nose north.

“Sit down,” he said, and nodded to the co-pilot’s column. “Fasten the seat belt and hang on.”

The engines roared with solid power as the plane swept across the smooth flat shale. Beecher felt the ship straining to fly; he pulled the control back slowly and smiled as the ground fell away from them, and the plane swayed softly on cushions of air.