The Sandy Steele Mystery MEGAPACK®: 6 Young Adult Novels (Complete Series). Roger Barlow
but he might as well have hit a brick wall. His 155 pounds made no impression on Cavanaugh’s 200-plus.
“So you think you can fight the man who made three touchdowns against California,” Cavanaugh bawled drunkenly. “Well, take this for being an Injun lover!” He swung a short right to the jaw that snapped Sandy’s head back. “And this for your Injun-loving boss!” He followed with a stunning left. “And this for your snooty Ute!” He swung a haymaker that smashed through the boy’s weakened guard and hit his solar plexus like a bolt of lightning.
As he lay in the gutter, gasping desperately for breath, Sandy thought he heard the sound of running feet.
“And this,” Cavanaugh said deliberately, “is just part of what I owe Donovan for calling me a liar. Won’t he look like a fool tomorrow if my high sign comes through?”
Through bleared eyes, Sandy saw his enemy push Kitty aside and swing a heavy boot at his ribs.
At that moment, Ralph plunged into the little circle of lamplight. The Indian gripped Cavanaugh by one beefy shoulder and spun him around.
“This,” he raged, “is for a skunk who picks on people half his size and kicks them when they’re down!”
He dealt the bully a smashing blow under the ear.
“Fight! Fight!” somebody in the motel yelled. In an instant the building poured forth a mob of oilmen. They gathered in a circle around the combatants and shouted encouragement. A few of them egged Cavanaugh on, but the majority were rooting for his opponent.
Sandy sat up groggily, dabbed at his bleeding lips, and watched the battle with growing excitement. Ralph was many pounds lighter than the redhead, but he made up for that by being fast as a rattler. He avoided the big man’s efforts to go into a clinch that would give him time to clear his head of that first murderous punch. He danced about as his ancestors must have done at their buffalo ceremonials. He struck again and again—short, stabbing blows that soon cut Cavanaugh’s face to ribbons and closed his right eye.
The bully was no coward though, Sandy was surprised to discover. He fought doggedly, and managed to get in some damaging blows to the body that made his supporters cheer. But Ralph’s long reach held him too far away. He could not use his great strength to advantage. And it was plain that he was badly out of condition. Before three minutes had passed he was becoming winded.
“Kill the big bum, Fisheater,” a Navajo whooped from the edge of the crowd. “He asked for it. Kill ’im.”
“With pleasure,” Ralph answered. “Watch this, benighted Navajo. I learned it in Uncle Sam’s Navy.”
He started a right, almost from the pavement. Up and up it came, completely under Cavanaugh’s guard. It landed on the point of his chin with a crack like that of a whip!
The big man threw out his arms wildly, rocked back on his heels, and came crashing down, as a tree falls, into the gutter beside Sandy. He scrabbled about there for a moment, managed to get halfway to his knees, then slid forward on his face. Out!
The Navajo threw his big black cowboy hat on the street, jumped up and down on it in utter joy, and sent warwhoop after warwhoop echoing through the little town.
“Hand me my coat, John,” Ralph said to the producer, who had been coaching him from the sidelines. “If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late for that meeting.”
Kitty, who had stood close beside Sandy throughout the battle, alternately wringing her hands and jumping up and down with excitement as Ralph seemed to be getting the worst or best of it, now ran forward. As the crowd cheered again, she hugged her man until he had to beg her to spare his bruised ribs.
“Kitty,” said Hall, when Ralph had been carried away on the shoulders of admiring Navajos and Hopis who had run over from the Council Hall to witness the fracas, “will you take Sandy home and patch him up? He has a pretty deep cut on his cheekbone. Better drive him over in the jeep, if he feels like he looks.
“I’ve got to talk to Ken White about Cavanaugh. This situation is getting out of hand. I’ll come over as soon as I can.”
Half an hour later, Sandy pushed aside the cold compresses that Mrs. Gonzales had been applying to his face and sat bolt upright on the couch where he had been lying.
“Kitty,” he gasped. “I just thought! What was it Cavanaugh said about a high sign or something?”
“When he was getting ready to kick you, you mean?” she frowned.
“Yes. It had to do with Donovan, I think. I was pretty groggy at the time.”
“Oh! He said something like ‘Won’t Donovan feel like a fool tomorrow if my high sign comes through!’”
“That’s it! That’s it!” Sandy yelled as he pushed Mrs. Gonzales’ fluttering hands away and scrambled to his feet. “It could only mean that he’s expecting some sort of message tonight over his light beam. Ralph’s tied up, so I’ve got to go up there and try to find out what it is.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Kitty. “You’ve taken a bad beating. You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”
“But I’ve got to go,” he pleaded. “This may mean everything to John, and Don, and, yes, to you and Ralph too. I’m the only one who knows how to operate the ‘ear.’ I’m going right now. And you’re going to help me!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Think Like a Dog
“But how do I go about feeling like a dog?” Sandy groaned after he had explained his plan of action.
“You shouldn’t have any trouble about that.” Kitty smiled tenderly as she patted the last strip of bandage in place on his cheek. “You must feel awful.”
“That’s not what I mean. When Ralph went into Cavanaugh’s camp at Elbow Rock he wore a dog skin and made himself smell like a dog. But he said that wasn’t enough. He also had to feel and think like one. There’s a skin in the jeep. And you must know a kennel where I can roll around and get the smell. But how about the rest of it?
“Of course I’ve read The Call of the Wild, but that’s only Jack London’s idea of how dogs think. What I’ve got to find out quick is how they really feel.”
“I am an Indian,” Mrs. Gonzales spoke up suddenly. “Indians are wise in the ways of animals. You have heard that Indians of the old days were the world’s best horsemen, although they used no saddles, and sometimes no bridles. Why? I say it was because they could talk with their horses. Yes, and they honored their mounts as no other people have ever done by printing what was called a pat hand on the rumps of those who helped them win battles.” She held up the palm of her hand to show what she meant.
“Then there are our totems. Animals, all of them. To be a member of the buffalo clan, a young brave had to study the wild herds until he knew their every thought—what frightened them, what pastures they preferred, their mating habits. All that.
“What of the great cattle and sheep herds in which modern Navajos take such pride? They thrive where it seems only jack rabbits could live because their herdsmen understand their every need, care for them as if they were children, and weep, as for children, when they are injured or die.
“And consider the Hopi snake dances. Why should the rattlers not bite the dancers, except that they are friends? You do not believe me, Sandy?”
“Well,” he gulped, “it’s just that I am not an Indian…”
“But white men have been the friends of dogs since time began. You can learn to remember how a cave man felt when he and his dog slept back to back to protect themselves against the howling things outside in the night. You want to be among dogs, Sandy? Very well, I will call them here.”
She closed her black eyes and sat swaying slowly from side to side, making an almost inaudible whining, snuffling noise through her nose.
A