The Sandy Steele Mystery MEGAPACK®: 6 Young Adult Novels (Complete Series). Roger Barlow
reluctantly into the woods through the floodlight glare, with a heavy flashlight in either hand, gave him an idea.
Or was it Quiz who told him what to do? He shook his head dazedly. Almost, he could hear Quiz saying: “Where would Professor Moriarty least expect to find you, Sherlock Holmes?”
“Elementary, my dear Dr. Watson,” he whispered in reply. “In the trailer, of course.”
Gripping the breadboard in both hands, he made a last weak lunge at the circling Dobermans. They fled, yelping, from this blood-spattered terror.
Then he crawled frantically toward the open trailer door.
Safe inside, and with the door locked behind him, he hung onto a table and stared about him with eyes that were beginning to go out of focus.
He should find a cloth with which to bind up his wound, he knew. But he had no time.
The glittering light-beam mechanism caught his attention. That was the key to the whole situation! It must project a million candle-power, at least, to be seen at Elbow Rock. If he could turn it on Window Rock it would light up the village as bright as day.
There must be a wheel or something by which the light could be moved… There it was! On the control board to the right!
He twisted the little chrome wheel frantically, watching through a window as he did so. At first his aim was wild. Then, every street and building in Window Rock leaped into view, as though outlined by a lightning stroke.
There! That would tell them something was wrong up here.
He was sleepy and tired after all that effort. So sleepy! He sank into a chair in front of the beam console and pillowed his head on his bloody arms.
But something nagged him. What he had done wasn’t enough. Kitty was out there alone in the woods. Cavanaugh might come pounding on the trailer door at any moment. He had to tell them…tell them…tell them what? Why, where he was, and what was happening, naturally!
He jerked himself upright and started tearing at the mass of wiring that ran to the light beam modulator. Finally he got down to the heavy insulated lead-in wires…tore them loose.
The beam illuminating the village died away.
He slapped the leads together. The light blinked on.
“SOS,” he heliographed in Morse code remembered from Scouting field trips. “SOS. May Day. May Day.”
Surely somebody at Window Rock would know the code. Certainly Ralph did. He repeated the international distress calls again and again.
“SOS. May Day!” he spelled out, his cold fingers making many mistakes. “Sandy Steele and Kitty on the Rock. Cavanaugh trying to kill us. Send help. SOS. May Day! Sandy Steele and Kitty on the Rock. Cavanaugh…”
He fell forward across the console.
The smash of some heavy object against the door brought him back to semi-consciousness.
“Stop that!” Cavanaugh was yelling. “Stop it or I will kill you. Stop it. Stop it!” The man sounded completely insane now.
The door bulged, then broke loose from its hinges under a rain of blows.
Cavanaugh stood in the entrance, his good eye wild and rolling, his rifle pointed. Behind him, Pepper appeared, still holding one of the heavy flashlights.
“An Injun,” Cavanaugh gloated without recognition as he took in Sandy’s dirt-smeared, blood-caked body. “One of Hall’s dirty, stinking Injuns. This will teach you!”
His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Pepper!” Sandy gasped with the last remnant of his strength. “Don’t let him kill me, Pepper!” He slid to the floor as the gun went off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Fourth Touchdown
Sandy fought his way up from unconsciousness like a diver rising from the bottom of a dark sea. For a long time he lay without moving as he tried to sort out the sounds around him. He was dead, of course, he reasoned. Nevertheless, some of the voices he seemed to hear sounded familiar.
He opened one eye experimentally, prepared to snap it shut if he didn’t like what he saw. Mrs. Gonzales was bending over him with one of her eternal compresses. So was a man with a goatee who had a stethoscope clipped around his neck.
Sandy opened the other eye and turned his head, which seemed to weigh a ton.
He found that he was in bed and bandaged right up to his chin. Kitty, her pretty face badly scratched, was watching him too. So were John Hall and…yes, it was Pepper!
“But I ought to be dead,” Sandy whispered in great surprise. “What happened?”
“I conked Cavanaugh with his own flashlight,” Pepper said with pride. “Knocked him out. His shot went wild.”
“Thanks a lot, Pepper. Shake.” Sandy tried to hold out his hand but found he couldn’t quite make it.
“Easy,” said the doctor.
“Am I badly hurt?” Sandy managed to say.
“Nothing worse than loss of a lot of blood. I’ve pumped you full of plasma. You’ll be all right in a few days, but you mustn’t exert yourself for a while,” said the doctor as he started packing instruments into his little black bag.
“But I’ve got to know what happened,” Sandy said fretfully. “For Pete’s sake!”
“I called Kitty out of the woods after I hit Cavanaugh,” Pepper explained. “We got you into his car and brought you home as fast as we could.”
“And you’re all right, Kitty?” Sandy persisted.
“Just a few scratches and bruises.” She came forward to prove it and patted his bandaged shoulder.
“And…and Cavanaugh?”
“The crazy fool is still up there,” Hall spoke up. “Look.” He pointed through the bedroom window.
Sandy worked his head around in that direction. The great hump of the Window Rock was lit up as bright as day.
“Floodlights,” Hall explained as he saw the boy’s surprise. “They’re set up permanently to illuminate the Rock on Frontier Day and for other tourist events.”
“But…”
“The Navajo police turned them on. The whole force, as well as most of the Indians who attended the joint Council meeting, are up there trying to flush Cavanaugh out of hiding.”
“Ralph too?” Sandy’s eyes were shining.
“Yes.”
“Did the Council meeting come to anything, Mr.—John?”
“It broke up before any formal agreement was signed when we got your message, but…”
“Gee, I’m sorry about that.”
“Forget it. I only had the chance to say a few words to Ralph while they were organizing the posse, but he told me the tribes understand each other’s position now. It’s just a matter of ironing out details before they agree to put those boundary-line leases up for bids.”
“That’ll be great for you,” Sandy said, “but I sure wish I hadn’t had to…”
“Forget it, I said.” Hall patted his shoulder too. (Why did everybody have to pat him as if he were a dog? Sandy wondered crossly. Then he burst out laughing, although to do so hurt his face and chest. Why, he almost was a dog, wasn’t he?)
“Young man, you’re getting much too excited,” the doctor warned as he approached the bed, hypodermic needle in hand. “I’d better put you to sleep for a while.”
Sandy pushed him away.
“There’s