The Race (Isaac Bell 4)

Ten minutes elapsed before Frost heard another machine. Once again, he saw no locomotive light. Definitely an aeroplane. Was it Josephine? Or was it Isaac Bell? It was coming fast. He had seconds to make up his mind. Bell usually flew behind her.

“Ready!”

“Ready, Mr. Frost.”

“Ready, Mr. Frost.”

The gunner to his left yelled excitedly, “Here she comes!”

“Wait!. . Wait!”

“Here she comes, boys!” cried the men on his right.

“Wait!”

Suddenly Frost heard the distinctive hollow-sounding blatting exhaust of a rotary motor.

“It’s a Gnome! It’s not her. It’s a Gnome! He’s ahead of her. Hold your fire! Hold your fire! ”

He was too late. The excited gunners drowned him out with long bursts of automatic fire, feeding the ammunition belts as fast as the guns could fire. Spitting brass cartridges and empty cloth, the weapons spewed four hundred rounds a minute at the approaching machine.

ISAAC BELL LOCATED both machine guns by their muzzle flashes, two hundred yards apart to the north and south of the tracks. There was no way the gunners could see him, blinded by those flashes. But they were shooting accurately anyway, aiming at the sound of his motor, firing thunderously, stopping to listen, firing again.

Flying lead crackled as it passed close to the Eagle’s king posts.

Bell blipped the motor off, glided silently, then blipped it on again. The guns caught up and resumed firing. Heavy slugs shook struts behind him. The rudder took several hits, and he felt them kick his wheel post.

Bell turned the Eagle around and flew back up the tracks in the direction from which he had come. Facing east, back toward Fort Worth, he saw the gray glow of first light. His keen eyes detected a dot several miles distant. Josephine was coming at sixty miles at hour. He had two minutes to disable the machine guns before she ran into the clouds of lead they were shooting into the sky. But armed with a single Remington rifle, he was badly outgunned. His only hope was to sow confusion.

He blipped his motor off again, banked, and glided silently to the right. He blipped on. The south gun chattered, tracing the noise of his motor but revealing its position. Bell steered for the flashes, swooped low, and fired his rifle. He blipped off the motor and glided over the machine gun. Well past it, he blipped the Gnome again, roared around, and headed back, flying in line with the guns on a course perpendicular to the tracks.

Both guns, the closer south gun and the north gun on the far side of the tracks, opened a deadly sheet of fire. Bell swooped low over the nearer. By its muzzle flashes, he could see three men had the gun mounted on a light landing carriage, which they wheeled skillfully as he passed to rake him from behind.

Bell dropped under the stream of bullets, so low he could see flashes on the tracks. Harry Frost was firing a shotgun at the Gnome’s brightly flaming exhaust. Bell dropped almost to the ground, practically parted Frost’s hair with his skids, and fired his rifle at the north machine gunners, drawing their attention and causing them to wheel their gun and fire at him continuously. Had they held the trigger any longer, the air-cooled Colt would have burned up. As it was he could see the barrel glowing red-hot. But they stopped firing abruptly and scattered for their lives as their emplacement was hit by a burst from the south gunners, whom Bell had tricked into strafing their opposite position while trying to rake him from behind.

A second later, the south gun exploded when the last bullets from the northern emplacement they put out of action ignited their ammunition boxes.

Bell slammed the Eagle in another tight turn and fired his last shots from the Remington at the shotgun flashes. He stood little chance of hitting Frost in the dim light from his racing machine but hoped that Remington.35 slugs shrieking near Frost’s head would make the murderer dive for cover.

Frost didn’t budge.

He stood erect, firing repeatedly, until his shotgun was empty.

Then he jumped from the tracks into the creek bed and ran with astonishing agility the hundred yards to the machine gun whose gunners had fled. As Josephine flashed by low overhead, Frost spun the heavy weapon’s carriage and fired a long burst after her. Bell drove his machine straight at him. The Remington was empty. He drew his pistol and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. Bracketed by flying lead, Harry Frost fired back until the ammunition belt, with no one to guide it into the breech, jammed.

Bell saw Josephine’s machine dip a wing. It dropped toward the ground, skimming the tracks, and Bell feared that she was wounded or her controls so badly damaged that she would slam a wing into the ground and cartwheel to oblivion. Heart in his throat, he watched with terrible anticipation that turned to astonished relief as the Celere monoplane lifted its wing, straightened up, and wobbled into the sky.

ISAAC BELL STUCK CLOSE to Josephine all the way to Abilene, where the tracks of the Abilene amp; Northern Railway, the Abilene amp; Southern, and the Santa Fe crossed the Texas amp; Pacific. She landed clumsily, skidding half around in front of the freight station. Bell alighted nearby.

He found her slumped over her controls, clutching her arm. A machine-gun slug had grazed her, tearing the skin and furrowing flesh. Her wedding dress was streaked with blood and engine grease. Her lips were trembling. “I nearly lost control.”

“I am so sorry. I should have stopped him.”

“I told you he’s animal sly. Nobody can stop him.”

Bell tied a handkerchief around the wound, which was still oozing blood. Small boys had come running, trailed by old men with long Civil War beards. Men and boys gaped at the yellow machines side by side in the dust.

“Run, you bo