Without a Trace Page 2

  "How was it?" Roy shouted, as Frank cut the engine.

  "Great!" Frank replied. "It works fine."

  "So what's our next move?" Joe asked.

  "You take the truck and head for the homestead. I'll shadow you from the air."

  "How do we communicate?" Joe asked doubtfully. "That thing doesn't have a radio."

  "Arm and hand signals, I guess. If I spot something, I'll circle and point at it."

  "Good luck," Roy said.

  Joe climbed into the yellow pickup. From the looks of it, the truck had lived its whole life on the ranch and had never seen a car wash or a vacuum cleaner. He turned the key and its giant V-8 engine thundered to life. He grinned. The muffler had seen better days, but maybe the cows didn't mind. He pulled down on the massive stick shift. There was an angry grating sound.

  Transmission could use some work, he thought. Joe shoved into first gear, and the truck lurched off. He turned down the hill just in time to see Frank making his takeoff run.

  The road forked half a mile to the north. Joe twisted the wheel to the left and headed south, down a road with plenty of washouts. Frank was hovering off to one side, at an altitude of about a hundred feet. He could easily outdistance the truck, but he was holding back.

  The sun was low in the west. All at once Frank took the lead, circling about a hundred yards ahead. Joe was almost on top of the homestead before he saw it through the ferny fronds of six-foot-high mesquite bushes.

  It was a single-room shack, weather-beaten and sagging. Behind it was a corral and loading pens. A few small trees had grown up around the abandoned wooden windmill.

  If there had been any tracks in the sand, the wind had erased them. He stopped the truck, left it running, and opened the door to the shack. Inside was a bunk in one corner and a table in the middle, with a couple of wooden chairs. Papers, bottles, and cans lay on the cracked cement floor, around an old iron stove. But there was no sign of life - not even a footprint in the fine layer of grit that covered everything.

  When Joe stepped outside, he saw Frank high above, heading east. He jumped into the truck and gunned it into pursuit.

  Up in the ultralight, Frank had seen something moving up ahead, among the sand hills. He had soared over to check it out while Joe searched the house. As Frank flew closer he saw it was a horse - a horse with a saddle but no rider. It could be the horse Jerry had been riding when he went to check out the lights.

  He banked, preparing to circle back to the homestead. Suddenly he felt a jerk on his right foot pedal, the one that controlled the right rudder. Then the ultralight whipped into a spin.

  Frank frantically worked the rudder pedals. The right one was stuck in the stop position. Trying the left pedal, he managed to move it slightly - but then it stuck, too.

  Fighting panic, Frank glanced behind him at the tail. The rudder was definitely jammed, which meant that a control cable must have broken and the control line had fouled.

  The ultralight kept whirling in a tight circle - and the ground was moving up closer and closer.

  If Frank didn't get control back, the ultralight would crash!

  Chapter 3

  Stay cool! That was what Frank's flight instructor always said. The foot controls didn't work, but what about the hand controls? Gingerly Frank tried the control stick. The ultralight banked to the right, stopping its spin.

  "All right!" Frank muttered. "I've still got the aileron controls and can make wide turns. But I'll be flying with crossed controls - if I don't watch it, I'll either stall out or wind up in another spin. Either way, I'll fall - and there's nowhere safe to land right here."

  Using the stick, Frank carefully fought the spin to bring the ultralight shakily around. Then he leveled it out at about a hundred feet. He was heading back for the ranch when he saw Joe's yellow truck on the road below. Joe, his head out the window, was staring up at him.

  Got to let Joe know what's wrong, Frank thought. He pointed to the ultralight's tail and shook his head violently. He pointed to himself, then toward the ranch. Then he pointed down at the truck and toward the sand hills where he'd seen the horse.

  Joe stopped the truck and climbed out, looking up. Frank repeated the gestures. This time, Joe gave him a thumbs-up sign, got back in the truck, and started off.

  Frank had a long, nervous flight back to the ranch. He still wasn't home free - landing with crossed controls would be tricky. But he'd practiced cross-wind landings, which also made planes spin. The trick was to kick in the rudder at the last possible moment to make the plane straighten out. But Frank had no rudder!

  He reduced power as much as he dared, slowly bringing the ultralight's nose up. He was coming straight down the road, aiming slightly to the left, his right wing a little low. Just before touchdown, he jammed all his weight on the right brake. The ultralight landed on the right wheel, bounced, pulled violently to the right, then straightened out.

  Roy ran up to the plane. "Where'd you learn to fly like that?" he asked.

  Frank managed a shaky breath. "Just lucky?" he said.

  ***

  Joe knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. His first instinct was to follow Frank, in case he was in real trouble. But Frank had obviously spotted something he wanted Joe to check out. So Joe continued toward the sand hills.

  When he got to the edge of the low dunes, the road narrowed to a trail and then disappeared altogether. Joe remembered what Roy had said about getting stuck, so he stopped the truck, climbed out, and started to climb the nearest dune for a look. There wasn't much vegetation, and it was slow going in the loose sand.

  As he reached the top of the dune, the sun was dipping below the horizon. Twenty yards away, Joe saw what Frank must have spotted from the air - a riderless bay horse, reins trailing in the sand.

  Joe approached cautiously, afraid the horse would bolt. But the animal was exhausted. It just stood with its head down as Joe grabbed the reins. "Hey, fella, where's your rider?"

  Joe led the horse to the truck, tied it to a bush so it could graze the tall grass, then headed back up the hill. Trailing the hoofprints brought him to a small hollow - the horse must have taken shelter there during the storm. Joe saw no trace of the rider.

  He headed back to the truck and sat down on the tailgate to watch the gathering shadows. "Hope Frank comes back quick with reinforcements."

  Finally two sets of headlights appeared from the darkness. The lead truck slid to a stop and Frank jumped out. Roy pulled in behind, towing a horse trailer. A small, wiry man with dark, straight hair and a broad, flat face got out with him as a gray dog leaped from the truck bed and trotted toward the horse, whining.

  "Glad you could make it." Joe grinned at Frank. "How come you cut out back there?"

  "The rudder cable broke," Frank replied. "It was some trick getting down in one piece."

  "But he did it - good job, too," Roy said. He looked at the horse. "That's Jerry's bay, all right. Where'd you find him?"

  "Over there," Joe said, pointing. "I didn't find anything else - no tracks."

  "Rudy, take Shep and have a look," Roy told the other man. "We'll load the horse."

  "Shep! Venga!" Rudy commanded. The dog whined and sat down beside the horse. "Come here!" Reluctantly, the dog got up and trotted after him.

  "That's Rudy Castillo," Roy told Joe, pulling down the trailer tailgate. "Fine ranch hand. He's got a sixth sense - if there's anything out there, he'll spot it."

  "And the dog?" Frank asked as they loaded the horse.

  "Shep belongs to Jerry." Roy shook his head and frowned. "That was one funny thing I noticed at the bunkhouse - Shep wasn't there. Rudy said he showed up a little while ago. There was something else - "

  Rudy came up, shaking his head. "No sign of him, Senor Roy."

  Roy nodded grimly. "Well, I guess that's it for now. Let's head back to the ranch. I called the sheriff and told him to come later. I don't want to miss him. We can get some supper, too. They piled into the trucks and
headed back.

  ***

  "That was delicious," Joe told Dot as he polished off the biggest meal of chicken-fried steak he'd ever eaten. "If supper's always like this, I may sign on permanently." Everyone laughed.

  "I want to hear more about the grazing leases you told me about earlier," Frank said to Roy. "You're renting some land? You don't own all fifty thousand acres?"

  "Right," Roy said, pushing his chair back. He led them into the office and pointed at a large wall map, a section of which was outlined in red. "We actually own this part." His hand moved along the middle third of the outlined area. "This is state land." He traced out a section to the north. "We lease the south end of the ranch - the sand hills section - from the federal government. In fact, our leases are up for renewal next month."

  "So you get to use the land?" Joe asked.

  Roy grinned. "We get to use the grass on it to feed our stock. And we get the right to renew it. The leases are so cheap that nobody ever lets them go unrenewed."

  A car pulled up outside, then came a knock at the front door. "Hi, Bobby," they heard Dot say. "Roy's in the office."

  A man in a dusty khaki uniform stepped in the room. The sheriff was slender and just over thirty. He wore a badge, and a .357 Magnum was holstered at his hip. "Evening, Roy. Jerry show up yet?"

  "Not yet," Roy said. "Boys, this is Bobby Clinton, our local sheriff. Bobby, this is Frank and Joe Hardy. I worked with their father awhile back. They're here to help me straighten out those problems I've been having."

  The sheriff nodded. "Welcome to Armstrong County." His eyes weren't welcoming, however, as he gave Frank and Joe the once-over. Clinton turned back to Roy. "You want me to file a missing persons report on Jerry, or do you want to wait a few days to see if he wanders in?"

  "We found his horse this afternoon, out in the sand hills," Joe volunteered.

  The sheriff gave him a thin smile. "He must have got bucked off," he said. "Chances are he'll come walking in tomorrow morning, complaining about sore feet."

  Roy fixed his eyes on the sheriff and shook] his head. "You don't believe that. I think Jerry! was riding before he could walk."

  "Well, what then?"

  "I don't know," Roy said slowly. "We're going looking in the morning."

  "Guess I could spare a couple of deputies," the sheriff offered. "And I'll talk to a few of the other ranchers."

  Roy nodded. "Have them meet us by the bunkhouse up on the caprock at sunup."

  Clinton left, and Roy turned to Frank and Joe, grinning crookedly. "Bobby's what we call 'a good ol' boy.' Problem is, he's still got a lot to learn about being a good sheriff."

  "Maybe there's a connection between Jerry's disappearance and the other problems," Joe said.

  "I don't know," Roy said. "But I'll tell you one thing. Remember when we picked you up, I said something was funny. I just figured out what it is. Why would Jerry ride his horse from the bunkhouse to the old homestead at night, in the dark? He would've used the truck. But he didn't - it was still there."

  "So somebody went to a lot of trouble to make us think Jerry took the horse," Frank suggested.

  "Maybe," Roy agreed, with a frown. "That doesn't sound good."

  "Would Jerry - or you - have an enemy who'd want to get rid of him?" Joe asked.

  For a moment Roy was silent. Then he said, "Jerry didn't, but I might."

  "Can you give us some names?" Frank said.

  Roy's voice was reluctant. "I don't like to bad-mouth a man without proof."

  "We understand," Frank said. "But we've got to have some leads."

  "Well, the first name that comes to mind is Jake Grimes," Roy said. "He was a hand here last year, but I had to let him go because I caught him selling off some of the ranch supplies." He grunted. "He and Jerry parted on good terms, but Jake was pretty angry with me."

  "Where can we find him?" Frank asked.

  "He was working in Armstrong, last I heard. For the feed lot."

  "What about Oscar Owens?" Joe asked. "He didn't sound like your best buddy when he left here this afternoon."

  "Oh, Oscar yells a lot," Roy admitted, "but it doesn't usually amount to anything." He straightened his shoulders. "But for right now, let's concentrate on finding Jerry. I don't think he's wandering around out there. But if he is, he won't last more than another day in this heat, without water."

  "What about the ultralight?" Joe asked Frank. "Can it be repaired to help with the search?"

  Frank shook his head. "I checked it out. It needs a new rudder cable."

  "Not enough time for that," Roy told them. "Tomorrow we'll drive into the back country. It's easy to get lost if you don't know your way, so one of you can come with me, the other will go with Rudy."

  Frank and Joe agreed.

  ***

  At dawn the next day a dozen trucks and jeeps were parked at the bunkhouse, a small neat building just off the road along the top of the caprock. There were the usual barns and corrals, and out back, beside a propane tank, there was a satellite dish.

  "Can we have a look inside?" Frank asked Roy.

  Roy unlocked the front door. "Go ahead. But you'd better hurry. We'll get started as soon as Bobby Clinton's boys show up."

  The bunkhouse had apparently once been a rancher's main home. Now, though, it looked more like a bachelor pad. In the bedroom there were posters of several appealing young movie stars, a gun rack on the wall, and a closet full of cowboy boots, work shirts, and blue jeans.

  The living room was nearly bare, except for a TV and a stereo, with a rack of country and western cassettes. There was a half-eaten pizza on the kitchen counter beside the microwave. As far as clues were concerned, nothing.

  Outside, Roy was talking to the group - about thirty men, including a couple of uniformed deputies who had just arrived. "Okay, boys. You all know that Jerry disappeared night before last. We found his horse yesterday afternoon, near the old homestead. So that cuts down the area we've got to search."

  "Great," Joe overheard one of the searchers whisper to another. "That cuts us down to about twenty square miles of desert."

  Roy broke the group up into pairs and assigned them search areas. In a few minutes everyone climbed into vehicles.

  Frank rode with Roy in a green pickup with a CB radio. All morning they bounced up one rutted road and down another, leaving a trail of dust. At each windmill or water tank, Roy stopped and got on the radio while Frank pushed through a cluster of cows and climbed the tower. He then scanned the area with a pair of powerful binoculars. Actually, he was glad that he and Joe weren't out on their own. Every road, every windmill, every tank, looked exactly alike.

  For lunch they headed back to the ranch house. Frank and Joe were surprised that Nat Wilkin was there, along with a couple of other searchers.

  "Any news?" Roy asked.

  Nat shook his head. "Sorry, Roy, all the groups reported the same thing - no luck."

  They ate quickly, then headed out for another bone-jarring tour of dusty scenery. Just before sundown, the searchers met back at the ranch house again. They all looked dejected.

  "Nothing," Nat said. "I'm available tomorrow, if you want - "

  Roy shook his head. "Thanks for the help, boys." The searchers left in silence.

  "They're not coming back tomorrow?" Joe asked.

  Roy shook his head wearily. "No point. We covered the territory pretty thoroughly. If Jerry's out there alive, which I doubt, his only hope is to get to one of those water tanks. Rudy and I'll keep checking them out."

  Frank nodded. "Joe and I would like to camp out at the old homestead," he said. "If Jerry really saw something suspicious down there, we want to know what it is."

  "That's as good an idea as any," Roy said. "Dot will make you some sandwiches. Load a couple of mattresses into the green pickup, the one with the CB. That way, you can keep in touch."

  It was dark by the time Frank and Joe finally made it to the old shack. Their lantern lit the single room, casting shadows
into the corners. Outside, the wind moaned in the mesquite trees. Then the boys heard the sound of twigs breaking underfoot.

  Joe grinned. "You think there are bears in this country?"

  "I doubt it," Frank said in a low voice. "And we didn't hear an engine. Let's check this out."

  The Hardys rose to their feet and headed silently for the door.

  Just as silently, someone outside was lifting the rusty old latch on the door.

  Chapter 4

  The door opened a crack. Frank and Joe froze in their tracks as something was thrust through the door. It looked like an old gourd on a stick. An ancient hand then appeared, clutching the stick and shaking it. The gourd rattled.

  Then the door creaked open all the way, to reveal an old man with stringy gray hair. He wore a straw sombrero and carried a straw bag.

  "It's him!" Joe whispered excitedly. "Caprock Charlie - the old man I saw in the dust storm!"

  "Hello," Frank said, nodding to their uninvited guest.

  "Buenas noches." The old man looked at both boys, rattling the gourd again. "Call me Carlos. I come with a warning."

  "Warning?" Joe asked. "About what?"

  "There is evil here," the old man whispered. "Danger." He pointed out the window to the east. "You see?"

  Joe turned to see a crescent moon rising over the caprock. "That's weird," he muttered. "I've never seen a ring around the moon like that."

  Frank shrugged it off scientifically. "Ice crystals at high altitudes," he said.

  The old man stepped forward to draw a C in the dust on the table with his finger. Around the C he drew a circle. "Muy malo!" he exclaimed. "Very bad."

  "That's Roy's brand," Joe said in a low voice.

  "It's also the crescent moon," Frank pointed out, "with a ring around it." He turned to the old man. "What does it mean?"