They turned to look at Bessie, to find her standing quite still, staring into the northern sky. “There’s a plane coming,” she said. Squinting against the glare, Daisy made out a distant dot. Everyone fell silent, and a faint buzz came to her ears. “Sounds like it’s a DH-4,” said Bessie. “That’s what the post office flies.”
Dipper swung up his binoculars. “It is. That’s him.”
“Everyone under cover,” snapped Chief Judkins. His men herded them into the building.
All except Alec, who stayed outside conferring with Judkins, to Daisy’s dismay. The two officers joined them, then all four moved out of sight.
Daisy was on tenterhooks. Dipper was indignant. “Dash it!” he exclaimed, standing behind her at the window, “I could have helped if they’d just told me what to do.”
“Me too,” said Haycox.
“Don’t go out now, for heaven’s sake,” said Daisy. “If Pitt sees people around he might decide not to land. Or you might put Alec and the others in danger.”
For what seemed an age, nothing happened. Then the drone of the approaching plane penetrated the walls. It grew louder, and suddenly the biplane appeared, a few feet above the grass, crossing in front of the building. The post office insignia was plain on its side. It really was the pirated aeroplane. Daisy exhaled on a long sigh. She had not quite believed it until that moment.
The wheels touched down, bounced, settled again. As the plane slowed, the tail came down and the skid slid across the grass. Just before the plane moved out of Daisy’s field of view, the pilot turned his head for a quick glance behind him.
That was when she realized there was no figure sitting in the rear with the mailbag.
Where was Pitt? If he had abandoned ship before reaching Eugene, why had the pilot come here? Was it a different aeroplane after all, perhaps the first of a new air mail service to Oregon?
Where was Wilbur Pitt?
The plane taxied back into view, close enough for the engine noise to make the window panes vibrate. It stopped on the tarmac. Silence came as a shock. The pilot clambered down with what looked like weary haste, and started towards the building at a lumbering run.
As one, Dipper and Haycox moved towards the door, but Alec and Judkins intercepted the pilot. They exchanged a few words. Judkins waved his arms and headed for the plane, while Alec and the pilot came on towards the building.
Daisy was torn between watching what happened outside and going to meet Alec. She stayed at the window long enough to see Judkins and his officers approach the biplane,crouching beneath the illusory protection of its canvascovered wings. Then she turned away as Alec and the pilot came into the room.
“Let the man sit down,” said Alec as everyone crowded around, babbling questions. “Yes, Pitt’s on the plane. He’s asleep.”
“And not likely to wake without he’s shaken,” said the pilot in a gravelly voice, flopping into a chair and taking off his helmet. He looked badly in need of sleep himself, his eyes red-rimmed, his hands trembling. The urge to tell his story was stronger. “He’s stayed awake two nights, holding a gun on me. I didn’t sleep too good, I can tell you, and every time I woke up, there he was with his eyes wide open and that goddamn gun pointing at me. He threatened to burn the mail, too. And he talked, boy, did he talk. Say, anything to eat and drink around here?”
“There’s usually something in the icebox,” said Simmons, hurrying out.
“What did Pitt talk about?” Daisy asked. All she really wanted to know was whether he had shot Otis Carmody.
“Pitt’s his name? He didn’t tell me. Mostly he went on about his book. He’s written this goddamn—excuse me, ma’am—this book, see, and he quoted me miles and miles of it. Geez, what a load of bull!”
“Here.” Simmons returned, carrying a box and a bottle. “It’s not much.” He opened the box to reveal several semi-mummified doughnuts. “And a root beer. I can put on coffee.”
“That’d be dandy, thank you, sir.”
“And I’ll take you into town and buy you a good meal soon as Chief Judkins gives the O.K.”
The pilot was already devouring doughnuts before Simmonsfinished speaking. He paused only to wash down the crumbs with root beer, whatever that might be. Simmons went off to make coffee; Dipper, Bessie, and Fisher returned to the window; Alec, Daisy, and Haycox stayed with the pilot.
“What else did Pitt say?” Alec asked as the pilot finished off the bottle.
“He was shooting off his mouth about his cousin. Seems he had this cousin born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who was always putting on side. The guy laughed at his book, and that really got his goat, but if it wasn’t for the bad blood between ’em going way back, I guess he wouldn’t have shot him.”
“He shot his cousin?” Daisy demanded, wanting confirmation but already feeling tension drain from her. Everything she had done, and persuaded other people to do, was justified, after all.
“Yeah, didn’t I say? That’s why he was on the run. Said he didn’t mean to kill him, just show him he was serious and make him stop saying the book was baloney. Only he—the cousin—fell down an elevator shaft and broke his neck. Pitt was sure he did it just to louse him up, like he was always doing when they were kids together. Nutty as a fruitcake, if you ask me.”
“Darling,” said Daisy, turning to Alec, “you’d better go and cable Whitaker and tell him to release poor Lambert!”
Judkins brought Pitt in, looking like a sleepwalker between the two burly officers. He looked harmless enough, and they had not bothered to handcuff him. He was carrying his suitcase, clutched to his chest with both arms.
