Horace McCoy: Frost Rides Alone (Short Story)

No, Frost knew, he couldn’t go down now. Must wait. Hang back and wait for the dark. A big gamble then. A big gamble. Now it would be death.

He guessed the dusk was less than an hour away, but it was a bad guess. It was eighty minutes away and they were the longest eighty minutes Frost ever spent. Occasionally he stole through a rift in the bank to check his quarry to make sure it was within range. The Catherine B had now reduced its speed and was drifting idly: quite plainly at its trysting place.

Frost was forcibly struck by the profundity of the situation. Below was a rum boat a hundred miles at sea; above was a formation of clouds which concealed an eagle of justice. Soon that mass of clouds would part to disgorge a winged courier of the law. Why did those clouds happen—just happen to be there? Providence? Frost went off into an endless speculation about the omnipotence of the Creator.

And he found time to breathe a cautious prayer. Cautious because he had never done so openly. It struck him as cowardly. So he prayed quietly and cautiously.

He had decided to go down now in a few minutes.

The sun reached the end of the world, slid off the rim, and reached with long, tenuous fingers for a final hold, missed and fell into the lap of night. Frost was constantly amazed at the swiftness of the sunset; had always been amazed. Yet it is a source of indefinable joy to airmen to see the sun sink from the sky, for at fifteen thousand feet you seem pretty close to the heart of things. Frost probably always would be stirred by such manifestations, no matter how exigent the conditions under which he viewed them. They mildly disquieted him; made him wish he had been an artist.

“Hell,” he said to his instrument board, “you’re only a lousy airman. Get your head back into this cockpit!”

Night slipped up and five minutes later it was dark. Frost dropped out of the cloud bank among, it seemed, the fledgling stars which were timidly trying their wings, and looked for the Catherine B. The Gulf had lost the blackness so apparent in the sunlight and now had become opaque to a faint luminosity. A wayward light flickered below on deck. The light revealed the boat Frost had come to take—and he had determined to take it. Bellerophon felt the same way about the Chimaera.

Frost took off his gauntlet and slipped the silencer-equipped .38 into the seat beside him. Its touch comforted him, reassured him. Of a sudden he picked it up and pulled the trigger. No other sound broke above the throttled humming of the motor.

“Hot stuff!” he said to the sky. To the instrument board he said: “Well, here we go!”

He fell into a glide and kicked his switch off. It was his farewell to the air. Dropping fifteen thousand feet his motor would get cold, too cold to start again in an emergency. But, he told himself, there must be no emergency.

A quarter of a mile back he nosed up into a sort of drift, timing the distance with that weird sense all good flyers possess. And his landing was a tribute to long years of feeling his air. The premium he collected was munificent—his life. To have failed meant death.

The Catherine B , on the spot of its meeting, drooled in a wide circle, and as the little battle plane slowly moved by the stern, Frost could plainly read her markings:

CATHERINE B

GALVESTON

Frost kicked his rudder bar around and turned in towards the boat. He flattened out against its sides when he saw a spurt of flame and heard the crash of the report. The man shot from the rail amidships. Frost leveled his gun and fired. Then he quickly threw his anchor rope over the rail. There had been no far-carrying report from his gun, but the man dropped. He was out on the wing in a moment, over the rail in another, and had tied his ship off with a loop knot.

Attracted by the explosion, a husky fellow shoved half his bulk through the wheelhouse door and Frost saw him level his gun. The Ranger shot from the hip; the man collapsed in the door and rolled on deck. He never knew what had hit him. Frost ran forward.

There was a scuffling sound aft and a man’s head and shoulders appeared. He seemed to rise out of nowhere. But he was cautious, had come to investigate what he thought was a shot.

Frost tensed his muscles and gripped his pistol. He pressed himself close to the skylights as the man stepped out gingerly and came towards the wheel-house. He was roughly dressed. He had nearly reached Frost’s side, when he stopped suddenly and sucked in his breath in a swift intake. He had seen the plane.

In a flash Frost was beside him. He rammed the gun into his ribs.

“One crack and off goes your head! Get down flat!”

Silently, the man obeyed. He stretched out an arm’s length from the second man who had been shot.

Frost said tensely: “That guy is dead. You didn’t hear my gun go off because it’s got a silencer, see? Now answer my questions and answer ‘em quick!”

“All right,” the man grunted.

“How many on this tub?”

“Six.”

“One of them a woman?”

“Two women.”

“Two!”

Frost thought that over.

“What’s this boat doing out here?”

“Meeting the Mermaid at midnight.”

“Liquor?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I’ll have to give you the works to get you out of the way,” Frost said grimly. He meant it. The man knew he meant it. The game had gone too far to take chances.

“I’m a Texas Ranger.”

“I know,” was the answer. “We been expecting you. But not like this. You’re Frost.”

“Expecting me?” Frost thought probably he hadn’t heard aright.

“Sure. Catherine said you’d come.”

“Who’s Catherine?”

Flash’s girl.”

Frost rolled his tongue against his cheek. “Singleton?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t know he had a girl.”

“I’ll say he had.”

Frost hesitated, his mind in a turmoil. The man misconstrued the silence.

“You ain’t gonna kill me?” he pleaded. “I’ll do anything—”

“Okey,” Frost said offhand. “Go over there and call the crew up here. And remember that I’ve killed two of this crew—and you’ll be number three if you make a false move. I’ll slug you right through the back of your head. Get up!”

The man walked to the poop ladder, Frost a step behind.

“Hey—Hans!” he yelled through his cupped hands.

Shortly there was a mumble from below.

“Come above and bring Marcelle with you. Hurry!”

Two men climbed out on deck and stood beside the ladder. They hardly were up before Frost stepped out from behind the man and leveled his gun. “Get up in a hurry!” he barked.

They slowly complied.

“Now,” Frost went on tensely, “unless you do exactly as I say I’ll kill you!”

He looked at the man called Hans. “Throw your gun away!”

The light was feeble, but Frost could see the man scowl. He made no move to comply; he merely grunted.

“Get that gun overboard!”

Still the man said nothing. One of those hard-boiled seamen.

Put-t!

The flame leaped from Frost’s gun; there was a muttered oath and the man grabbed his shoulder and moaned, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

“Get that gun overboard! The next time you stop it with your head!”

There was no mistaking the command now. Frost disliked to shoot the man, but this was no time to quibble. They must be impressed with his determination.

The man groaned and threw his gun overboard with the arm that was still serviceable.

“Get that hand back in the air! And you— throw that gun over! Now yours!”

The men discarded their pistols. Frost lined them up and backed them towards the hatch. “Unbatten it!” he commanded.