Erle Gardner - The Danger Zone and Other Stories

She wobbled about for a moment on rubber legs, then fell to the floor.

“Now, young lady,” Findlay said, “you’ve caused me a hell of a lot of trouble. I’ll just take the thing you’re carrying in your left shoe. I could tell from the way you were limping there was something...”

He jerked off the shoe, looked inside, seemed puzzled, then suddenly grabbed the girl’s stockinged foot.

She kicked and tried to scream, but the wind had been knocked out of her.

Findlay reached casual hands up to the top of her stocking, jerked it loose without bothering to unfasten the garters, pulled the adhesive tape off the bottom of the girl’s foot, ran out to the car, and jumped in.

“Well, what do you know!” he exclaimed. “The damn yokel took the keys with him... So there’s a paved road on the other side of the mountains, is there?

“Come on, horse, I guess there’s a trail we can find. If we can’t they’ll never locate us in all that timber.”

Moving swiftly, the fat man ran over to where the horse was standing on three legs, drowsing in the sunlight.

Findlay gathered up the reins, thrust one foot in the stirrup, grabbed the saddle, front and rear, and swung himself awkwardly into position.

Jane heard a shrill animal squeal of rage. The sleepy-looking horse, transformed into a bundle of dynamite, heaved himself into the air, ears laid back along his neck.

The fat man, grabbing the horn of the saddle, clung with frenzied desperation. “Well,” Kane asked, “are you going to untie me, or just stand there gawking?” She ran to him then, frantically tugging at the knot.

The second his hands were freed Kane went into action.

Findlay, half out of the saddle, clung drunkenly to the pitching horse for a moment, then went into the air, turned half over and came down with a jar that shook the earth.

Kane emerged from the cabin holding a rifle.

“All right, Findlay, it’s my turn now,” Kane said. “Don’t make a move for that gun.”

The shaken Findlay seemed to have trouble orienting himself. He turned dazedly toward the sound of the voice, clawed for his gun.

Kane, aiming the rifle carefully, shot it out of his hand.

“Now, ma’am,” Kane said, “if you want to get that paper out of his pocket...”

She ran to Findlay, her feet fairly flying over the ground despite the fact that she was wearing only one shoe and the other foot had neither shoe nor stocking...

Shortly before noon Jane Marlow decided to invade the sacred precincts of Buck Doxey’s thoroughly masculine kitchen to prepare lunch. Howard Kane showed his respect for Findlay’s resourcefulness by keeping him covered despite the man’s bound wrists.

“Buck is going to hate me for this,” she said. “Not that he doesn’t hate me enough already — and I don’t know why.”

“Buck’s soured on women,” Kane explained. “I tried to tip you off. He was engaged to a girl in Cheyenne. No one knows exactly what happened, but they split up. I think she’s as miserable as he is, but neither one will make the first move. But for heaven’s sake don’t try to rearrange his kitchen according to ideas of feminine efficiency. Just open a can of something and make coffee.”

Findlay said, “I don’t suppose there’s any use trying to make a deal with you two.”

Kane scornfully sighted along the gun by way of answer.

Jane, opening drawers in the kitchen, trying to locate the utensils, inadvertently stumbled on Buck Doxey’s private heartache. A drawer containing letters, and the photograph of a girl.

The photograph had been tom into several pieces, and then laboriously pasted together and covered with Cellophane.

The front of the picture was inscribed: “To Buck with all my heart, Pearl.”

Jane felt a surge of guilt at even having opened the drawer, but feminine curiosity caused her to hesitate long enough before closing it to notice Pearl’s return address in the upper left-hand corner of one of the envelopes addressed to Buck Doxey...

It was as they were finishing lunch that they heard the roar of the plane.

They went to the door to watch it turn into the teeth of the cold north wind, settle to a landing, then taxi up to the low log buildings.

The sheriff and Buck Doxey started running toward the cabins, and it was solace to Jane Marlow’s pride to see the look of almost comic relief on the face of the sheriff as he saw Kane with the rifle and Findlay with bound wrists.

Jane heard the last part of Doxey’s hurried explanation to Kane.

“Wouldn’t trust a woman that far but her story held together and his didn’t. I thought you’d understand what I was doing. I flew in with the sheriff just so I could call the FBI in Los Angeles. What do you know? Findlay is a badly wanted enemy spy. They want him bad as... How did you make out?”

Kane grinned. “I decided to give Findlay a private third-degree. He answered my questions with a gun. If it hadn’t been for that horse...”

Buck’s face broke into a grin. “He fell for that one?”

“Fell for it, and off it,” Kane said.

“If he hadn’t been a fool tenderfoot he’d have noticed that I led the horse out from the corral instead of riding him over. Old Fox is a rodeo horse, one of the best bucking broncs in Wyoming. Perfectly gentle until he feels it’s time to do his stuff, and then he gives everything he has until he hears the ten-second whistle. I sort of figured Findlay might try something before I could sell the sheriff a bill of goods and get back.”

It had been sheer impulse which caused Jane Marlow to leave the train early in the morning.

It was also sheer impulse which caused her to violate the law by forging Pearl’s name to a telegram as she went through Cheyenne.

The telegram was addressed to Buck Doxey, care of the Forest Ranger Station and read:

BUCK I AM SO PROUD OF YOU PEARL.

Having started the message on its way, Jane looked up Pearl and casually told her of the tom picture which had been so laboriously pasted together.

Half an hour later Jane was once more speeding East aboard the sleek streamliner, wondering whether her efforts on behalf of Cupid had earned her the undying enmity of two people, or had perhaps been successful.

When she reached Omaha two telegrams were delivered. One was from Howard Kane and read simply:

YOU WERE SO RIGHT. IT GETS TERRIBLY LONELY AT TIMES. HOLD A DINNER DATE OPEN FOR TONIGHT. YOU NEED A BODYGUARD ON YOUR MISSION AND I AM FLYING TO CHICAGO TO MEET YOU AT TRAIN AND DISCUSS THE WYOMING CLIMATE AS A PERMANENT PLACE OF RESIDENCE.

The second telegram was the big surprise. It read:

I GUESS I HAD IT COMING. PEARL AND I BOTH SEND LOVE. I GUESS I JUST NEVER REALIZED WOMEN ARE LIKE THAT.

“Snowy Ducks for Cover.” First published in Dime Detective, November 1931 (Vol. I, # 1); copyright © 1931 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1959.

“The Corkscrew Kid.” First published in Black Aces, January 1932 (Vol. I, #1); copyright © 1932 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1960.

“The Danger Zone.” First published in Argosy, November 15,1932; copyright © 1932 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1960.

“A Logical Ending.” First published in Detective Fiction Weekly, April 29, 1933; copyright © 1933 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1961.

“Restless Pearls.” First published in All Detective, November 1933; copyright © 1933 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1961.

“Time for Murder.” First published in Dime Detective, January 15, 1933; copyright © 1933 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1961.

“Hard as Nails.” First published in Dime Detective, January 15, 1935; copyright © 1935 by Erie Stanley Gardner, renewed 1963.