exerpts from the novel
The Electronic Windmill
By Pete McKinley
Chapter IV
The sun had been up for more than an hour and had burned through a slight mist hanging over the sea when Cole was awakened by gunfire. He raised his head from the pillow to listen. There were more shots. He pulled on his trousers, stuffed a Colt thirty-eight special in a forty-five frame in the waistband, grabbed the hunting jacket and left the cabin.
Moving forward toward the sound of the shots he noticed that the depth launcher was gone; the space was empty and the chains and lock hung down from the bulkhead. Staying close to the superstructure he continued to hear intermittent pops. Peering around a corner he saw a group of men near the bow on the port side of the ship. The launcher had been placed on a platform suspended over the side, and a seaman was operating it. A dark object, looking like a miniature flying saucer, left the launcher; there was a blast and the object flew into a dozen pieces.
He started to go back to his cabin, but when one of the group saw him, he instead sauntered toward them stretching and yawning in the fresh morning breeze.
“Did the shooting wake you?” one of the men asked.
“No, no,” Cole said. “I just thought it was traffic backfiring, and, living in the city like I do, it’s actually a sort of soothing sound. I think what woke me was that I didn’t smell any gas fumes. But you skeet shooters do get up early.”
“This is trap shooting,” said a man whom Cole remembered as being called Barney. “Would you like to try it with that cannon you’ve got tucked in the top of your pants?”
Cole looked down in surprise. “Jeeze, I had a dream I was back in the military and couldn’t step out to take a piss without protection against the tarantulas.”
Barney grinned, and Cole went back to his cabin.
At breakfast Cole asked permission of the captain to wander about the ship, explaining that he was interested in everything nautical. The captain was most happy to give his permission, but suggested Cole let someone know what section he’d be poking around just in case he didn’t turn up, they could come looking. Cole checked the bridge, the staterooms, the galley, the salon, the engine room, the life boats; he even went down in the holds where they carried the clay. He imagined how the holds would be full of clay and could hide a hefty cache of pure heroin if you wanted to. But nothing looked as unnatural as that damn clay-pigeon launcher.
Finally he gave up and started shooting clay pigeons, running around the deck for exercise, loafing in the sun, and playing deck games. At night he drank and played some cards - mostly Hollywood gin and cribbage - for money. All the other passengers played bridge, but since there were only eleven and the captain and first mate refused to play, Cole had an opportunity to talk with everyone and even with part of the crew. There wasn’t a damn thing out of line that he could find.
The day they sailed around the tip of Baja California Cole was at the rail, having discontinued the search for the time being. He saw a giant manta ray cutting the water fairly close alongside. The ray was probably twenty feet across the wings from tip to tip. It looked like a bat and they scare the hell out of most people, but Cole had seen them before on television. He was further reassured when one of the crew who had been born at San Jose del Cabo said they wouldn’t hurt you, that you could jump in beside one and it’d take off like an iguana. Everyone believed him, including Cole.
When the ship dropped anchor off Cabo San Lucas, Cole decided to swim and think while the others went fishing. He had his trunks on when they lowered the big launch and took off for the fishing grounds. Cole found a deck chair where he had meditated before, and went to sleep in the sun. A couple of hours later he wakened, and luckily the ship had swung around so that he was in the shade. By pressing his fingers on the exposed skin he could tell he’d got plenty of sun.
Walking to the rail he was now looking toward the land, so he went around to the starboard side and saw the launch heading back. They were making a lot of noise and everyone had a drink in his hand. Someone reached into the fish locker, which was full of sea water, and pulled out a couple of silvery, flipping fish and held them up for Cole to see. With a fish fry coming up, Cole decided he needed exercise. Anyway, he felt pretty foggy and not quite awake yet, so he climbed over the rail and looked at the water about thirty feet below, then made a perfect swan dive. Everyone on the launch was looking and Cole was pretty pleased with the dive, so when he came up he showed them his crawl by swimming away from the oncoming launch. The sea had just a slight swell to it, no choppiness at all. When he surfaced to look around he noticed a wave running across the roll of the sea. He was a little curious about what could cause this, when a tip of something, it was the color of an old inner tube, broke the surface. It seemed never to stop coming up out of the water and didn’t until about fifteen feet of the bat-like monster was exposed, along with its horrible maw which probably could swallow you whole.
He didn’t remember much of what happened next and neither did anyone else.
He only recalled hearing a tremendous slap that hurt his ears, and was later told that there seemed to be a wake of spray appearing in the ocean from where he was, back to the slowed down launch. They said he rose out of the sea, grasped the gunnel, and all of him cleared the side of the launch by at least a foot.
After dinner that night, and Cole wished it had included filet of manta ray, he went up on the top deck while the others had brandy and coffee below. The sun had already set; but there was still a faint glow in the west. A boat had just left the side of the ship, returning to shore. He asked the first mate if it was a mail delivery, and the mate said no, that it was an official of the Mexican Fish and Game Control and that it was the ship’s policy to keep on good terms with all Mexican officials. He said they gave gifts from the United States - mostly things you couldn’t buy in Mexico, or at least in Baja California Sur. Cole didn’t ask if there was any duty involved, but if you could pass things back and forth that easy, why not illicit drugs? Another thing that seemed a little unusual, right away the ship weighed anchor and headed for Mazatlan on the mainland.
Coming from the sea, Mazatlan lies on the lowland in back of an unbroken beach. Green islands humped out of the sea and white water lashed the rocks at their base. As the ship slowly approached the small harbor, the curved narrow sand beach in front of the old town took on more detail. There was a stone and concrete breakwater protecting the street and buildings that lined the shore. A broad strip of sand extended north where the new town was spreading; playas, motels, restaurants and bars.
As the ship crept forward to find her berth, the water turned dull and placid. Bits of debris floated by and occasionally a lazy fish flopped the surface.
The ship anchored in close to steel piles that supported large rigid pipes with flexible nozzles. It had been explained to Cole that these pipes would be used to blow the fine dry clay into the holds of the ship. Beyond the bow of the ship and further into the harbor was a cluttered wharf. Wooden crates were stacked haphazardly and papaya, pineapple, and stocks of bananas were piled in the open. There was a little brown girl in a soiled red dress with a white lace collar sitting atop a dead sea turtle, her dusty legs hanging down and blending in with the mottled shell.
A forward gang plank was being lowered and angled out to reach the wharf. Cole noticed a bald-headed man dressed in tee-shirt and tailored slacks that didn’t seem to be part of the scene. The minute the gangplank touched the wharf the bald-headed one started up. Mike Crowder met him at the top. The two shook hands but Cole couldn’t overhear what was said.
When Cole came down from topside to have a late breakfast, Mike Crowder introduced bald-head as John Smith, and didn’t smile. John Smith was the McWhorter Brown company pilot. He had flown the company plane into Mazatlan the night before. Neither offered a reason for his trip south and Cole wondered why Myron Brown hadn’t mentioned the company pilot and plane; then couldn’t think of any reason why he should have.
Cole spent the day watching loading operations get under way. The clay was brought in by trucks and dumped under an open tin-roofed shed. A tractor then pushed the material into a hopper where it was transported by the blowing mechanism through the pipes and into the holds of the ship. The operation seemed pretty crude but there wasn’t room enough to expand it much. It would be easy to drop a package into the fine clay and blow it aboard. The problem then would be to find it.
People moved back and forth between the ship and the wharf. Some were laborers, others appeared to be officials. There weren’t any restrictions to movement about the ship that Cole could see. Just before noon he watched Letha and Waldo descend the gangplank. They were the last of the passengers to leave the ship. He watched them get into a taxi and head for town. About this time he became convinced that his observations were worthless and he might as well join the others and go shopping. Turning he found the bald pilot, he couldn’t think of his name immediately, standing about twenty feet away and staring at him.
“I’ve got to go to Cuernavaca,” he said. “And I was wondering if you’d like to go along.”
“Yeah sure,” Cole said without thinking and remembered the pilot’s name. “Will we fly?” he asked, then decided that was a stupid question.
“Just as soon as we get to the airport,” John Smith explained.
As Cole went to his cabin to pick up a sweater he wondered at the sudden invitation. Had he been conspicuous by remaining aboard? Did someone want him off the ship? He decided this was probably unlikely since he had seen several persons carrying boxes and packages aboard and there was no way for anyone observing to determine their contents. If the smugglers were going to be caught, it would have to be in San Francisco.
John Smith stopped the plane just shy of the runway, holding before moving into take-off position, waiting for take-off instructions. During the long wait Cole read the check-off list and watched the pilot move the various controls and read the many instruments. The pilot decreased the pitch of the propellers giving them a thinner bite into the air, ran up each turbo jet engine separately, lowered the flaps twenty degrees, and getting the awaited signal, wheeled into position and pushed the throttle gradually up to full power. The plane rolled forward slowly and then with increasing velocity thrust Cole deep into the copilot’s seat. The lift-off was smooth and John Smith placed the plane in a climbing attitude, quickly dropping the earth far below them.
The S.S. Crescent Moon with the two pipes connecting her to shore was swept under the right wing. John Smith selected a southeast heading that, for the moment, paralleled the shore. There were miles of beaches and soon the coastal farmland gave way to jungle and mountainous terrain. It was mostly clear but there were small scattered showers, and one towering thunderhead full of lightening that they flew around. One such detour swung them far out over the sea. A white ship was visible down through the mist, sailing away from the land. Suddenly it became a strange and awful scene to Cole. He waited for impending disaster and was gripped with terror but he knew there was no immediate danger. The storm was off to the left and the strange ship was serenely moving under it into the concealing mist. He wondered if something out of the past was causing this torturous horror to grip him. But he knew he had never experienced this sense of doom before. As his momentary fixed rigidity subsided he became convinced that he had just looked into the future. The sea, the ship, the mist would come again and in this forthcoming time an awful dread would truly exist.
He felt the plane alter course and saw that they were now heading inland away from the sea. An hour later Mexico City spread out a mile below and the peaks of snowcapped Popocatepetl and Ixtacihuatl jutted a mile above. The altimeter registered twelve thousand feet. Just beyond the rim of the mountains to the southwest John Smith started a steep letdown for the airstrip at Cuernavaca.
The land on either side of the airstrip was lush and green. There were coconut palms and gold and purple flowering trees. The plane touched down smoothly and John Smith talked with the tower in halting Spanish and then switched to English. He asked for a parking space as close to the terminal as possible and received taxiing instructions to move just beyond the modern concrete building. Cole watched as John Smith set the brakes, switched off the communications system and shut down the engines. He was an excellent company pilot, Cole thought, and wondered if there were other things he was good at.
Cole opened the door and lowered the steps, moving aside for the pilot to descend. When he reached the ground the pilot was already walking towards a big old American car that looked to be in mint condition from loving care. A steel cable was lowered and the beautiful old car moved towards the plane. John Smith stopped and slowly started retracing his steps. The car parked beside the plane and a uniformed chauffeur got out and hurried around to the rear door. But it was opened from the inside and a gnome-like creature dropped to the ground. Cole thought of Toulouse-Lautrec but this guy was powerful and agile. He directed the opening of the rear trunk and the removal of what appeared to Cole to be an oversized footlocker. John Smith was opening a storage door on the side of the plane; he swung it back before exchanging greetings with the extra short man, and then introduced Cole.
The short man’s name was Gustave Tallarin. Cole thought tallarin meant noodle but wasn’t sure. He wanted to help load the trunk into the plane but John Smith and the chauffeur were handling it. There was a heavy iron lock on the latch that secured the lid and Cole wondered how he was going to get it open to see inside. Just as the trunk was being lifted up to disappear into the plane Tallarin said something to the chauffeur in Spanish. The chauffeur answered and nodded his head but Tallarin insisted that they place the trunk back on the ground. The Spanish was so fast Cole couldn’t follow it all.
It was hard to believe, but Tallarin brought out a key, opened the lock, unlatched and raised the lid. The trunk contained mostly decoys. They appeared to be plastic ducks. They were different from any Cole knew about, having been molded in various attitudes. Some seemed to be taking off, others landing, and some just seemed to be sitting, as is normal for a decoy. Very clever, Cole thought, and wanted to see what was under them.
The short man searched down, moving the decoys around and Cole saw what he thought was a pair of wading boots. The chauffeur then pulled a cover from the inside of the lid revealing a dismantled shotgun and a broken-apart fishing rod with reel. This satisfied the short man and Cole was pretty well satisfied too. He watched the lid being relatched and the lock inserted but the short man didn’t close the lock. Cole decided that if he got a chance he might take a closer look but he didn’t feel any real urgency.
Cole offered the copilot seat to Senor Tallarin, but the short man seemed happy with the luxurious cabin. He accepted a drink and settled back to enjoy the flight.
About thirty minutes after takeoff, John Smith swivelled the controls over to the copilot’s side asking Cole to take over while he went to the head. Cole was surprised at the casualness of it, but then remembered telling John Smith that he carried a multi-engine rating. He finally assumed this was one of the reasons he had been invited on the trip.
The plane flew beautifully. Maintaining altitude and course took only the slightest pressures on the controls. Cole saw the sea off to the left and decided the pilot would rather follow the shore than fly over mountains and jungles. He altered course slightly, the seacoast angled west, and he noted the time of the heading change. Glancing at the chart that he hadn’t been following too closely, he decided John Smith could make any corrections when he returned.
The pilot came back but didn’t take his seat. He noted the slight change Cole had made in the heading, was satisfied since they were VFR all the way, and suggested Cole might descend home if he wished, and move the plane around a bit; to get the feel of it. This was a happy suggestion for Cole. He waited while the pilot sat down next to the short man and then pushed the elevator gear forward and reduced power slightly. They went into a long gradual descent but he had to reduce power even further when the increased speed of the plane caused a levelling off.
At fifteen hundred feet he followed the shore line generally without probing into coves or small harbors. Once he saw whales humping and blowing in the water off to the left and later he saw a cream colored horse with a white mane running and shimmering in the sun as he dashed up the beach away from the sound of the plane. He didn’t see any people on the beaches and only once did he see a small fishing village. Again he adjusted the elevators and power settings and began to climb. At ten thousand feet he looked at the chart and saw that Tepic should be a few miles off his right wing. He picked up the haze and smoke assuring him of his position. And then he thought of the French sailor from the Greek ship jailed in the penitentiary at Tepic. The brutal fact of any one being caged was impossible for him to imagine. The soaring flight, the lulling events obscured cruel facts from Cole. There had been a moment of prescience over the ocean, but nothing to allow him to foresee the terrible happening converging upon him. It would happen - but not right away.
His reverie was cut short when John Smith Squeezed into the left hand seat. Cole swivelled the controls over without being asked since Mazatlan would be coming up soon.
After they landed a rickety bus was waiting for them in the parking area. Senor Tallarin’s gear was unloaded and the trunk was tossed on top. The driver of the bus skirted el centro back to the S. S. Crescent Moon.
Dinner that night was hosted by Mike Crowder at one of the beach restaurants. Colle learned that the bus would leave at four a.m. next morning to take them to the duck blinds. He could hardly wait.
When they returned to the ship early Cole went directly to his cabin and wrote in his diary. He was a little disappointed that the day hadn’t provided some big clue to the nefarious activities of the ship. The bare facts he jolted down didn’t release him from the instinctive primeval state he found himself in while gliding over the land and sea. So he wrote a poem to a girl.
It didn’t occur to him that his regression into the basics of life had been brought about by the use of the most modern technology. He drank a bottle of Dos Equis and went to bed, and before the beer got him up, there was a pounding on his cabin door announcing the bus would leave in thirty minutes for the rice fields.
Chapter V
The bus smelled like the fishing launch, of gasoline and the sea. Letha sat beside him, put her head on his shoulder and went to sleep. Waldo was two seats ahead on the left talking with Senor Tallarin. Mike Crowder was explaining that the blinds had been prepared, decoys set out and hot thermos coffee and sandwiches were in place. The blinds were double and Mike and Cole would hunt together.
When the bus finally stopped rattling and bouncing, Cole pushed Letha awake and helped her outside. The driver turned the lights off and everything was black. There was some milling around and Cole lost Letha but someone found his hand.
“Senor Rain, I am Cerillo. You will follow me.”
Cole’s hand was dropped and he said, “Hey, wait a minute. I can’t see a thing.”
“Hold to my belt. I am carrying your gun and shells,” a voice said. Cole assumed it was still Cerillo.
They stumbled along for about twenty feet and Cole began to hear water splashing around his ankles. He was grateful for the waders Myron Brown had lent him.
“Don’ make too much noise,” the voice whispered.
“O.K,” Cole muttered and started to sweat.
They plodded and slithered for what seemed an hour but was only fifteen minutes, and then Cerillo stopped. “From here you will shoot,” the voice whispered again. Cole felt tall thick grass being parted and then bumped a round island. “Get inside,” the voice said. “There is a seat.”
Cole stepped over and into a concealed blind. He felt the shotgun as Cerillo pressed it on him and then the shells. “There is a dry place in front of you to place the shells and gun,” the voice said close to his ear. Cole found what he thought was a secure spot and laid the equipment down. He really didn’t care if it fell in the water or not. “Here is your refreshment,” the voice said and guided his hand to a pasteboard box and metal bottle.
“Gracias,” Cole said and he supposed it was Cerillo moving stealthily away. After the foot splashes quit he listened for the sound of ducks waking up, but all he heard was a python or a boa constrictor twisting through the slime and grass to attack and strangle him in his lair. There wasn’t anything else to do, so he decided to eat the sandwiches and drink the coffee. Reaching out he found an unexpected bottle of beer. Five minutes later it was open after being pounded on the side of the blind. He smelled the awful fluid too late to prevent filling his mouth, but he didn’t swallow. The stuff was spewed into the tall grass from his mouth and nostrils. The weather was so warm Mike Crowder had forgotten to mention the small stove and extra bottle of kerosene. Cole stretched his hands out and found what he assumed was warm dirty water. He rinsed as best he could under the circumstances and then ate three sandwiches. There was chicken and ham and cheese.
After checking the coffee before tasting it, Cole started to remember what he knew about duck hunting. You had to wait for the first light, that was important. Probing the darkness in all directions, he tried to find some hint of this first light. One part of the horizon or the points where he assumed the horizon to be was as black as another. Suddenly he did hear rustlings and stirrings and then as though someone might be talking, a low melodious sound.
He decided it was more like a coo.
At last he saw first light but it was so faint he had to concentrate hard to make sure it was true. And there it was, only higher up than he expected. A thin shaft of difference in the blackness and at the bottom of the thin shaft a pale spreading, and just below, the tops of hills off to the east. Soon there was no doubt of first light in the eastern sky and the subdued noise of awakening was all around.
Cole reached for the gun and opened the breach, then laid it down again to find the shells. They were smooth and oily to the touch. He loaded both chambers, closed and locked, feeling for the safety catch. It was still on. He left it on and waited with the butt of the gun resting in his lap. There was a splash nearby and a whirr of sound went over his head. Cole ducked. A pop sounded way off to the left and then two pops close together both to the right. Three, four dark objects flew across the pale sky directly in front of him. He raised the gun and fired. Nothing happened. He fired again and was sure that one of the objects fell. A bigger splash to his right. Now what should he do? Put down the gun and go after the fallen bird? As he got ready to do this he saw someone in a crouch approaching the blind. It was Cerillo. “That is the first one,” he said. “Very good shooting.” He laid the bird on a tuft of grass before backing into the shadows.
Maybe an hour later, Cole waited for his next shot. The watery rice field was sun drenched now and from its very center one duck approached straight on. Instinctively Cole raised the gun and at the same moment remembered this was supposed to be the most difficult shot. The sight swept along the oncoming bird and into the sky before he squeezed the trigger. The duck flipped over and over coming directly at him. Again Cole ducked to escape the flopping object, but the bird plopped at the edge of the water and rolled within a foot of the blind. The blue head glinting green, and the white necklace of feathers identified a mallard. Except for the natural markings of the beautiful dead thing, there was but a single bright red dot on the blue-green head. Cole stared at the first close-up of the results of his shooting. He hoped it would get up and fly away. It didn’t. “To hell with this,” he muttered and climbed out of the blind. The bus was maybe five hundred yards away on a little knoll. He slogged towards it not worrying about the noise. Cerillo gathered up the dead ducks and followed.
Mike Crowder was leaning on a fender as Cole approached. “Looks like you did pretty well for yourself,” he said.
“Yeah, I got more than my share,” Cole admitted. “I thought you were going to hunt with me.”
“I had to go back to the ship. I may go out now and try my luck.” Mike said a few words to Cerillo in passing on his way to the empty blind.
Waiting for the others to return, Cole cleaned the gun thoroughly and washed off the waders. Senor Tallarin, the short one, was the next to come in. His bag was even larger than Cole’s. The guide laid them on the ground for inspection. Cerillo had cleaned the last of Cole’s shoot and stored them in an ice chest at the back of the bus.
When the hunt was finished and they were bouncing back to the ship Cole was reluctant to talk about his skill. Only Senor Tallarin had shot more ducks.
The rest of the stay in Mazatlan, Cole swam and fished. One day after catching two sailfish he had his picture taken between them as they hung down. Since the are not that good to eat, the fish guide suggested they be given to the poorhouse. He explained that the poor people liked them. Maybe because there wasn’t anything else to eat.
A couple of times Cole went to sleep on the beach and dreamed. Later on it was hard to separate the dreams from what really had happened, even though it wasn’t much. When John Smith left for San Francisco in the company plane Cole thought of returning with him but decided he should see it through. When the ship sailed north he was on it.
He played cards, shuffleboard, and shot skeet. Nothing more occurred aboard ship that raised his faintest suspicion.
