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The fast-flying cotton farmer waddled up, planted his h
ands on his hips, and glowered at the ashes.
“If this don’t beat all! Ah got a socialist red unionist creepin’ up on me. Every sentimental fool in the country is rootin’ for Josephine just ’cause she’s a gal. And now my high-paid mechanician goes and barbecues hisself. Who the heck is goin’ to keep my poor machine runnin’?”
Bell suggested, “Why don’t you ask the mechanicians Dmitri helped?”
“That’s the dumbest idea Ah ever heard. Even if that damn-fool Russian couldn’t synchronize my motors, nobody else knows how to fix my flying machine like him. Poor old machine might as well have burned up with him. He knew it inside and out. Without him, Ah’ll be lucky to make it across the New Mexico Territory.”
“It’s not a dumb idea,” said Josephine. Bell had noticed her glide up silently behind them on a bicycle she had borrowed somewhere. Stevens had not.
The startled fat man whirled around. “Where the heck did you come from? How long have you been listenin’?”
“Since you said they’re rooting for me because I’m a girl.”
“Well, darn it, it’s true, and you know it’s true.”
Josephine stared into the smoldering ruins of Platov’s shop car. “But Isaac is right. With Dmitri. . gone. . you need help.”
“Ah’ll get on fine. Don’t count me out ’cause I lost one mechanician.”
Josephine shook her head. “Mr. Stevens, I have ears. I hear those motors chewing your machine to bits every time you take to the air. Do you want me to have a look at them?”
“Well, Ah’m not sure-”
Bell interrupted. “I’ll ask Andy Moser if he would look them over with Josephine.”
“In case you think I’m going to sabotage your machine when you’re not looking,” Josephine grinned at Stevens.
“Ah didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it. Let me and Andy lend you a hand.” Her grin got wider, and she teased, “Isaac will tell Andy to watch me like a hawk, so I don’t ‘accidentally’ bust anything.”
“All right, all right. Can’t hurt to have a look.”
Josephine pedaled back toward the rail yard.
“Hop on,” Bell told Stevens, and pumped the handcar after her. Stevens was silent until after they passed the slaughterhouse and the factories. Then he said, “’Preciate yer tryin’ to help, Bell.”
“Appreciate Josephine.”
“She took me by surprise.”
“I think it’s dawning on both of you that you’re all in this together.”
“Now you sound like that fool Red.”
“Mudd is in with you, too,” said Bell.
“Damned unionist.”
But the best intentions could not overcome the stress of running rough for three thousand miles. Josephine and Andy tried their wizardry on Stevens’s two motors all afternoon before they admitted defeat.
Josephine took Bell aside and spoke urgently: “I doubt Stevens will listen to me, but maybe if he hears it from Andy he might listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“That machine will never make it to San Francisco. If he tries to force it, it’ll kill him.”
