Circles in the Sand (7 page)

Inside Clint looked around. “Lookin’ good men. Move the things out of the carrier and we’ll go into town. Not much more we can do out here tonight.”

Back at Gilman’s he sought out Dorris, “Any messages for me, Mrs…Dorris?”

“No, not a thing. Were you expecting something in particular?”

Could she be wondering if I expected a woman to call?
“Only some information and instructions from the head shed. Seems like I don’t know what’s going on until an airplane shows up.”

“That’s got to be very awkward for you.”

“Yeah. I really need to have radio contact. Teletype is out of the question. The phone system around here stinks.”

“Yes. I’ve never had to depend on it for long distance calls.”

Clint wanted to stay and talk to her, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He started to walk back to the dinner. Dorris stopped him with her hand on his arm. “Sergeant, can I ask you about something?”

She knows I’m interested in her. I guess it shows. Had Lorena told her about his girl back in Grand Eclipse?
“Why sure, Dorris. What do you want to know?”

“You’ve got some more men in…some very young men. A couple of them are flirting with Lorena right away…”

“Can’t blame ‘em for that…she’s so pretty, but she’s too young for them…they’re too old for her. I’ll warn ‘em not to get carried away.”

“Thank you, Sergeant, I knew you’d understand.” Her hand still lightly on his arm.

“Sure, and I’m Clint, remember?”

“Oh of course. I didn’t mean to sound formal. It’s just that at fourteen, she is easily impressed. I wanted to let you know before they started asking her out.” Reluctantly, she let go.

“I’ll keep an eye on her…(
hard not to
) and on them too, Dorris.”
And on you as well.

The next morning, when Clint had all his troops together in the dining room, he said, “Men, still no further word from Air Div. So having nothing better to do, I want to scout out the gunnery range. We’ll split up into two parties and explore the territory. Lance and I have been over part of the east side, so he, I, and Alcocke will take the west side. Sergeant Elsas, Priebe and Kline explore the east side. You guys take the weapons carrier. We’ll take the Jeep. Don’t be afraid to get out and walk around. Hard telling what we’ll learn, if anything.”

“So what are we looking for, Sergeant?” Alcocke asked.

“Nothing more than familiarity. We’ll be spending a lot of time out there. Look for anything that could cause problems for us getting around: any unexpected caves, ditches, animals, people, structures of any kind. Just get the lay of the land.”

At the Quonset hut, Clint explained with a map of the gunnery range how he wanted each group to proceed. Out on the southern boundary road, Clint drove three miles past the center road and turned north. Three miles further he stopped. “We should be somewhere close to where target number two will be set up.”

“Clint how in hell can we set these things up without knowing for sure where they are? Seems to me going by Jeep mileage is pretty loose.”

“Yeah, we don’t have any real boundary markers. LC Lerner said he’s get us some survey equipment. Just hope someone shows up that knows how to use it.

“Anyway, another six miles due north ought to put us somewhere near target three.”

When they stopped, Lance said, “Not much in the way of features out here. A lot of  tumbleweeds, sand and scrub grass. Some rolling hills but they don’t amount to much.”

“Lets take a walk around. On foot we may see more than we can by chugging past in the Jeep.”

Clint walked up a small rise to the west. He could see a small dust cloud. Using his field glasses he could make out a herd of cattle moving off ahead of a lone rider.

I wonder if he saw us coming this way? If so, why is he taking them away? Surely he didn’t think we’d bother his cows now.
Clint turned and waved his hat to Lance and Alcocke. “Come here…” Before he could  finish, he heard a loud snort behind him. He turned,  “Ohh, oh. Not all the audience appreciates me waving” He froze. The bull pawed the ground with one hoof while it studied Clint. The animal was undecided until Alcocke appeared over the rise. Dropping his head, the bull charged at Clint. “Split for the Jeep!” He hollered.

Alcocke turned and ran to hide behind the Jeep. Well to the side, Lance saw Clint’s peril…jumped…waved his cap…shouted, “Hey bull! Hey bull!” Distracted, the bull wheeled toward him. Clint dodged out of the way. His movement distracted the bull from Lance. It stopped. Clint slipped behind it. When it whirled, Clint dashed to the Jeep and jumped over it. The bull charged the Jeep…lost sight of the two hidden men… stopped…looked over the vehicle.

Off to the side, Lance slid down and lay flat on his stomach. Lying on the ground, peering under the wheels at the bull’s legs, Clint tried to think of some way to scare it off:
If it weren’t so damn close, I could scare it with engine noise, but I don’t want to share a seat with the beast. No horn on the Jeep.
Before long, the bored bull wandered off over the rise.

Now a horseman appeared, flicked a whip at the bull, and herded it to the west. Then Basil Tree rode back towards the airmen. “Hey, what all you fly boys doing down in the dirt? You fixing to be ground pounders? Haw haw haw.”

“I reckon that bull was your doing, Tree. You havin’ fun, farmer?” Lance said. Gettin up he spat dust into the dirt.

“Naw. I musta missed it. Shucks, I bet you guys was a sight getting outta its way. Too bad I wasn’t closer.”

Getting back in the Jeep, Alcocke stood and shouted, “You won’t think its so goddamn funny when five hundred pound bombs are chasing your bulls ass!”

“Hey, ain’t you the sassy one. Ain’t no bombs gonna fall on this place. I’ll tell you right now. Fritz Deutsh gonna make sure they ain’t.” He rolled his whip up and turned after the bull.

“You’re just full of shit cowboy!”

Tree turned back in his saddle. “Hey little fart, you’re lucky I don’t just come back there and stuff it in yore mouth.” He kept riding.

Lance said, “I’ll give you credit for nerve, Alcocke. Telling off a fool with a bull whip takes more guts than sense.”

“I don’t care. He just pissed me off.”

They arrived aback at the Quonset before Elsas’ party. When the latter arrived, Clint and crew told them what had happened to the west side team.

“You guys have any excitement, Elsas?”

“Yeah, some. We drove around the area. We came across your tracks from where you must have figured target one is. Out of curiosity I headed over to the river from there. We went around a marsh on the east end. Didn’t want to take a chance on getting bogged down, so didn’t turn north until we were on firm ground. Instead of going back to the river we headed north, but by now I’d lost track of where we were from target one.

“Anyway, hadn’t gone too far when someone shoots a shotgun over our heads. I slammed on the brakes and we looked around. Couldn’t see anyone, so I hollered, ‘who’s  the idiot shooting at us?’” 

An old geezer in a big hat stands up. “Wasn’t shootin’ at you…or you’d be full a holes. Now get the hell of my range. You’ll be scaring the lambs.”

“Hey stupid, your shotgun’s gonna scare ‘em more’n us. You outta yore mind? What you doin’ on this government property anyway?”

“Government property hell! This is my homestead. You ain’t building any bomb site out here. You must be with those other Air Force guys. You’re the ones trespassing. So get the hell on out of here!”

“I wasn’t in any mood to argue with him, and he had the drop on us, ha ha. So we came on back. Seems like the natives around here are kinda restless.”

“You got that right. To get the cowboys and sheepherders off the range, the Air Force is going to have to come up with more sayso than I’ve got,” said Clint.

“Seems to me,” Alcocke said, “Air Force ought to provide us with some weapons. Here we got two weirdos cramping our style all ready. There’s probably more than that around here. I’d like to have the odds evened up a little.”

“Speaking of odds,” Kline said, “What are the chances of us getting some money, otherwise, how we gonna pay our hotel and meal bills?”

“I’ve got that worked out with Mrs. Gilman. You need to sign a bill for everything you get. She’ll turn the chits in to me and I’ll pay her with a government requisitions slip. You guys shouldn’t have to pay for anything.”

“Yeah, that’s great for Mrs. Gilman.” Kline said. “But supposing we want a brew, or a little nooky?”

Clint now had everyone’s attention. “I’ll see if I can arrange something with Chet at the saloon, there’s only one in town. Paying for goodies at the Boar Pen is something else. Don’t think LC Jenner would appreciate the requisition slips he signed showing up for screwing. We’ll have to think of something else.”

Kline said, “Sarge, what else is there to think about?”

“Okay, okay. There’s a solution for every problem. I just haven’t come up with it yet.”

Back at Gillman’s, Dorris said, “I took a message from some Lieutenant who said you could expect more men and material coming in here by truck and by air.”

“Great. Things are beginning to look up. Thanks for looking out for me Dorris.”

“I’m just glad to do it, Clint.” Her eyes were on his now. Neither could look away. “If there’s anything you need…I’ll be glad to help out.”

“I do appreciate that, Dorris.” Clint’s evil thoughts started a bulge in his crotch. Walking back to the dinning room,
Geez, If I’m getting that horny from a little talk, those younger troops are in a world of hurt.’ Surely there’s other young girls around here somewhere.
When Lorena returned, he said “Lorena, You can’t be the only pretty girl around here. Aren’t there some girls out of high school living or working in this area?”

“Well there’s a few girls working for the Army, secretaries and such, but there’s also a WAC detachment in the Ordnance Depot. Some of those girls probably are older.”

“Oh yeah. I hadn’t thought of that. I need to get in touch with the Army anyway.  Might be able to get some support from them.”

Lorena “Humphed.” And as she flounced off said, “There’s pretty women your age right around here.”

Clint wanted to say, I wasn’t going over there looking for a girl for me, but Lorena was out of ear shot in the kitchen. He thought to himself,
if there’s a woman around anywhere near, it seems like a man is under the microscope all the time. You can’t hide anything from them. Just hope I can keep all my bad habits in check and unobserved.

After dinner, he walked on down to talk to Chet. After waving to his troops, who all sat around a table together, he ordered draft beer, and remained at the bar.

“Say Chet. My crew over there is bound to run out of money shortly. I don’t know when we’ll get a payroll in here, and I’m wondering if we can set up some kind of credit system. If they can’t get a brew now and then, they’ll be one unhappy bunch.”

“If they can’t pay, I’ll be the
very
unhappy one.”

“If you keep a tab on each one, I could set up kind of a rationing system…based on a man’s pay, on how much you could put on his tab each month. To make it work, You’d have to cut them off when they reach their limit. If you’ll do that, I think I can persuade them they ought to pay up when they’re flush.”

“Maybe I can keep a tab, but how do I  know I’ll get paid when they do? A lot would depend on that last part, Sarge. You gonna pay  if they can’t?”

Clint played with his beer glass. “Yeah, if it takes that, I will.”

“In that case, I’ll try it out. See how it works, Okay?”

“Sounds good. I’ll give ‘em lecture on beer and…on fiscal responsibility.”

When Clint next got to Lance alone, he said, “I want to go on a reconnaissance mission down to Ft. Peck…see what they’ve got that we can use. Besides a Post Exchange and commissary, they must have a communications center…Also Lorena tells me there’s a WAC unit at the ordnance depot. Wouldn’t hurt to check out their off-duty recreation time. Some of them might be as hard up as our young troops.”

He called Sergeant Elsas to him. He explained what he and Werner were going to do the next day. “I want you and the others to try to determine some boundaries on that gunnery range. Take plenty of water and have Lorena make you some sandwiches to take along. You’ll be out there awhile on that rough terrain. Oh yeah, tell the troops I’m working out a plan so Chet’ll  put them on a tab. That ought to brighten their day.”

The next day at the gate to the Fort Peck Ordnance Depot, Clint asked the guard where he’d find the post adjutant. He was directed to a wood building behind the flag pole. He showed a copy of their orders to a sergeant who said “Air Force, huh? Didn’t know there were any air bases around here.”

“Hardly. Just a would-be bomb scoring site.”

“What do you want to see the adjutant about?”

Clint explained their situation. When the sergeant returned he said, “the Adjutant is too tied up to see you now, however, he’s asked Lieutenant Prescott to see what we can do for you.”

Lieutenant Lyle Prescott turned out to be a brown bar lieutenant. Clint was surprised but nudged Lance. Together they popped to and saluted the officer.

Looking the airmen over, Prescott took his time returning their salute. “Sergeant Greybull, do I understand correctly that you are in charge of your group? That no officer commands it?”

“That’s right, Lieutenant.” He handed him a copy of his orders. “We could use an officer, Sir. Perhaps if you volunteered we could swing a transfer.”

Prescott shuddered. “I don’t think so, Sergeant. Just what do you want from the Army?”

“Well, Sir. Access to your post so we can use your PX and commissary, enlisted club, if you have one. We don’t have much of anything with which to construct our bomb site, so we’d like to be able to scrounge from your surplus property, or disposal site. Such things as wood, boards, paint, even anything in the way of furniture that might have been discarded. Oh yes, back at Air Div they said I could draw on you for gasoline.”

“Do you have authority to obtain government petroleum supplies?’