“L-4 here. We read you, Andy. We’re heading toward Otisville. Smooth as glass up here. Nothing to report yet.”
“We read you weak but clear. We’re dumping the gas in the Airoknocker crackle ground. We’ll follow as fast as possible. No new AF spottings yet. If crackle, call us right away.
Over.”
“L-4 to Huguenot. Lost the last sentence, Andy. Cylinder static. Lost the last sentence. Please read it back.”
“All right, Mac. If you see the bomber, crackle right away.
Got it? If you see crackle, call us right away. Got it? Over.”
“Got it, Andy. L-4 to Huguenot, over and out.”
“Over and out.”
The railroad embankment below them went around a wide arc and separated deceptively into two. One of the lines had been pulled up years back, but the marks of the long-ago stacked and burned ties still striped the gravel bed, and it would have been impossible for a stranger to tell from the air whether or not there were any rails running over those marks; terrain from the air can be deceptive unless you know what it is supposed to look like, rather than what it does look like. Martinson, however, knew as well as McDonough which of the two rail spurs was the discontinued one, and banked the Cub in a gentle climbing turn toward the mountain.
The rectangular acres wheeled slowly and solemnly below them, brindled with tiny cows as motionless as toys. After a while the deceptive spur line turned sharply east into a woolly green woods and never came out again. The mountain got larger, the morning ground haze rising up its nearer side, as though the whole forest were smoldering sullenly there.