“Oh, no!” cried Bob. “The same message we just heard?”
“Almost word for word,” said Jupe, “including the idea that the world will tilt on its axis and the polar icecaps will melt.”
Bob sighed. “Too bad,” he said. “And I thought we had something very unusual going on.”
“You’re crazy!” said Pete with a little shudder. “I sure don’t want to be around for the end of the world!”
15
Getting Ready for the End
PETE AND BOB SAT ON THEIR BEDS in the ranch-house bunkroom and waited. Jupiter had gone back to the Barron house, and Konrad lingered in the kitchen below. He had been warned not to tell the staff that Jupe suspected trickery.
After fifteen minutes Jupe came back to the ranch house. He climbed the stairs slowly, and his face was downcast when he came into the bunkroom.
“Mr Barron didn’t believe you,” said Bob.
Jupe sighed. “He says I couldn’t possibly remember the dialogue from a movie word for word.”
“You told him you have a mind like a tape recorder?” asked Pete.
“I did,” said Jupe. “He told me not to be impudent.”
“That’s the trouble with being kids,” Pete declared. “When grownups don’t want to listen, they say you’re impudent.”
Bob said impatiently, “What about the fact that the soldiers are imposters? And your theory about the gold? Did you tell Mr Barron about that?”
Jupe looked shamefaced. “I didn’t get a chance. You know what Mr Barron is like when he doesn’t want to be bothered with something. You can’t get a word in.”
“Well, what about telling Mrs Barron?”
“She couldn’t get away from Mr Barron long enough to talk. But at least she believed me about the movie dialogue. She said to come back after supper and tell her the whole story.”
“Oh, great,” said Bob. “Here we’ve practically got the mystery solved and we can’t even get our client to listen!”
Jupe flushed. He prided himself on making adults pay attention, but this time he’d failed.
“Why can’t we go ahead and tell some others about the hoax?” asked Pete. “Everybody on this ranch is a nervous wreck. We could save them a lot of grief.”
“But we’d tip off the spy,” Jupe pointed out. “And we might put the Barrons in real danger. What if those soldiers decided to come in here and take the gold by force?”
Bob shuddered. “I can see it now. We’d get caught in a shoot-out.”
Jupe nodded. “No, we have to wait and convince the Barrons that we know what’s going on. It won’t be hard to persuade Mrs Barron. She seems to have a lot of faith in boys. But Mr Barron might disagree just because she does believe us. As Elsie said, he’s contrary.”
“Touchy as a rattlesnake in a rainstorm,” said Bob. “Elsie has a way with words.”
Jupe stared at Bob in silence for an instant. Then he said, “Oh!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Bob.
“You said something just now,” Jupe answered.
“Yes. I said Elsie has a way with words. She said Mr Barron is as touchy as a rattlesnake in a rainstorm.”
Jupe grinned. “No. What she really said was he’s cosy as a rattlesnake in a rainstorm! But that’s close enough!”
“Boys!” called Elsie. She stood at the foot of the stairs. “Supper! Come on down!”
“Jupe, you’re on to something!” said Pete.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” promised Jupe.
When the boys came into the kitchen, Elsie was serving the soup while Mary Sedlack passed plates of hot biscuits.
“You were there,” said Mary to the boys. “Tell them about the message on the radio. They think I’ve been eating magic mushrooms or something.”
Jupe sat down next to Hank Detweiler. John Aleman and Rafael Banales were already seated. Konrad was opposite Detweiler, carefully not looking at him.
“The message was for Mr and Mrs Barron,” said Jupe. “It was from a spaceship that is now orbiting the Earth.”
Pete and Bob sat down, and Elsie put plates of soup in front of them. “If I were you, I wouldn’t tell that to any of the ranch hands,” she said. “Most of them are scared enough already.”
“They aren’t children, Elsie,” said Hank Detweiler. “They’ve got a right to know what’s going on.”
The foreman picked up his spoon, scowled at it, then put it down again. “Mr Barron made me take the guards off the meadow,” he said. “He doesn’t want anyone up there.”
When no one commented on this, Detweiler went on. “Crazy!” he said. “I just talked to him about taking a bunch of men up over the cliffs into the hills behind the ranch, and he wouldn’t hear of it. He doesn’t want anyone up there. Now Mary says that’s because the world is going to end and the aliens are coming to take the Barrons away. Well, if we have to go through the end of the world, I think we all deserve a little notice.”
“Hank, everybody would panic if they knew about the message on the radio,” said Elsie.
“They’re in a panic now,” said Detweiler. “The only thing that’s keeping them from trampling each other is the fact that nobody’s running. And nobody’s running because there’s no place to run to. Why should the people here run when they’re already in the last safe place there is?”
Detweiler looked searchingly at Jupe. “Mary says Mr and Mrs Barron are supposed to go to the meadow tonight and the spaceship will take them away.”
Jupiter nodded. “They’re to rendezvous with the rescue ship at 2200 hours tonight. That’s at ten o’clock. The spaceship is returning for them and also some people from the planet Omega. I guess those would be the ones who attacked us this morning. Perhaps they’re here to keep the people of Rancho Valverde from leaving and carrying the word to the outside world.”
Jupe took a spoonful of his soup. “They wouldn’t want to be met by a mob when they landed, would they?” he said.
“Just want the Barrons, huh?” said Detweiler.
“No one else was mentioned,” said Jupe.
Detweiler snorted. “That’s a laugh! Why should they want Barron? He’s no genius. He’s rich, that’s all. Do the rich go first class even on doomsday?”
“It’s some kind of gag,” said John Aleman. “Somebody’s playing a joke on us. The radios–it isn’t such a trick to put radios out of commission, or to broadcast special messages. Elsie, I’ll bet if your brother was here he could tell us exactly how it’s being done.”
Elsie didn’t respond to this, but the hand with the deformity went to her throat.
“I’ll bet I could do it myself if I had the right equipment,” said Aleman.
“Probably you could,” said Mary Sedlack, “but if someone’s playing a joke, why are they doing it? They’ve gone to tons of trouble for that joke!”
“Is it possible that Mr Barron has enemies?” said Rafael Banales. His voice was low and quiet. “He is a rich man and the rich are not always liked. But is it also not possible that a ship has come here from some faraway planet? Could it not happen? The disasters you speak of could happen, too. The climate of Earth has changed in the past. We know that. It could change again. The ice age could come again, or there could be the melting of the polar icecaps. Why not? But even if these things are going to happen, what can we do? Get aboard a spaceship? Even if I could, I don’t think I would do it. I don’t want to go to some place where the sun is not the same and the sky is not blue and perhaps the grass is not green. I will stay here and take my chances.”
“And if nothing happens?” said Detweiler. “If there is no spaceship?”
Banales shrugged. “Then it is indeed a joke–a joke which I do not understand.”
The meal went on in silence. The boys ate heartily, but the men only picked at their food. Elsie and Mary ate nothing at all.
After supper the Three Investigators went out and looked up at the Barron house. Immediately a window in the big house went up and Mrs Barron put her head out.
“Go around to the front of the house,” she said softly.
The boys did as she asked. They found Charles Barron sitting on one of the cast-iron chairs on the veranda.
“Good evening, Mr Barron,” said Jupiter.
Barron scowled.
Jupiter went up the steps, followed by his friend. “Mr Barron, I have a theory about today’s events,” he said.
“Young man,” said Barron, “I thought I made it clear this afternoon that I’m not interested in your theories.”
Barron got up and went into the house.
Mrs Barron came out a moment later and took a chair on the veranda. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess my husband simply doesn’t want to hear the truth. He’s planning to leave with the spaceship. He says I must come with him.” She looked down at her green sweater and skirt. “He says I’m to go in and change soon. I’m not supposed to wear a skirt to travel to a new planet. Charles believes that slacks would be more appropriate.”