“Why not?” Ross’s tone was edgy. He felt that they were being sized up as youngsters.
“Well . . . we had a little accident in there the other day. That’s why the lock was changed.”
“Accident?”
“Man got in somehow — no break in the fence. He tangled with a land mine about a quarter of a mile this side of your cabin.”
“Did it . . . kill him?”
“Deader `n a door nail. I spotted it by the buzzards. See here — I’ll let you in; I’ve got a copy of your permit. But don’t go exploring. You stay in the marked area around the cabin, and stay on the road that follows the power line.”
Ross nodded. “We’ll be careful.”
“Mind you are. What are you young fellows going to do in there, anyway? Raise jack-rabbits?”
“That’s right. Giant jack-rabbits, eight feet tall.”
“So? Well, keep `em inside the marked area, or you’ll have jack-rabbit hamburger.”
“We’ll be careful,” Ross repeated. “Any idea who the man was that had the accident? Or what he was doing here?”
“None, on both counts. The buzzards didn’t leave enough to identify. Doesn’t make sense. There was nothing to steal in there; it was before your stuff came.”
“Oh, it’s here!”
“Yep. You’ll find the crates stacked out in the open. He wasn’t a desert man,” the Ranger went on. “You could tell by his shoes. Must `a’ come by car, but there was no car around. Doesn’t make sense.” “No, it doesn’t seem to,” Ross agreed, “but he’s dead, so that ends it.” “Correct. Here are your keys. Oh, yes-” He put his hand back in his pocket. “Almost forgot. Telegram for you.”
“For us? Oh, thanks!”
“Better put up a mail box out at the highway,” Buchanan suggested. “This reached you by happenstance.”
“We’ll do that,” Ross agreed absently, as he tore open the envelope.
“So long.” Buchanan kicked his motor into life.
“So long, and thanks again.”
“For Heaven’s sake, what does it say?,” Art demanded.
“Read it:”
PASSED FINAL TESTS TODAY. LEAVING SATURDAY. PLEASE PROVIDE BRASS BAND, DANCING GIRLS, AND TWO FATTED CALVES — ONE RARE, ONE MEDIUM. (signed) DOC AND MORRIE.
Ross grinned. “Imagine that! Old Morrie a rocket pilot! I’ll bet his hat doesn’t fit him now.”
“I’ll bet it doesn’t. Darn! We all should have taken the course.”
“Relax, relax. Don’t be small about it — we’d have wasted half the summer.” Ross dismissed the matter.
Art himself did not understand his own jealousy. Deep inside, it was jealousy of the fact that Morrie had been able to go to Spaatz Field in the company of Art’s idolized uncle, rather than the purpose of the trip. All the boys had had dual-control airplane instruction; Morrie had gone on and gotten a private license. Under the rules- out of date, in Art’s opinion -an airplane pilot could take a shortened course for rocket pilot. Doctor Cargraves held a slightly dusty aircraft license some fifteen years old. He had been planning to qualify for rocket operation; when he found that Morrie was eligible it was natural to include him.
This had left Ross and Art to carry out numerous chores for the enterprise, then to make their own way to New Mexico to open up the camp.
The warning to follow the power line had been necessary; the boys found the desert inside pock-marked by high explosive and crisscrossed with tracks, one as good as another, carved years before by truck and tank and mobile carrier. The cabin itself they found to be inside a one-strand corral a quarter of a mile wide and over a mile long. Several hundred yards beyond the corral and stretching away for miles toward the horizon was an expanse which looked like a green, rippling lake — the glassy crater of the atom bomb test of 1951, the UN’s Doomsday Bomb.
Neither the cabin nor the piled-up freight could hold their attention until they had looked at it. Ross drove the car to the far side of the enclosure and they stared.
Art gave a low respectful whistle. “How would you like to have been under that?” Ross inquired in a hushed voice.