Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

OATERS
by Darryle Purcell

Part One Of A Three-Part Series

CHAPTER 1.
GET MAYNARD TO THE MOUNTAIN

The new, burgundy 1934 Cadillac sedan pulled up to the curb in front of Rinty’s Hollywood Bar two blocks south of Mascot Pictures. The driver got out, opened the back door and a large man dressed in black stepped out, smiled and fell on his face.

“Your star has arrived,” driver Nick Danby said.

Veteran of the Great War, trick-riding and -roping cowboy star, idol of western fans and symbol of the all American good guy, Ken Maynard belched and tried to find his feet.

“Thanks, Nick. Let’s get him to the studio house before he takes up residence on the sidewalk. The toilet is not very private here.”

Mascot keeps a bungalow for out-of-town investors to stay or producers who need a place to entertain a friend or two away from home. A lot of special casting interviews take place in the studio house. Also, it becomes valuable when Mascot needs to keep a wayward star away from the press or, in this case, to sober one up.

Nick and I threw the big guy back in the sedan and we headed through the gate and, quickly, to the bungalow. We deposited Maynard in the back bedroom and locked the door, which was designed for such an occasion.

“He’s all yours, Curly,” Nick said as he left. “See ya in the funny papers.”

That’s me – Sean Woods. Everyone calls me Curly because, well, they’re assholes. Sure, when I was young reporter on the Los Angeles Examiner I had a healthy head of wavy hair. But my locks are now thin enough to give many a chuckle when I’m introduced as Curly.

Maynard was my first assignment for Mascot. I had just started as the in-house press dude. That means I use my journalism experience to keep real bad news from hitting the streets and to fluff up the soc-pages with phony news concerning the studio’s B-film Barrymores.

Maynard was working on “Mystery Mountain,” an action-packed serial that was designed to bring the kids back into theaters 12 weeks in a row. My immediate job was to get Maynard to the “Mountain” on time and sober for filming.

I was warned that the cowboy would be a handful. Maynard had a reputation of being rambunctious at times as well as having a close relationship with the recently legalized sauce. No big deal. Since Happy Days are Here Again, many of us imbibe a bit, especially since we no longer have to worry about going blind from some unethical bootlegger’s poisonous wood alcohol. As a former newspaperman, I wasn’t about to judge someone for taking a drink or two now and then.

On that subject, with Maynard tucked away for the night, I went to the icebox and grabbed a cold beer. It was not quite midnight and I needed something to calm my demons so I could catch a couple of hours of sleep. We needed to be up at 6 a.m. and at the movie ranch in the Valley by 7:30.

Being a studio flack wasn’t always my dream. It still isn’t.

I spent a lot of years as a newspaper crime reporter in L.A. But then I made a big mistake. I wrote an accurate, balanced series of articles on a candidate for Congress who had too much discretionary money for fairness. It’s amazing how pressure from slimy activists, threats of cancellation from weak advertisers, and rumors of litigation will bend the ethics of fearless watchdog publications.

The candidate was a well-heeled trial attorney with a serpentine smile who believed every child molester, thief, woman beater and drug peddler deserved a strong defense, as long as they could handle his fees.

The city editor gave me a choice of backing off, writing laudatory fluff features on the swine and planting my lips firmly on his ass or finding a new career.

If I had to write phony fluff news, I might as well get paid well for it. I told the editor where he could deposit his assignments in the future and called Nick who had mentioned his boss was looking for an in-house PR writer. I figured it was a better opportunity than staying on at the Examiner as an out-house PR writer.

I interviewed with one of Mascot’s lesser moguls, Max Gorn. He had been a midlevel bootlegger with a reputation for handling the good stuff during the recent unpleasant years. He was rough around the edges, dressed like a racetrack tout and had the soul of a meat grinder. I spoke his language; we got along fine.

“We’ve got some expensive properties,” Gorn said as he used a gun-shaped lighter to ignite a cigarette. “I’m talking stars, directors, stuntmen and dames. Some of them are actually talented. Others just have the look. Whatever they have, people pay to see their work.”

Gorn was in his mid-fifties with hard-gray eyes and an enviable crop of salt-and-pepper hair. He obviously hadn’t taken care of himself when he was young as his skin was rough and pitted. The bags under his eyes were a shade darker than his face. He had a scar running across his forehead above his right eye. Gorn had the essence of Hollywood success: the smell of a combination of cigarettes, booze and possibly a starlet or two.

“Some of these properties have unique interests,” he said. “Your job will be to make sure their unique interests don’t make it into the press. You will also write some wonderful, heart-warming, sincere articles about their good works, families and lovable personalities whether they have them or not.”

For $50 a week, it sounded like heaven to me. At that price, I could make Fatty Arbuckle seem wholesome enough for children’s parties. We shook hands, had a drink and I went directly to Rinty’s Bar for the aforementioned meeting.

*

At 6 a.m. Nick showed up at the bungalow with a clean shirt for me and a fresh, black, cowboy outfit for Maynard. Together we hauled him into the shower and left him there while I got ready and Nick made coffee.

I would hope the star’s young fans would never hear him spout the creative use of profanity that was wafting from the bathroom. After a while, he quieted.

“You ready to go to work?” I asked the tall, naked man holding on to the shower curtain. “There’s coffee in the other room.”

“Who the hell are you,” the 39-year-old western hero slurred, his coal-black hair hanging wet in his face.

“I’m your friendly Mascot PR dude, Sean Woods. Some folks call me Curly.”

“Why?”

I ignored the question.

“Now that you’ve got the smell of saloon hopping off you, your clean duds are on the chair. We’ve got to get you to Mystery Mountain.”

We left the bungalow looking like a traveling vaudeville act: six-foot-plus Maynard in his black cowboy outfit and white hat, Nick at five foot six in a gray chauffeur uniform and me at five nine in my ill-fitting, three-piece, W.T. Grant brown suit and fedora. The Cadillac moved along swiftly and by the time we dropped down into the Valley, Maynard was almost friendly.

“Guess you boys kept me out of the hoosegow last night,” Maynard said in his best western drawl. “I’m much obliged.”

“You were about to throw a waiter and two Nancy-boys through a window when I found you,” Nick said. “I got a call you were drinking pretty heavy at the new Trocadero hangout on the Strip.”

“Yea. I was having a few drinks when some folks came up and asked for autographs. They were friendly and we all laughed and carried on a bit. Then this waiter told me I needed to quiet things down a tad and it went downhill from there. I was doing my best to keep things in control when these two swishes came up and acted a little too friendly.”

“Well, Mr. Maynard,” I said. “That’s one reason not to get blotto in Hollywood. Your buckaroo outfit may have given those boys the wrong message in that part of town.”

Nick gave a one-sided smile at that and Maynard clammed up for the next few miles until the windshield exploded.

We were on a dirt road about four miles from the movie ranch when the shooting started.

The first shot hit the windshield and sent glass flying over all of us. Nick held tight to the wheel and kept us on the dirt road as he floored the accelerator pedal. I found the floorboards welcoming, although I doubt I will ever be able to fold into that position again if I wanted to. We slid off onto the rough shoulder raising dust and brushing a few branches as he took a turn at top speed.

“What the hell was that?” Nick yelled.

“I think someone is shooting at us,” I said as a second bullet hit the left front tire sending the Cadillac out of control.

“You think so?” Maynard said as the car traveled sideways toward a 10-foot drop into a dry creek bed.

CHAPTER 2.
ROUNDUP AT THE MOVIE RANCH

The Caddy came to rest halfway over the cliff. The front passenger door had swung open and I was hanging from it over the creek bed. As I dropped to the ground, Maynard and Nick flew through the right doors and landed next to me. We took cover against the bank. Whoever was shooting at us was in some high rocks above the other side of the road.

“Don’t put your head up,” I said as Maynard peeked over the ledge and got a face full of dirt when a bullet ripped into the soil near him. “You’ll get your head blown off.”

Oddly enough, like a true movie cowboy, his white hat stayed on the whole time.

We surveyed our situation. The shooter was well concealed in the rocks. We were currently out of his field of fire thanks to the depressed creek bed, which was about a mile long leading toward the ranch. We either could have stayed where we were and hoped the sniper didn’t move in on us and finish us off or try to run for it using the creek bank for cover.

“Stay close to the cliff and start running,” I said as I did just that. Nick and Maynard followed suit. As we ran, we heard a couple more shots break Cadillac windows.

A few minutes later we came to an area where some brush was hanging over the cliff. I grabbed some branches and climbed to the edge to look back at where the car and, possibly, where the shooter had been. All was quiet.

“Did you check for snakes before you pulled yourself into that brush?” Nick asked.

“Thanks, Nick. Next time.”

Then my throat tightened as I heard more shooting coming from in front of us. These shots seemed muffled.

“Look yonder, boys,” Maynard said. “It’s a posse.”

Four riders in full western gear were headed our way in a cloud of dust, firing pistols into the air.

“Howdy, Ken,” the lead rider said as the group reined their horses to stop in the creek bed. “We were shooting some chase footage when we saw your car and heard the shots. Think we chased them off?”

“Looks to be,” Maynard said. “Howdy Kermit, Mo, Blackie, Red Eye. Thanks.”

Nick and I looked at each other realizing at the same time that these four silver-screen clodhoppers had just ridden in like Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders to save the day, only with smoke-puffing, blank-shooting, movie pistols.

“Hey Nick. Who’s your pard?” Maynard’s tall, sandy-haired brother, Kermit, said as he dismounted his pinto cayuse.

“Hey, Kermit,” I said. “I’m Sean Woods, the new Mascot flack. I recognize you from your films.”

“We call him Curly,” Nick said.

“Why?” asked Kermit.

I bristled.

“What in the ding-danged flimbaloozy is goin’ on?” said a strange-looking bearded man with baggy pants, a torn vest and mangled western hat.

“Curly, meet Jack Brown,” Maynard said. “We call him Red Eye, for obvious reasons.”

He really didn’t have much of a white part to his eyes. I thought he might have kidney problems until I got close enough to smell the odor of reefer. I assumed he was the token, in more ways than one, western comic.

“And this is our set wrangler Mojave Burns, Mo to his friends, and the wildest stuntman in the business, Arlis ‘Blackie’ Knight,” Maynard said. “Mo. Is Tarzan onsite?”

“Polished and ready, Boss.”

We rode double to the ranch house. Nick seemed scared to death as he climbed on with Blackie. I believe the stuntman relished Nick’s displeasure as he brought his quarter horse to a brisk sprint. The Maynard boys rode together. And I hung close to Red Eye while doing my best not to inhale too much.

The ranch house was your typical turn-of-the-century, shiplap home with shade trees in the front yard and a white picket fence. There were two large barns – one for the horses and one for wagons and vehicles – with a corral between them. Behind the horse barn was the bunkhouse.

There was a wind-powered well pump that filled a tall, wooden water tower. This was a working movie ranch that housed stars, stuntmen, equipment, a camera crew, bit players and other staff. All the buildings also served as sets for Mascot’s action-oriented features and serials. The ranch was a full section – 640 acres of wild west rocks, cliffs, trails, a lake, a couple of line-shack sets and at least two mine entrances. Cowboy heroes had battled villains here since Bronco Billy Anderson first saddled up.

We dismounted in front of the house and Mo and Blackie led the horses to the barn for a drink and a snack. We all slapped the dust off our clothes except for Red Eye, who probably considered it part of his character.

Max Gorn was seated, smoking, in a wooden chair on the front porch. A big-eyed, bottle blonde with It-girl, bee-sting lips rocked in the porch swing. She wore a loose-fitting white blouse and tan riding pants. She wasn’t my type. Too cute.

“You made it,” Gorn said. “What was the trouble?”

“A sniper almost finished us off a few miles back,” I said. “It seems that not everyone in this neck of the woods is a fan of Mascot westerns.”

“The flap-dippin’ varmint plum near wasted Ken,” Red Eye said. “Twarn’t fur us, the buzzards’d be feastin’.”

The fuzz-faced raconteur punctuated his story by spitting in the dust.

“The boys with the smoke pistols did show up at an opportune moment,” I said. “Then again, we had been running up that dry creek bed for quite some time. I believe we were probably out of the sniper’s rifle range by the time we met up with our heroes.”

Red Eye snorted and turned away to leave, with one unhealthy eye giving the blonde quite the once over.

“I’d like to take a car back and check the area out where I think the shooter waited for us,” I said. “We also need to get Nick’s chariot off the rocks.”

“We’ll send a tow truck out to bring the car in and you can go along,” Gorn said. “Sounds like quite an adventure. I’ll be interested in what you find at the site. This is just not good news with all that has been happening. Why would anyone want to shoot Ken, or you, for that matter? Doesn’t make sense.”

Perhaps it was the Trocadero waiter or one of the Nancy boys from the night before.

I went to the bunkhouse where Maynard was cleaning himself up and getting ready for a shoot. The inside looked like the typical cowboy barracks except there were several large mirrors and makeup tables at one end of the room. That way, the other end could be used as an inside set for bunkhouse scenes as long as the cameraman kept the beautification area out of the frame.

“Any idea who might have wanted to ventilate you, Mr. Maynard?” I asked.

“Nope. And call me Ken,” he said. “Ever since we started Mystery Mountain, there have been some odd occurrences. First, an unexplained fire destroyed three days worth of film. Then Tarzan (Maynard’s horse) got sick and we had to adjust schedules. And finally, Toosie, twisted her ankle. That was Toosie in the porch swing. She stunt doubles all the women and kids in the Mascot serials.”

“She looks more like a vamp than a tough and tumble stuntwoman,” I said.

“Yea, she’s got a notion she wants to be the next Thelma Todd,” Maynard said. “About the only thing she has in common with Thelma is they both like to snuggle up to gangsters.”

“So you’re saying there’s been a run of bad luck on this shoot,” I said.

“Yep, we’re way behind schedule. I took advantage of the last delay to go raise a little hell in town. Guess I went a little too far last night at the Trocadero. That’s when you and Nick came in.”

“What’s Red Eye’s story? Is he the comic sidekick in Mystery Mountain?”

“Naw. He’s working with Blackie on some stock chase scenes for another Oater Mascot is getting ready to shoot. I worked with him a few times in the silent pictures. But, like a lot of character actors of the silents, he just didn’t transition well to the talkies. His funny dialogue just doesn’t lead to laughs in the theaters. Of course, some top silent film stars found their newly recorded voices led to a lot of laughs, destroying their careers. Also, Red Eye is just not that dependable these days. He can still fall off a horse without getting hurt. In fact, he falls down a lot. But his timing stinks and he’s just not that funny anymore.”

Mo opened the door and waved.

“Ken. I got Tarzan all set and the boys are ready for your first scene,” he said.

Mascot serials were filmed on a tight budget. Several scenes were shot each day and sometimes at night. Usually only one take was shot per scene unless something really drastic happened in front of the camera, such as a horse taking a crap or a stallion waving his Louisville Slugger and making everyone feel insignificant.

“Bud and Shuffles are about to head over and pick up the car you guys drove into the ditch,” Mo said. “You can tag along if you like, Curly.”

Three of us squeezed into the Ford tow truck cab for the trip back to the scene of the shooting.

The driver, Bud, was a short, stocky, redheaded handyman with coveralls, a newsboy cap, a short nasty cigar and a disposition to match. According to him, he painted the buildings, cleaned the barns, hauled what needed to be hauled and repaired whatever was broken.

Shuffles, on the other hand, was quite a character. His real name was Arthur Washington.

“So why do they call you Shuffles?” I asked.

“Because I’m a negro,” he said. “And that’s the name the studio gave me so every time a director wants to throw in a negro character to say something really stupid and make the white actors look smart, I shuffle in, roll my eyes and sputter my lines. And they hand me a check.”

His grammar was far superior to that of my former city editor at the Examiner. I was starting to think he might be a little bitter about his theatrical options, but my perception was quickly corrected.

“I’m no Douglas Fairbanks, but I make a good living. It sure beats restroom attending. And in between the speaking parts, I work with Bud on projects here at the ranch.”

Bud actually smiled at that.

“Shuffles and me – we’re a pretty good team,” Bud said. “A lot of the actors, stuntmen and crewmembers look down on us. They think they’re better because of what they do. But they couldn’t do it without us. This ranch and all the equipment have been falling apart for the last couple of years and Shuffles and I have kept putting it back together. And as stupid as the lines are that Shuffles has to speak, he never screws them up, unlike the pretty boys and bimbos who get their names on the marquees.”

Bud wasn’t a bad guy after all. He was just a little gruff and looked like he should be threatening Billy goats from under a bridge. But he was proud of his work and loyal to his friend. And that pretty well sums up what people should care about.

When we arrived at the crash site, Bud and Shuffles hopped out and got to work hooking the Cadillac up to drag it off the ledge. I started for the rocks from where I thought the shots were fired.

“Take your time, Curly,” Bud said. “Once we get the Caddy on flatland, I want to give it the once over. I also have a cigar I want to finish.”

Taking Nick’s earlier advice to watch for snakes, I crossed the road and started up the rocky hill. Once I got to some boulders that seemed ideal for an ambush, I started looking for disturbed ground. I found an area behind a large V-shaped pile of rocks where a couple of shrubs had been broken. Someone had obviously set up within the cover to await our arrival. Whoever the sniper was cleaned up his brass pretty well. But as I kicked a little dust around, I found a shiny, single .30-06 shell, just like the ones we used in our Army M1903 Springfield rifles in France.

Something about that casing sent a chill through me that I hadn’t felt since my time in the trenches. During the war, I knew we were up against a well-armed, uniformed, enemy military and, at any time, a German bullet was just waiting for me to be in the wrong spot.

The war had been over for almost 16 years and I didn’t like to think about those days. But for those of us who served, some feelings are involuntary. I chalked mine up to the aging process and a slight case of the willies.

I returned to the tow truck with my find and we headed back toward the ranch.

“You guys have any idea why someone would want to kill Ken Maynard?” I asked.

“There might be quite a few reasons,” Bud said as, thankfully, he tossed his stinky cigar butt out the window. “Ken is a complex man. You never know how he is going to react from one moment to another.”

I had seen the drunken dummy side of Maynard as well as the grumpy hung-over guy, but he hadn’t seemed any different from anybody else on the tail end of a bender.

“One moment Mr. Maynard can be happy and cracking jokes and the next minute he can just go berserk and start screaming at you,” Shuffles said. “It’s like he’s two people.”

“Now, his brother, Kermit, is a genuine nice guy,” Bud added. “I talked to him about Ken and he said this has been a lifelong condition. They were country boys, part of a large family, and Ken, the older of the two, was the wildest. Kermit said his brother would behave just fine and then he would get this look in his eye and start thinking everyone was out to get him. His wildness helped hone his skills with trick riding and rodeo events. But competing in that world also increased his feelings that people wanted to get him out of the way. Becoming a western movie star didn’t make it any easier, either; especially recently since he has taken a couple of steps downward from Universal and other studios to land at Mascot.

“And his drinking has increased to the point that he may not be with Mascot much longer.”

There are a lot of temperamental movie stars in Hollywood, and a lot of drunks, but that usually doesn’t lead to someone wanting to murder them. I thought of all the silent movie stars who didn’t make it into the talkies because they sounded like Disney mice. Many of them became drunks. But they were only abandoned by their hypocritical peers; not murdered.

“There has to be more to this incident than just an angry coworker who got his feelings hurt by a prima-donna cowboy star,” I said.

Perhaps someone really was trying to kill Nick or myself and didn’t even care a whit about Ken Maynard. I didn’t know how Nick could have ticked off anyone that much, as he was just a working, family man who drove folks to and from typical Hollywood functions and workplaces. And I certainly had made a few enemies in my newspaper career covering crime and politics, which are pretty much the same thing. But, I don’t think my former city editor would lean toward murder just because I told him where he could deposit (insert) his future assignments. I’m sure he has been told worse things he could do to himself. And the venomous Congressional candidate got what he really wanted, which was a pandering press and my departure from the newspaper.

When we got back to the ranch house, things were not getting any better.

I walked from the vehicle barn toward the ranch house when I heard the breaking of glass and saw the front door swing open. A large man in western clothing came out not facing the direction he was traveling. He landed in the dust sounding like a bag of cement. I looked down and recognized the Oater King of the bad guys, Charlie King, as he puffed dust through his famous mustache.

“Now that’s how you throw a realistic punch,” Maynard slurred as he tossed King’s black hat toward the horizontal victim.

“I’m goin’ to tear you apart, pretty boy,” King sputtered as he jumped to his feet. “You’ve never been able to throw a realistic punch on screen and now I’m going to repay that sucker punch with interest.”

Gorn stepped between them.

“That’s it!” he said. “This is your last mistake, Maynard. You cause one more problem to me and you’re out of here and no longer with Mascot. Nat Levine is sick of your behavior and so am I. We’re not so far into this picture that I can’t put that fairy suit of yours on just about anybody and complete it.”

His last statement didn’t make much sense, but we all understood what he meant.

“And as for you, Charlie, I apologize for this drunk. I know you drink a bit too, but you are a professional and we will work together again, many times; just not on this picture. We’ll talk in town next week.”

“Thanks, Max,” King said. “But you better get your boy some loony pills. Because if he continues like he is goin’, he will receive a bundle of bruises from any stuntman or black hat he has to fight a scene with. I guarantee that.”

Things quieted down a bit as King dusted himself off, just like in the movies, and walked over to a little Model A Ford near the horse barn. Without a word he drove away.

Gorn turned to me.

“Inside, Curly!

“Time for you to earn your keep,” Gorn said. “This picture has had too many delays; too many unexplained and possibly deadly problems. And, you just saw what could be described as the demise of a once-stellar, now-struggling career. The Mighty Maynard has almost completely struck out.”

Gorn had, with reservations, reported the shooting incident to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

“You need to write a report for law enforcement that keeps our star out of the picture,” he said. “That means it will keep Mascot out of the picture as well. This kind of press we do not need. The deputies are spread mighty thin these days, so if you write the report judiciously, it will be filed and no follow up will take place. And the press will not have any reason to get involved. You do get what I mean?”

“Loud and clear, boss.”

“And then I want you to try and find out what is behind all these problems, other than the fact that Charlie is right about Ken,” Gorn said as he paced the room. “Maynard’s mood swings and alcoholism are beyond our abilities to cure. But you still have to wet nurse the SOB, and keep him out of jail and away from reporters, until this picture is complete. Then, you can drop him off at the Trocadero for good, for all I care.”

I asked Gorn about the delays and what he thought might be motive for someone to hamper, if not shut down, production. He was obviously frustrated with the problems and the fact that costs continued to increase with no possibility of the low-budget serial completing on budget. But he couldn’t think why anyone would want to sabotage the film.

Gorn lit another cigarette and sat down on a wooden chair in front of a roll-top desk.

“I’m sending some of the crew over to Griffith Park to get some chase and stunt shots this afternoon,” he said. “Kermit will double for Ken. Verna (Hillie), our leading lady, likes Kermit better, anyway. You and Nick need to get Ken, sober and pleasant, into town for a meeting with a new property we have coming along. Nick has the lowdown. Once the meeting is over, get Ken to the studio house and you can write your report for the sheriff there.”

CHAPTER 3. VALENTINO’S REVENGE

I stepped out the front door and there was cowboy Ken asleep in the back seat of a new Duesenberg sedan with Nick behind the wheel. I crawled in shotgun.

“Mascot sure rides high,” I said.

“This is Ken’s,” Nick answered. “He spends money faster than he makes it. He likes everything shiny and fast – cars, airplanes, and women.”

I guessed he liked to get where he’s going in a hurry. After seeing some of his lifestyle and the direction it was taking him, I just wasn’t sure whether he was going to like it when he gets there.

“Last year Ken flew in the National Air Race in Los Angeles,” he said. “One of his rowdy pals, Hoot Gibson, also flew in that race; and crashed. Hoot was lucky to get out alive. Both of them have wild streaks. And, both of them served in the Great War.”

It’s true. A lot of men who served in that war came back with a need for continued excitement. When I came back, I just chose to be a writer. But I did specialize in crime reporting. Maybe there is a link between combat service and risky lifestyle choices.

But then again, both Gibson and Maynard grew up riding wild. That’s what made them rodeo champions even before the war.

“I hope Charlie is alright,” the voice from the backseat said.

Obviously, it was the good-guy Maynard who had awakened.

“I don’t know why I did that,” he said as he sat up straight and leaned forward. “Charlie was just ribbin’ me about a fight scene we did a couple of pictures back. He said when he saw the scene at the theater, I looked like I was beating the dust out of a rug. He was just joshin’ and I got mad. I don’t know why I poked him. Some of my best fight scenes have been with Charlie. When we get to town, I’ll buy him a drink and everything will be fine.”

“There won’t be any drink buying when we get to town,” I said. “You heard Max. You’re about a step away from a career of waiting tables. We’ve got business to take care of this afternoon and you, sober as can be, have a part in that business.”

Nick, who obviously had more on the ball than just the ability to drive, filled us in on our itinerary.

“Mr. Gorn has an interest in bringing a new actor into Mascot features,” he said. “He is looking at creating a team of western heroes for a series of films. Ken, if you behave yourself a while, you will be a member of this two-hero series. He wants to call it the Mojave Ramblers. He’s pitched the idea to Levine and has the potential go-ahead for three Oaters. There will be a lot of trick riding, stunts, music and good looking gals.”

Maynard ran his hand through his hair in a pensive manner.

“Well, if the budget is better than the current serial, it might be a smart move for all of us,” he said. “I’ve worked with other stars before. I always thought Hoot and I could do a great series. And as for music, I actually sang in a couple of my films.”

“The difference is, Ken, this other guy can actually sing,” Nick said rather bluntly. “And he has a lot of experience in front of the camera. You may remember Renaldo Sharp?”

I remembered. His real name is Ronald Shapiro from New Jersey. He changed his name and got into silent films as a low-rent version of Rudolph Valentino. When Valentino died, his kind of movies soon followed. Many of his fake-Latin imitators recreated themselves to portray gangsters as the popularity of films about speakeasy and casino owners, and other hoods, increased. Sharp didn’t quite leave the style quick enough and ended up dancing the Bolero at nostalgic nightclubs until that work dried up.

I’d only seen him in a few silents and couldn’t figure out whether I thought he might be a good movie cowboy or not. And I also wondered why Gorn would want Maynard in a new series of films if he really was as disgusted with the star as it sounded not 30 minutes ago.

“I never saw any of Sharp’s flickers,” Maynard said, “but as long as he can ride a horse and say his lines, it could work. Kermit and Blackie could do the heavy lifting for him.”

The rest of the trip to Hollywood was uneventful as Maynard regaled us with tales from his earlier career. Some of the stories included leading ladies, and some not-so-leading, and were a bit blue, but most had to do with wild stunts, stunts that went wrong and auto and airplane racing.

We pulled up in front of a courtyard with three bungalows on each side.

“Sharp is in 2B,” Nick said. “We’ll all go.”

“Works for me,” I said. “Saddle up, Ken.”

Maynard looked at me like I was an idiot.

I pulled the chain and heard the bell chime inside.

Within a few seconds the door opened and we got our first look at Renaldo Sharp. Dressed in brown and white wingtips, white slacks and a powder-blue silk shirt, Sharp looked sharp. He leaned back in a practiced photo stance and puffed a cigarette in an extra-long, Bakelite holder. His black hair was plastered down so slick that it could have been sprayed on with a stencil.

“Come in, gentlemen,” he said with the warmth of a carp. “I understand Uncle Max sent you here to discuss my comeback in the cinema. Please be seated.”

There was a pitcher of lemonade with four glasses on the coffee table.

I shook his hand and immediately felt I needed something to get the scales off my fingers. He obviously had bathed in enough perfume to kill or cripple any mosquitoes, roaches or skunks that have the misfortune of getting within a 10-foot radius of him.

“So you and Max Gorn are related?” I asked.

“No. But I’ve known him most of my life as our families have done business together,” Sharp said.

I was too polite to ask if the business was bootlegging. Yea. Too polite. That and the fact that Gorn paid my salary.

“So, Mr. Maynard, may I call you Ken?” he said with all the sincerity of a hungry coyote. “I am looking forward to working with you on these cowboy films. Uncle Max told me you might be able to help me, how did he put it, cowboy up to become a range-riding sodbuster.”

The more I listened to Sharp, the more I realized Max Gorn was loonier than Maynard. If this guy could become a white-hatted cowboy hero, then I could be lead in the next Busby Berkeley musical, and I can’t dance. I just hoped Maynard wasn’t going to lose it and snap this guy in half as an insult to western movies.

“Um,” Maynard said as he slowly stroked his forehead, handling a slow burn very well. “Can you ride?”

“You mean horses? Well, no. But how hard can that be? I’m sure you can teach me. I can make the ladies swoon and play the tough guy,” Sharp said as he dabbed his lips with a handkerchief.

I had a feeling Edward Everett Horton could kick Renaldo Sharp’s ass.

“And I have been taking singing lessons; something I didn’t need to do in my silent romantic pictures. Uncle Max believes music is in the future for cowboy movies.”

I poured lemonade for everyone and took a quick drink, all the while watching Maynard closely. He actually started to take a drink.

“And Uncle Max said Ken, here, could supply enough humor to the series to keep the children happy, as well,” Sharp added as Maynard did a spit-take that would have made Jimmy Finlayson proud.

“Well, we are looking forward to seeing you at the ranch soon,” I said as I stepped in front of Maynard who was standing, choking on lemonade and digesting the fact that this Bolero dancer thinks Ken Maynard should become a comic sidekick….like Red Eye. I’m sure, if Ken could breathe, Mr. Sharp would be getting his first cowboy lesson on how to take a thorough beating.

“We’ll be going now,” I said while holding tightly to the gasping screen legend. “Nice to have met you, Renaldo. When you get time, you just drive on up to the ranch and we can get together. I’m sure Uncle Max will give you directions.”

Nick, who seemed entertained, helped me herd Maynard out the door without an incident. We climbed into the Deusenberg.

“I could use a drink. How about you guys?” I said.

Both men nodded and we drove toward Rinty’s Bar.

“This is a fine mess,” I said as the bartender brought me a beer and Nick and Maynard each Scotch. “I set out to keep you out of trouble and away from booze, and now here we are. But after that visit with Dracula’s weird nephew, this is as good as it gets.”

Maynard was still huffing and sputtering. He certainly wasn’t imagining this. It looks like Max Gorn really was out to get him.

“That slimy Sharpo, Shapiro, whatever his name is, thinks he can become a cowboy hero….and I can be his slapstick sidekick,” he said. “Now that’s nuts! I know I’ve been a handful and I know Max doesn’t like me. But even he should be able to figure out that this third-rate Valentino impersonator doesn’t have what it takes to be any kind of an American cowboy, especially a white hat. He has no personality and no warmth. He doesn’t ride, for cryin’ out loud!”

“You’re right,” I said. “Gorn is still a businessman. He has to know that no director, cameraman or makeup artist could turn that dead fish into an all-American cowboy star. Ken, I think this whole trip is another wrench in the machinery. Gorn is sending you a message that he thinks will put you over the cliff. And here I decide to go to a bar.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Nick said. “We can go to the studio house for the night and then get back to the ranch in the morning.”

It was bottoms up. I had a little beer left in the bottle, but Maynard wouldn’t go until I finished.

“Think of all the sober children in China,” he said as I took my last drink.

We stood up and started for the door when it opened and three big, ugly thugs wearing off-the-rack Palooka outfits step in.

“Well. Looky who we have here,” thug one said. “It’s Ken Manure and his two ugly sisters.”

Thug two started to say something when Maynard punched him in the nose, knocking him over a table. I believe I saw the beginning of a smile on Ken’s face.
Thug one took a swing at me and I ducked forward and head butted him in his solar plexus. He exhaled as he fell backward. I dived on top of him and slammed the palm of my hand upward against his already crooked nose.

Nick, much shorter than his adversary, dropped to the floor and kicked thug three in the side of his knee. I heard the crack and a squeal of pain as the thug’s leg bent in the wrong direction.

Bleeding from the nose, thug one rolled to the side and came up fast with a chair. As he swung it at me, I rammed him with my body. The chair flew wild and I punched a right as hard as I could toward his jaw. I missed, but connected with his Adam’s apple. So much the better, I thought, as he hit the ground gasping for air.
I heard a loud smack and saw Maynard had taken one on the jaw. It didn’t faze him. He threw a left to thug two’s ear and another right to his nose. Thug two hit the ground hard.

If life were a Flip the Frog cartoon, the three garden-variety hoods would have had little birdies flying in circles over their heads. Life isn’t and the only birds these boys needed to worry about were hungry buzzards that might not want to check to see if they were breathing before dining. Only thug three was making any noise and he was crying like a baby. It would be a while before they could answer any questions so we decided it would be better to leave them in their current state rather than wait around and possibly deal with any misunderstandings from the police.

Nick and I picked up our hats to go. Maynard, once again, didn’t lose his hat in the scuffle.

I wondered who sent the thugs. Was it Gorn? They must have followed us from Sharp’s bungalow, but why?

As we drove to the studio house, something happened. We recounted some of the action and then started to laugh. That fight had taken the edge off an otherwise lousy day. I still had a report to write. And we had a mystery to unravel. But otherwise, life was good….for now.

CHAPTER 4. DEATH FROM ABOVE

We had escaped one more assault and we still didn’t know who was messing with us or why. When we got to the house, Maynard and Nick stayed up while I wrote the simple report for the sheriff on the shooting event, leaving out any mention of Maynard being with us. I banged it out in 20 minutes and put it in an envelope to drop in the mail on the way out of town. I was sure by the time the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received it, they would already be on to real cops and robbers situations that were more pressing than one possible shooting incident in the wilds of the San Fernando Valley.

“Well, boys,” Maynard said. “I’m gonna hit the hay. But before I do, I want you guys to know that you did well. I know that I’ve caused some problems for a lot of people and I’m kind of a hard guy to get along with, but you guys are aces with me.”

“You know, Ken,” I said, “I thought your feelings of persecution were unfounded; and maybe some of them have been. But this time, someone or some group is really out to get you and I’m going to find out why.”

“And I’m not going to make it any harder for you, Curly. Until we get a handle on this, and until we complete filming Mystery Mountain, I’m not going to drink…. hard stuff, anyway,” he said as he put down an empty beer bottle.

Maynard slept in the bedroom. Nick pulled down the Murphy bed and I took the couch. I fell asleep quickly and dreamed I was back in the Examiner newsroom writing on a tight deadline. I wasn’t sure exactly what story I was trying to pound out on the typewriter, but the paper kept flying off the carriage and crumpling into the wastepaper basket.

Copy editors at the horseshoe desk were screaming at me to get my golden prose turned in. My fingers kept typing but I wasn’t getting anywhere. Then Max Gorn looked down at me from the slowly turning ceiling fan above my desk.

“You need to know your story,” he yelled, “but you’ll never find out.”

A large white horse wearing a loincloth clopped up to my desk. The corner coat rack turned into cowboy hero Ken Maynard, except he was wearing a scarecrow outfit with a big white hat.

“You varmint!” He yelled as he spit straw. “You’ll never take this ranch.”

He threw a rope around Gorn and yanked him off the fan and out the window.

“Now, that’s the story!” the copy editors yelled.

When I awakened, I remembered the dream plot and realized thug number two might have connected with that chair after all.

I got up early and showered first. My suit was getting a little rank, so I went to the bedroom closet and thumbed through the shirts and outfits. There was quite a selection, from work clothes with caps to sailor suits and western chaps. The adult-sized, school-girl outfit and French maid costume worried me a little.

“Here. This should be about your size,” Maynard said as he tossed me a blue western shirt and a pair of Levis. “You’re spending more time at the ranch, now, so you might as well look appropriate. I got an extra pair of boots at the bunkhouse if you can wear ten and a half.”

“Perfect,” I said.

Nick was in the kitchen whipping up some coffee and scrambled eggs. He was wearing a checkered shirt and Levis. He still had on his chauffeur boots.

“You look like Bob Steele, Nick,” Maynard said. “And you fight like him too. Bob’s the toughest little guy I ever met.”

“Growing up, I was always the little guy,” Nick said as poured us some coffee. “I learned to adapt. That kick to the side of the knee I used is the quickest way I can think of to take a big guy out of the action.”

“I’ll bet that’s one thug who won’t be out messing with folks for a while,” I said. “The other two guys did get busted up a bit, but we may see them again. If we do, I’m not waiting for introductions. I say we put them down first and then find out who they are.”

“We’re with you, Curly,” Maynard said. “The one I dealt with deserves a couple more smacks in the nose.”

We arrived back at the ranch and immediately prepared for a shoot at one of the line shacks. Tarzan was ready and waiting. Maynard whistled and, as Tarzan ran to him, he grabbed the reins and saddle horn to make a running jump onto the stallion. What a showboat.

I rode along to the shack with Shuffles in a station wagon loaded with camera equipment.

Maynard, in the serial character of Ken Williams, was to confront one of the Rattler’s (the villain of the piece) henchmen. There would be a shootout outside the shack and then a fight on the porch. The henchman was to use a piece of firewood to hit Ken on the head and then escape by horseback. Ken would revive, whistle for Tarzan, and the chase would begin.

Maynard, as Williams, starts action by skulking up to the cabin and listens at the window. He acts as if he is hearing the discussion going on inside. That interior scene had been shot several days ago. Then he steps on a twig; cut; action, close up of foot on a snapping twig; sound effect to be added later.

Maynard freezes in position at the side of the line shack. Action – three Rattler henchmen storm out the front door with guns blazing. But Maynard is ready. He jumps right in the middle of them. Fists fly. One of the henchmen sets his gun to shoot the cowboy hero in the back, but Maynard turns the henchman he is grappling with and the crook shoots his own partner. Maynard pulls his gun and blasts the shooter right off the porch.

The third bad guy immediately strikes Maynard on the back of the head with a chunk of firewood. Maynard drops. The henchman, portrayed by George Chesebro, sees he is the lone, villainous survivor. He grabs for his gun, but his holster is empty. As he looks around, Maynard is coming to. Chesebro runs, climbs on his horse and rides away quickly.

Cut. The crew sets up for a Maynard money shot.

Action – Maynard jumps to his feet and whistles for Tarzan. The amazing white stallion comes quickly. Maynard does an amazing running mount where he and the horse start after the villain before he is in the saddle. He lifts his feet and hangs on as Tarzan picks up speed; and then puts his feet down together once. The impact of his feet hitting the ground at that speed throws him upward and astride Tarzan.

Cut.

The years have had no negative impact on Maynard’s stunt-riding skill. He rode back to the scene of the action standing on his saddle. As I said, what a showboat.
Watching the filming was far more exciting than sitting in dark theater and seeing the action.

“That was great, Ken,” the director, Otto Brower, said. “Everything right on the mark with no repeat takes. If things continue like this, we’ll make up for some of those delays. We’ve already shot the chase scene. We’ll be moving on to some interior cave shots with the Rattler and George this afternoon.”

The crew grabbed the equipment and packed the truck and Shuffle’s wagon.

“Curly, grab a horse and we’ll ride back,” Maynard said. “It’s a nice day.”

Well, I did enjoy watching the filming and I was dressed the part. I had on the boots Maynard offered and one of his big white hats. Why not?

Mo brought me a gentle-looking Morgan gelding.

As if reading my mind, he said, “All our movie horses are gentle, Curly. They have one job, to make the riders look good. I call them the real queens of western movies in that they know when the cameras are running. You put three men who aren’t good riders on three movie horses and they will ride up very manly and stop right on their marks, facing the cameras. I swear, the horses will look right into the lens and grin,” he laughed.

I wasn’t unfamiliar with horses. As a kid, I rode the neighbor’s plow horse bareback with a hackamore. As I got older, I did a little riding with bridles with bits and even pondered joining the cavalry. But when the war came along, like a lot of guys, the infantry got me.

“I’m sure I can handle him, Mo,” I said. “Thanks.”

The crew headed back on the road to the ranch.

“Come on, Curly,” Maynard said. “I’ll show you some great places on this ranch.”

And we rode off into the open range…. of the movie ranch.

In a short while it was like we had stepped back in time 50 years to the Old West.

“You can’t see it from here, but right over that ridge is the road,” Maynard said. “We bring a couple of truckloads of steers to that point, release them and herd them this way over that rise. And from the top of that hill to this point we move them pretty fast and shoot cattle stampede footage. Once they get to the other end of this area, we stop them, turn them around and send them in the other direction for more stampede filming. Cameras are usually set up over at those rocks for the southern drive and then they are moved to that clump of trees over there for the return stampede shots. Shot properly, you can make 30 steers running through here look like a couple of hundred stampeding for miles.

“That movie magic can make those same steers look like they are running right out of the big screen into the audience,” he said with a smile.

He obviously liked the movie business.

“I always felt like I was born in the wrong era,” Maynard said as we rode toward the ranch house. “I came along too late to be part of the most adventurous time in America. The pioneers, the frontiersmen took this wild country and made it what it is today. What I do is to try to honor them for their amazing achievements in building America.

“I know they didn’t dress in this fancy movie-cowboy manner and they weren’t all on the up and up,” he said. “But the people who blazed the trails, fought the Indians, built the railroads and towns did all that against incredible odds. They fought and died for every inch of this country. And I just hope I can keep making films that honor those folks and help kids grow up with a western set of standards that will keep America on the right track.”

In spite of his very human foibles, Ken Maynard believed an important ethic. He truly was the great western hero he portrayed. Since early in the century when silent western films began, they focused on triumph over tragedy; good always defeated evil; justice was served. For all the kids who thrilled to those silent films and, now, the children of the depression who put down their dimes every Saturday for a double dose of western action, these films could be the only just life lessons they learn.

Life is hard in many areas of the country right now. Families are suffering. Some kids are pretty much on their own as their parents, or whomever they are living with, are trying to find any kind of work they can. Many children have to fight for themselves on the schoolyards and in alleys. They don’t hear positive messages on the streets or at home, if they have a home. About the only place many of them can learn about fair play and justice is in the Saturday matinee.

And Ken Maynard, Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Tim McCoy and a handful of other silver-screen heroes are delivering action-packed sermons on choosing honesty and right over wrong.

My generation grew up on those early silents and we went off to fight a war for democracy and justice. And those of us who made it home still value those things. Today’s youths are learning their Saturday lessons and I’m sure, if this country is tested again, they will step forward to fight for what’s right.

The value of these low-budget oaters is truly under appreciated. I just hope we never have a generation of children who grow up without those lessons. If that ever happens, right and wrong might not be as clear to America and we could be in serious trouble.

Germany didn’t parlay any justice out of the Great War. That country never recovered from its own self-inflicted downfall. And even as America works its way out of a terrible depression, the seeds of a new war are sprouting evil growth in Germany. A lack of faith for justice and doing what’s right has led to that country’s newly appointed chancellor of hate.

America will recover from this depression because Americans have values; and American children are taught those values by this country’s western-star royalty.

“What’s that growling sound?” Maynard said.

I heard it, too. It couldn’t be a tractor as we could see for a mile in any direction. The sound got louder as we scanned the horizon. It was a different sound – like grinding ice.

“There it is, whatever it is,” Maynard said.

I looked to the horizon and saw a flash of light becoming larger. It was some kind of flying machine. It only had one wing, which is how some planes are being built these days, but this one was pretty much just a wing. It had no tail. There was one propeller and it was in the middle of the back of the wing. Somewhere there had to be room for a pilot, but I sure couldn’t see where that was. It was fast and it was coming right at us.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “We better scoot.”

Both of us spurred the horses to top speed as we rode toward the rocks.

The growl turned into a roar as the flying machine instantly turned and dove right at us. Maynard signaled to me and we split in opposite directions. Tarzan turned on a dime while my horse did its best to make a slightly wider turn. Between us, right where we were, the ground was raked with machine gun bullets. Rocks and dirt flew into the air. The plane pulled straight up and looped to return for another strafing run.

Instantly it was coming back at us, but Maynard dived off a moving Tarzan and landed by some rocks. The bullets started hitting the ground 40 yards from him; as he jumped behind a large boulder they missed him by inches.

CHAPTER 5.
TWO WINGS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

I quickly dismounted about a hundred yards from Maynard and went into a maze of rocks where I found a small opening into a well-covered, small cave. It was about the same size as a tool shed. But I was glad to find it. I snuggled in as deep as I could fit and listened. The growling sound quickly faded to silence.

“Curly! You alright?” Maynard hollered. “That strange flying machine is gone.”

I crawled out of my hole and saw him walking toward me with Tarzan’s reins in his hand. His hat had never left his head. My horse was standing about 20 feet from my hiding spot, and about 40 feet from where my hat flew off, looking rather bored. He probably thought it was all part of a movie stunt.

“You ever see anything like that?” he said. “That was the strangest looking contraption I’ve ever seen; and the fastest. We could have used that in the war.”

“Yea. But the war has been over for quite some time,” I said. “I wonder if someone is trying to start another one.”

When we arrived at the ranch, Blackie and Red Eye met us. We went inside and told our story with varying degrees of theatrical presentation. Maynard did a good sound effect on the plane; it wasn’t realistic, but it was good. We both acted out some of our movements to the point that if it were a game of Charades, other players might have yelled out “Hen announcing it laid an egg.”

“We need to call the sheriff’s office again,” Maynard said.

“And tell them what?” I asked. “No one would believe the description of that thing. And, who would believe that this unidentified flying thingy has machine guns on it?”

“You’re right, Curly,” Maynard said with a wicked gleam in his eye. “It’s up to us to unravel what the heck is going on. And I got an idea!”

“Oh, jeez,” said Red Eye. “Not another one.”

That was the first time I fully understood Red Eye; and it seemed he had experience with Maynard’s ideas.

I tried to call Max Gorn, but he wasn’t in. I left a message with his secretary.
Feeling a little hungry after that ordeal, I went into the kitchen. Shuffles was just making a Bologna sandwich.

“I can make two as easy as one,” he said.

We sat down at the kitchen table and enjoyed sandwiches and beer.

“I heard about your encounter,” he said. “Sounds like something out of Flash Gordon.”

The Flash Gordon comic strip had been launched in the Examiner earlier in the year. It was a space adventure comic a bit like Buck Rogers, only drawn better. It already had a large readership of kids and people like me, as well.

“You’re right,” I said, “but the machine guns tell me this flying machine is from right here on Earth.”

Nick leaned in from the outside through the open top half of the Dutch door.

“C’mon, Curly,” he said. “Ken’s in the Duesenberg. He says for you to come along on a ride.”

It must have something to do with his ‘idea,’ I thought.

We drove away from the ranch on the dirt road for a few miles and then Ken told Nick to pull over under a tree.

“We’ll relax here for a little,” he said. “This stretch along here is where we film a lot of stage chases. It’s a straight shot for about a mile and we can get good shots of me riding up from behind and jumping from my horse onto the stagecoach and, sometimes, jumping from the stage onto my horse.”

He ran through a history of stunts that have taken place in that area including using the tree we were parked under.

“I ride up here standing on my saddle and jump to that low hanging branch,” he said. “Tarzan keeps going so when the bad guys who are following me ride through the same spot, I drop out of the tree on the last one, knock him to the ground and ride off on his horse. Usually it’s me. Sometimes, Kermit will stunt it for me. He’s younger and recovers from the bumps and bruises quicker.”

As he talked, I heard the sound of an engine. Automatically, I looked to the sky.
A fairly large, powder-blue biplane tipped its wings and made a run toward the straightaway stage road. Maynard stood in the middle of the road jumping up and down and waving his white hat.

The plane made a perfect landing and taxied toward us. When it stopped, the pilot removed his goggles and stood up.

“Howdy, Ken.”

“Howdy, Hoot.”

Hoot Gibson pulled off his leather, flying cap and smiled. In his early 40s, Gibson looked like the smiling kid he still portrayed in his films – the happy-go-lucky good guy who did his own stunts and handled his own humor without a comic sidekick.

“Come on down here, Hooter,” Maynard said. “I want you to meet a couple of good guys.”

He introduced Nick and Gibson shook his hand.

“And this here is Curly,” Maynard said.

Gibson looked at me a moment, shook my hand and said, “I’ll take your word for it.”

I thought, I’m going to introduce myself as Rocky or Buck or Ace or something new when this Mascot job is over.

“Hoot is going to take us for a ride in this really special airplane,” Maynard said. “Other than me, Hooter is the best pilot I know.”

“Didn’t you crash last year in L.A. race?” I said.

Hoot frowned. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“I’m glad you had the time to visit,” Maynard said.

“Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I happen to be between pictures,” he said.

“And wives,” Maynard added.

Maynard was right about the plane. It had some special features. The pilot controls the craft from under the top wing. Behind him, there was another pit for a gunner to stand, strapped to an inverted V-bar, and able to man a machine gun on the top of the wing. That gun obviously was coordinated with an interrupter gear to keep it from damaging the prop. The tail was high allowing another gunner position for someone to fire against anyone coming from behind, above or below.

“That’s some equipment you got there, Hoot,” I said. “How did you get it and from whom?”

“I got a lot of friends,” he said. “The guy who designed this one loaned it to me for a tryout, once I told him what you guys had just been through.”

“After that last situation, I got to thinkin’,” Maynard said. “That strange machine had to come from somewhere around here in that it was targeting us.”

“Mostly you,” I said.

“Yea, well, since it had such specific targets, it didn’t come from a long way away. I figure it has to be somewhere within about a 10-mile radius. Now if we search from the air, we can probably pick out any place that a plane could take off from and land. And maybe we can find that flying machine and get it before it can get into the air.”

Not a bad idea, I thought. “Let’s do it.”

Nick was to drive the Duesenberg back to the ranch. Hoot opened a storage space flap where Maynard and I stowed our hats. He then gave us leather flying hats and goggles. The four of us turned the plane around and then Maynard climbed into the standing gunner position. I crawled into the tail gunner pit.

Hoot revved the engine and we took off.

I thought about my predicament. A short time ago, I spent most my time pounding on a typewriter. In my new position, I’ve been a sniper’s target, thumped thugs in a bar brawl, raced a movie horse to escape a weird, machine-gun-firing, flying machine, and now I’m riding tail gun with two silver-screen cowboy heroes in an illegally armed fighter plane in search of an unknown enemy.

Time flies when you are having fun.

We flew in increasingly larger circles watching both sky and terrain. It didn’t take long to cover the entire movie ranch. As we circled farther out over the rugged Valley, we saw a few ranches and a lot of open land. From our viewpoint, the Valley was a grand landscape of rolling hills, grazing land and unique rock formations. It was truly a wonderful area for recreating the Old West on film.
Maynard pointed out the entryway to what looked to be a box canyon to Gibson who peeled off to the right and dropped altitude for a better look.

There was a running creek coming out of the middle of the canyon, which allowed for a fairly heavy growth of trees. The canyon opening was narrow and led to a thickly forested area surrounded by hills.

Something flashed from below. I slapped the side of the plane so Gibson would notice where I was pointing. He got lower.

I could see what looked like parts of buildings barely visible within the forest, almost like a hidden movie set. As we flew on I saw another man-made area that looked a bit like a military training obstacle course. There were the familiar trenches and rolled barbed wire; tall wooden obstacles with ropes dangling stood among ditches, with loose logs and half-buried tractor tires. As we got closer, the movie set area looked like businesses along a typical Midwestern Main Street, except the windows had no glass and the backs of the buildings were empty with braces holding up the false fronts.

When we got close to the cliff at the far end of the box canyon, Gibson pulled up. As he did so, I noticed a short, flat, graded area that led right into the cliff. If a cavern existed in that cliff, that graded area could very well be an airplane runway. Gibson swung the plane around for a closer look. He practically stalled as he flew very slowly and as close to the runway as he could get.

Our eyes opened wide as we saw the cavern…. and more.

Moving rapidly out of the cavern onto the runway was the mysterious flying machine. It wasn’t alone. At least 30 men dressed in gray military uniforms poured out of the cave and into the brush. They were carrying what looked like M1903 Springfield rifles.

Gibson gunned it and tried to get some altitude as the gray soldiers blasted away at us from the sides of the runway. The big-wing airplane engine roared its ice crunching sound and started down the runway. If that thing got into the air, we were toast.

I swung my machine gun toward the flying machine and pulled the trigger. The ground erupted around it but it didn’t slow down. Gibson made a fast turn and flew directly into the fire. Maynard’s gun chattered. Since I was on the rear of the plane, about all I could do is try to take out some of those gray troopers before one of them got lucky and shot us out of the sky.

I turned and looked forward. We were almost directly flying into the oncoming wing that was trying to take off. Maynard continued to fire as we saw a spurt of black oil and then fire shooting out of the mystery plane. Gibson pulled up as the enemy plane exploded in what looked to be a liquid cloud of flame. Gray troops were blasted into the woods and several trees began to burn as the boiling fire rolled and went flat on the end of the runway.

The mystery soldiers continued to blast away at us as Gibson tried to make some altitude. Something was wrong. The motor coughed. Black smoke poured out of the left side of the engine. I peppered the area with machine gun bullets until we were out of range. The plane moved lower and lower and then the engine stopped.

Gibson held on to the stick and tried to control our descent. Part of the bottom wing was shredded. As I glanced at the tail above me, it looked like an Oklahoma stop sign – riddled with bullet holes. I was amazed we were still in the air.

We rattled and bobbed in our glide toward the ground for a couple of miles. Then there was no way around it. We were going to crash. Gibson had herded the plane toward a relatively level dry gulch that was coming at us fast. As we hit ground, the two wheels crumbled beneath us. Rocks and dust enveloped us as the right side of the wings broke off and went their own way. It seemed like we were being shoved through a giant meat grinder. A chunk of the plane bounced off my head and I figured my number had come up. All this took place in the matter of a couple of seconds.

Everything stopped; and that hurt as well.

Silence overwhelmed my senses. I opened my eyes to an all-brown view with small chunks of rock and dirt still settling on my face. This couldn’t be Heaven, I thought. The dust started to clear and I realized I was still alive. I was at the top of what was left of the plane, which now was nose down. I removed my goggles and saw my machine gun was nowhere to be found; it was probably somewhere with the wheels and right side of the wings.

I unlatched my lap belt and climbed downward toward Maynard. He was still strapped to the inverted V-bar, however the belt was a little longer and he looked like a leather flying cap-wearing, large sleeping dog hanging from his leash. I checked his pulse and he was alive but unconscious. And I could smell gas.

I looked down to the pilot’s pit and saw what must have been Gibson’s head sticking out of a pile of dust. I’d have to get to him but first I needed to get Maynard out and away from the plane. I unsnapped his belt and he fell forward, almost out of the pit. That saved me pulling him out. I stepped lower and stood on what could have been a wing strut before it became a mangled chunk of metal. Trying not to break anything – on Maynard or me – I pulled him forward and used my body to support his as we both slowly and without very much grace lowered to the ground. He was a big guy.

I grabbed his arm and dragged him a good 25 feet from the plane. And then I went back.

Dirt had settled in all around Gibson. Perhaps that had been thrown in there before the final sudden stop and had acted as a filthy lifesaving cushion. Whatever the reason, Gibson was still breathing. I yanked his goggles and flying cap off and scraped as much dirt away from his face as I could. He was choking out puffs of dust.

The gas smell had increased. Fuel was leaking all around the engine. I didn’t think the hot engine would ignite the fuel, but that didn’t ease my mind. Especially when I saw the brush burning along the side of the plane. A spark must have caught some of the dry growth as we hit. The flame was moving closer to the wreckage, and the leaking fuel.

I dug down around Gibson and found his lap belt. I unsnapped it and tried to pull him free. Something was holding him in. I couldn’t see what it was as I struggled to clear the dirt out of the cockpit. The flames were getting higher and the smell of fuel was being replaced with the smell of fear.

Then I heard, “Move over, Curly!”

Maynard had come to and was reaching in next to me to get a good grip on Gibson. We both grabbed him and pulled. There was a tearing sound and he was loose. Quickly we pulled him free and ran for cover. As we did so, the flame hit the fuel.

I don’t remember feeling the explosion. But all three of us flew several feet from the power of that blast. Maynard and I were seated in the dirt with Gibson, with one pant leg missing, lying between us. All three of us were completely brown from the dirt, dust and burnt fuel residue.

A gravely voice came from between us.

“Did anybody think to save our hats?” Gibson said.

We had bruises and a few cuts, but no broken bones. It hurt to move, but I wasn’t going to tell those guys. We dusted ourselves off and surveyed our situation.

“I think your friend may be a little unhappy about his airplane, Hoot,” Maynard said standing in front of the pile of ash that once flew so nicely.

“It was a new design and he hadn’t put it through all the paces,” Gibson said. “Once I tell him everything it did for us, he may be able to handle it.”

“Yea. It saved our lives. And you are a really good flyer,” I said. “Did you fly in the Great War?”

“Nope,” Gibson said. “I was in a tank crew.”

“That would explain the landing,” Maynard said as Gibson smirked.

“What is really good is that we were able to take out that strange flying wing contraption before it got into the air,” I said. “We would have really been in trouble if that thing had taken off.”

Gibson seemed thoughtful as he slowly, probably painfully, sat down on a broken branch.

“That plane looked familiar,” he said. “About a year ago I was with some of my pilot friends when this guy showed me some photos of experimental airplanes. There is this fellow, Alexander Soldenhoff, who has been working on tailless, single-wing planes in Germany for that last few years. Several of his designs have been able to achieve great speed but, as far as I know, every single one of them has crashed. But, you know those Germans. They don’t give up, especially when they think they are about to have something that could destroy an enemy army.”

“Speaking of armies, Hoot,” Maynard said. “Those gray uniforms don’t look like anything I’ve seen before.”

They reminded me of something I ran into in Alabama.

“I’ve only seen one thing like them,” I said. “Not long ago, I drove through the southern states on my way to visit my sister in Florida. On the way there the traffic was delayed. Some strange looking security guards were waving people off to the side of the road. They were wearing what looked like U.S. Army uniforms that had been dyed gray, including their helmets.

“I asked a southern gentleman from the car behind me who was standing in the shade waiting for the okay to move on, ‘What’s this all about?’ He told me we were being stopped so members could go into the state park for the annual Knights of the Ku Klux Klan picnic and conference. I saw families with many kids loaded in the backs of trucks headed into the park like it was a Coney Island getaway. They looked like they could be rural Kiwanians, Shriners or any other average Americans. I was really surprised to find out they were Klansmen.

“Only those working security were wearing the gray military uniforms, but they were armed.”

“I guess it makes sense as the Confederate Army was garbed in gray,” Maynard said. “These folks think they’re Confederate soldiers, 1934 style. They’re not only nuts; they’re lost. This is the San Fernando Valley, not the Mason-Dixon Line.”

“But why would a bunch of modern-day southern rebels want to kill Ken Maynard?” I asked. “And where did they get the money for that canyon setup and the experimental fighter plane?”

The biplane had turned to ash and rubble. It was time for us to get moving before any rifle-tottin’ rebs could show up to finish us off.

We started out rather pitifully hobbling back toward the ranch. After a while we picked up some steam and looked almost like normal hikers, except for our filthy, ragged clothing, matted hair and cuts and bruises that were almost visible under a layer of dirt that could hide a gopher.

We stuck to the brushy less-traveled areas to avoid being silhouetted and caught in the open by snipers. We even spread out infantry patrol-style so “one grenade won’t get us all.” I thought to myself, “What the heck are we doing? This isn’t 1918 and we aren’t in France.”

We’d lost daylight by the time we arrived at the ranch.

We struggled up the front porch and opened the door. A collective gasp greeted our arrival. Nick, Kermit, Red Eye, Shuffles and Toosie were seated around the living room, staring wide-eyed and gape-mouthed at our grand entrance.

“What the holy wing-whapped snort?” Red Eye sputtered.

Toosie started to laugh in an uncontrolled but too-cute manner.

“Welcome, brothers,” Shuffles guffawed at our dark and dusty look.

“If you just parked your plane out front, you sure did it quietly,” Nick said.

“Nice pants, Hoot,” Kermit said. “You think it pays to advertise?”

When everyone had finished their fun at our expense, we were able to get some clean clothes and to go out to the water tower for a good shower. We piled our rags for disposal and got dressed. And then we shared our story.

END OF PART ONE