Steve and Captain Clint Face the Midnight Squadron

A Short Story

Editor’s Note:

Zack Grafman, the prolific writer known for his captivating tales, is back at it again. He's devoted most of his free time crafting stories for us that are quickly becoming recognized as a stellar body of work. Kick off your weekend early with this pulpy, action-packed yarn.

If you've enjoyed his previous narratives, brace yourself—you're in for an exhilarating ride!

- Frank Theodat

---

I throttled up to three-quarter power as the mesa below coruscated with shifting dots of running cattle. The sun’s trailing edge grazed the horizon and dazzled my eyes with rays of brilliant orange and vermilion. Or would have, but I was too busy trying scanning for bandits to admire the scenery. Cap’s mantras repeat even in my sleep: Establish altitude superiority. Maintain visual contact. Surprise is deadly. Until today, we flew into the high desert to recover a lost herd or spot the campfire of some runaway boys. Then the Flying Star ranch’s foreman radioed the airstrip saying that a rogue flight of four all-black aircraft had crash-dived on a drive, stampeding the cattle and strafing a truck. Two of their cowhands caught metal splinters and the owner was practically apoplectic. And then the closest post’s military governor had gotten on the line, and Cap carefully sent eight of our ten birds, a reconnaissance-in-overwhelming-force. And so here I was, one eye on the fuel gage while I nervously scanned the horizon.

“Say Steve, you’re a ways out from formation, want to dress that up a bit?” The bored Texan tones of our flight leader crackled through the earphones in my leather flight cap. “All of you report the second you see--bingo, they’re coming from the sun, bearing two seven niner!”

I could feel my skin prickle as I slapped the throttle to the stop and jammed the control stick back into my belly. We fought to gain altitude as our formation divided into flights of two. I was fervently glad now for Cap’s incessant drilling. The radio crackled to life, and I listened while keeping my eyes glued to the manifold pressure gauge, which plummeted worryingly as we climbed. The Pueblo Republic’s high desert was hell on our engines, and we were trading power for precious altitude with every additional foot.

“They’re climbing with us, they’re going to close with you!”

“Wing Two they are coming across you, pick them up and engage!”

“Watch your pressure boys, we can’t climb forever.”

My head was making circuits around the cramped box of the Double Brewster’s no. 1 cockpit as I frantically tried to do everything required to both fly a dual-engine aircraft and avoid the deadly arc in front of the four craft now sharing our airspace. I swiped a half-finished pencil sketch off my kneeboard and fought to remain calm. Altimeter. Manifold pressure. Fuel. Visual scan for contact. Propeller angle control. It felt like I was trying to fill a list at the green-grocers while avoiding an invisible man intent on drilling me with a pistol. I was much too preoccupied to remember to be afraid. At least, for the first hundred seconds or so.

I was flying off of Windy’s wing, still trying to get my first glimpse of the bandits when everything kicked off. Before we could break off and form attack pairs, I watched in fascination as a black flower of smoke bloomed just off my starboard wing. Then a terrific bang bucked the Brew like a green bronco. My teeth hurt from the rattling I was getting and smokeless gunpowder stung my nose.

“Windy, what was that thing? I can’t take another of those!”

He was always calm, on the ground or aloft. I counted seconds while I tried to find out what might be broken.

“One of theirs looks like a real wrench job, Steve. I can see that big gun from out here.” I could hear him planning his next steps out in his head. Windy was short for Rides-the-Wind, and the Navajo told stories about his abilities to see into the future. “Steve, level off and break with me. Once we circle, rejoin and we get this one.”

I nodded nervously and then realized that it wasn’t doing him any good. “Roger Windy, call it!”

“Breaking...now.”

I yanked the stick into my right thigh and huffed as the turn instantly ruined my ability to breathe easy and see clear. Everything seemed to go slowly, the controls tippy and strange as I came around. Looking right I could see brown and pale green desert scrub through a speckling of shreds in the orange covering of my wingtip. Then past the damage I saw Windy, completing his circle and closing to reform with me. Beyond us, two bandits just at the edge of the center pane of canopy glass. Sure enough, one of theirs was a twin-engine built around a massive flak cannon, and both sported an all-black paint scheme we’d never encountered. We were already close enough for me to hear both explosions as he fired, the gun’s poh-poh and then wham as flak bursts mushroomed behind us. I started to feel that peculiar mix of terror and elation that comes with riding the meanest stallion in a herd.

“Steve, focus that flak gun. On my mark.” I fought with the Brewster to bring the enemy craft into the center circle of my gunsight, listening for Windy’s call. “Yiilkah, brother!”

The Brew shuddered as I tugged the linked triggers and all six Browning fifties chattered. I counted to three and watched our cherry-red tracers zip out and draw crazy squiggles across the target’s fuselage. Then Windy’s burst arced out and found its mark on the already smoking craft. Flecks of debris sprinkled outward, and then the coal-black wing sheared away at the root and the bandit began to tumble towards the mesa below. I screeched wildly in triumph and heard Windy’s radio confirmation of the kill.

Then the world startled to rattle like hail on a tin sheet roof. Try as I might to jink the Brewster out of danger, the burst of enemy gunfire punctured the starboard wing further and lasted three agonizing seconds. How had he gotten on my six o’clock? I mentally registered Windy’s radio calls but could feel a dense blanket of fear begin to settle over my chest. One of the bandits must have waited below our climbing formation to pounce when we engaged. Cap’s hard-drilled battle plans pattered in my head unbidden. Break off your attack. Dive to disengage.

“I’m cover diving, Windy!” The Brewster responded with painful sluggishness as I rolled onto my back and pulled inverted. I could see Windy beside me as we roared towards the desert. Then I realized the danger we were in. Disengaging from the surviving enemy plane now left him and the trailing aggressor free to close formation and dive after us. Our conservative battle plans had hung us in front of two enemy fighters with itchy trigger fingers.

I thought it was all over but the next burst of fire I heard came from off my port wing. Roaring into the fray came the rest of our boys, Cap’s gleaming custom warbird blazing away at the apex of the formation. As we levelled off both the planes on our tails disappeared in oil-smoke fireballs and the rest of the enemy formation peeled slowly away to race for the nearby foothills.

“Let them go boys! Glad we launched to support you when we did,” Cap’s voice rumbled over the radio.

“What about chasing them down? We have the numbers now!” urged Padre. 

“Negative, fuel is too close to the danger line. Reform and return to camp.” Cap gave the word and we turned for home, although I know most of us were reluctant to let our unknown assailants escape so easily.

The flight back to our airstrip encampment gave me a few moments to soak in the brilliant sunset shades and even to fish my sketch from the footwells and work on it a bit, one hand on the yoke and the other scratching away with the pencil tied to the kneeboard. I kept flipping the sketch back to check the maps, plotting our position and then reckoning how much range I had remaining in the Brewster’s fuel tanks. When Cap first picked me up I was a disappointed cowhand, come out to Pueblo country for the artistic opportunities and half-choked with trail dust after months of driving a truck on the mechanized cattle drives crawling up to deposit herds in Columbia Corridor cities like Chicago and New St. Louis. I had grown up too young for the Great War and just missed the failed Reunification Campaign, so the wilds of Pueblo seemed like the only excitement left to a twenty-year old with no appreciable skills and a surplus of idealism. Cap had offered me all the glamor and excitement of the airman’s life, then given me a family to boot. Most importantly, he kept me alive well beyond the expectancy for men in our profession, and taught me how he had made it to his comparatively venerable forties. He trained us all in the eagle’s craft of self-preservation.

We had crossed the Rio Grande’s pitiful chocolate-brown strand and were nearing home when the Brewster started acting up severely. I knew I’d taken damage to the wing but the oil pressure had been steady and the engine seemed to be handling well. When I toggled the switch to the fuel tanks housed in the secondary fuselage I suddenly realized I was in trouble. The engines coughed and the fuel gage bounced around like a compass needle near a magnet. Just when I had my heart set on tamales for dinner.

“Cap, I’ve got a problem here, must have taken rounds to a fuel line! Not sure I’ve got the range anymore, what do you think?”

“Bring her down right there Steve, you’ve got a nice level spot there. We’ll send the Boxcar out as soon as we can.”

I was suddenly too busy staying airborne to worry or be angry about much. I glided down to a tooth-achingly hard dead stick landing in the sandy scrub, the propellers motionless and engines silent as the wind whistled past and I tried everything to slow my descent. Once out of the cockpit, I whispered a few grateful words and mentally noted my need for a good talk with Padre. Then I busied myself trying to figure out how badly clawed my bird had been.

It didn’t take long for the low growl of the Boxcar to reach me on the sand. Cap had supervised the building of the massive Frankenstein’s contraption, one part light bomber and one part actual freight car. She could carry enough spare parts, fuel and tools to practically rebuild one of our fighters from the tires up and still have space left for a crew and overnight camping gear. The only trouble was landing her with no airstrip, but they managed to make it look easy. Captain Clinton Denver climbed down the access ladder with his white silk scarf trailing, stubby stoker pipe chuffing away on Granger at a pace sure to scald a lesser man. That was Cap, all go where we were concerned. I hadn’t encountered a more squared away man since I arrived in Pueblo a few years back. Maybe that was why I stayed on, when I left other outfits at the first sign of comfort tying me down. Well, that and Bev.

“The girls say they’re keeping the tamales warm, so let’s see if you remember how we put these together Steve!” He grinned and stepped aside to let Padre take charge of the repair party. Padre fixed everything in Coyote Squadron, our aircraft regularly, bodies if necessary, and of course our souls when we flyboys were wise enough to ask his advice. He had us installing new wing covering and patching my fuel lines in a few minutes as the evening chill lowered over the desert. Then I heard the battery radio in the Boxcar rasp to life.

“Cap, they’re all over us! They’ve taken prisoners, send--” The voice stopped just as abruptly as the line squelched and then the crackle of static floated out across the sage. After almost ten eerie seconds everyone started shouting. Cap had to unleash a surprising bellow, given his usual quiet demeanor, to bring our attention back.

“Steve, can you fly it?” He gestured at my Brewster with his pipe stem.

“It’ll do for now Cap!” I nodded.

“Pack the Boxcar. We are leaving.”  

We swarmed around to pack the tools and start our engines and then took off and gunned it for home. Cap immediately started calling the Scouts on the radio; his personal network of drifters, old Navajo hunters and bored ranch kids paid to watch the skies and provide reports. He had flown over half of the squadron out to rendezvous with me, figuring that overwhelming force was the safe answer given how our day was going. Now we were all worried that our caution had caused trouble for a second time. I thought of Bev, sweet and a real handful to talk to but not exactly my idea of a fighting force to be reckoned with. Cap’s wife June was a more fearsome proposition for sure, and we all respected her ability to ground any of us with a reproving look. Any woman who ran with our outfit would have to be a reasonable shot and competent hand at most anything, but that still wasn’t going to be enough against whatever was at the other end of that radio call. Even before we saw the smoke curling on the horizon, I think we all knew what we would find.

Our graveled runway was so pocked with blackened divots that we had to set down in the sand alongside. Everything left at camp was in some state of destruction. Cap’s plane had taken a mauling but was probably salvageable according to Padre, which was better than could be said for the two burning hulks that represented the remainder of the squadron’s air power. All of our portable living situation, the big frame tents and the canvas sails of the wind generator, hung shredded. What was left of Tom Dean lay near the burning fuel tanks, mostly identifiable by the melted rowels of his spurs and the twisted metal scraps remaining of the double shotgun he favored. Tom was our old hand, who rarely flew anymore and was often on pulling guard or lookout as a result. Now he had gone down fighting to save June, Bev and the rest of Thunder’s wives and girlfriends. We were all pretty much beside ourselves, but I could see Cap standing in the middle of camp, his pipe run cold, and a look on his face that made my blood do the same.

“Padre, can you and some of the boys see to Tom?” he murmured. “Windy, fuel one of the Brewsters for me.”

I jogged over to help Windy prep the plane. “What’s he going to do?” I asked.

The Navajo shook his head, his lips compressed into a grim line. “The Captain will take this bird and fly for whatever horizon the Scouts tell holds our enemy, Steve.”

“He can’t go alone! He’s not crazy!” I felt thoughts whirl around me like morning doves whirring off the sage at first light. “Why would he do a fool thing like that?”

“For the same reason that we flew all together to scout and left our tents empty and our women unguarded. He fights like a bear with seasons of wounds. Dangerous to our enemy, but favoring the places where he is hurt.” Windy gestured to the smoke of our camp and then to the plane in front of us. “He does all things from caution.”

“How do you figure it’s cautious to try and face them alone?” I shot back.

Windy shrugged. “His fear is not for himself.”

In a few minutes Cap was climbing onto the wing of the Brewster as we ran preflight checks and tried to find a clear space for him to take off. I stopped at the wing root just before I yanked the chocks from in front of the landing gear.

“Cap, why are you doing this? We’re going to be right behind you!”

“Keep the birds on the ground, Steve. That’s an order. They took prisoners before...this way I have a chance of getting close enough to figure out what is going on. Don’t follow me. And don’t call in the Air Cavalry over at the fort, they’ll just botch the whole thing.” Just before he slid the canopy shut he gave me a single nod. “I’m sorry.”

The Brewster roared aloft as the burial detail came back from doing right by Tom. We unconsciously huddled next to the flight line, waiting for someone to speak. We waited a long time. Nobody wanted to go against Cap, not with what we all owed him. Finally I spoke up. 

“Well, who’s coming with me then?” I suppose I spoke too loudly, ill at ease. Heads shook grimly around the small circle.

“Cap was trying to protect the squadron by making a show of force, Steve” reminded Padre. “Don’t you think it would be best if we listened to him?”  

I couldn’t believe I was the one, of the whole squadron, arguing for total commitment. Me, who hadn’t even slept in the big tent for two months because sleeping under a roof felt too much like throwing in with someone. “Cap put it on the line for each of you, and now we’re going to do the same for him. If we don’t, he hasn’t a chance against a squadron. We roll all the dice, or we lose sure.” I hadn’t believed it myself until I heard it come out of my mouth. I held my breath until the first couple heads nodded.

In five minutes I was climbing back into my plane, taking a last whiff of the sagebrush’s vaguely nauseating savor and remembering that, once again, I’d again forgotten to talk to Padre. As we finished refueling and climbed into the dusky sky, I couldn’t completely believe they’d all gone along with it. But Cap never had been willing to trust anyone much, and we’d all trusted Cap. Now the wreck of our home receded below as we threw caution into the wind. As far as I could see, there wasn’t much choice about it.

We reached cruising altitude in the pitch dark as our formation battled to stay in contact and airborne. Forty-knot headwinds rattled us as a storm system swept in out of the Rockies and we tore out after Cap by dead reckoning. We had the compass heading towards which the surviving bandits had fled the dogfight, and Cap’s fancy new radar beacon if it was working properly. And Padre’s prayers, which we occasionally heard over the radio.

When we reached half fuel I knew things were about to get really interesting. We’d already lost our flight leader Jake, turned back with serious engine trouble, and now we risked pushing outside of the range it would take to get back home. But then, home was a smoking wreck. I expected one of the others to make the call, since they all had more flight time than me, but it seemed to be my rodeo. I’d gotten us into this one, they silently agreed, so I could get us out.

“Windy, you’re the best tracker. Are we still on Cap’s tail?”

“We’re almost there, Steve. Give it another few miles” he reassured.

Padre wasn’t the only one praying now, as I watched the needle creep towards empty. “Better hope you’ve got good medicine, Windy!”

A crackly guffaw hit our ears. “Medicine is for Navajo who don’t know differential calculus like I do! They can’t be much farther, by the numbers!”

I laughed to myself for the next ten minutes as I fought the Brewster’s sluggish controls. Then I dimly recognized the strain teasing my rattled nerves apart. Just as I got ready to check in on Windy’s math again, we all saw the airfort hanging ponderously in the gloom. We scrambled in a panic, the formation breaking up as we hit the clouds for cover. Someone had connected four zeppelin-sized airship superstructures, all to lift a city block’s worth of man and firepower slung underneath the balloons. I gave up counting the bristling ball turrets and gulped. Where was Cap?

Hondo spied the burning wreck first. Cap’s fighter was plastered across a half acre of mesa and burning steadily. But if he’d cracked up with it, why could we still pick up the pings of his radar beacon? Without much else to do, everyone cut off their running and cockpit lights and we circled just outside of visual range, scanning every backup radio channel the squadron had ever used. I wasn’t sure what we thought would happen, but then I caught a whisper on the last channel I’d penciled on my kneeboard.

“Never been so glad to hear you disobeyed orders, Steve!”

It was a real busy time in the cockpit for a minute. I told the squadron I’d found him, got back on his frequency, worried that the flying fort was going to spot one of us any second. “What happened Cap? Is everyone ok?”

“No time to explain, I got aboard and found them. We’re cut loose and ready, but there’s no way off this thing but down.” he paused and I thought I heard a loud clank and muffled thump of a crumpling body. “I’m out of ideas. What’s our play?”

A flight of two black fighters banked on approach to the underside of the floating fortress, where it looked like they planned to hook up to some sort of open-air hangar. My insides bucked and my throat hurt it was so dry.

“You’re not going to like this one Cap. Do you have chutes?”

“Well, we can get them.” he sighed. “You’re right. I don’t like it.”

“Get out of there and jump in exactly—” I checked my watch and started praying. “Three minutes.”

“You’re bluffing with a low pair, Steve. They’ll shoot us up in the chutes. I can’t ask the girls to do this.”

I brushed Bev’s tiny photo pinned to the instrument panel with a gloved finger. “Well, I think I can distract them from you all a bit.”

The sweep hand ratcheted mercilessly forward as I tried to get into position and prayed no sharp-eyed scout spotted us too soon. As I got into a slow approach pattern for the airfort I called some garbled nonsense in on a standard channel, then Windy carefully placed a few trailing bursts close enough to my tail to look convincing. I waited for the explosion that would tell me they had recognized I wasn’t one of their fighters, but I kept living second after second. Then six parachutes bloomed white against the murky dusk below, and I pumped my fist. As Windy squeezed off another burst, I popped my seatbelt, snap-rolled the Brewster onto its back, kicked the canopy latch, then punched the stick towards the instrument panel. As I fell headlong into the night, I could see my plane pulling away from me and crumpling into a tangle of steel beams and crushed superstructure. I pulled my chute just as the first explosion lit the night. Then I couldn’t hear anything anymore, so I floated peacefully as a few straggling fighters that hadn’t been docked tore after the vulnerable white blossoms hanging above the desert. Just before I closed my eyes, three staccato fingers of lightning white stitched out of the darkness below me and punched into the enemy fighters. My whoops sounded strange inside my head as my ears still rang, and I knew Cap had made sure to liberate a few of the fort’s machine guns before they jumped. Bev had earned her first marker. I was still grinning as my boots slammed the sand.

We pooled fuel, left one of our birds for later recovery and were back in the air in half an hour. Bev and I were comfortably crammed into the auxiliary cockpit of someone’s Brewster. She was busily reminding me that her tally was now exactly equal to mine, and she hadn’t even soloed an airplane. Then she started in tattooing my chest with her fists for how reckless I’d played it. I smiled and felt the engine in front of us growl. It felt good to be home, up there in the clouds. 

“Cap, do you figure we got ‘em all?” I asked.

“No telling since I don’t even know who they were, Steve. We’ll have our work cut out for us. Seems it’s time to settle in, build a real airport, and give up roving for a while.”

I looked at Bev balanced there on my knee, all glowing in the red glare of the instrument panel. We both grinned.

“Suits me exactly, Cap.”