“Will do, nice and slow,” Cornelius answered, “and you two keep your eyes open for bodies, not that I’ve spotted any, but I’m going to be busy flying.”
Multiple passes over the disaster site produced the needed photographs.
“Could everyone have survived,” Charles asked, “and they all just walked off? Follow the rails, well, the roadbed, until they reached Phoenix?”
“That many people, there would’ve been tracks,” Andrew responded. “I know what a group of men marching through sand leaves behind. There were no signs. Besides, someone would’ve stayed here, out of stubbornness, or to tell a rescue party which way they went.”
Much of an hour later they reached Prescott. They’d seen two more train wrecks, one leaving behind a huge crater where what appeared to have been a load of dynamite had exploded. They’d flown over a sea of broken glass, all strange colors, sunlight flashing from the ground wherever it caught a facet at the right angle. The tiny towns along the rail line were equally missing, only foundations remaining. They’d overflown a working locomotive, parked just short of the zone of devastation.
“The would-be airline talked the Prescott city fathers – that means in particular Miss Sparkes – into grading and gravelling a field near town,” Cornelius announced. “I’ll overfly the town low a couple of times so they know I’m landing. Governor was trying to tell them I’m coming, but phone and telegraph lines are all down. And there’s the field. It might even not be bumpy.”
The Oriole touched down, bounced twice, and taxied toward a waiting group of soberly dressed citizens. A sheriff’s deputy kept the spectators safely back from the airplane.
“Gentlemen,” Cornelius announced, “I am going to put the tent over the cockpit, look for some shade, hopefully some iced tea, and await your return.”
“Be happy to join you, so soon as I get a few photos of the awaiting multitudes.” Andrew pointed at the people now waving.
“I have to find a working phone line out,” Charles said. “There must be some. Governor gave me a letter asking people to help me, though I’m sure…he didn’t expect what happened.”
A long hour later, they were back in the air.
“How’d it go, Major?” Cornelius asked. “I’m happy to follow the border of that yellow stuff, but not to fly over it again. Sheriff wanted to rent use of my plane, then told me what his deputy saw on the ground. Dead people? Melted rails? I told him about the melted trains, then played my ace.”
“Your ace?” Andrew asked.
“I’ve got a contract already,” Cornelius said emphatically. “The Governor, for all day. And company says I don’t risk damaging the plane.”
“Wisely said. He was polite?” Andrew considered that a Smith and Wesson beat five aces, but that was more what you saw in the Old South.
“Absolutely.” Cornelius smiled to himself. “After all, his deputy is the Associate Sheriff, complete with Boston accent and a Harvard degree. Harvard is that school in Massachusetts. Or maybe it’s New Hampshire. I never remember.”
