The resulting ball of fire fell, the patch of woods began burning, and the shooting stopped. Henson jumped to the ground and ran, firing his handgun through the smoke in that direction.
“Have you lost your cotton pickin’ mind?” Coleman yelled from the plane. “Get back here.”
“He’s making a break for it,” he called back over his shoulder. He leaped among the burning trees and shrubs where the shooter had been, the wood crackling and popping as fire consumed it from within. The woods were damp from recent rain but unattended the fire would surely spread.
Ahead of him, Henson heard the shooter panting. It was harder to shoot back with a rifle given you had to stop and aim. In the chase, his handgun was an advantage. Farther along to his right, he saw a form hurrying through the growth. He shot at it, but didn’t stop him. Henson crashed through into a clearing in time to see the rifleman behind the wheel of a two-tone Buick coupe. Henson shot out the back window, but missed the tire as the car sped away. The vehicle’s bumper clipped a downed log as it went. Henson made a note of the license plate. He thought the car might have been the one his lawyer had noted a few days ago. He also noticed there were drops of blood on the ground. When he returned to the airstrip, the volunteer fire department had a horse-drawn steam-powered pumper putting out the fire. Additionally, there were several men with brass fire extinguishers on their backs also attending to the fire. He ditched the gun and came out of the forest.
“How the hell did this start?” the captain of the crew yelled at Shorty Duggan and Bessie Coleman, square head swiveling on his bull neck from them to the smoldering aircraft and back.
“Mr. Renwick will answer all your questions, sir,” Coleman said.
“Yeah? And who’s that, missy?”
“Hugo Renwick is your department’s biggest donor. Or will be,” Duggan said.
There was more back and forth between this man and Duggan. Coleman started to walk off.
“Just where the hell do you think you’re going, gal?” the captain called.
“Make a call on the short wave,” she answered.
“Hey now,” he started but Henson got in his way.
“Let her make the call, cap’n.” He said it gently, but his eyes were agates.
Had his men not been busy with the fire, the captain would have challenged back. As it was, he merely glared sourly at this uppity colored.
The blaze was soon extinguished. but the firemen remained, discussing holding the three until they could fetch the police. A black Ford with red trim drove onto the airstrip and a man got out from behind the wheel. He wore owlish glasses and walked with a slight limp. The man talked at length with the captain who, at one point, took off his hat, rubbing his hand over his crew cut hair. The man in the glasses then stood silently by as the captain addressed his crew.
“Alright, we’re out of here.”
“But captain—”
“No buts,” he said, jerking a thumb at the trio. “Looks like they got them a muckety-muck to vouch for them.” He turned and pointed at them. “But you can bet dollars to donuts I’m going to keep a watch on what’s going on around here. Bunch’a coons and a brokedown mick up to who knows what. Sheet.”
He clambered back on the wagon, the other firemen back into a battered GMC truck, and off they went.
Standing side by side watching them go, their clothes seeped in the smell of charred embers, Henson turned to Coleman. “You got another plane you can use?’
She shook her head, sighing. Duggan belly-laughed.
By the time a new plane was secured, it was getting on to dark and Henson knew his scouting mission had to be performed in daylight. The tire of the Indian Scout had been repaired and, though the front fender was in bad shape, the rest of the bike was okay. Henson and Coleman set a time for their excursion, and he started back to the city. The man who’d been slain was an ex state trooper, so they, too, had an interest in finding his killer. Henson told Coleman and Duggan the license plate number of the shooter, and they in turn provided it to the authorities. The flyer would also have one of Renwick’s people track down the plate’s owner.
Tired and hungry by the time he got back to Harlem, Henson stopped at a grocery store and bought some food. He rode home and parked the motorcycle on the street in front of his apartment. Given the bike was a v-twin, he removed the main spark plug wire leading one from one side of the engine to the other so the machine couldn’t be started and stolen. Gathering his purchases in his arms, he heard the approach of footfalls. He straightened to see two white men standing behind him. One was tall and wearing a fedora, the other short and compact with a snap-brim hat. He recognized fedora as the one who’d tailed he and Kunsler previously. The other had been in the sedan. Henson was also certain the taller agent had been the one pretending to be asleep that night in the tan Chrysler outside the RCA building.
“Are you Matthew Henson?” asked the tall one.
“I am.”
“We’d like a word with you. Won’t take a minute.”
“Make it tomorrow, would you? I’m just about to fix some dinner and hit the sack.”
“You love your country, don’t you, Henson?” the bulldog in the snap brim said. “Or maybe you and that red mouthpiece of
