Pursuit Chapter 28

Chapter 28

The truth of the matter was that, no, Drake never did get to see Katie topless. In fact, as they would later point out in Gold From Hell, the Queensland Heeler’s initial glimpse of her had come very close to being the last thing he ever saw.

Hard as it was to believe, the canine who was now practically her right hoof had been excess baggage the first time they’d met -- literally!

It happened two months after the Republic’s first cargo drop in Iso, and by then the valley had undergone a sea change. In the month of July alone, the airship had made an astonishing eleven cargo runs between Manila and Iso, delivering more than 250 tons of equipment; the dredges, the hydraulic extractors, two small bulldozers, a windmill generator, another one powered by diesel, fuel tanks, 1000 yards of narrow gauge track and 25 mining cars, two small diesel tractors, rock crushers, a prefabricated sawmill, and perhaps most importantly 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

And just as Umberto Nobile had predicted, with each cargo drop they had become more and more proficient; so much so that now the ginger tabby-cat could bring the Republic in to ‘lay the golden eggs’ as he put it, in a single, fluid motion. The airship would touch down, release her cargo and rise away in a movement so smooth, it almost appeared to have been choreographed. By now, Captain Nobile was also well acclimated to the air-currents of New Guinea. The guidance of Katie and the AVRO autogyro were almost no longer necessary...but only almost. And so with each arrival of the airship at Lae, she would fly out to meet ‘La Repubblica’ over the Huon Gulf.

Only once had there been a tense episode; when mere moments before Katie’s take off, a monster thunderstorm, accompanied by high winds, had rolled through the Iso valley, threatening to demolish the autogyro sitting helplessly on the runway. Somehow they’d managed to get the AVRO into the hangar before the brunt of the storm hit, but not before Katie was nearly decapitated by one of the rotor blades while attempting to secure them. It was her closest call yet. The blade had removed a swatch of hair from the pinto mare’s throat, but somehow failed to break the skin.

For the next six hours, there was no such thing as taking off, and Katie spent the time pacing incessantly and praying hard that Captain Nobile would turn back for Manila when she didn’t show up at Lae. It wasn’t until the next morning that she was relieved to learn that he had done just that. Though the skies over Lae had been as calm and clear as a Maxfield Parrish print, the ginger tabby had noted the ‘fuzz’ over the mountains ahead and that the Ramu river was running unusually high, and discolored. “That, and the absence of Her Grace suggests very bad weather in the interior.” he recorded in his log after giving the order.

The ginger tabby-cat had learned well the lessons of Papua.

Katie herself had also been going through some changes since the Republic’s first arrival. Not only did she no longer require help in exiting the cockpit on her returns from seeing the airship back to Lae, she would sometimes literally leap from the autogyro as soon as rotor stopped turning.

And that was what she did now, to the surprise of no one. If there was one thing about Katie MacArran that every fur in Iso had come to admire, it was her almost insatiable appetite for work. She would put in 14, 16, sometimes 18 hour days, and there was no job, no matter how dirty to which she would not lend a hoof when needed. She helped to move the dredges, she helped to build the new shed; when a shipment of diesel drums needed to be rolled to the fuel tank, she was right there with everybody else. She even helped to dig a new latrine pit. And once a week, as regular as clockwork, Katie would climb aboard her Lockheed Air Express to deliver and pick up the mail from Lae, along with whatever needed items she could fit aboard the plane. With all that activity, it wasn’t long wasn’t long before the effects began to show; Katie quickly became as lean and hard as an Olympic decathlete.   But oddly, the effect only served to heighten her attractiveness.

And she wasn’t the only one making freight runs into the Iso mine. Now that the valley’s runway could accommodate bigger aircraft, Ray Parer began flying in cargo from Port Moresby in his Fokker F7 tri-motor. Katie had heard there was nothing the Brumby wouldn’t haul, as long as he could get it on board his airplane but now, for first time she was seeing it for herself. Amongst the other items that the Battler brought into Iso were a cargo of live chickens, (more for the eggs than the meat.) another one of non-anthro pigs (Which made a huge mess in the cargo compartment as soon as the Fokker lifted off.), a barber chair, and even a huge stone figure of the Gautama Buddha, which the miners of Iso had chipped in to purchase.

There were other live bodies brought in too; a trio of engineers from Combs Mining Machinery, whose job it was to oversee the assemblage of the dredges and extractors. That is, there were three of them originally. When one of them, a cougar with a notoriously bad temper took a swing at Shang Li-Sung over an imagined insult, the red panda, who could break a two-by-four in half with his fingertips, had stoically refused to parry the blow and been knocked cold

When Katie MacArran heard about the incident, she’d immediately summoned the cougar to her house, and grimly informed him that his services in Iso were no longer required.

“You’re taking that slope’s side over MINE?” the feline had asked incredulous, “What’s...he yiffing you or something?”

Unfortunately for the big cat, he happened to make that remark while Striper McKenna was standing nearby, and the Tasmanian tiger wasn’t nearly as thick-skinned Shang. When Ray Parer flew the cougar out of Iso two days later, he was sporting a broken nose and two black eyes...and thanks to a ‘landing accident’ on their arrival in Port Moresby, a sprained neck as well. ( The Battler didn’t take kindly to anyone talking that way to Katie, either. )

Sometimes when the Brumby stallion brought freight into Iso, he would stay over for the night in the ‘guest cottage’ that Katie’d had built attached to her house. At such times, Hsing was always dismissed for the night, and woe to the miner who came knocking on her door before sunrise. Everyone knew what was going on, but nobody said anything. Katie’s disposition was always noticeably more sanguine after one of Ray Parer’s overnight visits, and who wanted to upset that apple-cart?

“Besides,” said Drigo to the Striper over a bottle one evening. “If there’s anyone’s entitled to it, it’s her.”

Indeed, her nights with The Battler were probably the pinto mare’s only leisure activity. The rest of the time, when she wasn’t working, she was learning....and learning entirely from scratch. She didn’t speak a word of Chinese, so she had Shang and several of the others who spoke English instruct her in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Except for the first time she’d come to Iso, Katie had never fired a gun in her life, so she enlisted Shang and Drigo to teach her to shoot with a pistol. Meanwhile Striper McKenna was recruited to show her how to use a rifle, the weapon with which he was the acknowledged expert, no contenders allowed. (At 300 yards, the Tasmanian tiger could stop an ace of hearts with one shot. Katie saw him do it.)

With a sidearm, Katie turned out to be a middling good marksmare, but with a rifle, her skills were indifferent at best. (Ironically, it was this very LACK of long-range shooting abilities which would serve her well in another capacity years later.) She also asked Shang to teach her a thing or two about paw-to-paw combat and fighting with edged weapons, and it was in these two areas that she showed the most promise...especially the latter.

Now, slinging her cane-sword across her back, Katie increased her pace towards the cargo pad, where the ground crew was busily breaking down the Republic’s latest drop. There was no large machinery in this shipment. In fact, it contained nothing that could not have been brought in by Ray Parer.

But they were in a hurry. The end of the ‘dry’ was close upon them, and when the torrential rains of the ‘wet’ came, they would severely curtail ALL flights in and out of Iso, not just those of the Republic. Before that happened, Katie was determined to get as much cargo into the mine as possible.

When she arrived at the pad, the ground crew had just unloaded a small crate with no markings...and a pipe protruding curiously from one end, like the smokestack of locomotive.

“What the heck is that thing?” she asked, addressing no one in particular.

“I ‘spect it’s probably that new metal-forge, Y’Grace.” offered Striper McKenna.

“That’s not supposed to show up till the next load.” said Drigo. The Tasmanian tiger just shrugged, in that laconic way of his.

“Wouldn’t be the first time they cocked up the cargo manifest, would it?” he said, and Drigo nodded in agreement.

“Well maybe so,” said Katie, pointing, “But look; that pipe’s not coming from inside of the crate, it’s bolted to the outside.”

“Cor, that’s right, I didn’t notice.” said Striper, scratching his head. “What the devil is that, then?”
“Well, one way to find out,” Drigo answered, then turned and cupped his paws to his muzzle, “Hey, Shang? Get a couple a guys over here with crowbars, okay?”

The packing job turned out to be mediocre at best. At the first push of the bars, the entire side of the crate fell away.

And Drake Hackett tumbled out, to land at the hooves of an astonished Katie MacArran.

“What the...?!” she yelped, “Who the yiff are...?”

The Queensland heeler responded by attempting to stand up, and found that after sitting tucked into a fetal position for God only knew how long, his legs would not support him. Fortunately, Striper McKenna was there, and he not only seemed to know the canine, but promptly reached down to help him up...lifting him off the ground by the scruff of the neck and shaking a fist in face

“You!” he hissed, by way of greeting, “Where’s my twenty guineas, y’ little shit?”

“Ahhh, yer’ve got the wrong bloke, mate.” the dog whimpered.

“Like ‘Ell I do, sport.” the Tasmanian Tiger snarled, lifting him even higher, “Y’ gonna pay me what yer owe me, or ‘m I gonna have to HACKETT out of yer hide...”

“Put him down, Striper!” neighed Katie, “Right now.” The Striper sighed and then obliged, dropping the heeler like a sack of oats. When Drake looked up again, he was staring straight up the barrel of an M.A.F.-18 Trench Shotgun, held in the paws of Drigo Chavez.

“All right,” said Katie, hunkering down in front of the prostrate heeler, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Name’s Hackett, Drake Hackett.” the dog answered hurriedly, one eye on the shotgun and the other on her. He paused, as if expecting that this would change everything. It didn’t and he added quickly, “I work for you, Y’Grace.”

It was here Katie noticed that like herself, Drake Hackett had one blue and one brown eye. That mollified her attitude a little...but only just a little.

“I don’t recall having anyone named Hackett on the payroll,” she told him, as much in amusement as annoyance.

“Lemme have ‘im, Y Grace.” said Striper McKenna advancing on the dog once more. Katie waved him a way with a grimace.

“How about Bume and Rang, then?” said the heeler, hauling himself awkwardly to his feet again, and this time somehow managing to remain upright. “I’m Rang.”

Katie looked over her shoulder. “That so, Striper?”

“Yeah! And he’s also a...!”

“That’s enough.”

“Yes, Y’Grace.”

“Uhhh, who you guys talking about?” asked Drigo Chavez, scratching at an ear.

“Pen name of a two freelance reporters for the Daily Observer.” Katie told him, “They fly around the outback, writing stories about their adventures.”

“And runnin’ out on their gamblin’ debts!” snarled Striper, taking another angry step forward and then backing off again, just as quickly, “I won’t Y’Grace, I won’t.” he said, raising his paws.

“Well actually, not any more, Y’Grace.” said Drake, still keeping a wary eye on the Tasmanian Tiger, “The old team’s broke up, I’m afraid. Keith’s got married and settled down, so it’s just me now...an’ flying round the Outback on me lonesome just didn’t work for me. Then the plane got lost...”

Now, it was Katie’s turn to advance on the heeler.

“You...LOST the plane, I bought for you?” she neighed, ears vanishing into her scalp.

“Wan’t my fault.” Drake responded quickly, “She got burnt up in that big hangar fire at Alice Springs last November.” The hair on his neck rose in anger as he elaborated. “Stupid, yiffin’ mechanic, workin’ this other plane’s fuel tank didn’t drain it right before tryin’ to weld the yiffer. Whole hangar went up, along with every plane inside of it, not just mine. Ask anyone in Alice, Y’ Grace. They’ll tell yer it’s the truth.”

“Okay, I know about that hangar fire,” said Katie, and then to the others, she added, “Heard about it in Darwin, while I was on my way here. He’s right, it wasn’t his fault.”

“Then why didn’t you sue, amigo?” asked Drigo, not unsympathetically.

“Coz yer can’t get blood out of stone, mate.” the canine answered, bitterly, “That plane the mechanic was workin on was the only yiffin’ asset ‘is employers had....an’ needless to say, it was the first one to go.”

“All right,” said Katie nodding, “But that still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing here, Drake.”

“Well, after I lost the plane, Y’ Grace...I bummed round for a bit, then took a boat up to Manila, lookin’ for yer...but then they told me you was here in Iso, an’ I didn’t have any money for a return passage to Australia, so...”

“So you stowed away aboard the Republic in THAT thing?” said Drigo, pointing at the now empty crate and shaking his head incredulously, “Amigo, you’re either the gutsiest or the dumbest guy I ever met.”

“Or, the most desperate.” Katie thought, but did not say. What she did say was, “‘Scuse me Drake, but that’s not what I asked you. I already know how you came here, what I want to know is WHY you came here.”

“Well, like I said before,” Drake told her, smiling brightly again, and wagging his tail, “I work for you, Y’Grace.”

This was met by round of wry, exchanged glances and low snickers on the part of Katie and the others.

Then Katie said to the Heeler, “Work for me, huh? Okay, Drake, what can you do? Can you run a gold-dredge?”

“Uh, no...” said the dog, regarding the ground.

“Can you work a hydraulic extractor?” she asked.

“Uh, what’s a hydraulic extractor?” he responded.

“Drive a bulldozer?”

“No.”

“Do carpentry?”

“No.”

“Know anything about medicine? We could use a medic.”

“That was Keith’s job.” said the heeler.

“How ‘bout Chinese, you speak any Chinese?” It was Drigo this time.

“Uhhmmmm, not really.”

Katie smirked, and folded her arms.

“Well then, what CAN you do, Drake?”

The heeler smiled again, brilliantly this time.

“Well, I can write about you, can’t I?”

This was greeted a derisive horse-laugh from Katie, with Drigo and Striper joining in...along with several of the miners who had gathered to watch the spectacle.

Until Drake poked a thumb in the direction of the runway and added nonchalantly, “Oh, and I can work on airplane engines. An’ I’ve done diesel engines too, though it’s been a while.”

The mirth abruptly ceased. Now THAT was something they could use.

“All right,” said Katie, “You’re in, Drake. First thing I need is, the autogyro’s due for a tune-up and an oil change.”

“What, now?” asked the canine, his jaw falling to the ground.

“Yeah, now.” said Katie, and then to Striper she said, “Go show him where everything is...and then I want you to check in on him now and then, to make sure he stays with it, ‘till he’s done.”

“Right-o,” said the Tasmanian Tiger, turning and beckoning for Drake to follow. And as they headed off towards the hangar, she heard him telling the heeler, “Don’t think for a yiffin’ minute I’ll forget about me money, mate.”

“Hold on, sport,” Drake answered, in a wheedling voice, “How was I to know you was holdin’ four Jacks?”

Then the voices faded and they were gone.

And Katie turned to the coatimundi standing beside her, “Drigo, that was either the smartest or the stupidest decision I made since I got here.”

“Uh, what say we finish getting this the rest of this stuff unloaded?” the coati responded, knowing a loaded statement when he heard it.

For a while, it looked as if Katie’s question regarding the wisdom of hiring Drake would go unresolved. The Queensland Heeler was no wizard when it came to aircraft engines, that much became quickly obvious...but he was far from inadequate to the task. And though it always took a bit of prompting to make him get to work, (usually backed up with a veiled threat from the Striper) he was also one of those types who once he started a task, refused to leave it alone until it was completed.

“Crikey, I dunno what’s harder, Y’ Grace.” the Tasmanian Tiger once said to Katie, “Gettin’ that bloke to start work, or gettin’ him to knock off.”

What capped it was that whenever Katie visited the Drake’s workshop, she never found a wrench or a screwdriver tossed carelessly on the floor. Everything was always either hung up on a numbered peg or neatly ensconsed in a numbered drawer.

“Shouldn’t surprise yer, Y’ Grace.” the heeler once remarked with a cheerful wink, “You know ‘ow it is with us herdin’ dogs...always wantin’ everything in it’s proper place.”

It was a fortnight after his arrival that Katie finally gave Drake Hackett leave to begin writing about the Iso Gold Mine; an event was about to take place that she most definitely wanted reported in the Daily Observer.

Dredge #1 was about to begin operations.

They had set the machine on a small hillock near the river, under a shelter designed and built by the ever resourceful fishing cat, Tu Wa-Fong, and in a location certified by a relative newcomer to the Iso valley, a Milu deer named Fo Li-Han.

Fo was an expert in the ancient Chinese art of Feng-Shui, or ‘wind/water’, a method of placement based upon a philosophy of the movement of chi or natural energy through the environments. At first, Katie had accepted Fo’s divinations only through gritted teeth, and only because Tu, who by now had come to realize his something of his own indispensability, had flatly refused to work without them.

But as time went by, and none of the Chinese cervine’s advice turned out to be impractical, Katie gradually became more accepting. Besides, whether or not there was any real value in Fo’s auguries, having him around was definitely good for morale...and she would take all of that she could get.

In any event, whether Fo had had a paw in it or not, Tu’s work on the shed had been nothing short of masterful. Even in a full, tropical downpour, the roof leaked hardly a drop.

However, when they went to start the dredge’s engine, not only Katie, but the rest of the miners immediately began to have doubts regarding Fo-Li Han’s competency in Feng Shui. The motor stubbornly refused to kick over, no matter what inducements and entreaties were applied. Even the two engineers from Combs were baffled. There was no water in the fuel, all the wiring was properly connected, the batteries were fully charged. “The damn thing should at least TRY to start.” one of the engineers, an armadillo told Katie in exasperation.

But then, after a good three hours and for no apparent reason that anyone could ascertain, the engine started right up and began running. And by the end of that day, all was forgiven. In only four hours of operation, the Iso mine produced more gold than it had in the previous two weeks.

As anyone might have expected, there was much celebrating throughout the camp that night. Katie herself spent the evening dashing off letters to Eamon Mack, Jim Spanaway, and Guaranty Trust, etc. After which she turned in to bed and allowed herself a good cry of relief. She had done it. Somehow, against all possibilities, she had made Iso Valley Mining and Extraction a viable company. And though there was still much work to be done and a thousand things that could go wrong, no one could deny that her plan to bring dredges into the valley by airship had been a good one.

The next evening, a beaming Drake Hackett came bounding up the front steps of her house and laid on the desk before her, the story he had penned of the dredge’s first day of operation, titled, ‘A Dispatch From the Jungle.’

“For your enjoyment, Y Grace.” he said, as she picked it up and began to read.

A few seconds later, the canine’s hubris turn to horror, when Katie took up her own pen and began to casually edit the text, excising a word here, adding a couple there, changing several sentences, and in the case of Drake’s description of the technical workings of the gold dredge, replacing the entire paragraph. Had she bothered to look in the heeler’s direction during this process, Katie would have observed him wearing the expression of a dog watching one of his legs being amputated. Finishing up, she handed it back to Drake and said, “Here...get that rewritten and have it ready to send to The Observer in time for the next mail run.”

The next thing she said was, “What was that, Drake?!”

“Er, I said, rather rush out TWO copies, Y’Grace.” he answered, quickly, “Send one to Mr. Hearst in America and see what he thinks.”

“Oh...good idea, Drake.” said Katie, who could have sworn the canine had said something about preferring to ‘flush it down the loo.’

In point of fact, it was George Hearst who sent the first reply to ‘A Dispatch From The Jungle’, a telegram consisting of just four words:

“Like Hotcakes!”

“More! More!”

The response from the Observer was equally enthusiastic, and soon thereafter ‘A Dispatch From The Jungle’ became one of the most eagerly read newspaper columns on either side of the Atlantic. Here was a real-life pulp adventure, straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs, complete with a plucky heroine, a dashing pilot (Ray Parer), and a gen-u-wine, double-your-money-back airship.

Both Hearst’s and the Observer’s readers ate it up.

And there was plenty of meat for them to feast upon...such as the tale of the Iso Mine’s first experience with hostile Papuan natives.

It happened one morning when a party of miners went off to hunt for fresh bamboo shoots. Near the edge of the jungle, one of them, a squirrel, suddenly cried out and began to chitter in pain.
When he turned around, the others were aghast to see the shaft of an arrow protruding from his back.

No one had seen where it came from. “We too distracted by all the birds-calling.” one of them told Katie later.

There was no question of pursuing the attackers. Katie was immediately advised by both Drigo and Striper McKenna that such a course would be foolish in the extreme. “S’what the bastards WANT us to do.” the Tasmanian Tiger told her with a growl, “Send some of our blokes into the bush, where they’ll be easy pickings for an ambush.”

Katie didn’t argue the point. She had a more immediate concern at the moment, getting the injured squirrel to a doctor. So saying, she had him put aboard the Lockheed Air Express, and with Drigo and Shang tending to him, took off for Port Moresby, which though considerably further away than Lae and a more difficult flight, possessed medical facilities far superior to anything on the north coast of Papua.

Except, when they arrived at the casualty ward entrance of the Port Moresby Hospital, the physician in charge of the place, a rail-thin black Merino ram steadfastly refused to ‘treat any yiffing China-fur’ punctuating his decision by spitting into a dustbin.   Even the offer of a gold nugget could not induce him to change his mind. (Katie would gladly have offered him the alternative of a lead slug for NOT helping the squirrel...except that they had been required to check their weapons by the two police officers minding the door.)

In near despair, they returned to the airfield -- arriving just as Ray Parer was debarking from his Fokker trimotor after a flight from Wau.

“Can’t say as I’m surprised that bludger, Doctor Weston wouldn’t help yer.” the Brumby told them snuffling in disgust, “Yiffing sheep seems to thinks it’s the HippoCRITICAL Oath he took...but there’s another place y’ can take y’ miner. The Saint James the Penitent Catholic Mission. They’ve got a clinic, not as well equipped as the hospital here, but they’ll take anybody, no questions asked...and besides, I’d rather have Father Cork workin’ on me any day than Doc Weston.”

Father Cork, an energetic little grasshopper mouse with a Boston-Irish accent turned out to be not only a skilled surgeon, but an expert on the New Guinea natives as well. The instant he saw the arrow, he identified the shooter as a member of the Ayon tribe.

Katie and the others regarded each other warily at this piece of news. The Ayon were regarded as one of the fiercest tribes of the New Guinea interior. Few outsiders had ever seen them, but they were known to be both cannibals and headhunters...and also pygmies.

“I know it’s not much gonna be much comfort,” Father Cork was telling them, “but I’d say whoever shot ya fur most likely wasn’t planning on it. Might not even have wanted to. It’s just that the Ayon consider it highly improper to let a target that wanders into their field of fire get away. It’s like they were refusing of a gift from the gods, y’see. And now, best leave me alone with my patient. I’m afraid this isn’t gonna be pretty.”

Judging by the stains on Father Cork’s smock when he reappeared, it had indeed been more than a little ugly. But he was smiling and able to tell Katie and the others that Ling was going to be all right.

With a start, Katie realized that this was the first time she’d been told the squirrel’s name.

“Mind, “ he added, glancing sidelong at Shang, “I suppose now he’s gonna think I’m responsible for him, bein’ as I saved his life. S’one thing the local tribes and the Chinese have in common...neither one takes too kindly to interfering with the will of the gods.”

At these words, Katie felt her ears going back, but instead of taking offense, Shang just nodded sagely...and it would not be until much later that the pinto mare would realize that what the good father was actually doing; he was teaching a lesson in a roundabout way.

It was a lesson that was to have far reaching consequences in the not-too-distant future...but for the present Drigo Chavez was clearing his throat and shifting uncomfortably on his feet.

“Uh...Father. I know this probably isn’t a good time, but...well, as long as I’m here...”

“What is it then, son?” the mouse asked, favoring Drigo with a gaze that was both benign, and paternal...and that should have looked ridiculous, given the fact that coati had at least twenty years on the priest.

“Well,” said Drigo, looking uneasily at the ceiling, “I’m kinda way overdue to make my confession, so if maybe you got a few minutes...?”

Needless to say, Katie never learned what Drigo said in confession, but she could not help noticing that he ate nothing for the next three days and spent the next two weeks in what seemed to be a constant state of prayer. As for Father Cork, he staunchly refused to take any payment for his services, but was more than happy to accept a donation from Katie towards the upkeep of his parish. ( Ling for his part, never came back to Iso, having apparently decided that one close call was one too many. )

The day after her return to the mine, Katie was startled to discover that without exception the miners had taken to wearing silk, either as regular wear or as undergarments.

“What’s going on?” she asked Shang, “Some kind of religious significance?”

“Not religious.” said the red panda, “Practical. In China, silk’s been used as protection against arrows since the days of the Mongol Khans. You see, an arrowhead won’t penetrate silk, it’ll just carry the fabric into the wound and wrap around the barbs. That way, the barbs won’t tear the flesh when the arrow is pulled out again...and it won’t penetrate as deep either.”

Properly upbraided, Katie immediately took to wearing silk herself, an effort that turned out to be wholly unnecessary. There were no follow-up attacks to the one that had felled Ling. Nonetheless everyone remained wary when working near the edge of the jungle; there was always at least one miner, armed with a shotgun delegated to stand guard.

It was not long afterwards that another milestone was attained; the Republic docked at Clarinet Rock for the first time. Now, the airship could not only deliver cargo to the mine, but pick it up for the return voyage -- which she did, taking on the first shipment of gold to be sent from Iso to Manila. This was accomplished with a great deal of acclamation on the part of the miners, and not just for the sake of celebration. Katie and Shang both wanted the event to become very well known throughout the island...and for good reason. To preclude the possibility of an air-pirate or bandit attack, the Iso Mine had adopted a simple expedient once employed by the Comstock Mining Company of Nevada. Instead of being shipped out in bars or ingots, the gold was mixed with lead and formed into a huge ball weighing more than a ton...just a mite too difficult for the average airborne brigand to handle.

For Katie, it was a most welcome turn of events. At last the Iso mine was going to start paying for itself. Up until then she had been dedicating every last asset she had towards defraying to cost of keeping Iso going. She had mortgaged both her house in Kensington and her chalet in Switzerland, and then she’d rented them out. She had sold her motorbike and her car, and she had even auctioned off several pieces of artwork from Strathdern house...and every penny she earned from the ‘Dispatches from the Jungle’ series went straight back into the Iso mine.

It was here that things began to take on a momentum of their own; within a week of the first gold shipment leaving Iso, two more events of significance took place. The hydraulic extractors went into operation, and The International Dirigible Company took on it’s first freight hauling job for an outside contractor.

The one piece of the puzzle that had been missing from Mickey Corcoran’s assay report had been any kind of suggestion as to just where the hydraulic extractors should commence work. The upshot of this was a lively, three-cornered debate between Katie, Drigo and The Striper over which part of the wall on the far side of the river to attack first. The argument was finally settled in semi-Solomonic fashion, when Katie suggested letting Fo-Li Han, the feng-shui specialist choose the location. It was a suggestion her two subordinates agreed to immediately, if not heartily. By then the discussion was rapidly approaching pointlessness.

When the extractors finally whooshed into life, the affair started out as something of an anti-climax.   Nothing appeared to be coming out but mud, mud, and more mud.

That all changed when the mud was taken to dredge number two. Almost immediately, the Iso mine’s output jumped a good 50%. With the addition of a mining-car line connecting the extractors and the dredge, it went up even further.

This particular construction represented a synergy of the talents working in the valley. Drigo proposed it, Tu Wa-Fong came up with a way to widen the bridge to accommodate it, and Katie figured out how to modify one of the tractors to serve as an ersatz railway engine. The new line was immediately christened the Toonerville Trolley...and an apt sobriquet it was. Le-Ho Chang, the rat who served as the little railway’s engineer, liked to go racing at full throttle between the extractors and the dredge, with the air-whistle shrieking as he went. Katie let this go on for about a week, and then summoned the rodent for an interview with Shang Li-Sung in which he was bluntly informed that if didn’t knock it off the constant playing with the train whistle, “You’ll be hearing it every time you fart.”

That was typical of the red panda’s pragmatic and sometimes rough approach to keeping order in the camp. For example while Shang had no objections to gambling, pity the poor soul caught cheating at Mah Johnng or Fan-Tan. Every one of the offender’s worldly possessions would be divided amongst whoever he’d defrauded, after which he was physically escorted out the front gate, given just enough food and water to see him to the next village, and told that if he ever came back, he’d be shot on sight.

It was Shang’s stock method of discipline. Caught stealing?   Lose everything and out you go. Smoking opium on the sly?   We’ll take that, and good luck, you’re going to need it. Drunk on the job? First offense, lose three days wages, second offense, a weeks wages, third offense...three strikes, you’re out and we’d better not see you back here again.

Only once did that ever happen. A Chow dog named Wu Lo-Chung, who had been expelled for theft attempted to sneak back into the camp in a different guise. Despite his earlier promise, Shang didn’t shoot the canine. He just beat him to a pulp in full view of the other miners, after which Wu was unceremoniously dumped outside the wall and left to crawl away to whatever fate awaited him.

That night, tormented by the echoes of the chow dog’s whimpers for help as he lay outside the camp, Katie MacArran didn’t sleep a wink...but she never countermanded Shang’s order, and the next day Wu had disappeared without a trace. Though Katie could not imagine it at the time, she would eventually become much more hardened to the unforgiving reality of gold-mining the New Guinea back country...MUCH more hardened.

But the Wu incident, in fact every one of the expulsions, were the exception, not the rule. Shang Li-Sung was nothing if not a keen judge of furres, and for the most part he had chosen well when hiring. 90% of the time, things went smoothly with the miners.

While all this was going on, The Republic flew up to Alaska to take on a cargo of herring roe for shipment to Japan. It was hardly a prestigious first contract for TIDC, but the Japanese were willing to pay top dollar. The herring season in Alaska lasted less than a week, and their roe, a highly prized delicacy in Japan, was also highly perishable. Previously, it had been carried back to Japan by cargo plane...but that had always involved at refueling stop at Vladivostok and the Soviets, well aware of the time sensitivity of the cargo, would invariably hold the planes on the runway until an exorbitant ‘landing fee’ was extracted. Even with what the TIDC was charging, it was still cheaper to use the Republic, which could make the flight from Alaska to the Kasumigaura naval airship station non-stop...and could also carry a much larger payload than a cargo plane.

Much more up TIDC’s alley was contract from the Royal Dutch Shell company to deliver drilling equipment for a series of test wells in Borneo.

“Building roads in that part of the world is almost impossibly expensive.” Shell’s Director of Indies Operations, a muskrat named Jan Vandevander had explained. “That’s an acceptable expenditure when you’ve got working wellheads, but nine out of ten test wells always come up dry. So what we want is to bring in the drilling equipment by air and build the roads later if any of them play out for us.”

As things turned out, only one of the fifteen test wells that Shell drilled turned out to be a producer... but that one well turned out be the start of a bonanza. So pleased was the company with the results of this venture, that it undertook the construction of an airship mooring mast and shed in Hollandia, the capital of Dutch New Guinea, “The better to keep the Republic readily available.”

It was a project equally satisfying to The International Dirigible Company. The distance to Iso from Hollandia was less than a fifth of what it was from Manila.

It was also from this endeavor that a seed was planted, one that would someday bear fruit in very large way for Katie MacArran. Shell elected to leave the derricks that had been used to drill the dry wells in place, but decided to recover the motors and generators, items small enough to fly out aboard a conventional aircraft, and had hacked several small airstrips out of the jungle for that purpose Katie at first tried to pass the contract on to Ray Parer, but the Brumby declined, owing to too many local obligations.

So Katie flew to Brisbane, purchased a second-hand Ford Tri-Motor on credit and brought the machinery out herself. It was from this humble beginning that the International Dirigible Company would one day expand into International Air Freight, the largest air-cargo hauling firm in the Pacific.

But all that was in the future. For now, another one of those small incidents was about to take place; one that would have much larger implications than it seemed at the time.

It started when Katie was on her way back to the house from the airstrip, and happened to pass by a group of miners, seated in circle, eating supper and drinking tea. She had almost gone past them when a familiar and tantalizing aroma tweaked the insides of her nostrils. With her ears steepling in surprise she turned around and spoke to group in Mandarin, a language at which she was rapidly becoming fluent.

“Excuse me, brothers...but what’s that you’re eating.”

“It is called Kung Pao.” said one of the group, a dun rabbit with one lop-ear, “Would Katie Grace like to try?” he asked her, innocently proffering his bowl and chopsticks in her direction.

At once the other’s faced became masks of horror But before any of them could cry out a warning, Katie had already taken a morsel of the Kung-Pao and popped it into her mouth.

There was no immediate effect...but then she felt as if she had just bitten into a phosphorous pellet. The Kung Pao wasn’t just spicy-hot, it was spicy-HOT. So potent, it was a wonder that it hadn’t eaten right through the bottom of the bowl. Katie felt her eyes rolling almost into the back of her head...and she let out a deep neigh.

...of blissful contentment.

“Mmmm-hm-hm-hm-hm.” She nickered. “Mmm, that’s good. But I didn’t know you liked your food so spicy, brothers.”

“Oh yes, Katie Grace.” said the rabbit, “We from Chungking in Sezchwan province...all food spicy there, not like in Canton.”

“B-But YOU like it so hot?” asked another of the group, a ram with a crumpled horn, who looked as if he had just received word that his death sentence had been commuted.

“Hell yes.” said Katie, returning the bowl and chopsticks to the lapin, “My grandfather introduced me to chiles when I was eight, and I’ve been addicted to them ever since.”

“How long has it been since your grandfather passed?” asked another of the miners, a compact bullock, as he moved aside to make room for her to sit down. Meanwhile another one of the miners went to fetch a fresh bowl of the Kung Pao for her. If there’s one principal common to both east and west, it’s that one should always butter up the boss whenever possible.

“Oh, my grandfather is still alive.” said Katie, taking a seat, “But he’s very ill.”

In response to this, the miners all exchanged curious glances, then the bunny who had first offered to let her try the Kung Pao said, cautiously, “Why are you...not taking care of him?”

“Because he refused to let me.” Katie answered at once, “Said it wasn’t what he raised me for.” Her brown eye closed slightly, making the blue one seem larger than actually was. “But he never said I couldn’t take care of his company.” she added, waving a hoof in the direction of dredge #2. “So that’s what I’m doing.”

She then went on to explain why she had come to the Iso valley in the first place; to save Combs Mining Equipment and the MacArran Distilleries. “My father and my grandfather put everything they had into building their companies,” she told them, with a firm jaw, “and I swore an oath not to let either of them go under...and I won’t, no matter what.”

“You have no brothers or uncles who can do this?” asked the bullock. Katie shook her head and sighed, wistfully.

“No...I’m the last of the MacArrans, boys. It’s me or nobody.”

The next morning, Shang Li-Sung appeared at her door with a large smile on his face.

“You may not be aware of it, Your Grace...but you made hugely positive impression on the miners yesterday evening.”

“I did?” said Katie, regarding him curiously, “How?”

“It’s not something that can be explained quickly,” the red panda told her, “perhaps if we could sit down?”

A moment later, the two of them were seated in the front room of Katie’s bungalow, a room that was now outfitted with the furniture that had one graced the main salon of the airship, R-100.

“It’s what we in China call ‘filial piety’.” Shang explained as he poured tea for them both, “Or what you in the west call ‘ancestor worship’. Up until now, and please do not take umbrage, up until now, most of the miners have regarded you as something of a curiosity, and perhaps even slightly mad.”

“Because females don’t run gold-mines in the jungle?” she asked, having guessed where he was headed with this.

“Yes,” the red panda replied, nodding, “In Chinese society, such a thing is completely unheard of...but with one very large exception.”

“And that exception is?” Katie queried, taking another sip of tea.

“Preserving the family legacy.” Shang replied, “If there are no sons left to take over when the father passes or become too ill to manage his affairs, then it’s considered both right and proper for a daughter to step into the breach. As far as the miners are concerned now, you’re not eccentric, you’re doing just as would be expected of a dutiful daughter or granddaughter.”

Katie’s mouth twisted into a wry, tilted smile, “Uhhhh, thanks...I think. But...”

At that instant, they were distracted by a loud commotion coming from outside the house...someone was dashing pell-mell up the front steps.   Then they were knocking loudly on Katie’s door and shouting something in Mandarin, so rapidly she couldn’t understand.

“What the...?” said Katie rising quickly from her seat with a start.

“Something’s going on down by the extractors.” said Shang, also getting hurriedly to his feet. “And whatever it is,” he added, his jaw setting like concrete, “it’s not good news.”

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