Cloud Rider

by Arthur J. Burks

Fog Held More Terrors for Clark Ekvall than All the Planes in Germany—and Straight into the Fog He Headed for the Battle of His Life!

excerpt
Clark Ekvall, striding across the tarmac to Headquarters building, pulled his tunic up higher about his ears. Tentacles of the fog, creeping grey mist, skittered across the field.

A cold, biting wind came out of the north, like the breath from a mausoleum. Ekvall shivered in all his six feet. There were too many analogies to the tomb. The fog was too much like the shrouds of the dead.

“If I believed in signs,” muttered Ekvall to himself, “I would think I was slated to go West for sure. I wonder what the Old Man wants.”

Major Fauberg did not long leave Ekvall in suspense.

“Look here, Clark,” he said. “This soup is so thick you could cut it with a knife. As long as it lasts there won’t be any crates off any field. I know it and you know it, but Wing believes that the Germans deliberately started the fog in order to put something over on us. So we’ve got to keep patrols up. Jackson, Hobart and yourself are going out on solitary patrols. You leave at once. You won’t mind the fog?”

Ekvall grinned.

“I was born under a lucky star,” he said. “I’ll never die by fire or water. Fire in the Spad or this fog—which is thick enough to be water—won’t ever bother me!”

Ekvall saluted. His face was red from the walk across the field. Now he turned back into the tarmac, yelling for his Spad to be run out. The other two crates were already at the apron, their props ticking over, smearing the trailing tendrils of the fog which fled fearlessly into the spinning propellers.

Ekvall adjusted helmet, goggles and gauntlets, then bent to examine his crate.

This would be just a monotonous ride, nothing more, he reflected as he seated himself in the cockpit.

He signaled for his chocks to be kicked free.

His Spad started rolling. The fog swirled about him, now and again almost blotting the tips of his wings from view.

“Any fights aloft today,” he told himself, “would have to be so close that we’d sure lock wings.”

22 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 16, 2011

About the author

Burks was born to a farming family in Waterville, Washington. He married Blanche Fidelia Lane on March 23, 1918 in Sacramento, California and was the father of four children: Phillip Charles, Wasle Carmen, Arline Mary and Gladys Lura. He served in the United States Marine Corps in World War I, and began writing in 1920. After being stationed in the Caribbean and inspired by the native voodoo rituals, Burks began to write stories of the supernatural that he sold to the magazine Weird Tales. In 1928 he resigned from the Marine Corps and began writing full time. He became one of the "million-word-a-year" men in the pulps by virtue of his tremendous output. He was well-known for being able to take any household object that someone would suggest to him on a dare, and instantly generate a plot based around it. His byline was commonplace on pulp covers. He wrote primarily in the genres of aviation, detective, adventure and weird menace. One genre he was not to be found in was the westerns. The pressure of producing so much fiction caused him to ease off in the late-1930s. He returned to active duty as the U.S. entered World War II and eventually retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Burks moved to Paradise in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1948, where he continued to write until his death in 1974. In his later years, he lectured on paranormal activities.