Sentimental Journey (14 page)

The Cub dropped suddenly, slapped down from the sky by the mighty hand of the elements. Charley took the plane lower, downstairs, then scanned the skies all around. Off toward the south was a front of dark clouds, rolling in fast and looking like God on Judgment Day.

The temperature changed quickly. The air grew thicker, then cold. The sudden, dark storm looked massive, bearing down in a huge hurry. Flying got rougher and controlling the plane was more difficult. The weather tossed it up and down, up and down, until the Cub was flying so low you could almost see the whites of the cows’ eyes.

The plane bounced around like a rubber ball.

This way.

That way.

Then, a long straight strip of road appeared off to the left. A blacktop lifeline, wide enough for a landing. Charley gripped the stick in two hands and banked the plane, heading for that thread of blacktop.

A pilot learned quickly to sit evenly, so you could tell if you were banking at the right speed. You could literally feel the turn in your butt. Flying by the seat of your pants wasn’t just a quippy saying.

A crosscurrent hit hard. Feet on the rudder pedals, Charley fought to keep the stick steady, fought the air and the drafts that wanted to knock the plane around.

The road grew larger. The ground rose up as if it were swelling.

Closer . . .

Closer . . .

The Cub’s wheels hit it hard: a sharp thud and a rubbery screech. The plane bounced and wobbled, then rolled duck like down the road, heading straight for a small, clobbered-looking Texaco station.

The red star in the middle of the Texaco sign grew bigger and bigger. On the side of the building, painted in stark white and red letters was a huge advertisement for drinking Dr. Pepper at 10, 2, and 4.

Charley hit the brakes, which didn’t stop the plane, just made it roll slower.

A gust whipped the plane starboard.

Now it was headed straight for the gasoline pumps.

Whoa, baby, whoa . . . Come on . . .

A tall, lanky young fellow with a crop of bright red-orange hair stepped out from the shadow of the station building. He stood there as if his feet were frozen to the spot, but he was waving his arms like crazy.

The plane rolled to a stop about ten feet shy of those pumps. Charley revved the engine up a bit, turned the plane, and taxied into the lee of a ramshackle building that sat beneath a crippled-looking water tower with the thick line of trees growing behind it.

The tree line would give the plane some protection from the buffeting wind. The storm was moving in quickly, and the clouds were getting blacker and higher, looking as if they filled the whole sky.

A flick of the switches and the engine was off. The propeller slowed its spinning rotation until you could see the blades, then their outline, then the looped shape of each one.

Charley took a deep breath of sticky, storm-heavy air that tasted like wet hay and smelled like country.

The young man was all legs and reminded Charley of a greyhound, moving with that seemingly never-ending, limber-legged gait. He was stuffing a faded red rag in the back pocket of his old, grease-stained work coveralls. “I thought for sure you were going to hit those pumps and send us both to Kingdom Come.”

The two gas pumps were ten foot tall cylinders with round glass globes on top of them that looked as if they’d been cracked by BBs.

He had a smile as wide as the
Texas
horizon.

Charley jumped down to the ground with a thud.

Close up, he was just a kid, really. Maybe seventeen, give or take a year or so. His red hair and freckled face made him look young, despite his height.

But then it could have been his expression that made him look younger, the way he was looking at the plane with such awe.

He took a step closer and stuck out a big, freckled hand. “I’m Red Walker.”

Charley took his hand, and shook it, then slipped off the goggles and the leather helmet. “Charley Morrison.”

“Christ on a crutch!” He frowned. “You’re a woman!” His hand went slack in hers. After a second he glanced down at their hands and pulled his back, then quickly shoved both deep in his pockets.

It amazed her that even with newspapers and air races, with cinema newsreels and the swiftly changing times, even with the fast-rising fame of women flyers, there were still a lot of people who never imagined a woman could fly an airplane.

Most of those people were men.

“Yes, I’m a woman and you’re a man. So now that we’ve settled that, how about you help me get this plane secured?”

A gust of wind hit the Cub and rocked it in a wild way that worried her. She scanned the area. Next to the station was a work garage that leaned eastward and had a wide wooden door held open with three-foot stacks of old black rubber tires. Inside was a rusted Ford pickup truck that had once been black. The building was high enough and the doors wide enough to take the Cub, if she angled it in right and could fit the wing around that truck bed.

She gave a nod in the direction of the clouds. “That storm’s coming right at us, and I don’t want it taking this plane and my income along with it.”

“Your income? You mean someone pays you to fly a plane?”

She turned away before she said something that she’d regret. Something about boys too wet behind the ears to understand that women had the same intelligence and drive that men did.

She took a second
to
stick her headgear inside the zipper of the flight suit, then felt she could face him and not say something ugly. “Ever heard of Amelia Earhart?”

He gave a snort of laughter. “You’re not Amelia Earhart. She disappeared last year.”

“I didn’t say I was. But she flew planes.”

“I know who she was and what she did. I’ve seen her picture in the newspaper.”

“I bet you have. I bet you look at all the pictures in the newspaper.”

He gave her the once over. “You from
California
?”

“No. Why?”

“You know what they say.”

“No, I’m not certain I do.”

“Well, that women from
California
do all kinds of stupid things.”

“What does that mean? That men from
California
never do anything stupid?”

He didn’t say anything, but looked away for a moment, his hands deep in his pockets, and he rocked on his heels.

“Maybe you meant that only people from
California
do stupid things?”

“Well. . .” He paused, then nodded. “I suppose so. They make movies there. It’s a made-up world in
California
. You know what I mean. This isn’t
California
. This is
Texas
.”

She crossed her arms and nodded slowly. “You know, I think I do understand what you’re saying. Because they make movies in
California
and movies aren’t real, people there do stupid things, yet people in
Texas
never do stupid things.”

He said nothing, just looked at her.

“So that would mean . . . logically speaking . . . that people everywhere outside of California never do stupid things, unless of course they make a movie. Then suddenly the cameras and actors arrive and the whole state goes off half-cocked doing all kinds of stupid things. Like letting women out of the kitchen.”

She had him now. “It’s really funny, the way we can be so small-minded. Like it comes to us naturally.” She tapped a finger on her temple. “From somewhere inside our heads. We don’t want to take risks. And it’s our willingness to accept the ordinary that keeps us from reaching for our dreams.”

Let him think about that. She turned away. She couldn’t stand people who were too afraid to be different. They tried to make the world more difficult for those who weren’t. It was a fact that if you chose the harder road, people threw boulders in your way instead of waving you on.

He still wasn’t talking, this kid who was throwing his own rocks.

The wind was blowing hard. She needed to push the plane into that garage. She was annoyed enough to push a whole train clear to
Dallas
. She placed one hand on the fuselage, then the other on the wing, near where they joined.

Luckily for Redneck Walker, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder before she gave it the old heave-ho.

He was standing in front of the left wing, staring at the Cub, lost in thought and oblivious to the fact that he was in the way.

“Look, that wind is whipping up like crazy. If you’re not going to help me, then get out of my way.”

“IT’S AN OLD SOUTHERN CUSTOM”

They barely made it inside the house before the hail fell. Balls of ice the size of your fist hammered the roof and hit the ground so hard they bounced up as if they were made by Firestone Rubber.

Red had his back to her. He stood at the kitchen sink washing his hands.

“My God . . .” she said. “Would you look at that hail?”

He didn’t need to look at the hail. He was born here, right under that water tower with the word
Acme
painted on it. He knew the
Texas
weather by the sound and the feel of it. If you lived here, you could even taste a storm before it hit. It tasted like the crops the local farmers were growing: wheat, alfalfa, hay, or maize. And the air always got thicker than potato soup.

He turned back around, leaning back on the counter and drying his hands on a dish towel.

She stood at the front window, her back to him, her hands braced palm-down on the sill. He took a gander at her figure, which from the way she was standing, you’d have to be blind to miss.

From this angle he could tell she was lush and curvy and all woman even in the zippered jumpsuit and clunky boots she wore. Too bad she hadn’t bent over the plane that way. He’d never have thought she was a man.

He tossed the towel aside, then cast a quick glance over his shoulder and out the back window. The storm clouds were getting so black that it grew darker inside and made the place look even more dreary than it was.

Red flipped on the black wall switch for the overhead light, hoping it might brighten the place up a bit. It was like hoping for the sun to rise in the kitchen sink. The single fixture hung off-center from the middle of the ceiling and the light from its cracked and dusty bowl of frosted glass dimmed and flickered when the power generator surged.

He stared up at it, hope gone.

There were black specks in the basin, dead bugs and flies he hadn’t noticed before. It spread bright light down on the kitchen table, where a dismantled carburetor, a set of pistons and barrels, a manifold, and a distributor were spread out like Sunday chicken dinner.