Airfield (15 page)

"And I don't want you saying anything different that might lose me the best station manager the Muddy Springs Airport's ever had." He looks my way. "Or one of the best free assistants."

I could hug him, and Grif says, "Mr. Granger ... Thank you."

Looking embarrassed, Mr. Granger answers, "It's nothing, compared with all you've done." Then he smiles, no end pleased with himself: "Just air over a plane's wings."

Clo and Annie come back in the room in time to hear this last and join in the laughter.

Kenzie says, "I hope you all ain't thinking that the mess out at the airport is nothing, because cleaning it up is going to be a job." He turns to Moss, "We've got to get that workbench upright, and let's hope nothing important's broke.

"And, Beatty," he says, "you get out on that airfield with a trash bag first thing tomorrow morning. I don't want to find so much as a half-burnt rag left blowing around—"

"Later, Kenzie," Annie interrupts.

"Later what?"

"Beatty can help you later in the day if she wants. But in the morning—she and I have a date."

I see Annie throw a questioning look to Dad, who nods.

"Beatty," Annie asks, "how about a flying lesson?"

S
O THIS IS
my dad's world. And my mother's. And Annie's and Kenzie's, too, even now.

I look behind me as Annie moves controls duplicated by the ones in the student seat where I am. How will she fit into my life after this morning?

Like Moss says,
Who knows?

But me, I know at this moment who I am and where I belong.

I can almost believe the climbing plane itself is telling me, carrying the message in the low vibration of the ledge where my arm rests, in the force that presses me against my seat.

Below, long sweeps of land drop away as we fly over the Muddy Springs Airport, past Moss's bluff, across mesquite-dotted ground threaded by thicket-lined creekbeds.

We bank in a long, gentle circle, swinging wide around Airfield Road, passing the airport again, not straightening out until we reach the highway. When we're over Joe's Texas Auto Parts, I point down and Annie tips a wing.

A moment later, way below, Joe waves flashing metal to let us know he's seen.

We're flying due east now, and the morning light shines full in my eyes, and for a moment I can feel how it might pull a person into danger.

But I've had a lot more people teaching me than my mother had. And I suppose that is what the hangar flying is, also: flyers passing on what they've learned.

I'll try my best to mind what they've said.

Just let me live part of my life up here, and I'll be respectful. I won't ever fly too close to the sun.

Of course, not
too
close is all I'm promising. That still leaves high, high up, as close as I can safely get....

"Take the stick?" Annie shouts through a speaking tube.

For the first time, I pull back a control column and move it left and press down on a left rudder pedal. The nose of the
Gold Lightning
plane lifts, and one wing dips, and we begin a slow turn to the north.

"Now level out, Beatty," Annie shouts. "Just let up easy."

Level out. Let up.
Me, Beatrice Anne Donnough, I'm flying. I am FLYING!