Wings (7 page)

Pat drove Chris and Cassie home, and their mother was waiting for them. As soon as they sat down to dinner, her father told Oona the whole story. Or what he thought was the whole story, of how incredible Chris had been, how he had flown by sheer wit and nerve, and after the initial foolishness of going up in the storm, had brought them home safely. Their father was so proud of him, and Chris said nothing at all. He just went to his room, and lay on his bed and cried, with the door closed.

Cassie went in to see him after a while. She knocked for a long time, and he finally let her in, with a look that combined anguish and fury.

“What do
you
want?”

‘To tell you I'm sorry I scared you… and almost got us killed. I'm sorry, Chris. I shouldn't have done it.” She could afford to be magnanimous now, now that Nick had agreed to give her what she had always wanted.

“I'm never going up in a plane with you again,” he said ominously, glaring at her like a much younger brother who had been used and betrayed by a wilier older sister.

“You don't have to,” she said quietly, sitting on the edge of his bed as he stared at her.

“You're giving up flying?” That he'd never believe.

“Maybe… for now…” She shrugged, as though it didn't matter to her, but he knew her better.

“I don't believe you.”

“I'll see. It doesn't matter now. I just wanted to tell you I was sorry.”

“You should be,” he fired at her, and then he backed down, and reached out and touched her arm. “Thanks though… for saving our asses up there. I really thought we were done for.”

“So did I,” she grinned excitedly at him. “I really thought for a while there it was over.” And then she giggled.

“You lunatic,” and then, admiringly, “you're a hell of a pilot, Cass.
You
gotta learn right one day, and not all this sneaky stuff behind Dad's back. He's got to let you fly. You're ten times the pilot I'll ever be. I'll bet you're as good as he is.”

“I doubt that, but you'll be okay. You're a good straightforward pilot, Chris. Just stay out of the tough stuff.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he grinned at her, no longer wanting to kill her. “I'll remind you of that, next time you offer to take me up and kill me.”

“I won't, for a while,” she said angelically, but he knew her better.

“What's that all about? You're up to something, Cass.”

“No, I'm not. I'm going to behave… for a while anyway…”

“Lord help us. Just let me know when you decide to go berserk again. I'll be sure to stay away from the airport. Maybe you ought to do that for a while too. I swear, those fumes have made you crazy.”

“Maybe so,” she said dreamily. But it was more than that, and she knew it. She had those fumes in her blood, her bones, and she knew more than ever that she would never escape them.

Bobby Strong came by after dinner that night, and he was horrified when he heard her father's tale, and furious with Chris a little later when he saw him.

“The next time you take my girl up and almost kill her, you'll have to answer to me,” he said, much to Chris's and Cassie's astonishment. “That was a dumb thing to do and you know it.” Chris would have liked to tell him Cassie wanted to, he would have liked to tell him a lot of things, but of course he couldn't.

“Yeah, sure,” her younger brother mumbled vaguely as he went back to his room. They were all nuts. Bobby, Cass, his father, Nick. None of them knew the truth, none of them knew who was to blame and who wasn't. His father thought he was a criminal, and Cassie had them all bamboozled. But only Cassie knew the truth about that, and Nick, now that he had promised to give her lessons.

Bobby lectured her that night on how dangerous flying was, how useless, and how foolish; he told her that all the men involved in it were immature, and they were just playing like children. He hoped she had learned a lesson that night, and that she would be more reasonable in the future about hanging around the airport. He expected it of her, he explained. How could she expect to have any kind of future at all if she spent her life covered in grease and oil, and was willing to risk her life on a wild adventure with her brother? Besides, she was a girl, and it wasn't proper.

She tried to make herself agree with him, because she knew he meant well. But she was relieved when he left. And all she could think of that night, as she lay in bed listening to the rain, was what Nick had promised her, and how soon they would start flying together. She could hardly wait. She lay awake for hours, thinking about it, and remembering the feeling of the wind on her face, as she dashed beneath the clouds in the Jenny, looking for the edge, waiting to escape, just before they hit the ground, and then soaring free again, shearing the top of the trees, and then coming in safely. It had been an extraordinary day, and she knew that no matter what anyone said to her about how dangerous or improper it was, she would never give it up. Not for any of them. She just couldn't.

4

T
hree days after the storm that eventually turned into a tornado, ten miles away in Blandinsville, Cassie got up and did her chores and when she left the house, she told her mother she was going to the library, and then to meet a friend from school who had married that spring, and was expecting a baby. And after that she'd stop by the airport. She had packed an apple and a sandwich in a paper bag, and she had taken a dollar from her savings and hidden it in her pocket. She wasn't sure how much the bus fare would be, but she wanted to be sure she had enough to get to Prairie City. She had promised to meet Nick there at noon, and as she walked toward the bus terminal downtown in the summer sun, she was sorry she hadn't worn a hat. But she knew that if she had, her mother would have suspected something. She never wore one.

As she walked along, she looked like a long, lanky girl, going off to meet friends. She looked her age, but was extraordinarily lovely. She was even prettier than her mother had been, she was taller and thinner, and she had an even more impressive figure. But her looks were something that Cassie never thought about. Looks were something for other girls, who had nothing else in their heads, or girls like her sisters who wanted
to
get married and have babies. She knew she wanted children one day, or at least she thought she did, but there were so many other things she wanted first, things she would probably never have, like excitement and freedom and flying. She loved reading stories about women pilots, and she read everything she could about Amelia Earhart and Jackie Cochran. She'd read Lindbergh's book We, about his Atlantic solo in 1927, and his wife's book
North to the Orient
the year before when it came out, and Earhart's book,
The Fun of It
. All the women involved in aviation were her heroes. She often wondered why they could do what she could only dream of. But maybe now with Nick helping her… just maybe… if she could just fly… if she could just take off as she had the other day with Chris, and soar lazily into the sky forever.

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she almost missed her bus, and she had to run to catch it before it left her. She was relieved to see that no one she knew had gotten on, and the forty-five-minute ride to Prairie City in the dilapidated bus was uneventful. It had only cost fifteen cents, and she spent the entire trip daydreaming about her lessons.

It was a long walk to the airstrip after the bus dropped her off, but Nick had told her exactly how to get there. He had somehow assumed that she would get a ride from someone. It had never dawned on him that she would walk the last two miles to meet him, and when she arrived she looked hot and damp and dusty. He was sitting quietly on a rock, drinking a soda, with the familiar Jenny parked at the end of the deserted airstrip. There was no one else around, just the two of them. It was a runway that was used occasionally for crop dusters, and had been put in originally in barnstorming days. It was only used occasionally, but it was in good repair. Nick had known it would be the perfect place for their lessons.

“You okay?” He looked at her with a fatherly air, as she pushed her bright red hair off her face, and held it off her neck. The sun was blazing. “You look hotter than hell. Here, have something to drink.” He handed her his Coke, and watched her admiringly as she took a long swallow. She had a long graceful neck, and the silky whiteness of her throat reminded him of the palest pink marble. She was a striking girl, and there were times lately when he almost wished she weren't Pat's daughter. But it wouldn't have done him any good anyway, he reminded himself. He was thirty-five and she was seventeen, she was hardly fair prey for a man his age. But there were moments when it could have been tempting. “What did you do, you goofball?” he asked, relieving the tension of the moment. It was odd being here, just the two of them, alone on their secret mission. “Did you walk all the way from Good Hope?”

“No,” she grinned back at him, quenched by his soda. “Just from Prairie City. It was farther than I thought. And hotter.”

“I'm sorry,” he said apologetically. He felt bad to have brought her so far, but it had seemed the perfect place for their rendezvous with her father's plane, for their secret lessons.

“Don't be,” she grinned, accepting another swig of his soda. “It's worth it.” He could see easily in her eyes how much it meant to her. She was crazed over planes, and totally in love with flying. It was exactly how he had been at her age, dragging from airport to airport to airport, happy to do anything, just to be near the planes and get a chance to fly now and then. The war had been like a dream come true for him, flying in the 94th, with men who had almost all become legends. But he was sorry for her, it wouldn't be that easy, particularly if Pat was determined to keep her from flying. Nick was hoping that one of these days he might sway him. And in the meantime, at least he could teach her the important things, so she didn't kill herself doing crazy tricks, or scud running with her brother. He still shuddered when he thought of her flying out of the clouds three days before, just barely above the ground and moving like a bullet. At least now she'd know what she was doing.

“Shall we give it a whirl?” he asked, waving at the Jenny. She was sitting there, waiting for them, an old friend, just as they were.

She was too excited to even speak to him as they walked down the airstrip to the familiar plane. She had gassed her a thousand times, cleaned her engine, lovingly washed her wings, and flown her half a dozen times with Chris pretending that he was taking his sister up for a joyride. But the Jenny had never looked as beautiful to Cassie as she did now. They did a walk around first, checked the landing gear to make sure he hadn't damaged it when he landed. She was a low plane with a broad wingspan and the feel of a larger plane, although she was a modest size, and she wasn't daunting to Cassie. And now Cassie gently stepped into her and buckled her seat belt. She knew that the skies would soon be hers, she had a right to them, just as they all did. And after that, no one could stop her.

“All set?” Nick shouted at her in the first noise of the engine. Cassie nodded with a grin, and he hopped in the seat behind her. At first, he would be flying the plane, and once they were safely in the air, he would turn over the controls to her. This time she wouldn't, have to wrest them from him, as she had from Chris. This time it would all be aboveboard, and as they taxied down the runway, Cassie turned to look at him. Nick's was such a familiar face to her, and yet as she saw him now, she felt happier than she had ever been, and she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him.

“What?” She had said something to him, and at first he couldn't hear her. He didn't think anything was wrong, she looked too happy for there to be a problem. But he leaned forward so he could hear her better. His dark hair was blowing in the wind, his eyes were the same color as the summer sky, and there were lines around his eyes from where he squinted into the sunlight.

“I said… thank you!…” She shouted back at him, her eyes so filled with joy that it touched his heart. He squeezed her shoulder gently, and she turned forward again, and put her hands on the controls. But there was no question this time as to who was flying the plane. Nick was.

He pushed the throttle forward evenly, and used the rudder pedals. And a moment later, they lifted smoothly off the runway and rose easily into the air, and as they did, Cassie felt her heart soar with the old Jenny. She felt the same thrill she always did when she left the ground. She was
flying!

He started a gentle turn to move away from the small airstrip, and then rolled the wings to level off, and touched Cassie on the shoulder. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he pointed at her, indicating to her to take the controls now. She nodded, and as though by instinct, Cassie took over. She knew what she needed to do, and they flew easily through the bright blue sky, as though she had been flying all her life. And in some ways she had. He was amazed at her skill, and her natural instincts. She had picked up a lot of his own and her father's tricks, just by watching them, and she seemed to have a style of her own, which was surprisingly smooth and easy. She seemed totally at ease at the controls of the small plane, and Nick decided to see how much she could do on their first lesson.

He had her do turns and banks in different directions, first moving left and then right; he was going to tell her to keep the nose up, to maintain altitude, but she seemed to know automatically that the plane would fall during turns, and she kept the nose up without his telling her anything. Her natural sense for the plane was uncanny. She kept back pressure on the stick with a steady hand, and the nose stayed up in response to her movements.

He had her do S turns then, using a small dirt road as a guide, and he noticed as she did them, that she controlled her altitude easily. She seldom seemed to look at the instruments yet she knew when she needed to compensate, or rise higher in the sky. She seemed to fly primarily by feel and sight, which was a sure sign of a natural pilot. It was rare to see one like her, and he knew he had seen damn few in his lifetime.