by Murray Pura
He was waiting by the Piper the next morning as she walked across the runway. His sunglasses glinted in the sunrise as he smiled and patted the plane’s cowling.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Am I?” she responded.
“Were you hoping I’d pop into the front seat and show you how it’s done?”
“I honestly wish you would, Thunderbird.” Becky stood facing him a moment, her eyes hidden behind her own pair of Ray-Bans. Then she clenched her fists and took the plunge. “What have you heard about me at Wheeler?”
“Excuse me? What are you asking?”
“When men talk about me, what do they say?”
“Are you kidding me?”
Becky took off her glasses and her eyes were a mix of green and gold in the dawn. “No.” She pocketed the glasses in her khaki shirt. “Some say I hacked my hair off with a butcher knife.”
“I heard it was a bread knife with serrations.”
“It was neither. I used a pair of scissors. Do you want to know why?”
“No. Let’s just go up.”
“A friend got killed. Did you hear about that?”
Raven hesitated. “Yeah.”
“How do the men at Schofield Barracks and at Wheeler think it happened?”
“Some say it was pilot error—his. Others say you were reckless and doing a stunt that went wrong and he died because of it.”
“There was no plane. We were engaged to be married. A strong wind gust took him off the roof of a barn he was working on.”
Raven didn’t say anything.
“He always loved my hair long. It was part of his religion, really—a woman’s crowning glory is her hair. So I cut it off a few weeks after his funeral. I made a mess of it. My aunt had to trim it and make it right.”
Raven still didn’t respond.
“I made a kind of vow when I cut it off. No men. He was my life mate forever—even in death. So that’s why I’ve been keeping men at arm’s length, even movie stars like Lockjaw and Whistler. Not because I hate men. Because I loved the man I lost so much.”
Raven finally spoke. “Why are you telling me this?”
“We got off on the wrong foot. And I was the one who made sure we did. Now I want you to understand why. His death has made me the way I am. Or at least the way I’ve dealt with his death has made me the way I am.” She pulled back the canopy. “That’s all. I’m a church girl and should know better how to treat people. I’m sorry, Thunderbird. Maybe we can start over. Maybe not. But let’s at least stop cutting each other up, and let’s try and make you the aviator Billy Skipp wants. I’d hate to lose you to the trenches.”
A jeep came racing over to them with Flapjack’s right-hand man in it.
“Hey,” said Peachtree. “There’s a storm brewing west of the islands.” Raven and Becky both glanced that way and could see the dark cumulus building on the horizon. “The meteorologists say it will hit in an hour or so with a lot of big wind. So all planes are grounded for the morning. Maybe all day. Depends how long the weather sticks around.”
“Okay,” said Becky.
“You guys want a lift back to the office?”
“Yeah, I’ll shove off now.” Becky climbed into the back of the jeep.
Peachtree looked at Raven. “Coming, Thunderbird?”
“Stay with me, Becky.”
Becky stared at Raven. “What?”
Raven took off his sunglasses. The blue of his eyes was piercing. “Stay with me.”
Part of her wanted to say, Why should I? The other part didn’t say anything. It just made her get out of the jeep.
“I guess we’ll walk, Peachtree,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Suit yourselves.” Peachtree roared off.
Becky gazed up at Raven. “What’s this about, Thunderbird?”
“Let’s sit in the plane and not go anywhere.”
They left the canopy open at first. Raven leaned his head back against his seat and closed his eyes. “Can you hear me?” he asked.
“Loud and clear,” Becky replied from the front seat.
“You’re never going to get me to develop a fighter’s instinct. It’s not going to happen. We should save the time and gas.”
“You want a tin helmet that bad?”
He said nothing more for a long minute. “You want me to spread the word about what really happened to you when you were stateside?”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m going to say some things about myself and I don’t want anyone knowing about them. Understood?”
“All right. But why are you telling me if you feel that way? We don’t have to play tit for tat. I said what I said. You don’t owe me anything.”
“No. I don’t. But you tried to make a difference, so I’m going to respect that and tell you why I can’t be the wonder boy you want to turn me into.”
“Thunderbird—”
“I barnstormed too. With my old man. Mostly in the Southwest—Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico. I was born in 1917 and I was already flying alone at twelve—just short runs. Used to drive Mom crazy but the old man never cared what she thought. By ’33, when I was sixteen, I was really cooking with gas. I’d do anything—fly under low bridges, go through barns, thread the needle between two or three trees. The old man made a lot of money off my stunts, always had some kind of bet going on with the odds against me and hundreds of people involved.”
The sky had darkened and rain was coming in fast fat drops. Becky pulled the canopy shut and they listened to it drum on the plane for a few moments. Finally Raven sat up and looked out at the storm and spoke again.
“So my brother is, what, nine? The old man wanted him wing-walking but Mom really threw a fit so he let it go. Then he came up with a better idea how to make a lot of cash—Timmy flies the Jenny while I sit in front as a passenger. Timmy does the loops, the barrel rolls, the death spins—oh yeah, Becky, I learned all that stuff—and I’ve got my hands stretched out over my head to show I’m not doing a thing while we’re in the air. So ‘Timmy Dynamite’ is the youngest barnstormer in America and he goes under bridges and over hedges and through barns just like me, sitting on a stack of mail-order catalogues. Why am I in the plane? For only one reason—in case Timmy screws up. I’m supposed to somehow get to the back cockpit and take over the controls if that happens. Of course it’s never supposed to happen because if we’d taken that part seriously we’d have realized how hard it was going to be for me to get into Timmy’s cockpit.”
Wind was rocking the Piper and the rain sounded like bullets on the wings and canopy and fuselage.
“The stunt was easy. He was going to do a figure eight with smoke. And the kid was never afraid, Becky, never. Into the eight he goes, I’m popping open the smoke canister, no one’s looking at the wild geese coming in from the south. Timmy’s going to bend right into them as he does his eight. The old man says he was waving his arms and screaming up at us—maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, we would never have noticed anyway. Timmy turned into the geese and they went right into the prop and the wings, tearing big holes in the fabric, spraying blood and guts all over the plane, breaking the propeller blade in half. Timmy’s crying for me to help him, the plane’s going into a spin, everyone thinks it’s part of the act except the old man and Mom. I tried to haul myself into Timmy’s cockpit, I couldn’t do it at first, finally made it in time to see Timmy’s white face and his big dark little-kid eyes before he fell out of the plane—his harness had been shredded. He landed in front of the crowd and sank a foot into the ground. I crash-landed the Jenny in a cornfield and walked out of it.”
He stopped.
Becky had turned around in her seat, her eyes large and black. “Thunderbird. Christian.”
“The drinking and the beatings came after all that. The old man blamed me and Mom blamed him and I blamed myself and God. There was plenty of blame to go around. Watch yourself now.”
Raven hauled back on the canopy and the rai
n poured in. He was quick, pulling the canopy shut as soon as he was on the runway. He looked at Becky through the water streaming over the glass. Then he walked off into the storm.
THIRTEEN
He turned in his wings.”
Flapjack leaned back in his chair and looked at Becky. “And resigned his commission.”
“When?”
“This morning. That’s why he never showed up for his training flight with you.”
Standing alone by the Piper, waiting for Raven to show up, Becky had felt something like this might be happening. What surprised her was that she had feelings about it. Her spirits sank like a rock in deep water.
“So that’s it?” The dark feeling continued. “He’s gone?”
“Not quite. Skipp gave Thunderbird three days to think it over. If he still wants to end his career in the air forces by Monday morning then that’s that. But until Monday he’s on leave.”
Becky’s mood lightened slightly. “That’s good.”
“Is it?” Flapjack began twirling his yellow pencil with his fingers. “Mind telling me what you guys talked about yesterday?”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes. Yesterday. The day before today. You sat out in the rain in that Piper J-3 for half an hour.”
Becky shook her head. “I need to find him.”
“I thought you didn’t care about him.”
“I don’t care about him. But I need to talk to him.”
Flapjack tapped his pencil on the desktop, his eyes locked on Becky. “Funny thing is, I thought you might. Skipp grabbed Whistler and Lockjaw and they said he’ll either be with his Coast Guard buddy or he’ll camp out at a little cove he likes by Nanakuli. You know Nanakuli?”
“No.”
“I thought you wouldn’t. Here’s a map I sketched for you. It’s on the west side of the island.”
“Who’s his Coast Guard buddy?”
“Harrison. On the Coast Guard cutter Taney. Try Nanakuli first.”
“Okay.”
“Do you need a ride? Peachtree can take you there.”
Becky looked at the map. “I can’t have anyone else with me.”
“Hm. Can you drive?”
“Not too well.”
“I guess we’re stuck then.”
Becky folded the map and put it in a shirt pocket. “Give me a jeep.”
“What?”
“Give me a jeep, Flapjack. Or isn’t Thunderbird worth a jeep in case I crack up?”
“If you can get Thunderbird to fly like you fly it’s worth a hundred jeeps.” He tossed a set of keys at her. “It’s the one with my call sign painted on the side along with the silhouette of a SPAD. Use the key with the red fob.”
Becky ran out the door. “Thanks, Flapjack.”
“Anything for my country.”
She ground the gears and popped the clutch, but by the time locals had helped her discover a road that would take her to Nanakuli she thought the jeep was moving along pretty well. She had no idea why she was doing what she was doing except she knew if she didn’t do it Raven would never fly again. Why that should matter to her one way or the other made as much sense as her driving an army jeep to the west coast of Oahu to find him. She had nothing to say to him. There was no reason to expect he would listen even if she did find something to say.
A dirt track took her to a deserted beach, where October surf was high and crashing over the sand. She got out of the jeep and walked through the brush to the shore.
There was no one around. That didn’t mean Raven wasn’t somewhere nearby. He could be back in the palms or up the slope on the hilltop. She began to head north along the beach, finally taking off her boots and socks so she could wade barefoot at the edge of the waves like she used to do in the Caribbean. After ten minutes of this her pants were soaked to the waist. She didn’t care. All thoughts of why she had come to this beach in the first place were swept away by the surf until she spotted his head in the water. He was swimming in with the help of some five-foot waves.
When he came out of the water Becky was surprised at the tan that was over his whole body and how muscular his chest and stomach were. In his uniform he was broad-shouldered and slim but there was no hint of how fit he was. She hadn’t seen a man in swim trunks since Turks and Caicos and she dropped her eyes for a moment. But she was not an almost Amish woman in an Amish community anymore and looked up again. There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself, and she had no feelings for Christian Scott Raven whatsoever.
He approached her over the sand, wiping the saltwater out of his eyes with his hand. “What do you want?” His face was dark, his lips tight. “How did you find me here?”
Becky put on her sunglasses. “They told me you turned in your wings.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Nothing.” She adjusted her glasses. “I thought you might want to talk.”
“I talked too much yesterday. I should never have told you the things I did. But I—” He stopped. “So what do you want?”
“I want you to fly.”
“You want me to fly? No, you want me to do stunts. I’ll never do stunts again, Becky—no barrel rolls, no stalls, no steep dives, no corkscrews. You know why.” He sat down on the sand and faced the ocean, legs bent, his arms resting on his knees.
Becky remained standing behind him. “I’m not asking you to do that. Not anymore. Let’s just fly.”
“That won’t cut it with Billy Skipp or the Army Air Forces.”
“We have until Christmas.”
“Nothing will change. I thought it might. But it doesn’t matter if I’m in a P-36 or a Piper J-3. I freeze up.”
“If we go for a training flight every day for a half hour. I do some rolls and spins. We keep at it into November and December. Who knows? You might unwind.”
“I doubt it.”
“You might.”
Raven twisted his head around. “Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t. Except I’ve never lost a student. Do you have to be the first?”
Raven laughed and looked at the sea again. “You’re nuts.”
“Well?”
“I’ll think about it.”
She waited a minute but he kept his back to her and wasn’t going to say anything more.
She got up and left quietly.
All the way to Peterson Air Services she kicked herself for going after him to begin with—if he didn’t care, why should she? Why did she have to go looking for him? Why did she say she’d keep taking him up when he had no desire to do anything she or Billy Skipp asked of him?
What is the matter with me?
Despite her anger she thought about him walking up out of the waves. His slender build reminded her of Moses. And his smile—the few times she’d seen it. How muscular Moses had been she would never know—Amish men did not go around in swimming trunks or with their shirts off. Raven’s shoulders were broader and so was his chest. But he was older than Moses by a few years too. And his tan. It was so golden and all over him. Moses would not have had anything but a farmer’s tan—face, neck, and hands, maybe a bit on each arm. But Raven had been out swimming. A lot.
“Stop it!” she shouted as she drove, startling a man walking on the shoulder of the road. “Stop thinking like that!”
The last time she had been swimming was in the Caribbean. She remembered the warmth of the water, its color like a turquoise gem, no waves, flat calm—and she had gone as far out as she dared, at least a mile, before turning around. She’d worn a white two-piece bathing suit. It didn’t show too much, it was modest for the most part, and very comfortable, but it showed more than a one-piece did and her mother asked her only to wear it when she was alone and far from the gaze of men. Rolling her eyes, she had nevertheless done her best to find secluded places to swim, but the men had always seemed to find her, pretending to beachcomb or just be walking past, their eyes lingering on her whether she was in the water or out. Sometimes she liked the men and lik
ed the sensation. Other times she swam to another beach to get away from them.
“Stop it, Rebecca!” She was on the paved roadway with army trucks behind her and beside her. “Stop being such a fool!”
Raven’s eyes have never lingered on me. And they never will—he finds me skinny and unattractive. It doesn’t matter anyway. Why am I thinking like this? We have nothing in common but airplanes, and I’m committed to Moses for life. All this daydreaming is ridiculous.
She parked the jeep in a savage mood and almost threw the keys in Flapjack’s face. “Thanks. It still has four wheels.”
Flapjack put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone he was talking on. “Did you find him?”
“I don’t know what I found.”
Raven was standing by the Piper Cub when she arrived at Peterson’s on Monday. They both had their Ray-Bans on, but as she walked toward him over the runway she had the same feeling of being looked at she’d had on the beaches in the Caribbean. She glanced around quickly as she walked—was it ground crew, another pilot, a student? There was no one else. The sensation was strong, she liked it, but it unnerved her at the same time—what if Raven was the one staring? It was easier to bicker with him and trade shots than to imagine him liking her or for her to start liking him in a way that belonged only to Moses. Still and always to Moses.
I hate that I want him to take his sunglasses off so I can know for sure if it’s his eyes that are tracking me.
Raven’s aviators stayed where they were. And there wasn’t even a hint of a smile for her though she tried to muster one up for him.
“Hi,” she said. The smile was lopsided. “I’m glad you decided to keep your wings.”
“Half an hour lesson?” he asked her.
“Half an hour.”
“When you want me on the controls let me know.”
“I’ll do a few barrel rolls first. And a dive with a little corkscrew thrown in.”
