by Frank Yerby
She sat there very still, surrounded by her ghosts, while the morning sun mounted the sky.
Have to write Jeb and Patricia up there in New York, she thought; but I’ll wait until I’m sure.
She rocked a little, singing in a low, cracked voice a song popular with both sides in 1865:
“The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again. . . .”
“Make it a boy, God,” she prayed. “Make it a sweet, wild Benton boy!”
Roland gunned the motor, listening to its full-throated roar as he warmed it up. He throttled it down, gunned it again.
He sat there, looking at that wing. Then, suddenly, decisively, his hand shot forward, chopping the throttle, killing the motor. He unfastened the seat belt and climbed out of the machine. Mono came hobbling over to him.
“Something wrong?” he said anxiously.
388
“No,” Roland said, and his voice, speaking, was the most peaceful thing in all the world; “I’m just not going to fly it again, Mono. Not this one, nor any other. Not ever.”
Mono stared at him.
“Right, boy,” he said at last; “don’t. Thought for a minute there you’d lost your nerve; but it isn’t that, is it?”
Roland smiled at him.
“No, Mono,” he said, “it’s not that. Maybe I’ve just come back again—back into the world.”
The two of them stood there and watched as Otto took the monoplane up and wrung it out. He did everything, including a vertical power-dive from fifteen thousand feet, snapping the plane out of it brutally at five thousand, hauling the stick back so hard that he passed out momentarily when the forces engendered by that pull-out reached nine times the normal force of gravity, and still that wing held.
They were watching him land it, flaring out beautifully, fish-tailing a little to kill the forward speed, when Athene came towards them, running.
“Oh, Roland!” she laughed, “I am so very happy! Docteur Meyers says—”
Roland smiled at her.
“And what are you ‘so vairee ‘appee’ about now?” he said. She went up on tiptoe, putting her lips close to his ear, cupping her hand over the side of her face, whispering.
Roland stood there, staring at her, the hard Benton blaze gone from his eyes-for ever.
“Is Hugo sure?” he said.
“Almost, mon amour. It will take a month to make certain. But he is confident, all the same.”
He stood there, looking at her.
“Have you told Grandma?” he said.
“No,” Athene said, still laughing.
“Then let’s go tell her now,” Roland Benton said.
»»»» * ««««
Scanned and proofed by Amigo da Onça
v.1.0 - 05-04-2017
Table of Contents
BENTON'S ROW
Front flap
Rear flap
Title Page
Copyright info
Book One - Benton's Row
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Book Two - Incident at Briar Creek
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Book Three - Lucifer's Fall
1
2
3
4
5
