Airfield

by Jeanette Ingold

  We try the telephone, but that's dead, too.

  "If we could just call Grif or Kenzie," I say, "one of them might have an idea what to do."

  "Maybe the hangar phone's still OK," Moss says.

  The hangar doors stand partway open, and inside there's another chaos of knocked-over equipment and scattered paper.

  Again, I realize that open doors are wrong—the wind might have blown them off their tracks but not rolled them sideways.

  Before I can think more about that, though, something slams into my legs.

  Then Millie is all over me, shaking wet dog fur and nipping at my hands. "Not now," I tell her.

  But she's insistent, tugging on me, pulling me to where the workbench with its tall shelves lies on its side.

  "What?" I ask just before the flashlight shows me Grif. He's crumpled beside a broken wood crate, and blood is running from a cut on his forehead. The receiver from the wall telephone is clutched in his hand, its cord torn loose.

  "Moss!" I yell. "Come here fast! Grif's been hurt."

  "Grif?" Moss says, bending over him. "Beatty, that crate must of come down on his head."

  My uncle wakes, blinking and dazed, in the flashlight beam; comes to, fretting and anxious. "Why are the lights off? Night plane due in ... radioed ... low on fuel."

  He tries to struggle to his feet, but his left leg buckles and he collapses. "Have to bring Collin in..."

  "Grif?" I ask. "Grif?"

  "He's passed out again, Beatty," Moss says.

  "But he can't ... Moss ... my dad is on that plane..."

  Help. The thought circles and stalls. We've got to get help, and there's no one to give it to us.

  "You stay here with your uncle," Moss says, "while I go try to get the generator fixed."

  "Here," I tell him. "You take the flashlight."

  "Keep it. I just spotted Kenzie's."

  And then Moss is gone and I'm holding a handkerchief to the cut on Grif's head, trying to comprehend what's going on.

  That's my father up there, not sure exactly where he is, and even if he flies directly overhead there's no way he can see the landing field. But if he comes in anyway and hits that power line ... He wouldn't want to land blind, but, running out of fuel, he might not have a choice.

  I try to think as he must be thinking. He might have seen town lights, and Moss's contact would have confirmed they were Muddy Springs's. Taking his bearings from them, using his compass, Dad would know about where the airport would be.

  But about where not good enough. Not with the field unlighted and the weather what it is.

  And then suddenly, as though he's right here saying the words again, I hear Kenzie joke about putting me out on the field with a couple of strong flashlights.

  Flashlights wouldn't do any good, but...

  One after another, the stories I've been listening to all summer speed by, bits jumping out: There was one about how, years ago, a whole set of hangars and workshops went up in flames. "Wooden buildings and fabric skins on the planes. The fire started in a drum of drained fuel."

  And that company pilot told about the storm out of Detroit, how he had to land on a runway marked off with smudge pots.

  "A cylinder with some fuel and a wick," Kenzie said. "A big old tongue of flame."

  My mind racing, I pause just long enough to whisper, "Grif ? You doing OK?"

  He stirs. "Yes. But ... plane ... Need to bring it..."

  "I've thought of a way," I tell him, trying to sound a confidence I don't feel. What I feel is afraid.

  Taking the broken crate with me, I run outside, searching until my flashlight beam picks up the trash can blown a distance from where it should be.

  Jamming the crate pieces inside, I drag the can to the far end of the ramp, running and stumbling until I slide onto the mud of the landing field.

  Leaving the can at the end of the worn path that most planes take, I hurry back to the hangar, this time getting matches and loading my arms with shop rags and newspapers to stuff in with the broken crate pieces.

  My final trip is to the big container where drained crankcase oil is stored. I put some into a five-gallon can and then run to pour it over everything in the trash barrel.

  The plane returns briefly as I pull out the matches. Frantic as I am to get a fire going, part of my mind registers that the engine sound is coming from the south, where the power line is.

  Quickly I pull out several of the oil-soaked rags and drop them a good distance away. Turning back, I wonder, Will this explode when I light it?

  Crouching beside the trash can, I strike a match, reach above me, and drop it in.

  Nothing happens, and I realize it must have blown out.

  A second match does also, but before lighting a third I move around so the trash can is between me and the breeze.

  This time the fire catches, though there's no explosion at all, only a brief flare-up of glow. When I stand back to look, I see a small flame spreading along the edges of a newspaper. It wavers, threatens to go out, and then expands across an oily spot. Then a whole thick section of paper catches.

  I don't wait longer but bring more things to feed the blaze until, suddenly, I have the bonfire I wanted, flames shooting out the trash can.

  It's hard to tell how much light they throw off. The terminal and hangar still appear only as looming, almost invisible shapes, but maybe that's because the flames have taken my night vision. Maybe, from the sky...

  And at least I've got one end of a landing path marked. But I need to mark its side so Dad doesn't blunder onto that power line, and if I can, I need to get a light going way down on the opposite end.

  Grabbing up the oil-soaked rags I pulled out, I run diagonally up the airfield, trying to follow the carved-out runway. Making my way by flashlight, I slip and slide across the mud, stumbling and catching myself time and again, and I soon lose all idea of how much farther I have to go.

  Then I hear the engine sound approaching again. For just an instant I take my eyes off the ground, but that's enough to send me sprawling onto it ... not onto dry stubble now but into slick mud, but it's the same, feels the same as it did when I fell and Gold Lightning almost hit me.

  Overhead, the plane flies so near and low that I glimpse a flash of bonfire reflected in its underside. Then the sound retreats again, going toward the far end of the field.

  Dad's spotted the buildings. He's going to turn ninety degrees and turn again and try to land on this field that I'm in the middle of.

  It's what I want him to do, but still I'm so scared that I want to huddle where I am. Getting up is the hardest thing I've ever done, but I do it, and I run as long as the airplane's sound is disappearing, just stopping to set two small rag fires along the way.

  Then, when I hear the plane turn toward me, I yank aside some wet weeds, drop the remaining rags on the cleared patch, and light them. And then I listen....

  The engine sounds very close, loud and racing toward me, and I think ... I think...I can see the plane coming in low at the far end of the field. Then there's a loud sputtering that ends in sudden quiet. What—

  Now I fling myself to the ground purposely, close to the little fire, my cheek pressed in the mud as I watch a dark shape touch down. Dad makes a rough, bouncing landing, and when the plane finally stops, it's not a hundred yards away.

  Running out, I fling muddy arms around him as he climbs down from the cockpit. "I am so glad you're safe!" I cry.

  We're still hugging each other, me repeating, "I was so afraid—so scared you'd not find the airfield or you'd run into the buildings or the power line—so scared you wouldn't see the fires I—," when suddenly the floodlights come on atop the terminal and hangar roofs. Other, inside lights make yellow squares of doors and windows, and two sets of headlights come up the airport driveway.

  "Oh," I say. "You could just have waited."

  "No, I couldn't," Dad says. "I glided onto the airfield on an empty tank—" He breaks off, startled. "You set th
ose fires? You were running around out on that field?"

  "I was so afraid. For you, but for myself, too. I knew you couldn't see me in the dark, and..."

  Chapter 21

  MY ANSWER MAKES him furious. "And you went out there anyway, took a chance on getting killed? I told you before, only fools take risks."

  Then Dad notices the scarf I'm wearing, the soggy silk gleaming in the light now reaching us. He lifts one end and spreads it. "Your mother had one like this."

  "I know."

  Dad jerks back at that. "Then you must know why I don't want you to be like her. She thought she could do whatever she wanted, that she was above danger—"

  "Dad, I'm not my mother."

  "—and she wouldn't listen to warnings, didn't hear what anyone tried to tell her."

  "But I do listen. If I didn't, I wouldn't have understood how much danger you were in, or known to mark the field with fires, or how to."

  Dad shakes his head, a small, quick movement, as though he's clearing away far-off thoughts to make room for what I'm saying. Leaning back against the airplane, he tells me, "No, you're not your mother."

  Then he looks down, rounds his shoulders, almost seems to shrink as he draws inside himself. "But Clo was right. You're not me, either, turning away from what frightens you."

  "But that's not fair to you," I tell him. "You flew in here tonight, despite the storm, because I needed you. What did you do, take the mail route yourself when you found there wasn't room for a passenger?"

  "It is fair, Beatty." Dad shakes his head again, and now his voice sounds both rueful and proud. "Guess I'll be hearing for years to come how my daughter brought me to a safe landing."

  "So I'll be part of your hangar flying?" I ask, knowing the answer is yes.

  What I also think, though I don't say it, is that tonight's happenings will also become front-porch talk: a story to tell when Dad's visiting, family talk while we're waiting for some summer evening to cool. This will be one more story to tie us together before Dad leaves again, flies on to the next place.

  Suddenly I realize that the ceiling is lifting and the overcast is breaking into fast-moving clouds that circle and spin, cover the moon, and then part to spill light. It is beautiful up there....

  But it must be so lonely, I think, if the sky is all the home a person has.

  "Beatty," Dad says, tipping back my chin, smiling as though he's done with deep thinking for one night, "you look moonstruck."

  A moment later there's a shout: Kenzie yelling, "You OK out there?"

  Dad and I reach the hangar just as Grif is being helped to an ambulance. He's hobbling, one ankle immobilized against a splint, and worrying aloud about who'll meet Clo's bus, but he breaks into a huge grin when he sees us. "Collin," he says, "that was close."

  "It was," Dad answers. "But Beatty saved me."

  "And Moss did," I add. "That was Moss on the radio."

  I turn to him. "The telephone must have started working again so you could call Kenzie and the ambulance?"

  Annie's little roadster pulls up, causing Kenzie to say, "Yeah, Moss called me. And it looks like he called all Muddy Springs."

  Moss nods. "Just about."

  Millie nudges my hand and whines.

  "Yes, Millie," I tell her. "You helped, too."

  After smothering out the fire in the trash can and being sure the smaller ones have stopped burning, we follow the ambulance to town. Kenzie drives his own car and the rest of us go in Annie's, Moss included. Dad offered to share his cabin for the night, saying, "It'll be dry, anyway," and Moss, soaked to the skin, said, "Thanks."

  Annie plans aloud. "These two should change clothes first. You've got something Moss can put on?"

  Dad, in the front seat, nods.

  "And then we'll meet Clo's bus and take her on to the hospital so she can see for herself that Grif's all right."

  Moss and I are snuggled close together in the rumble seat, and about the time we turn off Airfield Road onto the highway he takes my hand.

  ***

  There's a lot of confusion in the next couple of hours, and I don't hear the whole of anybody's conversation. Over and over, though, everyone tells everyone else about the airport electricity going out, and about how I brought Dad's plane in with a bonfire.

  I do find time for whispering to Clo, "How'd it go?"

  She squeezes my arm. "We're a family, angel! Maud and Fanny send their love, but Grif and I have you for good."

  There's one odd moment when I notice Clo and Annie together, really the first time they've had much chance to talk. I get the impression they're taking stock of each other and that each approves of what she sees.

  Then the moment's over, and they're again a part of the noisy excitement. Mr. Granger, who's come down to the hospital with his clothes pulled on over his pajamas, calls Moss and me heroes. "Aren't these kids something?" he says to whoever will listen. "I bet Fort Worth itself doesn't have any kids like these."

  After a while, it makes me uneasy, taking credit for helping in an emergency I partly caused. Finally, about the time Mr. Granger is wondering aloud how early somebody can call the newspaper, I ask, "Please, everybody, can I talk to Grif alone?"

  All but Moss look baffled. They file out, though, leaving me to say, "Everybody's making me to be something special, when none of this would have happened if I hadn't insisted on Dad coming to see me. He wouldn't have taken someone else's flight, or got caught in a storm, or had to fly into an unlighted airport."

  "You couldn't help a lightning strike taking out the power, Beatty."

  I wish I could leave it at that.

  "Grif, the landing lights stopped working before the airport lost power, maybe when the wind blew over the workbench. If they'd stayed on a just a little longer, then maybe Dad would have seen them and come down safely on his own. So I guess ... I mean, if that electrician could have arranged time to fix them the other day, if I'd gotten his message to you the way I should have..."

  I can tell from Grif's face that his thoughts are following the same path mine are: Whatever blame belongs to me is also his, because I'm his responsibility. And his boss told him, one more slip...

  The door opens just then, and Mr. Granger comes in, followed by Moss and Kenzie. He says, "Grif, I've been hearing a story about lost messages and such—all nonsense. None of this would have happened if I hadn't dragged my heels about getting the lights repaired back when you told me it needed doing.

  "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?"

  Epilogue

  SO 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?

&nb
sp; 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!