The Cannibal Queen

by Stephen Coonts

  The guy in the tower doesn’t answer my radio calls. He probably isn’t back from lunch yet. What the hey, it’s only 1:30 P.M.

  David wants to know how long this trip will take. I tell him an hour. He is wearing down. We have done three hours of flying already.

  We pick up the interstate and head east to MacClenny. There I turn north and follow the highway to St. George, Georgia, which sits in the little finger of Georgia that pokes down into Florida. From St. George we fly the compass northeast toward Hilliard, Florida, on U.S. 1. I am going around the Jacksonville Airport Radar Service Area (ARSA) to the west and north because I don’t want to talk to those guys unless I have to and because it looks as if a big thunderstorm is growing right over Jacksonville. It is dark and gloomy in that direction. As we fly toward Hilliard we can see a forest fire burning off to the northwest in Okefenokee Swamp. And a rain shower over that way.

  Hilliard has a grass airfield right beside the highway. When we hit the highway I turn northwest and start looking. There it is, complete with airplanes. For a moment I toy with the idea of making a landing just for the heck of it, but we have been airborne for 37 minutes and David is wearing out. I swing the plane directly east toward the mouth of the St. Marys River, the dividing line between Georgia and Florida. In ten minutes we are over the estuary.

  The sun is out and casting areas of light and shadow on the winding river and the saltwater marshes that are so much a part of coastal Florida. The big thunderbumper is off our right wing. I ease the throttle back a smidgen and let the Queen drift downward.

  “Where’s the ocean?” David asks.

  “Dead ahead, beyond those islands.” The haze and the gray sea merge there into a vague nothingness.

  “Beach bunnies,” David roars. “I want beach bunnies.”

  I level at 500 feet, the mouth of the river dead ahead. Now we can see the ocean beyond. I swing off to the left to cut across Cumberland Island, then out over the surf I turn south past the mouth of the river. David waves madly to bathing-suit clad figures on the beach. Some of them wave back.

  The airport is yet another former military base, sprawling, with three or four wide, paved runways. The Unicom man suggests runway 8, but on the downwind I get a good look at the wind sock and decide on runway 13. As we drift down final I can see two experimental airplanes on the taxiway surrounded by people. They look up as we float over with the engine almost at idle. The touchdown is acceptable.

  A beach on the Atlantic.

  We will stay here on Amelia Island for two nights and go on to Orlando on Wednesday where we will meet Nancy and the girls at the airport. They are flying in from Denver on an airliner for a visit to Disney World. As I tie down the Cannibal Queen and wipe the oil from the nose, the thunderstorm is only four or five miles away. It hits just as we check into a condo on the beach. The rain pelts down and the winds gust.

  I go out on the porch, smoke my pipe, and sit watching the ocean. I have always liked the wildness of the sea.

  7

  SOMEDAY I’M GOING TO OWN A BOAT, A MOTORCYCLE, AN ATV, and a jet ski.” With this definitive pronouncement David concluded his argument to the jury as we crossed the causeway to Pensacola Beach on Father’s Day, two days ago. We had just passed a boat rental place a couple miles back when he launched into his let’s-do-it routine. There ought to be a law against people that rent mobile suicide machines putting up signs where children riding in cars can see them. All parents have heard these pleas to the gods from their offspring and I am no exception. I refused his entreaty because I know next to nothing about boats. I told David so.

  “But you were in the Navy!” You know, Dad, ships and water and all that stuff.

  “I just flew the planes. Somebody else drove the ship.”

  “There’s nothing to it.” I let this pass. “I’ll steer and you just ride.” This comment also went unanswered. It was followed by the list of things he would acquire as soon as he became a millionaire that appears above.

  Last night I resolved to prove to my son that his father is not a wimp. The secret fear of every father has become reality—my manhood is suspect to the seed of my loins, the scion of the clan. I see no alternative—we will rent a jet ski. At least I don’t have to beat up the father of the kid across the street!

  I told David of my decision last night. “Rent two of them,” he replied. “We’ll race.”

  This morning he comes out of bed wide-eyed and ready. Why do parents do this to themselves?

  The man on the dock at the harbor eyes me speculatively as I stand nervously inspecting the four jet skis he has tied alongside.

  “I’ll take the blue one,” David says. His courage in the face of the unknown fills me with awe. This is the courage of youth, some juice God squirts into kids to help them face a world where everything is unknown. It leaks out as people age, which is why they get gray hair.

  “You ever ride one of these?” the ski man asks me. He is short, rotund and bald and has an enviable tan on his bare legs. His tanned belly protrudes from an unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt.

  “Uh, no, but I’ve been riding motorcycles for over twenty years. I should be able to handle it.” That’s the right note—confident, macho, fearless—to exorcise all those wimp doubts from that fourteen-year-old head.

  “You won’t have any trouble,” the jet-ski mogul says reassuringly—it must be obvious that I need reassurance—and reaches for a life jacket, which he helps me don. “But I only rent to people sixteen and older. Your son can ride along behind you.”

  David takes it well, I think. He turns a shade paler and his shoulders sag. The instant the man turns away for a moment he asks, “You’ll let me drive, huh?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I had visions of us cruising slowly up and down the St. Marys River and the inland waterway for an hour or so, but that expectation dies quickly. The brown jet-ski man points out the boundaries of the area we are to stay in. It’s an area of the adjacent harbor maybe a quarter-mile long bounded on one side by the quay and the other by boats anchored out. “Avoid the oyster beds over there.” He points. The area where he wants us is completely within his sight. He can watch us every minute.

  I almost lose it the moment the engine is started. The choke sticks out. With the engine idling too fast we move smartly away from the pier. I am trying to steer, jab in the choke knob down by my left knee, and keep this damn thing right side up, all the while listening to Dave offer advice.

  At last I get the choke in and the ski pointed in more or less the right direction and we cruise out of the harbor at idle, with the man who rents these infernal devices standing on the dock shouting advice. My left wrist is strapped to the ski in case I overturn. My stomach feels like I swallowed a rock.

  Outside the harbor the water has a little wave action. Not too much. Actually it is flat as a plate, but the tiny swells make our craft bob and sway like a drunken horse. This thing is a personal injury lawyer’s dream come true. I envision the happy faces of the lawyers listening to the heirs tell how their son-husband-daughter-fool fell off a jet ski and drowned while they watched in horror from terra firma.

  I experimentally add a touch of throttle. Our craft responds and the bobbing motion becomes more pronounced. But I gradually get the hang of it and fearlessly crack the throttle another eighth of an inch.

  We motor slowly down the anchorage, hitting some chop and staying upright, David remarkably silent. Perhaps he senses I am not yet ready for a backseat driver’s comments. I steer over by some anchored yachts and David waves at the folks on deck. One is a beautiful two-masted wooden sailing vessel with peeling, faded paint. “That’s a schooner,” I tell David. He remains silent, unimpressed with the vast extent of my nautical expertise, which he knows I got out of books while my underwear remained dry.

  We are halfway around the anchorage on our second circuit when the jet-ski mogul comes flying across the water on one of his craft. He wisely stays well away from me, but he cut
s the throttle and shouts, “Give her full throttle and get up and plane.”

  Plane! Now there is a word I understand. What the hell! We can both swim and we’re wearing life jackets—we’ll bob like corks.

  I cautiously squeeze the throttle to the stop. The jet ski accelerates and steadies out. The chop from the wake of the other ski now translates into an up and down pitching motion, not difficult to handle. Yeah!

  We roar up and down the anchorage as I gain confidence. We blast through the wake of several passing boats and I even venture some S-turns. Around and around we go. Now I understand. This thing is a motorcycle on water and like a motorcycle, gains stability with speed. The only difference is that it has its own unique handling characteristics since it’s on water, not pavement.

  After an age and a half at full gun I ask David how long we have been at it.

  He consults his digital, waterproof watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

  Holy … We rented this thing for an hour!

  This is a hoot. It’s exhilarating and one must work every moment to keep the ski under control. It’s pure fun. It’s also boring going around and around this anchorage, so we come in after half an hour.

  The mogul gives us a refund and returns the key to my rental car. I walk away grinning.

  David is glum. I understand. It’s hell when you’re fourteen and want to get your hands on the controls and the world refuses. But his time will come.

  That afternoon in the resort jacuzzi—we had rented a beach condo for two nights—I meet a banker from Warner Robins, Georgia, on vacation. His name is Ray Durham. After the usual polite conversation my mode of cross-country travel comes up.

  “A Stearman,” he says, savoring the word. “I grew up on a farm in Georgia and this ag operator had two Stearmans that he flew off a road right near my house when he was working our area. He took down the road signs and pumped the chemicals into his tanks from a beat-up old truck. Ah, those gorgeous old planes. Do you have the two-twenty Continental in yours?”

  “Three-hundred Lycoming.”

  He nods. His son comes over and eases into the hot water. He is thirteen and his name is Corey. Ray suggests it’s about time to go get dressed for dinner. Corey doesn’t want to leave yet.

  “If they get ready and we aren’t there, they’ll fuss at us,” Ray tells his son. Poor devil, I think. Women are the same everywhere.

  They sit silently in the hot water, apparently contemplating the prospect of fussing women. I ask Ray if he has ever ridden in a Stearman. One thing leads to another and we make a date for 7 P.M. at the local airport.

  Ray is my first passenger. David helps him strap in and adjusts the cloth helmet, the headphones, and the goggles. The sky is overcast and the wind calm. A while ago a rain shower went through, but it’s well past, out to sea. I fire up the Queen and taxi out. “This your first Stearman ride?”

  “Yep.”

  “First ride in an open cockpit?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’ll love it.”

  We take off to the east and I take the Queen past the beach and out over the ocean. The air is absolutely still—our craft cleaves through it like something from a dream. Every twitch of the stick brings just the anticipated response. I pray for days like this.

  I swing her south and turn her over to Ray. He gingerly begins making turns. He loses a couple hundred feet, dropping us to 500. He wanders aimlessly around savoring the experience, the throbbing engine, the sea and beach below. I have my elbows parked on the edges of the cockpit.

  Finally I take her and make a couple of two-G turns to give him the taste of it, then head back for the field. On the downwind we fly over a Little League ballpark with four fields arranged like pie quarters. The lights are on and the teams are on the fields. We float overhead under the overcast.

  I decide to land on the grass runway they have mowed to the right of the east-west paved one. As I float in, the man on Unicom tells me that we have two spectators, so I should wave. I ask if they are out on the grass. When he doesn’t respond I add power. We fly down the runway at fifty feet as I repeat the question. I feel absolutely confident David knows not to leave the area of the parking mat, but this could be someone else. The Unicom man says, No, they are on the mat.

  I put her down on the next approach and taxi in. David assists Ray from the cockpit and straps in Corey while I keep the engine running. This time I take off from the grass. Corey tells me this is his very first airplane ride.

  Thirteen and never been up in a plane? I am stunned. I took my first airplane ride at the age of six in an Aeronca Champ without an electrical system. I can still remember my Dad hand-propping the engine while the pilot, my Dad’s law partner, grinned at me. I was too small to see over the instrument panel, so I looked at the gauges and listened to the engine and savored the weird sensations. I recall looking out the window at the trees below and thinking how wonderful it all was. The flight lasted seventeen minutes. Didn’t matter. I was hooked.

  I let Corey fly the Queen. We go north around the end of the island, make the turn up the St. Marys River, then drift south over the anchorage where David and I had our jet-ski adventure this morning. Two pulp mills are pouring their fumes into the still evening sky.

  I enter the pattern for the grass runway on a left base. On final we are ten miles per hour fast, so I lower the nose. When I flare we float along above the grass like cottonwood fluff drifting on a breeze. At last we alight and I use the remainder of the strip to get stopped.

  I am furious with myself. Why didn’t I slip her down, scrub off that excess airspeed? What was I thinking about?

  I am still seething at myself as we say good-bye to Ray and Corey and watch them leave. Damnation! Am I ever going to learn to fly this plane?

  “Corey said flying in a Stearman has been a lifetime ambition for his dad,” David tells me. “He told me so while we were waiting.” This makes me feel better.

  We are sitting in a Pizza Hut when the last of the twilight fades. In minutes some of the Little League crowd comes in, two complete teams and their parents. They are boisterous, happy. The last of my frustration leaks away.

  David is smiling, the crowd is raucous, I am content. A summer evening in small-town America. I like it more than words can express. My life is passing too quickly, but by God I am spending it well.

  The next morning I wake up David at seven o’clock. I want to arrive in Orlando by noon before the usual Florida afternoon thunderstorms get cooking. The morning here is foggy. The briefer at the Flight Service Station tells me that Jacksonville airport just a few miles east is 200 feet and a quarter mile in fog. “This stuff looks localized in the Jacksonville area, though. Gainesville is clear and so is Orlando. It should burn off before long.”

  I thank him and go out onto the lawn that leads to the beach and look at the sky. Fog floating eastward in strands, with patches of blue above.

  David and I turn in the car at the airport FBO and I get a cup of coffee from the courtesy pot. I leave a quarter in the kitty. Out on the mat where the Queen is tied down we can see the goo westward toward the Jacksonville airport. I look south. That’s the way we will go, south along the beach, through the Mayport Naval Station airport traffic area, flying just off the beach until we near Daytona Beach, where we will strike a little southwest for Orlando. More blue sky to the south.

  We untie the airplane and load our stuff into the baggage bin behind the rear cockpit; then I go back inside for another cup of coffee. As I sip it I decide the sky to the south is definitely clearing. I throw the styrofoam cup in a trash can by the fuel pump and climb into the cockpit. David is already seated up forward.

  This morning the surface wind is out of the south at five or six knots, so I use runway 18. These abandoned military fields were a real bonanza to small towns, providing them with first-class airports that small communities could never afford to build. And some can’t afford to even maintain.

  Eleven hundred feet puts us just o
n top of the scattered, patchy fog layer. I turn the flying over to David and get on the radio to Mayport tower. They cheerfully let us fly through their airspace. We spot an aircraft carrier, hull number 60, lying tied to the Mayport carrier pier. I try to remember which ship that is, but can’t. She is smaller than Nimitz-class boats, I concude, although not by much. Her decks are bare of aircraft but there is some heavy equipment by the catapults. They must be working on the cats. Four surface warships are also tied up there. They look to my rusty eye to be a couple destroyers and two guided missile frigates.

  In minutes David turns the flying back over to me and rests his head on the right side of the cockpit. I ask him if he is going to sleep. No, he’s just looking.

  He’s not in love with flying, as I am. Perhaps that is inevitable. He will fall in love with it only if he sweats bullets trying to come up with the money for aircraft rentals and instructors and gasoline, then lies awake nights wondering why the skills are so difficult to master and the money so hard to come by. We truly value only what we earn.

  South of Jacksonville we leave the last patch of fog behind. The gauzy sky gives us plenty of soft, diffused sunshine and excellent visibility.

  Off to the left the sea sparkles as the sun reflects off the swells. A few fishing boats trolling their nets are in sight most of the time. No other ships. To our right the beach shines like a golden ribbon in the sun. Between the dune and highway A1A sits a single endless row of beach houses side by side, all facing the sea, that stretches away to the south until it disappears in the haze. Has anyone ever counted the houses along the beach between Jacksonville and Daytona?

  Nearing De Land, David has a suggestion. “Let’s land at Orlando and get the camera out of the baggage bin, then fly over Disney World.”

  “Why don’t we land at this next airport and get the camera out? Then we’ll be ready.”