Fire Flight

by John J. Nance

  Clark nodded. “That was a chilling little announcement back there, but knowing the wing failed on its own just brings us back to what I found out here early this morning, and I just don’t know what to think. I’m flying Tanker Eighty-eight again in the morning. Should I be gentle on her? Should I…should I go out there right now and claw open the wing-root inspection panels and see if it looks like anyone’s stuck their flashlight in there in the past decade? Hell, Bill, I think your P-3 is safe, partially because it’s nowhere near as old. But I have a very sick feeling that the repair shop in Florida somehow helped Jerry or Trent slide at least a few of the airplanes away from the Sandia people.”

  “You mean, escape the inspections?”

  “Yeah. Somehow.”

  “Just pencil-whipped the logs, you mean?”

  “Well, Sandia would never do that, but they could have been hoodwinked somehow.”

  “Or, as you pointed out, there’s another possibility. The inspections were done, but someone’s flown the heart out of these birds off the books since then.”

  “Which is why having Misty run away today is also very worrisome.”

  “I hear that.”

  “You’re sure she’s gone, by the way?”

  Bill took a deep breath and grimaced. “Jeff’s truck disappeared in midafternoon from the parking lot, and Misty never came back. Judy called the funeral home handling Jeff’s body. They’ve got shipping instructions from Misty to send it back to California. No, Clark, she’s gone. She didn’t want to talk to us about what she knows. And we have no legal right to have her stopped.”

  “Do you suppose Jerry’s responsible for her leaving?” Clark asked. A sudden thought came to him. “Hey, wait a minute!”

  “What?”

  “You think there’s any chance Jerry actually owns that shop in Florida?”

  “On the sly, you mean?”

  “Yep. I hope I’m wrong, but one of the things we were all relying on was that an independent shop had inspected our wings on the DC-6B fleet. If that’s his shop and it was all an exercise in building false confidence—”

  “There would be ownership records somewhere, right?” Bill interrupted, his interest equally piqued.

  “I don’t know. If it’s a private company, maybe not, but I can get on the Internet and check. I mean, Bill, you know I don’t want to do anything to hurt Jerry.”

  “Of course. Unless he’s cheating or putting us in jeopardy.”

  “That’s the only exception. I mean Jerry and I have been friends for a lot of years.”

  “But you can’t trust him anymore than I can, right?”

  Clark looked at Bill carefully, finding resigned sadness in the statement, as if human nature would always disappoint him but he was accepting of it.

  “You know what I’d do if I were you, Clark?” Bill asked.

  “What? Find a new line of work before morning?” he chuckled. “I wasn’t even supposed to be here this summer.”

  “Leaving’s an option, I suppose. But, no. Jeff’s bird came apart while he was straight and level. When you lift off in the morning, keep it at ten feet above the runway, suck up the gear, accelerate, then pull the hell out of her at the end. Load the wings up very quickly. If the wing’s going to fail, it’ll fail right there and you’ve got a fighting chance of surviving a fairly short drop to a flat surface.”

  Clark started chuckling, the chuckle growing to a full laugh.

  “What’s the matter with that?” Bill asked with a smile.

  “Just the improbability of surviving such a disaster, that’s all. Plus the certainty that the NTSB would cite pilot error in loading up the wings after takeoff. It’s kind of a catch-22. I can’t prove the wings are ready to come off until the wings come off.”

  “Yeah. Another Yogiism. It ain’t over till it’s over.”

  “No, Bill, I think I’m stuck. I’ve got a job to do, and there’s a huge threat out there in terms of the devastation that fire is wreaking, and that’s with no proof that our airplanes are anything other than boilerplate reliable. Of course Rusty and I will do the best preflight we can tomorrow, but if there’s a hidden failure waiting to make me a ballistic object for a very short downward ride, I have no professionally safe way of stopping the process.”

  “You’ll be okay, Clark.”

  “I hope.”

  “No, my friend, I can more or less…well, you’ll think I’m a nutcase.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s not auras or anything New Age like that. It’s just that I can more or less feel something about most folks, and maybe it’s nothing but agitation, but with Jeff the other night? I had a really sick feeling that something bad was going to happen. I shrugged it off, though. You can imagine what Jeff’s reaction would have been if I’d said anything.”

  “I sure can. So, what are you reading about me?” Clark asked.

  “That’s why I say you’re going to be fine. I can just feel it. It’s like when I’m gardening, I can almost feel the plants and whether they need water and such.”

  “Hookay,” Clark said.

  “Yeah, I know. Just indulge a dotty old man.”

  “So I’ll be okay?”

  “You bet. You’ll be fine tomorrow. You’ll be back here ready to go to the Coachman and pick up something very female.”

  “Yeah, right,” Clark replied, his head filled suddenly with the image of Karen Jones. He shook the image away. All in good time.

  “How much longer for you, Bill?” Clark asked, wondering if it was appropriate to bring up the subject of retirement.

  Bill Deason removed his cigar and looked at Clark as if he’d never seen him before. “Not long, I imagine. But I can’t read my own future.”

  “No, no, no. I didn’t mean about your life.…I meant, over how many more seasons are you planning to bomb fires with airplanes?”

  Bill’s easy laughter was a relief. “Oh! Until they stop me, I suppose. Judy and I have some money socked away, but jeez, this is such a sweet deal. Work five months doing something you love and play seven months with the resulting income? That’s pretty good. And I mean, I’ve got my motor home, my lady, and my bedroom all in the same place, and Judy’s happy. No, I’m pretty happy, too, Clark. I’ll stick around until we run out of burning trees, or until Congress fires us.”

  Chapter 23

  WEST YELLOWSTONE, WYOMING, NINE P.M.

  The need to talk to Karen Jones had become a mild fever by midafternoon, but Clark had kept it at bay. He couldn’t deny his disappointment that she hadn’t called or responded. Surely she’d been handed his note and heard his phone message. He’d been resisting the temptation to call her hotel again, convincing himself he could handle the discontent of no contact the same way he’d learned to resist aspirin for a headache.

  She’ll get in touch when she’s ready. She probably doesn’t want me to see her bruises.

  He’d accompanied Bill to the Deason motor home but turned down Judy’s offer of dinner, knowing she’d be quietly relieved to have Bill to herself. Instead, he drove to the Coachman, lured by the feeling that Karen might be in the lounge. He pulled up in front of the hotel and sat idling for a few minutes, trying to decide what he would say or do if she really was inside.

  Why am I here? he asked himself. I’m exhausted. I should go back and get some sleep.

  Going inside would undoubtedly result in his having to engage in unwanted conversations with some of the pilots, along with buying drinks and telling stories and pressing the limits of his endurance. His independent nature was pulling at him, suggesting that real men didn’t worry about fatigue and that only wimps ducked the opportunity to buy their fellows a round, but the core of quiet responsibility that still governed him managed to overrule the rebel.

  Besides, Karen was not likely to be there.

  Clark put the truck in gear and quietly pulled away to drive the four blocks to his darkened rental house, his headlights catching the eyes of some small animal
peeking around the corner as he pulled into the driveway.

  What is that? A raccoon, maybe?

  The glowing eyes disappeared and he got out, standing for a moment in the cool of the night air, trying to reload the memories of how much he’d enjoyed this log house in past summers, and especially the large river-rock fireplace that drew so well and was even wide enough to cook in. But tonight there was a loneliness to the place he hadn’t felt before. It left him puzzled as he turned the key in the door and felt the coldness of the darkened living room suck at him like a vacuum, as if the plasma of warmth and personal contentment that had marked his residency over time had been draining away and he’d failed to notice.

  He snapped on as many lights as he could on the way to the kitchen, then returned to the fireplace and busied himself with old newspapers to build a quick, roaring fire before returning to the kitchen to grind the beans for a late pot of coffee. He turned on the satellite music system, switched on a floor lamp, and cracked open a window. With his coffee in an oversized mug and bearing just the right percentage of condensed milk, he returned to the small living room and pulled one of the easy chairs in front of the fire, wondering absently if he should call his mother.

  What am I thinking?

  The sudden pain of remembrance that she was no longer on the other end of that long-memorized number jolted him for a second. Her death two years ago had occurred with her only son at her side in a Tampa hospital, but he kept forgetting. After Rosanna had left him, his mom had become his only real confidante. There had been a mature ease in talking to her from wherever he happened to be in what had become his almost gypsyesque aviation career after leaving the airtanker business. He remembered the long calls to her during his temporary postings in Malaysia, Australia, Africa, and Saudi Arabia over those two years, and the steadiness of the advice and love that had helped sustain him.

  “Who’s your best friend?” she asked him once.

  “Why, you, Mom,” he’d replied.

  “No, Clark, a mother is a mother. Surely you have someone, male or female, to talk to when the days are hard. Right? Someone you can call other than me?”

  “I did. Her name was Rosanna, Mom,” he’d answered, grateful that she’d dropped the subject without further digging. The truth was that he had many acquaintances but no best friends, and that saddened him.

  The sounds of a car maneuvering into a parking place out front escaped his attention at first, but the soft knock on the front door instantly cut through his thoughts. He opened the door to find Karen Jones on the doorstep, a stern expression on her face.

  “Karen! What a nice—”

  “Just invite me in, please,” she interrupted.

  “Well…certainly.” He stepped out of the way and let her pass, closing the door behind her. “Let me pull up a chair by the fire for you.”

  “No, thanks,” she said, turning. “I’ll stand. I can’t stay.”

  “All right.” Clark stood in confusion, one hand out in a questioning gesture. “Could I at least get you some coffee?”

  “No.” The retort was far more sharp than she’d intended, but there it was. Karen cleared her throat, glanced at her feet as if positioning her toes on some imaginary mark, and locked eyes with him. “If I want an all-encompassing male protector, I’ll go to the web and advertise for one. Understood?”

  He was shaking his head slowly, his hands pushed deep in the pockets of his slacks. “Not really, though I am concerned about the bruises I see on your face. May I ask what you’re talking about?”

  “I told you last night that what happened between me and my estranged husband was not your responsibility, right?”

  “Well,” he began slowly, watching her response, “Karen, I apologized for anything I did that appeared to put you in a compromising position, and you said not to worry about it.”

  “That’s right. And that’s where it should have ended.”

  “That…is where it ended.”

  “Oh? And I suppose rushing over to the hotel this morning and embarrassing me with an impassioned plea to the desk clerk for information on where I was, and how I was, and which room I was in doesn’t count?”

  Clark sighed and cleared his throat. “We were getting ready to go early this morning, and my copilot said he’d seen you at the front desk looking like you’d been beaten up. And I can tell by looking at you now that he was right. I’ll admit I was worried. I left you a message.”

  “Like you left a message for Trent?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Like the sophomoric ‘Leave my woman alone’ thing you wrote on his windshield?”

  Clark shook his head slowly and began moving toward the fireplace before stopping to look back at her intently. “Karen, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He could see her expression change as a look of uncertainty clouded her lovely features.

  “Are you going to tell me you didn’t scrawl a message on his windshield last night after we said good night?”

  “On his windshield? Absolutely not. I don’t even know what his car looks like. And for heaven’s sake, Karen, ‘Stay away from my woman?’” He laughed, a short staccato sound. “That is decidedly not my linguistic style, even when I’m scribbling on windshields.”

  There was no reply, and he tried again.

  “Karen, who in the world told you that?”

  “You didn’t do it?”

  “No.”

  She broke eye contact and looked down with disgust.

  “Was it Trent?” he asked gently.

  She nodded.

  “Well,” he sighed, “if someone wrote anything on his car—”

  “Truck,” she interrupted.

  “Okay, his truck. It was not me. And, I did nothing this morning in front of that desk clerk that would have embarrassed you. I asked if you had checked out, and I did ask for your room number, but when he snapped at me that he couldn’t tell me, I asked for the house phone instead and very quietly, and out of his earshot, left you a voice message.”

  “That’s all?” she asked, the intensity gone from her voice.

  “That’s all.”

  Karen moved to a chair and sat down, sighing. “I think I’d like that coffee now.”

  “Gladly,” he said, moving toward the kitchen and then pausing. “Unless you’d like some wine or scotch instead?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “Single malt?”

  Clark brightened. “Yes, as a matter of fact. A new bottle, even.”

  Karen nodded as she pulled her hair back from her face. “Please.”

  He reached into the small pantry and removed a bottle of fourteen-year-old Oban, then retrieved two tumblers before returning to the living room and pulling a larger leather chair next to his by the fire. The air in the room was still chilly, and she nodded gratefully and moved to the chair, taking one of the tumblers and letting him pour, then waiting for him to settle in next to her as she kept her eyes on the fire.

  “I’m very embarrassed, Clark.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “No…I just automatically jumped to the conclusion that…that…”

  “That I was a controlling male getting ready to suffocate you?”

  She nodded. “And that you could have left him that stupid note. I was suspicious when he told me, and I should have listened to my instincts. He’s obviously lying.”

  “Karen, other than the night four years ago when we first met on that mountain, we’ve only had one drink together. This is number two. Why…would you…”

  “Think that?” She shook her head sadly, shifting her position, the creak of rich leather accompanying the movement. It was still slightly cold in the room, but the perfume of wood smoke and the crackling fire were working to transform it. There was the sound of the wind through the partially opened window accompanied by the moan of pine needles and the tones of a wind chime somewhere distant.

  She tucked her legs under her. “I guess I’m con
ditioned.”

  “Trent, in other words?”

  She tossed her head back and smiled at him briefly, the chagrin still showing, the orange and yellow light of the fire dancing off the contours of her face, bathing her in soft beauty as she pursed her lips and looked for a place to begin.

  “It’s a long story. I don’t think I’m spring-loaded to an ‘All guys are pigs’ mentality. At least not completely. But, obviously, I am spring-loaded to some bad assumptions. I am so sorry.”

  “It’s about possessiveness, then?”

  “Yes. A bunch of boyfriends over time who must have been Saudis in disguise. All sweetness and caring until they thought they owned me, and then I became merely a possession, and I can’t tell you how much I hate that attitude.”

  “I’m getting a pretty fair idea.”

  She turned to look at him. “But you’re not like that, right?”

  Clark shook his head. “God, no.”

  “I mean, I need to know that you don’t have it in your head that just because a girl likes you, you then become her white knight, her protector.”

  He was shaking his head and laughing softly. “Is this an audition?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, no, you’re right, I do not presume to think that just because a woman agrees to date me that I’m somehow appointed her defender, nor that she even needs one.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Agreeing to date me?” he asked, astounded that those words had actually left his mouth.

  She looked at him in mild surprise for a moment, as if replaying her words in her mind, and then smiled.

  “I…suppose so. After last night, why not?” she asked.

  “No reason.”

  “Provided you ask, you know, sometime,” she added.

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  “When you’re ready.”

  A pregnant silence settled in between them for a few seconds, but even though she was looking at the fire, he could see she was smiling, as was he.

  “Do you mind if I ask you what happened last night?”

  “Not at all.” As she told him the details of Trent’s midnight attack, including her bodily tossing him into the hallway, Karen started to chuckle. “He was a very surprised boy. He didn’t think this poor little piece of female fluff could fight back.”