The sky was clear and calm, totally windless, perfect for flying. But the whole way to Gunnison, John couldn’t relax. He hated that the girl was suddenly there, in his cockpit, uninvited; he kept his eyes fixed on the back of her head, watching for any signs of trouble.
He never knew how a passenger would react once the plane took off, and he had a bad feeling about her. She was wearing a wedding dress, for fuck’s sake. Plenty of perfectly normal-seeming customers went to pieces in the air. Out of nowhere. Regular men and women cringing and shaking, huddling inside the cockpit. Some got sick. Some fainted. A few even seemed to go completely crazy. An old man in Minnesota, for example, had pulled a .32 on him two hundred feet above the earth. The man had threatened to shoot if John didn’t land the plane immediately. Another woman had stood up in the cockpit and undressed mid-flight. She was a large person, and John could still see the pale flag of her body rippling in the wind.
And all this had happened on $2 rides, rides that lasted five minutes and never rose more than a few hundred feet off the ground. Now, with this girl as his passenger, he flew at a steady altitude of nine hundred feet, high above the thinning clouds. The cold blasted them, but the girl seemed so calm, sitting primly in the front cockpit, staring out at the empty sky through her oversize goggles. Too calm, to John’s mind. It was unsettling; she never pointed or turned to him to ask a question. Never leaned out of the cockpit to swim a hand through the wind. She acted as relaxed as someone riding on a bus. Probably she was holding it all in, he thought. Any moment now she’d burst into hysterics. And why not? Why not one more disaster? Lately John’s luck had only been getting worse. He’d made some good money back in Michigan, some in Iowa too, but that was weeks ago. Soon it’d be the heat of summer, blazing sun, the engine overheating. Barnstorming three months and already he was getting tired.
Just look at yourself, he thought: broke, injured, exhausted, responsible for the total ruination of a wedding. And now saddled with a weird, runaway girl. All at once, the old worries came rushing back. Maybe he was wrong to have bought the plane. Maybe being a pilot was a ridiculous idea. Maybe he should give up now, before something truly awful happened. He could sell the Jenny for parts, go back to New York. He still had a job waiting for him at Sweet Fizz, the soda bottling plant where he’d worked with his father, Rollie Barron, before enlisting. Rollie had told him so just a few days ago.
“Dale keeps asking me when you’re coming back,” Rollie had said. “I told him I don’t know, but he keeps on about it. Says he’ll hold you a place as long as he can.”
“Good to know,” John had said.
“You’ve got his telephone number, John? The number to his office?” Rollie had a slow, sleepy way of speaking. John could picture him in their small apartment in Williamsburg, sitting on the stool by the telephone. He could see his father’s face as they talked, round and pink and dimpled, a boyish face despite the gray hair. But a sad face, also. With a weariness hanging about the eyes.
“I don’t need Dale’s number,” John said.
“It’s no trouble to find,” Rollie said. “I wrote it down somewhere around here.”
John heard his father rummaging around the desk. “Thanks anyway, Rol.”
“Here it is.”
“I’m fine.”
“Just take it. In case.”
“No pen.”
John was calling from a farmhouse where he would spend the night. The owner had seen John land in a nearby field and invited him in for dinner. As John spoke, the man and his wife washed dishes together over the sink basin. They stood with their hips touching. Every now and then the man would say something to make the woman laugh and she’d smack him with a dish towel. Watching the two of them irritated John. His father was an old man alone in a dingy apartment.
“I have to go,” John said into the phone. “I’m sending you some money.”
“No, no. Don’t be silly. I’m fine.”
“Guess,” John said.
“Oklahoma?”
“North.”
“Kansas?”
“East.”
“Missouri?”
“Bingo.”
“Missouri. I’m looking forward to seeing the postcard.”
Along with money, John sent his father postcards from every state he visited. “Maybe I’ll fly you here after I get back.”
John’s father laughed. “I’m fine where I am.”
“I’m going to kidnap you. You’re not going to have a choice.”
“Talk to you soon, John.”
“Okay.” John waited for a moment, listening as the line went dead.
The train tracks below the plane began to edge west, and John pushed on the rudder, following the curve. He wondered if he should call Rollie from Gunnison, get Dale Morton’s number. There was no harm in giving Mr. Morton a ring after all, just to check in. But as soon as John began to imagine his conversation with Mr. Morton, he could hear, in the background, the sounds of the plant: the hiss of the soda water tanks, the tamping down of crown cork caps. The clink and rattle of bottles moving down the line. Worst of all, he could hear the floors, the terrible peeling noise they made whenever anyone lifted a boot. Sweet Fizz specialized in fruit-flavored sodas, and the plant’s floors were always sticky with dried syrup—cherry, grape, lemon. No matter how many times custodial hosed them down, the floors stayed gluey. They gummed onto John’s boots, sucking at the heels, the toes, making every step a tiny act of violence, a ripping back of himself. And the residue remained on his boot soles long after he clocked out. Walking home from the plant, alley cats would often slink out from the shadows to follow him and lick at his footprints.
John pushed the memory from his mind. He didn’t want to think about Sweet Fizz or Rollie or any of it. He took out the map and opened it against the cockpit’s rim. Look at that, he thought to himself, staring at the grand sweep of the country. Forty-eight whole states to explore. He could visit any place he wanted to. All he had to do was call ahead, get some telephone operators on his side, and that would be that.
He glanced at the girl sitting in the front cockpit, loose strands of hair flying around her head. He’d be glad to be rid of her.
They reached Gunnison at around nine in the morning. It was much smaller than John had expected, like a sketch of a town: a train station, a church. Hardly anybody was out on the sidewalks.
John circled the surrounding farmland until he found a property he thought would make a good operating station. It lay just on the outskirts of town, a modest estate, less than twenty acres. John brought the plane down right in front of the farmhouse.
A family stood waiting on the front porch, apparently led outside by the sound of the approaching plane. A farmer in denim coveralls, his wife, and three blond children hiding behind their legs.
John hopped down from the cockpit. “Hello, there!” he said to the children. “Are you three the owners of this beautiful farm?”
The children clung tighter to their parents. A piano of pale, unfinished wood stood on the porch.
“Go on and look at this, now,” the farmer said. He was entirely bald, built with big plates of muscle across his shoulders and chest. He wore tiny gold-rimmed spectacles that flashed in the sun. “Husband and wife flyers. That’s a development.”
John laughed. “She isn’t my wife,” he said, helping the girl down from the cockpit. Strangely, her wedding dress seemed even brighter than it had that morning. The beadwork glittered. Maybe the wind had polished it up, John thought.
“Well, whose wife is she, then?” said the farmer’s wife.
“Exactly,” said the farmer.
John froze, suddenly realizing the scope of his mistake. Tales about the kidnapping and seduction of young women had become wildly popular in the last year. One appeared in the papers practically every week: a story about a pretty fiancée or new bride followed home from the dance hall or nickel dump by a man looking to sell her into white slavery. The man would wait
for her to turn a corner and then jump out at her from the shadows, blowing powder into her face—shimmering, soporific powder that caused her vision to swirl and darken and close in on her like a gloved fist. And then, once she passed out, the man would roll her up in a carpet and carry her off.
Both the farmer and his wife were staring at John, waiting for an explanation. He could see their suspicions hardening. The girl would tell them he’d kidnapped her. She was taking revenge on him for destroying her wedding. How had he been so stupid? He could already see himself being shoved into a police wagon, see his Jenny being impounded.
“I didn’t mean that, sir,” John said to the farmer, who stood staring at him from the porch.
“Oh?” said the farmer.
“He meant he likes ‘blushing bride,’ instead of wife,” said the girl. She slid an arm around John’s waist. “Wife sounds so chilly, don’t you think?”
The farmer’s wife laughed. “I have thought that, in fact.”
Not knowing what else to do, John put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. The pebbled fabric felt scratchy against his skin. He smiled at the farmer and his family.
“My blushing bride,” he said.
The farmer nodded. “Del Bradison,” he said, putting out his hand.
John went to shake, but the girl beat him to it.
“Mrs. Helen Barron,” she said, smiling in her wedding dress and boots. “Pilot.”
The crowds in Gunnison turned out to be better than John had expected. More than forty people showed up at the farm to ride on his Jenny that first afternoon. He was busy from morning to sunset. The farmer, Mr. Bradison, helped him set up a small table in the grazing field where Helen could sit and collect money from the waiting passengers.
At first, John didn’t like the idea of trusting Helen with the money, trusting her to sit there with all his bills in a pot. But what could he say in front of Bradison and his family? No matter, though; he knew there was no way for Helen to steal without him finding out. He could count the passengers himself. He knew his math.
It was an easy format. For $2 a customer got a quick tour of the town’s landmarks—the church, the school, the mill, and then back. For $3, John flew a stunt with them, a barrel roll or free fall, maybe even a death spiral, if the customer was feeling particularly adventurous. For $5 he’d take a photograph with them in front of the plane. When he needed fuel, he paid one of Bradison’s daughters a nickel to a make petrol run for him. Which she did by hauling cans back and forth from the garage in a toy wagon. To his surprise, John went through three cans in the first afternoon alone.
Bradison let them a room in the attic, at the back of a storage space. It was hot and cramped inside, and John slept poorly the first night. He spent a good deal of time staring at the lump beneath the covers that was Helen, wondering how long he’d be stuck with her.
The second day in Gunnison was even better than the first, financially speaking. John could hardly believe his luck. At least two-thirds of the people who’d rode with him the day before were back to go again. Some went three, even four times. And lots of them wanted extras this time around. They wanted the tricks—the rolls and spins during their flights. Afterward they paid for photos with John and Helen beside the Jenny, the wooden propeller gleaming behind them.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, the line to ride still snaking toward Bradison’s barn, that John realized Helen was at least partly responsible for his new popularity. He was coming in for a landing with a passenger, a young boy who’d brought his basset hound up with him, when he noticed a knot in the line of people waiting to ride. The knot was at the front of the line, up near Helen’s table. As he touched down, he saw that Helen was talking to them, the whole group. She was saying something funny, gesturing with her hands, and the crowd was chuckling—really laughing now, some of the women covering their mouths or stomachs, slapping their knees, convulsing with laughter.
“Watch out, mister,” said the boy, looking back at John from the front cockpit, the goggles too big for his head.
John turned and saw a cow standing in the Jenny’s path. He yanked the elevator and wrenched the plane upward, just missing the animal. The boy held tight to the dog on his lap. Its long ears flapped in the wind.
Again that evening, John couldn’t sleep. The attic room felt even hotter than the night before. The dust stuck to his skin, creating an itchy film. But deep down he knew that there was more to his sleeplessness than just the heat. The day had been one of the best of his career. He’d made forty-three dollars, which was practically unheard of for him, especially on his second day in one town. He squinted across the mattress at the buttoned back of Helen’s nightgown.
“How’d you do that today?” John said.
“How did I do what?” she said after a long moment.
“This.” John reached beneath the edge of the mattress and pulled out the envelope of bills. “What did you say to those people to get them to keep coming back?”
Helen glanced at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t say anything. I was just talking to them.”
“Talking to them about what?”
“I don’t know. I made up some stories about places we’d flown. Our travels. Don’t you ever talk to them while you’re up there?”
“I’m usually a little busy,” John said. “Flying the plane?”
Helen turned toward him, propping herself on an elbow. Again John was struck by how pretty she looked. Her hair was down, softening her face.
“Well, you should try catering to your customers,” she said. “It’s just good showmanship.”
“I cater to them,” he said.
“Maybe to the girls…” She smiled at him.
John couldn’t help smiling himself.
“That’s right,” she said, about to laugh. “I see right through you. Expert pilot.”
“So, what about it?” he said. “I don’t have time to make friends.”
“Right,” she said. “A night of fun. Then on to the next town.”
“Exactly,” said John.
“So where, oh where, great pilot, are you off to next?”
“I don’t know.” John glanced up at the small, dirty window near the room’s peak. “I thought I’d head south before it gets too hot. Fly through Oklahoma, Texas, west toward California. Or maybe I’ll go north, up to Montana.”
“I heard Montana’s nice,” Helen said. “Lots of moose.” She lay down again, her hair pooling around her head.
“What about you?” he said. “Where are you headed?”
“I don’t know,” said Helen. “I’ll figure it out. Trains run in all directions, right?”
“I could take you someplace myself,” said John. “I mean, if you want a lift.”
“That’s all right,” said Helen, yawning.
“Well then I’ll give you money for a ticket. You earned some of that pot today.”
“I’ll be okay,” she said.
John watched her as she adjusted her sheet, getting comfortable.
“I’d take you with me, you know,” he said, “but I don’t work that way. It’s just impossible.”
“No one’s asking,” said Helen.
“I’m just saying,” said John. “I’m a solo act. No partners.”
“A one-man show.”
“That’s right. So you get some dough from today, but that’s it.”
“Fine,” said Helen.
But the next morning, no mention of the train was made. Instead, the two of them left Gunnison together, flying south in John’s Curtis Jenny.
It took them two days to cross into Oklahoma. They moved in little hops, traveling forty, fifty miles a flight. The engine was too loud for them to communicate without yelling, so for the most part, they flew in silence. Helen kept the map up front with her, and she spent long stretches of time studying the names of cities and rivers. The strangest ones she yelled out to John.
“Kangaroo, New Mexico!” sh
e called over her shoulder.
“I passed through Dirty Hand, Minnesota, a couple of weeks ago!” John called back.
The weather was perfect spring on the first day, and the prairie was in full bloom, bright with paintbrush and bluebonnets, pink clusters of catchfly. The fields shimmered; every few moments the wind skated a secret pattern through the grass. Ponds and lakes mirrored the sky. For a while John and Helen followed the train tracks, dipping down whenever a train passed, waving at the faces pressed to the windows.
They made camp less than a hundred miles from the Oklahoma border, on the open grassland. While Helen unpacked the blankets, John went to wash their goggles in a nearby stream. By the time he came back to camp, Helen had a small fire going.
“Make yourself useful, why don’t you?” John said.
Helen stirred the fire with a stick, sending a swarm of sparks into the sky. “How far do you think we came today?”
“I don’t know.” John opened a can of noodle soup and poured the broth into his pot. “A couple hundred miles. Those lights up there, that’s likely Barley.” He sat down beside Helen and held the pot over the flames.
“I think that’s Yupa,” said Helen.
“Can’t be. We didn’t come far enough.”
“Look for yourself,” she said, spreading the map on the ground. He noticed that she was no longer wearing her engagement ring. Instead, she wore a simple gold band that appeared too big for her hand. Likely, John realized, this was the ring she was supposed to give to Charley during the wedding ceremony. It slid and jiggled on her finger as she traced their path across the map, reminding John of costume jewelry, of children playing dress-up.
“See?” she said. “Yupa.”
“Beginner’s luck,” John said, handing her the soup pot to hold. He unlaced his boots and lay back on his elbows.
By now the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and the sky was dark. Fireflies emerged from the grass and flitted about the plane—landing on the wings, the fuselage, the propeller—turning the Jenny into a blinking outline.