the last summer
TRANSCRIPT
1
The Last Summer
by Mike Marcon
(All Rights Reserved)
Prologue
Winters always made Doc restless.
The cold air in the hangar hurt. It made his joints
ache. His thin leather flight jacket became as cold as the
air around it, and the jacket’s thin silk lining did nothing
to help.
Since he returned from last summer’s flying, he had
done all the necessary work to keep the old girl flying and
there was little to do but small maintenance chores, keep
the hangar swept and wait for spring. As he serviced the
Jenny’s engine, oil flowed slowly like thick syrup from the
can into the Jenny’s crankcase and that made Doc
irritable and impatient. So, to calm himself, he decided to
go sit in front of the heater and think.
In the corner of the hangar sat an electric heater
creating a small radius of bare warmth. Sitting in front of
it in the old vinyl recliner that Doc had rescued from the
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airport dumpster, psychologically somehow, the heater at
least made him feel warmer. He sat staring at the glowing
red coils of the heater, and his mind drifted, floating away
to last summer’s barnstorming. He leaned over to pick up
a tattered and well-read copy of a flying magazine to idly
flip through the pages as he remembered.
With a jolt that startled Doc, Oscar, the hangar cat
and his constant companion, jumped without warning
into Doc’s lap. His daydreaming suddenly interrupted,
and with his adrenalin settling, Doc ran his weathered
hand across Oscar’s sleek back, and he felt the deep
sawing of the cat’s purr and he smiled. Oscar, feeling the
heat from Doc’s lap, circled once, laid down and tightly
transformed himself into a sleek and shiny black ball, and
the cat closed his eyes.
Doc continued to slowly pass his hand along the
cat’s back, occasionally pausing to rub a silky ear
between his thumb and forefinger which only caused
Oscar to deepen his rumbling purr.
Doc looked at his hand as he smoothed the cat’s coat
and seeing that his skin appeared as crepe paper
stretched across the veins and ligaments and his
knuckles, Doc threw the magazine back onto the floor in
dismay, and he leaned his head back into the recliner,
and he slowly turned his head to one side to study the
Jenny sitting still and quiet a few feet away.
From nose to tail, he looked along the taut linen
covered surface of the ancient bi-plane, and he studied
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the glossy mustard color of its skin. He chuckled to
himself thinking it ironic that an airplane introduced over
100 years ago should age better than he had. Now and
then, his eye would stop here and there at a small
crackled spot in the fabric, a little damage that might
need a patch. But he wasn’t ready to start doping and
patching weak spots yet, and he figured that, soon, the
weather would be warmer and that would be the time to
tend to any dings.
Now and then, the heater fan motor would squeal
softly and Doc looked back at it and was again transfixed
by the red glow of the heater’s spring-like coils.
In his imagination, he began to gradually see the
images of campfires past. Sitting next to the nighttime
fires he built to heat his meals and coffee during the
barnstorming season were among his favorite places in
the world to be, and would be the only place, if he
discounted times spent climbing in and out of the
summer’s lazy, cottony, cumulus clouds, his goggles
covered with a thin film of rocker grease, his hands on the
stick and throttle of the Jenny.
The Jenny had a fuel range of a hundred miles or so
to the tank-full, and many a day while searching for the
next place to land, a place where he could hang his
banner that advertised ten dollar rides in the sky, he
would be forced to land early and find gas, given his
propensity to lose track of time playing in and around the
clouds and therefore losing track of his fuel consumption.
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Barnstorming was dead. Doc knew that. But this
coming summer, he would hang his sign out anyway.
Doc had a love affair with barnstorming. Many
summers ago, he first took a bright yellow Piper Cub into
the Midwest states, hopping field-to-field near the smaller
towns and settlements where mostly beef cattle were
fattened and corn, thousands upon thousands of green
waving acres of it, grew.
He would begin there by finding the right field and
the odd farmer who would agree to let him hang his sign
from fence post-to-fence post and use that empty field as
a makeshift airport from which to give rides in the Cub to
anyone willing to put forth the five dollars for a ten
minute ride in and around the cotton white clouds above
Iowa, Ohio and Nebraska.
Since his early days as young pilot, he could think of
no finer way to use an airplane than to aimlessly wander
from small town to rural hamlet, to meet the people there,
to write their stories and to camp under his wing nights.
The flying magazines, now and then, bought and
published his human interest pieces. Each year, by
selling his stories, his saving account grew and grew until
finally, he found the old Jenny.
The Jenny was “two holer,” meaning a two seat
airplane, the pilot flying from the rear cockpit, the
passenger riding up front. Built long ago to train fledgling
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pilots, its chief appeal to Doc was that it was an open
cockpit, bi-wing airplane and it exuded aviation romance.
The very sight of the Jenny bouncing across a grassy
field, its engine clacking at idle, immediately conjured
images of the classic, swash-buckling pilot of the Twenties
and the Thirties.
Once the airplane taxied to a stop, its wings still
rocking gently, a dashing figure with a white silk scarf
fluttering from the collar of his leather flight jacket, his
skull helmet pulled tightly over his head, the chin straps
dangling loosely, his tan Jodhpur pants and calf-high
brown flying boots would emerge to the wing step, stand
momentarily and then drop to the ground, bow to the
small crowd and with a flourish, remove his helmet
exposing a head of slicked back and shining black hair
and underneath the thinnest pencil slash of a mustache
riding above a flashing smile, the young pilot would smile,
exposing the whitest of teeth. A scene from an old movie.
Doc sometimes had to pinch his lips to keep from
laughing out loud when he remembered that that was the
vision he held of himself in the early days. It amused him
that, in many ways, he still saw himself as that dashing
pilot. That is, until he looked at the creases of age on his
face as he shaved in the mornings.
He spent two winters rebuilding the Jenny and
restoring it to its heady days when it trained the war
bound pilots. Then he sold the Cub and bought the scarf,
the Jodhpur pants and the boots. And he followed his
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dreams and his plans: write in the winter, barnstorm in
the summer.
For many summers then, as soon as the weather
allowed, it was leave his home in Virginia and fly west.
Follow his nose. He now rarely used maps. He knew
where the riders had been before, where the pretty girls
were after church on Sunday, where the kids on bicycles
pedaled furiously ahead of trails of dust along dirt roads
to find where the Jenny had set down after Doc had
circled low over the small town and its central courthouse
and the groomed green lawn where the old timers sat on
park benches painted white and told lies under the
watchful eye of a long-dead bronze war hero standing atop
his marble base looking gallantly east.
Doc was chasing again the reluctant fat man who
had to be helped into the front cockpit by manhandling a
gelatinous behind with a heaving push to pile him into the
front seat; he was wanting to see again the freckled blond
teenager with pigtails wearing the flowered print dress
demure shyly as he sold rides like a carnival barker; he
needed to make his instant coffee in his blue splatter ware
cup after heating the water in a battered aluminum pan;
he needed to feel again the warmth of his sleeping bag
warding off a late evening chill as he fell asleep reading
Steinbeck by the circular pattern of pale yellow light from
his flashlight.
He knew that barnstorming was dead, save the odd
air show in parts of the country, but those air shows
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weren’t really barnstorming. Barnstorming, what it was,
was what he did.
It was circling a small town low as many times as it
took to draw the barbershop customer out of the barber’s
chair and onto the sidewalk to look skyward still wearing
the barber’s apron; it was causing the two old ladies
leaving the finery shoppe to look up and point into the air;
it was seeing the Sheriff’s deputy pull up next to the fence
along the road and ask if you had a breakdown and
waving a hand, “Thanks but no thanks!”, to turn down a
free ride you offered so you could get on the law’s good
side; it was occasionally being told to get that damn
contraption out of my field by an irate land owner; other
times it was being invited to the bounty of a supper
provided by a farmer who let you use his field, and while
his wife laid golden fried chicken and mounds of creamy
mashed potatoes and the world’s finest gravy in front of
you, listening intently and patiently to the farmer as he
regaled you with his memories of being a waist gunner on
a B-17 over Germany many years ago.
He needed to land a little too hard in a bumpy field of
dry dirt clods and break something and have to wait for
two days as the part came in from Omaha and try not to
fall in love with the brunette at the diner just down the
road, knowing it would be easy, and it would forever
change your life. It was turning down the one night stand
offered now and then by a cocktail waitress’s not-so-
subtle innuendo as you drank a beer at the juke joint not
far from where the Jenny was parked. It was telling tall
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tales about the places you’d been and maybe bragging a
little overly about your fame as a writer and the feeling
bad about it after someone had bought you a beer
thinking they might impress someone notorious.
Barnstorming was never being bored. Ever. Even on
those days when it was as hot as blazes and the air so
still and humid that you could cut it with a knife, and no
one flew or ventured away from their air conditioner. So
all you did all day long was doze in the shade of a nearby
tree or under the wing of the Jenny. It was lugging a full,
five gallon gas can, your shoulder muscles burning from
the weight, two miles down to the Sunoco station and
back to refuel the Jenny. It was living on cheese Nabs, a
pack of salted peanuts and a Coca-Cola because the can
of beef stew in your cook box wasn’t there like you
thought it was. You had eaten it near Muncie somewhere
and had forgotten to replace it. And the last thing the
convenience store down the road sold was Dinty-Moore.
All these things weren’t dead to Doc.
But his age was catching up with him. Nevertheless,
he decided that the sign had to be hung from the fence
again. Maybe the arthritis in his knees or his failing vision
would keep him grounded before long, and while he could
still see well enough to fly, to avoid other airplanes and to
land, he was going back.
And spring was just around the corner. And summer
skies would follow. He would fly the skies and write the
stories of his adventures one more time. This time would
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Part One
Chapter One
When Doc opened the door, his arrival was
announced by the soft tinkling of the small silver bell
attached at the top of the door. The shop appeared empty,
but from the back room came Fred’s booming voice.
“I’m here! Hang on!”
Doc answered, “It’s just me.”
“Hang on! I’m in the john.”
Doc smiled and bent over the glass show case where
the ancient pull handle sort of cash register sat. Lined up
on shelves, In the case below were the Case knives with
yellow plastic handles and a few very expensive Buck
folding knives, each laying a square of black velvet. A few
minutes passed and Doc turned to look at the Lincoln and
Kennedy busts, small souvenir figurines and assorted
past election buttons of all parties and candidates and
other curios that sparsely lined the nearly bare shelving
on the walls of the small shop. Fred fancied himself a
collector of knick-knacks and pocket knives and none of
what Doc saw was for sale. Fred’s main business was
being a sign painter.
In another minute, the toilet in the back flushed
with a faint but deep rumble and Fred quickly appeared
through the curtain of colored beads that separated the
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storefront from the sign shop in the rear.
The first thing you always noticed about Fred was his
nose, very sharp and pointed, like the bow of a rowboat
leading his way. The second thing you noticed about Fred
were the shocks of curly red hair that sprouted in
bunches along the edges of the paint- stained skull cap he
wore to keep the paint spray out of his hair. When he
turned his head, you might catch sight of the barest hint
of a small pony tail tied in place at the base of his neck
with a rubber band.
Doc figured it was a hold-over from Fred’s hippy
days. He had heard many a tail from Fred about the
several days he had spent at Woodstock in ’69. And you
could always count on picking up the faintest hint of
burnt marijuana mixed with the aromas of the paints and
solvents emanating from the shop.
“Hey, Doc!” said Fred as the happy beam of a smile
parted the red and silver full beard he wore. “What can I
do ya for?”
“Need a new sign. Actually two.”
“Going back again?”
“Yeah, Got to.” answered Doc. “One more time.”
“When you leaving?”
“Soon as you can fix me up.”
“Want me to look in on Oscar again?”
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“That’d be great, if it’s no bother.”
“None a’tall, my friend. Do I get another ride in the
Jen?”
“Any time, my man, any time.”
Fred’s brilliant blue eyes widened and he said, “How
about before you go this time. I’m itching for an airplane
ride.”
“You got it.”
“Rog. Now, what you want on them signs.”
Doc reached in his pocket and pulled out a folded
slip of yellow legal pad paper, and he handed it to Fred.
Fred carefully unfolded the paper and smoothed it
out on the counter. Doc could see Fred’s lips moving
slowly as he read the words.
Fred broke out in a great guffaw!
“Help wanted?! Help wanted?!” Fred said
incredulously as he looked up at Doc.
“I knew that’s how you’d react.” said Doc with the
barest hint of a smile, “And, yes…”
“You’re serious?”
Doc shook his head yes.
“Help wanted?” said Fred with a bit of a twinkle in his
eye. “Lemme see now…” he continued, “…what kind of
help would an aging barnstormer need?”
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“I’m serious. And shut-up.”
Fred couldn’t help himself. He kept goading. They
had been friends too long to let this go. He scratched his
chin thoughtfully, rubbing his fingers deep into his full
beard, “What kind of help would you need?” He paused as
Doc stood quietly glaring. “I got it!”
Doc kept staring.
“You need a cook?”
Doc stayed quiet letting Fred have his fun.
“A butler?” and Fred threw his back laughing.
“A wingwalker, a skydiver, an acrobat and a hooker.”
said Doc and he smiled. Then he said, “You sell rope
ladders in this dump?”
“The hooker, I get, but a wingwalker?”
“Yep.”
Fred kept slowly scratching at his beard, but now he
had switched his hands and was scratching the full
length of the left side of his beard.
“You looking for a partner?”
“Nope.”
“Wait.” said Fred, “A rope ladder?”
Doc nodded yes.
“What you gonna do with a rope ladder?”
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“I’m gonna hang a wing walker and skydiver from it. I
was kidding about the hooker.”
“Shit, man. I woulda thought you were serious about
that part.”
Doc laughed.
“I’d make a good wing walker.” said Fred.
Doc could not help it, but his gaze immediately
shifted 25 degrees down and his vision rested on the
ample 75 pounds of girth that resided in the middle of
Fred’s six foot, two inch stature. “You?” And Doc snorted.
“Yeah!” shot back Fred. “But maybe I’d need to lose
some weight?”
“Maybe?”
“But seriously, man, I thought you were a solo act?”
“Normally. But I’m gonna try some new things this
year, if I find the right people along the way.”
“Oh!” said Fred. “But how you gonna…”
“Carry ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not and I haven’t figured that part out yet. But
it’ll come to me, I guess.”
Fred had stopped scratching his beard and had both
hands on the glass counter now studying the paper again.
“What color you want these?”
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“Same as last year. White with red circus letters.”
“So, let me get this right…” Fred said while shaking
his head slightly up and down and not looking directly at
Doc, “…you’re gonna head west again and put this “Help
Wanted” sign on the fence along with the rides sign and
you’re going to find some people to do wing walking or
jumping from your plane?”
“If I’m lucky.”
“And what about the rope ladder?” asked Fred as he
fixed his gaze Doc’s face.
“Oh! That’s for the runner.”
“What?”
“The runner.”
“Whadda ya mean, ‘the runner.’”
“The runner!” said Doc a little louder.
Fred could say nothing.
“Think about it.” said Doc.
“I’m sort of afraid to.”
“Picture this. I find somebody to train. We’re flying
low above a little town. He, or she, climbs down the rope
and gets to the end and starts to run like they are gonna
just step off the rope and leave the airplane. People are
going nuts in anticipation watching this. But he, or she,
doesn’t get off. He climbs back up, gets back in the
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airplane and we land and await the adoring crowds who
want to pay their fifteen bucks to ride.”
“It was ten last year. And you’re going to jail, you
know that?”
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Chapter Two
Oscar knew. He always seemed to know. They say
that cats can take or leave humans. But when it came to
Doc’s leaving, Oscar had the same practiced routine. And
he was never happy to see Doc go.
Doc was a meticulous packer, as much because the
Jenny had little room for his gear, as for any other reason.
He would start a few weeks before leaving laying out his
gear in a particular pattern on the hangar floor next to the
Jenny. The sleeping bag, his clothes, what few of them he
took, his journal, his pens and pencils in a special small
wooden box given to him one year by an admiring nine
year old - freckled faced boy who said, “I’m gonna fly like
you, one day.” after taking a ride - his small first-aid kit,
his medications, his toiletry kit, and, of course, books.
There were books by Richard Bach, Bill Byrson, Marjorie
Kinnan Rawlings and James Herriot, all constant
companions that came out at night at his campfires or
under the shade of an elm tree when things weren’t busy
or the visitors few. And, naturally, a flash light with a few
spare batteries. That all went into a surplus canvas duffel
bag with a water proof liner.
He took his time and followed a hand scrawled check
list written on the frayed legal pads that he constantly
had nearby. The packing routine might take days and to
Doc, the exercise was as much a pleasure as the leaving
itself. It was an immersion in delight often accompanied
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by music from a tape deck playing softly in the corner of
the hangar. And Oscar’s reaction to Doc’s obsessive
checking and rechecking his kit was telling.
As Doc tried to concentrate, Oscar would begin to
purr and weave in and around Doc’s legs for attention,
occasionally nipping gently at a pant leg, always taking
care to just pull a little and never biting skin. For that,
Doc would idly pat Oscar’s head and resume his fidgeting
with a piece of gear. That not being enough to gain Doc’s
complete attention, Oscar would sit on a piece of kit
staring up at Doc switching his tail like a brush, back-
and-forth slowly, meditatively, until pushed aside. Doc
knew the routine and waited for the next act.
With Doc shuffling to-and-from from his big red
Snap-On tool chest at the back wall of the hangar,
carefully selecting just the tools he would carry along,
Oscar, not getting the full measure of attention he
required, would lay down directly in Doc’s path. Doc
would baby-talk Oscar on each pass to mollify him. Oscar
would reach out with a paw and slap at Doc’s boot as he
passed. It was always a quick strike, sometimes resulting
in an audible “pop” against the leather. Now and then,
that might make Doc stop and placate Oscar with another
idle pat on the head which could result in a playful swipe
at a hand.
Doc had retrieved Oscar from the airport dumpster
eight years ago. He was never sure how a kitten the size of
child’s shoe had gotten into the dumpster, or even how
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long he had been in there. Doc had no desire to keep a pet
but made the mistake of feeding and watering the
abandoned cat. So, time passed, and Doc began to see the
cat as the airport mascot and a good luck charm.
Whenever Doc flew his Super Cub off to tow the odd
banner, or took his Cessna 180 out to fly jumpers at the
local drop zone, he could always count on seeing Oscar’s
dark form sitting in the foot high grass awaiting his
return. Early on, it was if Oscar was tuned into the sound
of the engine of Doc’s returning airplane. But the last four
years, the cat was actually sitting by the runway as Doc
departed and he was there when Doc returned. As the
cat’s habit developed, if, for any reason, Oscar wasn’t
sitting near the runway when Doc was ready to depart, it
gave Doc an uneasy feeling for which he would scold
himself for being silly.
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Chapter Three
The analogy wasn’t lost on Doc. The summer lay
ahead like a blank sheet of paper.
Oscar was now in the capable care of Fred who would
feed him and keep him safe over the course of the months
ahead.
Fred stood by the hangar door leaning against its
wooden frame nervously flicking away a gray worm of ash
from his cigarette and watching as Doc taxied forth
pushed ahead by the clattering, sometimes popping rattle
of the Jenny’s engine.
Doc’s mind was clear and he felt good, excited to get
airborne and pointed towards the mountains 160 miles
away in the west. He looked to his right as he approached
the runway’s threshold, and he saw the black form of
Oscar’s head watching from within the tall grass off to the
side of the runway’s center point. That made him smile. It
was a good omen. Doc lined up the airplane on the
runway and eased the throttle forward steadily and the
noise in the cabin intensified to a low thunder as he
began his take-off roll bumping along the runway’s
uneven and sometimes pockmarked grass surface.
The Jenny became a flying machine at about the time
Oscar’s head disappeared from Doc’s peripheral vision.
The tension wires on the wings thrummed mildly as they
should as Doc completed his climbing turn west and put
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the early morning sun at his back.
Once level and cruising at his top speed of 65 miles
an hour, Doc relaxed to the degree that you can flying a
Jenny. Flying an antique biplane is a constant state of
throttle and flight control vigilance during most
maneuvers, left and right, but straight ahead and level, a
pilot can push back in the seat some, relax a little and
occasionally look out or below, and for a few minutes, at
least, see what beyond the sparse instrument panel or
down below over the cockpit’s rim. Staying on guard for
other airplanes in the air around him - he saw none -
Doc’s thoughts about the summer being a blank sheet of
paper returned to him.
Looking out across the patchwork quilt of Virginia’s
late spring farmland, a checkerboard of emerald green
late winter wheat fields and the many rows of freshly
plowed brown loam ready for seed corn, he thought about
what lay ahead in his Midwestern adventures this year
and he finalized a few plans as he flew.
This year, he thought, he was going focus more on
writing the stories of the people he met and less on
hawking airplane rides. In the past, the emphasis had
always been more on the flying. He chuckled to himself
when he thought about the “Help Wanted” sign that he’d
had Fred make up for him.
He shook his head feeling a little foolish for dreaming
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up such plans. Skydivers, wingwalkers, even cutting rolls
of paper towels was something you did to create a show to
draw a crowd. He had decided that he didn’t want that
this year. Yes, he thought, he would still circle low over
the settlements and small town to call attention to his
presence. And he’d still hang his sign advertising rides on
the fence wires. But this year was going to be devoted
more to listening and getting to know those who came to
ride or to watch. The magazines he wrote for wanted
personal interest stories and he was going to write them.
But the decision had deeper intentions than just
providing stories that sold. It was about coming away
from the summer a part of the people who he would meet.
It would be about recording the loves, the triumphs, the
pain, the difficulties and the dreams.
He felt good about that decision and it gave him a
greater sense of purpose and he smiled broadly. And with
that, he nudged the throttle forward a bit speeding up the
engine, and he continued westward.
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Chapter Four
He could see the dark cloud shadows moving across
the ground at an increasing pace, much faster now than
they had been just twenty minutes ago after leaving his
fuel stop at Bluefield. It did not bode well, and he cursed
himself for not having called Flight Service to get a
weather briefing before he took off. He thought to himself
that, once in a while, he took the business of flying as the
old timers might have, by relying on guesswork, a little
too seriously. He could have, at least, used a little modern
technology to see what might be ahead, and he worried
that this time, he might get bitten because he had not.
The bright sunlight casting long reaching golden rays
from under the nearly straight edge of the low deck of
dark clouds that lined the entire width of the far horizon
meant he was bucking a fast moving cold front. The
turbulence and the jostling the Jenny was beginning to
endure were other signs that there might be difficulties
ahead. The air swirling around him was growing
significantly cooler. So much so, he rubbed his hands
quickly up and down the length of his upper legs to create
a little warmth. Spring time over the mountains could be
unpredictable. He leaned slightly forward, ducking close
behind the small windscreen to escape the full brunt of
the ever colder wind.
An hour later, the constant buffeting of the
turbulence, and a head wind that slowed his speed over
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the ground to less than that of the cars and trucks on the
roads below him, had Doc considering a landing to let the
front move past, and the sky was beginning to darken.
Leaning from side-to-side to extend his head over the
cockpit’s rim to look beyond the Jenny’s nose to see what
the terrain offered in the way of a spot to land was
difficult now with stinging raindrops pelting his face. But
ahead and some to the left was long stretch of pasture;
long enough it appeared he would not only be able to land
but to get airborne again. And the wind on the ground,
evidenced by the moving cloud shadows, looked like a
front quartering headwind. He played a landing there
through his mind as he pulled the throttle back to idle to
descend low enough to make a circuit around the field.
He saw no cows or other livestock to worry him and
the field looked fresh mown and a good bet. At the far end
of the field sat a small white clapboard house with several
smaller outbuildings, storage or smokehouses he
supposed. It was, after all, West Virginia, and many there
still cured their own meats.
As he circled low over the house, a blond haired boy
dressed in faded blue denim overhauls stood behind the
house with his hands slid underneath the coverall’s
suspenders just watching the airplane. Doc, for some
reason, noticed the boy was not wearing shoes and he
thought to himself that it was too cold for that. But,
again, it was West Virginia.
Satisfied the field would be a suitable spot to land,
25
Doc added enough throttle to line up and touch down a
few feet just beyond the field’s fence near the dirt road
bordering the property. The engine’s speed quickened to
that of a fast sewing machine and occasional backfiring
pops could be heard as the propeller slowly wind-milled
ahead of the airplane’s oil streaked nose. As the ground
grew nearer, Doc switched his head from side-to-side
quickly in order to see as far ahead as possible and keep a
straight approach to the grass beyond.
He intended to make a full stall landing, so that each
of the machine’s two main landing gear and its tail skid at
the rear would drop onto the field simultaneously. But
holding a slight crabbing angle against the headwind was
difficult, and he knew it would be sheer luck that he
would put both wheels and the skid on the ground at the
same time. But it was either this or fly away somewhere
else to land. His shoulders ached from the constant
attention to the flight controls the turbulence demanded
and he was cold and hungry, so this was it he decided.
He hushed low across the road and the fence and
began a landing flare, his feet working the rudder bar
back and forth to keep the nose straight. Holding a slight
wing down attitude to compensate for the crosswind
blowing from his right, he felt good about the landing as
he brought the control stick fully back between his legs
and the main gear slowly eased onto the grass followed by
the thump of the tail skid at the rear of the fuselage. He
blew a little breath of air from his cheeks in relief that all
that was left now was to roll out and taxi to a stop until
26
he noticed the ridge in the grass.
He fervently wished for a mild hop across the rut as
he silently mouthed, “Oh, shit!” But the ridge was a
burrow opening of some sort, and the right main gear
found it.
The sound of twisting metal and finally a hard clank
was next and the Jenny went from level wings to a
sickening off angle slant and came to a stop pointing in
the opposite direction. Doc was unaware that his right
knee had slammed hard into the bottom edge of the
instrument panel brace until the painful impulse
ascended up his leg which was nearly simultaneous with
realizing the fact that he was now pointed in the wrong
direction. It took Doc a millisecond to realize the engine
was still loping clickity-clack and at idle and was still
running. Small miracles don’t register quickly sometimes,
and it took a few seconds more to realize the prop had not
struck the ground.
He quickly reached forward and turned the switch
shutting the magnetos off, and the engine ceased
running, and the propeller juttered slightly to a stop. Doc
could see as it stopped, there was no damage to either of
its tips and he leaned his head back against the padded
headrest in relief. With the airplane completely stopped
and the engine off, Doc slowly became aware of the silence
around him punctuated only occasionally by a bird
whistle far off in the trees at the edge of the field.
27
It was only then that he was aware of the boy
standing next to the cockpit, out of breath with piercing
blues eyes.
28
Chapter Five
Doc blew out another long breath of relief and looked
at the boy who said nothing.
“Hey, mister! Ya’ll al-rite?” said the boy who wasn’t a
boy at all. She was a girl but at the same time, a young,
beautiful woman.
Her flaxen hair hung in sparse loose springy coils
around her slightly oval face and mixed between the curls,
long flowing strands of her hair rested in sprays that lay
across the blue straps of her overalls. Occasionally, the
breeze would gently lift her golden hair away from her
shoulders. Under the overalls, she wore a white short-
sleeve tee shirt. Beneath her eyes, dusted faintly upon her
high cheeks, was the barest hint of liver-colored freckles
no bigger than the head of a straight pin. She had both
hands resting on the cockpit rim looking into the
surprised face of Doc who for the moment was dealing
quietly with first the shock of the ground-looped landing
and then the appearance of one of the most alluring
young women he had ever seen. He pushed his head back
into the padded leather of the headrest and laughed at the
irony of it.
“My knee has felt better.” was all he could think to
say in the moment.
Doc looked quickly down at his right knee and laid
his hand upon his knee cap which immediately turned to
29
fire and he pulled his hand back. He expected to see
blood, but there was none.
In spite of the pain, he was magnetized by the girl’s
eyes, as brilliant blue as any he’d ever seen.
“Did ya break it?”
“I’m not sure.” he said as she rose on her bare
splayed toes to look further into the cockpit. “I don’t see
no blood ‘er nuthin’.’” said the girl with the sweetest twist
of an Appalachian drawl in her voice.
She had so surprised Doc that he had forgotten that
there might be the outside chance of fire from a broken
fuel line or an oil leak and he quickly unbuckled his chin
strap, and he pushed his leather skull helmet and goggles
back off of his head with one hand, and with the other
hand he loosened his seat belt and harness and pushed
himself upwards in his seat grimacing in pain. “Give me
yor hands.” she said, “I’ll hep ya out.”
With a hand on each cockpit rim to pull himself up,
Doc struggled out of the cockpit and on to the wing walk
and stood momentarily before easing himself gingerly
backwards to the ground. She placed both her hands on
his lower back to steady him as he lowered himself off of
the wing and set his good foot on the ground. Still holding
to the cockpit rim, he then gingerly tried to put weight on
the other foot. That evoked a moan and a grimace, and he
stood still there for a minute. She had moved to his side
and stood next to him as a brace with one arm around his
30
waist as he once again tentatively tried put weight on his
leg. With both feet on the ground, he rested his arm on
her shoulder. There was the vague scent of hay and
perspiration about her, but it was not in slightest way
offensive.
“Can ye do it?”
“Let’s just stand here a minute and let me take it
slowly.” he said; then glancing sideways at her, he asked,
“What’s your name?”
“They named me, “Frances.””
Not, “I’m Frances.” Or just, “Frances.” But ‘They
named me, Frances.’ And Doc thought the answer was
odd.
“What’s yor name, mister?”
“They call me, “Doc.” And the girl laughed quietly
before catching herself.
“That’s funny?’ said Doc.
As a school girl might, she put a hand over her
mouth in embarrassment, then she pulled it away from
her lips some and said, “It’s funny. ‘Cause yor’re a doctor
and yor aching, so you can patch yorself up.” And she
clamped her hand over her mouth again, but her
squinting eyes still laughed as her shoulders shook
slightly.
“Not that kind of doc.” said Doc. “Can you help me
31
look around my airplane?”
She cleared her throat softly and nodded yes with a
shake of her head, and Doc, using Frances as a crutch,
hobbled labouredly around the wing to the engine.
Looking slowly as he might, he bent down to see
under the left wing and the wing and left wheel appeared
undamaged to him; there was no obvious slack in the
flying wires. It was obvious that the propeller had not
struck the ground and Doc sighed aloud in relief. Had the
propeller struck the ground, it would have surely meant
an engine rebuild and that would have ended the summer
right there.
Then he saw the upturned axle and cocked right
wheel. Still resting in the open maw of the gopher’s
burrow that had caused the trouble, the landing gear was
pointed outward and it was obvious that the axle shaft
and wheel had taken the brunt of the ground loop. As
best he could, still hanging on to Frances, he bent to more
closely examine the wheel. All of the wheel spokes and rim
were intact and straight and appeared undamaged, and
Doc thought to himself, if he was lucky, all he had gotten
out of it was a bent axle shaft and a busted knee, and the
pain of it wasn’t getting any better. “Frances, dear, I’ve got
to sit down now.” He said as calmly as he could.
“I’ll run go get mama.” she said as she helped him
ease to the ground. And then she started to run in the
direction of the little house.
32
“No, wait. Please!” said Doc. “Just let me rest here for
a minute.”
Frances took another halting step further, but she
turned back in his direction.
“There’s a water bottle in the back. Could you get it
for me, please?”
Without a word, Frances walked around the airplane
and at the back cockpit, she placed her hands on the rim,
raised up on her toes and looked in.
“It should be on the floor, next to my seat, if it didn’t
get thrown forward.” said Doc.
“Don’t see nuthin’ mister!”
“Look forward.”
“Oh, wait! There ‘tis!”
“Keep your feet close to the fuselage when you climb
up.”
“What’s the ‘fuselage?”
“Don’t step out on the wing. Just stay on the black
walkway next to the body.” said Doc.
Frances had never touched an airplane or ridden in
one and the Jenny seemed an inert magical beast to her.
Holding to the cockpit rim, she put her left foot on the
wing walk and pulled herself upright standing at the front
of the rear cockpit and stared in for a moment.
33
As she reached down to retrieve the water bottle, she
paused to look at the instrument panel. The sight of the
machine’s instruments, the altimeter, the turn-and-bank
indicator, the compass, the oil pressure gauge, the
magneto switch, the tachometer and the wires running up
and down the length of the floor beneath the seat all
seemed very mysterious and caused her to forget for a
minute why she was there.
She reached in and ran a finger across the small
glass face of the eight day clock and watched as its
second hand jerked second-to-second and she could
understand that it said, “4:19 p.m.” The rest, with their
unmoving, white tipped pointers, red and yellow slashes,
and their recognizable yet unfamiliar numbers told her
nothing and she squinted her eyes and pursed her lips in
annoyed question of their meanings.
As the smells of gas and burnt oil and acrylic
lacquer, all normal airplane smells, washed over her, she
became afraid she might break something, and she
quickly reached into the cockpit and retrieved the water
bottle and ran back around to where Doc was sitting
rubbing his knee.
She handed the water bottle at him and asked, “Is
you feeling ary better?” And she quickly sat in the grass
cross-legged facing Doc a few away from him. For the
briefest moment, as she sat with her chin cupped in her
hands, her elbows resting on her knees, in rapt attention
awaiting an answer, the look of her struck Doc dumb and
34
he could not speak. But something brought him back to
her question, and he answered it.
“Some…” said Doc, “…I think it’s just bruised.”
And Doc, feeling his pulse quicken, thought to
himself, “This is not fair. I am too old.”
“I kin go get you some ice if you like.” said Frances.
“I think I just need some aspirin.” said Doc. “Maybe
you could help me get that out of the plane, too?”
From the direction of the house then, both Doc and
Frances turned their heads as a far-a-way female voice
yelled loudly, “Ar he alright, Frances?!”
And standing far in front of the house stood an older
buxom woman in a flowered print dress that flapped and
billowed in the breeze as she wiped her hands on her
apron.
“That’s my mama.” said Frances to Doc, before she
yelled, “Yes, ma’am! He’s jest banged up a little!”
35
Chapter Six
With that, France’s mother ceased walking towards
the airplane and yelled, “Ya’ll need anything?”
Frances looked to Doc and asked, “You want we
should call a doctor?”
Doc answered, “I think, for now, if could just get a
few aspirin from my airplane and think things through for
a few minutes…”
And Frances rose to her feet and said, “Tell me where
they are and I’ll git ‘em.” Then she yelled to her mother,
“We is al-rite for now!” Doc told her then where to look in
his duffel bag. In a few minutes, she handed Doc the
bottle of aspirin. In the meantime, her mother who had
stood waiting for an answer with her hands on her hips
turned and began walking back towards the house and
she raised a hand in the air as if to say, “Whatever suits
you.”
Frances again took up her position sitting in front of
Doc and watched him take the aspirin. When he took
another swallow of water to wash the pills down, he
screwed the cap back on the water bottle and sat quietly
rubbing his knee and looking over at the crippled
airplane.
Frances was full of questions, but sensed that Doc
need time to sort out his predicament and just studied his
36
face for the moment. After a few minutes, he asked her if
she knew anyone that might know anything about
welding?
“Yes, sir! I do.”
“You mean you know something about welding, or
that you know someone who does?”
Frances grinned widely and said, “I does.”
Doc, not wanting to seem exasperated and still
feeling the pain in his knee, forced a smile and said, “You
‘does,’ what?”
“Oh!...said Frances, “I do. I mean I know a little about
it.” And she smiled coquettishly.
“I fix everythin’ ‘round here.”
Doc smiled at her surprised at what she said, and he
said, “I suppose that you’re going to tell me that you’ve got
an acetylene torch rig, too?”
“Yes, sir!” said Frances brightly and she slid her
hands under the bib of her overalls and she beamed
rocking back and forth on her bare feet.
Doc looked away, shook his head and said, “Well, I
guess I couldn’t have picked a better place to crash,
huh?”
“No, sir! I s’pose you cudn’t have.” And Frances
laughed and Doc watched as her eyes took on a far off
look as if some thought had pulled her away.
37
“My daddy taught me how’ta weld before he died.”
she said. “He taught me how to fix a lot of things.” And
Frances said that somewhat wistfully as she looked back
over her shoulder at the house.
“You think you could help me jack that wing up and
heat that axle so I could straighten it?”
“Got a jack, too!” said Frances. “But how you gonna
do anything with that hurt leg?”
“Maybe if I could get your help getting my things out
of the plane, I could just rest out here tonight and we
could see how I feel in the morning? What you think?”
“You could come sleep in the house, on the couch, if
you wanna.”
“I better not.” said Doc. “I haven’t seen any yet, but I
know cows are partial to nibbling on airplanes and…”
“Ain’t got none.” Frances said, “ ‘Sides, you owe me.”
“What!” said Doc in surprise softly.
“I got you that water and them aspirins there and my
price is that you tell me what all them dials in that
airplane do?” And Frances threw her head back and
laughed before leveling her eyes at Doc and giving him a
mock glare.
“You got steep prices, Frances.” And they both
laughed together.
“You be al-rite here for a few?” asked Frances. “I’m
38
gonna go tell mama to set another place. It’d be good to
have some company. Besides…” And Frances stopped
herself.
“Besides what?” asked Doc.
“Oh, nuthin.”
“Come on…” said Doc, “…besides what?”
Frances studied Doc’s face, the lines of his brow, the
squared edges of his jaws, the crow’s feet at the edges of
his eyes, the silver stubble of his day old unshaven beard,
his mildly protruding Adam’s apple and his soft brown
eyes, even the small tufts of dishwater blond hair at his
temple that were fluttering with the breeze before she
answered.
“I asked for ye. That’s ‘besides what?’”
Doc had no words for a few seconds. “What?”
“I asked for ye. I din’t pray for you ‘actly. But I wished
for you.”
“You wished…” said Doc, “..for me?”
“Well, not you exactly. But somebody.”
“I don’t understand.” Doc said. “What do you mean?”
Frances wanted to change the subject and did so
quickly. “Where were you flying to?”
Doc laughed. “Here, for now, I guess.” Then he told
39
her that he was heading west to barnstorm for the
summer. With that, Frances jumped to her feet and
slapped her side with her right hand. “Damn! You mean
it?! That’s what you do?” Then she spun around once
quickly as if she would break out in a jig and faced him
again, her eyes wide with the look of astonishment. “Naw!”
she said. “You lying to me!” Doc sat blank faced watching
her excitement. “Really!? Really!?” she exclaimed. “I seen
that once in a movie!”
“Well, we’re still around, I guess. I’ve been doing it for
many summers now.”
Frances stood mouth agape with both her hands on
her hips and she turned around again like an excited
puppy might. “S’at all you do?”
The Doc told her he was also a writer and he wrote
about people and his adventures. Frances slapped a hip
again and dropped to the grass cross legged and just
stared at Doc.
“Is that so unusual?” said Doc.
“Well, I ain’t never met nobody that’s done that!”
“What about you?” asked Doc. “What’s a pretty girl
like you do out here in the hills?”
Frances’s cheeks turned a slight shade of red and she
dropped her head and stared into her lap for a moment
before saying, “I’m trying to figure that out.” And she
raised her head and looked directly into Doc’s eyes. “I
40
shorely wish’t I knew, I do.” And she absent-mindedly
snatched a tall shaft of grass and twirled it between her
hands.
Doc asked her what she did on the farm. “I mostly
help mama out since daddy died.” And she looked far off
in the distance before saying, “But she don’t need me
anymore since Cappy came along.”
“Who’s Cappy?”
“Aw, he’s a guy from Pickens she met at church. I
think they gonna git married. I don’t much like him. But
he treats her good.”
“You hungry?” said Frances. “Why don’t you stay
with us ‘til we get yor wheel straight?”
Doc rubbed his knee and thought it might be easier
to just sit out the next few days here, get the axel
straightened and let the knee heal some. He raised his
pant leg up past his knee and looked at the bluish knot
just below his knee cap. As he eased the cuff back over
the bruised area, he said, “What’s your mother gonna say
about that?”
Frances assured Doc that he’d be welcome especially
since he was hurt and his airplane was banged up and
she said, “I hope you like collards and biscuits.”
Doc said, “M-m-m. My favorites.” But Doc hated
collards. And he forced a small smile.
“Besides…” said Frances, “…you still gotta tell me
41
about all them dials.”
The sky was growing darker and the air was
becoming decidedly cooler and Frances began rubbing her
upper arms, her arms crossed over her chest. Doc looked
around at the darkening sky and saw that the front had
passed, the sky was clear and the first stars were faintly
becoming visible in the purple dusk. The black silhouette
of a bat raced overhead and switched its direction in the
snap of a finger chasing some insect.
“Com’on…” said Frances, “…I’ll hep you get up and
we kin go in.”
Doc asked her to grab a few things from the airplane
and together, Doc still needing Frances to lean on,
struggled towards the edge of the field and the small
house with the wisp of grey evening smoke rising upwards
from its chimney in the now still and chilly night air.
Frances had become so engrossed in Doc telling her
that he was a barnstormer that she had completely
forgotten that she had not asked her mother if letting Doc
stay the night was all right. She crossed the fingers of her
right hand hoping.
42
Chapter Seven
The smell of coffee roused Doc early the next
morning. He had spent the night on what amounted to a
love seat, not quite a couch, just enough room for two
people to sit. He had slept curled up in a ball all night,
lying on his left side to avoid putting pressure on his right
knee. Yawning and grimacing at the still very painful
stiffness in his knee, he pushed himself upright and sat
up on the edge of the tiny couch looking around the small
living room which was at the same time the kitchen and
the dining room. Behind him, on the other side of a
central wall there was a bedroom and a small bathroom
which was entered through a central door in the dividing
wall in the two room house.
Doc attempted to stand and put his full weight on his
bad leg. He had slept in his pants and a tee shirt under a
ragged comforter; the comforter was now laying shawl
like across his shoulders to ward off a chill. In a small
wood stove sitting along an outer wall, the dying embers
of the night’s fire produced little heat and Doc shivered as
he grunted while extending both legs to their full length.
He stood still there for a moment and slid his right foot
forward, then his left. The knee hurt but was working and
Doc knew it might take a day or two to be able to work the
Jenny’s rudder bar, so he could fly. He sighed. The
summer had only just begun. Was this some sort of
omen? He shrugged his shoulders and sighed again. The
43
axel still had to be straightened.
A slow creak at the back door caught his attention
and he looked as Frances slowly pushed her head
through. The morning sun cast a beam across the wooden
floor and she quietly said, “Hi!”
Doc gathered his comforter tightly around himself
and she said, “I din’t know if you be up yet.”
“How’s the knee?” she said.
“I’ll live.” said Doc.
“You want some coffee? I done had some.”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“None a’tall.” And Frances went to the dish drainer
and picked up a small cup and rinsed it out before tipping
the percolator and pouring the cup full. “You want some
milk or sugar for this?”
“Little of both.” said Doc.
“I done drug that welding cart out there.”
“Really!” said Doc brightly. “The sun’s barely up.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
“You should have waited on me. I could’ve helped
you.” said Doc.
And the irony of that caused Frances to laugh and in
her way she immediately clamped her hand to her mouth
and looked at Doc to see if he might be angry. “I’m sorry.”
44
she said, in a muffled voice behind her hand. The blue
eyes above her fingers sparkled with her mirth.
Doc looked down at his knee and said, “Well, I guess
it is kinda funny. I wouldn’t have been much help, huh?”
Frances shook her head no and stirred in a spoonful
of sugar and a short dribble of evaporated milk. Then she
handed the cup to Doc saying, “Is you hurtin’ very much
this mornin’?”
“I think I’ll live.”
“You done said that already. Is you hurtin’?”
“Sorry. I’m not the most talkative creature in the
mornings. Yeah, it hurts like the devil. But I think it’s just
a bad bruise. Nothing seems broken.”
“Mama’s like that. She barely opens her mouth before
noon. She done lit out already with Cappy this mornin’.
You want some more aspirin? Maybe if we put somethin’
hot on it.”
“Let’s fix the axel first. Do they work somewhere?”
“At the chair factory where I used to work.”
“You made chairs?”
“Yep. Well, I put ‘em together anyways.”
“Do you work anywhere now?”
“No, sir. I keep the house up now. I jest couldn’t
stand being cooped up in that noisy place, and the
45
dust…” Then she went silent for a moment.
“Anyway…” Frances went on, “I wanted out of there. I
want out of here. There’s nuthin’ in these hills for me
now.”
Doc didn’t quite know how to respond to what she
had just said, and he decided to leave well enough alone.
He needed to focus now on getting the Jenny back in the
air and getting on with the summer. But if Doc wasn’t
anything, he wasn’t unsympathetic. “You said that like
something bad has happened to you.”
Frances turned away and stared out the window for a
minute. Then she shoved her hands in the pockets of her
overalls and said over her shoulder, “You wanna come
show me what you need welded?”
“Sure,…” said Doc, “do I have a minute to visit the
bathroom and swallow this last bit of coffee?” He was very
hungry, but he figured that he better take the help while
he could, so any breakfast had to wait.
Outside the back door of the little house sat an old
wooden push cart and in it were a few tools, some pliers,
a ball peen hammer, a bottle jack and some short lengths
of scrap pine lumber.
“Thought we might need some of this.” said Frances
as she grasped the handles and began pushing the cart in
the direction of the Jenny. Pushing the cart slowly so Doc
46
could keep up, Frances said, “What we gonna weld?”
“Nothing I hope.” said Doc. “It’s heat that I need, I
think. If we can get the gear high enough off of the
ground, I’m hoping to get the wheel off, heat up the axel
and bend it straight.”
Doc shuffled along behind Frances attempting to
walk putting his full weight on his left leg and not the
right, but he couldn’t help but let out a muffled groan or
two as he limped along. Frances heard him and stopped
and set the cart down. “You hurtin’ ain’t you?” she said.
“’Fraid so.” said Doc.
“Well, you stay here for a minute. I’ll push the cart
over first, then I’ll come back and get you.”
Doc smiled, and he said, Thanks! You’re angel.”
Frances smiled sweetly at that and continued to push
the cart to the plane.
She set the cart next to the airplane and ran back to
Doc who was not doing a very good job of trying to
balance on one leg while waiting. She rushed up to him
and lifted up his right arm and pulled it over shoulder as
she wrapped her left arm around his waist. And they
began walking to the airplane together.
Sometimes, Doc could be his own worst enemy, and
in an effort to make small talk, he said, “You never did
answer my question. I asked you if something bad has
happened to you.” The second he said that, he winced
47
wishing he had kept his mouth closed.
“I know. I is trying ignore that.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. Nobody does, even mama. I miss him
sumpthin’ terrible. That’s the ‘bad’ thing.”
“Your daddy?”
“How’d you know?”
“Just a wild guess.” said Doc just a touch
sardonically. “It’s been pretty obvious that you miss him
very much. I saw the look in your eye yesterday.”
“You did?”
“A little. But it’s always that way.” said Doc. “I missed
mine, too, when he died. But I don’t think as much as
you. We weren’t that close.”
“We was.” There was a tear forming at the corner of
her eye when Doc looked at her. It slowly left her eye and
began moving along the edge of her cheek. Then another
followed. Then she snuffed up her nose and wiped her eye
with the palm of her hand.
“It was three months ago, Mister Doc. And now,
mama, done took up…”
“People have to move along, Frances.” Doc
interrupted.
“So does I.” she said softly and she sniffed her tears
48
back again. “Tain’t nothing here no more.”
“So, that’s what you meant when you said you
wished for somebody?”
They had arrived at the airplane and Frances stopped
and just held to Doc for a minute.
“Somebody to do what?” asked Doc.
Frances loosened her grip on his arm and said, “You
set for a bit. Tell me what to do.”
“Deal.” said Doc. “But let me move closer and we’ll do
it together.
“To do what?” again asked Doc.
“Nuthin’.” said Frances, “Just nuthin’.”
49
Chapter Eight
The axel glowed cherry red as Frances expertly held
the tip of the torch’s blue flame at just the right distance
from the axle surface to get the maximum heat. The
spanner nut holding the wheel on came off easily and the
spoked wheel seemed to have no damage, and Doc was
very pleased about that. With Frances continuing to apply
the heat, the metal softened, and Doc pulled back
carefully on the tire iron he had inserted into the hollow
shaft of the axle and the axel slowly came true. Doc
studied the reformed shaft from every angle. “I think we
got it, girl!”
“You can cut it off now.” said Doc as Frances,
wearing a smile, spun the oxygen and acetylene valves
closed and the torch extinguished with a sharp “wap!”
She had thought to throw a small can of bearing
grease in the cart with the tools, and after the shaft had
cooled, Doc greased it and put the wheel back on, spun
the wheel to check for wobble. He deemed the small
amount of wobble he saw as safe. Then he tightened the
nut, reinserted the cotter pin and announced the landing
gear fixed. The pair grinned at one another and shook
hands.
The Jenny now sat with her wings level, her axel
repaired, clear of any obstacle, and she nearly appeared
to smile in the late morning sun. But Doc still wasn’t
50
smiling. He knew he could not fly just yet. The knee was
too painful.
While the pair waited for the axel shaft to cool, Doc
had kept his promise.
Frances had helped him to stand, and together they
stood at the rear cockpit peering in as Doc pointed to the
‘dials’ as she had called them.
“This one tells me how high I am.” he said pointing at
the altimeter. Frances replied, “M-m-m.”
“And this one, it tells me how fast I go.”
“How fast do you go?” asked Frances.
“Not very.” said Doc. “Maybe 75 if the wind is behind
me.”
And Frances said, “H-m-m-p-f! My old truck goes
faster than that.””
“Yeah, but your old truck isn’t over 100 years old is
it?” And Doc laughed. And Frances followed suit.
“Naw!...” she said, “It cain’t be that old? Really?”
“Almost as old as I am.” said Doc deadpan.
“You is not! You cain’t be more than 60, are you?”
“Are you what?” said Doc. “Over 60? That’s my
business, young lady.”
And Doc looked at Frances who was leaning as far
into the cockpit as she could get to have a better view of
51
the instrument panel. Her face was just inches from his.
The smell of her was a mix of the spice in her shampoo
and earthy perspiration and the sensuality of it caused
Doc to look away feeling guilty in his arousal.
For all her hill country and tomboyish demeanor,
there was at the same time an innocence and the air of an
ancient wisdom about her. And Doc thought there was a
thing amiss about her. He quickly batted the thought
away, but it would lodge in his consciousness.
“How old are you?” asked Doc turning to face her
directly. That got him a blazing glare, and he lowered his
eyes and said “Sorry.” But the glare quickly melted away
and became a wry smile.
“And that one over there, the little one in the corner
is my oil pressure gauge.”
“I know all about oil pressure. You got to have that,
huh?” she said.
“Yep. It certainly helps.” said Doc with a low chuckle.
“I ain’t never been up in an airplane.”
“Really!” said Doc. “You got five dollars? I’ll give you a
ride.” And he laughed in spite of another hard glare, a
faux one, and Frances laughed. “I don’t know if I want to
ride with you, anyways. You’re dangerous.”
“It was a gopher’s fault.” And Frances laughed. “I
know that.” she said.
52
“Will you take me flyin’?” she asked.
Doc took a short step back from the intoxication he
was feeling and said, “Soon as I can.”
“I’m a little afraid.”
“New things make people a little afraid sometimes.”
said Doc. Then Doc said, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a
snake.”
Frances laughed and said, “Me, too. You want some
ham and eggs?”
“Infinitely more than I want to faint from
malnourishment.”
“We cain’t have that.”
The pair had their breakfast for lunch, and Doc
decided that he needed to take some aspirin and lay down
for a while. He slept most of the afternoon under the wing
of the Jenny. Frances went about the business of feeding
chickens, getting supper ready and cleaning the small
house.
Occasionally she would go the window and stand for
long moments and look wistfully at the old yellow airplane
and the dark form stretched out in the shade of its wing
in the middle of the field. She had so many questions
about the man who had dropped into her world. And
there was one question in particular that she did not
quite know how to ask. Maybe she didn’t want to hear the
53
answer.
It was late afternoon and the sun was starting to
settle in the western sky. She walked quietly up to the
Jenny and lightly thumped on the wing’s taut fabric like
knocking softly on a door. Then she bent to look under
the wing. Doc rolled to his side and pushed his sleeping
bag aside and said, “Oh. Hey, there.” She extended her
hand underneath the wing, the one holding a mug of
coffee, and she said, “Thought maybe you might like this.”
Doc reached for the mug and said, “You are an
angel!”
“Naw!” she said. “I like some in the afternoon, too.
Thought maybe you would.”
Doc thanked her for the coffee and propped on one
elbow, he sipped at the coffee slowly as he surveyed the
landscape surrounding the field more closely than he had
before. The field lay in a shallow valley and far off in the
distance, the rolling hills had a bluish, smoky haze
gathered about them that lay interwoven like layers of
gauze across the tops of the thick forest of tall pines
nestled on the hill sides. The landscape was just coming
into the full bloom of late spring.
Spotted across the low hills were sprays of white
mountain laurel and the speckled umbrellas of newly
bloomed dogwood trees. Within the wood line beyond the
field, the spirited conversations of robins and jays were in
54
progress across the branches; discussions filled with
laughing squeaks, punctuated by bright, high songs and
interrupted by the sharp, grating cries of mocking birds.
“You lived here all your life?” asked Doc.
Frances had taken up her usual cross legged seat in
the grass a few feet away from him, and with her elbows
resting on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands,
staring into his face, she said, rather glumly, “Ain’t never
been anywhere else.”
“I take it that you’ve never navigated by ant?”
Frances cocked her head and looked at Doc with a
question on her face. “What’d you mean?”
Doc laughed and said, “Never mind. Maybe I’ll tell
you later. It’s a thing that an old friend taught me once.”
Then Doc said, “It looks like I’ll need to hang around
here another day or two if it’s all right with you and your
mom.”
Frances’s face lit up noticeably and she said, “Oh!
She don’t care, I reckon, and me, I’m happy to have the
company. I’d never met nobody like you ‘afore.”
“Not sure just how to take that.” said Doc as he
smiled.
“I din’t mean nuthin’ by it. It’s jest yor different than
anybody round here.”
Doc simply responded, “M-m-m…”
55
Then he said, “Think I could build a small fire and
stay out here tonight?” asked Doc.
“You don’t like that little old sofa, huh?”
“It’s not that so much as it is that I’m really partial to
having a fire and sleeping under the stars.”
“Could I come out and sit by the fire with you?”
“I’d like that. Maybe tonight I’ll teach you about how
the ant travels.”
Frances laughed freely and said, “Mostly I finds ‘em
in my house.” Then, after a second’s distant look up into
the hills, she said, “I din’t know they went anywhere else.”
“Oh, they do. They’re like guides.”
Frances got the quizzical look about her again. And
Doc laughed and said, “I’ll tell you tonight.”
“I’ll gather you up some wood and bring it out, if you
want?”
“That’d be great!” said Doc. “Room service.”
“Room service?” said Frances.
“I take it that you never stayed in a hotel?”
“No sir. I ain’t never been far out of this county.”
“And you never heard of it on television?”
“We had one once. But we couldn’t get nothing on it
but squiggly lines. Daddy sold it. We got a radio to listen
56
to the Opry though. Mama loves that. I don’t care.”
Doc laughed, then he fell silent and looked at
Frances as she diverted her eyes and seemed to study
something far-a-way. The way she seemed to fade away
occasionally brought back the thought in the back of
Doc’s mind and it grew larger in his thinking until he
thought that maybe there might be a touch of autism in
Frances – the thing that was amiss.
“Frances?”
And she turned to look at him.
“Did you go to school?” He immediately regretted the
question but could not retrieve it.
She said nothing for a moment as she studied his
face. Then, “Yes, sir, I sure did.” And her head dropped
and she picked a grassy nit from her pant leg a bit
nervously. Then she said, “But I din’t like it much.” And
she raised her gaze and looked back at Doc. “So mama
and daddy taught me here.”
“You didn’t like school or studying?”
“I just couldn’t fix my mind on nuthin’ there.” She
rose to her feet then and she said, “But the state done
give me a certificate that said my folks taught me the
things I needed to learn. I ain’t stupid.”
“I hope you didn’t think…” said Doc before Frances
interrupted, “I know you didn’t. Some folks say I’m a bit
slow, and I know that.” As she stood, she shoved her
57
hands in her pockets resolutely and she said, “I kin read
or write as good as ary body else.”
“I have no doubt.” said Doc.
“I’m gonna go get you some wood for that fire now.
What you gonna do for supper? We’d be glad to have you
again tonight. I killed a chicken to fry, and I’ll make gravy
to go with the biscuits.”
“Can’t turn that down.” said Doc, and he leaned back
and braced by his arms behind him, he stared at the
empty coffee mug. Frances noticed that and asked, “You
wont some more?”
Doc leaned forward and waved a hand signaling no
and said, “No thanks, I’m good. You sure you don’t mind
feeding me again…?”
“Don’t you worry ‘bout it. I’ll be back in jest a bit with
wood. You doin’ okay?”
Doc said he was and Frances turned to head back in
the direction of the house. Doc studied her as she walked.
In a few steps she stopped and turned back in his
direction and stopped. “You really gonna take me flying?”
she said.
“Soon as the knee lets me. Might take a few days.”
said Doc. “But it’ll be my pleasure.”
Then she smiled, turned her head away towards the
hills with a soft distant look in her half-closed eyes for a
second, and then she slowly turned to face Doc.
58
“Doc?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m glad you crashed here.” And she smiled.
Doc returned the smile and silently shook his head
up and down a few times. Seeing that, she made and held
eye contact with Doc for a few seconds before shaking her
head as he had, and then she smiled brightly, hiked her
shoulders up some and then she turned quickly and
resumed her walk back to the house with a bit of a skip in
her step.
As he watched her walk away, Doc thought to
himself, “So am I. So am I.”
59
Chapter Nine
That night, after supper, Doc pushed slightly back
from the table, tipped the mason jar towards the tin plate
ceiling and the oil lamp that hung low over the table, and
he drank the remainder of his iced tea in a single
swallow..
Cappy, a squat little man, with flush cheeks and a
ruddy neck had eaten, head down, throughout the entire
meal. Bertie, Frances’s mother, had done most of the
talking, mostly about the people she hated at the chair
factory. Only occasionally would Cappy raise his head and
shake it once or twice, in agreement. Frances said little
except to quietly offer Doc another piece of chicken or a
ladle of gravy. In the background, the radio played the
high screeching strains of a bluegrass fiddle and the
aching heartbreak of a jilted lover’s lament sung sickley-
sweet, the twangy words nearly unintelligible, and the
music seemed to dominate the meal.
“You wont that?” asked Cappy looking at Doc as he
pointed a bent fork with uneven tines at the remaining
drumstick on the platter. Even before Doc could answer,
the chicken leg found its way to Cappy’s plate, then in
between his fingers, and he tore at the meat with his
incisors, of which there were only three.
Bertie laughed saying that it was good to have
another hungry man at the table again. Frances kept her
60
head down and Doc saw her throat tighten momentarily.
Then composing herself imperceptibly, she sipped at her
tea and held the glass at her lips glaring unseen at Bertie
who was rubbing Cappy’s inner thigh under the table.
Knowing how much Frances missed her father, Doc
desperately wanted to reach out and touch Frances’s arm
to sooth her but dared not, and he forced his gaze to
wander the room. But he was able to make a flicker of eye
contact with Frances and she returned a faint smile.
It seemed to Doc that now that Cappy and Bertie
were courting, if that was what it could be called, Frances
might be the fifth wheel, but in his brief time around the
trio, he had not once seen any mistreatment of her.
Frances kept her distance from the pair and seemed to be
content to busy herself with a book or small sewing jobs.
“Frances, that was wonderful chicken.” said Doc
brightly.
Bertie took her gaze away from Cappy and said, “I
taught her good.” Frances nodded that she had and she
looked down at her lap for a second before pushing her
chair from the table, the chair’s leg scaping noisily on the
wooden floor. As she stood, she looked at Doc, and she
asked, “You done with that?” pointing at his empty plate.
Doc nodded that he was and ran a paper napkin
across his lips. “Yes, ma’am! You could make money with
that fried chicken and that gravy.”
“I wish’t.” said Frances and she smiled at him.
61
“If she warn’t so pickey, she could be making that for
a husband by now.” said Bertie.
“Oh, shush, mama!” snapped Frances nearly in a
whisper. ‘You know how I feel about all that.”
And Bertie just shook her head and looked back at
Cappy who shrugged his shoulders, then he took his last
swath of mashed potatoes with the side of his fork and
put the fork in his mouth up to the hilt. He left it there for
a few seconds then tightly pressed his lips against the
fork as he withdrew it, slowly making sure to completely
clean the fork. Finished, he let the fork settle to the plate
with a “clink” and leaned back in his chair seemingly
satisfied. Then he belched. And Bertie laughed. And
Frances shook her head in resignation. Doc just smiled.
“Well, if it’s all right with you folks, I think I’ll say
“good night” and go build a fire out by my airplane and
read for a while.”
Bertie asked, “Is yor knee better?”
“Yes, ma’am, it’s getting there. I might be able to
leave tomorrow, I think.”
Frances stood staring at Doc for the briefest second
and fearing that someone might see her, she turned
towards the sink and the stack of dirty dishes there. She
felt a mild burning at the base of her throat and felt
herself begin to get angry at her lack of courage. She
would ask him soon.
62
Doc looked at Frances and said, “You coming out
with me?”
For a second, Frances would not turn and look at
him and she shut the faucet off staring into the sink.
Then she said, “If’n you don’t mind the company.”
“I could think of none better.”
Frances raised her head and smiled at the wall, and
still not looking at Doc, then she said, “I’ll wander out
there after I get these cleaned up.”
“You want some help?” asked Doc.
“Naw, sir.” she said. “Thanks. You go on. I’ll be out in
a while.
Doc pulled his flashlight out of his pants pocket,
clicked it on and looked into the beam to see if it was
shining and then he said, “Well, good night, folks. If I’m
gone before you get back tomorrow, I want you to know I
really appreciate the help, and of course, the food.”
Bertie said, “Don’t be no stranger.” And Cappy
belched then waved.
And Doc opened the door and stepped into the cool
night air and let the flashlight’s beam fall on the ground
ahead of him.
63
Chapter Ten
In the front cockpit, Frances had a hand gripping
each of the cockpit rims as the nose of the Jenny slowly
rose into the air and began its steady ascent above the
horizon. The hammering of the airplane’s wheels against
the hard ground during the Jenny’s take-off run had been
replaced by the steady clatter of the engine pulling the
airplane up into the early morning sky.
In the rear cockpit, Doc felt the normal shaking of the
control stick in his hand, and he berated himself for
letting her talk him into taking her up with him on the
first flight since the axel was repaired. His knee was still
sore but flexible and with no crosswind to contend with
operating the rudder bar tolerable.
But soon, his argument with himself faded as he
thought back to the pre-flight he had completed before
they took off. It was, after all, he reasoned, more thorough
than any he had ever done, specifically because she would
be on board. In a minute his experience, the thousands of
hours he had flown the Jenny, had completely taken over
and his subconscious was at the helm, on alert for any
possible problems. Even so, he circled high over and
stayed close to the field in case he needed to land quickly.
In the early pink light of sunrise, she had appeared
just as he had opened his eyes that morning, a red
64
bandana worn on her head scarf-like. She held two mugs
of coffee in her hands and a happy smile on her face, her
flashing blue eyes reflecting a bit of sparkle of the rising
sun. Doc gathered his sleeping bag around himself,
laughing, and he asked her to turn around so he could
pull his britches on.
Frances turned and stood looking back at the house
as Doc wriggled out the bag and grabbed his pants. “I
would say that you’re eager this morning, huh?” and he
chuckled turning back around as he buckled his belt
before telling her he was dressed and taking one of the
mugs from her.
“I hope it’s hot enough and fixed right.” said Frances.
Doc said thanks and he took the mug she handed
him and he raised it to his mouth blowing air across the
steam as he did. The mug stayed at Doc’s lips for a few
seconds and then he swallowed deeply and said, “Perfect.
Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“I sure be better than the mud you fixed last night
out here.”
He gulped quickly, squinted, and feigning irritation,
saying, “Are you insulting my instant coffee?”
“Yes, sir. That stuff’s turrible.”
Doc laughed.
“You sure that you’re ready to go for a ride?” and as
Doc lowered his mug, he looked steadily at her.
65
“I ain’t never been readier.”
“Okay, have a seat and let me run a wet rag over my
face and we’ll head up after I give the bird a good once
over.”
She nodded and sat slowly in the grass studying the
Jenny over the rim of her coffee mug. The sun was coming
up behind the airplane and the dew glistened on its
wings. After pouring some water from his jug and wetting
a wash cloth, Doc wiped down his face and neck.
Then Doc walked slowly around the Jenny,
occasionally setting his mug in the grass in order to better
inspect a turnbuckle or thump a rib for soundness. It
took a solid twenty minutes of quiet consideration and
examination before he walked back to where Frances was
sitting and announced he felt ready to fly.
Doc watched as she swiveled her head first to the
north then to the south as they climbed, gently banking
over the field and the small house below. Looking
overboard, she fixed her eyes on the house below, and
daring to thrust an arm out of the cockpit, with the wind
buffeting her hand, she pointed over the side jabbing her
finger downward; then she looked back at Doc and threw
her head back giggling. Doc eased the throttle back
slightly to lessen the engine noise. “Look-e-e!” she yelled
and Doc shook his head, his eyes smiling behind the glass
lenses of his goggles.
66
Then she turned her head forward and reached up
with both hands under her chin to tighten the knot of her
bandana. Every few minutes, she would seem to rise up in
her seat as she sought to see below or have a better view
of the sky and the world around her. Now and then, she
would extend a hand outside beyond the cockpit’s rim
and forming the hand into a curved airfoil, she would fly
the hand up and down in the rushing air beyond. Every
few minutes, she would twist herself sideways in her seat,
look back, and she would lock eyes with Doc then smile
broadly before turning her attention back to the clouds
out beyond the wings or the hills passing underneath.
After some time, Doc felt comfortable easing away
from the immediate vicinity of the field and decided to
circle out over the hills as he climbed higher. The
scattered morning mounds of patchy cotton cumulus
clouds were building into bulbous towers, and Doc flew
up next to a large cloud and let the Jenny’s wingtip just
disappear a few feet into its misty wall.
Frances watched as if hypnotized and then looked
back at Doc, her mouth open and her eyes wide. And she
threw her head back, and she laughed, her shoulders
shaking. He responded by raising a finger and mouthing
the word, “Wait!” in an exaggerated fashion. She shook
her head that she understood.
Then Doc gently rolled the airplane up on its side and
flew into the cloud. Frances took a firm grip on cockpit
rim. And the Jenny disappeared into the gray mist and
67
the inner darkness of the cloud for five seconds.
In that short exhilarating time, Frances felt a small
electric charge of adrenalin shoot through her as the
world around her went pewter grey, and the sky and the
land and everything around her except the instrument
panel ahead disappeared and a damp chill quickly fell
upon her. In the cloud, there was no up or down or
sideways before the light of the blue sky beyond began to
fill the cockpit once more as they exited the cloud. And
with the return of brilliant sunlight, all was right again.
When Frances looked back at Doc, her mouth was
closed tightly with the breath she was holding, then
releasing it, she exploded into a smile and her laughing
head was shaking up and down and she was bouncing in
her seat. She was a giddy child having just ridden her
first steep hill on a roller coaster in that moment.
Doc looked at his watch and reached forward to tap
Frances on the shoulder. As she turned to look back at
him, he slowly pulled the throttle back and the Jenny’s
wind-milling engine, now at idle, made small popping
backfires as Frances shook her head “no” not wanting to
land. Doc pointed at his watch and then shrugged his
shoulders in apology. Frances nodded in return noting
that she understood.
“You won’t be afraid?” he asked at the fire last night.
“Nope…” she answered, “…nuthin’ much scares me.”
68
Frances scrunched up her lips and wrinkled her nose
and looked into the cup, saying, “Yech-c-c! That stuff’s
turrible. How you drink that?”
“Practice.” said Doc. “Lots of practice.”
Then he said, “Grows hair on my chest.” And he
laughed.
Frances looked deeply into the cup one last time and
she said, “Better you than me.”
And they laughed together for a few seconds. Frances
set her cup aside and put her arms to her sides, put her
palms flat on the grass behind her with her extended legs
out in front of her, she crossed her feet over one another
and looked up.
Doc looked long and hard at her, the flames of the
fire causing her eyes to sparkle and the point of the
bottom of her chin was illuminated by the fire’s light as
she peered skyward into the starlit sky above.
“You can see ‘em better out here than anywhere
because there’s not much other light.” said Doc. “You
know their names?”
“There ain’t that many names in the world!” said
Frances and that caused Doc to laugh before he said, “No.
What I meant was can you name any of the
constellations?”
“Oh! You mean the ones that look like animals and
such?”
69
As the Jenny’s wooden propeller clacked to a stop,
Jenny stared straight ahead causing Doc to think, just for
a second, that something was wrong. She had her head
bowed and he sat behind her so he could not see her face.
With the engine stopped, the only sounds to be heard
were the birds in the wood line. Then after long seconds,
she unbuckled her seat belt and slowly turned to face Doc
who had just reached forward and laid a hand on her
shoulder.
Tears ran the length of her reddened cheeks.
Doc asked, “What’s wrong. I thought you’d be happy.
Are you okay?”
She cleared her voice and wiped at her face with the
bandana which she had just pulled slowly away from her
head before she said slowly and very considered.
“Mister Doc, that was the most wonderful thing that
has ever happened to me.” And her shoulders shook as if
she was about to cry more before she took a deep breath.
Then she slowly smiled and turned completely around in
her seat and perched on her knees in the seat looking
backwards fully facing Doc behind her.
After removing his helmet, he ran his fingers through
his hair and lightly scratched his head. The free moving
air felt good against his scalp. He laid his leather helmet
and goggles just behind the small windscreen and then he
said, “The first time affects a lot of folks that way.” Then
70
he said, “But I don’t think that I’ve had too many break
out crying like that.” And he quickly added, “But I’m glad
you thought it was so wonderful.” trying not appear
critical.
Still on her knees in the front seat, she had crossed
her arms and propped them on the fuselage behind her
and had her chin resting on her arms intently looking into
Doc’s eyes. Then she said, “All my life, I looked up at them
clouds but I’d never been in one. I’d always thought the
angels lived in them. I thought daddy might be in one.”
“Maybe we just picked the wrong cloud this time.”
said Doc and he smiled warmly.
“I sure would like to look in some more.” answered
Frances.
“You’d have to learn to fly.” said Doc.
Hearing that, Frances reared straight up and in a
strong voice asked, “Would you teach me?” Her raised eye
brows and face expression took on a soft, pleading look
and she said, “Please.”
71
Chapter Eleven
“But I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Sure, I can name some of ‘em. They show ‘em in The
Farmers Almanac every year.”
Doc was laying on his side, stretched out, his head
propped on one hand watching an ant attempting to climb
up the side of his tin coffee cup, and he reached out and
flicked the insect away. “Come back tomorrow and help
me plot a flight plan, little feller.” he said, and he followed
that with a low chuckle of self amusement. “Can you find
the North Star?” asked Doc.
“No, sir, but I know which-a-way north is.” she said.
“Well, that’s a step in the right direction.”
“Are you leavin’ tomorrow?” asked Frances as she
redirected her gaze from the night sky to Doc.
“Might. If the knee works good when I take you up in
the morning. I figure if I left about noon or so, I might
make it to Ohio before dark.”
Frances fell sullen and quiet before lifting her eyes
back to the sky.
“You gonna write about me and mama?” she said
without looking at Doc. “T’ain’t much to say, huh?”
72
“I’m gonna try to write about every soul I meet this
year.” said Doc. “Some more than others.” Then he said, “I
suspect you and your mom will be chapter one.”
“Really?” and she looked back at him as he took the
last sip left in his cup.
“Really!” And he laughed. “It’s not every day I find a
gopher hole and a pretty girl in a field in the middle of
nowhere, is it?” Then he said, “And the answer to your
question is, that I think there’s a lot to say about you.”
“Naw!” she said incredulously. “Pretty?”
“Yeah…” and Doc, before he realized it, should have
dropped it there, but he didn’t, “…I think there’s a lot
more to you than meets the eye.”
Frances turned her head and stared him for a few
seconds, and then she said, “Like what?”
“Well, I think, and it’s just a guess, mind you, that
you desperately want to get out of here. Go someplace
else.”
“I wouldn’t know where to go.” she answered. “The
furtherest I ever been from here was over to Charleston to
visit a cousin. I didn’t much like it there. It was dirty.”
“The world’s bigger than Charleston. “ said Doc.
Doc was quickly realizing that he was getting ready to
do something he shouldn’t do and he wanted to quickly
change the subject. Frances beat him to it.
73
“Where’d you learn to fly and write and all them
things?”
Doc breathed a short sigh of relief.
“I learned to fly many years ago because someone
needed a pilot to fly skydivers.”
And Frances sat upright quickly, saying, “Skydivers!
Really!?”
“Yeah, I was a skydiver then and I worked for guy
who paid me to teach people how to jump. He came
around the corner one day and said he needed another
pilot and said he’d pay me to learn to fly. So I took him up
on it and that was that. Here I am 56 years later and still
flying.”
Frances laughed a little at what he said before she
said, ‘You jumped with parachutes?”
“Yes, ma’am, for many, many years until my legs
wouldn’t take it anymore.”
Frances sat shaking her head back-and-forth before
saying, “Boy, Howdy!” And for the next few minutes, her
questions were ceaseless about how Doc learned to
skydive and what it was like and if he was ever afraid and
on and on it went until Doc yawned happy that the
subject had changed.
“I saw people do that on the T.V. when it was
workin’.”
74
“Do what?” asked Doc. “Flying or jumping?”
“The parachute people. I wondered what it must be
like to do that.” And just then she had one of her far-a-
way spells and lost herself back in the stars overhead for
a few long minutes. Doc watched her and waited for her to
come back.
“Can you breathe when you fall through the air like
that?”
Doc laughed at the question, one he had heard at
least a hundred times in his life.
“Sure you can. It’s just like when you fly an airplane,
except you are flying straight down very fast.”
“I cain’t wait until tomorrow.” said Frances. “I’m
gonna fly, huh?”
“If the knee works and the creeks don’t rise.” said
Doc.
Frances thought the creek remark was funny and she
laughed loudly before instantly covering her mouth in the
way she did when she was embarrassed.
“But I’ll be leaving soon.” said Doc as he smoothed
his hair back.
He reached up and took Frances’s hand to help her
get down off of the wing walk. Her touch was light in his
hand as she jumped exuberantly down.
75
Her cheeks were flushed as she looked at him. She
stood staring directly into Doc’s eyes. A single tear
remained as a small drop on her chin. She wiped at it
with the crook of her elbow, and she held a hand out
towards Doc who reached and took her hand. She
grasped his hand tightly before she said, “Mister
Doc…and she sniffed…”you cain’t leave me here after
that.
“What do you mean?” asked Doc slowly pulling back
his hand.
“That.” and she turned and pointed to the Jenny,
“And that.” And she pointed skyward. “Now, I have to go.”
Doc was slightly taken aback and said nothing.
“I’ve waited forever to find a way out of here. And you
come along with your airplane and your sky and your
flying and yourself…”
“Frances, I just happened in here by accident. And
I’m not trying to be funny.”
Tears gathered in the rims of her eyes and she said,
“I don’t believe in no accidents. I’d be praying for a way
out these hills for a long time. There ain’t nuthin’ for me
here since pa died. Mama’s got Cappy now. She don’t
need me no more.”
“But, Frances, are you asking…”
“Now you got me wanting to learn what you do. To fly
like that. I ain’t never felt like that in my life. You just
76
cain’t run off and leave me here. I’ll die. I’ll surely die.”
Doc reached out and took her hand again, and he
said, “Frances, you don’t know what you are asking. I
don’t even know how old you…”
“I’m twenty-four and I got a driver’s license to prove
it. You want…”
“No. I believe you. But what would your mother say?”
“She’s got Cappy. She never did really love pa
anyways. I think she’d be happier if I wasn’t around
anyway. She be trying to get me married off for a long
time, and I don’t want that.”
“But, Frances, I’m an old man, I’d…”
“I don’t want no lover. I just want to be yor friend. I’d
be a help. Look what we did together fixing that axel and
all. I’m smart. I know things.”
“Frances, you’ll get homesick. I’m going to be
wandering all over the place. You’ll never know where
you’ll be one day to the next. And what if something
happens? What if I get hurt again or crash again, or worse
yet, you get hurt?”
Frances used her bandana to wipe her eyes and she
was silent for a moment, then she said to Doc, “Have you
ever let any of things stop you before?”
She stumped Doc and after a few seconds, he
laughed, saying, “Well, kiddo, you got me there don’t
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you?”
And Frances sniffed before she smiled, her blue eyes
and freckles capturing his heart. He was going to give in,
he knew he was.
“Tell you what. Let me rest the knee and take some
time to think things over. Maybe we could talk about it
some more after supper at the fire?”
“You gonna make some more of that turrible coffee?”
“I have a feeling you better get used to it.”
And she smiled.
“But I’m not saying that I’m taking you with me yet.”
“I know.” she said before she smiled again.
“Damn.” Doc thought to himself.
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Chapter Twelve
The morning clouds rolled in low and moving in
several directions at once. Mixed among the grayness
were the racing ghostly white clouds and the chilled air
that said cold front. It had rained during the night enough
that Doc had slept fitfully worried that the Jenny wasn’t
tied down and gusty winds, if they got more severe, could
damage her, all the while trying to find the best position
laying in his sleeping bag to keep his injured knee from
aching. He wasn’t in the best of moods as he watched
Frances walking out from the house carrying a small, tan
suitcase.
After supper, Frances had pushed the wooden cart
full of twigs and some firewood she had gathered out to
the fire Doc had built. She was hoping she had made her
case.
Doc had asked for some time to himself to think
things through, and so he opened a can of chicken stew,
built a small fire and ate by himself.
At the house, Frances had barely touched her
collards and cornbread and nervously sat looking out the
window watching the small orange and yellow flames that
flickered near the airplane as Doc ate his supper.
Cappy had arrived with a small portable black-and-
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white television set and a roll of copper wire to use as an
anttena. He was barely able to get Charleston on the set.
But as Matt Dillon and Kitty talked of cattle rustlers, town
drunks and gamblers, Frances’s mama, Bertie, and Cappy
sat close together on the small couch drinking Budwiesers
and occasionally giggling between themselves nearly
unaware that Frances had gotten up from the table and
was pacing.
But as dark fell, Bertie said in a somewhat aggitated
voice, “You goin’ out and sit with him again?” which
Frances took as an attempt to rid of her. “Yes’um, pretty
soon.” And she conjured an excuse for her delay, saying,
“In a little while. He’s writing now.”
“H-m-m.” said Frances’s mama. “Getting dark. Cain’t
write much in the dark, h-m-m?’
“Reckon you cain’t.” said Frances. “Think I’ll go on
out and visit some.”
Cappy smiled behind the shining bottom of his
upturned can and her mama raised her can to her face
while waving the other hand as a faint good-bye.
Doc closed his journal when he heard the rattle of the
cart coming close and he picked up his coffee cup and set
it closer to the dwindling fire. Soon, Frances face was
dimly illuminated the rising flames that Doc had stoked
as he waited.
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“Brung you some wood.”
“Was waiting on you.” he said. “Got something to
show you.”
Frances lowered the cart handles and rested it on the
ground. And she pushed her hands in the pockets of her
coveralls and walked to him and looked down. She didn’t
want to talk first.
“Look here.” he said and he pushed a neatly folded
colorful piece of paper at her feet.
“What’s that?”
“Unfold it and you’ll see.”
Frances didn’t sit, she squatted, and she picked the
paper up. “What is it?”
“A map. A very big map. You know how to read
maps?”
“I’ve seen a few. We got some in the truck. They give
‘em away down at the gas station.”
“This one’s different. Go ahead. Open it.”
Frances picked the map up and began to unfold it
and unfold it and unfold it.
“Gosh, damn. This thing’s big!”
Doc laughed and said, “Told you it was different,
huh?”
Frances looked at him and smiled and she held the
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map, all forty-eight inches by forty-eight inches of it high
above her head and tilted it towards the light of the fire. “I
ain’t never seen nuthin’ like this before.” she said. ‘What
kind of map is it?”
“It’s an aeronautical map, girl.”
She looked at him blankly still holding the map high
off of the ground.
“Grab some of that wood over there and let’s build
the fire up, get some light. I want to show you something.”
said Doc.
In a few minutes, the fire was much higher and
brighter and Doc said, “You remember that I said that I’d
tell you how to travel by ant?”
She looked at him, sensing what lay ahead, and she
had to tell herself not to get her hopes up so she lightly bit
her lip. “Uh-huh!” and she tried not to smile, but she did.
Doc had gotten on to his side and picked up a twig,
and he said, “Come down here. Look close.”
Frances got to her knees and she leaned forward on
her forearms and she tilted her head and looked at Doc
and her eyes shone brightly in the light of the fire.
Doc pointed his stick at a line on the map and he
said, “See that line in red? That’s the Ohio-West Virginia
border.” And Frances shook her head before pushing the
hair out of her eyes. And for the next few minutes, Doc
aimed the stick at the map’s circles and dotted lines and
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its many symbols explaining as he went what they meant.
Frances was lost and confused in the meanings and
Doc knew that. But soon he said something that caused
Frances’s heart to jump.
“I don’t expect you to learn all that now.”
She smiled brightly and said, “You mean…”
“Yes…he said, “I’m only going to teach you how to
travel by ant tonight.”
“But I thought…”
“Stop thinking. Watch.”
Her smile disappeared, her lips turning to a thin line
across her face.
“You got an ant on you, by any chance.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I don’t think so.” and she looked down at herself.
And when she looked up, Doc was wearing a very large
smile, and he patted her on her back and said, “Never
mind. Let’s pretend.”
“Why?” And Frances looked at Doc quizzically.
“Why, what?” asked Doc.
“Why do I need to know this?”
Doc laughed and said, “Because we need to know
where we’re going.”
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“You mean!”
“Yeah, and I’ll probably regret it. But, yeah.”
Frances jumped to her feet. “You mean it!? You really
mean it!?”
Doc looked up into her face smiling, quiet for a few
seconds, then he said, “Yeah, I do. But there are a few
tiny things we need to talk about first.”
Frances slowly settled back to the ground, her hand
covering her mouth, her eyes alight with her happiness.
“What?” she said in a muffled voice through her fingers.
“Well…” said Doc, “…and no glaring this time. I’m
serious. I’m not about to load you in my airplane and take
off to god-knows-where, especially across state lines, if I
don’t really, and I mean really, know how old you are.”
Frances didn’t hesitate. She reached into her pocket
and produced a laminated card, a West Virginia state
driver’s license, and handing it to him, she said, “I was a-
hoping you’d axe.”
“Ask.” said Doc.
She raised her eyebrows.
“It’s ‘ask’ not ‘axe.’ he said, “I’m a writer and I can
only hear the English language butchered so much. It’s
‘a-s-k’, Please.”
“I’m sorry.” she said looking a bit injured.
“It’s okay.” he answered. “I’m a little peculiar that
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way.”
He took the license in his hand and held it up to the
light and studied it for a second or two before he said,
“Twenty-four? I guess that’s not arresting age.” And they
laughed together. And he handed the license back to her.
“Now. What about your mother? And what are you
going to do for money? I keep some as usual, but I didn’t
figure on this.”
“I done told her a long time ago I was leaving.”
“She doesn’t mind?” asked Doc.
“She doesn’t care.”
“Ouch.” said Doc.
“It’s okay, I knows. I was jest waiting on daddy to go
on. He needed me. Before he died, he told me to go see the
world when he left. He made me promise.”
“But you didn’t know I would crash here.”
“When I looked up and seen you flying around, I said
a little prayer, and then you come down and got stuck
here and you needed me, too.”
“That was an accident.”
“Naw. sir. I don’t believe in ‘em.”
Doc reached for his coffee cup and took a sip
discovering that it was cold as ice and bitter. And he spit
it out quickly making Frances laugh and she said, “Told
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you that stuff was turrible.”
“Think you can do better?” said Doc.
“I knows I can. You’ll see.”
“Okay, now what about money?”
“Got four hundred sixty two dollars and fifty cents in
this pocket here.” And she pulled a small, red, zippered
vinyl purse from her other pocket and gently placed it on
the laid out map.”
“Better put that back in your pocket.”
“Daddy gave it to me and told me where to bury it ‘til
I needed it. Some of it I got making them chairs.”
“I haven’t quite figured how I’m going to get us and
our stuff into the Jenny yet. Maybe we’ll just have to strap
some of it to the wings. We’ll work on that tomorrow, I
guess.”
Frances had sat down cross legged next to him and
said, “Thank you, Mister, Doc. I certainly do.”
Doc looked into her eyes and the happiness marked
by her raised cheeks, and he took her extended hand and
they shook hands.
“Now, listen.” said Doc, “I’m willing to keep you with
me as long as you want and as long as there’s no trouble.
You understand that?”
Frances eagerly shook her head that she did.
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“And you have to understand that I’m not just flitting
around selling airplane rides this time. I need to write as
often as I can and that’s something I need peace and quiet
to do. Savvy?”
“Savvy?” she asked.
“It means, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s “Doc.” Just ‘Doc.’ Okay?
“Yes, sir, Doc.” And she cupped her hand across her
mouth and giggled. That made Doc laugh.
“I might put you to work helping me with riders,
talking to them, making them feel at ease, helping them
get in the airplane, helping ‘em out and all that. You
willing to do that?”
She shook her head empathically yes.
“You got a heavy coat of some kind?” he asked. “It
sometimes gets cold in the airplane and some nights out
here, it gets really chilly.”
“I got my daddy’s old Carhart. It’s real warm.”
“You got a sleeping bag?”
“I kin bring a blanket.”
“That’ll do for a start, I suppose. But we’ll find you a
sleeping bag along the way.”
“Doc?”
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“Yeah.”
“Where we going first?”
“Don’t know.” said Doc matter-of-factly. “But the ant
does.”
In that very second, he looked over at Frances and
there was an ant on the sleeve of her tee shirt. Doc
reached over and gingerly picked it off and placed it on
the map. Just over the Ohio line.
“Watch him.” said Doc. Wherever he stops first, is
where we’re headed.
Frances laughed loudly and said, “How does he know
where we’re a-going?”
Doc scratched his chin for a second or two, “He
doesn’t. But real barnstormers just follow the ant.”
“We gonna be barnstormers?” asked Frances.
“I already am.” said Doc smiling. “And it looks like
you’re gonna be, too.”
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Chapter Thirteen
She stood before him looking down at her feet.
“Daddy’s.” she said of the badly worn and scuffed
brown Wellington work boots. “Figured I’d better wear
sumthin’ besides skin.” And she laughed brightly.
Her faded blue coverall legs were tucked into the tops
of the boots cowboy style and Doc laughed as she
stomped her feet one at a time. “They be a bit too big…,”
she said, “…so I got two pair of socks on.”
The faded tan coat she wore, which hung to her mid-
thighs was patched at the elbows and tattered at the cuffs
and a small label on the breast pocket said, “Carhart.”
Doc reached out and straightened her collar before
saying, “Daddy’s?” And she shook her head yes, her
flashing blue eyes smiling as she looked at him.
“Well, I guess we are ready.” said Doc. “You should be
warm enough.”
They had spent the better part of the morning
following the plan they had devised so that she could ride
in the front cockpit. So they lashed Doc’s duffel bag to the
inner struts of the Jenny on the left side and then tied her
small suitcase to the inner struts on the right side. The
gas can and cook box just fit between her legs in the front
cockpit. There was no control stick in the front, only an
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empty socket and the front throttle had been long been
disconnected preventing a passenger from accidentally
taking control of the engine.
Frances was unusually quiet but obviously happy
smiling at Doc often as they ensured all their gear was
safely secured. Doc hummed a nameless tune – he always
did whenever he busied himself with something – as he
readied the Jenny for take-off. Frances was constantly a
few steps behind the still limping Doc as he swung the
propeller through to clear oil from the cylinders.
“Just watch for now…” he said, “As we go along, I’ll
start teaching you the things you need to know.” And she
shook her head that she understood. “But hear this…,”
Doc said, his voice firm and strong, “…until you learn
more about airplanes, you stay the hell away from this
propeller at all times. I mean it.”
The smile disappeared from her face and she took on
a serious look and she shook her head that she
understood.
“Good girl.” said Doc. “And say…, he asked, “…what
do you like to be called best? Just ‘Frances,’ or do you
have a nick name of any kind?”
She looked at him, rolled her eyes slightly upwards
as if searching some distant place for an answer, and she
said, “Naw, sir. I like ‘Frances’ fine. Ain’t nobody ever
called me anythin’ but.” Then she laughed a small
chuckle, “’Cept when mama gets really mad. But I won’t
90
tell you what she yells then. It’s nasty.”
“Speaking of which…” said Doc, “…what’d she say
about your leaving?”
“Nuthin’ much. She kissed me and gave me a
hundred dollars for a bus ticket back if I get homesick.”
Then Frances patted her pocket.
“Is that your purse?” asked Doc.
Frances shook her that it was.
“You sure you are ready for this? I’m not sure I am.”
Frances’s face immediately fell into a frown.
“Oh, don’t worry.” said Doc quickly. “I’m not
changing my mind.”
“I’ll do everything you tell me, I promise I will.” said
Frances, her voice low and pleading.
“I believe you.” said Doc. “But this is an entirely new
thing for me. I’ve never had a partner before.”
“A partner?”
“You know what I mean.” said Doc. “I’ve always
traveled alone, by myself. It’s gonna take some getting
used to watching out for you.”
Then something Doc had seen in her earlier, a sort of
ancient wisdom, something hard for him to put his finger
on, spoke up, and she said, “How ‘bout we just watch out
fer each other?” and she smiled feeling a little as if she
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shouldn’t have said anything, and she put the
embarrassed school girl’s hand over her mouth, her eyes
registering her own mild surprise.
Doc had to laugh at her quaintness when she did
that, finding it endearing, and without saying it, he felt
warmed by what he had just heard, and he said, “Maybe
company’s good.”
“Yes, sir, you bet!” she said. Her bright smile had
returned. “Yes, sir!”
“You ready?”
Her smile widened and seemed to cover her face and
she said, “I’m ready, Doc!” and she put a hand on the
forward cockpit rim and pulled herself onto the wing walk.
As she did, she looked back at Doc standing on the
ground and she asked, “We gonna fly through some
clouds today?”
Doc laughed at that and he said, “Maybe one or
two…” and he paused before saying under his breath,
“…if nobody’s looking.”
And Frances settled herself into her little space up
front and she tightened her scarf.
Down the field, looking out the window with only her
frowning face showing between the parted flour sack
curtains on the back door, stood Bertie watching as the
airplane’s propeller slowly begin to turn, and as powder
gray smoke roiled from the Jenny’s exhaust pipes, she
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pulled a dish towel from her apron pocket and dabbed at
the corners of her eyes. And she disappeared from the
window.
“Got your seat belt on!?” yelled Doc as he eased the
throttle forward.
In the front cockpit, Frances turned her head looking
back at Doc and shook her head yes several times as she
tightened her grip on the cockpit’s rims. As the engine’s
thunder filled the airplane’s hollow airframe becoming the
rapid rolling beat of a deep bass drum, lightheadedness
overtook her and she was at once, excited, afraid and
happy.
Ohio lay ahead.
93
Chapter Fourteen
The ant had wandered across most of southern Ohio
the night before they left. It would take several stops for
fuel before they circled the small crossroads hamlet near
Watkins, Ohio.
In the last flickering light of the fire the previous
evening, Frances watched the insect intently as the ant
did what all ants do: criss-crossing the map in the
frenzied hurry of all ants, scurrying back and forth,
without reason or rhyme, then changing direction on a
whim, darting across the colorful lines, the circles and the
curious hieroglyphic aeronautical symbols of the sectional
chart. Amused at the level of concentration Frances
exhibited engrossed in the ant’s movements, Doc sipped
the last remaining bit of his coffee.
“What you reckon they in a hurry for?” she looked up
and asked. “Aints never seem to just walk anywhere slow.
They always be seeming to run everywhere.” And she
laughed at herself. And Doc chuckled at her wonder, and
he thought to himself that just watching Frances discover
the new worlds that she would be soon experiencing
might make better stories than anything else he might
discover in the days ahead.
“I dunno.” said Doc. “I know a lot of people that
always seem to be in hurry for no good reason.”
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“I’ve heard that bugs don’t live very long. Maybe
that’s why they be in a hurry.” she said.
“Could be.” said Doc. “I used to think that I’d live
forever, always putting off things that needed to be done.”
“My daddy died too soon.” said Frances without
looking up at Doc.
“Everybody dies too soon.” said Doc wistfully.
“Didja ever wonder…” she said.
“What? asked Doc. “Wonder what?”
“Well, some nights, I wonder how long I’ll live.”
For a second Doc with his cup to his lips said
nothing. Then he said, “I don’t think anyone knows that.
But I do think that there are different kinds of being
alive.”
Frances stopped watching the ant, and she rolled to
one side and propped her head on her hand and she said,
“There is only one kind of being alive. Ain’t there?”
“I used to think so.” said Doc. “Until my wife died.”
“You was married!?” said Frances.
“More than once.” said Doc.
Frances just looked at him, then she reached out
with a fingertip, and she prodded the ant which was
wandering back-and-forth near Watkins. “How many
times?” she finally said.
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“Twice.” said Doc. “It was my second wife, Joan, that
died.” And he went silent for a brief few seconds, then he
said, “But she’s still very much alive.”
Doc could see the bewilderment in Frances’s face,
and he quickly said, “In here.” And he touched his hand
to his chest. “That’s what I meant.”
Frances’s face lit up and she said, “Then my daddy is
still alive, too?”
And Doc said, smiling, “In here…,” touching his chest
again, “…you bet he is.”
And Frances said nothing. But it was obvious as she
looked away into the distance that she was mulling his
words before she looked back at Doc. As her eyes met his,
slowly, a smile formed on her face, and she nodded once.
Doc smiled warmly in return, a sign of confirmation that
she understood.
Then Doc said something else that once again caused
consternation to color Frances’s face.
“I think there is alive even when people are dead, and
dead when people are alive.”
Frances’s brow furrowed slightly and she lightly bit
her lip.
“Think about it.” said Doc, “When you love people or
they make a great impression on you, and they pass on,
they never really die in your heart. But there are plenty of
people who are alive, but they are dead in their hearts, or
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they live so meaningless lives that they never come alive
in anyone else’s heart, so they are just, well, alive but
dead.”
Frances sat bolt upright at that and said, “You right,
Doc. You right!” And she smiled at the thought of her
daddy being alive in her heart.
Doc smiled and looked into France’s face and then he
looked at the map and the ant, and he asked Frances,
“Where we going tomorrow?” And Frances put her finger
on the map next to the ant which scurried away. “There?”
Doc leaned closely into the map and looked where
her finger rested. “M-m-m… Watkins. Never been there
before. Good as anywhere, I suppose.” Frances pulled her
hand away from the map and raised her hand to her
mouth yawning.
“Me, too.” said Doc. “We better get some sleep. Gonna
be a big day tomorrow.”
Before that conversation that night, the pair had
arranged a simple set of hand signals that they could use
to communicate with as they flew. As it was, a shout
between them over the engine and wind noise in flight
would, at best, come off as unintelligible.
So, soon after crossing over the muddy Ohio river,
Doc, with an idea, began looking for a small town with an
airstrip and the possibility of finding a drugstore and a
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hardware store. He saw on his sectional map that Edy, a
small rural town just beyond the river had a short
airstrip, possibly a crop duster’s operation. He reached
forward and tapped Frances on the shoulder and pointed
down and she shook her head understanding that they
would soon land. With that, Doc eased the knob of his
throttle back, and as the engine went to idle with its
intermittent popping backfires, the air around the
airplane warmed during its descent. He was hoping to
find the parts needed to make Gosport tubes.
Frances was fascinated by every detail as they flew.
She watched the clouds rise above the airplane during its
descent to the ground, she pointed out the cows and
horses grazing below. She traced the needles on the
gauges in front of her with her finger. She hummed a tune
to coincide with the constant thrum of the flying wires
that braced the wings. In turn, Doc had to remind himself
to keep his flying foremost in his thoughts as he tended to
lose himself in his absorption with her many reactions.
At the sight of something new, she would excitedly
turn to look at Doc behind her and point mouthing the
words to match her new find, perhaps a pond, or a house,
maybe even a highway. In her 24 years, she had never
seen the earth from above. She had never seen a forest
except from within. She had no knowledge of the expanse
of hundreds of green trees to be farmed for their timber
and what that unfurling carpet of nature might look like.
She had never seen the swirls and eddies of a large
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body of water. Crossing the brown water of the Ohio River,
she watched, for the first time, as the stacks of tug boats
trailed the charcoal gray plumes of diesel exhaust as they
their pushed their coal barges south leaving a bubbling
white froth in the roiling water of their wakes.
She had never flown across the tops of clouds
crowded so close together that they appeared as a blanket
of cotton tufts spread above the patchwork quilt of fields
below. She had never seen the clouds shadows beneath
her darken the landscape as the wind pushed them. She
watched intently as the shadows like fat serpents slid
across the roofs of homes and buildings. She had never
looked below herself at a grey ribbon of concrete highway
with its stitched yellow lines while the shiny cars and
dusty trucks flowed within it in opposite directions. Doc
delighted in seeing her reactions to these things.
She kept Doc entertained as she seemed to want to
look everywhere at once constantly pointing at this-and-
that laughing; and her face now a smile, now a look of
astonishment, now a look of surprise and always looking
back at Doc as she discovered the delights which were
reflected in the brightness of her face and her wide blue
eyes.
Now, the airstrip at Edy was center in her vision
beyond the nose of the Jenny. Doc leaned side-to-side to
keep the airplane flying straight ahead. Doc had no need
to be concerned with glide speeds or the altitude that the
instruments showed Frances in the cockpit up front. His
99
actions were that of muscle memory and second sense
made of thousand of hours of bonding with the ancient
airplane and together, soon, both wheels thudded on the
dirt strip and Doc made shallow turns, fishtailing side-to-
side until the airplane stopped just outside a one room
shed with a sign over the door. The sign read, “Edy, Ohio,
Population 4002 and Twenty-two Dogs.” Frances read
that and laughed as she loosened her head scarf. She
unbuckled her seat belt and stood on her seat up front.
Doc looked up at her and he smiled, saying, “You
doin’ okay?”
“ I ain’t never been better!” she said brightly, “Yor
knee aching?”
“Some. But no mind, we’ll see if we can get some gas
and a ride into town. I’m looking for something. And
maybe some chow.”
“Is that somethin’ you eat?”
“What? Chow?” She nodded yes.
Doc threw his head back and laughed while running
his fingers through his hair and massaging his scalp
working out the itch of his leather flying helmet.
“Well, I forgot. You’ve probably never been in the
military?”
“No, sir, I ain’t.”
“ ‘Chow’ is food. As in “chow down.””
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Hers was a look of perplexity.
“Never mind. ‘Chow’ is food, another word for it.”
She shook her head, and mouthed a silent, “Oh.”
“Com’on. Let’s see if there’s anybody about.”
Off to the side and behind the small building with the
sign was a rusty roofed hangar and within its open maw
sat a red and white low wing crop duster. Doc heard a
banging at the back of the hangar.
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Chapter Fifteen
With Frances in trail, Doc walked over to the hangar
and stood just outside peering into the darkness trying to
see the source of the metal-on-metal clanging. It was
rhythmic and steady. Forceful and angry.
Doc, raising his voice to just below a yell, said, “Is
anybody home?” And the noise persisted steadily. With no
response, Doc turned to Frances and said, “Stay here.”
And she nodded that she would. Doc took a hesitant step
into the dim light of the hangar, and he could see, at a
long workbench against the back wall, the large bulk of a
tall figure bent over the bench with a ball peen hammer in
his hand dealing blow after blow to a piece of metal fixed
in a vise. But suddenly the man turned and looked back
over his shoulder at Doc. And the man smiled an
acknowledgement of Doc’s presence.
He placed the hammer on the bench and reached to
his ears removing wads of cotton from each. “Oh, hey!
Sorry.” said the man, as he put the cotton balls in his
pocket while turning towards Doc.
“We just landed. Thought maybe we might get some
gas and ask a few questions.” said Doc stepping closer to
the man.
The man advanced towards Doc with an extended
hand. “Well, it’s good to have a little company.” he said.
The second he saw the man’s pinched face, his high brow
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and brown hair, a small bell began to toll in the back of
Doc’s mind. He’d seen this man somewhere before.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you land. I was trying to
straighten that damn tail wheel spring. Tough booger.”
Doc laughed and said, “That’s okay.”
“Rutherford Tubbs.” The man introduced himself
with a strong biting grip on Doc’s fingers. And Doc
introduced himself and asked if there might be a drug
store nearby. Rutherford said, “Sure is. Got one
downtown.” and he laughed heartily. Doc got the joke
immediately, and he laughed as well. “My partner and I
are looking for a few things and maybe somewhere to get
a bite.”
Rutherford said that Edy had all that. In fact, he
said, if Doc and the girl, whose presence Rutherford
acknowledged with a shake of the head, didn’t mind
riding in a broken down old Buick, which he called his
“courtesy car,” he’d give them a ride in because he was
getting hungry, too.
About that time, Rutherford had looked beyond Doc’s
shoulder and saw the Jenny. “I’ll be damned.” said
Rutherford. “I haven’t ever seen one those up close, ever.”
And he began walking towards the old airplane as Doc
and Frances followed.
Doing what all pilots do, he walked right to the Jenny
and stood looking into the rear cockpit. After a brief look
at the instrument panel and the cockpit’s spartan interior
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and controls, he said, “I’ll bet this thing is a blast to fly,
huh?” And he proceeded to begin a slow walk around the
airplane examining the wings, the undercarriage, the
flying wires, the wheels, as Doc and Frances stood next to
one another watching him.
As Rutherford examined the Jenny, Frances looked
into Doc’s face and she smiled brightly, and she
whispered, “Partner?” Doc grunted a short laugh, winked
at her and showed no other response.
“What year?” yelled Rutherford from the far side of
the airplane.
“1916!” answered Doc.
“Wow!” said Rutherford in a hushed way. “I wasn’t
even born yet.” And he chuckled.
“Nobody was.” said Doc, and Frances laughed while
putting her hand over her mouth. Doc looked at her and
he smiled broadly.
Rutherford laughed.
“Where you all headed?” asked Rutherford.
“Well, for now, here.” said Doc. Then he explained
that the pair were headed west to barnstorm for the
summer and that he was a writer.
Rutherford had progressed completely around the
airplane by then and he said, “Thought about doing that
once.” Then he said, “But the farmers ‘round here keep
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me pretty busy most of the year.” And the small bell in
Doc’s head rang louder and for the moment, and he
wasn’t sure why yet. Then a name suddenly worked its
way up through his thoughts: “Grover.”
Doc studied the man closer. The old cowboy boots
were there. The crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes were
there. And the birthmark! At the left side of his eye just at
his hairline, there was the birthmark. Not a small
discolored spot, but a mark the size of a small strawberry.
The only thing missing was the pistol. And Doc thought
again, “Grover.” And Doc laughed out loud. “You don’t
remember me, do you?” said Doc.
Rutherford stared intently at Doc with an obvious
search of his memory beginning. He looked closely at Doc.
And he said, “No. Can’t say as I do.”
“Florida?” asked Doc.
“Never been there.”
“M-m-m.” said Doc, sensing something amiss, and he
continued, “Mebbe I’m mistaken.”
“Oh. That’s all right.” said Rutherford, “People
mistake me for someone they know all the time. How
about that ride?”
“Yeah, sure.” said Doc and he introduced Frances to
Rutherford.
“Pretty lady.” said Rutherford. “Your partner?”
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“Daughter, actually.” said Doc which caused Frances
to snap her head in his direction. But with wide eyes, she
said nothing.
“Let me run over to the office and grab the car keys.”
said Rutherford and he stepped off in the direction of the
small building.
Frances was still looking at Doc agape.
Doc looked at her and whispered, “A little white lie, to
keep you out of trouble.”
Frances’s eye’s narrowed sweetly and she smiled and
said nothing else as Rutherford stepped out of the
building with the car keys in his hand. She liked the idea
of the lie.
“You guys hop in.” And he pointed to a dusty blue
Buick with a crumpled driver’s side door. “She’s ugly as
sin, but she gets me there.” And Doc laughed and said,
“I’ve ridden in worse.”
The narrow main street of Edy came into view
quickly. The tallest structure on the street was a two story
brick building with bars on the lower windows and three
white columns supporting a street side portico. It was
vacant, and Doc thought it an old bank. The rest of the
buildings along the short street gave the appearance that
the town had fallen on hard times with a number of its
storefronts boarded up and “For Rent” and “For Sale”
signs posted in many of the empty storefront windows..
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But the little town wasn’t completely dead. The feed
and hardware store seemed busy with a line of Ford and
Chevy pick-ups parked at angles along the broken
concrete sidewalk. Down the street, a flickering sign of
mostly broken neon tubes, marked Lee’s Restaurant and
Bar and indicated it was open. And the oval sign of the
Rexall Drug Store hung above a set of double glass doors
as patrons stood on the sidewalk having animated
conversations while others sidestepped them to gain
entrance. A few young boys riding bicycles, their faces
flush, playing cards flapping at their spokes, trailed by a
lone whip-tailed, liver-colored mutt, passed in the
opposite direction on the sidewalk emitting fits of joyful
high-pitched laughter as they pedaled.
“Are you going to eat at that Lee’s place?” asked Doc
of Rutherford.
“That’s the place. The only place. Food’s not too bad.
The pies are homemade.”
“Could we meet you there in a few minutes? I want to
jump in the drug store first.”
“Sure.” said Rutherford as he pulled to the side of the
street and stopped. “I’ll wait to order.”
“No. That’s okay.” said Doc. “Don’t do that. We’ll just
be a minute. We’ll catch up.”
Rutherford nodded okay and Doc opened the door
and Frances followed him to the sidewalk.
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Rutherford then slowly accelerated down the street.
“Yor knee hurting again?” asked Frances as they
walked to the door.
“A little but that’s not why we’re going in. Com’on. I’ll
show you.”
“Doc?” she said in a low voice, and he turned and
looked at her. “I liked yor white lie.”
“It’ll make things easier.” said Doc.
In about ten minutes, Doc and Frances slid into the
booth across from Rutherford who was salting his mashed
potatoes.
“The Blue Plate’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”
said Rutherford. And he laughed, “Every other day, every
other week for ten years. Want me to quote the rest of the
menu?”
Doc laughed and said, “No. That’s okay. I’ll have that,
too.”
Doc then looked at Frances and asked if that was all
right with her and she shook her head yes. Then Doc
answered, Nancy, the skinny as a rail, blond, pony-tailed,
teenage waitress with a bad case of acne that had silently
arrived at the tableside with her order pad in hand while
removing her pencil from its perch above her ear, saying,
“Hep ya’ll?” in a high voice.
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“The Blue Plate’s good for both of us.” said Doc.
“S’at all?” said Nancy chomping on her gum in
between blowing small bubbles that popped as she made
clacking sounds. “What you guys want to drink?”
It was coffee for Doc and ice water for Frances, and
as Nancy in the pink striped uniform with the tiny frilly
apron sashayed towards the kitchen doing her best to
look alluring, Doc looked at Rutherford and asked, “Think
that hardware store we passed might sell some small
cheap tin funnels.”
Rutherford pulled his fork from his mouth, and he
said, “Probably so. They have a lot of old timey stuff down
there.”
“Great.” said Doc. “And I’m sure they have rubber
fuel line.”
“You bet.” said Rutherford. “I get that there all the
time.
“Fantastic!” said Doc. “We might be in business.”
“What you trying to do?” asked Rutherford, “If you
don’t mind my asking.”
“Not at all…” said Doc as Nancy slid his plate in front
of him, “…I’m making a couple of Gosports so we…” and
he looked at Frances, “…can talk back and forth in the
Jenny.”
Rutherford laughed and he said, “You need an
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intercom.” And he smiled slyly, “I’ve got one for sale.”
“Thanks.” said Doc, “But this will work fine, I think.”
“Well, I’ve got some tape and some small copper
tubing you can have if you need it.”
“That’s downright magnanimous of you!” said Doc.
And Frances set her water glass on the table and
asked Doc quietly, “What’s a Gasport?”
“Gosport!” said Doc. “You’ll see. It’s so we can talk
back and forth in the air.”
Frances’s face lit up and she said, “That’d sure be
nice, huh?”
Doc reached beside him, and he pulled two cheap
home stethoscopes from the Rexall bag and he held them
up for Rutherford to see.
Rutherford took a swath from his lemon pie and he
looked at the stethoscopes for a second before a light bulb
flashed in his head and he said, “Smart.”
Doc smiled.
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Chapter Sixteen
After rummaging through the dusty corners and bins
of forgotten pieces of hardware and ancient household
odds-and-ends at Hazard’s Feed and Seed, some utensils
he found dating back so many years as to be called,
“heirlooms,” Doc finally found and placed two small tin
funnels on the scratched and hazed glass counter next to
the cash register.
“Glory be!” Miss Holly, the squat, round-faced cashier
said, “I had no idea we even had those anymore.”
“Took a little digging.” said Doc as he pushed a
crinkled twenty dollar bill across the counter towards her.
She laughed dryly and said, “You know, mister, I
don’t know what to charge you for them.” Shuffling up
from the bare wooden aisles - aisles lit by the light of the
single bare light bulbs hanging from the high tin ceiling
overhead - appeared Bill Hazard. A lean, gangly appearing
elderly man, the owner of the store, he came to stand
behind Miss Holly and hearing what she said, while
looking across the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses that
sat perched delicately on the very tip of his nose, he asked
Doc, “How about a buck a piece?”
Doc, never one to pass up a chance at some slight-
handed sarcasm said, “Sounds pretty pricey to me.” And
he grinned.
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Mister Hazard was about as quick. “Okay, then,
make it a buck fifty.” and he pushed his glasses up his
nose with the tip of a finger and he stared at Doc who was
still grinning. “That’s better.” said Doc and he reached to
shake Mister Hazard’s hand.
“Anything else we can get you before we retire to the
Bahamas on the sale we just made?” asked Mister Hazard
with a straight face.
Holly took the twenty, smoothed it on the counter’s
edge and pulled the handle down on the old cash register
opening the drawer with the ding of a bell. Another bell
jangled above the door as the trio made their exit. Under
her arm, Frances carried the cheap $25 sleeping bag she
had found in the sparse sporting goods section.
Frances stood close to Doc as he pulled his case knife
from his pocket and opened it. Then he cut the bell from
each stethoscope and to those he connected a length of
black fuel line and a funnel attached with electrical tape.
Rutherford went back to banging on his tail wheel spring.
“Here. Put these in your ears like this.” And Doc
slipped an earpiece in each of his ears. Frances followed
suit.
“You gonna listen to my heart?” she asked.
Doc smiled at that thinking, “I already have.”
Then he handed her his funnel and he took hers. And
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he said, “Close your eyes.” At first, Frances wanted to say,
“Why?” But she did not and she closed her eyes. Then
Doc whispered into her funnel, “You ready to go flying
again?” And Frances’s eyes open widely and she nodded
and said in a full voice into his funnel, “Yes, sir!” So
loudly that Doc had to immediately snatch his
stethoscope away from his ears.
“Guess I asked for that, huh?” he said.
Frances laughed and said, “Let’s do it again.”
“Nope. The only way we are really going tell if it’s
going to work or not is in the air.”
Frances asked, “Where we goin’ next?”
“Well, we’ll have about two hours of fuel on board
and the can is full, so as far as that gets us, I guess.”
Then he scratched his chin and said, “But I tell you
what. If Mister Tubbs there will let us, why don’t we
overnight here and light out first thing after breakfast.”
“Not a problem for me.” said Tubbs. “There’s a roach
motel down the road.”
“You mind if we build a small fire and sleep next to
my airplane?”
“Still not a problem.” said Tubbs.
“Good. Then we’ll just bunk out here.”
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“Ever slept in a sleeping bag before?” asked Doc of
Frances. She had just returned from gathering dry twigs
and a few dead branches from the tree line down the
runway.
Dumping her armload on the ground, she shook her
head no. “Is they a trick to it or sumpthin’?”
Doc laughed at that and said, “No. But at first, once
you get in and zip it up, it will feel a bit confining, like a
cocoon.”
Frances laughed at that and said, “When I get up in
the mornin’ will I be a butterfly.”
“I hope not.” said Doc. “But maybe that would a good
nickname for you. A call sign.”
Frances immediately fell into one of her far-a-way
spells and looked off into the distance for a few seconds,
then she turned and looked at Doc for another few
seconds before she said, “You know...that’d be a purty
nickname wouldn’t it?”
“It fits, I think...” said Doc, “...yeah, I can see that.
‘Butterfly’ it is.”
And Frances smiled; then she quietly went about
getting a small fire started.
To the west, the sky had taken on a purple hue and
the top edge of the sun was just slipping below the ridge
line.
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Frances was laying on her side partially zipped up in
her sleeping bag and with a small stick, she was
indolently writing then erasing with her hand and
rewriting again the word, ‘butterfly’ in the sand. Doc was
propped against his duffel bag, his portable writing desk -
an old piece of thin plywood, actually - and he was
alternately taking small sips of his coffee and the
occasional drag from a cigarette as he wrote what he
could in the waning light.
“What you writing about?”
Doc, not much appreciating the interruption, looked
up and glared briefly at her and said, a bit curtly, “Today.”
“Am I in it?”
“Yes.” Then he set the desk down and looked at
menacingly at her, more a hard stare, really.
“Frances...?”
She looked at him and stopped scratching in the
sand.
“We need to have a little understanding. Okay?”
Frances, worried she had done something wrong,
fought with her zipper for a second and tried to sit up.
Watching her wriggle and struggle made Doc laugh and it
calmed him.
“Relax.” he said. “All I want to ask you is when you
see me writing, could you please wait until I set the desk
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down before...”
“Oh, Doc, I’m sorry...”
“No. Don’t apologize.”
Her hand was now over her mouth and Doc had
come to recognize embarrassment in her.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I made you stop yor writing.”
“No. You didn’t.”
She slowly lowered her hand from her mouth.
“Let me explain better.” said Doc.
She had freed herself from the bag’s entrapment and
was now sitting up with the bag gathered around her
waist.
Doc extended a leg, and with the toe of his boot he
pushed some loose embers around causing the fire to
flare, and he said, “Writers, at least, I do, go far-a-way in
their minds when they write. It’s like I visit a whole other
place where the words and the stories I write are like a
special place I visit when I write. Sometimes, when I write,
for just for a little while, I am completely in that special
place at peace and very happy. And very far away. Do you
know what I mean?”
Frances looked at Doc, at first seeming bewildered.
But a light in her eyes brightened and she said, “I have to
do that when I read anythin’. I have to really study it.”
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Doc chuckled. Then he said, “I couldn’t have said it
better myself. That’s what I’m doing when I write. I’m
studying the words.” And he let it go at that.
“And you don’t want nobody interruptin’ you, huh?”
Doc laughed and he said, “You got it!”
“Well, you can count on me. I ain’t letting nobody
mess with you when you is writing. Me, too.”
“Me, too, what?”
“ I ain’t either.”
“I won’t either.” said Doc.
“You won’t either?” and she looked puzzled.
And Doc said, “Never mind.”
The morning dawned gray and foggy.
Doc could not see the end of the airstrip at Edy. So,
rather than rush, Doc and Frances settled back in over
plastic bowls of instant oatmeal and instant coffee.
“Sure wished I had me a biscuit to go with this
oatmeal.” Frances said.
“Better get used to the bare necessities.” answered
Doc.
“Doc?”
“Yes.”
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“What’s a ‘call sign?’”
“Well, it’s a sort of nickname that pilots give to each
other. It started back many years ago in the military.”
She mulled that a minute. The she said, “But I’m not
a pilot.”
“That’s okay. You’re flying with me now and that sort
of makes you a co-pilot.”
Frances swirled her spoon around the bowl a few
times, emptying it, and she set it aside before she said, “I
hate to sound so stupid, which I is not, but does a co-pilot
fly, too?”
“Yep. When the pilot needs a rest or a flight is a very
long one.”
“Could I learn?”
“What? To fly?”
She shook her head yes.
“Certainly.”
“But would I need a driver’s license?”
“To fly? No.” said Doc. Then he said, “You don’t need
a license to fly. You only need to know how.”
“Would you teach me?”
“Why not?” And Doc hesitated before continuing. “I
can teach you some things as we go along, providing the
Gosport works like we need it to.”
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With that, Frances stood erect and kicked a little dirt
with her bare toe and said brightly, “Imagine! Me flying,
too!”
“Whoa!” said Doc, “Flying is a lot more than just
moving a stick and pushing some pedals.”
Her face dropped a bit before she asked, “What else
you need to know?”
“There’s things like learning why an airplane flies in
the first place and learning how to navigate and
meteorology.”
He could see the word ‘meteorology’ hit a brick wall in
Frances’s head.
“‘Meteorology’ is another word for weather...” said
Doc with a dry chuckle, “...what to expect when you fly in
certain kinds of weather.”
‘I already know how to navigate.” said Frances with a
serious tone. Then she smiled brightly, obviously proud of
an oncoming witty response, “By ant!” And a big smile
came across her face.
Doc pointed to the corner of his mouth and licked it.
Frances looked at him with a question in her eyes. He did
it again. “Oh!” she said as she wiped her palm across the
corner of her mouth and wiped away a kernel of oatmeal
before licking her palm clean. Doc just threw his head
back and laughed and she joined in.
“Com’on...” he said as he rose to his feet, “...we’ll
119
start with some basics.”
Frances sat down and was going to pull her boots on
before running to catch up with Doc as he walked towards
the Jenny. But she liked the cool morning feel of the dirt
against her bare feet, and she set the boots aside. Then
she jumped to her feet and ran after Doc.
“Doc?”
He stopped and turned to look at her.
“What’s yor call sign?”
“ ‘Doc’,” he said.
She had caught up with him, and she stopped next to
him saying, “Doc?” And her face went blank.
He laughed and said, “That’s right. ‘Doc.’ That’s what
I used to be, a sort of emergency doctor. I used to be a
paramedic. My friends called me that because I was pretty
good at it. It’s not my real name, just a nickname. Like I
said, a sort of callsign.”
“Those guys came when daddy died.”
“Paramedics?”
“Yeah. But they couldn’t do nuthin’. He was already
dead.”
“Heart attack?”
“Yes, sir. Right there in that field where yor airplane
crashed.”
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Doc took another few steps towards the Jenny and
stood by the wing.
“Why you not doctoring anymore?” she asked.
“Let’s just say I got tired of it. I got tired of people for
a while. It was a long time ago. Let’s talk about flying
there, Butterfly.”
Frances beamed at the sound of the word.
121
Chapter Seventeen
The weather never improved that day, so the pair
decided to stay at Edy until the skies were flyable. Doc
started the day catching up on his writing and Frances
wandered the airport until Doc closed his journal.
Doc decided to take a very simplistic approach to
teaching her to fly and stuck with basic things. He began
by putting her into the back cockpit and letting her move
the controls as he explained what functions the controls
performed. Frances was full of questions about how this
worked and what does that do.
He stood on the wing walk as she sat in the pilot’s
seat with her feet on the rudder bar and her right hand on
the control stick. He had to laugh when he realized she
was barefooted, and he thought “Why not?” He allowed
her to poise her left hand on the throttle knob. Her face
was bright, and her attention and attitude was as joyous
and intent as that of a child on Christmas morning
pulling the bow loose from a gaily decorated present.
Telling her to look around at the various control
surfaces as they moved, her head swiveling as he used his
hand to illustrate the airplane’s movements, he slowly
and patiently explained to her that the wings would bank
when the control stick was moved left or right causing the
airplane to turn in that direction, that the nose would
point left or right when the rudder bar was pushed in
122
either direction, and the nose would rise or fall when you
pushed the control stick forward or pulled it back.
He made no attempt to teach her what the
instruments indicated; not yet, anyway. That would come,
in time, and that would be best illustrated when the
airplane was actually in flight. If the improvised Gosport
tubes worked, and they could communicate as he hoped,
that would make instructing her in the air an easy affair.
After an hour of talking her through what the
controls did, he walked her around the airplane, again
using his hands as an imaginary airplane and reminding
her of what she had learned in the cockpit, he showed her
how the ailerons, the rudder and the elevator were rigged.
Occasionally copying his movements, she would use her
own hand to mimic the airplane, and as she understood a
thing, he could see her eyes light up. And she would smile
a bright smile at him. Doc had the increasing feeling that
it would not take long before he might trust her with the
controls in the air.
As noon drew near, he asked Rutherford if he might
have an old broom or a dowel of some kind he might part
with, and could he borrow a saw? Rutherford pointed at a
corner of his hanger where a well-worn straw broom
leaned among other broken and used-up tools. He waved
off an offer of payment by Doc. Then Doc thanked him
and cut a two-and-a-half foot section off the broom’s
handle, and he handed that to Frances.
She took it from him and looked at him as if he had
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just handed her a magic wand. “What’s this fer?”
“That’s your co-pilot’s stick.”
“Mine!?”
He explained to her then that in the front cockpit,
there was an empty socket where the control stick for that
cockpit had been. The front stick had been removed so
that riders could not interfere with the airplane’s
operation. But all she had to do was to insert her broom
handle in the socket and put her feet on the front rudder
bar and she could fly the airplane, too.
“Can’t fly an airplane without one, Butterfly. Don’t
lose it.”
“Oh! I won’t. I won’t. I promise!” The sound of the
word ‘butterfly’ warmed and thrilled her.
“Good. Now, let’s find some chow.”
“Yes, sir. I’m hongry, too.”
It was late in the day and purple darkness was falling
across the grass of the small airfield. Far down the
runway, Rutherford sat atop a red, antique tractor pulling
a wide mowing deck down the runway and the sweet,
earthy smell of freshly mowed grass filled the air.
Overhead, the stars had begun to show as pinholes of
blinking light.
And, later, on opposite sides of a dwindling fire,
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Doc was nestled in his sleeping bag, drowsy, his eyes
heavy and with sleep closing in, he laid his book and
flashlight by his side and rolled over. Meanwhile, Frances
lay on her back, her head cradled in her hands, wide
awake in her sleeping bag, reliving the morning’s lessons
of flight and staring into the increasingly dark cobalt
night sky as she drew imaginary lines from star-to-star
and quietly chuckling to herself when she found the
dippers.
Across the last glowing red embers of the fire, she
suddenly asked, “You know’d that man, don’t you?”
“Who?” said Doc, shaken awake by her voice and,
being so, he was a bit irritated.
“That Mister Tubbs.”
“First, of all, it’s “You know that man...” Doc said
curtly and then he stopped mid-sentence reminding
himself that her misuse of language was part of her
charm and what she knew, and he should ignore the
writer in himself and not correct her. But it was hard to
overlook.
“Yep. I’m pretty sure I do.” he replied. “Did.”
“His airplane is more different than yours.” said
Frances. “It’s only got one wing.”
“It’s a Pawnee. Piper makes them.”
“Cain’t ride but one person, huh?”
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Doc laughed, sat halfway up and propped his head
on one hand to face her, his annoyance fading. “Frances,
it wasn’t built to take but one person, the pilot. It’s an ag
airplane.”
“Oh.” said Frances as if she understood. Doc knew
she didn’t. And he said, “Do you know what an ‘ag’
airplane is?” Frances sat up in her bag and adopted her
all attention pose, her chin cupped in her hands, her
elbows resting on her knees, her eyes locked on his, and
she shook her head no.
“It’s a crop duster. In front of the pilot is a big tank
that holds chemicals that the airplane sprays to kill
insects or fungus on crops. They fly very low across the
big crop fields out here. Don’t see many where I’m from.
There’s a lot of corn and wheat around here, so I guess
that’s how he’s making money.”
“Can yor airplane do that?”
“Nope. It was built just to train pilots.”
“Like yor gonna teach me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And Doc waited a few seconds for effect
before he said, “But only if you let me get some sleep.”
And he rolled on to his back and pulled his sleeping bag
up over his face, and said a muffled “Good night.”
The sun was barely pink in the eastern sky when Doc
pulled the bag down from his face roused by the smell of
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coffee. He rolled to his side to look for Frances, but her
bag was empty and rumpled. About a foot away from his
face sat his tin cup, the coffee’s steam rising from it. The
small fire was now a few licks of soft yellow flames. The
jar of instant coffee with a plastic spoon resting on its top
and the empty water pan sat at the edge of the small fire
pit. The heat from the fire felt good on his face. He
unzipped his bag, sat up and looked around. From Tubb’s
hangar across the way, he heard a soft clunk. He lifted
the cup to his face and looked deep into the hangar trying
to adjust his eyes to the faint morning light. Standing on
the wing walk of the Pawnee was Frances bent over and
looking into the airplane’s open cockpit.
Doc whistled at her sharply and waved at her to come
back. She rose straight and looked at him for a second
before jumping down from the wing and running back to
the fire.
“I was jest lookin’.” she said, slightly out-of-breath.
“Rule one.” said Doc emphatically. “Stay clear of
other people’s airplanes unless they tell you otherwise.”
Frances registered some injury in her gaze and said,
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...” Her hand immediately went
over her mouth in her embarrassment.
Doc waved his hand saying, “It’s all right. Don’t worry
about it. Just consider it part of your flying education.
You didn’t know.” And he took a sip from his cup and
said, “The coffee’s good. Thanks!”
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She smiled that eyes half-closed soft smile that she
did whenever he thanked her for anything before she said,
“Yor welcome.”
Then she said, “You never did tell me how you
know’d that man, Mister Tubbs.”
“This again, huh?” said Doc hoping to avoid the
subject.
She waited patiently for an answer.
“Okay. I knew him down in Florida many years ago. I
only met him briefly a few times, but I remember him well.
He should be dead.”
Frances’s eyes opened wide at that.
“I can’t believe he’s still flying.”
Just then, the Buick, trailing a brown dust cloud,
turned off of the airport boundary road and Rutherford
pulled up behind the small airport office building and
parked.
“I’ll tell you about all this later. Just don’t say
anything, okay?”
Frances put her finger to her lip and winked at him.
Rutherford slammed the door on the old Buick and
walked quick step over to Doc who was sitting cross
legged smoking a cigarette and sipping his coffee. Frances
pretended to be busy repacking her small suitcase
turning her back on the pair.
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Rutherford silently sat down on the ground in front of
Doc and picked up a dry twig, and he dragged it across
the ground in front of himself scratching a thin line in the
dirt in contemplation, obviously needing to say
something. For a few more seconds, he said nothing. Then
he said, “I do remember you.” And he looked at Doc to
study his response.
Doc smiled, chuckled, and replied, “Didn’t think I
was crazy.”
Rutherford laughed dryly. Then after a short pause,
he said, “Can you do me a favor? A big one?”
“I think I know what you are going to say.” said Doc.
“It’s a good life here. No one has ever challenged me. I
think I’m safe. The F.A.A. doesn’t seem to know I exist.”
“Did you ever get your ticket back?”
“No. And that’s the thing of it. I wouldn’t be here if I
had. I’d probably still be in Florida. I started my life over
here, and dusting was the only thing I knew.”
“It wasn’t really your fault, you know. You didn’t do it
on purpose. It was an accident.”
“That’s what I tried to tell ‘em. But you know the
feds.”
“All too well.”
“Well...?” asked Rutherford.
“Will I tell anybody?” asked Doc.
129
Rutherford shook his head yes and waited silently for
the answer.
“Why would I piss on your parade?” said Doc.
“Besides, after that day, I am amazed to see that you are
still alive. The last I heard, you were in the hospital, near
death.”
“It was a long haul, but I guess I’m hard to kill.”
“I guess you are.” said Doc.
Rutherford abruptly lowered his head in relief and
didn’t need to say anything else. He simply got to his feet
and looked down at Doc and extended his hand.
Doc shook his hand firmly and earnestly.
Then Rutherford said, “Thanks! If ever I can do
anything for...”
“Forget it. You gave me a broom. Remember?”
And the pair laughed softly together.
And Rutherford said, “I was afraid to refuse you.”
Only Doc laughed at that.
And Rutherford said, “Thanks! I won’t forget it.”
Doc nodded his head as if to say, “No problem.”
As Rutherford walked away towards his hangar, Doc
raised his voice and said, “Might need a little gas this
morning though.”
130
Rutherford stopped walking and turned to look at
Doc saying, “It’s on the house. Help yourself.”
“It was the tailwind that did it.”
Frances looked at Doc with a questioning stare.
“Okay, let me explain that.”
Frances nodded okay.
“Always try to take off into the wind as it’s blowing
toward you, if there is any wind at all.”
The look of puzzlement was still there.
“It helps the airplane get off the ground faster. If it’s
blowing from behind you, it keeps you on the ground
longer and you need more runway to take-off.”
Her raised eyes registered understanding.
“If you take off into the wind, that’s called “upwind.”
With the wind at your back, that’s “downwind.”
She shook her head that she heard him. But he knew
that she still didn’t understand why. So he told her to
pretend that she was riding in a car with the window
down and she had her had out the window shaped like an
airfoil and pointed up; and he showed her that the wind
coming at her would push her hand up and it created
“lift,” and if her hand was pointed down, the wind would
push her down trying to keep her on the ground and that
was called “drag.” He knew the explanation wasn’t exactly
131
technical, but it would do for her, for now.
Then he looked over at Edy’s windsock, a bright
orange fabric cone barely extended and fluttering only
slightly in the nearly still morning air, and he asked her
which way she would take off this morning?
She pointed west.
“Good!” he said. “Very good.”
Then he said, “Grover,” u-h-h, Mister Tubbs, was
spraying dry fertilizer that morning. He was working out a
big field and there was no wind, so he could take off in
any direction he wanted. To save time, he took off in the
direction of the field on the other side of a tree line, the
field where he would release the fertilizer.”
Frances tried to picture what he was saying, but she
found it hard and asked, “How’d he do it?”
“Do what?”
“Spray the fertilize?”
“Remember I told you about the tank in front of the
pilot?” She nodded yes. “Well, the fertilizer is put in the
tank. The tank is called a ‘hopper.” And in the cockpit
there’s a handle the pilot pulls when he wants to open the
hopper and drop the fertilzer. Understand?”
She nodded that she did.
“And it’s heavy stuff. A full hopper will add about 700
pounds weight to the airplane.”
132
“You have to take off into the wind so’s you get off
quicker, huh?”
“Right!” Doc laughed. And he shook his head yes,
saying, “Good.” Then he said, “The problem that day was
that there was no wind until later in the morning as the
sun got higher in the sky and he wasn’t paying attention.”
Frances’s eyes widened some.
“He made about seven take-offs that morning, all in
the direction of the field he was spraying and during the
last take-off, a very fast tail wind suddenly started
blowing from behind him. It caught him off-guard and he
was committed to the take-off. He had no choice. He had
to try to clear the trees.”
“How’d you know all this?”
“I was one of his loaders. It was my first day. There
were three of us grabbing 75 pound sacks of fertilizer off
of a half-ton truck and loading him as he sat in the
cockpit with the engine running. It was a dirty, dusty,
nasty job. But I needed the money to pay for an airplane I
wanted to buy.”
“The Jenny?”
“Yep.” But then, he shook his head side-to-side and
he said, “But I didn’t get paid that day. Nobody did.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t clear the trees or the guy on the tractor on