ONE

Sally Ketchum peered over the edge of the cockpit.

They were over Oklahoma by now. Or maybe it was still Texas down there. There was no way to tell, really . . . the pitifully dried-out browns of one were pretty much identical to the other. But the truth was that she didn’t care where they were, exactly. And she was pretty sure that Tex didn’t, either. Texas was behind them, or soon would be. Oklahoma was beneath them, or soon would be. And soon up ahead was sure to be a town that was near a field of adequate width and flatness and emptiness to set the Jenny down safely.

Once the wings and tail were staked and the big cloth sign hung beside the nearest road to announce their intentions, they’d make a fire to heat their beans and water for coffee, and break out what was left of the makings for sandwiches. Then they’d crawl beneath the Jenny’s wide old cloth wings and into each other’s arms and drift off to sleep beneath a blanket of a billion stars. Come sunrise, word would have spread like wildfire that an airplane had landed in so-and-so’s field, its two occupants intending to sell rides to whomever was adequately rich in spirit and free with dollars for a once-in-a-lifetime, bird’s-eye view of the world.

She leaned back. The hurricane force of the propeller and the blast of gases from the engine’s exhaust instantly lessened, thanks to the little cocoon of relative protection provided by the wooden cockpit and the small windscreen that jutted from the fuselage a few inches forward of her head. Farther forward, just behind the howl of the engine and even more directly in the path of the sheen of engine oil that accompanied the howl, was an identical cockpit and within it, Tex. She could plainly see the top of his shoulders and neck, and the canvas flying helmet and goggles on his head that were like her own. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew from experience that it would be even grittier than hers. Despite a hard and not-so-profitable day of giving rides in Texas, he had insisted that she take the more comfortable rear cockpit, the one from which the Jenny typically was flown. She’d had a twinge of guilt but still had jumped at the chance. Next to Tex, flying had become the most important thing in her life.

It had been six months since Tex introduced her to the good things that lay beyond the huge East Texas piney woods that circled her daddy’s poor dirt farm. The farm and her daddy’s drinking and ranting had been her suffocating hell for eighteen years. Then Tex had dropped out of the sky one morning on his way to nowhere in particular, and after they’d talked for a while like two people who’d known each other all their lives, she’d climbed aboard the Jenny and flown off with him. Just like that, she’d gone from breathing but being dead, to loving life as much as rock candy. Tex had even insisted she get her pilot’s license so she could share equally in the flying from one county fair to the next and to the hick towns in between. He’d become the only person she’d ever loved, the only person she’d ever felt completely at ease with, the only one who’d ever understood her, and her only try at completely trusting someone other than herself. The experiment had paid off bigger than the electric light bulb.

She pushed her foot against the left rudder pedal and shoved the control stick in the same direction. A slight crosswind was causing the Jenny to drift off course. Or more probably, the rigging—the wires and pulleys that allowed the plane to climb and to turn and dive—needed adjusting again. Or maybe the old plane’s guts were just exhausted from a quarter-century of impolite flying. This Jenny and a thousand more like it had been built more than twenty years earlier to train pilots for the First World War. Those not reduced to kindling in the hands of bad students or by bad luck had eventually been sold to everyone from former military pilots to farmer wanna-be pilots. The fact that this one still was in one piece was a near-miracle. But in Tex’s hands, and increasingly in her own, the ancient relic performed like a ballerina, albeit one of advanced years and with more than a touch of arthritis.

The browns two thousand feet below were darkening. It would be nighttime soon. They would need to land while there was still enough light to see what they were doing.

Tex had reached the same decision. They could almost read each other’s minds now, which was handy as noise from the engine and the distance between the cockpits made conversation impossible. He lifted his hand to his forehead as if shading his eyes and moved his head from side to side in an exaggerated movement, and then looked back to see if she understood.

She nodded quickly. She was already looking for a town, or at least a clump of civilization. Without instruments to guide them, they navigated by railroad tracks that inevitably lead to a town. Or when they could get them, they used automobile road maps. But this evening there were no steel rails, nor any maps. All that she could see in all directions were miles and miles of brown, broken occasionally by the glint of a solitary farmhouse. The unfurling of their sign would have to wait. They would be spending tonight alone, with nothing but the stars and maybe the distant howl of a coyote for company. She smiled greedily. She doubted that even the angels were in for such happiness.

She again moved the rudder and control stick. This time she used considerable force. The Jenny’s engine was underpowered even on the rare days when it was running at its full potential. Huge amounts of stick and rudder were necessary for just a little change in direction. Finally she let the old plane lazily right itself. A flat spot of ground lay directly ahead. She began working the throttle toward her. The sound of the engine instantly dipped. Tex extended his thumb above his head, signaling his approval. Her grin deepened, and she didn’t even notice her chapped lips.

The air around them was unnaturally calm, as if some invisible hand were protecting them from the ordinary turbulence that so often lingered during the blistering days of August.

She played the landing in her mind’s eye: The big wire-spoke wheels brushing spots of burnt grass. The tires kissing the brown underneath, raising little trails of dust. The wheels, unfettered by any brakes, rolling roughly for a few moments and then coming to a stop.

Her feet and hands continuously adjusted the Jenny’s path through the air. Her smile exploded. She was born for this, just as she was born to be with Tex. She had become more than herself. She and the Jenny and Tex and the world had become one.

Suddenly something fluttered in the gloom ahead. Two enormous black shapes rose from the ground, their wings flapping mightily in the listless air. As if intent on murder and then suicide, they hung in the very spot where the Jenny was pointed.

Her left hand slammed the throttle forward. Her right pulled back on the stick as much as she dared while her brain fought to sense the stall that would send them crashing like a brick into the ground. But just then Tex wrestled the controls from her. In a dangerously calculated move, he was turning the plane to the right and lowering the nose to gain airspeed.

She felt the plane teeter. She held her breath.

But it wasn’t enough. One turkey buzzard hit the prop dead-on. The engine screamed and the old airframe started shaking itself to pieces as the propeller shattered. The second bird struck the upper wing on the right side. She sensed more than heard the ancient wood and fabric splinter and rip apart. Even Tex couldn’t save them then.

The Jenny met the ground head-on. The hot engine drove backward into the fragile gas tank; the impact threw her clear of the fireball.

She lay on the ground and watched the flames consume the cockpits. And she screamed and screamed, as all that she loved vanished forever from the universe.