NINE

They’re gonna hit!” Dixie’s shout from the rear cockpit rattled the headphones.

Sally gave the throttle a hopeful shove, but their engine was already screaming for all it was worth. She scanned the cockpit. The ship was properly trimmed. There was simply nothing more that she could do to keep up with the two airplanes passing her left wingtip.

She pressed the intercom button. “I know!” Her urgency matched Dixie’s.

At first Sally had thought the pilots of the two airplanes were playing a friendly game of cat-and-mouse. Now she saw that she couldn’t have been more wrong. The lead plane, with markings that plainly showed it was from Avenger, was flying too desperately. The other one, with markings she didn’t recognize, was flying too closely, its propeller at times mere feet from a collision. She’d gotten a good look at the Avenger pilot and knew she was frightened. The girl kept looking over her shoulder. The other pilot, whose face she hadn’t been able to see, was hunched down like an animal on the scent of blood. Both planes were AT-6’s, the most advanced trainer at Avenger. Sleek and powerful, with a tandem cockpit covered by a clear, narrow canopy like the BT-13 that she and Dixie were flying, the AT-6 was said to be the sweetest trainer in the military; whoever was flying this one from Avenger would be nearing graduation. Certainly she knew what she was doing. She was twisting and turning the big machine like an ace.

Dixie demanded, “Can’t you make this piece of junk go any faster?”

Dixie knew as well as she did that they were powerless. Their BT-13 was a big step up from the little PT that Bayard had crashed on Sally’s first day at Avenger months earlier. But no Basic Trainer was a match for an AT-6.

They couldn’t even alert the outside world. Their radio seemed to be working, but atmospherics were keeping it from reaching Avenger, or for that matter anywhere but across the one hundred or so feet that separated their right wingtip from the BT-13 being flown by Geri and copiloted by Twila. This was an all-too-common occurrence with aircraft radios. The things seemed to always work the least when they were needed the most. They couldn’t even talk to or hear the AT-6’s, which apparently were either having their own radio problems or were using some frequency that she and Dixie hadn’t identified. Without the radio, they could only watch and guess at what was going through the minds of the pilots.

One thing was certain. The pursuing pilot was in the wrong. Almost from the moment they’d arrived at Avenger, they’d been lectured that dogfighting was forbidden, the penalty an immediate one-way ticket home, whether the offender was a trainee or a graduate—no exceptions. The same held true for men, who faced court-martial. Sally assumed this pilot was a man, though she couldn’t be certain. It could be a WASP out to harass a trainee for sport. But whoever it was, flying so dangerously close to another airplane labeled him, or her, a fool.

Suddenly the girl from Avenger dropped her plane’s nose. She apparently intended to escape by diving.

But the trailing aircraft also nosed over, and at the same time lowered a wing. With a start, Sally realized its pilot was going to attempt a barrel roll around her.

The pursuer’s wing sliced into the Avenger pilot’s cockpit like a hot knife cutting butter. The two continued as one for an instant. Then the wing jerked free, and the craft from Avenger began a sickening plunge toward Earth.

The surviving AT, built as tough as a safe and as powerful as a fleet of automobiles, staggered on the verge of a snap roll in the direction of its wound. Several feet were missing from the wingtip; wires protruded from the stump like ligaments from a severed hand. But the pilot somehow regained enough control to return to more or less level flight.

Sally jerked the BT’s throttle back, stomped the right rudder, and adjusted the stick. The wing dipped and the nose swung around, allowing her to follow the lead AT’s death plunge.

Suddenly a figure struggled from the mangled cockpit, and a plume of white billowed from her parachute pack. The silk briefly snagged the stricken craft’s tail before slipping free. And the figure continued her earthward tumble beneath the fluttering wing of worthless, collapsed parachute. The tangle of wrecked and twisted metal fell with her, until finally a dirty black ball of smoke appeared on the ground.

“Damn.” Dixie drew the sound out softly.

The BT began to vibrate. The clear Plexiglas canopy above their heads rattled as if about to explode. Sally had let her airspeed decay; the wings were on the edge of a stall. She was going to fall out of the sky, too, if she didn’t start paying attention to what she was doing. She applied power and eased up on the controls.

The other AT-6 was already moving away. Even with a destroyed wing, the big trainer was faster. Sally noted that the pilot was choosing to fly straight ahead instead of turning back to Avenger.

“Did you get any tail numbers?” she asked.

“No.” Dixie’s voice was almost unrecognizable.

She hadn’t, either, and both planes had flown right by them. She felt like a fool. The numbers would have let the authorities quickly identify the pilots.

“Did you get numbers?”

Sally recognized Twila’s voice. As Geri’s copilot, she was seated in the rear of the other BT’s cockpit. They were flying a cross-country exercise. Midway through, they all were supposed to land and refuel. Then each crew would switch duties, with copilots becoming pilots and moving to the front seat and pilots taking the rear responsibilities.

She thumbed the mike button. “I didn’t see the numbers. How about you?”

“No.”

She looked around. Avenger was some distance away. No other airplane was in sight. No houses were nearby. Summer was gone now, and fall had nearly finished sucking away the modest green that had come to West Texas. The area below was all mean wilderness and brown ranch land, for as far as the eye could see. For the moment, the four of them—and the pilot of the quickly disappearing AT-6—were the only ones in the world who knew what had happened.

“Watch your right!”

Dixie’s warning snapped her back to the business of flying. Geri was also piloting a circling pattern above the ugly black column below, and the two planes were getting dangerously close. Midair collisions were a constant danger wherever airplanes congregated. More students seemed to die in the closely packed traffic pattern above Avenger than in bad weather or because of mechanical problems. Sally quickly reduced power and lifted the nose until the other BT was opposite them in the circle.

Twila’s voice came over the radio again. “What do you think we should do?”

“What the hell? Tell her we’re goin’ back to Avenger!” Dixie almost didn’t need to use the intercom, Sally thought.

She looked down. A crude trail ran near the spot where the wreckage lay, put there by decades of passing cattle. There was no wind; smoke from the crash rose straight up. Her idea was crazy, but not impossible. She would have to be careful, though. A radio could be as ineffective as a noodle hammer one minute, and then for no apparent reason blast out everything you said to everyone and his brother.

She pulled the throttle back and pushed the stick forward. The nose instantly dropped, and the BT fell smartly out of the circle.

She keyed the mike button. “Understand?”

A moment passed. Then Twila’s disembodied voice returned. “Roger.”

Dixie yelled, “Hey! You wanna let me in on what we’re doin’?”

The sound of air rushing past the long, clear canopy became louder. Sally alternated between scanning the world outside and the instruments inside. The BT was a stout bird, but like all airplanes, it had its limits. One of those was a maximum dive speed of 230 miles per hour. She doubted the wings would come off if she went a little faster, but she didn’t plan to find out.

“Hey! I said, what are you doin’?”

She gritted her teeth. Dixie knew very well what she was doing.

She pulled on the stick. The BT flattened its descent and leveled off. The centerline of the engine cowling was lined up with the trail now.

The ground appeared flat. No machine or anything created by man was visible in any direction. Except for the cow trail, the area looked exactly as it had for probably two thousand years.

She completed the landing checks. Her eyes told her that they still were going too fast. She pulled the throttle farther back and lifted the nose slightly.

“Hey!”

“I’m landing, Dixie! She may still be alive!”

“Like hell! We were at three thousand feet when that chute collapsed! Nobody falls three thousand feet and lives!”

Common sense told Sally that Dixie was right. But her brain refused to believe that the girl was dead. Maybe her chute caught some air at the last moment. Maybe she had been saved by a miracle. “We have to find out,” she insisted.

The throttle, duplicated in the rear cockpit like every other control and instrument in the trainer, suddenly jerked forward. The big Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engine snorted and roared. The BT instantly picked up speed and altitude.

“Dixie, stop it!” She snapped the engine back to near-idle. The plane immediately slowed.

“Sally, she’s dead!” Dixie jerked the throttle to the wide-open position. “You can’t make an off-field landin’! They’ll wash us out!”

The engine roared and then fell nearly silent and roared again. The BT’s nose rose and fell and rose crazily. She was using all of her strength, but Dixie was stronger. They were only feet above the ground. A crash was certain. She made a final desperate plea.

“Dixie! I’m flying the plane! Let go!”

The engine fell to an idle, and the BT’s tires brushed skinny grass and then hard soil and they rolled to a stop.

Neither spoke. They both knew how close they’d come to killing each other.

Sally set the brake and slid back the forward part of the canopy. The nights had become nippy but the temperature during the day hovered in the mid-seventies. The blast of air from the propeller felt good on her face. “You don’t have to go. You can stay here and watch the plane.” She unsnapped her bulky harness and stood up.

Dixie’s part of the canopy slammed forward, and she stepped onto the narrow walkway atop the wing. Her face twisted with rage. “I didn’t put my modelin’ career on hold and put up with a pile of crap from the army just so you can be a hero!”

“Now, wait!” Dixie’s anger enflamed her own.

“You wait, Sally! She’s dead! Accept it! There’s nothing in the world that you can do for her!”

Self-doubt was trying to grab hold, but she wasn’t going to let Dixie know that. She straightened to her full height. “You know me better than that. Landing was the right thing to do. It is the morally right thing to do.”

Dixie snorted. “The morally right thing?” She sounded like the idea was new to her. “God save us all from people who want the world to do the morally right thing. More crimes have been committed in the name of doin’ the morally right thing than there are Baptists in Texas!” She jumped to the ground.

“Hon, do me a favor the next time you plan on doin’ somethin’ real stupid. Let me know ahead of time, so I can go find somebody else to fly with. Because I didn’t come into this war with any busted bones or gray hairs. And I sure don’t plan on takin’ any with me when I leave!”

A reflection of light interrupted the argument.

The other BT was on final approach. The trainer seemed to hang in the air for a moment before slipping gracefully to the hard-packed ground.

Sally turned away, her thoughts distracted. She and Dixie had nearly killed each other. She had started a course of action that, if discovered, would wreck all their lives. And Geri, surely one of the most arrogant and nasty and spoiled women in the world, had somehow become a good pilot—or maybe even, a great pilot. It almost was too much to digest.

Dixie studied the slowly approaching BT. “Do you think Geri’s flyin’ that thing?”

Sally jumped off the wing. She knew that she would make the same decision again about landing, if the situation repeated itself. She answered, “Yes.”

Dixie, apparently focused only on Geri, hissed, “Just goes to show that even a jackass can learn to land an airplane . . . if the government’s stupid enough to spend enough time and money trainin’ it.” She crossed her arms. “Monkey see. Monkey do. That’s all that was!”

They both knew that Dixie couldn’t have made that landing—just as they both knew that even the prospect of dying or being washed out wasn’t as threatening to Dixie as Geri outshining her. Sally allowed herself a brief smile. It was comforting to know that if she somehow shot Dixie this afternoon, or set her on fire or caused her to tumble down an abandoned well, it wouldn’t make her friend as angry as seeing Geri make a perfect landing on a cow trail.

The BT rocked to a stop. As Sally had done, Geri set the brake and opted to leave the engine idling in case it proved difficult to start later. The front part of the canopy slid back and the rear moved forward. The two pilots emerged and dropped to the ground. They joined Sally and Dixie.

No one spoke as the four women moved, as one, toward the boiling, black smoke rising from behind a hill.

As they approached the wreck, the only sounds were the slow idling of the engines behind them and the soft crackling of the flames in front of them. Everything that wasn’t metal had already burned away, except the black ham that had landed within the flames of the wreck. No arms or legs or neck or head were still connected to the ham. They also had burnt away.

They stopped. They could have gone closer, but there seemed no point. A grasshopper fleeing the flames sped by in search of safety.

Sally heard a low moan and turned to find Geri a handful of steps behind. She was throwing up. Her vomit came in hard, gagging explosions that left just enough time for her to gasp a breath of air. This was Geri’s introduction to death, she suddenly realized—or at least, to this kind of death, so naked and so violent. No flowers here. No music. No expensive cloth for the cold flesh, or comfort for those death had left. No one here to step forward to assure Geri that all would be alright. This was death. And it was horrible.

Her belly apparently emptied, Geri started to sob. Twila moved to steady her. She placed her arm around Geri’s shoulder and drew her head to her chest, and her body began to move ever-so-slightly to the motion of Geri’s sobs.

Sally stared at the remains of the girl. “I’m so sorry.” Her throat muscles closed. Not that it made any difference. There was nothing more to say.

There was no reason in the world for this to have happened. The day was a good one for flying. The planes were obviously airworthy, the pilots obviously skilled. What had caused the other pilot to do such a thing? And this was the result: the ruined AT-6, the ruined dreams of the ruined girl, the unkindness of a world festering in unkindness. Why?

She felt Dixie’s hand on her arm. “You can’t do anything for her, hon. Men have been killin’ women since day one. Either because we wouldn’t give ’em what they wanted or because they got their bow and their arrow pointed in the wrong direction or because, like here, he wanted to show off what’s between his legs. Unfortunately for her, it turned out not to be much.”

Sally turned away from the ruins. “Are you sure a man was flying the other plane?”

“Yeah!” Dixie said. “I saw him. I got a good look at him.”

Twila joined them. “I saw him, too. It was a man.”

“There are four of us! How could we all have missed their numbers? It just doesn’t make sense!” Sally shook her head.

“We weren’t expecting this to happen,” Twila said. “When it did, it happened so quickly that we couldn’t react. Don’t beat yourself up, Sally. This isn’t your fault, or the fault of any of us. They’ll find him—and he’ll be punished, unless he crashes and dies first. Which wouldn’t surprise me, since part of his wing is missing. But she won’t go unavenged. You can be sure of that. He’ll either go to the morgue or the stockade.”

Dixie spun around. Her eyes were wet. “A hell of a lot of good that’ll do her! She’s dead!”

“Justice is for the living,” Twila said.

Dixie exploded. “Bullshit! That’s just a lot of bullshit . . . just like everything else you learned in that college you’re so proud of going to! It was a waste of time! And everything you’re sayin’ now is a waste of time! She’s dead! That’s all that matters. She’s dead and that’s the end of it! Anything else is just a bunch of highfalutin crap they taught you that won’t put a morsel in your mouth or the first thread of a shirt on your back or so much as a penny in your pocket. And if you can’t see that, you’re not nearly as smart as you like to think you are.”

“Maybe you’re right, Dixie,” Twila answered kindly. “But the only way to judge a philosophy is to examine the lives of those who live it. So in the end, we won’t know if you’re right about the beliefs I lived my life by until I’m dead.”

Dixie looked like she was searching for more to say. But she apparently was unable to settle on anything, and she angrily turned away.

A breeze was coming up. The flames licked in their direction. But Sally wasn’t ready to abandon this girl, whoever she had been, so immediately after dying. Suddenly she didn’t care if she had broken a dozen regulations. Landing had been the right thing to do. If it had been her lying in those flames, and if her spirit somehow managed to survive and she was aware of what was going on, she would have dearly appreciated someone caring enough to stay with her a moment to share her sorrow and perhaps her fear. It was the right thing to do. It was the human thing.

“Why?” She asked the question aloud.

Dixie didn’t hesitate. “Same reason it nearly always is. He’s an asshole!” She wiped her eyes. “I betcha he’s part of that bunch that keeps gettin’ just lost enough to find Avenger. The word’s out to every air force on earth, ya know: Women are flyin’ out of Avenger Field in West Texas. There’s even a rumor we’re flyin’ around topless! I’m just surprised the Germans and Japs haven’t shown up yet with their cameras.”

Twila stared at the flames. Her face was wet. She whispered, “Good-bye, sweetie. It wasn’t your fault. You gave everything you had . . . and he still killed you. I wonder sometimes if I’m not locked up on a planet for the insane.” She looked so sad, Sally thought. No—it was more than that. In that moment, Twila had become old.

Geri moved close to Twila but avoided looking into the wreck. “We should pray for her.”

Sally had considered the idea but decided it would be hypocritical. Her father had beaten her to make her pray. She still remembered those lashings as if they were yesterday. Geri could pray if she wanted, and she would bow her head respectfully, but nothing more.

Geri clasped her hands and closed her eyes and lowered her head. “Oh, Father, show justice to this poor innocent girl. Take her into your all-powerful arms and protect her from further tragedy. Be merciful to her soul, Father. And allow her to live with you and Jesus and Mary and the apostles and the angels and all those who are pure of heart that are in heaven with you right now. Amen.”

“Amen,” Twila echoed, as did Dixie, though beneath her breath.

Geri dried her eyes. “She’s in heaven! I’m sure she made it to heaven! God wouldn’t keep her out of heaven after this!”

Dixie’s mouth tightened. “How would you know?”

Geri’s vulnerability vanished. “She’ll go to heaven! She was murdered!”

“What are you, five years old?” Dixie growled. “Is that what they taught you in that big church your daddy gives lots and lots of money to? If you get murdered, or you pay off the preacher enough, you’ll get to heaven?”

“That’s blasphemy!”

“No, stupid! It’s horse sense! I don’t know where she’s goin’ , or where she is right now, any more than you do. But I do know that if buyin’ your way into heaven is possible, then bein’ there’s no more of a good deal than bein’ on a used car lot!”

Geri pointed her finger. “You’re going to hell!”

Dixie smiled grimly. “Maybe. But I’ll show up with a clear conscience!”

“Stop it.” Twila stepped between them. “It’s not important! Whatever is, is! Praying or hoping or wishing or arguing isn’t going to change that for her. All any of us can change is what we do and how we act while we’re alive. To argue over what happens after is idiotic! There’s no way to know until you’re dead! Can’t you see that? Can’t you see how stupid you sound? Can’t you understand how it must confuse her—maybe even hurt her, if she can hear you?” Her voice was broken off by tears.

Dixie and Geri looked away from each other.

Sally wiped her face on her sleeve. She would never be as smart as Twila. She learned something every time Twila spoke, though she often didn’t fully understand everything she said. Twila seemed bigger than life, a sculpture on the side of a mountain. She would never have imagined Twila losing control.

She pointed to their footprints. “We have to get out of here.”

Twila was still having difficulty, but she nodded.

Dixie and Geri also nodded, while ignoring each other.

“One thing . . .” Sally added. “We are all in this together. And we were never here! If any of us says otherwise, we’ll pay the price equally. Does everyone understand? And do we all agree?”

Everyone nodded. Twila took a deep breath and added, “Yes.”

Sally turned to the thing in the flames. “I’m so, so, so sorry.” There was nothing more to be said and nothing more to do. They moved toward the planes.

The BTs waited just as they had left them. Except for the heat on their backs and the smell and sound of burning gasoline and grass, there wasn’t a clue that death had come here.

They wordlessly climbed into the cockpits and got out of there as quickly as the propellers would take them.

No one was waiting when they taxied to a stop on Avenger’s flight line. Sally cut off fuel to the engine and watched the big propeller snap awkwardly to a stop. The radio had remained quiet during the ride back to the base, and she and Dixie had barely spoken over the intercom.

Dixie finally broke the silence. “What’s your idea?” She made no move to unbuckle herself.

“I’m going to report.” Sally gathered her things and stood up.

“Report what? What are you gonna tell ’em?”

She moved onto the wing. “The truth. Or at least, the most important part of it.”