22
Earl Shaw’s Flying Circus
Napa, California * June 28, 1940
Harry was relieved to be on friendlier speaking terms again with Louis Thorn. It took a lot of concentration to spend so many hours in another man’s presence and not talk to him openly. Over the course of the past two months, they had hollered back and forth to each other while doing stunts or learning how to fly the two Stearman planes—but that was just what men did; they hazed their rivals. All banter ceased once Harry and Louis were down on the ground. And it was excruciatingly awkward to eat and sleep around a campfire—only a stone’s throw away from each other—while trying to uphold a strict code of hostile silence.
Now something had eased between the two. Sometimes they joined in Hutch and Buzz’s conversations in the evenings; sometimes they even carried on small talk of their own. One evening Louis even swapped a comic book for one of Harry’s magician magazines as they read around the campfire. They still shouted insults at each other while stunting, zooming around high in the air, but more often than not, the insults were followed by a friendly laugh that suggested it was all in good fun.
The competition between them continued to escalate, but now, instead of feeling like they were bound by a bitter stand-off, there was a kind of mad joy to it all. The flying circus left the Sacramento area and pushed west, toward San Francisco. During a performance in Dixon, a good-sized crowd held its breath as Buzz piloted Pollux overhead while Harry shimmied down to the landing gear, hooked his legs over the bar between the two wheels, and hung upside down, waving his arms like a happy fool.
“Aww, for Christ’s sake, Harry—why’d you have to go and do that for?!” Louis shouted once they were back on the ground.
“You don’t have to do everything I do, Thorn,” Harry replied, grinning. “Nobody’s making ya.”
Louis’s only retort was to let out a chuff. They were both aware of Ava standing nearby. Harry’s eyes flicked in her direction.
“Don’t look to me for a pat on the back,” she said. “I already told you: I think the pair of you are proof positive that bravery and idiocy sometimes go hand in hand.”
She gave a toss of her jaunty red bob and walked away.
It was definitely less lonely for Harry now that Louis had let down his guard around him, but as far as Ava was concerned, the jury was still out. It was a shame, because Harry recognized something in Ava, a quality Harry bore in common. They had both spent most of their lives as outsiders, although each for different reasons.
The group drifted in the general direction of San Francisco, but before they got quite there, they turned and headed north for a spell as they neared the San Pablo Bay. They passed through Carneros, a sheepherding valley, and up along the Napa Valley. The land grew increasingly picturesque. Rubbled, stony foothills laced with the vibrant green of grapevines: They were in wine country. Prohibition had ended more than six years earlier, and the region was thrumming with fresh energy.
They performed as they went along and Earl was in fine spirits, seeing the number of curious locals who steadily turned up. By that point Harry and Louis had worked out a routine that included a handful of stunts only the professionals in Hollywood typically performed. People oohed and aahed and eagerly lined up to purchase an airplane ride of their very own.
When they weren’t wing walking for others, they were often practicing the less-flashy basics of aviation. By the time the group reached Napa, Harry and Louis had learned how to fly the biplanes with a level of competence that meant Buzz and Hutch could allow them to fly short solo flights.
“That’s how you really earn your wings, technically speaking,” Hutch informed them. “Flying solo!”
Solo flights made Harry feel freer than he ever had in all his life. Even short flights could be mesmerizingly peaceful, flying toward the horizon while watching the patchwork of land rolling far below unfurl like a never-ending quilt. When it came to solo flights, the irony was that it made him want to share the moment with another person.
Around that time, Harry had also begun a sort of game with Ava. It wasn’t that she had grown any friendlier toward him but rather that Harry had discovered that Ava’s stubborn streak meant she couldn’t resist proving him wrong, even if it meant accepting a dare.
He began with little amusements, the kinds of pastimes easily found around farm towns. Despite her almost getting caught the day she’d tried to steal the book, Harry learned that Ava was actually pretty skilled in her sleight of hand—just as she’d claimed. She could pick a person’s pocket without him ever feeling a thing. Harry began to challenge her to other tests of light thievery. Later he graduated to a wider variety of minor dares: sharpshooting bottles off a fence post, or holding a contest to see who could rope a steer. Challenging Ava to various dares didn’t melt her stubborn, icy disposition any, but it was an amusing way to pass the time—Harry suspected, perhaps, for both of them.
But one morning Harry surprised himself when he blurted out an altogether unexpected dare. “I bet you won’t go up for a ride in Pollux,” he said as he helped her fill the biplane’s tank with a heavy can of gasoline.
Ava’s eyes widened. Then she tilted her head at Harry and her eyes narrowed with scrutiny. “A ride? You mean . . . with you as the pilot?”
“Sure,” Harry said, shrugging. He grinned.
“Hah! Do you think I’m a fool?” She rolled her eyes.
“I think you’re scared is what I think . . .”
Ava’s eyes flashed. She held his gaze for a full minute.
“Fine,” she said, straightening her spine and standing up to full height. “I will.”
Now it was Harry’s turn to be taken off guard, and his eyes widened.
“You will? You’ll go up with me?”
She stuck out her chin. “I ain’t backing down. But if you were just spoutin’ off your mouth and didn’t plan on going through with this . . . well . . . that’s your business, I reckon, but it’s not my fault.”
Harry felt his heart palpitate, a heavy lurching in his chest.
“No, no,” he said, on impulse. “I’ll take you up—if you’re not too afraid.”
Ava stared at him, wide-eyed with defiance. Harry thought he saw a glimmer of something else in her eyes, too. Was that animal terror? It was too late to back out; he also sensed neither of them was about to shy away. He peered around to determine whether anyone else was listening to them.
“Well, all right,” Harry said, “it’s a deal.”
Ava nodded, but the color was quickly draining out of her face. Harry leaned in, confidential, his mind already working over the logistics.
“And unless you want a lot of fuss,” Harry said, “I reckon we ought to figure out some way to go up together without anyone else knowin’ . . .”
“Yes,” Ava agreed.
Their eyes locked. They both knew this endeavor—whatever it was—would have to be their secret.
“All right,” Harry said, taking command of the situation. He had a plan.
Harry was never nervous to fly—nothing about aviation frightened him—and yet, when he took off that morning, he was surprised to realize that there were butterflies in his stomach. Perhaps it was that he wasn’t accustomed to telling lies; he had lied to Hutch and Buzz—and also to Louis, who had asked Harry where he was planning to fly.
Ava had lied as well. The sun had barely risen when she told her mother and Earl she was going to take a walk, maybe go to town. The truth was, she would need a comfortable head start in order to meet Harry somewhere far out of eyeshot of where they’d made camp.
“So early?” was Cleo’s only question.
But nobody stopped either one of them. So off Ava went, on foot. And some time later, Harry fired up the engine of Pollux and taxied across the field, getting up to speed and taking to the sky. He flew for ten minutes or so—long enough to take him a few miles away from his takeoff point.
Landmarks were the easiest guides for a pilot to follow. There was a little river that dipped into the outskirts of the town of Napa, and they had mutually agreed that Ava should follow the river to a place Harry had glimpsed in previous flights—another flat, empty field.
Now, as he came upon the appointed spot, he felt the butterflies in his stomach again and knew beyond a doubt that it was not the act of flying, not even the guilt over the lies they’d both told; it was Ava herself. His heart and stomach gave a synchronous lurch as he spotted her from the air, her petite figure in trousers, her coppery hair glinting in the light. He circled, bringing the Stearman down lower and lower, managing to pull off a gentle landing. He hoped she hadn’t been waiting long as he cut the engine.
“Are you ready?” he hollered, yanking off his goggles and climbing down so as to help her up.
He took one look at her face and had to laugh—a laugh of joy mixed with sympathetic angst: She looked every bit as nervous as he felt. Perhaps she looked even more so, for Harry noticed a grayish-green tint to her complexion. He saw she was carrying a small knapsack and tried to make a joke to lighten the mood.
“Say—whatcha got in there?” he asked. “Brought your own parachute?”
But Ava, still looking a little green around the gills, refused to laugh.
“If only,” she replied.
“Don’t worry,” he urged as she attempted a queasy smile. Somehow, in the past twenty-four hours, something had shifted between them, and they had become coconspirators. “It’s safe; I promise.”
Ava looked at him and took a breath. She had spent over five years watching airplanes zoom into the sky without ever journeying up once herself. Now she reached out a hand and accepted Harry’s help into the cockpit to embark upon her very first flight.