39
The Incredible Eagle & Crane Barnstorming Spectacle
Monterey, California * August 15, 1941
For the most part, Eagle & Crane was a success. Its colorful, costumed pageantry appealed to children, while the very real peril of the daredevil stunts Louis and Harry attempted kept the adults gasping, almost hoping to see an accident, and then breathing a sigh of relief when they didn’t. Their first few crowds did exactly what Ava hoped: They gossiped about it to friends and neighbors.
It was a different sort of operation than Earl’s flying circus had been. Ava kept a very organized schedule of where they were performing. Each stop offered a proper airfield, where they typically performed two or three times over the course of a weekend. Their crowds were no longer the impromptu product of kicking up a fuss in the sky over this or that small farming town; now they were entirely reliant on advertising. Ava commissioned Louis to draw up his most colorful representations of Eagle & Crane in action, and had bright, glossy posters printed up.
Louis was happy to accommodate and proud to have helped create their new, unusual barnstorming act. However, he was anxious about the fact that they were slow to see the kinds of profits he’d imagined. According to Ava, performing Eagle & Crane was expensive: There was the cost of the airfields, the expense of the costumes and props, the price of printing up posters and placing advertisements . . . the list went on. The price to ensure you could fill an airfield full of paying spectators was steep, and consequently the show’s profits were sluggish at first.
Unfortunately for Louis, he’d gotten ahead of himself during the winter months he and Harry had spent designing the act and coming up with new stunts. He knew his brother Guy would not approve of any of it—of Louis barnstorming again, or of Louis continuing to fraternize with their hated neighbors—and Louis had managed to keep his meetings with Harry a secret. But when it came time to put on their first performance and later to ship out with the act, there was no more hiding it; he had to come clean with Guy. As expected, Guy was not pleased. Louis was needed around the ranch, Guy said, and if Louis insisted on running off with another flying circus—this one directly owned by the Yamadas, no less—then maybe Louis oughtn’t bother coming back to the ranch at all. Louis figured maybe he could change Guy’s mind when he started sending more money back home than ever before. By that point, Louis had gotten swept up in the excitement of imagining Eagle & Crane as a runaway success, making money hand over fist, and dazzling all.
They were starting to gather some good-sized crowds, but they weren’t nearly at the level of fame Louis had allowed himself to fantasize about, and nowhere near as rich as he’d dreamed. The winds of fortunes would have to change, or else Louis would have to find some other way to make amends with Guy.
They were busy that summer. They began performing shows in early May and had plans to continue all the way through September. Ava had booked air shows for them all over the state: down south in Lancaster and Riverside . . . then up north, near the border of Nevada, in Grass Valley and Truckee, then west again to the Salinas Valley, where they played Hollister and Watsonville. The most recent stop was an airfield near the Monterey Peninsula.
After they performed a weekend full of shows, Buzz and Hutch decided to take a couple of days to try the local deep-sea fishing. Ava thought it might be a good idea for Louis, Harry, and her to spend some time by the seashore.
“We’ve all worked so hard to get the show up and running, we’ve earned a little holiday, I’d say,” Ava argued. “Superheroes or not, even Eagle & Crane have to rest sometime.”
They explored the three little towns the peninsula had to offer: Monterey with its wharf and cannery full of fishermen roaming about in bib overalls, the charming walk along the shallow cliffs of Pacific Grove with its pretty Victorian houses, and the surprisingly quaint, English-looking village of Carmel. It was cold and foggy in the mornings, sunny and pleasant in the afternoons. The sandy beach in Carmel was surprisingly white, and the water shocking turquoise. The water’s enticing color almost made Ava want to swim in it—if a dip of her toe hadn’t warned her of its brutal chill.
The air smelled of cypress, redwoods, and eucalyptus. The dunes along the beach were dotted with manzanita, coastal sage, and a variety of sprawling ice plant that seemed to erupt in a fountain of brilliant purple flowers. As they toured around, they saw otters playing in Christmas-colored kelp, and pods of whales visible from shore with the naked eye. It was beautiful there—more beautiful than any place Louis had ever seen.
On their last day there, Ava announced that she had a plan. She disappeared that morning, but not before making Louis and Harry promise to meet her around one o’clock that afternoon.
When she came back, she was driving the convertible coupe they used for the car-to-plane transfer stunt in their show.
“You fellas comin’?” she hollered as she pulled up to where the group had been camping quietly in the woods.
“She’s driving?” Louis said to Harry as they walked toward the open car.
“I wouldn’t try talking her out of it if I were you,” Harry advised, exchanging a smile with Louis.
“Where’s our destination?” was all Louis said as he and Harry piled into the car.
“You’ll see. Hold on to your hats, boys, if you’d like to keep them!”
She hit the accelerator and they sped away. Ava steered the car south, onto the curving, treacherous coastal highway, Highway One. It was a winding, exciting, breathtaking road, vast and full of surprises but mainly devoid of people. Big Sur—or El Grande Sur, as the Spanish missionaries had named it—the great, rugged landscape lay south of Monterey and Carmel.
Ava alternately punched the accelerator and brake, picking her way along the frighteningly steep cliffs, each twist and turn of asphalt offering a glimpse of yet another tiny, eerily pristine beach nestled between the ominous-looking jutting rocks down below.
Finally, Ava pulled off the highway into a dirt turnout surrounded by a wooded area and put the car in park. She cut the engine and scrambled out of the vehicle.
“Someone fetch up that picnic basket tucked in the rumble seat, would you?” she called, staring into the thick underbrush and cypress trees as though searching for something. She took off at a brisk pace. They followed with the basket as requested, hiking along a little path to a rocky outcropping.
“There!” Ava shouted, pointing to a small cabin perched at the farthest point.
“That? That looks abandoned,” Louis commented.
It was a wooden structure with a little stone chimney, the whole of it somehow anchored by stilts to the rocks. The wood was dark and wet, perpetually soaked by salt spray and sea fog. Electric-yellow and rusty-red lichen bloomed in asymmetrical patterns; the roof was made of shale and polka-dotted with several years’ worth of birds’ nests.
They drew nearer.
“You saw this earlier?” Louis pressed Ava. “From . . . an earlier drive?”
Ava didn’t answer.
“When did you have the time to drive the coast?” Louis wanted to know. For the slimmest of seconds, he thought he saw Harry give Ava a look that he couldn’t quite read. But Ava seemed wholly distracted by the dilapidated cabin.
“You’re right, Louis,” Ava mused. “I think it is abandoned.”
Louis frowned.
“Look, though.” Harry pointed to where rusty iron bars anchored the cabin’s stilts to the giant basalt boulders beneath it. “Someone took all the trouble to do that.” He continued to indicate the cabin’s unusual foundation.
“I love it,” Ava murmured. “It’s a ramshackle Frankenstein of a thing.”
“You would love it,” Louis said. “I doubt it’s safe to go inside.”
“Only one way to find out,” Ava said with a gleam in her eyes.
Now Louis’s frown deepened. “Ava, don’t—” Louis started to complain, but Ava had already scampered out of earshot, leaping from rock to rock, quickly advancing upon the cabin. She approached the front door, tried the latch, and disappeared inside.
“I guess we’re going in,” Harry laughed.
Harry followed Ava, and Louis—grudgingly—followed Harry.
It was mostly empty inside. There were a couple of forgotten wooden chairs with broken backs, and in one corner, an empty mattress frame with no mattress. Louis and Harry watched as Ava poked around cupboards filled with cobwebs. Inside were a few tins of soup and sardines and a packet of molding crackers. There were two large, shuttered windows on either side of the fireplace. Ava undid the latches on the shutters—the mystery architect had deemed glass panes unnecessary—and pushed them open. The wooden shutters groaned on rusty hinges to reveal a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean at its most rugged and feral.
“Holy moly,” was all Ava said in an awed voice. She spun around. “Why did anyone ever leave this place?” she asked rhetorically. But Louis thought he could come up with a few answers.
“Picnic time,” she announced brightly, whirling around. She took the basket from Harry, who had been holding it all the while.
One by one, she produced item after item. Her choices represented all the foods the region was locally famous for: crabs from the Monterey wharf, artichokes from Castroville, a skinny loaf of bread and a stick of butter from a general store in Carmel. She spread a blanket on the floor and reached into the basket again to bring out some tin cups and plates. At Ava’s direction, Harry fussed with the fireplace to get the flue open and started a fire to warm the artichokes, the butter, and the bread.
“That stuff wasn’t terribly expensive, but I have to confess, I did splurge a little when I got . . . this!” Louis and Harry both raised their eyebrows in surprised appreciation as she produced a bottle of champagne.
“Louis?” Ava nudged, handing him the bottle. Louis took it and obediently worked to loosen the cork from the neck. Too late, the cork sprang away with a loud pop!
“Quick! Quick!” Ava said, hurrying cups into their hands and gesturing for Louis to pour as best he could.
They tucked into the feast Ava had laid before them. The crab was delicious—fresher than anything Louis had ever eaten. Out the two giant open windows, the Pacific steadily roared.
“You know,” Ava mused, “we’ve never actually toasted it.”
“Toasted what?” Louis asked.
“Eagle & Crane.”
“Easy enough to remedy,” Harry said. “To Eagle & Crane!”
They raised their tin cups and clinked.
“It’s a good show,” Ava said once they had all taken a long sip.
“It is,” Harry agreed.
“What’s the matter, Louis?” Ava said, noticing the faraway look in his eyes. “Aren’t you proud of it? The costumes, the routines . . . So much of it was your design, I would think you’d be proud!”
Louis nodded quietly. He hesitated and decided to come out with the matter that had been nagging him since they’d begun the show earlier that summer. “I just . . . well . . . I’d hoped we’d make more profit . . . I’d been hoping to send some home, make up with my older brother . . .”
“I think we still will,” Harry said. “I have this feeling . . . this feeling that Eagle & Crane is going to catch the attention of someone or something . . . big,” he added, the happy-go-lucky arrogance back in his voice.
Louis gazed at Harry. It struck him that optimism came much more easily to those who didn’t need it so desperately.
“Well . . . I hope so . . .” Louis replied. He raised his cup. “I’ll drink to that.”
They clinked cups a second time. Guzzling so much champagne in such a short time was beginning to make all three of them feel a little warm and fuzzy.
“I love this place,” Ava said dreamily, glancing around at the run-down shack. “I’d stay here forever if I could.”
“Doesn’t seem like there’s any proprietor around to run you off,” Harry joked.
Louis looked between the two of them as they laughed, and an odd feeling came over him. His mind drifted back to the questions he’d asked Ava earlier—the questions she’d ignored, about how and when she’d glimpsed the abandoned cabin in the first place. It wasn’t visible from the road. It was the sort of thing you could only see from a boat . . . or . . . an airplane. A small suspicion began to form in Louis’s mind.
But, seeing Ava’s face shine with happiness as they sat picnicking in the derelict cabin, he pushed his suspicion off for another day.