The Last Pilot: A Novel
Page 2
What do you want, you miserable pudknocker? Pancho said, looking up from her broom.
You know, he said.
You’re early.
I’m up at eleven.
Gracie know you’re here?
Practically her idea.
She’s too good for a peckerwood like you.
Got any Luckies? I’m all out.
Get your ass over here you ol bastard.
She poured him a drink and he sat at the bar.
You know I love you, Pancho.
Well, don’t I feel better.
I’m up again at one.
You’re only up at one if you don’t auger in at eleven.
Can’t see that bein a problem.
You all never do, sweetie, she said, glancing at the wall where photographs of dead pilots hung. The frames began behind the bar, marring the far wall with grinning men standing beside cockpits and airplanes knocking contrails into the sky. Whenever someone augered in, she’d nail their picture up and say, dumb bastard.
Pancho had broad shoulders, dark hair and a face that looked like it was stuck in a nine-g pullout. Her real name was Florence Leontine Lowe. She grew up in a thirty-room mansion in San Marino, waited on by servants. Her grandfather, Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, was an entrepreneur, engineer and balloonist; a hero of the Civil War. Papa Lowe doted on his granddaughter. When she was eight, he took her to the world’s first aviation exhibition; a ten-day extravaganza in the hills above Long Beach. Florence watched Glenn Curtiss and Lincoln Beachey fly high and fast around the field in their biplanes for a three thousand dollar prize and was captivated. It wasn’t the machines, it was the men. When she was old enough, she stopped riding horses and started flying airplanes. Her mother disapproved of her new lifestyle and, as soon as she turned eighteen, arranged for her to marry the Reverend C. Rankin Barnes. She lasted fourteen months as a minister’s wife before disguising herself as a man and running away to South America as a crew member aboard a banana boat. She became a smuggler, running guns during the Mexican Revolution; later flying rumrunners into Ensenada and Tijuana. She spoke Spanish and Yaqui, slicked her black hair back with gardenia oil and lived like a peasant. She returned a year later with the nickname Pancho to news of her mother’s death. She kept the name, inherited her mother’s fortune and indulged her love of flying. She won races, broke Amelia Earhart’s airspeed record and became one of Hollywood’s first stunt pilots, throwing wild parties at her house in Laguna Beach. When the Depression ate its way into Southern California, it hit her hard. Broke, defaulting on loans, she sold up, headed out into the Mojave and bought Hannam’s farm, just west of Muroc Dry Lake.
It won’t give you no love, Hannam told her after the papers were signed. I used to get five, maybe six, cuttins a year; bale it, sell it on for a good price. Now, even with seventy or so acres planted up, man can’t live on it, not now. It’s all gone to hell.
Never did see myself as much of a rancher, she said.
That fall, she dragged out a private airstrip behind the hay barn with two English shire mares bought from the Washington State Fair then holed out a swimming pool. It wasn’t long before she got to know the men from the base. They enjoyed her company; she knew airplanes and they got a kick out of her salty language and dirty jokes. In the evenings, the men grew restless, so they’d head over to Pancho’s to take out her horses, have a drink, cool off in her pool. Pancho would curse and laugh and tell them stories and pour them drinks. Some nights she’d cook, a steak dinner; meat from her own cattle. She called up Bobby Holeston one morning and got him to turn the old cook’s shack into a proper bar. She hired an enormous woman called Minnie to work the kitchen and Pancho had herself a business.
Harrison finished his drink and Pancho refilled the glass.
Help stabilize the system, she said.
He knocked it back and made to leave.
Hey, Harrison, she called after him.
He looked down at a half-smoked pack of cigarettes on the bar.
You’re a peach, he said.
Get the hell out.
The screen door clattered shut, rattling the dead men hanging inside.
Pancho spent the morning running errands. Muroc was three miles north across flat dirt trails; a barren cluster of buildings founded on the Sante Fe railroad. The dull steel track stretched toward the horizon in both directions. Alongside the wooden station-house were three black sheds for the men who worked the rails. The main street was a dust strip. It had Charlie Anderson’s store, Ma Green’s café, and a Union Oil gas station, as well as a small post office and a one-man bank.
It was quiet. A slight wind caught a tangled cluster of loose telephone wires that grappled and rapped against each other. At the bank, Pancho settled three bills that she’d disputed the previous winter.
Anything else I can do for you, Pancho?
Nope, that’s it, thanks Fredo. Good to see you.
How’s things out in the boonies?
Can’t complain.
Billy Horner still working for you?
Was when I left.
Be seeing you, Pancho.
You know it.
Don’t be a stranger now.
We’ll see.
Outside, the sun hurt her eyes. She pulled down on her old cowboy hat, lit a cigar and dropped the match into the dirt. Damn weenies. She had no problem paying bills, so long as they were fair. The smoke lingered in her mouth. There’d be more money soon. She crossed the street to Charlie Anderson’s.
Well, Charlie, you ol bastard, how are you?
That Pasadena’s First Lady?
Depends who you ask.
How’s Rankin?
Wouldn’t know.
Still in New York?
Last I heard.
When you gonna do it?
When I gonna do what?
You know.
She chewed on the cigar still burning between her teeth.
Now why would I go do a stupid thing like that? she said.
Case you meet a handsome fella.
Out here? I got prettier hogs.
Must be some swine. Maybe he’s met someone?
He’s pastor of the Pasadena Episcopal Church, Charlie. He meets women who want to marry him every day. First whiff of a divorce and the Church would haul his ass out of there. I won’t do that to him. We write each other. Suits us fine.
What’s he doing in Brooklyn again?
Who knows.
She pulled hard on her cigar. Two women, an aisle over, peered through the shelves.
Morning, ladies, Pancho said, blowing smoke through the gap. They disappeared. Pancho smiled. It was a small town; people talked. When folks heard about her swimming pool, they couldn’t believe the extravagance. The first time she filled up her blue Cadillac at Carl Bergman’s Union Oil, he yapped on it for months. It had no backseat, Carl told the other ranchers. It was full of dogs!
Pancho got back to the ranch at eleven. Billy was serving two men at the bar.
Is it on? she said. Billy looked up.
Nope.
Quick.
The radio was wedged between the cash register and the rum. Close to the base, restricted exchanges could be picked up on the right frequency. Billy turned it on. The box popped and whistled.
Plenty fellas go up; you never listen, he said.
Shut up. Is it working?
Yeah.
This is different.
How you know?
This is not an airplane, Pancho said, least nothing a pudknocker like you’d understand one to be. It’s a goddamn rocket with a tail; an orange bullet with razor wings and a needle-nose. They call it the X-1. And it’s got one purpose: fly faster than sound.
That even possible? Fly faster than a man’s own voice?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, Pancho said. That’s what they been figuring out, and I promised a free steak dinner to any them weenies who does it first. Today’s a big deal: first powered flight, pushing
it up to point eight-two Mach. When Harrison hits that switch, the whole damn thing could go kaboom, or drop out the sky like a brick, or malfunction in a thousand other ways. There’s no seat to punch out either; those razor wings would slice him in half. It’s got to work, and he’s got to land it, and he can’t land it with any fuel left on board or the whole goddamn thing will go kaboom soon as it hits the lakebed. So, yeah, it’s different, and everyone’s got their jitters up.
Billy wiped the counter with an old cloth.
So how come you ain’t down there? he said.
I seen plenty drop launches before, Pancho said, turning away to stack glasses.
At Muroc Field, a B-29 bomber took off from the south runway and climbed hard. Harrison sat on an upturned apple box behind the pilot with Jack Ridley, the flight engineer. The X-1 was strapped to the underside of the bomber. The B-29 reached altitude. Harrison climbed down the bomb bay ladder and into the X-1, the sound of the bomber’s giant propellers roaring in his ears. In the tiny cockpit, he clipped on his lines and hoses; the oxygen system, radio-microphone and earphones, then pulled his leather flying helmet over his head. Stored behind him, at minus two hundred and ninety-six degrees was six hundred gallons of lox, liquid nitrogen and oxygen. Ridley climbed down after him, lowered the cockpit door in place, then returned to the bomber. Two chase planes, one flying high, one low, took off from the base to observe the X-1 in flight. Harrison’s lips split, his breath condensing in the dark. In the gloom, he waited for the drop.
Pancho pulled a stool behind the bar and sat by the radio.
Listen, here we go.
Roger, take it easy son.
Ridley, Pancho said, to Billy. They heard Bob Cardenas, the B-29 pilot, announce twenty-six thousand feet, then begin his shallow dive.
Starting countdown …
Pancho leaned in.
Drop!
There was a sharp crack as the shackles released the X-1 like a bomb.
[…] looking at the sky.
Roger that, Jim.
Nose-up stall.
I see you, Jim—you’re dropping like a brick.
Copy that.
[…]
Dive speed […] too slow.
Walt, you got a visual from the ground?
Negative.
Twenty-five thousand feet.
Roger.
Twenty-four.
Say again, Jim? Didn’t copy.
[…]
[…]
[…] Hey […] fuel.
You’re about three thousand pounds heavier than the glide flights.
Twenty-three.
Roger, Jim.
I feel it.
Copy that.
I’m gonna push the nose down […] pick up speed.
Roger.
Leveling out.
[…]
You’re at twenty-two, Jim.
Copy.
[…]
I’m level.
Good work, Jim.
I have a visual.
Copy that, Walt.
Lighting the first chamber.
Standing by.
Lighting one.
Roger.
Point four Mach.
Copy that.
Hey, Jim, you just passed me going upstairs like a bat […]
Point five.
[…] shockwaves […] from the exhaust.
You got eyeballs on that, Kit?
Confirm.
Lighting two.
Roger.
Point seven.
Hold steady.
Forty-five thousand feet. Lighting three […] seven-five.
Jim […]
Watch your nose.
Firing chamber four.
[…]
[…]
[…]
Pancho glanced at Billy. Billy shrugged his shoulders.
Point eight-three.
Copy that, Jim.
Say, Ridley, sure is dark up here.
Beautiful, Jim.
Jettison remaining lox, glide down.
Copy.
[…]
Jim?
Christ he’s doing a roll!
Jim, that’s not in the flight plan.
Zero-g […]
Copy that, Jim.
Holy hell.
Engine cutout.
[…]
Ridley?
Fuel can’t feed the engine […] zero-g […] down.
Level her out.
Leveling out.
Roger.
[…]
[…]
Walt?
[…]
Dick, what’s his position?
Negative, can’t see […]
Walt?
Nothing.
I see him.
Confirm.
How’s the fuel?
Terrific.
Them NACA boys sure gonna chew you out!
Copy that, Jack; couldn’t resist. Lox spent, gliding home.
Roger that, son.
Well, shit, Harrison! Pancho said. She looked up at Billy.
You want me in tonight?
You bet your sweet ass I do.
Harrison flew more powered flights that afternoon, easing the X-1 up to point nine-six Mach, encountering different problems each time. Lakebed landings were also tough, with no markings and too much open space. Depth perception was an issue; it was easy to bend an airplane porpoising in, or flaring high and cracking off the landing gear. On the last landing, Harrison let the airplane settle in by itself, feeling for the changes in the ground effect as he lowered down, greasing in at a hundred and ninety miles an hour. With no brakes, it took three minutes to roll to a stop. The fire truck drove out and he hitched a lift back to the hangar.
The men debriefed in Ridley’s office, a small room on the second floor of the main hangar. The windows were covered with dust, the walls papered with enlarged photographs of instrument panels, maps of the desert and hanging clipboards, fat with flight reports.
That low frequency rolling motion was most likely fuel sloshing, Ridley said, looking at the clock on the wall. Nothing to worry about.
Well, that’s sure good to hear, Harrison said. We done?
That’s it, Ridley said. Let’s go to Pancho’s.
Grace took a left outside Rosamond, heading home, the package collected from the post office beside her. It was from her father. He sent occasional collections of miscellany; had done for years. There was usually a book, food (tinned or tightly wrapped in waxed paper), a small bottle of spirits, distilled himself, the odd trinket unearthed from the house that would inspire bursts of nostalgia. This haul included a pocket watch, Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, an old photograph of her looking stern on a horse and a bundle of Beemans gum labeled FOR JIM, which saved her going back to the store; she’d forgotten to pick some up. Jim chewed it constantly. He said sucking on pure oxygen when he flew dried out his mouth, and that chewing helped equalize his ear pressure at altitude. Grace also suspected that the pepsin it contained proved handy in the cockpit.
It was almost noon. The hot sun hurt her face. A dust cloud churned up around the car as she drove; the monotony of the Mojave roads almost hypnotic. Her thoughts drifted from her father to her mother to her appointment on Monday. Her body stiffened. Her back began to ache. She leaned forward, against the wheel, stretching it out. She grimaced, then sighed. A sign on the roadside caught her eye. It was tied to a post marking a rough track that led up to Mac’s ranch. She pulled up, let the engine idle, read the sign. She sat in silence for a minute. Then she drove up the track.
The ranch was quiet. Grace stood on the porch of the house, rapped on the door, took a step back. The air felt like sandpaper. She ran a finger across her forehead.
Hey, Mac, you home? she called out. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the boards. Then she heard a grunt and iron pulling against wood.
Well, Grace! Mac said, standing in the doorway.
Hey, Mac, she said.
Fine, she said. You?
Tired, he said.
The house smelled of hay. It was gloomy after the bright glare of the desert.
Can I get you something?
Something cold be good.
Have a seat.
It was a small room. A square wooden table sat at one end, the kitchen at the other. A black stovepipe ran up the wall from an iron stove. On the wall next to the pipe hung a framed family portrait, a large clock and an old .22. Grace sat down at the table. A small oil-filled lamp swayed above her head.
You broke in that grullo yet? she said.
Hell no, Mac said from the kitchen. That’s one crazy goddamn horse. Should’ve never bought her. I’m gettin too old for this kinda thing.
The hell you are, Grace said as Mac walked back with two bottles pulled from the icebox. He set them down on the table and popped off the caps with an old knife. He had white hair and walked with a slight stoop. His face was brown and smooth, like every desert rancher. He handed Grace one of the bottles and sat down.
Ain’t nothin better than a cold Coke on a hot day, he said.
Amen to that, Grace said, toasting him and taking a long swig.
Damn, she said, bringing the bottle down to the table. That’s better. She belched.
Sorry, she said.
A skinned jackrabbit hung by a hook above the kitchen sink, pink flesh glistening in the low light. A pile of muddy potatoes sat piled on the side, waiting to be washed and peeled.
Nice of you to drop by, Mac said. I always told Rose this place was centrally located.
Middle of nowhere, Grace said, smiling and raising the bottle to her mouth.
I’ve said that one before, haven’t I?
I think it’s a common refrain.
Hell, I like it out here, Mac said. Rose, well, she weren’t no rancher; she was too good for that.
To the wives, Grace said, holding up her drink again.
The wives.
They clanked bottles together.
So, Mac said. What can I do for you?
You still got those pups for sale? I saw the sign out front.