The Cannibal Queen

by Stephen Coonts

  My spirits soar even higher than the Queen as my frustrations are swept from me by the swirling cockpit breeze.

  There are scattered showers around Casper but I skillfully avoid them and drop in for gas. As I fly northward again the rolling prairie appears empty. Only the four-lane highway below me snaking northward breaks the grassy perfection. I look carefully and see occasional ranch complexes; still, this is the emptiest land I’ve flown over yet.

  To my left the Bighorn Mountains crowned in clouds rise boldly from the empty prairie. They too are blue, vague, with their summits cloaked in storms. Somewhere over there is Hole-in-the-Wall, where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid from the law and outraged neighbors between robberies.

  Armed robbery in this lonesome land couldn’t have been an easy life, not when you consider all the riding those guys had to do. They must have ridden for days, weeks, to get someplace where they could steal money, then ridden for days, weeks, to get back to Hole-in-the-Wall, where there was nothing to spend the money on. Still, maybe they got to town more often than their honest neighbors, who probably could afford to make the trip only once a year. If that.

  I fly over Buffalo, Wyoming, a town that Butch and Sundance must have thought was the Big Apple, and continue following the interstate, now I-90. Soon Sheridan appears on the horizon. The visibility is at least 20 miles now. I land for another load of gas.

  On the ramp sits a 1937 Fairchild monoplane, a cabin machine with four seats. Mounted on the nose is the original engine, a 1937 Wright that the proud owner tells me develops 440 horsepower. I stand back for a good look. The wings are unlike anything I’ve ever seen: they jut straight out from the fuselage for about four feet on each side, then sweep back at about a thirty-degree angle. The effect is striking. The plane looks like it’s doing a thousand knots sitting on the ground.

  “Fairchild only made seventeen of these,” the owner tells me, “and there are only two left.” He looks at her, measuring her with his eye, wondering why fortune favored him so. I too have moments like that.

  The owner and his friend are on their way to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for the world’s biggest airshow, the annual EAA fly-in. I tell them I’m going the other way, west, for an airshow at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. The commanding officer of the base invited me to bring the Queen, and the family wants to fly up commercial to wallow in nostalgia with me over the weekend, so that’s my destination. I’ll visit Oshkosh later in the summer after the crowds are gone.

  The creeks flowing down the east side of the Bighorns made the valley that Sheridan sits in. Flying north I follow the highway and the meandering river, the Little Bighorn, down the valley full of cultivated fields. To the east the grassy plains stretch away until they merge with the sky. To the west the sea of grass runs to the mountains, which are petering out.

  After I pass Lodge Grass, Montana, I begin to look off the right side for my first glimpse of the Custer battlefield. Finally I spot it on a grass-covered bluff above the valley. An asphalt road leads up from the highway to a cemetery with all the gravestones arranged with military precision. It looks odd in this ocean of rolling, grass-covered plains, somehow jarring.

  On the crest of a higher knoll is the monument to George Armstrong Custer. The road leading to it is lined with cars and campers. I guess it’s on the itinerary of many Americans for after retirement, when they buy the camper and set forth for a life on the open road with occasional postcards to the kids. I always wondered what the attraction of that way of life was— now I know. While the lawnmowers and weed whackers rust they are staring at the monument to Custer and 263 troopers of the 7th Cavalry who died with him when they ran into several thousand angry Indian warriors in 1876.

  History is a little hazy about the actual chain of events here: the Indians say Custer attacked an encampment of 10,000 Indians and the warriors counterattacked—Custer admirers say the colonel’s command was ambushed. Everyone agrees on the result. The soldiers were annihilated.

  Americans have always had a soft spot in their hearts for spectacular losers, and Custer certainly qualified. If he actually led 263 troopers in a cavalry charge against an encampment of 10,000 armed, belligerent Indians, he was also the stupidest soldier who ever graduated from West Point.

  There’s a big flap brewing in these parts over the name of this national monument. Indians point out that this is the only battlefield in the country named after the loser. What if Gettysburg were called Lee Battlefield? As you might suspect, this issue is about more than road signs. The Indians feel that the name of the monument is symbolic of America’s approach to their problems.

  I think they have a point. Under the rules whereby most American battles were named, this Sioux-cavalry engagement should be known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the battlefield should be known as the Little Bighorn Battlefield, the river being the prominent geographical feature hereabouts.* After all, the 264 soldiers and the approximately 2,000 Indian warriors who fought here were all Americans, all fighting for what they believed to be right. We should honor them all, not just Ol’ Yellowhair, who might have lived to die of natural causes if he had had a little more sense.

  If we’re going to name this battlefield after one of the generals, we should call it Sitting Bull Battlefield. I’ve seen the chief’s photo taken after he was reduced to a bit part in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He looked like the kind of guy you’d like to get to know, a no-nonsense practical fellow who would make a good friend and a bad enemy. I’ve often wondered what he really thought of Buffalo Bill Cody, who was stamped from the same mold they used for P. T. Barnum. Perhaps it’s better for Cody and Custer that Sitting Bull died before New York publishers started paying generals millions for their memoirs.

  Ten miles north of the battlefield the road curves west, toward Billings, Montana. I follow the highway and the railroad.

  It’s past 6:30 P.M. and the sun is dropping toward the western horizon. Flying directly toward it, the sun illuminates the entire lower wing of the Queen. The brilliant yellow wing against the greens and yellows and browns of the earth must be seen to be believed—a play of color and form that would inspire a masterpiece if I were capable of painting one. That is not my talent. I fly on, enjoying this rare sight.

  A young woman answers my call to Billings Approach Control. Traffic is light. She cheerfully grants me permission to fly through the ARSA. On the western side of town I ask if she has a readout of my ground speed. “You’ve been making one hundred ten since I acquired you.”

  One hundred ten knots! I’m living at the foot of the cross.

  Forty-five minutes later I am abeam the Yellowstone massif, which lies to the south, my left. Towering dark-blue and purple thunderstorms crown the hulking mass of mountains. Yet the sunlight is still playing on my little plane and the green and brown fields beneath me. In my years of flying I have never seen a more spectacular sight, never felt so much a part of the land and the sky.

  There is a shower in Bozeman Pass when I fly through. I don’t get very wet and I am through in less than a minute. Once through and into the sunshine beyond, I glance back.

  Behind me is a circular rainbow with every color of the spectrum clearly delineated. The rainbow forms a perfect circle, right, left, over and under the plane. It appears that the Queen has just flown through it. Never before in my life have I seen a rainbow below me.

  At Bozeman the FBO is a man named Arlin Wass. He looks to be in his late sixties. Mr. Wass asks if I’m going to Oshkosh.

  “Nope. Headed the other way.”

  “Fellow in here this morning on his way to Oshkosh was flying an old Fairchild, the first I ever saw. Watching that thing take off was a treat.”

  I tell him about seeing the Fairchild in Sheridan as we gas the plane and watch a BT-13, a Vultee “Vibrator,” taxi out with a load of joyriders.

  “That fellow flying the Vibrator spent two years restoring it,” Mr. Wass said. “Told me on the First of July he was go
ing to fly her on the Third, and somehow we got it done. Weighed her and everything. He’s done a hell of a job on that plane.”

  Buried in one corner of his hangar is a Stearman that has been in restoration for fourteen years.

  “Fourteen years?”

  “Yep. I told them they’re going to die before they get it done.”

  The Stearman is almost ready for the wings to be attached. Sitting on the nose in the place of honor is a baby Lycoming, looking better than brand-new. Mr. Wass tells me that it’s 225 horsepower.

  In his office I admire the photos of old airplanes mounted on the wall and we talk. On his desk is a cylinder of an OX-5 engine, the 90-HP engine that powered the Curtiss-Jenny. “Got the crankcase and crank and everything except the cylinders for that engine. Someone stored it disassembled and some mice nested in the cylinders. The acid in their feces corroded the cylinders.”

  I tell him about Cole Palen at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. Maybe he and Palen can strike a deal. Somewhere in Palen’s treasure houses in a dusty old box he probably has a set of cylinders for an OX-5 engine that he bought at an estate auction. Or maybe he’ll want the engine to keep the Jenny flying.

  On the way back to my plane, Mr. Wass asks where I’m going to spend the night. “Thought I’d try to get to Missoula, but it’s getting dark.”

  “Just fly 290 degrees until you hit the highway north of Deer Lodge, then follow the canyon. Take you right into Missoula. You won’t have any trouble.”

  He seems so confident I decide to give it a try. It’s 8:30 P.M. and the sun won’t set for forty-five minutes or so. Why not? Well, because I don’t have a landing light, so I’ll have to use the runway lights to flare and keep her drifting gently downward until the wheels touch. And I’ll have to use the runway lights to ensure the nose doesn’t swing.

  Standing beside the plane, I think about how it will be and about the day not yet over. I’m tired, but it’s been such a perfect day of flying, I’m reluctant to end it.

  So I strap in and wish Mr. Wass good-bye. As I start the Queen the BT-13 taxis in to pick up another load of joyriders.

  I climb to 10,500 feet in the twilight to ensure I’ll not hit a granite cloud, and flip on the Queen’s exterior lights and the two little red lights that shine on the cockpit instruments. Steve Hall installed the instrument lights. Their glow is comforting. The route is as ridiculously easy as Mr. Wass suggested. Even with the sun gone I have no trouble. What more could a fellow wish for?

  As the sun fades behind a layer of clouds on the western horizon and the great valleys below me turn gloomy and dark, I wish for a landing light.

  Boy, Coonts, talk about a dumb stunt! You dingdong! You could crack up this forty-nine-year-old masterpiece that Skid Henley spent thirteen months rebuilding and you sweated blood to pay for. Bozo! Idiot!

  Yeah, but Skid built this thing to fly. He wouldn’t hesitate to fly it over this terrain as night comes on.

  True, but he’s got 15,000 hours in Stearmans—you got what, a few more than a couple hundred? Don’t make me giggle. I can’t fly and giggle too.

  But when I was in the Navy I made at least a thousand night landings without a landing light. Navy pilots don’t use landing lights—they’re for civilians and Air Force pilots. We only used landing lights when arriving at Air Force bases because the guys in the tower got nervous.

  Yeah, and you didn’t flare those Navy jets—you just drove them into the runway at 600-feet-a-minute rate of sink. You do that to this Stearman and that’s the last landing she’ll ever make.

  Oh, shut up! I can hack it. Just watch me.

  I am flying under a high thin stratus layer and now the moon is visible through it. And I can now see the flame that comes out the exhaust stack. It’s a yellowish blue, about six inches or so long, and in the growing darkness it is quite plain. It even casts a small amount of bluish light on the left wing root area. Neat!

  I watch the flame, fascinated. And I would never have seen this if I hadn’t flown the Queen at night!

  I am wearing two sweatshirts and a leather flight jacket, but still I am chilly. And hungry. My 10 A.M. breakfast with John was a long time ago.

  An hour passes and I’m still flying northwest down the valley toward Missoula. I have quit looking for landmarks: there is nothing to be seen below but the outline of the valley and the headlights on the highway.

  Then I pick up the Missoula ATIS. Wind out of the east at ten, still a tailwind. Am I the luckiest man alive?

  Finally I round a bend in the valley and catch sight of the lights of Missoula dead ahead. I spot the airport beacon on the first glance.

  Tower tells me to make a right base entry for runway 9. Okay. Power to twelve inches, prop to full increase, down we come over the ridge east of town and across the lights of the city, the yellow-blue flame still quite prominent from the exhaust stack.

  I must judge this just so. No religious experiences, no driving her into the ground, no wing dips, just a perfect landing. Please! You’ll never forgive yourself if you hamburger this one, Steve.

  The crosswind is about twenty degrees from the right. I tweak in a little rudder and hold her level with aileron. There is just a trace of light, just enough. Stick gently back now, an ounce more rudder … let the mains touch first … gently now … there! The mains kiss and I pull the tail down with the stick. She settles in like she had Skid Henley at the controls.

  I shut her down at the FBO and have to pry myself from the cockpit. I am exhausted. It’s almost 10 P.M. and my stomach is so empty it aches. Yet I am the most contented man alive. To have such a day to fly …

  The next morning the sun is out. The man driving the motel’s van just nods when I comment on how beautiful the morning is. With my stuff on the backseat I sit beside him. He is in his late fifties and pleasantly plump. He merely nods at all my comments.

  Halfway to the airport, in response to some remark or other, he says, “No speak English.”

  I eye him. Speaking slowly and distinctly, and with added volume, I ask, “Where you from?”

  “Russia.”

  “How long you been here?”

  He takes a while to process it. “One year,” he says at last.

  I am itching to ask more, but refrain. Everyone can’t understand English, even if you shout it. I’ve tried it often enough to know.

  Maybe he’s a Soviet Jew. Maybe he’s a KGB colonel who defected, telling our guys a million secrets, everything from the serial numbers of the Soviet missile subs to the layout of the bathrooms in Gorbachev’s dacha. Maybe he’s a spy who came in from the cold. Maybe …

  When he drops me in front of the FBO I stop speculating and tell him, “Thanks a lot.”

  He just nods his closely cropped head, then drives away, back toward the Econo-Lodge of Missoula, Montana. To leave home, friends, perhaps children and grandchildren, forever, and to come to live out the remainder of your life in this little city nestled in the Rocky Mountains where you don’t speak a word of the language, that takes a form of courage I don’t have. Few people would do it unless they had something really nasty that they wanted to leave behind. I don’t have that either.

  This morning navigation is a piece of cake—I’ll simply follow the interstate highway northwest down the Clark’s Fork of the Columbia river to St. Regis, where the river S-turns north. I’ll stick with the highway after St. Regis, cross the spine of the Bitterroot Mountains at Mullan Pass and zip down the valley into Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Or I could stay with the river after St. Regis and follow it all the way to Lake Pend Oreille, then fly westward above the lake to Coeur d’Alene.

  Mountains on both sides of the Clark’s Fork valley reach to six or seven thousand feet. I fly several thousand feet above the valley floor looking at the green mountains and the sky. The blue over Missoula quickly gives way to clouds with bases at about the height of the tallest peak. At first the clouds are scattered, then broken, then solid. And they are coming down. Now the clouds obsc
ure the peaks.

  Uneasy, I scan my chart. About a half hour west of Missoula near the village of Superior is a small airport. On a whim I pull the power and study the wind sock, then swing into a downwind leg for the western runway.

  Taxiing in I see that there is a fuel pump. It is locked and there is no FBO. No phone. A few airplanes, but no place to call Flight Service to have my nervousness assuaged. I back taxi and take off heading west.

  In another quarter of an hour I am over St. Regis, where the river turns north, then back east for ten miles or so before it loops around to the northwest for the straight shot to Lake Pend Oreille. The valley northward looks clear, the mountains to the northwest still free of clouds. That’s my bolthole if Mullan Pass is socked in.

  So I’ll try Mullan Pass. It was supposed to be open this morning. Coeur d’Alene is supposed to be pretty good—why am I so goosey?

  On the way to Mullan Pass I pass a high-wing aircraft flying the other way, east. Did he fly east through the pass from Coeur d’Alene, or did he try to go westward and find the weather too bad?

  The clouds are coming down. There is a saddle through the mountains leading northward to an airport at Thompson Falls on the river, and it’s still open. Another bolthole. But is there gas at Thompson Falls? I don’t need gas, but in these mountains and clouds, the more the better.

  The pass is listed at 4,738 feet above sea level. I am flying at 5,500. But the clouds continue to come down. Soon I am down to 5,000 feet and the clouds are just above me, seemingly close enough to reach up and touch. The way ahead into the narrowing, rising valley doesn’t look good.

  I resolve to give the pass a peek. One peek and an instant decision.

  Why am I so nervous? Because I had better do my turning around while I have the room. But there is room—the Cannibal Queen will spin on a dime. So stomach, calm thyself.

  I get my peek. Through the pass I see only gray, and on the ground coming up the western slope of the pass, tendrils of ground fog. That is the face of death.