“Of course.”
Louis realized the obvious: Ava and her mother were living in the caravan on the Yamada property, and they had all been invited to dinner. Cleo walked on ahead, leaving the two young people behind to chat.
“Why . . . why didn’t Harry tell me sooner?” he asked as he and Ava walked in the direction of the house.
“I asked him not to. I wanted it to be a surprise,” Ava said.
“Well, you sure got that part right,” Louis said.
Once they’d walked up the hill to the house, Harry’s little sister, Mae, was waiting for them at the back door, plainly excited. She ushered them inside and ran off to alert her older brother. Louis faltered when he saw Harry—overcome by a fresh wave of resentment and anger—but Harry only smiled and shook his head. He did not bring up the business in Petaluma, or the rude refusal Louis had scribbled in reply to Harry’s note—I ain’t staying for supper . . . Instead, Harry waved an arm in the direction of his father.
“I’d like to introduce my father, Kenichi Yamada. Otōsan, this is my friend Louis—who I’ve been telling you about.”
Louis took in the sight of Harry’s father and instantly felt cowed: Kenichi was quite old and, while not a large man, carried a sort of large, graceful presence about him. Louis was suddenly aware of the fact that he was in another man’s house.
“Welcome,” Kenichi said, and shook Louis’s hand with a grip that was at once both friendly and firm.
Harry and Kenichi showed them all to the dining room, and Shizue began to fill the table with dish after dish of food. It was meant to be a celebratory meal, and between not knowing what else to cook and eschewing anything traditionally Japanese in honor of her non-Japanese guests, she had settled on foods one might expect at a Christmas or Thanksgiving feast. There was roast goose and stuffed turkey, corn on the cob and mashed potatoes, string beans and cranberry sauce. Louis hadn’t planned on staying, but when Kenichi pulled out a chair for him, his body silently obeyed. After everyone was seated, dishes began to change hands as Louis looked on in a daze.
“Smells delicious,” Ava said.
“Thank you so much for having us,” Cleo added.
Shizue Yamada pressed her lips together in a quiet, Mona Lisa smile, and gave a small bow of her head.
“I am happy to have you both here,” Kenichi Yamada said now, raising his glass to Ava and to Cleo. “And I am very pleased to have you, Louis, here at my table.”
The last traces of Louis’s plan to hurry back to the Thorn ranch evaporated. Kenichi raised a glass and so did everyone else, respectfully honoring his toast.
Later, over the main course, Kenichi brought up the flying circus to Louis. “It is a shame. I was very sad when I received the news it had come to an end. I was there that day you and my son went for your first wing-walking expedition! So brave, both of you—you made it look easy!”
“Harry does,” Louis said in a moment of sober honesty, curiously moved to discover that instead of disapproving of the barnstorming act, Kenichi Yamada was actually quite proud of his son. “Harry’s the one who makes it look easy. I just try to keep up.”
Kenichi beamed, his elderly face shining with joy, and Louis was again touched to see a father so proud. Life in the Yamada house was clearly different than life in the Thorn household.
“I’m a little surprised,” Louis admitted. “You were all in favor of Harry attempting stunts on an airplane?”
“I was not,” Shizue volunteered. She smiled that same enigmatic smile. “But I was outvoted.”
“I voted for Harry to perform stunts!” Mae proudly announced.
The whole table laughed. Then Kenichi turned serious.
“Harry has explained, but I’m not sure I understand . . . May I ask? What has become of the airplanes?”
“Earl gambled the first away,” Ava spoke up to answer. “I’m afraid we don’t know where it is now. And the other, well . . . it turned out Earl had been borrowing money against both planes, so the one we still know about, at least, has been repossessed as collateral.”
“Ah . . . I see,” Kenichi said, nodding. “So for now it belongs to the bank . . .”
“Yes.” Ava nodded. “The last we heard, it will go up for bank auction . . . in Sacramento sometime next month, I believe.”
Louis and Harry exchanged a look. The blame Louis had heaped upon Harry was momentarily forgotten, and it was a look of shared empathy, both of them still disappointed to think of the Stearman that had brought them together and was now forever gone. The look was observed by Kenichi, who was seated near his son.
Bank auction. Kenichi began to ponder the situation.
He raised his glass again, this time toasting the impressive splendor of their air show, despite its brief run.
* * *
After the dinner dishes had been cleared and dessert had been served and cleared away, Louis caught a glimpse of the grandfather clock in the Yamadas’ front parlor and realized with a start that he’d better be getting home. He thanked his host and hostess, said his farewells, and promised Ava he would pay her another visit soon. The last person he spoke to was Harry, who saw him out to the porch alone. Louis hesitated before leaving.
“I know it wasn’t your fault,” Louis said finally.
“Well, that makes two of us, then,” Harry replied, the tone of his voice only half-joking.
“It makes things awful hard on me,” Louis said, “us being . . . friends.” He had trouble groping his way to the last word—“friends”—but as he said it he knew that’s what they were again.
“I reckon I know that, too,” Harry said quietly. He understood that Louis was referring to the reaction he had to endure from the Thorn family.
They said good night, and Louis walked into the darkness and cricket song, finding his way back to the Thorn property the same way he’d come.
When Louis arrived home, he saw a light on in the kitchen. His older brother, Guy, was waiting up for him. Louis had half a mind to pretend he hadn’t noticed the light and go straight to bed. But loyalty prevailed, and besides, he knew that wouldn’t be the end of it anyway.
“You were gone an awful long time,” Guy commented as Louis entered the kitchen.
Louis did not answer right away. He rummaged around in the icebox and eventually settled on a glass of cold buttermilk. He took a sip, the icy sour tang strangely comforting as he tried to find the right words—words that wouldn’t set Guy off.
“It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t what I thought . . . I went there to square things with Harry, but . . . but the Yamadas invited me to dinner,” he said.
“That so? Have a nice time?”
“Suppose so,” Louis replied, now guarded.
“I thought that now the flying circus business was all done, you wouldn’t be spending time with them anymore,” Guy said.
Louis noticed an ashtray full of discarded butts in front of Guy. Not only had his brother taken up smoking again, he had evidently been sitting there for quite some time.
“I have business with them. And besides . . . Harry is my friend,” Louis said, boldly repeating the word he’d used earlier.
“Your friend?”
The wooden chair legs screeched as Guy stood up. Louis’s eyes flicked in his brother’s direction, slightly frightened, mostly alert. Guy leaned toward Louis; his anger was plain.
“We’ll see about that,” Guy said. “Time tells all.”
Louis did not reply, and Guy left the room, with no other utterance on the matter.
35
Yamada property * December 13, 1940
Kenichi Yamada rose early that morning. He spent the predawn hours with his wife, discussing matters over hot tea. Although Shizue was an elegant mastermind when it came to avoiding the appearance of directly contradicting her husband, she nonetheless had a way of making her disa
pproval clear. Ordinarily, Kenichi came around to his wife’s opinions. She was wise and practical, and he was happy to defer to her judgment. But on this particular occasion he was intent on winning her over to his side. Shizue listened to her husband as he tried to persuade her, and she had to admit it was touching to see how happy it made her husband to make their son happy. Her daughter was bright, her son was brave, and her husband was tremendously kind: What fault could Shizue find with any of that? She was grateful.
Which was why, when Kenichi returned shortly after taking a stroll in the orchards to watch the sunrise and announced his decision to drive down into Sacramento, Shizue only really pantomimed her disapproval, not quite convinced of it herself.
For his part, Kenichi swore he saw his wife smiling quietly to herself as she prepared oyakodon, a hearty dish of chicken and eggs over rice, for breakfast.
“Haruto,” he said once his son had risen from bed, “I’d like you and your sister, Mai, to come with us to Sacramento today.”
“All right,” Harry agreed, raising a still-sleepy hand to smooth his rumpled hair. “Why today, Otōsan?”
“There is an auction, and I would like your advice about an appropriate price,” his father answered.
Harry grunted. He was certain his father meant to bid on a prize bull or a herd of milk cows . . . and Harry had made it his business to never let such matters be his business. He would be terrible at giving advice on this front. His sister, Mae, would be better, in fact. But of course he would go anywhere his father wished him present.
* * *
When they drove into Sacramento, they did not drive south of the city, to the open fields where all the farmers’ auctions took place. Instead they drove to the heart of town, and Harry followed his father into a building next to the capital.
“I don’t understand,” Harry said. “What are we doing here?”
Mae giggled. Harry turned to her with surprise. He had been too distracted to notice that Mae was clad in a very nice dress and wearing her favorite patent-leather shoes. In fact, as Harry looked around now, he realized all of his family members were nicely attired.
“Do you know what we’re doing here?” he said now to Mae.
“Perhaps,” she said, and gave another giggle.
“You said you wished to bid on something up for auction,” Harry said to his father in Japanese.
“That is true,” Kenichi agreed. He exchanged a knowing look with his wife, Shizue.
Harry blinked and looked around. They were walking down a long, echoing hall of a large building with clerical offices on one side and what appeared to be a series of small courtrooms along the other. Kenichi led his family, then paused and looked down at a slip of paper in his hand. Harry recognized the Japanese character for the numeral 5 and realized they were looking for courtroom five. Kenichi glanced again at the number over the doorway, touched his bow tie once to ensure it was straight, and entered.
Inside, an auction was already in progress, the auctioneer using the judge’s bench and gavel to facilitate the transaction. The Yamada family quietly took a seat in the back.
“All right! The next property item up for auction is . . .”
It was a house. Harry realized they were at a bank auction. His father hadn’t come to Sacramento to bid on livestock for the ranch; he’d come for something else.
“Otōsan,” Harry whispered, shaking his head. “I can’t let you—”
“Shhhh!” his mother snapped at him.
Surprised, Harry immediately shut his mouth. It was not his mother’s way to shush people. Ordinarily she restrained herself from scolding; her manner of ruling the roost was silent and stony—she could level a grown man with a look—but she never shushed.
Despite her having done exactly just that now, she was not looking at Harry as he glanced at her in surprise. Her eyes were fixed on the front of the courtroom, where a man propped a large card on a picture stand that displayed the name of the item up for auction. He shuffled through the oversize cards now and put a new one up. Harry saw that it contained an enlarged black-and-white photograph. He squinted at the grainy image.
A biplane, with lettering on the side that read POLLUX.
“The next item up for auction is a Stearman Model 75 biplane,” the auctioneer announced. “Well maintained and in good condition. Opening bid will begin at eight hundred dollars.”
The auctioneer cleared his throat.
“Let’s begin. Do I have eight hundred dollars?”
“Eight hundred,” Kenichi said, tersely raising his hand.
“Eight-fifty!” someone else called out.
“Nine hundred!”
“Nine-fifty,” Kenichi spoke up again.
The bidding went all the way up to twelve-fifty. Harry wanted to say something but didn’t know what. One thousand two hundred and fifty dollars! You could nearly buy a house for that much. And the bidding was still going; who knew where the price would land?
“Otōsan . . . what are we going to do with a plane?”
“The same thing you were doing before,” Kenichi replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “However, you will do it legally,” he added. “I have spoken to a lawyer. There are ways. But we will need permits, and money to lease proper venues . . .”
Harry was awed by his father, and somewhat dumbstruck. As Kenichi spoke, he continued to raise his hand periodically as the auction went on.
“You will want to collaborate with your friend Louis, I assume,” Kenichi said. He gave Harry a sidelong look and a little smile. “I have noticed: Together you are very competitive, but also quite happy and creative, too—a winning combination.”
Kenichi raised his hand again. After several more minutes, he was the only bidder left. The gavel fell, its hammer strike echoing throughout the room.
* * *
“You will be responsible for collecting the airplane and transporting it from the county impound, Mr. Yamada,” the clerk droned, minutes later, as the paperwork was being filled out. He pronounced it Yaw-may-duh. “I trust you have the means to do so?”
Kenichi looked at his son.
“Yes,” Harry answered, still pinching himself. “We can arrange for that.”
36
Murphy’s Saloon * February 28, 1941
It took some time to locate Buzz and Hutch and successfully wire each of them a message. Eventually, Louis and Harry were able to track them down: Buzz had picked up charter work in Oakland, and Hutch had gone to stay with some old Army buddies in Portland, Oregon, while he decided what to do next. Harry invited the two pilots to Newcastle, and Harry’s father paid for a pair of train tickets. Puzzled yet curious, Buzz and Hutch both made the trip.
The five of them gathered in a back booth in Murphy’s Saloon: Louis, Harry, Buzz, Hutch, and Ava. Cleo remained behind on the Yamada property, learning to prune fruit trees. Her mother was happy, Ava realized. Cleo, for all her glamour, loved working in the orchards. She should’ve been a farmer’s wife all along.
The remaining former members of the flying circus sat in the dark gloom of the bar, arrayed about a sticky wooden tabletop. It was afternoon, but the only sunlight in the establishment came from a series of small windows cut into the walls just under the eaves, making their faces glow in an almost eerie manner.
“All right, fellas,” Hutch said, once they had settled in. “You boys got us down here. Wanna tell us what this is all about?”
“We were able to get Pollux back,” Harry said.
“Well, Harry’s father was,” Louis corrected, a stickler for the details.
“We’re getting a barnstorming act together,” Harry continued. “A new one, a real one . . . bona fide and legal . . . without Earl.”
“It’ll be different,” Louis said. He cleared his throat. “No more living off chump change from taking poor farmers and their families up for tou
rist rides.”
“I don’t get it,” Hutch said. He appeared interested yet wore a frown. “How will you make your money?”
Louis and Harry exchanged a look.
“We’ve been talking,” Harry continued, “and Louis has some ideas for more of a true spectacle. We’ve been talking about putting on a straight stunt show.”
“A stunt show?” Hutch repeated.
“Yeah . . . it’s kind of a themed variety act of sorts.”
Buzz raised an eyebrow. Both pilots looked confused but intrigued.
Harry turned to his friend. “Louis?” he prompted.
Louis cleared his throat. He produced a notebook he’d been nervously clutching and placed it on the table.
“All right,” he said. “Well, to start with, you oughta know we won’t be doing this in any old farmer’s field. The law says we gotta use official airstrips, which we can lease for a price. The good news about that is now we can charge our spectators for a seat in the bleachers just to watch.”
“Instead of making our money on individual tourist rides,” Harry said, “we’ll be selling tickets to see our act, more like . . . well, more like a show. Like a tented circus, or something you would ordinarily pay to go see.”
“Who’s going to pay just to watch us monkey around with one airplane?” Buzz asked. “One airplane ain’t much, and folks don’t go nuts for airplanes like they used to.”
“Louis might just have an answer to that,” Harry said, and nodded at his friend to continue.
“To really draw the crowds,” Louis said, a tinge of nervous embarrassment in his voice, “what I’ve been thinking is that we need to put together something unique . . .”
Inside the pages of his notebook, Louis had diligently sketched out a hodgepodge of influences: He’d dissected and diagrammed several comic-book heroes, with special emphasis on flying ones such as Superman or Flash Gordon, who traveled in a rocket ship. He’d mapped out legendary performances by the Flying Wallendas and other famous circus acrobats and finally, with Harry’s help, he’d broken down and analyzed a number of Harry Houdini’s most celebrated escape acts.
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