Love Story: In The Web of Life (33 page)

"Two scrambled eggs," I responded. Tina added,
"The Denver Omelet."

Agnes looked me straight in the eye and said,
"Congratulations on creating Rocky Butte's first millionaires and
putting the Sheriff in his place."

"Thanks, but that is not exactly true. Their
suit will be locked in appeals courts for years to come. The
insurance companies will try to drag it out forever. The Sodastroms
will not get a penny for years. People shouldn't try to hit them up
for donations or grub stakes on mining ventures. They don't have
any new money. Tell all the potential kidnappers of Ann and Ed that
unless they want to hold captives for years, there will be no money
for ransom."

"Is that really true?" She sounded
surprised.

"And, our law firm doesn't get paid from the
settlement until the Sodastroms do. I am not leaving here with a
fat paycheck from the settlement. I did not come here and get rich
off the Sodastroms' hard luck."

"Is that really true? That's disappointing, for
the Sodastroms, I mean."

Agnes leaned down as if she were going to share
a confidence with Tina and said. "The boys over there think you
were the girl who beat up Chester Dawson at The Claim Jumper
yesterday. Is that true?"

Tina bent her head down in mock embarrassment
and replied in her fake southern accent, "I was at The Claim Jumper
yesterday with one of my lady friends and I saw those big cowboys
scrabbling about something. How could somebody like little old me
beat up a cowboy who weighs twice as much as I? Well, I'll
say."

"I'll tell them," replied Agnes.

As we got back in the car, I said to Tina, "You
have created another legend for Rocky Butte. You're probably the
biggest thing since Sasquatch was sighted. I don't think any locals
heard about Mr. S's little surprise. Buster had requested the FBI
keep the affair secret for a while. He didn't want to risk having
the car bombing interfere with the trial."

"We visited the Sodastroms briefly, and
returned to the Ranch to pack up. We said our goodbyes to Buster
and Sofia, with Sofia, and Tina acting as if they were long lost
sisters."

Elizabeth would stay a few days to clean up
some paperwork, and take Ben up on his offer to give her riding
lessons.

She blushed slightly and added, "Ben also said
something about learning something called 'wrangling.' Do you know
what that means?"

"I'll expect a full report when you get back to
LA," I joked.

Elizabeth smiled, "I need to take something
back: Catered dinners, fine champagne, clients who fly in Lear
Jets, twenty–million dollars, that's big time. I am delighted I got
to assist." She offered her hand.

"Thank you," I replied, and shook her
hand.

As we drove away Tina said, "Well, that's one
more chapter in our lives."

'That is more true than you think,' I thought.
I didn't want to discuss Colson's letter until I had sorted out a
whole bunch of things.

****

Chapter Nine

THE
QUIET TIME

We had a leisurely trip through the Gold
Country in the foothills of the Sierras where the California Gold
Rush happened, through the sleepy towns, so isolated from larger
towns that they did not become bedroom communities. They've
maintained the character of an early California small boomtown,
isolated from the changes in industry and immigration.

We had fun panning gold, riding logging trains,
swimming in ice-cold rivers through tame rapids; being
tourists.

At one point Tina observed, "I was expecting we
would rush back to CrystalAire and your sailplane. Here, we are
playing tourist."

I replied, "That's where we are headed. Somehow
it doesn't seem so urgent now."

I wanted to talk to Tina about my letter from
Colson. I though it was such a huge subject that it required a
spectacular setting to discuss. I suggested to Tina that we go to
Yosemite, it was not too far off our route, and neither of us had
been there for many years.

We spent a day and a half in Yosemite Valley,
mostly hiking. Since we were both consumed by the excitement of
exploring the beautiful place, for the first time since we were
kids, I didn't find a suitable, quiet time to discuss grown-up
plans with Tina. Reluctantly, we started the drive to Southern
California.

After we left drove out of the Valley, we came
to a sign for the turn to Glacier Point. I said, "Let's go there.
There is a place there that is one of my favorites."

We drove for about a half hour over an area
that was mostly grey granite outcroppings with scattered clumps of
trees. We came to the Washburn Point turnout and parked. We walked
over and sat on a low granite block wall.

Tina exclaimed. "This is really spectacular!
Look how dark it looks down in the valley below us and how the
shadow is creeping up the other side of the valley. Are those the
falls we hiked up where there was all the mist? Look at how golden
Half Dome looks in the late sun."

I recalled to Tina, "The last time I was here,
a geology teacher, standing on that boulder over there, lectured
his class. He was really in his element, talking about eons of
time, the glaciers grinding their way through the valleys, He was
silhouetted in front of hundreds of miles of Granite Mountains. I
had never really thought about it, but geology has a lot to do with
space-time, the four-dimensional kind. Speaking of
space-time....."

I reached in my pocked, produced Colson's offer
letter.

"Tina read it with astonishment and said, "What
does this mean?"

"This will be essentially a new career for me.
I will change my life plan. Stand up a second." I stepped to the
ground and held her hand as I directed her to stand on the
wall.

She looked surprised, slightly alarmed, as
though she thought I might push her off the wall. The golden light
of the late afternoon sun made her face and hair glow.

"I am making big decisions and changes in my
life, and I would like you to be part of them. Will you marry
me?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Or more succinctly, Yes." She
jumped down, threw her hands around my neck, kissed me for a long
time and then pulled her head back, looked me in the eyes and said,
"That means yes...maybe, I should clarify that, Yes,
Yes."

After a lovely and emotional few minutes, and
some disapproving looks from a couple of elderly grey-haired ladies
who drove up, Tina asked for the keys to the car, dug in the picnic
basket, and produced a wine bottle and two glasses.

"Easy for me," I said, "I'm the designated
driver and we have a bit of mountain road to go on before we get to
our hotel."

We held hands, looked at each, conversed with
tears in our eyes, as the remnants of the late afternoon cumulus
clouds turned gold and faded to night.

Back to the main highway, I noticed Hesperus
leading his invasion of the night sky. It seemed as if he wasn't as
alone as before.

****

We arrived at CrystalAire in late afternoon the
next day. I drove directly to my sailplane trailer, opened it and
was looking inside when Dan drove up and walked over.

"Everything is OK. That FAA inspector nearly
took everything apart. That other man with him paid me to help. You
got a free annual aircraft inspection and then some. They took the
parachute away and brought it back with a certified repack. It's
back where it is normally stored. I have to ask you a
favor."

"Sure, but first, I would like to introduce you
to my fiancé, Tina Quail."

I caught her off guard. Dan got an 'Oh my God!'
kind of stare and handshake.

"I have talked to the field owner, and he would
like to keep what went on out here quiet. He doesn't want other
sailplane pilots worrying about the safety of their
equipment."

"Agreed, I think everyone has already forgotten
about it. I know I have."

I mused to myself that some people in the FBI
and Mr. S. would be thinking about it for a while
longer.

Dan started to walk away and turned to say, "We
have a great soaring forecast for tomorrow. You will want to get
ready early."

"Great!" I replied.

****

The bright sun coming through the bedroom
window woke me. I quietly slipped out of bed and got dressed. I
walked out to survey the sky and I felt the warmth of the sun on my
face. Not a hint of wind. I went inside and found there was an
email from my friend, the weather person, at LAX: she said there
would be strong soaring conditions for the morning with a
twenty-five-knot northwesterly wind developing in the late
afternoon.

"Sounds good," I thought. 'It looks like flying
north up the Sierras will be good for an out-and-return goal
flight.'

The Fédération Aéronautique Internatinale or
FAI has awards for soaring achievement. There are silver, gold, and
three diamond awards. My goal has been to make a single flight in
which I achieve the silver, gold, and all three diamond awards. To
do that I will have to fly out to and return from a stated goal two
hundred and fifty kilometers (155 miles) away, gain five thousand
meters (16,368 feet), and be in the air for five hours. This might
be the day.

Somehow being awarded a small gold pin with
three diamonds to wear on my soaring cap seemed rather unimportant
now. I wanted to make the flight for fun.

I said to myself. 'That's how I will do it:
forget all the hard planning, the calculations, and the logic. I'll
use my intuition and simply flow with it.'

Tina and I hurried through breakfast and got an
early start so we would "put together" before it got hot. Tina
insisted on joining me for assembly, saying, "I am now going to
make sure the wings are bolted on and you don't take off without
your little bottle of water and lunch."

The sailplane trailer is almost twice as long
as most cars, a big cylinder about five feet high, which opens like
a giant clamshell. Inside, the wings are stored alongside the
fuselage. Everything is mounted on dollies and is easily rolled
around and assembled.

Dan stopped by and showed me where Mr. S. had
put his surprise package. No sign of anything unusual
now.

I told him my soaring goal for the day and he,
acting as an official observer, loaded the information into the
flight-recording computer in the sailplane. Upon my return, he
would read the computer and officially verify that I had made the
flight I planned.

He walked away and returned with a pickup with
a tank in the back. I took the hose from the tank and began pouring
clear liquid into openings in the top of the wings.

Tina asked, "What are you doing now. You don't
have an engine, so why do you need to add fuel?"

"I am filling these long bladders in the wings
with water to make the plane fly faster in strong conditions. I'll
drain them out later in the day if the weather weakens."

I was ready to fly. We sat under the shade of
the wing and waited, holding hands, feeling the love flow between
us, and having quiet time. It was midweek and no other pilots were
here this early.

At 10:15, I noticed a small whisp of a cloud
over the Devil's Punchbowl.

"Look up there, above the Devil's Punchbowl.
That wisp of cloud indicates that there is a thermal there. It will
be time to start soon. Let's push the plane out and get ready to
launch."

When Dan saw me moving onto the launch area he
started the Pawnee, taxied to the launch area, stopped a couple of
hundred feet in front of me, and turned off the engine. He unrolled
the tow cable and handed me the end that I attached to the bow of
my sailplane. "It looks as though you can get an early start. Let's
wait about ten more minutes."

I put on my parachute and climbed into the
sailplane. Surprisingly, I was feeling butterflies in my stomach. I
was sweating in the ninety-degree heat as I stuffed my sweater
behind the parachute.

Tina was fussing with my shoulder straps and
telling me where my lunch and water were. I loved it. She
volunteered, "You will be home late but very happy. Can you accept
that prediction?"

"Gladly" I gave her a nervous kiss goodbye,
closed the canopy and, gave 'thumbs up.' Tina held the wingtip off
the ground, Dan started the Pawnee and we were soon airborne. We
circled once around the field to gain altitude and then turned
toward the mountains. There was no significant lift until we got
over the Punchbowl. It was there, but weak. I released the tow
cable, Dave dove away and I started to circle in about a hundred
feet per minute lift.

I loitered there barely gaining any altitude
for about ten minutes, and then I shifted to a thermal coming from
a white mountain in a valley to the East. It was stronger, and I
gained a thousand feet in a half hour. Somehow, flying was
different now: I was not getting uptight about getting away on my
cross-country trip. I was enjoying the scenery, the joy of flying,
and a quiet sense of freedom. High performance sailplanes make no
noise as they fly. They have mirror-like, highly polished wings and
snug fitting canopies. Anything that whistled would waste precious
energy. Stealth is important when you don't nave a motor