Whispers of a New Dawn (16 page)

“Why? What’s his reason?”

“His reason is the same as their reason. Christian Raven is too slow in the air and they think I have something that he needs.”

“Something special?”

“I guess.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Stuff.”

“Stuff?” Ruth took a sip from a glass of lemonade. “I think the word is
spirit
.”

Becky shrugged.

“Aren’t things going well with your other students?” Ruth asked.

“Swell. But Raven is a combat pilot and they aren’t. He could make a difference one day. The kind of difference that saves the Nankings of our world, you know? And I can’t reach him. I just can’t.” Becky stopped stitching and stared at the needle in her fingers. “He’s holding back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why.”

“I suppose a lot of men think the same way about you.”

“What?”

“They’re polite. They ask you to the movies. To the restaurant. To a dance. And it’s always no. Usually with a fair bit of heat attached. They probably wonder what a pretty girl like you is doing sitting around at home every evening.
What’s holding her back?
they must be asking themselves.”

“Let them ask. There will never be another man for me. Never.”

“They don’t know that. They don’t know your story, about what happened in Pennsylvania. They don’t know why you are who you are and why you act the way you do. It’s the same with Christian Raven, isn’t it? Don’t you think there’s a good reason he’s holding back?”

“Who knows?”

“You have a reason for why you won’t date a man. He must have a reason he won’t fly as hard and fast as you want him to. If you find out what it is, you still may not be able to help him but at least you’ll understand him.”

“Never in a million years will he let me in on something like that.”

Ruth put fresh thread through the eye of her needle. “He might if you let him in on what happened with Moses Yoder.”

“What? I’m never going to tell a person like that about Moses!”

“‘A person like that’?” Ruth pulled the needle through a corner of the quilt. “It’s not as if there aren’t stories going the rounds. Why not tell him the truth and let God take it from there?”

“What stories?”

“That you cut your hair off with a knife. That you had a friend killed in a plane crash and you were the one piloting the plane.”

“What?”

“In church last week a woman asked me if it was true that you had been married and that your husband had divorced you because you wouldn’t give up flying.”

Becky put down her needle. “Why are so many people talking behind my back?”

“There’s always talk going on behind all our backs. Now and then you have to decide where and when you’re going to refute it. And who you think really ought to know the truth. Do you think Christian Raven deserves to know the truth?”

“Christian Raven! He doesn’t deserve anything.”

“So you’re content that he thinks you chopped off your hair with a butcher knife and killed the man you loved when you flew poorly and crashed your plane?”

“I don’t care what he thinks.”

“Well, then, you’re back where you started. You don’t know why he’s the way he is, and he thinks he knows why you’re the way you are but he’s wrong.”

Becky got up. “I need a break.”

The house Flapjack had found for the Whetstones was on a slope. To the south she could make out the waters of Pearl Harbor, and far to the left, Diamond Head. She walked through a grove of palm trees and looked toward Wheeler Army Airfield miles to the north. Watching the tiny dots of planes in the late afternoon sky she thought about Christian Raven without meaning to or wanting to. He might be flying
his P-36 now—smooth, fluid, controlled, and without even the slightest hint of fire in his bones.

He’d never have made it as a barnstormer. We’d have given him the little kids and their grandparents to take up for nice gentle rides
.

She sat down on a rock. Now all she could see were palm fronds and pineapple plants. Without planning to, she began to pray, talking to God out loud as drops of light fell on her arms and face through the palm branches.

He said he believed in God but I don’t really have any idea what he believes in. Of course we’re not on speaking terms, are we? More like sniping terms. But I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter what he does or doesn’t believe or how he acts toward me or why he is the way he is. It just matters how I respond or act toward him. I haven’t done a very good job, Lord. I haven’t acted like a Christian in any way that you would recognize. I’ve been pretty nasty
.

And not just to him. To all the pilots I’ve met. It’s not like any of them pinned my arms behind my back and forced me to kiss them. They just wanted to ask me out and I’m still so upset about Moses all I could do was snap at them—“How dare you?” I expect all these men to know what happened in Pennsylvania and that I’ve given my heart away to another for all time, and they don’t know anything about Moses or the Amish or what happened before we came here. I haven’t been fair, have I? Not sure what to do next. I can’t stand the thought of apologizing to Christian Raven
.

He was waiting by the Piper the next morning as she walked across the runway. His sunglasses glinted in the sunrise as he smiled and patted the plane’s cowling.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Am I?” she responded.

“Were you hoping I’d pop into the front seat and show you how it’s done?”

“I honestly wish you would, Thunderbird.” Becky stood facing him a moment, her eyes hidden behind her own pair of Ray-Bans. Then she clenched her fists and took the plunge. “What have you heard about me at Wheeler?”

“Excuse me? What are you asking?”

“When men talk about me, what do they say?”

“Are you kidding me?”

Becky took off her glasses and her eyes were a mix of green and gold in the dawn. “No.” She pocketed the glasses in her khaki shirt. “Some say I hacked my hair off with a butcher knife.”

“I heard it was a bread knife with serrations.”

“It was neither. I used a pair of scissors. Do you want to know why?”

“No. Let’s just go up.”

“A friend got killed. Did you hear about that?”

Raven hesitated. “Yeah.”

“How do the men at Schofield Barracks and at Wheeler think it happened?”

“Some say it was pilot error—his. Others say you were reckless and doing a stunt that went wrong and he died because of it.”

“There was no plane. We were engaged to be married. A strong wind gust took him off the roof of a barn he was working on.”

Raven didn’t say anything.

“He always loved my hair long. It was part of his religion, really—
a woman’s crowning glory is her hair
. So I cut it off a few weeks after his funeral. I made a mess of it. My aunt had to trim it and make it right.”

Raven still didn’t respond.

“I made a kind of vow when I cut it off. No men. He was my life mate forever—even in death. So that’s why I’ve been keeping men at arm’s length, even movie stars like Lockjaw and Whistler. Not because I hate men. Because I loved the man I lost so much.”

Raven finally spoke. “Why are you telling me this?”

“We got off on the wrong foot. And I was the one who made sure we did. Now I want you to understand why. His death has made me the way I am. Or at least the way I’ve dealt with his death has made me the way I am.” She pulled back the canopy. “That’s all. I’m a church girl and should know better how to treat people. I’m sorry, Thunderbird. Maybe we can start over. Maybe not. But let’s at least stop cutting each other up, and let’s try and make you the aviator Billy Skipp wants. I’d hate to lose you to the trenches.”

A jeep came racing over to them with Flapjack’s right-hand man in it.

“Hey,” said Peachtree. “There’s a storm brewing west of the islands.” Raven and Becky both glanced that way and could see the dark cumulus building on the horizon. “The meteorologists say it will hit in an hour or so with a lot of big wind. So all planes are grounded for the morning. Maybe all day. Depends how long the weather sticks around.”

“Okay,” said Becky.

“You guys want a lift back to the office?”

“Yeah, I’ll shove off now.” Becky climbed into the back of the jeep.

Peachtree looked at Raven. “Coming, Thunderbird?”

“Stay with me, Becky.”

Becky stared at Raven. “What?”

Raven took off his sunglasses. The blue of his eyes was piercing. “Stay with me.”

Part of her wanted to say,
Why should I?
The other part didn’t say anything. It just made her get out of the jeep.

“I guess we’ll walk, Peachtree,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Suit yourselves.” Peachtree roared off.

Becky gazed up at Raven. “What’s this about, Thunderbird?”

“Let’s sit in the plane and not go anywhere.”

They left the canopy open at first. Raven leaned his head back against his seat and closed his eyes. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

“Loud and clear,” Becky replied from the front seat.

“You’re never going to get me to develop a fighter’s instinct. It’s not going to happen. We should save the time and gas.”

“You want a tin helmet that bad?”

He said nothing more for a long minute. “You want me to spread the word about what really happened to you when you were stateside?”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m going to say some things about myself and I don’t want anyone knowing about them. Understood?”

“All right. But why are you telling me if you feel that way? We don’t have to play tit for tat. I said what I said. You don’t owe me anything.”

“No. I don’t. But you tried to make a difference, so I’m going to
respect that and tell you why I can’t be the wonder boy you want to turn me into.”

“Thunderbird—”

“I barnstormed too. With my old man. Mostly in the Southwest—Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico. I was born in 1917 and I was already flying alone at twelve—just short runs. Used to drive Mom crazy but the old man never cared what she thought. By ’33, when I was sixteen, I was really cooking with gas. I’d do anything—fly under low bridges, go through barns, thread the needle between two or three trees. The old man made a lot of money off my stunts, always had some kind of bet going on with the odds against me and hundreds of people involved.”

The sky had darkened and rain was coming in fast fat drops. Becky pulled the canopy shut and they listened to it drum on the plane for a few moments. Finally Raven sat up and looked out at the storm and spoke again.

“So my brother is, what, nine? The old man wanted him wing-walking but Mom really threw a fit so he let it go. Then he came up with a better idea how to make a lot of cash—Timmy flies the Jenny while I sit in front as a passenger. Timmy does the loops, the barrel rolls, the death spins—oh yeah, Becky, I learned all that stuff—and I’ve got my hands stretched out over my head to show I’m not doing a thing while we’re in the air. So ‘Timmy Dynamite’ is the youngest barnstormer in America and he goes under bridges and over hedges and through barns just like me, sitting on a stack of mail-order catalogues. Why am I in the plane? For only one reason—in case Timmy screws up. I’m supposed to somehow get to the back cockpit and take over the controls if that happens. Of course it’s never supposed to happen because if we’d taken that part seriously we’d have realized how hard it was going to be for me to get into Timmy’s cockpit.”

Wind was rocking the Piper and the rain sounded like bullets on the wings and canopy and fuselage.

“The stunt was easy. He was going to do a figure eight with smoke. And the kid was never afraid, Becky, never. Into the eight he goes, I’m popping open the smoke canister, no one’s looking at the wild geese
coming in from the south. Timmy’s going to bend right into them as he does his eight. The old man says he was waving his arms and screaming up at us—maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, we would never have noticed anyway. Timmy turned into the geese and they went right into the prop and the wings, tearing big holes in the fabric, spraying blood and guts all over the plane, breaking the propeller blade in half. Timmy’s crying for me to help him, the plane’s going into a spin, everyone thinks it’s part of the act except the old man and Mom. I tried to haul myself into Timmy’s cockpit, I couldn’t do it at first, finally made it in time to see Timmy’s white face and his big dark little-kid eyes before he fell out of the plane—his harness had been shredded. He landed in front of the crowd and sank a foot into the ground. I crash-landed the Jenny in a cornfield and walked out of it.”

He stopped.

Becky had turned around in her seat, her eyes large and black. “Thunderbird. Christian.”

“The drinking and the beatings came after all that. The old man blamed me and Mom blamed him and I blamed myself and God. There was plenty of blame to go around. Watch yourself now.”

Raven hauled back on the canopy and the rain poured in. He was quick, pulling the canopy shut as soon as he was on the runway. He looked at Becky through the water streaming over the glass. Then he walked off into the storm.