Category:

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

Will needed perspective, and flying afforded an outlook that walking-around life could not. He hustled across the Flying W Airfield, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. It was a busy Saturday afternoon, but today he didn't stop to talk with the other pilots he passed.

When he got to the plane, Will flung his flight bag onto the tarmac and slammed his hand into the door. That stopped him. His palm throbbed. He lowered his hand, shook it out. It still stung reaching into his pocket for the keys. He unlocked the plane, flicked the light switches on, and began his preflight checks.

A 1953 Cessna 180, the plane didn't show her age. It was twenty years since she'd rolled off the assembly line, but freshly polished, she looked sleek. His hand skimmed the fuselage, almost a caress now. He checked the lights, the tires for wear, and the brakes for drips of hydraulic fluid. He loved the ritual of preflight, but today, running his eyes and fingers over the leading edges of her wings and prop didn't fill him with the usual mix of focus and excitement; instead he seethed in the summer sun.

Will unhooked the tie-downs and climbed into the cockpit. He donned his headset and adjusted the microphone close to his lips. Then he slid his aviator sunglasses on. He had never worn sunglasses before this summer—didn't care to have his views of the world altered. But he was compelled to try them back in June when the kids had pooled funds and given them to him for Father's Day. At the time, he'd been surprised they could agree on anything, but this morning Will saw that his children could cooperate in ways he wouldn't have imagined. Talk about altering his views.

Master switch on. Fuel mixture full rich. Throttle in. Brakes engaged. Will leaned out and yelled, "Clear prop!"

The plane shuddered to a start as if she'd been asleep since their last time up and was shaking off the nap. He taxied the short distance to the runway, turned ninety degrees to the left, and braked. His hands moved over the controls as his eyes scanned the gauges. He made his final checks quickly, wanting to get up and out of the heat. He looked for planes on downwind and base legs, and final approach. He found none, turned the plane the remaining ninety degrees onto the runway, and peered at the cornfield at the end of the airstrip through the blur of the whirling prop.

"Cessna one eight zero, two zero Mike Foxtrot, taking off, runway zero one, Flying W, over."

The engine's power vibrated from the soles of his feet up through his body. When no other air traffic responded, he eased his feet off the brakes and gave her full throttle. Sensing the velocity, he glanced down at the airspeed indicator—spot on at sixty miles per hour. He pulled back evenly on the yoke.

Airborne—the moment of lift. There was nothing like the feeling of gravity loosening its grip on you.

His plane was a partner he could trust. If he took care of her, she'd take care of him. He reveled in her grace in the dance of flight, and his lead. He was in control of everything except the wind and weather, and it was his job to read them, understand them, and adjust to the ride. You studied and learned these things, and they all made sense. But you could spend your whole life studying people and not make sense of them. How do you adjust to a ride like that?

"Philadelphia Control, this is Cessna one eight zero, two zero Mike Foxtrot, heading three five five degrees to Stillwater V-O-R Sierra Tango Whiskey. Climbing to 6,500 feet."

He'd go higher than usual today, get the wider view.

"Roger, two zero Mike Foxtrot. Squawk zero four one one," the tower answered.

Will regarded the landscape below and asked himself again how he'd ended up in New Jersey. He turned toward the Pennsylvania hills, what people here called mountains. The Poconos'll be pretty today, he thought. Pretty can't hurt.

Will had a weak spot for pretty girls. Pretty could cast a spell, like the day he met his ex some sixteen years ago. Her smile had drawn him across the barroom like iron to a magnet. When he slid his arm around her slim waist the first time they danced, she moved like a feline against him, and Kat had gotten her nickname that night.

A pretty scene could take him in, too. Like June 3, the day in 1968 he'd interviewed for the Philadelphia Port Expansion job. It had been perfect—warm but not hot, bright and clear, breezy but not blustery. The Delaware River Valley was all the things that Arizona, where he'd just finished his master's degree in engineering geology, wasn't. Spring in the Southwest was a hot, gritty, brown blast of a season, and Will had been ready for a change.