“You saw my sister?” Jack was stunned.
“We’ve corresponded for years. She’s a real peach.”
Jack did not like the idea of Burrows anywhere near Sissy. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Trust me, that’s the last thing you have to worry about. She’s too smart to fall for a lout like me. In the morning?”
Jack nodded. Though he should go over the engines tonight, he had to read that letter. He had to know what his sister and best friend had been talking about all these years. And why hadn’t either one of them happened to mention it?
After Burrows left, Jack ripped open the envelope. The single sheet said much the usual: how she missed him, what had happened with such and such a nurse, and absolutely
nothing about Burrows. But that was all forgotten when he reached the last paragraph.
“Jackie,” she wrote, “I hope you’ll be happy for me. I’ve met a wonderful man here, a doctor. He sees me everyday, and we talk and talk. He’s such a good friend. He listens to me babble on and never once mentions my useless legs. I’m mad with happiness, and I so want you to meet him.”
It went on from there, but Jack didn’t need to read more. He crumpled the letter and tossed it in the wastebasket.
Sissy was in love, but she’d only get hurt. No man would marry her. No man would make a life with a cripple.
Jack wanted to drop everything and get on the train to Buffalo, but of course he couldn’t. He had a flight to make, win or die.
D
arcy stomped to the barn the next morning. The ground crunched under her feet. Jack Hunter could not displace her on a whim. Knowing Pohlman could arrive at any moment was one thing, but giving the cockpit to Burrows was quite another.
Well, he would not get away with it. She’d get back in that cockpit.
To her surprise, the plane was already out of the barn. Jack and Simmons watched from the ground while Burrows crawled along the wings and around the engines, measuring, noting the results and calculating with his slide rule.
As Darcy drew near, Burrows hopped to the ground.
“This girl should get into the air with no problem.” Burrows handed his notes to Jack. “You did a great job.”
“I had nothing to do with it. Mr. Simmons here did the engineering.”
Burrows shook Simmons’s hand. “I’d like to have you at Curtiss Engineering.”
If only Darcy would get such an offer. Simmons, of course, shook his head. He wouldn’t try anything new.
“And the wing repairs are Darcy’s doing,” Jack added.
The icy knot of fury inside her melted. He’d acknowledged
her contribution, though she hadn’t done the repairs herself. “I only organized everyone.”
“She’s too modest. Sure you can’t stay?”
Burrows shook his head. “Gotta run, old sport. The NC-4’s waiting, and I still need to pack.”
Darcy took in the turn of events in disbelief. All night she’d stewed for no reason. Burrows wasn’t staying. He wouldn’t fly today.
Jack didn’t give up. “You could always take tomorrow’s train.”
“You’ve got all the help you need.” Burrows nodded to her. “Just use the takeoff pattern I suggested, lose a little weight, and you’ll do fine.”
After a few more pleasantries, he set off for town, leaving Darcy alone with Jack and Simmons. She still didn’t believe what she’d heard.
“We’re doing the full-load test?” She followed Jack into the barn. “And I can go?”
“Yes.” Judging by his expression, he wasn’t pleased.
“I can do it. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Of course I worry about you.” His jaw had tensed so much that the muscles stood out. He cared enough to worry. Only Mum and Papa had ever worried about her.
“I can do it.”
He swallowed hard. “You don’t realize how dangerous this flight is.”
Though a nervous flutter teased her stomach, she kept up the confident front. “Burrows said it would go fine.”
“In theory. Practice is another matter. We’re carrying hundreds of gallons of fuel. The weight might be too much for us to lift off. One mistake, one updraft like the one that wrecked us in February, and we’ll go up in a ball of fire.”
Fire. Her flesh prickled as if seared. “I know the risk.” No adventurer let fear stop her. She took precautions, yes, but
she plowed ahead. Darcy reached for her goggles, but Jack stopped her with a touch to the arm. The old electricity still arced.
“If anything happens…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but the meaning was all too clear.
“Nothing will.” She gently removed his hand. Strong, slightly callused yet warm, and capable of such gentleness. He would hold her for all of time if she let him. But if she let love get in the way, she’d never get off the ground. “This transatlantic flight is what I want. It’s what I’ve always wanted. Living without ever having tried isn’t living at all.”
Instead of the encouraging response she expected, his expression hardened. “Then let’s get going.”
What cost?
A large part of her cried out, preferring love to adventure, but she’d set her sights on the horizon years ago, and she wouldn’t be dissuaded by an overly cautious man.
They climbed into their respective cockpits and within minutes were taxiing to the far end of the field at slow speed. Darcy swiveled around to glare at him. What was he thinking? They needed a lot more speed to lift off.
As Jack turned the plane, Darcy realized he’d chosen to take off in the opposite direction. She also saw why. A longer runway stretched south, away from the barn and toward a gap between clumps of poplar. With the heavy load, they needed the extra distance.
The pounding in her ears intensified as the plane gathered speed. What if it didn’t lift off? Would Jack be able to pull out in time? Her earthbound bravado vanished. She clutched the clipboard as the bushes and trees whizzed past.
They weren’t rising yet, and the treeline was getting closer. They’d nearly reached the end of the open runway and still no elevation. She stared ahead, willing the plane to rise. She bounced in her seat, trying to be lighter.
Go. Go. Up.
The motors howled on either side of her. At last the plane left the ground. A little. The bumping stopped, but they weren’t rising quickly enough. The trees loomed. They were going to hit them. She shut her eyes.
A thwack made them fly open. They’d hit a tree. No, they were still in the air and buzzing higher. She glanced to the left and saw a twig caught in the undercarriage. They’d made it. Barely.
“Wheee.” She reveled in the victory and the sense of freedom that only flying gave her. The wind rushing over her skin, the air so clean it left her breathless, the drone that proclaimed to the whole world that Darcy Shea could fly.
Fly!
A tap on the shoulder ended her celebration. Jack pointed to her clipboard. Back to work.
She noted the time and altitude. Again when they reached cruising altitude, she noted the time, weather conditions and speed. Then Jack took the plane due west, away from the sun.
In thirty minutes, they reached the Lake Michigan shoreline. A necklace of white sand rimmed the sparkling sapphire-blue waters. From three thousand feet, she couldn’t distinguish the mounding dunes that formed the shore.
Years ago, just after Amelia married, Papa and Mum had taken her there for a picnic. They’d strolled the beach, collecting pink granite and taffy-colored jasper. They ate roast chicken and chocolate cake with quite a bit of sand mixed in. They waded in the lake and laughed when a wave wet their skirts and Papa’s trousers. It had been a blissful time.
Just like today. She could have flown on forever, but Jack turned the plane back east, jerking her to the present. Time, altitude, revolutions per minute. All went onto the clipboard.
They landed too soon, dropping heavily into the whip-like
grass. After the plane rolled to a stop in the barn, she cast off the seat belt and threw her arms around him. “We made it.”
Just like the very first time, he resisted. “Darcy,” he cautioned as he unwrapped her arms. “We have work to do.”
Couldn’t the man celebrate? “Aren’t you excited? It was a success. Exactly what you wanted.”
He jumped to the ground, his face grim. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean? We got in the air. We have all the data we need.” She shimmied down and shoved the clipboard at him.
He took it but didn’t even look at her figures. “We’re still too heavy. We need to lose eighty to a hundred pounds.”
But that wasn’t it. Jack didn’t fret about easy adjustments like reducing weight. He just made the cuts and went on.
She set her goggles on the worktable. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“No there’s not.” He leaned against the table, pretending to study her figures, brow furrowed.
She eased alongside him, placing her hand beside his on the table. “You can talk to me. I won’t tell a soul, not even Beattie.”
He continued to pour over the figures, his jaw working through the problem. “I suppose I could. You are a woman.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“You might know what my sister is thinking.”
Though tempted to point out his lack of tact, Darcy sensed pain beneath the mindless comments, so she waited until he gathered the nerve to spill his worries.
“She’s found someone,” he said. “A doctor. She thinks she’s in love.”
“How wonderful.”
He scowled. “Not wonderful. She has polio. She can’t have
children. That’s not something a prospective husband wants in a wife.”
“If he loves her…”
“How could he love her?” Jack exploded. “She thinks she’s in love because he talks to her.” He tugged at his hair, a gesture she noticed he did when worried. “But it will end up in disaster. How can I break it to her before she gets hurt? What do I say?”
“You don’t say a thing.” Darcy could not believe the man’s audacity. “Your sister is how old?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“She’s a grown woman and perfectly capable of making her own decisions.”
His scowl deepened. “But she’ll be hurt.”
Darcy was touched by his desire to shield his sister from pain, misplaced as it was. “We’re all hurt at times in our lives. Besides, you’re condemning the relationship before you know anything about it. Who is he?”
Jack shrugged and again pretended to review the times she’d recorded during the flight. “A doctor.”
“I happen to know that doctors can be compassionate. George Carrman certainly is.”
“How compassionate is he?”
She ignored that flash of jealousy. “He helped me when I was hurt.”
Jack did not look appeased. He handed the figures back to her. “Calculate fuel usage per hour.”
She couldn’t tell if he was angry or not, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about his sister any longer. Time to stick to business. “When do we make the distance test?”
A fine white line outlined his upper lip. “I’m sorry. I reached Dwight Pohlman by telephone last night. He’ll be here Friday.”
Shock slashed through her with the force of a windstorm.
After so many delays, she’d begun to believe Pohlman would never show. She thought she’d be the navigator. She thought she’d won Jack’s respect.
She was right. On Friday morning, Pohlman wired that he would meet them in Newfoundland. Darcy rejoiced. Jack fumed. She suspected he was secretly happy that the weather had turned foul.
“You’re afraid to let me fly this test,” she pointed out.
He glared. “I’m not afraid, I’m cautious. No one flies in bad weather.”
“Suppose the weather turns bad underway?”
“You find a place to land and wait it out.”
“So that’s what we’ll do.”
He growled, “We’ll be over water.”
Darcy didn’t want to admit she hadn’t thought of that, so she went to the telegraph office to pick up the weather forecast. Rain and wind. Naturally.
The flight had to be put off over a week, but on the twenty-sixth, when Darcy picked up the forecast, she knew the wait was over. Three days of fair skies and steady high pressure, bringing low wind.
“I want you here an hour before sunrise for preflight,” instructed Jack. “Bring coffee, chocolate, sandwiches. It’s going to be a long day.” He listed a dozen things for her to do.
There was just one problem.
“Tomorrow?” She bit her lip, hesitant. “But it’s Sunday.”
He looked up from his notes. “What does that have to do with our flight?”
“We never work on Sunday.”
He went back to the notes. “That’s a luxury we no longer have.”
“But—” Darcy hesitated, torn by the call to fly and the duty to her soul. “The forecast calls for three days of fair weather. Can’t we wait until Monday?”
“The forecast changes, especially this time of year. If we wait we may lose the transatlantic attempt entirely. The chief competitors are already there.”
“Then let’s skip the distance test and go straight to Newfoundland.”
Jack scowled. “We can’t skip the distance test. Haven’t you been listening? That test will tell us if this plane can make the distance. Without it, we’re flying into certain death. No skipping steps, understand?”
“Yes, but the weather.”
“Is awful right now in Newfoundland. Remember, they have our weather from two days ago. Rain and wind. Maybe even snow at that latitude. No one’s flying. See you in the morning.”
Darcy could not quell the flutter of foreboding in her stomach. Was she wrong about Jack, or didn’t he realize the implications? She gently said, “But, we shouldn’t fly on the Sabbath.”
“This is no time to get superstitious.” He climbed into the cockpit.
He didn’t believe. Darcy had told herself he must belong to another denomination, but she’d never checked with the other churches. She’d never asked. She was afraid of what she might find out. He couldn’t be a nonbeliever. She couldn’t fall in love with a nonbeliever. The tiny pit of emptiness inside swelled and swelled until she ached all over. She could never seriously consider a man who didn’t believe in God. But she loved Jack.
She made a final attempt to convince him. “Harriet Quimby wouldn’t fly on Sundays.”
He glared down from the cockpit. “I don’t care what she
or anyone else did or doesn’t do. We need to go tomorrow, so do whatever you have to do to make peace, and be ready at dawn.”
Darcy felt sick. She had never missed Sunday worship, except for illness. It was a special time, a sacred time. It wasn’t superstition. If Jack didn’t understand that, how could they ever be together?
“You do believe in God, don’t you?” She held her breath, hoping and willing the right answer.
Jack rummaged in the space behind his seat where they stored the extra fuel and oil.
“Did you hear my question?” she called up.
“I heard you, but you don’t want to know my answer.”
“Yes I do,” she insisted.
Jack looked pained, but he didn’t hold back. “Why should I believe in God when God doesn’t believe in me?”
The rancor made her gasp. “You can’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. No matter what ministers say, I know for a fact that God doesn’t answer prayers.”
“But he does,” she cried. “He hears all prayers.”
“Not everyone’s.”
She wanted to know what unanswered prayer had turned him from God. She wanted to plead for his soul, but his tensed jaw told her to say no more.
“Be here an hour before dawn,” he said. “If you won’t go, tell me now. The transatlantic attempt is on the line.” The blue of his eyes had turned to ice.
She couldn’t bring herself to say no.
Darcy tossed and turned that night, unable to reconcile her desire with what was right. She wanted to make the transatlantic attempt. She believed God had given her the opportunity. Then why this test? Why bring Jack into her life? And why was he an unrepentant unbeliever?