The Cannibal Queen (27 page)

The
Cannibal Queen
as drawn by the author’s daughter, Rachael. This surrealistic interpretation of the aircraft in flight without people seems somehow symbolic of the dream—you put yourself into the cockpit surrounded by yellow wings, above endless vistas of summer landscape, flying in an infinite summer sky.

(OVERLEAF)
Newspaper photographer David P. Gilkey rigged a camera on the left wing strut of the
Cannibal Queen
to capture this view as she soars around the Flatirons, a rock formation near Boulder, Colorado. That’s Gilkey in the front seat, triggering the camera with a remote control. He chose to shoot the left side of the plane so that the feminist editors of his newspaper would not see and be offended by the nose art on the other side.

Skid Henley, the artist in steel, wood, and fabric who totally rebuilt the
Cannibal Queen
, poses with the author. Skid logged over 15,000 hours in Stearmans, spraying from New Brunswick to Nicaragua. His restoration of the
Queen
took thirteen months of intense effort.

The
Cannibal Queen
on the ramp at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. She started her flying career as a military primary flight trainer during World War II, so this is not the first military ramp graced by her presence.

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls as seen from the
Cannibal Queen
on a hazy summer day. What can’t be seen in this photo are the suds caused by industrial chemicals that coat the river below the falls.

Mount Shasta as viewed from the rear cockpit of the
Cannibal Queen
. This monstrous old volcano dominates the northern California landscape.

The author and son, David, pose for the camera. This shot captured David's infectious grin and the zest with which he approaches life.

The author and the Cannibal Queen, nose art created by photographer/artist David Zlotky, a man of many talents. He refused to reveal the identity of his model.

I add power and climb westward for the Mississippi, which lies just a few miles ahead. Hmmm, Hannibal, Missouri, is dead ahead, Mark Twain’s hometown. Should I stop?

Mark Twain grew up in the 1840s in Hannibal, I know, just west of New Salem where Lincoln was keeping a store. How many miles? I use my pen on the chart to estimate the distance. About 25 nautical miles. There’s an odd fact—the young man destined to become America’s greatest political leader and the savior of the republic tended store just a few miles from where the boy destined to become America’s greatest writer was fishing in the great river and playing robbers with his chums.

The river doesn’t look as if it drains half a continent, but it does. I cross above Hannibal at a thousand feet, craning my neck. Not too crowded.

The airport lies northwest of town. I had planned to fly on to Kirksville, Missouri, and spend the night. When I see the fuel pump at the Hannibal airport, I change my mind. After a squint at the wind sock I announce my intentions on Unicom and make an approach to runway 17. The crosswind is about 90 degrees, right out of the east at eight knots. All that practice yesterday in West Virginia pays off now: I settle the
Queen
onto the runway and taxi in feeling like Lindbergh after landing in Paris.

The man in his fifties who pumps the gas can’t do enough for me. He calls the hotel, a Best Western known as the Clemens Hotel, and loans me his mechanic’s van for the night. The key is in it. It has gone at least 130,000 miles and I can look through the rust holes in the floorboard at the ground, but it carries me off for town.

After dinner in the Mark Twain Family Restaurant and Dinette right across the street from the Clemens Hotel, I took a walk as the evening shadows deepened. I didn’t have far to go. Right around the corner was the house where young Sam Clemens, the future Mark Twain, grew up. It’s a museum now.

Running along the sidewalk downhill to the corner of Main Street is a white board fence, “the fence that Tom Sawyer’s friends paid him to paint.” Across the street is the building where Sam’s father kept a law office. It’s right beside the Becky Thatcher House! Somehow fact and fiction are badly intertwined here.

Main Street parallels the river. Looking north, I could see a genuinely good, larger-than-life heroic bronze of two barefoot boys standing on a pedestal. Tom and Huck. After all, Mark Twain mythologized childhood.

But turning south, Main Street is lined with buildings from the 1830s and ’40s. These buildings house shops selling souvenirs of Twaintown—please! I’m not making this up.

The brochure the hotel handed out stated that two and a half miles south is Tom Sawyer Cave, a must-see attraction. And across the river is Tom Sawyer Island, where Huck and Jim hid for a day or two before setting off down the river on a raft. It’s obvious the National Park Service never laid eyes on this place.

If you don’t know much about Mark Twain or the books he wrote, and I suspect most tourists don’t, this interplay of fact and fantasy must be pretty confusing. I’ll bet ten bucks of real money that the majority of tourists leave here thinking that Tom Sawyer really painted that fence, that Becky Thatcher lived right across the street, and that Twain just scribbled down all the things that went on in his hometown when he was a kid.

I wandered on, looking at the old buildings in the dusk. A block or two south on Main Street I turned east for the river. After crossing a double set of railroad tracks, I found myself on the edge of a boat basin. I wanted to get beside the water. I chose a path through a little park that led out onto the levee.

I estimated the river here is about three-quarters of a mile wide. Off to the south a replica paddle-wheel steamer moved slowly against the current. Off to the north, my left, a set of grain elevators block Twaintown from the river. Beyond that a highway bridge spans the Mississippi.

Two boys sat on the side of the levee fishing. “What’re you fishing for?”

“Everything,” the eldest replied, and turned to look at me. “We’re using worms and corn.”

Corn?

I examined their rigs when the youngest reeled in to check his bait. He was using a weight and no bobber, so his bait, a worm, laid on the bottom.

I could see insects playing on the water’s surface and every now and then a fish would jump and make an audible smack. The fish were going after the bugs. These boys should have been fishing with flies. As if I knew. Boys have been fishing along this bank every summer evening for over a hundred and fifty years.