“Christ,” Sonny muttered, “we'd better have a fire truck and ambulance standing by.” He headed for the phone on the other side of the waiting room.
I keyed the unicom's mike. “Citabria seven-seven-two-eight-niner, McCone at Little River. Request your position.”
Nothing.
“Two-eight-niner, acknowledge.”
Still nothing.
Sonny hung up the phone, gave me a thumbs-up gesture.
“Two-eight-niner, acknowledge.”
“What else can I do?” Sonny asked.
“Give me a sectional.”
He took one from a rack at the far end of the counter, handed it to me. I opened it, thinking to check other area frequencies that she might have switched to. As I rattled the chart, a moth-eaten blanket bunched in a corner of the broken-down red Naugahyde couch began to ripple; a black nose poked out, swiftly followed by the long snout and bleary eyes of a small black-and-white terrier. Gilda, the airport dog, somewhat stunned by our early arrival and confusing the sectional's rattle with that of the wrappers of sandwiches which transient pilots frequently shared with her. She assessed the situation, flashed me a reproachful look, and burrowed back under the blanket.
Little River's frequency was 122.7, the same as Los Alegres's and Petaluma's. Ocean Ridge, down the coast near Gualala, was 122.6. If she'd gone inland to avoid the high-velocity winds here, her closest choices were Willits, Ukiah, and Boonville.
But after her near-disastrous takeoff, had she the presence of mind to make a plan, reset the frequency? I didn't think so; flying the plane would be enough of a task.
“Citabria seven-seven-two-eight-niner, request your position,” I repeated.
Silence.
“Two-eight-niner, acknowledge.
Please
acknowledge.”
“Two-eight-niner.” The familiar voice was weak and shaky.
I sucked in my breath, let it out slowly. Warned myself to proceed with extreme caution. Enraged as I was with her, I couldn't let anger communicate itself. Couldn't let her hear how much I wanted revenge.
“Two-eight-niner, what's your position?”
No reply.
I couldn't lose her now! “Position, Two-eight-niner?”
“… I don't
know!”
Close to panic.
Reassure her. Calm her down. Save the plane and—more important—the lives of the people she might encounter in the air or when she hits the ground.
“That's okay, Lee.”
“It's
not
okay!”
“Everybody gets lost now and then.”
“… Even you?”
Hating myself for doing it, I tried to force warmth into my voice. If I wanted to talk her down, I'd need to build a rapport. “Even me.”
Silence. It wasn't working.
I thought back to the acting class I'd taken as an elective in college, remembered the instructor's words: “Make yourself the character;
fuse
yourself with the character's psyche.” Okay, right now I was an air traffic controller, bringing in a frightened pilot with whom I'd never before had contact. There was no bad history between us; this was a job—a delicate and important one—but only that.
“Lee, on my first solo cross-country I was going to Lincoln Regional, transversing Class C airspace at Sacramento. I'm looking for the airport, and I'm looking, but I can't spot it. So I finally break down and contact their unicom, say I'm a student pilot who's lost. The guy laughs and says, ‘Well, maybe you can't find us, but we've got you. Look down.’”
Silence for a few seconds, then, “You're not making that up?”
“Nope. You can imagine how I felt after I landed and trudged in to get my logbook signed.”
She laughed—a fluttery sound edged with relief.
Good. I had relaxed her some. Now I'd bring her down, one step at a time. Bring her down in more ways than one.
“Okay, Lee, listen to me. You've got plenty of fuel, and the wind velocity is decreasing. You … no,
we
are going to land the plane at Little River. Got that?”
“… Yes.”
“Okay, Lee, look down. What do you see?”
Silence. Behind me the door opened, and two sheriff's deputies came in. I held up my hand before either could speak, waved them toward Sonny.
“Lee, what do you see?”
“The coast. It bulges out here, and there's a flashing light at the tip. And a string of lights a little bit inland, along the coast highway, I think.”
Point Arena Lighthouse and the town of Albion. I placed my thumb on the sectional, measured with my forefinger. Roughly twenty nautical miles, and a good thing too, because I'd lied to her about having plenty of fuel.
“You're at Point Arena, Lee, only twenty nautical miles away. We'll have you on the ground in no time. Now, what's your altitude?”
“Um, twenty-five hundred.”
“That's good. And your heading?”
“Three-one.”
I grabbed a straightedge, laid it on one of the chart's compass roses. If she continued on that course, she'd be over the open sea soon. I adjusted the straightedge for Little River. “Lee, steer it to three-four.”
More silence. I glanced outside, saw the ambulance and fire truck that Sonny had requested pull onto the field. He and the deputies went outside to meet their drivers.
D’Silva said, “Okay, I'm on three-four.”
“Hold it there. How're you feeling?”
“… Scared.”
Had to be a big admission for her. Now the question was, would fear make her more cautious, or make her lose it?
“Well, that's natural. That solo cross-country I was telling you about? I was an idiot to plot a course through Class C, but my instructor okayed it. Said she knew I could handle it and that I'd learn a valuable lesson.”
“… What?”
“Sacramento kept advising me of jet traffic, and I'd bob my head around like one of those ornaments you see on car dashboards, and I still couldn't spot those huge heavies. I was sure I'd cause some horrible midair and hundreds of innocent people would die because of my overconfidence. Going home I deviated all the way north to the Maxwell VOR and slunk over the hills to Los Alegres—if one can slink in a Cessna 150. And I never got overly ambitious again.”
She was silent, probably realizing the relevance of what I'd told her to the present situation.
“Lee?”
“Other traffic! What if—”
“You don't have to worry about that, not at this hour.” And not strictly true. But by now anybody who'd been monitoring this unicom would have split for safer parts or be holding at a distance. “Still on three-four?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you see to your right.”
“Not much. A few lights.”
The hamlet of Elk. “And directly ahead?”
“Some lights on a point, and inland—oh!”
“You have the airport.”
“I have it! God, the way it just appears out of all those dark trees!”
“Not too hard to spot, huh? Okay, traffic here is left, for runway two-niner. The lights on the point are Mendocino; avoid flying over them, but if for some reason you can't, stay above two thousand feet. When you're at the right position relative to the airport, make your turn and come in on the forty-five like you would anyplace else, gradually losing altitude till you're at a thousand feet.”
“Sharon, I don't think I can do it. Not in the dark, in a strange plane.”
For a second I wanted to step out of my air traffic controller's role, to scream that she should have thought of the consequences before she stole the “strange plane.” I bit my lip, held it in.
“Sharon?”
God, how I hated to further encourage her identification with me! But it had to be done.
“You aren't going to land the plane alone, Lee.
We're
going to do it together.”
More silence. Then in a calmer tone, “Maybe we can.”
“We can. Let's bring you down now.”
“Citabria Two-eight-niner, on the forty-five for two-niner.”
She was back in her pilot's mode, secure in correct radio-speak. I also switched to the language of the airwaves. “Two-eight-niner, what's your altitude?”
“Twelve hundred feet.”
“Descend to one thousand and maintain till you turn base.”
“Two-eight-niner.”
I'd moved over to the window so I could both talk and monitor her progress; now I saw the Citabria's position lights. Sonny came in from the field, stood silently beside me. Waves of tension radiated back and forth between us; even Gilda had come back out from under her blanket and sat nervously alert on the couch.
“Two-eight-niner, turning downwind for two-niner.”
“Altitude?”
“One thousand. Oh!”
Through the predawn murk I saw the plane veer sharply off course. “Lee, what is it?”
“The crosswind! You said it'd died down!”
“I said it had decreased. You're still going to have to contend with it. Use rudder, crab it.”
“I can't! The wind's too strong!”
Don't panic now! “It's not nearly as strong as when you took off. You crabbed it then, you can do it now.”
Silence, but she was doing what I'd told her to, because her ground track straightened.
“Sharon—did you mean what you said? We'll land this plane together?”
“I meant it.”
“Why're you trying to save me, after all the things I've done?”
“We're not going to talk about that now. We're going to concentrate on making a good landing.” She'd reached mid-field. “Pull on the carburetor heat.”
“It's not me you want to save, is it? It's the plane.”
“The plane isn't the main issue. I don't want anybody hurt or killed. Have you pulled on the carburetor heat?”
“Yes. But maybe I
want
to die. Did you ever think of that?”
No no no, not this, not now! “That's not you talking, Lee. You're made to survive, just as the Citabria's made to fly. Bring back the power now, and slip it.”
“Slip it?”
“It doesn't have flaps; slipping it serves the same function.”
“… Okay.”
When you're piloting, the process of landing seems to take a long time, but when you're watching and worrying, it goes by in a flash. It seemed only a second before I said, “Turn base, Lee.”
“I'm turning … Oh, God, this wind, I'm being blown clear out of the pattern!”
“Crab it again.” I watched the position lights as the plane changed direction and it counteracted the wind. “Now, don't worry about other traffic, Lee. Just look over at the runway. You're ready to turn final.”
“Two-eight-niner, turning final.”
“Okay, let's us land the plane.”
“Airspeed looks good, Lee. Keep the nose right where it is. Keep it straight.
That's
right. A little left aileron now. Not too much … Good!”
As a pilot, she's talented. Too bad—after this fiasco she'll never fly again.
“Now look at the runway. Look at the two-niner. Don't let the numbers move up or down on the windshield from where they are right now. This is old stuff to you; you know what to do. A little more left aileron. That's it!”
Her father let her get away with embezzling from him, but she's not going to get away with stealing that plane.
“Glide path looks good.
Everything
looks good. You've got the airport made.”
She's going to find out that she can't go through life hurting people and then not taking responsibility for what she's done.
“Level off now. Eyes on the end of the runway. Feel the sink. Feel it.”
Now for the tricky part. Can she handle a three-point landing?
“Okay, ease back on the stick. That's right—ease it back and hold it off. Hold it …”
The Citabria touched down on the runway—hard, but down.
“Keep it straight, Lee!”
Oh, hell, she's losing it!
“Don't freeze! Keep it straight!”
The plane looped out of control.
“Christ, no!” I dropped the mike and ran for the door.
The plane was sliding sideways along the runway at close to 60 miles an hour. Tires shrieking, it spun around and tipped onto one wheel; I sucked in my breath, smelled burning rubber. Heard metal shearing as the landing gear gave way and bent at a crazy angle. The plane plowed toward the shoulder, and then there was a hideous, gut-wrenching crunch—the wing slamming into the ground. And a millisecond of silence before the fire truck and ambulance rushed to the scene.
It had happened so fast, but that's all it takes. An instant of inattention, carelessness, or, in this case, arrogance giving way to sheer terror.
Hands on my shoulders, restraining me as I was about to run over there. Sonny. “Let them do their jobs,” he said.
I looked up at him, nodded, my lips pressed together.
“Didn't catch fire,” he added. “That's a blessing.”
A blessing? Of sorts, but cold comfort.
“You going to be okay, McCone?”
I nodded again, numb clear through.
“Good. I need to get on to the FAA. Hope they can come out and look over the wreckage soon.” He let go of me and loped back toward the terminal.
Business as usual. And why not? He wasn't intimately involved, and besides, he had an airport to run.
I remained where I was, watching the paramedics and firemen. They pried the door open and one of the medics climbed up and leaned inside. He shouted something, and the other ran back to the ambulance, returned a minute later. When I started over, he saw me and called, “She's alive. We've ordered a medevac chopper to take her to the trauma unit at Fort Bragg.”
I waved and nodded, feeling nothing. No relief that she hadn't died. No anger, at least none for the moment; that had all been wrung out of me. Only sorrow, because of the wreckage that lay beside the runway. And a sense of regret because I'd been cheated out of confronting her.
I'd been cheated out of proving which of us was the better McCone.
O
dd, I thought, how the midmorning sun made the crumpled contours of the Citabria look like an abstract sculpture: startling, thought-provoking, even; white marble, the cracks and fissures dark veins. Maybe Hy and I should mount it on a pedestal in the entry of the house our contractor was scheduled to begin building at Touchstone once the danger of the winter rains had passed.