Wings

7

Cassie's schedule at Bradley was more demanding than it had been as a senior in high school, but she managed to juggle it anyway, and now she and Nick met twice a week, always on Saturdays, and sometimes on a weekday morning. Her father wasn't aware of her schedule, and it was easy for both of them. And she had started working as a waitress in order to repay Nick for the fuel, even if she couldn't afford to pay him for the lessons. But he had never expected any payment from her. He did it for sheer love and pleasure.

She was getting better each time they flew, refining some fine points, and flying every plane she could so as to learn their differences and their quirks. She flew the Jenny, the old Gypsy Moth, Nick's Bellanca, the de Havilland 4, and even the lumbering old Handley. Nick wanted her to fly everything she could, and he had her perfecting all her techniques and honing her skills with great precision. He had even taught her some rescue techniques, and told her all the details of some of his more illustrious forced landings and near misses while fighting the Germans. There was very little she didn't know about flying the Jenny or the Bellanca or even the Handley, which Nick had brought with him because it was so much heavier and harder to fly, and had two engines.

She spent less time at her father's airport now, since she had farther to go to school, but she still hung around whenever she could, and she and Nick would exchange a conspiratorial smile, whenever their paths crossed.

She was working on an engine one day, in a back hangar, when she was surprised to see her father walk in with Nick. They were talking about buying a new plane, and her father thought it might be too expensive. It was a used Lockheed Vega.

“It's worth it, Pat. It's a heavy plane, but it's a beautiful machine. I checked one out the last time I was in Chicago.”

“And who do you think is going to fly it? You, and me. And the others are just going to bring it down in the trees. It's a damn fine machine, Nick, and there aren't five men here I'd trust to fly it. Maybe not even two.”

But as her father said the words, Cassie saw Nick looking at her strangely, and then she felt terror run up her spine. She knew instinctively what he was going to do. She wanted to tell him to stop, but another part of her wanted him to do it. She couldn't hide forever. Sooner or later her father would have to know. And Nick kept talking to her about flying in the next air show.

“There may not be five men around here who can fly it, Pat. But I can tell you one woman who can, with her eyes closed.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Her father growled at him, already annoyed at the mention of a woman who could fly anything, let alone a plane he wouldn't trust his own men with.

Nick said it very quietly, and calmly, as Cass watched them, terrified, praying that her father would listen. “Your daughter is the best pilot I've ever seen, Pat. She's been flying with me for more than a year, a year and a half to be exact. She's the best damn pilot you and I have seen since seventeen. I mean that.”

“You what?” Pat looked at his old friend and associate in total outrage. “You've been flying with her? Knowing how I'd feel about it? How dare you!”

“If I didn't dare, she would. She would have killed herself a year ago, terrorizing her brother into taking her up and letting her fly anything she could lay her hands on. I'm telling you, she's the best damn natural pilot you've ever seen, and you're a fool if you don't let her show you what she's got, Pat. Give the kid a chance. If she were a boy, you would, and you know it.”

“I don't know what I know!” he raged at both of them, “except that you're both two damn lying fools, and I'm telling you right now I forbid you to fly, Cassandra Maureen.” He looked straight at her as he said it, and then at Nick. “And I'm not going to put up with any nonsense from you, you damn fool, Nick Galvin, do you hear me?”

“You're dead wrong!” Nick was insistent, but Pat was too livid to listen.

“I don't give a damn what you think. You're a bigger idiot than she is. She's not flying my planes at my airport. And if you're fool enough to fly her in your own, somewhere else, then I lay the responsibility on your head if you kill her, and it's your own damn fault, if she kills you, which she will undoubtedly. There isn't a woman alive who can fly worth a damn, and you know it.” He had just knocked out, with a single blow, an entire generation of extraordinary women, and among them his own daughter. But he didn't care. That was what he believed, and no one was going to tell him any different.

“Let me take her up and show you, Pat. She can fly anything we've got. She's got a sense of speed and height that relies on her gut and her eyes, more than on anything she sees on the controls. Pat, she's terrific.”

“You're not going to show me anything, and I don't want to see it. Couple of damn fools… I suppose she's bamboozled you into all this.” He looked at his daughter with total fury. As far as he was concerned, it was all her fault. She was a stubborn little monster, determined to kill herself with her father's planes and right at his own airport.

“She didn't bamboozle me into anything. I saw her scud running a year ago, in that storm she got herself into with Chris, and I knew damn well he wasn't flying the plane. I figured if I didn't step in, she'd kill both of them, so I started teaching her then.”

“That was Chris flying in that storm last year,” her father argued defiantly.

“It was not!” Nick shouted back at him, furious now himself at how unreasonable Pat was prepared to be, and all to support an outdated position. “How blind can you be? The boy's got no guts, no hands. All he can do is run straight up and down, like an elevator, just like he did for you at the air show. What on Cod's earth makes you think he could have gotten them out of that storm? That was Cassie.” He looked at her possessively, and he was surprised to see that she was crying in the face of her father's fury.

“It was, Dad,” she said quietly. “It was me. Nick knew. He confronted me when we came down, and-”

“I won't listen to this. You're a liar on top of everything else, Cassandra Maureen, trying to take the glory from your own brother.” The force of his accusations took her breath away, and told her again how hopeless it was to try to convince him. Maybe one day, but not now. And never seemed more likely.

“Give her a chance, Pat.” Nick was trying to calm him down again, but it was useless. “Please. Just let her show you her stuff. She deserves that. And next year, I'd like to put her in the air show.”

“You're both daft, is what you are. Two brazen fools. What makes you think she wouldn't kill herself, and me, and you, and a dozen other people at the air show?”

“Because she flies better than anyone you've ever seen there.” Nick tried to stay calm, but he was losing control slowly. Pat was not an easy man, and this was a very volatile subject. “She flies better than Rickenbacker, for chrissake. Just let her show you.” But he had uttered the ultimate sacrilege this time, in invoking the name of the commander of the 94th Aero Squadron. Nick knew he'd pushed too far, and Pat stalked off and left them, and went back to his office. He never looked back at them, and he never said another word to his daughter.

She was crying openly by then, and Nick came to put an arm around her.

“Christ, your father is a stubborn man. I'd forgotten how impossible he can be when he gets something in his teeth. But I'll get him yet on this one. I promise.” He gave her a squeeze and she smiled through her tears. If she had been Chris, her father would have let her show him anything at all. But not now, not ever, not her, because she was a girl. It was so unfair, but she knew that nothing would change him.

“He'll never give in, Nick.”

“He doesn't have to. You're eighteen. You can do what you want, you know. You're not doing anything wrong. You're taking flying lessons. So what? Okay? Relax.” And very shortly she'd have her own license. She was more than qualified for it. When Pat had started flying in 1914, he hadn't even needed a license to fly then.

“What if he throws me out of the house?” She looked terrified and Nick laughed. He knew Pat better than that, and so did she. He made a lot of noise, and he was limited in his ideas and beliefs, but he loved his children.

“He's not going to do that, Cass. He may make you miserable for a while. But he's not going to throw you out. He loves you.”

“He loves Chris,” she said glumly.

“He loves you too. He's just a little behind the times, and stubborn as hell. Christ, sometimes he drives me crazy.”

“Me too.” She smiled and blew her nose, and then she looked up at Nick with worried eyes. “Will you still teach me?”

“Of course,” he grinned, looking boyish and full of mischief, and then he pretended to look at her sternly. “And don't let everything I said go to your head. You don't fly like the leader of the great 94th,” he scowled at her, and then grinned. “But you could be better than he was one day, if you'd clean up some of those turns and listen to your instructor.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go wash your face, you look terrible… Ill see you at the airstrip tomorrow, Cass.” He smiled at her. “Don't forget, we have an air show to prepare for.” She looked gratefully at him, as he strode away, wondering what it would take to bring Pat O'Malley to his senses.

He had certainly not come to them that night when he refused to say a word to her at their dinner table. He had told Oona what she'd done, and her mother cried when she heard it. Pat had convinced her long since that women were not constitutionally or mentally cut out to fly airplanes.

“It's just too dangerous,” she tried to explain to Cassie later that night in her room. With her sisters married and gone, Cassie had long since had her own bedroom.

“It's no more dangerous for me than it is for Chris,” Cassie said through tears again. She was exhausted from fighting with them, and she knew she'd never win. Even Chris had said nothing in her defense. He hated getting into arguments with their parents.

“That's not true,” her mother countered what she'd said. “Chris is a man. It's less dangerous for a man to fly,” her mother said as though it were gospel truth, because she'd heard it from her husband.

“How can you say that? That's nonsense.”

“It's not. Your father says that women don't have the concentration.”

“Mom, that's a lie. I swear. Look at all the women who fly. Great ones.”

“Look at Amelia Earhart, dear. She's a perfect example of what your father says. She obviously lost her direction, or her wits, somewhere out there, and she took that poor man with her.”

“How do you know their disappearance wasn't his fault?” Cassie said persistently. “He was the navigator, not Earhart. And maybe they were shot down,” Cass said sadly. She knew she wasn't getting anywhere. Her mother was completely convinced of everything her husband had always told her.

“You have to stop behaving this way, Cassie. I should never have let you loll around at the airport all these years. But you loved it so, and I thought it would be nice for your father. But you have to give up these foolish dreams, Cassie. You're a college girl now. One day you'll be a teacher. You can't go flying around like some silly gypsy.”

“Oh yes, I can… dammit, yes I can!” Cassie raised her voice to her, and a moment later her father was in her room, berating her again, and telling her that she had to apologize to her mother. Both women were crying by then, and Pat was at his wit's end, and clearly livid.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” she said mournfully.

“And well you should be,” her father said before he slammed the door again. A moment later her mother left, and Cassie lay on the bed and sobbed, from the sheer frustration of dealing with her parents.

When Bobby Strong came by later that night, Cassie had Chris tell him that she had a terrible headache. He drove away looking concerned, after leaving her a note, telling her that he hoped she felt better soon, and he'd be back tomorrow.

“Maybe tomorrow I'll be dead,” she said glumly as she read the note her brother handed her. “Maybe that would be an improvement.”

“Relax, Sis. They'll get over it,” Chris said calmly.

“No, they won't. Dad never will. He refuses to believe women can fly, or do anything except knit and have babies.”

“Sounds great. So how's your knitting?” he teased, and she threw a shoe at him, as he closed the door to escape her.

But by the next day she felt better again. She felt like herself, once she and Nick took off in the Bellanca. He didn't feel he should let her fly any of her father's planes now. She handled it skillfully as usual, and just being in the air with Nick lifted her spirits. Afterward, they sat in the old truck for a while, talking, and Cassie seemed subdued. She was still obviously upset about her father's reaction to her flying.

“As good as Rickenbacker, huh?” she teased Nick after their flying.

“I told you not to let it go to your head. I was just lying to impress him.”

“He sure looked impressed, don't you think?” Cassie grinned ruefully, and Nick laughed. She was a good sport, and sooner or later they'd wear Pat down. He couldn't keep his head in the sand forever, or could he?

Their flying schedule scarcely changed. The only time it did was when Nick had long cargo runs, or she had too much homework. But neither of them was anxious to miss their lessons, so they always worked their other obligations around them. And interestingly her father never asked either of them if they were continuing their lessons.

Nick joined them at Thanksgiving as usual; Pat was cooler than he normally was, to both of them. He hadn't forgiven either of them yet for what he considered their betrayal. At the airport, Nick was walking on eggs, and at home, Pat had scarcely said two words to Cassie since October. It was getting more and more difficult, but by Christmas he seemed to have relaxed again. And then finally, he relented totally when Bobby Strong handed Cassie a tiny diamond engagement ring on Christmas Eve.

Bobby said he knew it would be a long wait for her, but he'd feel better if they were engaged. He had been courting her for three years, and he didn't think it was too soon. He looked so earnest and so in love with her that Cassie just didn't have the heart to turn him down. She wasn't sure what she felt, other than confused, as she let him slip the ring slowly onto her finger. She had felt so guilty and so unhappy about everything, since her parents had made such a huge fuss about her flying. But the engagement seemed to mollify them, and restore her to their good graces.

They were very pleased. They announced her engagement to the rest of the family the next day at Christmas dinner. Nick was there too, and he looked surprised at the news, but he didn't say anything. He only looked at Cassie, wondering if this would change everything between them. But oddly, she didn't behave differently. She seemed no closer or more comfortable with Bobby now. And she was as easy with Nick as she ever had been. In fact, very little changed, Bobby only lingered a little longer on the porch before he left, but it wasn't what Cassie herself would have expected of an engagement. But Nick was still wondering about it the next time he saw her at their deserted airfield.

“What does that mean?” He pointed to the ring, and she hesitated for a moment and shrugged her shoulders. She didn't want to be mean, but she never seemed to react to anything the way people expected.

“I'm not sure,” she said honestly. She didn't feel any differently about him from the way she had before he put the ring on her finger. She liked him, she cared about him, but she couldn't imagine being more to him than she was now. She had gotten engaged mostly because it seemed to matter so much to Bobby and her parents. Most of all, it seemed to make a difference to him, and she understood that. “I didn't have the heart to give it back to him.” She looked sheepishly at Nick as she kept an eye on the Bellanca. They had had a good flight that day, and she had learned some fine points about landing in crosswinds. “He knows I want to finish college,” she said helplessly. But college wasn't really the problem.

“Poor guy. This is going to be the longest engagement in history. What is that? Another three and a half years?”

“Yes.” She grinned mischievously at him, and he couldn't help but laugh as he resisted an urge to kiss her. He was so relieved by what she'd said. He had felt sick when he first saw the engagement ring. He hated the idea of her being married to anyone, or even engaged, but Bobby wasn't much of a threat actually. Sooner or later Cassie would have to figure that out for herself, but then someone else would be. And he knew how much it would bother him when that happened.

“Okay… get your ass in gear, O'Malley… let's see another dead stick landing.” He was going to take her up again.

“You must think I'm going to spend half my life on the ground instead of in the air. Can't you teach anything else, Stick?” She emphasized the word. “Or is that the only trick in your repertoire?” She loved teasing him, loved being with him, loved being with the only person in the world who really understood her. And better yet, if they could be flying.

This time he sent her up alone, and watched her land perfectly, dead stick, then again without a hitch, and finally, without flicking an eye or a wing in the cross-winds.

It really was a shame, he found himself thinking again, that her father refused to watch her fly. It would have given him so much pleasure.

“Ready to call it a day?” he asked, as they walked back to her truck, so she could drive home to Good Hope.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said sadly. “I always hate to come down. I wish I could go on forever.”

“Maybe you should be a Skygirl when you grow up,” he teased her again, and she swatted him with her gloves, but she looked sad. She really had no options. And if it weren't for Nick, she couldn't fly at all.

“Take it easy, kid,” he said gently. “He'll come around.”

“No, he won't,” she said, knowing her father.

Nick touched her hand, and her eyes met his. She was grateful for all that he had given her, and his kindness. They had the kind of friendship that neither of them had ever found with anyone else. She was a great girl, and a good friend, and they had fun on their stolen afternoons at their airstrip. Nick only wished it could go on forever. He couldn't imagine not meeting her like this anymore, or not having her to fly with, and share his thoughts with. In all the important ways, she was the only person he really talked to. And he was her only friend too. The only tragedy, for both of them, was that there was nothing more ahead for them in the future.

She drove home alone late that afternoon, thinking of him, and it started to snow just after she got back. She went into the house and helped her mother cook dinner for the four of them, but her father was late. And an hour later, he still hadn't come home. Oona finally sent Chris out with the truck to find Pat at the airport.

Chris came back twenty minutes later to grab something to eat for him and Pat. There was a train wreck two hundred miles southwest of them, with hundreds of injuries, and they were asking for rescue teams from everywhere. Pat was organizing rescue teams at the airport, and he wanted Chris to help him. Nick was there too, and they were calling all their pilots in to fly. But three were home sick, and too ill to come in, and they hadn't been able to reach some of the others. They were still waiting for a few more to come in. Pat had told Chris to tell his mother they wouldn't be back all night. Oona nodded, used to this, and packed some food for them to eat at the airport.

“Wait!” Cassie said, as Chris started to go back to him. “I'll come with you.”

“You shouldn't…” Oona started to object, but at the look on her daughter's face, she shrugged. There was no harm in it. All she could do was sit at the airport. “All right. I'll pack something for you to eat too.”

She gave them a basket filled with food, and Cassie and Chris drove off, skidding on and off the old road on the property to the airport. It was an icy night, and the snow had been falling for two hours. She wondered if they'd even be able to take off. Conditions did not look good, and her father looked worried when she and Chris walked into his office at the airport.

“Hi, kids.” He pushed aside the food. He and Nick were talking anxiously about the planes they could use, and the men they needed. They were trying to send four planes with supplies and rescue teams. Everything and everyone were assembled, except for the pilots. And so far, they were still two men short, and they were trying to reach them. Pat was going to fly the new Vega himself with Chris. Although, if he'd had to, Pat could have flown solo. Another of their best men had come in, with his co-pilot, and they had each been assigned planes. But they needed two more men to fly the old Handley. It was tricky to fly and because of its age and size, it was wiser to have two men flying it in this kind of weather. Nick could have flown it alone but it wouldn't have been a wise decision. And he wanted someone good to fly it with him. Silently, he looked over at Cassie, but he said nothing.

They heard from two more men shortly after that. One was bone-tired after a sixteen-hour flight around the country, delivering mail in terrible weather, and the other was quick to admit that he'd been drinking.

“That leaves one,” Nick said unhappily. One man left they needed to hear from. He called in finally around ten, with a ferocious earache. “End of the line, O'Malley,” Nick said pointedly. They were one man short for their mission. Pat read his mind easily, and began shaking his head, but this time Nick wouldn't listen.

“I'm taking Cassie with me,” he said quietly, as Pat started to sputter. “Don't waste your time, Ace, There are hundreds of injured people waiting for help and supplies, and I'm not going to argue with you. I know what I'm doing, and she's coming with me.” The only other choice would have been to let her co-pilot the Vega with her father, and Nick knew he wouldn't let her do it. Nick grabbed his jacket and started moving toward the door, and he held his breath as Pat stared at him angrily, but made no objection.

“You're a damn fool, Nick,” Pat growled at him, but he said nothing more as they gathered their things, and he called Oona and asked her to wait for them at the airport.

Cassie followed Nick quietly out to the familiar plane, feeling something deep inside her tremble, and for just an instant she saw her father look hard at her with eyes full of anger and betrayal. She wanted to say something to him then, but she didn't know what to say, and a moment later, he was gone, with Chris, in the Vega.

“He'll be all right,” Nick said as he helped her to her seat, but she only nodded. Nick had stuck up for her, as usual; he believed in her, and he hadn't been afraid to say so. He was an amazing man, and she just hoped she wouldn't let him down as they flew the old plane in bad weather all the way to Missouri.

They did the usual check on the ground, and then checked inside carefully. She knew the plane well, thanks to Nick, and as she strapped herself in, she was suddenly excited at what they were doing and she forgot all about her father. They were carrying emergency supplies that had been brought to them at the airport. The other planes were also carrying supplies, and two doctors and three nurses. Help was coming from four states. There were nearly a thousand people injured.

Nick took off cautiously but smoothly. There had been no ice on the wings, and the snow had thinned. It had almost stopped as they reached their final altitude of eight thousand feet and flew southwest toward Kansas City. It was a two-and-a-half-hour flight for them, although her father and Chris would make it in a little over an hour in the Vega. It was turbulent most of the time, but it didn't bother Cassie or Nick. Cassie was stunned by the beauty of the night, and how peaceful it was to be at the controls in a night sky full of stars now. It was like being on the edge of the world, in an endless universe. She had never felt so small or so free or so alive as at that moment.

Nick let her fly the plane much of the time, and when they reached a good-sized field near the train wreck, he brought it in for a landing.

There were wounded everywhere when they got to the train, supplies being brought in, medical personnel trying to help people lying on the ground, children crying. Nick and Cassie and the others stayed to help until dawn, and by then the state police seemed to have everything under control. Ambulances and medical personnel had come from all over the state. People had driven, flown, they had come as soon as they could. And in the morning, Nick and Cass flew home with the others. She had scarcely seen her father all night, as they did everything they could to help the rescue workers.

The sun came up just as they took off, and on the way back Nick let her fly it herself, and she brought it in for a textbook landing in spite of heavy winds and slippery conditions on the runway. Nick shook hands with her as she turned the engines off, and congratulated her for a job well done. She was grinning broadly as she stepped off the plane, and she was surprised to almost collide with her father. He was standing right next to the plane, and he looked at Nick with tired eyes, as he barked a question.

“Who landed this plane?” It was his plane, and Cassie instantly sensed trouble.

“I did,” Cassie said quietly, ready to take the blame for any mistake she'd made. She took her flying seriously and calmly.

“You did a damn fine job,” he said awkwardly, and then turned and walked away. She had proven everything Nick had said, and they both wondered what Pat would do about her now. It was hard to say. There was no predicting Fat O'Malley. But as she watched him walk away, there were tears in her eyes. It was the only praise he had ever given her that had meant anything. And she wanted to shout she was so excited. Instead, she just grinned at Nick, and saw that he was smiling broadly. And they walked arm in arm back to the office.

Her mother had brought in coffee and rolls for all the men, and Cassie sat quietly drinking her coffee and talking to Nick about what they'd seen at the train wreck. It had been a long, rough night, but at least they'd been useful.

“So, you think you're a hotshot.” She heard her father's words as he stood next to her, and she looked up at him, but he didn't look angry anymore when their eyes met.

“No, Dad, I don't. I just want to fly,” she said softly.

“It's unnatural is what it is. Look at what happened to that poor fool Earhart.” Cassie had heard it all before and she was prepared for it, but she was in no way prepared for what he said next, and her jaw dropped as she glanced at Nick to make sure she'd heard him correctly. “I'll give you some work out here, after school. Nothing big. Just the little jobs. I can't have Nick flying around all the time, wasting fuel and time, giving you lessons.” She grinned as she looked at him, and Nick let out a whoop as the other men glanced over at them in confusion.

She threw her arms around her father's neck, and Nick pumped his hand, as Chris walked over to his sister and hugged her. She had never been happier in her life. He was going to let her fly… her father was going to let her fly, and give her flying jobs to do at the airport…

“Just wait till the air show in July!” she whispered to Nick as she hugged him tight, and he laughed. Her father was in for a big surprise. But this was certainly a good beginning.