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- Herausgeber: Myriad Editions
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Winner - Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2016 Shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards 2015 Selected for Brave New Reads 2016 With echoes of Raymond Carver as well as Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff and Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, The Last Pilot re-ignites the thrill and excitement of the space race through the story of one man's courage in the face of unthinkable loss. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally charged periods in American history, The Last Pilot begins in the bone-dry Mojave Desert during the late 1940s, where US Air Force test pilots are racing to break the sound barrier. Among the exalted few is Jim Harrison: dedicated to his wife, Grace, and their baby daughter. By the 1960s, the space race is underway and Harrison and his colleagues are offered a place in history as the world s first astronauts. But when his young family is thrown into crisis, Jim is faced with a decision that will affect the course of the rest of his life whether to accept his ticket to the moon and at what cost.
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PRAISE FOR THE LAST PILOT
‘This is by far the best debut novel I’ve read in years. You can read about the plot elsewhere, but, for me, the beauty of this novel is in the balance of the dialogue; the sustained emotion that runs through the whole; the haiku-like simplicity of the prose (and trust me, it takes a long, long time to create that sense of effortlessness). Like so many of America’s stories, this is a Western in disguise; a quiet, limpid Western, where the action mostly takes place in the air and in the chambers of the heart. To me, it reads like the reclusive disciple of Cormac McCarthy and Saint-Exupéry.’
Joanne Harris
‘Benjamin Johncock is a writer of great craft and integrity. His dialogue is desert-dry, and his sentences crackle with the energy of things unsaid. With The Last Pilot he has done something remarkable: in a novel about the achievements of the space race, he has shown us that true heroism lies in doing the right thing behind the closed doors of home. Wonderful stuff.’
Jon McGregor
‘Carver is the obvious influence, but this is no mere imitation. The writing is machine-cut and spare, understated and taciturn, and, like the pilots at this story’s centre, Johncock has dared to reach for the stars.’
DW Wilson
‘I read The Last Pilot in a single sitting, drawn into this story of a couple’s journey through love and grief as it unfolds during the tense early days of the space race. Told in language as beautifully spare – and unsparing – as a desert or a moonscape, The Last Pilot reminds us in powerful ways that the real unknown frontier still lies within the mysteries of the human heart.’
Kim Edwards
‘An impressive debut… Jim’s story is fascinating, and the author writes with a strong ear for dialogue, which rattles the pages with intensity. A marvellous, emotionally powerful novel.’
Publishers Weekly
THE LAST PILOT
Benjamin Johncock
FOR JUDE
‘The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time.’
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
Contents
PROLOGUE
It was a stretch of wretched land bleached and beaten by the relentless salt winds that howled in off the Atlantic, forsaken by God to man for the testing of dangerous new endeavors. WELCOME TO CAPE CANAVERAL! the sign said. SPEED LIMIT: 17,400 MPH. Three miles south sat Cocoa Beach, the Cape’s resort town, so low-rent that even the giant chiggers wanted to escape it. In daylight, Cocoa Beach was cobaltic blue, coconut palms and low-rise motels called The Starlite and Satellite and The Polaris, a replica rocket clasped above each name. The beach was like a strip of asphalt, long and wide and barren and hard. You could bend a spade on it. At sundown, mosquitoes the size of a clenched fist clustered at the water’s edge. At night, it was infested with sand flies that stripped skin from muscle. The only visitors were young men racing cars and the occasional couple, lured out of their motel room by the slink of the murky sea and the promise of God knows what on the bare, hardback sand. Cocoa Beach was the kind of place where people ended up.
It was late, past nine, the diner was empty. George’s had low lights, a high bar and a couple of Chesley Bonestell originals hanging on the wall. It wasn’t a bad place. He came here because no one else did.
His heart hurt like hell. He pulled a half-pack of Lucky Strikes from his top pocket. He stuck one in his mouth and struck a match and lit it and waved the match until it went out. He looked at his hands, the thick hair on his fingers, his knuckles. He drank the rest of his beer.
Steely eyes gleamed down from a billboard across the street. Was it Shepard or Glenn? He didn’t know, or much care; he just wanted the goddamn thing to stop staring at him. He stared at his food. He wasn’t hungry.
A couple entered. The man held a gray hat between two fingers and the woman adjusted her dress as they waited to be seated. The waitress gathered plastic menus, ushered them to a table, presented the specials. The couple smiled at each other and he wondered if they were honeymooning. Smoke clung to the pine-paneled walls, lilting slowly toward the linoleum floor. The man approached his table.
Excuse me, he said, sir? Sorry to bother you an all but my wife—he glanced back—we was just wondrin, well, you’re one of them, ain’t you? What we been hearin about? The New Nine?
He stayed seated, pulled hard on the cigarette, his throat tightened.
I knew it! Honey, I was right.
The woman joined her husband. Her skin looked pale like a lake in late fall.
My wife, Betty, he said.
Pleasure to meet you, she said.
Now, which one are you? You’re Borman, right?
Honey—
Lovell? No, wait, I know this.
You’ll have to excuse my husband; we’ve heard so much about you all.
Harrison. Jim Harrison. I knew I knew it. Jim Harrison!
The man looked at the woman and the woman stared at the table.
Sure hope you don’t mind us intrudin, the man said.
We’ve been staying down in Miami; at the Plaza, the woman said. It’s been a wonderful three weeks, but the other night I said to Bill, Bill, let’s get in the car, let’s explore a little—
It’s a Caddy, powder blue—a coupe.
—so we drove up the coast, the two of us.
I said, we should go visit the world’s first space-port.
I didn’t know what he meant.
But I never thought we’d meet one of you fellas.
A real astronaut, my goodness!
A thing like that!
Harrison put out his smoke and stood to leave.
It sure was good to meet you, Bill said, extending his hand. And thank you, for everything; really, thank you.
Harrison nodded and shook his hand. The couple returned to their table. In the restroom he pissed and thought and stood there for a long time.
At the door, the waitress rang up his check.
Everything all right for you, hon? she said.
He stared at the register. Hard cracks crossed the linoleum under his feet. His heart beat hard in his head.
Outside, the air was cool. It felt good on his bare arms. He stopped and stood on the near side of the sidewalk, against the mottled concrete wall of George’s backyard. He held his head. He had to think. All he ever did was think. A man walked by and stared. An hour passed. Inside the diner, lights were switched off in pairs, the couple left. Behind the wall, garbage sweltered and stunk. His breathing was heavy and his chest was wet. He felt dizzy. He had to move on, fill his mind.
The steely eyes followed him across the empty street. He could smell the sea; the salt and the sky. Wolfie’s Cocktail Bar & Pantry was still open. Voices leaked out onto the sidewalk and echoed inside him. He walked on, past waiters licking spoons, clearing tables; past bars closing up. Air-conditioning units clung to gloomy walls, whining melancholic laments to men not yet home. The wind was hard with salt, the moon curled large and still. He reached Walt’s Bar and stopped. He felt tense. Christ, he thought, I need to walk. I need to get to bed.
He got back to the motel at two. There were still people by the pool. Girls, mainly. A few men. They’d arrived soon after the first Mercury flights, the girls; eager young things, keen to become acquainted with the world’s first astronauts. Cape cookies, Shepard called them. They’d been staying here since the beginning, the astronauts, enjoying the hospitality of Henri Landwirth, the Holiday Inn’s manager. The rooms were stacked like cardboard boxes across two floors, encircling a bright blue swimming pool and a pink cocktail bar. Plastic chaise lounges, white like gulls, fanned the water. A racket of cicadas and crickets clattered loudly in the background.
Harrison entered the lobby. Standing by the pay phone at the foot of the stairs was a girl in a towel.
Hello, she said.
He didn’t say anything. Smoke from a cigarette slunk around the brim of her straw hat. He could see small droplets of water on her bare shoulders.
Are you coming out to the pool with the rest of the fellas? she said.
I’m going to my room.
That’s a much better idea.
That so.
It is.
What’s your name?
Jane, she said.
She smiled, pulling the cigarette to her lips.
You drink whiskey? he said.
Got any ice?
He opened the freezer.
You’re in luck.
He fixed two drinks. She sat in a chair, folding her legs over one of the arms. He stood.
Your room is kinda tidy, if you don’t mind me saying so.
I don’t.
Been here long?
A while.
Training?
He nodded.
Where you from?
You ask a lot of questions.
I’m a curious girl.
He held his drink at the back of his throat then swallowed it.
So we’re going to the moon, she said.
Not yet.
How’s that?
Takes time.
You fellas getting distracted? she said. It’s been three years since Glenn went up. Now that was something; felt like I had my own Lone Ranger watching over me.
Four days there, four days back, he said. Glenn was up for four hours.
Eight days? That even possible?
Record is thirty-four hours, nineteen minutes, forty-nine seconds. Gordo Cooper, Faith 7; the last of the Mercury flights. Hell of a mission. Took a nap on the pad during countdown. Ol Gordo, yeah; he’s okay. Not the best, but he’s all right.
Not the best? she said.
There’s an old saying in flight test, who’s the second best pilot you ever saw?
I like that, she said, lifting the glass to her lips. You going up?
You bet.
She looked around the room, then said, why are you living in a motel?
He tipped the rest of the slug down his throat. How old are you?
Nineteen.
Where you from?
Kansas.
You’re not in Kansas anymore.
You’ve finished your drink.
She moved from the chair to the bed, tucking one leg beneath the other. He stared at the floor for a long time.
Tell me what you’re thinking, she said.
He didn’t say anything. He picked up the bottle, poured himself another.
You should go home, get some sleep, he said.
She emptied her glass slowly, eyes locked on his, ice accumulating along lips glossed with whiskey.
You sure about that? she said.
He stared at her and her legs unfurled and she walked toward him and placed a hand on his cheek. He shut his eyes.
Whatever it is, she said, it’s okay.
She pulled the door tight behind her. He stood, eyes shut, bottle and glass hanging from his hands. He felt black, like he was falling, and he couldn’t stop.
MOJAVE DESERT MUROC, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 1947
The house was part of an old ranch stuck out in the desert scrubland near Muroc, in the high desert of the Mojave, fifty miles west of Victorville. It had a narrow veranda, dustbowl front yard and picket fence. It was called Oro Verde; Green Gold, after the alfalfa that once grew there. The ranch sat on the edge of Muroc Dry Lake, the largest slab of uninterrupted flatness on Earth. Forty-four square miles. Every December, it rained, the first and only of the year. Four inches would collect on the lake’s dry surface in a slick pool. The wind pulled and dragged the water, licking the wet sand smooth. In spring, it evaporated and the orange sun fired the ground hard like clay, creating a vast natural runway. The sky was a dome, endless blue; vast and clear and bright. The high elevations of the Mojave were the perfect place to fly. In the thirties it had been home to some godforsaken detachment of the Air Corps, nicknamed the Foreign Legion by the locals: seventeen poor bastards who lived out on the desert hardpan in a dozen canvas tents, with no electricity or plumbing. The Air Corps used the dry lake for training, but the Muroc Field encampment was so remote and wretched that it had no commanding officer. When conscripts arrived to train for combat in the South Pacific, tar paper barracks were quickly constructed to accommodate them, and when men burned in the skies above Europe in the autumn of forty-two, the army installed a top secret flight test program to develop the turbo-powered jet. The flight test center turned permanent after the war, with a small detachment of test pilots, engineers, technicians and ground crew. The men were slowly eaten alive by the sun slung high in the day and, at night, they froze, the hard desert wind howling loud around them, stripping paint from the planes and the trucks.
Muroc Field’s two Quonset hangars gleamed on the horizon as Harrison climbed the front steps of the house. He was slender, short, dressed in brown slacks and a shirt, open at the collar. It was Saturday; just eight. He’d been up at five, in the air at six. He pushed open the screen door and dropped his bag to the floor.
What are you doing home? Grace said, from behind the cellar door. Wasn’t expecting you til later.
Thought I’d surprise you, he said, make sure you’re not in bed with the mailman.
You seen the mailman?
I have.
You were right to come home.
I know.
Grace opened the door and stepped into the living room. She was tall, five-eleven, slight, with boney shoulders and fair hair, tied back. She wore a pair of crimson vaquero boots and a shirt tucked into dirty jeans.
What you doing back there? he said.
Fixing the door; damn thing’s been driving me crazy, she said. How was it?
Fine.
That bad, huh.
She walked over, put her arms around his waist.
He yawned.
You tired? she said.
I’m beat.
Want to sleep?
Yeah, but I came home to see you.
You came home to make sure I wasn’t in bed with the mailman, she said.
I came to make sure you weren’t in bed with any man, he said.
You think I’m a floozy?
I think we got a lot of good-lookin municipal workers round here.
I hadn’t noticed, she said, tipping back on the heels of her boots.
Yes you had.
You want to get into that?
Not really.
Let’s get into something else, she said, tugging at his waist.
This is unexpected, he said.
Her lips touched his. They stood together in the sunlight.
You’re not kissing me, she said.
Mmm?
You’re not kissing me.
My mouth is dry; from the flight. Glass of water be good.
I’m sure it would. Help yourself, I’m going out.
She stepped away, her shirt creased from where it had pressed against him.
Where you goin? he said.
Rosamond.
Rosamond?
Post office has a package for us, she said, picking up her keys from the counter.
You’re going to see the mailman? he said.
Your jealousy is oddly compelling.
You’re oddly compelling.
You’re tired, she said.
And thirsty.
Glass of water, she said, then take a nap.
I’m up again at eleven, he said. You know that’s—
I know, she said. First powered flight.
Yeah. Be the fastest anyone’s gone.
I know.
She stepped toward him.
Be careful, she said.
Always am, hon, he said.
He walked into the kitchen, found a glass and turned on the cold tap. Grace watched him drink slowly, then refill the glass.
I had a phone call, she said, leaning against the kitchen doorframe. They can see me on Monday.
Monday?
At ten.
He paused, looking at the water in the glass.
I didn’t think it would be that quick, he said.
The lady said it’s been quiet; she said—doesn’t matter.
Want me to come?
No, maybe; I don’t know.
I can speak to Boyd? The old man owes me some slack.
I’ll be fine.
Ten?
She nodded.
Okay then.
Okay then.
The kitchen was small. It had a round table pushed into a nook at one end and a window that looked out over the open desert at the other. The planes took off over the roof, making the crockery rattle. But there were days when the blue of the sky was cut with a hard line of black smoke from the ground, the stiff air vibrating with the sirens of distant fire trucks. Those were bad days. There had been one a week since the end of August; seven in August itself. These grim streaks happened.
I’d better get going, she said, pushing herself off the doorframe with her shoulder.
Sure, he said, and paused. Rick Bong augered in yesterday.
I heard, she said. Janice told me. I’m going over to see Marjory on Wednesday. So’s Jackie.
He was testing the P-80A, he said. Main fuel pump sheared on takeoff. Flamed out at fifty feet. No seat, so he pops the canopy, then his chute, but the airstream wraps him round the tail and they corkscrew in together.
He looked up at her.
He didn’t turn on his auxiliary fuel pump before takeoff, he said.
Jim—
How could anyone be so stupid not to turn on their auxiliary fuel pump before takeoff?
Sounds like it was just a mistake, Grace said.
There are no mistakes, Harrison said, just bad pilots.
She sighed. She stood beside him and pulled his head to her breast, holding it gently with both hands.
I’ll see you later, she said.
Fancy coming over to Pancho’s after? he said. Gonna be celebrating.
Maybe.
I’ll be the fastest man alive, he said. Don’t you forget that.
Doubt I’ll be allowed to.
Well, it won’t last long. Yeager’ll go faster on Tuesday, assuming he don’t drill a hole in the Sierras.
You should probably enjoy it while you can, she said.
You know, I think I will.
She kissed the top of his head.
Bye, she said.
Pick me up some Beemans, would you? he called after her. He rubbed his forehead and drank the rest of his water.
Pancho’s place sat squat in six acres of bone-dry desert taut with Joshua trees. It had a wooden veranda, flyscreen door and looked like hell. She served scotch and beer and highballs and called it the Happy Bottom Riding Club. In summer, the temperature hit a hundred and ten and the bar would creak and groan. At night, it was close to freezing. The bar was part of a ranch that she’d bought from a farmer called Hannam ten years before, when the Depression sunk the price of alfalfa from thirty dollars a ton to ten.
It was still early, ten before nine, Pancho’s was open. The desert was calm, the low sun nudging slowly west, burning the new day bright yellow and white. Stale carbon dioxide hung in the gloom of the bar like a bad mood. Harrison pushed open the screen door and stepped inside.
What do you want, you miserable pudknocker? Pancho said, looking up from her broom.
You know, he said.
You’re early.
I’m up at eleven.
Gracie know you’re here?
Practically her idea.
She’s too good for a peckerwood like you.
Got any Luckies? I’m all out.
Get your ass over here you ol bastard.
She poured him a drink and he sat at the bar.
You know I love you, Pancho.
Well, don’t I feel better.
I’m up again at one.
You’re only up at one if you don’t auger in at eleven.
Can’t see that bein a problem.
You all never do, sweetie, she said, glancing at the wall where photographs of dead pilots hung. The frames began behind the bar, marring the far wall with grinning men standing beside cockpits and airplanes knocking contrails into the sky. Whenever someone augered in, she’d nail their picture up and say, dumb bastard.
Pancho had broad shoulders, dark hair and a face that looked like it was stuck in a nine-g pullout. Her real name was Florence Leontine Lowe. She grew up in a thirty-room mansion in San Marino, waited on by servants. Her grandfather, Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, was an entrepreneur, engineer and balloonist; a hero of the Civil War. Papa Lowe doted on his granddaughter. When she was eight, he took her to the world’s first aviation exhibition; a ten-day extravaganza in the hills above Long Beach. Florence watched Glenn Curtiss and Lincoln Beachey fly high and fast around the field in their biplanes for a three thousand dollar prize and was captivated. It wasn’t the machines, it was the men. When she was old enough, she stopped riding horses and started flying airplanes. Her mother disapproved of her new lifestyle and, as soon as she turned eighteen, arranged for her to marry the Reverend C. Rankin Barnes. She lasted fourteen months as a minister’s wife before disguising herself as a man and running away to South America as a crew member aboard a banana boat. She became a smuggler, running guns during the Mexican Revolution; later flying rumrunners into Ensenada and Tijuana. She spoke Spanish and Yaqui, slicked her black hair back with gardenia oil and lived like a peasant. She returned a year later with the nickname Pancho to news of her mother’s death. She kept the name, inherited her mother’s fortune and indulged her love of flying. She won races, broke Amelia Earhart’s airspeed record and became one of Hollywood’s first stunt pilots, throwing wild parties at her house in Laguna Beach. When the Depression ate its way into Southern California, it hit her hard. Broke, defaulting on loans, she sold up, headed out into the Mojave and bought Hannam’s farm, just west of Muroc Dry Lake.
It won’t give you no love, Hannam told her after the papers were signed. I used to get five, maybe six, cuttins a year; bale it, sell it on for a good price. Now, even with seventy or so acres planted up, man can’t live on it, not now. It’s all gone to hell.
Never did see myself as much of a rancher, she said.
That fall, she dragged out a private airstrip behind the hay barn with two English shire mares bought from the Washington State Fair then holed out a swimming pool. It wasn’t long before she got to know the men from the base. They enjoyed her company; she knew airplanes and they got a kick out of her salty language and dirty jokes. In the evenings, the men grew restless, so they’d head over to Pancho’s to take out her horses, have a drink, cool off in her pool. Pancho would curse and laugh and tell them stories and pour them drinks. Some nights she’d cook, a steak dinner; meat from her own cattle. She called up Bobby Holeston one morning and got him to turn the old cook’s shack into a proper bar. She hired an enormous woman called Minnie to work the kitchen and Pancho had herself a business.
Harrison finished his drink and Pancho refilled the glass.
Help stabilize the system, she said.
He knocked it back and made to leave.
Hey, Harrison, she called after him.
He looked down at a half-smoked pack of cigarettes on the bar.
You’re a peach, he said.
Get the hell out.
The screen door clattered shut, rattling the dead men hanging inside.
Pancho spent the morning running errands. Muroc was three miles north across flat dirt trails; a barren cluster of buildings founded on the Sante Fe railroad. The dull steel track stretched toward the horizon in both directions. Alongside the wooden station-house were three black sheds for the men who worked the rails. The main street was a dust strip. It had Charlie Anderson’s store, Ma Green’s café, and a Union Oil gas station, as well as a small post office and a one-man bank.
It was quiet. A slight wind caught a tangled cluster of loose telephone wires that grappled and rapped against each other. At the bank, Pancho settled three bills that she’d disputed the previous winter.
Anything else I can do for you, Pancho?
Nope, that’s it, thanks Fredo. Good to see you.
How’s things out in the boonies?
Can’t complain.
Billy Horner still working for you?
Was when I left.
Be seeing you, Pancho.
You know it.
Don’t be a stranger now.
We’ll see.
Outside, the sun hurt her eyes. She pulled down on her old cowboy hat, lit a cigar and dropped the match into the dirt. Damn weenies. She had no problem paying bills, so long as they were fair. The smoke lingered in her mouth. There’d be more money soon. She crossed the street to Charlie Anderson’s.
Well, Charlie, you ol bastard, how are you?
That Pasadena’s First Lady?
Depends who you ask.
How’s Rankin?
Wouldn’t know.
Still in New York?
Last I heard.
When you gonna do it?
When I gonna do what?
You know.
She chewed on the cigar still burning between her teeth.
Now why would I go do a stupid thing like that? she said.
Case you meet a handsome fella.
Out here?
I got prettier hogs.
Must be some swine. Maybe he’s met someone?
He’s pastor of the Pasadena Episcopal Church, Charlie. He meets women who want to marry him every day. First whiff of a divorce and the Church would haul his ass out of there. I won’t do that to him. We write each other. Suits us fine.
What’s he doing in Brooklyn again?
Who knows.
She pulled hard on her cigar. Two women, an aisle over, peered through the shelves.
Morning, ladies, Pancho said, blowing smoke through the gap. They disappeared. Pancho smiled. It was a small town; people talked. When folks heard about her swimming pool, they couldn’t believe the extravagance. The first time she filled up her blue Cadillac at Carl Bergman’s Union Oil, he yapped on it for months. It had no backseat, Carl told the other ranchers. It was full of dogs!
Pancho got back to the ranch at eleven. Billy was serving two men at the bar.
Is it on? she said. Billy looked up.
Nope.
Quick.
The radio was wedged between the cash register and the rum. Close to the base, restricted exchanges could be picked up on the right frequency. Billy turned it on. The box popped and whistled.
Plenty fellas go up; you never listen, he said.
Shut up. Is it working?
Yeah.
This is different.
How you know?
This is not an airplane, Pancho said, least nothing a pudknocker like you’d understand one to be. It’s a goddamn rocket with a tail; an orange bullet with razor wings and a needle-nose. They call it the X-1. And it’s got one purpose: fly faster than sound.
That even possible? Fly faster than a man’s own voice?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, Pancho said. That’s what they been figuring out, and I promised a free steak dinner to any them weenies who does it first. Today’s a big deal: first powered flight, pushing it up to point eight-two Mach. When Harrison hits that switch, the whole damn thing could go kaboom, or drop out the sky like a brick, or malfunction in a thousand other ways. There’s no seat to punch out either; those razor wings would slice him in half. It’s got to work, and he’s got to land it, and he can’t land it with any fuel left on board or the whole goddamn thing will go kaboom soon as it hits the lakebed. So, yeah, it’s different, and everyone’s got their jitters up.
Billy wiped the counter with an old cloth.
So how come you ain’t down there? he said.
I seen plenty drop launches before, Pancho said, turning away to stack glasses.
At Muroc Field, a B-29 bomber took off from the south runway and climbed hard. Harrison sat on an upturned apple box behind the pilot with Jack Ridley, the flight engineer. The X-1 was strapped to the underside of the bomber. The B-29 reached altitude. Harrison climbed down the bomb bay ladder and into the X-1, the sound of the bomber’s giant propellers roaring in his ears. In the tiny cockpit, he clipped on his lines and hoses; the oxygen system, radio-microphone and earphones, then pulled his leather flying helmet over his head. Stored behind him, at minus two hundred and ninety-six degrees was six hundred gallons of lox, liquid nitrogen and oxygen. Ridley climbed down after him, lowered the cockpit door in place, then returned to the bomber. Two chase planes, one flying high, one low, took off from the base to observe the X-1 in flight. Harrison’s lips split, his breath condensing in the dark. In the gloom, he waited for the drop.
Pancho pulled a stool behind the bar and sat by the radio.
Listen, here we go.
Roger, take it easy son.
Ridley, Pancho said, to Billy. They heard Bob Cardenas, the B-29 pilot, announce twenty-six thousand feet, then begin his shallow dive.
Starting countdown …
Pancho leaned in.
Drop!
There was a sharp crack as the shackles released the X-1 like a bomb.
[…] looking at the sky.
Roger that, Jim.
Nose-up stall.
I see you, Jim—you’re dropping like a brick.
Copy that.
[…]
Dive speed […] too slow.
Walt, you got a visual from the ground?
Negative.
Twenty-five thousand feet.
Roger.
Twenty-four.
Say again, Jim? Didn’t copy.
[…]
[…]
[…] Hey […] fuel.
You’re about three thousand pounds heavier than the glide flights.
Twenty-three.
Roger, Jim.
I feel it.
Copy that.
I’m gonna push the nose down […] pick up speed.
Roger.
Leveling out.
[…]
You’re at twenty-two, Jim.
Copy.
[…]
I’m level.
Good work, Jim.
I have a visual.
Copy that, Walt.
Lighting the first chamber.
Standing by.
Lighting one.
Roger.
Point four Mach.
Copy that.
Hey, Jim, you just passed me going upstairs like a bat […]
Point five.
[…] shockwaves […] from the exhaust.
You got eyeballs on that, Kit?
Confirm.
Lighting two.
Roger.
Point seven.
Hold steady.
Forty-five thousand feet. Lighting three […] seven-five.
Jim […]
Watch your nose.
Firing chamber four.
[…]
[…]
[…]
Pancho glanced at Billy. Billy shrugged his shoulders.
Point eight-three.
Copy that, Jim.
Say, Ridley, sure is dark up here.
Beautiful, Jim.
Jettison remaining lox, glide down.
Copy.
[…]
Jim?
Christ he’s doing a roll!
Jim, that’s not in the flight plan.
Zero-g […]
Copy that, Jim.
Holy hell.
Engine cutout.
[…]
Ridley?
Fuel can’t feed the engine […] zero-g […] down.
Level her out.
Leveling out.
Roger.
[…]
[…]
Walt?
[…]
Dick, what’s his position?
Negative, can’t see […]
Walt?
Nothing.
I see him.
Confirm.
How’s the fuel?
Terrific.
Them NACA boys sure gonna chew you out!
Copy that, Jack; couldn’t resist. Lox spent, gliding home.
Roger that, son.
Well, shit, Harrison! Pancho said. She looked up at Billy.
You want me in tonight?
You bet your sweet ass I do.
Harrison flew more powered flights that afternoon, easing the X-1 up to point nine-six Mach, encountering different problems each time. Lakebed landings were also tough, with no markings and too much open space. Depth perception was an issue; it was easy to bend an airplane porpoising in, or flaring high and cracking off the landing gear. On the last landing, Harrison let the airplane settle in by itself, feeling for the changes in the ground effect as he lowered down, greasing in at a hundred and ninety miles an hour. With no brakes, it took three minutes to roll to a stop. The fire truck drove out and he hitched a lift back to the hangar.
The men debriefed in Ridley’s office, a small room on the second floor of the main hangar. The windows were covered with dust, the walls papered with enlarged photographs of instrument panels, maps of the desert and hanging clipboards, fat with flight reports.
That low frequency rolling motion was most likely fuel sloshing, Ridley said, looking at the clock on the wall. Nothing to worry about.
Well, that’s sure good to hear, Harrison said. We done?
That’s it, Ridley said. Let’s go to Pancho’s.
Grace took a left outside Rosamond, heading home, the package collected from the post office beside her. It was from her father. He sent occasional collections of miscellany; had done for years. There was usually a book, food (tinned or tightly wrapped in waxed paper), a small bottle of spirits, distilled himself, the odd trinket unearthed from the house that would inspire bursts of nostalgia. This haul included a pocket watch, Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, an old photograph of her looking stern on a horse and a bundle of Beemans gum labeled FOR JIM, which saved her going back to the store; she’d forgotten to pick some up. Jim chewed it constantly. He said sucking on pure oxygen when he flew dried out his mouth, and that chewing helped equalize his ear pressure at altitude. Grace also suspected that the pepsin it contained proved handy in the cockpit.
It was almost noon. The hot sun hurt her face. A dust cloud churned up around the car as she drove; the monotony of the Mojave roads almost hypnotic. Her thoughts drifted from her father to her mother to her appointment on Monday. Her body stiffened. Her back began to ache. She leaned forward, against the wheel, stretching it out. She grimaced, then sighed. A sign on the roadside caught her eye. It was tied to a post marking a rough track that led up to Mac’s ranch. She pulled up, let the engine idle, read the sign. She sat in silence for a minute. Then she drove up the track.
The ranch was quiet. Grace stood on the porch of the house, rapped on the door, took a step back. The air felt like sandpaper. She ran a finger across her forehead.
Hey, Mac, you home? she called out. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the boards. Then she heard a grunt and iron pulling against wood.
Well, Grace! Mac said, standing in the doorway.
Hey, Mac, she said.
Come on in here, he said, standing back. How the hell are you?
Fine, she said. You?
Tired, he said.
The house smelled of hay. It was gloomy after the bright glare of the desert.
Can I get you something?
Something cold be good.
Have a seat.
It was a small room. A square wooden table sat at one end, the kitchen at the other. A black stovepipe ran up the wall from an iron stove. On the wall next to the pipe hung a framed family portrait, a large clock and an old .22. Grace sat down at the table. A small oil-filled lamp swayed above her head.
You broke in that grullo yet? she said.
Hell no, Mac said from the kitchen. That’s one crazy goddamn horse. Should’ve never bought her. I’m gettin too old for this kinda thing.
The hell you are, Grace said as Mac walked back with two bottles pulled from the icebox. He set them down on the table and popped off the caps with an old knife. He had white hair and walked with a slight stoop. His face was brown and smooth, like every desert rancher. He handed Grace one of the bottles and sat down.
Ain’t nothin better than a cold Coke on a hot day, he said.
Amen to that, Grace said, toasting him and taking a long swig.
Damn, she said, bringing the bottle down to the table. That’s better. She belched.
Sorry, she said.
A skinned jackrabbit hung by a hook above the kitchen sink, pink flesh glistening in the low light. A pile of muddy potatoes sat piled on the side, waiting to be washed and peeled.
Nice of you to drop by, Mac said. I always told Rose this place was centrally located.
Middle of nowhere, Grace said, smiling and raising the bottle to her mouth.
