ONE CUP (Part 28)
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116
Ray Garrett
The engine was performing as it should, but the airplane was not accelerating normally during the takeoff run. The grass! It had slowed me down during taxi. I should have allowed for it on takeoff. I could have held the brakes at the end of the runway, running the engine up to full power before commencing the takeoff run. I should have applied flaps, to allow the airplane to lift off at a slower speed. The end of the runway was coming up fast, as was the barbed wire fence on the border of our farm and Ancil Clark’s. I wasn’t going to make it, and if I aborted the takeoff now, I would certainly crash through the pasture and plummet into the thirty foot ravine in Ancil’s pasture, but only if I somehow managed to avoid hitting his prize Angus bull who stood broadside and directly in my path.
With nothing to lose, I reached for the flap selector switch and pressed down, to approximately fifteen degree position, then began pulling back steadily on the control yoke. The effect was immediate. The Cessna broke free, slipped the surly bonds of earth, as they say, and I barely cleared the fence at the end of the runway. I looked out the side window, at the cattle awkwardly scattering beneath me, and reminded myself the secret to becoming an old pilot was to fill my bag of experience before I emptied my bag of luck. A hundred feet off the ground, I lowered the nose to gain airspeed, and retracted the flaps before resuming the climb. I was on my way.
117
Larry Brown
About ten minutes out of Richmond, the weather got bad. I mean, really bad. The rain was coming down heavy, and hail stones the size of marbles were bouncing off the hood. It sounded like my pickup was taking on machine gun fire, and the wipers couldn’t keep up with it. Visibility was down to nothing. A couple of motorcycles were parked beneath an overpass, the riders crouching near the top of the paved embankment for shelter. A little further down the road, water covered the pavement, making it difficult to keep the pickup on the road. I pressed on, thinking I’d eventually drive out the other side. Another mile, and traffic was at a standstill due to a tree limb that had fallen across the road. A couple of farmers with big trucks were busy hooking up to move the limb themselves, rather than wait for help to arrive. I thought about seeing if they needed help, but decided against it. Let them do it. I’d stay nice and dry inside the pickup.
118
Jackie
The clouds were a purplish-green boiling brew, the trees swaying in the wind. The first large raindrops began to splatter on the windshield and roof of the car. Lightning was getting closer by the minute, accompanied by thunder that sounded like artillery bombardment. Taylor had been gone a quite a while, forty minutes, maybe, and I was worried, tired of waiting. Quietly as I could, so as not to wake Rylee, I got out of the car and walked over to the fence row. Close enough to the car in case Rylee woke up, but at a point where I could now see the junk yard and the buildings that went with it.
At first, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. From out of nowhere, a small airplane flew directly over, barely missing the treetops and scaring me out of my wits. The pilot must be crazy, flying in weather like this. I hoped he could outrun the weather, find a safe place to land.
Then to the southwest, I saw not one, but two funnel clouds, no more than a half-mile apart, casually winding their way through the countryside, like two lovers out for a stroll. They were headed directly toward us, and were about to touch down any moment now. I bolted for the car in the driving rain, just as the airplane reversed course and headed back, toward the approaching tornadoes.
119
Nick Taylor
It was more than an hour. More like an hour and a half, before we arrived at Brown’s Towing Service. Trust me, if I could have gotten there sooner, I would have. I drove a good fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit as it was. The kid was driving me nuts with her questions, and her constant whining, wanting her mommy, et cetera. I shouldn’t be too hard on her. She’s scared. She should be.
“There it is, up ahead on the right,” I spoke softly as we rounded a curve a couple miles south of the Page city limits. Rylee had fallen asleep a few minutes earlier and I didn’t want to awaken her. Neither my ears nor my nerves were ready for another round with her.
“Where?” Jackie leaned forward slightly, looking. “Oh, okay, I see it,” she whispered.
I drove past the entrance to what appeared to be the world’s largest junkyard without reducing my speed. “Hey!” Jackie poked my arm. “You’re going past the entrance.”
I nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“What? Why?”
“If your friend is there, we can’t very well just drive up to the door, introduce ourselves, and ask them to hand her over to us,” I said. “And if we slow down, we tip the bad guys off.”
Jackie nodded. “Clever.”
“I’m smarter than I look.”
“You’d have to be.”
A hundred yards or so further down the road I found a driveway which, judging by the height of the grass growing between the gravel tracks, hadn’t been used in a while. I stopped a few feet beyond it, then backed in, going a hundred yards or so, just enough to allow for the growth of trees and brush on both sides to conceal my car from anyone driving by on the road.
I looked back over my shoulder, at the sleeping child. “You better wait here,” I said as I opened my door. “What’s your cell number?”
“Why do you need my number? I thought you already had it.”
“On my other phone, I do. And I need it In case we need to communicate,” I said. “I can text you, and vice versa.”
“Oh. Right,” Jackie said.
I punched in the number on my phone, added it to my contact list. “I’ll send you a message right now. That way you’ll have mine as well.” I selected text message, typed Hi, and then SEND.
Her phone vibrated. She looked and said, “Got it.”
“No idea how long I’ll be. Anything goes wrong, you get out of here.”
120
Ray Garrett
I knew better than to attempt flying a small single-engine airplane in weather such as this. Walk into any small airport fixed base operator’s pilot lounge, pick up a magazine, new or old, and you can find an article about an accident involving a pilot who pushed his luck too far, flew into weather beyond either his or his aircraft’s capability. Yet, here I was, scud-running barely a hundred feet above the ground, being tossed around like a rag doll in a clothes dryer, trying desperately to keep my wings level.
I was not current as a pilot, and the airplane hadn’t been flown in nearly a year, the last time I’d taken her up. I knew it to be mechanically sound, although overdue for its mandatory annual inspection. It was therefore technically not airworthy. But there were no other options. No other way to save Whitney. If she was still alive.
The weather back home in Illinois was decent enough, with marginal ceilings and visibility as I took off from the grass strip behind our shed. I was concerned Mom or Dick might hear me, if they’d come home, but there was no sense worrying about it now. I turned to an easterly heading, levelled off at 1,500 feet above mean sea level, and set the power at 2,500 RPM. I didn’t know what awaited me, or what I could do when I arrived at my destination, so I resigned myself to enjoy the flight as much as I could. I flew over Red Hills State Park, then a few minutes later, the Wabash River and the George Rogers Clark Memorial. The trees would be turning color in a few weeks, something I always enjoyed. I made a mental note to get the annual inspection done, and get myself current again, so I could go up with some friends to view the fall foliage.
Somewhere around Mitchell, Indiana, the weather started looking nasty. No more sightseeing. Dark clouds, gusty winds, and moderate rain now demanded my attention. I doggedly held my heading, not diverting until necessary. Eventually, I had no choice but to start picking my way around the weather.
Despite the need for my undivided attention to flying the airplane, my thoughts kept returning to my reason for doing something so foolhardy. I barely knew here, but there was something about Whitney, something I could not explain or even begin to understand. Something that made me willing to risk life and limb for her. Clearing myself from suspicion for her disappearance would be an added bonus. I had to assume I was the reason for the police coming down the road just before I took off. If so, they were done playing nice with me. And then it hit me. What if Whitney has been found dead? The thought of it turned my stomach in knots.
The closer I got to Page, the worse the weather became. Barely five minutes out, forward visibility dropped down to less than half a mile in heavy rain. I looked for the airport. All I could see was a wall of angry weather, spitting lightning everywhere. I had to make a decision. I couldn’t make the airport. Even if I did, I had no transportation to the address which was Whitney’s last known whereabouts. Or at least the iPad’s. But, I was right over it now. A junk yard, from all appearances. And there was a freshly cut hay field just to the west of it.
Barely clearing the trees now, I reversed course, turning back toward the pasture. I lowered the wing flaps and lined up into the wind, using the cattle as a makeshift windsock, knowing they would stand facing away from the wind. My eyes widened, and my jaw dropped at the sight ahead of me as a pair of tornadoes touched down no more than a half mile beyond the fencerow on the far end of the pasture. Talk about incentive to make a good approach. There would not be a second chance.