Chapter 37 #2
“Virga—rain that evaporates before it hits the ground. Common in dry air,” I kept my tone instructional, but I was already calculating alternatives.
The weather was changing faster than I’d expected.
Growing cells and shifting winds narrowing our options—our route home was going to take us closer to the storm than I’d like.
I swallowed against my guilt. I had no business taking her up when my depth perception was too shot to assess weather patterns in the air.
Another bump of turbulence rocked us sideways, stronger this time. Alex corrected smoothly, but I could see her shoulders moving toward her ears again.
“You’re handlin’ everything great, darlin’,” I assured her. “Small corrections, don’t fight her.”
“It feels like the sky is trying to shake us apart.”
“Just the atmosphere moving around. The Cub’s built for this.” I scanned ahead, looking for smoother air. “See that clear patch at two o’clock? Let’s head for that.”
She adjusted our course without hesitation, trusting my guidance. The confidence in her response surprised me—thirty minutes ago she’d been gripping the controls like they might escape. Now she was flying us through deteriorating weather like it was almost nothing.
The wind continued shifting, gusting from different directions as the storm pulled air toward itself.
I felt each push in my shoulders, the constant corrections wearing at my focus in a way they wouldn’t have before the accident—the mental effort of staying ahead of the weather while keeping Alex calm was adding up.
“How much further?” she asked.
I checked our position against the landmarks below. “Maybe fifteen minutes if we can maintain this track.”
But even as I said it, I watched more cells swelling ahead of us, the clear air becoming scarce. We were going to have to thread the needle between black thunderheads, and with each passing minute, that eye was getting smaller.
As if reading my thoughts, Alex glanced back at me. “Are we going to make it home before this gets really bad?”
I met her eyes briefly, seeing trust there instead of the panic from earlier.
“We’ll make it,” I nodded, then added with more confidence than I felt, “but it’s going to be a more interesting ride than we planned.”
The ranch’s airstrip came into view ten minutes later, a welcome sight against the darkening landscape. But the windsock was dancing wildly, shifting directions as gusts swept across the field.
“Look at the windsock,” she breathed. “It’s all over the place.”
“Gusty conditions. We’ll just have to stay alert on approach,” I leaned forward, checking our airspeed and position. “You’re going to fly this landing, but I’ll be right here if you need me.”
“In this wind?” Uncertainty was creeping back in.
“You’ve got this, Alex. Remember what we practiced. Small corrections, don’t over-control.” Fatigue weighed on my shoulders and there was a faint throbbing at the base of my neck from the drop in barometric pressure. “Set up for runway two-six, we’ll come in from the west.”
She turned us onto final approach, the wind immediately trying to push us off course. She corrected, overcorrected slightly, then found her rhythm—working with the plane instead of fighting it.
“Airspeed’s good,” I said. “Just ride the gusts down.”
The approach felt longer than usual, each gust requiring another correction, but Alex handled it with growing confidence. When we touched down—a bit firm but perfectly centered—I felt something ease in my chest that I hadn’t realized was locked tight.
“Nice landing,” I said as we rolled to a stop near the hangar. “Especially in these conditions.”
Alex sat quietly for a moment after I’d shut down the engine, her hands still gripping the yoke. Around us, the wind gusted against the Cub, rocking us gently.
“That was...” she started, then stopped, seeming to search for words.
“A lot,” I finished for her.
She turned in her seat to look at me, really look at me. “You stayed calm through all of it. The engine, the weather, talking me through everything.” She was quiet, thoughtful. “I don’t think I really understood before what it meant to trust you with my life.”
We sat in silence for another moment, both of us coming down from the intensity of the last hour.
Outside, the first drops of rain began hitting the windscreen as the storm we’d outrun finally caught up to us.
I could feel the tightness building at my temples—the aftermath of sustained concentration and stress in bad weather that meant I was going down soon.
“We should get inside before this really opens up.” Part of me wanted to stay in the quiet cocoon of the cockpit a while longer.
She nodded and climbed out, her movements careful and deliberate. I followed, my body stiff and sore from sitting in the back seat all day. By the time we’d secured the Cub and jogged to the truck, the rain was coming down in earnest.
“I’ll drive,” she said, catching the keys I tossed her. “You look like you’re about to crash.”
She wasn’t wrong. The pressure was building steadily, and I could already feel the sensitivity to light creeping in. I settled into the passenger seat as she started the engine and turned us toward the lodge.
The windshield wipers beat an even rhythm against the heavy rain. I watched Alex’s profile as she drove—her hands were steady on the wheel, but she kept taking deliberate breaths.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I will be,” she glanced at me briefly, then back to the road.
“You handled the situation perfectly. Better than some pilots I’ve flown with who had a lot more experience.”
“I trusted you,” she shrugged. “When everything started going wrong, I just...trusted that you knew what to do.”
The weight of that trust settled in my chest alongside the growing headache. I’d nearly failed her. By the time we pulled up to the lodge, the rain was drumming on the roof of the truck and my head was throbbing in earnest.
Alex turned off the engine but neither of us moved to get out. The sound of rain surrounded us, creating a private space in the truck cab where the rest of the world felt very far away.
“Migraine?” she asked softly.
“Yeah,” I rubbed my temples, feeling the tightness spreading behind my eyes.
“Come on then. Let’s get you inside.”