Chapter 3 #3
They were enveloped by a cloud of dust so thick Pancho could barely see the road, let alone the two cars ahead. The Duesenberg started to slow down.
“Keep your foot on the gas,” she told Marvel.
“But I can’t see the road.”
“Stay in the dust and you’ll be on the road,” she snapped. “There’s a turn just up ahead. Get ready.”
“Which way?”
“Right,” Pancho said, then added, “The house on the corner sits well back from the road. Yard’s flat. No trees or bushes. You can make up time cutting the corner.”
Marvel nodded. “Call the turn. I’m flying blind.”
“Will do.” Peering through the dust, she spied the shape of a craftsman bungalow emerging from the haze on the right. “Now!” she shouted.
The Duesenberg swerved to the right, bouncing across the lawn. They tore through a flower bed, sending daisies flying every which way, and burst out onto the street just as a fast-moving yellow object flew at them from the left.
Amelia slammed on her brakes, and her tires gave a mighty screech. Pancho heard her shout in protest as they cut her off.
Laughing maniacally, Pancho stuck her head out the window and yelled back. “Eat my dust, Earhart!” The Hudson with Louise and Ruth in it was fast and pulling ahead of the Duesy. “Floor it,” Pancho urged Marvel. “The road’s arrow straight for about three miles.”
Marvel complied, and the Duesenberg’s powerful high-compression, inline eight-cylinder engine responded, devouring the road and slowly closing the gap. “How much farther to the next turn?” Marvel ground out.
Pancho glanced over at her, clocking Marvel’s white knuckles and clenched jaw. Ha! Beneath her demure exterior, Marvel Crosson was as competitive as the rest of them. “About a mile,” Pancho answered. “We’ll turn left, then in about a quarter mile, turn left again.”
Marvel nodded, glaring fiercely at the car still too far ahead of them to catch. “What’s between this road and the second one headed back the other way?”
Pancho drove to Clover Field all the time to fly stunt planes for the movies. She should know this . . .
“Think! The turn’s coming up!” Marvel bit out.
She squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the drive. “A field. A farmer’s field!”
“Is it plowed?”
“I don’t think so. It’s a pasture. No fence—”
The Hudson’s brake lights illuminated a quarter mile ahead of them as it approached the first turn. They were never going to catch Louise and Ruth.
Without warning, Marvel swerved the Duesenberg left across the road. An oncoming car slammed on its brakes, and the driver shook his fist at them, yelling profanities about women drivers staying home in the kitchen where they belonged.
They plunged down a short slope, and the Duesy briefly went airborne.
Pancho’s white silk neck scarf ripped free and flew out the window as the car hit hard at the bottom, jarring her teeth together.
The Duesenberg was a classy touring car, not made for off-road excursions, but its superior craftsmanship held up as it bounced and bumped across the field, tossing Pancho around so hard she hit her head on the roof.
“Youch!” she yelped. Even going upside down and inside out in an airplane wasn’t this violent.
“Where’s the Hudson?” Marvel demanded.
Pancho poked her head outside. “Rounding the first turn now.”
“If I can just get my speed up a little more, I’ll have her,” Marvel said.
“Any faster and we’re gonna bust an axle!”
“Nah. This Duesy’s tougher than she looks. I feel it in my hands and feet. She’ll hold.”
Pancho nodded in understanding. All decent pilots literally flew by the seat of their pants, absorbing the engine’s vibrations through their bottoms, listening to the sound of their propellers, gauging how hard the wind was hitting their faces and at what angle.
They became one with their planes when they flew.
The Duesenberg tore across the pasture, scattering a herd of mightily startled cows. Pancho peered back, hunting for the Bearcat. “Amelia and Blanche are just now approaching the first turn.”
“Gonna be a shame if Lady Lindy doesn’t make it into the race,” Marvel commented.
“Better her than us,” Pancho responded from halfway out the window as she tried to spot Louise and Ruth in the Hudson.
“Hang on,” Marvel warned.
Pancho glanced ahead. They were nearing the edge of the field. An ominous berm rose in front of them. The car would never make it up that—
Its front wheels hit the incline, and Marvel floored it. They lurched up the embankment at high speed. Cresting the hill, they sailed weightlessly over its lip.
The front end hit the ground and swerved left so hard Pancho almost fell out the window. Marvel grabbed Pancho’s ankle with one hand, barely saving her from tumbling out and face-planting in the road.
Pancho flopped onto the passenger seat, breathing hard. “Whew. That was close. Thanks.” Speaking of close, Louise and Ruth were only a few car lengths behind them.
Marvel wove the car back and forth across both lanes of the road, throwing Pancho from side to side worse than any series of snap rolls ever had.
“What’re you doing?” she squawked.
“Keeping them from passing us.”
“Clever. Weave away. Even if I toss my cookies.”
“Your car. Barf at will,” Marvel retorted with a smirk.
A crack of laughter escaped Pancho. Who’d have guessed that beneath Marvel’s unassuming exterior hid this ferocious competitor? “I like your style, Crosson.”
“I like your car, Barnes. Might crash it, though. I just hate to lose.”
“I’m an all-or-nothing sort of girl myself! Floor it!”
They veered hard right into the airport, ending up in the left lane as Marvel took the turn at high speed. A car loomed ahead, coming straight at them.
Pancho hollered a warning. Marvel swerved to her right as the other car swerved to its right. The vehicles passed each other with mere inches to spare, the other car skidding off the pavement and through the grass.
Wincing, Pancho said, “I think you just ran Will Rogers off the road.”
“No kidding? I would’ve liked to see his face up close!” Marvel exclaimed.
No. You wouldn’t. Pancho had seen his expression. And he’d looked mighty ticked off. She made a mental note to buy the world-famous humorist and syndicated columnist a drink the next time she saw him.
They streaked into Clover Field, nearly as fast as their airplanes would come in for a landing, and headed for the big silver airplane hangar.
When it was far too close for comfort, Marvel finally slammed on the brakes.
The Duesy fishtailed back and forth, tires screaming, and came to a stop only a few feet from the hangar.
Pancho smelled burning rubber. It would be worth the cost of a new set of tires to make it into the race, though.
“Run!” Marvel yelled, leaping out of the car.
Pancho tumbled out and took off after Marvel, who ran like a gazelle in front of her.
She pumped her own stocky legs as fast as they’d go.
“Save me a place in line!” she yelled as she huffed along behind Marvel.
Pancho careened into the hangar, sprinting the last few yards to a long table where Jim and Clema Granger, the Santa Monica hosts for the race, were entering racers.
“How many are signed up so far?” Pancho gasped as she took her place in line behind Marvel.
“Ten,” Marvel panted. “We’re in time.”
Ruth and Louise raced around the corner and got in line behind them.
“You’re in,” Pancho told them. “How far back are Amelia and Blanche?”
“Thirty seconds,” Louise bit out. “But a bunch of those actresses are right on their tail. The starlets seem to think if they take up the slots, we’ll have to team up with them to fly the race.”
“I’d skip it before I’d play copilot to one of them.” Pancho sniffed. “And if they think they can ride along with one of us, they don’t know the new rules!”
Ruth warned under her breath, “A bunch of reporters are right behind the starlets. Whatever happens here, it’s all going to be in the news, so watch what you say.” She looked pointedly at Pancho.
“What? I’m always a peach,” Pancho retorted.
The other women guffawed.
“As in, you’re the pits?” Louise teased.
Amelia and Blanche tore around the corner just then and took their places in line, bending over to catch their breath. Amelia panted, “All heck’s about to break loose around here.”
Pancho grinned as a dozen red-faced actresses raced into the hangar, awkwardly mincing in their high heels. She did so love a good fracas. Yep, she was in her element as sure as a shrimp cocktail looked best served in cut crystal.
Behind them Claire Fahy came tearing into the hangar with a bright, eager smile on her face. The sparkle in her eyes promised Pancho a good fight for one of the trophies Elizabeth McQueen had commissioned for the race.
That’s the only sort of trophy worth winning . . .
Reaching inside her jacket, she withdrew one of her cigars. The press corps arrived, just in time to get a shot of her signing her entry form and puffing away on her stogie, sporting a smile as bright as the California sun.