Chapter 21 #2
Ayers wasted no time on pleasantries and spit out angry words that made Horace’s mind go blank with shock.
“Repeat that, please,” Horace mumbled, having trouble believing what he’d just heard.
“I said these female pilots have all voted again. This time they insist on delaying their departure from Yuma to Phoenix so one of their number can complete repairs to her aircraft. Their demand is ludicrous. This is a race. When your competitor stumbles, you leave him lying in the dirt and seize the advantage!”
Horace couldn’t agree more. But now, he had a problem. He’d been sure the latest round of sabotage would end the race. He asked carefully, “Have there been any more claims of sabotage?”
“Yes. Two. And both are backed up with rather conclusive evidence,” Ayers answered.
“Claire Fahy, whose wing wires were eaten through by acid, has quit the race. Thea Rasche, whose fuel lines were clogged and carburetor fouled by debris, is remaining in Yuma to make repairs and give her plane a full inspection but will continue the race after that.”
“And the others? What’s their state of mind?” Horace asked.
“They’re determined to fly on.”
“You’re kidding,” Horace blurted out. Whoops.
Mustn’t give away too much to Ayers. The good doctor might have been on board with slipping an extra stop into the race route and pocketing a nice chunk of change for doing it.
But Ayers was not involved with the effort to shut the race down entirely.
Not only did Horace not want to share the money he earned for the deed, but he wasn’t convinced Ayers would go that far in his corruption and greed.
Ayers said in disgust, “Pancho Barnes is the ringleader of these revolts. They all look to her before deciding anything, and she’s dead set on finishing the race.”
“Isn’t she the female flier who brought the Hollywood crowd to their knees when she organized the stunt pilots?”
“Correct. She’s the bad apple in this bunch.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Horace responded thoughtfully.
“What do you want me to do about delaying the race?” Ayers asked. “It’s hotter than Hades itself here, and the locals say a sandstorm is blowing in.”
“Let them wait for their fellow aviator,” Horace answered. If they wanted to bake in one-hundred-degree-plus temperatures, who was he to relieve their suffering? The more miserable they became, the more likely they would quit and cancel the race. No human being had infinite amounts of strength.
“But the sandstorm . . .”
“I said let them wait!” he snapped. He ended the call by slamming the telephone receiver into its holder. There really was something to conducting business on the telephone. Slamming it like that was very satisfying.
He turned his attention back to the race. Or more precisely, to ending it. Pancho Barnes was the key, eh? So went she, so went all the women. In that case, he knew exactly what to do. He picked up the phone to ring Lazovsky. After all, sabotage was more of a mobster’s area of expertise.
Marvel did her best to nap under the wing of her plane while everyone waited for Amelia’s new propeller to be installed. But it was hotter than a griddle over glowing coals . . . and a sandstorm appeared to be whipping up.
A person would think the temperature would drop when flying dust obscured the sun until it was a dull white disk, barely as bright as the moon. And yet, the temperature continued to climb as the afternoon hours crawled past.
A mechanic she’d never seen before, but who identified himself as being with the race, opened her cowling to tune up her engine while she tried to sleep. He finished and closed the cowling with a bang that jolted her awake just as she’d finally managed to drift off.
From where she lay with her silk neck scarf tied over her nose and mouth, Marvel couldn’t see the progress on fixing Amelia’s Vega.
The dust was too thick. These conditions were as bad as over the runway at San Bernardino, except this storm encompassed the whole airfield and everything around it and appeared to extend into the sky.
“Pilots, to your planes!” the announcer called out over the loudspeakers at last.
She hadn’t managed to get a wink of sleep, and she yawned as she climbed to her feet and stretched her tired body. She was already wearing her goggles to protect her eyes from the stinging particles of blowing sand, but she tightened them and her helmet against the storm.
Eager to get up in the air, where it would be at least a little cooler, she headed for the ladder leaning against the side of her aircraft.
She paused, taking a moment to look at the number 1 she’d proudly painted on the side of the plane herself.
As she’d told Pancho, this derby meant everything to her.
She touched the number lightly, promising herself she was going to finish the race first.
She climbed the ladder jauntily to her cockpit. Now that her engine was tweaked and she knew to stick her face in the wind frequently, everything would be fine. She’d show everyone just how fast her new plane was and win the race to boot.
She slid into her seat, pausing as she always did to touch her cross and bow her head for a moment.
She wasn’t arrogant enough to completely disregard the risk of flying, particularly after everything that had happened.
But she was content to place her fate in the Almighty’s keeping.
When her time was up, it was up. No sense in living like a frightened mouse.
Marvel buckled her seat belt across her lap, checked the position of all the switches, placed her feet on the rudder pedals, and wiggled into a comfortable position.
This slim Travel Air 2000 was a sleek little hot rod, and flying it was a privilege.
She inhaled deeply several times, filling her lungs to make sure she was clearheaded from the start of this leg.
The other airplanes pulled out of their parking spots one by one until she was the last plane left sitting there.
She was leading the race, and the planes launched in reverse order of their place in the race.
Her assigned race mechanic, different from the one who’d worked on her engine, walked up to her plane and signaled it was time for her to go.
“Contact!” she shouted. She went through the start sequences, and the engine rumbled to life. The mechanic turned to walk toward the runway, and she followed him cautiously, taxiing through the terrible visibility, glad of his lead.
The starter emerged from the beige haze wearing his white jumpsuit and carrying his big green flag. He held it up in the air to indicate she had ten seconds left until brake release.
She cocked her head to listen to the engine. It sounded fine. But then, it had sounded fine every other time she’d waited for takeoff, and it had still ended up running rough once it was airborne.
The flag dropped, and she pushed up the throttle.
The plane moved fast, picking up speed eagerly.
She pulled back on the stick, and it practically jumped into the air.
Free of Earth. She never got tired of the sensation.
She climbed to two thousand feet before the sand thinned out enough for her to see clearly.
Using the tail of her silk scarf, she wiped off the grimy combination of grit and engine oil that had accumulated on her goggles. Better.
The sky started to shift back toward a blue color as she climbed another thousand feet and headed northeast toward Phoenix. Airplanes were so fast they could actually fly out of weather systems and get ahead of them.
The dust cleared below her as she flew out of the leading edge of the storm.
She was able to start picking out landmarks and began locating them on her map.
She was a bit north of her plotted course and made a minor course correction.
Faithfully, every two minutes, she leaned her face out over the edge of the cockpit and took several deep breaths.
She’d never pulled the throttle back after takeoff, and her engine was running wide open.
Her airspeed indicator ticked up steadily as the plane continued to gather speed.
164 knots. 165. 166. The fastest this plane had ever been clocked was 168 knots.
“What do you say we go for 169 today?” she asked the plane.
Phoenix was just shy of two hundred miles from Yuma, but every mile of the leg was going to be a test of her resolve.
If it was any cooler up here than on the ground, she couldn’t tell.
Although the sandstorm had abated around her, she still had grains of it between her teeth, in the folds of her collar, and clinging to her sweat-soaked skin anywhere it was exposed.
By contrast, Phoenix was lovely and had plenty of palm trees that cast cooling shade.
When she got to the hotel, she was going to run a whole tub full of cold water and soak in it until suppertime.
The plane jerked.
Marvel’s attention snapped to her dashboard.
The engine gauges were normal, and the engine sounded as it should.
She must’ve just flown through a big thermal.
Because they had waited until afternoon, the hot desert below had had plenty of time to heat the air above it and cause columns of hot air to rise into the cooler air above. This was bound to be a bumpy ride.
Given that her attention had wandered for a moment to a cool bath, she went ahead and stuck her face out into the wind, even though it hadn’t been two minutes since the last time she’d done it.
Thoughts clear—check.
Engine running smoothly—check.
The airspeed indicator hit 168 knots.
Excitement pulsed through her. No other plane in the race could come close to this little beauty in speed.
She purely loved going fast like this. She was competitive by nature, and getting to combine the thing she loved most in the world with a little healthy competition was about as much fun as she thought possible.