Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Pancho’s takeoff from El Paso was perfect. She pointed her nose east toward Pecos, Texas, and let the plane take her skyward. She could finally breathe again. Here in the privacy of her cockpit, she could admit that Marvel’s death had spooked her bad.
Thankfully, this was the last leg of high country. After this, they would start to angle northward, hopefully toward cooler weather. The morning sun glaring in her eyes was already hot enough to melt away any misgivings about leaving this part of the country behind.
Funny, but winning the race no longer mattered one bit to her.
She was bound and determined to finish it for Marvel, but she didn’t care who got the trophy.
All her fellow competitors were deserving, and all of them were wonderful people.
Still, no matter who got to Cleveland first, in her heart she would always think of this derby as belonging to Marvel.
As she neared Pecos, Pancho caught sight of a Travel Air ahead of her.
That looked like Louise. Looking back, Pancho glimpsed a red speck behind her.
That would be Amelia. This was a quick stop, mainly to refuel their planes.
They would spend an hour or so on the ground giving autographs and posing for pictures, and then they’d be on their way again.
The Pecos airstrip came into sight, little more than a patch of dirt cut out of the sagebrush and cactus littering an arid plain. She estimated around three thousand people were crowded tightly around the runway.
Here we go again. Nobody’s holding the crowd back and giving us a safe margin to land in. Probably because Ayers had told the local race officials the derby was canceled.
Irritated, she cut across the airstrip and buzzed Joe Nikrent to get her official time.
Now that she was done being timed, she could relax and check out the airport before she landed.
She turned parallel to the runway and entered the traffic pattern to give Louise a little time to land ahead of her and clear the runway, such as it was.
She tilted her right wing down to get a better look at the landing strip.
It was even worse than she’d first thought.
In addition to people crowding onto an already narrow landing strip, folks had driven their cars right up to the edge of where she was supposed to land.
From up here, the space looked barely wide enough to accommodate her wings.
She had to gauge the runway centerline dead on, or she would hit the vehicles lined up on either side of it.
“Hellfire and damnation. These people think we’re magicians who can land our planes on the head of a pin!” she exclaimed.
This place was yet another disaster waiting to happen.
As she turned onto her base leg, she eyed the landing zone and saw a trail of dust. At the far end of it, Louise’s plane was just turning toward the parking area.
All right then. If Louise had managed it, so could she.
But landing in such tight conditions made her feel claustrophobic as all get-out.
She made the turn to final and lined up with the runway. She got one last look at the narrow beige strip ahead, and then it disappeared under her nose as she slowed to land, raising the nose to a high enough angle of attack to block her forward view completely.
Using her peripheral vision, she eyed the fence running along one edge of the airport property and a high ridge on the other side of the field, keeping each landmark as close to the same distance away from her as when she’d last been properly aligned with the center of the runway.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered, starting her flare and easing back on the throttle.
Flight sure had a long way to go when it came to safety protocols.
You’ll be there to help create them, the little voice she was growing accustomed to whispered to her.
Marvel’s ghost, or angel, or whatever remained inside Pancho’s mind, was right.
Rankin, Ayers, and the others who wanted her to walk away from flying could just get used to Pancho Barnes thumbing her nose at their opinions.
People came into view on either side of her, and she judged herself to be only a few feet above the ground.
She reminded herself not to float long on this ridiculously short piece of dirt and descended the final few feet.
Her wheels impacted firmly but not so hard as to rattle her teeth.
She was satisfied with that landing under these conditions.
Ahead of her and to the right, something moved, a blur that disappeared from sight as it moved in front of her engine . . . and onto the runway directly ahead.
She instinctively started to kick in left rudder to avoid the obstacle but in the same instant remembered both sides of the runway were lined with vehicles and people she couldn’t plow into.
In the next instant, her plane smashed into something with an awful sound of rending wood and tearing fabric. Metal screeched on metal. The cab of a truck flashed into view beside her, barely missing her propeller but impacting her wings directly.
She watched in horror as both of her wings ripped clean off the side of her plane. Their splintered pieces and wing wires wrapped around the cab of the truck. What little fuel was left in her right fuel tank sprayed everywhere, soaking her and the truck in gasoline.
“Christ Almighty!” she shouted, as the rest of her plane, with her in it, careened down the runway.
She stood on the brakes, working the rudder pedals frantically, trying to keep rolling straight ahead as best she could.
The second she had her plane under control, she reached for the engine’s ignition switch and slammed it off.
She had to get her propeller to stop spinning before it became a giant buzz saw that chopped up a bunch of folks.
She felt as much as heard a cracking sound from the Travel Air’s wooden fuselage beneath her seat. But the plane held together and braked to a stop a few hundred feet beyond the truck. It was a miracle the impact hadn’t spun her and sent her hurtling into the crowd of bystanders.
The moment the plane came to a full stop, she unlatched her safety belt fast and leaped out of the plane in case it caught on fire.
She was doused in gasoline and didn’t have any desire to go up in flames with her plane.
She ran from the wreck, veering back down the runway to find the driver of the truck and knock his block off.
The crowd around her was shouting and screaming, seething like a stormy ocean, as the spectators in the front rows shoved against the rows of people behind them, and the people in back shoved to get to the front to see what had happened. It was a madhouse.
She spotted a man climbing out of the cab of the truck, angling awkwardly through the window because her wing wires were wrapped around his vehicle too tightly for him to open a door.
“You brainless sack of horse apples!” she yelled at him. “Look at the mess you made of my airplane!”
The driver took off running with her in hot pursuit. He looked back over his shoulder, saw her coming, and dived into the crowd. She followed, plowing shoulder first into the mass of bodies.
“Just you wait until I get my hands on you!” she shouted.
She shoved her way through the crowd, elbowing anyone who didn’t move out of her path. When she broke through to the back side of the crowd, the driver was well ahead of her . . . but not so far ahead she couldn’t see the smug smile on his face when he looked back at her.
That bastard had wrecked her plane on purpose!
She saw red then. “You’re going to pay for wrecking my plane!” she hollered, putting on a whole new burst of speed, fully intent on smashing her fist into his smug smile.
Something hard and immovable hooked her around the waist, stopping her painfully in her tracks as her diaphragm was abruptly compressed against her lungs.
She yelled to be let go, but whoever had snagged her had a solid hold on her.
She felt herself lifted off her feet and swung around to be set down behind someone.
“You worm-ridden pile of—” She broke off, staring in shock at Agent Pullman. She feinted right and dodged left, trying to go around him, but he was too fast and grabbed her again. This time he twisted her arm behind her back to immobilize her as he pulled her backward into the crowd.
She struggled, every movement sending pain shooting through her shoulder. Finally, the bolts of agony pierced her unreasoning rage at the truck driver. “He wrecked my plane on purpose!” she spat out.
“He certainly did,” Pullman agreed. His voice was pitched low, and he spoke directly into her ear. She went still, confused. “Look, Pancho, ahead and to the right. You are running straight into a trap.”
Pancho peered past the spectators to where he indicated.
There stood the local sheriff and a dozen deputies, along with several reporters who conveniently already held cameras at the ready.
The truck driver stood directly in front of the lawmen and cameramen .
. . and was looking in this direction, obviously searching for her.
Pullman muttered, “He would’ve let you punch him, and then you would’ve been arrested and thrown in jail for assault and battery, with pictures of all of it splashed across every front page in the country.”
Shock flowed through her like icy water, throwing a sharp chill on her temper. “Well . . . gosh and darn it . . . Thanks, Pullman.”
Pullman released her arm fast and took a quick step back.
“Pancho?” a female voice called in concern from behind her.
Amelia made her way to Pancho’s side with Louise on her heels. “Are you okay?” Amelia asked in concern.
“I’m fine. Just fine,” she bit out.
Amelia and Louise took in the cluster of police and reporters ahead, and as all three women looked on, the driver of the truck said something to the sheriff, who shrugged in response.