Nothing by Chance

“We’ll just have to wait it out.”

“I think it’s going to work all right,” I said, an optimist under the stars. “Can’t imagine anybody not coming out to see old airplanes, even in this town.”

I watched the galaxy, with its northern cross like a big kite in a wind of stars, sparkling on and off. The grass was soft beneath me, my boots made a firm leathery pillow.

“We’ll find out tomorrow.” It fell silent under the wing, and the cool wind moaned low in the wires above us, between the biplane’s wings.

Tomorrow dawned in fog, and I woke to the slow cannon-boom of fog-drops falling from the top wing down onto the drum-fabric of the bottom one. Stu was awake, quietly rolling a new drift-streamer out of twenty yards of crepe paper. Paul was asleep, his hat pulled down over his eyes.

“Hey, Paul. You awake?”

No answer.

“HEY PAUL! YOU STILL ASLEEP?”

“Mmm.” He moved an inch.

“I guess you’re still asleep.”

“Mm.”

“Well, you go ahead and sleep, we won’t be flyin’ for a while.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Fog.”

The hat was raised by a hand snaking out of the green sleeping bag. “Mm. Fog. Up off the lakes.”

“Yeah. Burn off by ten o’clock. Betcha nickel.” There was no answer. I tried licking fog from some larger grassblades, but it wasn’t much of a thirst-quencher. I rearranged my boot-pillows and tried for a bit more sleep.

Paul came suddenly awake. “Ar! My shirt’s all wet! It’s soaking wet!”

“Man. City pilots. If I wanted to get my shirt just as wet as I could, I’d lay it out on the wing like you did. You’re supposed to put your shirt under your sleepin’ bag.”

I slid out of my bag and into the dry warm shirt that I had slept on and mashed all kinds of wrinkles into. “Nothing like a nice dry shirt, of a mornin’.”

“Ha, ha.”

I pul

led the cover from the cockpits and unloaded the toolkit and oil cans and FLY $3 FLY sign from the front cockpit. I ragged down the windshields, pulled the propeller through a few times, and in general made ready hopefully for a busy day of barnstorming. The fog was lifting already.

As he finished breakfast, Stu sat back in his chair and stretched his legs. “Shall we try a day jump, see what happens?”

“If you want,” Paul said. “Better check with the Leader first.” He nodded at me.

“What do you mean? I am always winding up Leader! I’m no leader! No leader! I quit! As Leader, I resign!”

We decided together, then, that it would be good to try a midday jump, to see if anyone was about with time to come and fly.

“Let’s not waste any time with freefall stuff,” Paul said, “nobody will see you. How about a clear-and-pull from three thousand?”

Stu did not buy this idea. “Rather have time to stabilize a bit. Thirty-five hundred’s OK.”

“Sounds fine,” said Paul.

“If you don’t pull, Stu, or your chute doesn’t open,” I said, “we’ll just fly right on to the next town.”