Nothing by Chance

“I have a company down in Chicago, on the outskirts there. I really should go down and shoot that. Then there’s one in Ohio, and Indiana … are we going to get to Indiana?”

“You’re leader today,” I said.

“No, come on. You think we’ll ever hit Indiana?”

“Got me. Depends on how the wind is blowing, you know.”

“Thanks. I do have to get this Chicago guy, then as long as I’m there I might as well hop over to Indiana. I could join up with you guys again later on, wherever you are.”

“OK. I’ll leave word with Bette, tell her where we are. You call her, fly in and meet us when you can.” I was sorry to have Paul think more of his shooting than of barnstorming, but he was free to do whatever he wanted to do.

We said goodbye to Millie, leaving monster tips on the table, and walked back to the planes. We took off together, stayed in formation up to 800 feet and then Paul waved and banked sharply away toward the distance of Lake Michigan and the 1960’s.

We were alone. The Great American Flying Circus, was now one biplane and one pilot and one parachute jumper; destination, as always, unknown.

The land below went flat. It began to look like Illinois, and after an hour’s flying we saw a river in the distance. There was no other airplane in the sky, and on the ground everyone was working at some kind of reasonable, respectable job. It was a lonely feeling.

We followed the river south and west, the biplane trailing a little stream of roiled air behind it, above the stream of water.

There were few places to land. The fields close to the towns were hemmed in by telephone wires or planted in corn and beans. We flew for several hours in random directions, staying close to the water, and at last, just as I was about to give up in disgust, we found a field at Erie, Illinois. It was short, it had trees across one end, it was half a mile from town. All of these things were bad, but down on the field the hay was being raked and baled and a wide strip had been left clear. We whistled down over a cornfield and landed in the adjoining hay, rolling to a stop not far from where a farmer was working over a huge rotary rake. He was having some trouble with it, and I shut down the engine.

“Hi, there,” I said.

“Howdy.”

Stu and I walked to the rake. “Can we help you out at all?”

“Maybe. I’m tryin’ to get this thing hooked up to the tractor, but it’s too heavy.”

“Can’t be. We can lift that little thing up there.” Stu and I lifted the tongue of the rake, which was solid steel, set it in the tractor hitch, and dropped the locking pin down through.

“Thank you kindly, boys,” the farmer said. He wore a denim jacket over his coveralls, a railroad engineer’s cap and a manner of unruffled calm at an airplane dropping down into his field.

“You’ve got a nice hayfield here,” I said. “Mind if we fly out of here a bit, carry some passengers?”

“Just one time?”

“Lots of times, we hope.”

“Well…” He was not sold on the idea, but at last he said it would be all right.

I unloaded the airplane for some trial flights, to see how much clearance we’d have, over the trees. It didn’t feel g

ood. We cleared the top branches with much less margin than I had hoped for, and with the weight of passengers aboard, it would not be comfortable. But there was no other field in sight, all the way around town. Everything was corn.

It was no use trying. Our field was just not good enough and we had to move on. By now the sun was low, and so was our fuel. We chose to stay overnight and move out early in the morning. The plan was firmed when the farmer stopped by just at dusk.

“Just as soon you not fly much out of here, boys. Your motor exhaust might hurt m’hay.”

“OK. Mind if we stay the night, here?”

“Go right ahead. Just don’t want that exhaust to get to the hay, is all.”

“Thank y’, sir.” We began to walk into town for our hamburgers, keeping to the right of the road, scuffing through the weeds.

“What about his tractor?” Stu said. “Doesn’t his tractor have an exhaust?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make any difference. He wants us out of here, we get out. No questions. It’s his land.”