Nothing by Chance

I did not see what was so funny about it all, but she was laughing so hard that I was forced to smile. Maybe it would look funny, to some people.

The woman could not control herself. She laughed until there were tears in her eyes; she leaned against the side of the fuselage, buried her face in her hands and laughed. It wasn’t long before everyone was laughing; she made us a very happy group.

“I admire your courage,” she said, choking on her words. After a long while she settled down and even said that she was ready to fly.

We flew around town, made our turns and came back in to land, and she was still smiling when she got out of the airplane. I could only hope that the reason for the smile had changed.

The sun dropped into low gold on the horizon, and there was a faint mist through the valley that caught the color and sprayed it across the countryside. We had a crowd of twenty people around us, but all had either flown or had no wish to fly.

They had no idea what they were missing; this would be a magnificent sunset from the air.

“Come along, folks,” I said. “Sunsets for sale this evening! The Great American Flying Circus guarantees a minimum of two sunsets this evening, but only if you act now! Watch the sun go down here, then up in the sky to watch her go down once more! A sight you will never see again, as long as you live! Prettiest sunset all summer! It’s a burnt-copper afternoon—right out of Beethoven’s heart! Who’s ready to step up there into the air with me?”

One lady, sitting in a car nearby

, thought I was speaking all to her. Her words came clear in the soft air, louder than she meant. “I don’t fly unless I have to.”

I was angry, sad. The poor people had no idea; with their caution, they were passing up paradise! How do you convince them of good? I made one last appeal, then, meeting no response, started the engine and took off alone, just to fly and to see the land from the air.

It was more beautiful than I had promised. The haze topped out at less than a thousand feet, and from 2,000 feet the earth was a silent lake of gold, with a few brilliant emerald hilltops rising to be islands in the crystal air. The land was all a golden dream, where only good and beautiful lived, and it was spread out below us like a tale from Marco Polo, with the sky going deep-velvet black overhead. It was another planet, that Earth, one never seen by man, and the biplane and I held the splendor of it all to ourselves.

We started our first roll a mile in the air, and the biplane did not stop rolling and soaring and diving and singing strong in her wires until the ground was dark and the mist was gone and the gold had disappeared from the sky.

We whispered down into the grass and swung to park, shutting the engine into hot-ticking silence. I sat alone for a full minute, not wanting to talk to people or to hear them or to see them. I knew I’d never forget that flight, and I wanted a quiet moment to lay it carefully away in my thought, for I would be coming back here many times again, in the years ahead.

Someone said low, in the crowd, “He has the courage of ten men, to fly that old crate.”

I felt like crying. They didn’t understand … I… could …not make … them … understand.

Gradually the cars drove away and the ground went very dark indeed. The hills on the horizon were powder-black against the last light of the sun; they stood with their trees and windmills and rolling fields in razor silhouette, like the skyline in a planetarium, just as the stars are being flashed upon the dome. Sharp and black and clear.

The old timer was the last one left, and as he slid into his car to leave, he said, “Young fella, how much would you say that airplane’s worth, about?”

“Mister, if Henry Ford were to walk up here and want this machine, I’d tell him, ‘Hank, you ain’t got enough money to buy that airplane.’”

“I believe you’d say that,” the man said, “I really believe you’d say that.”

We counted our money over breakfast. We had flown twenty-eight passengers, and we showed a handsome profit.

“You know, Stu, with the little fields like this, the little airstrips around the country, barnstorming can be a lot better business now than it was back then.”

“Makes you feel sort of powerful, doesn’t it?” he said.

We walked out of Pecatonica for the last time, past a dog sitting chained to his doghouse. He had barked at us before. “How many times is the dog going to bark, Stu?”

“The dog is going to bark two times.”

“I say the dog is going to bark four times. At least four times.”

We walked by him and he didn’t make a sound. He just sat there and watched our every move.

“Why, Stu, I believe the dog has come to know us!” I stopped in the road and looked the dog in the eye. “He is now our friend!”

At that, the dog burst into barking, and by the time we were over the bridge, we had counted twelve full, rapid barks.

Stu found a half-size comic book lying by the road and picked it up. It was an advertising thing for Wrangler jeans, and it was all about Tex Marshall, rodeo star. Stu read aloud as we walked, acting out the parts of young Tex, starting his career as a bulldogger on the rodeo circuit. The theme of the story was Stay In School, Kids, documented by Tex’s fierce will to get his college degree before turning full time to rodeo and earning a pile of money.

We wondered how that degree helped Tex hogtie Hereford calves in six seconds flat, but that was apparently something that all the guys take for granted. You get that degree, and you’ll make more money in any job.