Nothing by Chance

“I tell you guys,” Spence said. “This is not a bad way to make a living! Man, I wish I didn’t have to get back so soon.”

“We’ve got to get you some hayfield somewhere, Spence. Some little field for real barnstorming-type flying.”

“There’s not much time,” he said. “Might have to wait till next year.”

Stu’s time was running out, too, and he talked with Spence about hitching a ride home.

I flew two leftover passengers the next morning, and we loaded our airplanes. Spence had one day left.

We took off west, and idled down the road, looking for a field-bordered town. It was as bad as ever. The fields were beautiful between the little villages. The hay was mowed and raked and baled away, and the land stretched long and clear into the wind.

But as soon as we approached a town, the telephone poles shot up like giant bamboo and the fields went short and rough and crosswind. We drifted down to look at a few borderline places, but nothing good came. We were not starving, and there was no need to work a difficult place.

Finally, over Lancaster, Missouri, we saw a field. It would be none too good—ridge-top land with steep hillsides to go tumbling down if we didn’t roll straight out after landing—but it was long enough, and close to town.

Just after I pointed it out to Spence and Stu, I saw that the darn thing was an airport. No hangars, no gas pump, but the wheel-marks were there to give it away.

We were getting tired of wandering, so we landed. During the rollout I had doubts about carrying passengers out of there, even if it was an airport.

I watched the Travelair land. Smooth as a river, it flowed down the strip; the sight of an old pro at work, no matter how much Nelson protested his amateur status at barnstorming.

A low sign by a log in the grass said, “William E. Hall Memorial Airport.”

“What do you think, Spence?” I said when he had shut down his engine.

“Looks OK. Fun comin’ in. I went over town and revved the engine. I could see people down there, and they stopped, you know, and they were lookin’ up.”

“Well, we’re close enough to town, but I don’t quite dig the airport. It’s a bit squirrelly for me, and if you lose the engine on takeoff you got no place to go without bending the airplane.”

A car drove up and a man got out, carrying a movie camera. “Hi,” he said, “mind if I take some pictures?”

“Go right ahead.” The rest of our meeting was recorded in living color, to the whir of a spring-wound camera.

“I don’t like it,” I said. “We’re not far south of Ottumwa, and that’s home base for me. We need fuel anyway. Why don’t we hop up there and get gas and oil and you can check the weather going west. Make a decision then.”

“Let’s do it.”

We were airborne a few minutes later, heading north, and in half an hour we landed at Ottumwa, Iowa.

The weather growing in the west was not encouraging, and Spence was worried. “They’ve got some pretty strong stuff coming down our way,” he said. “High winds and low ceilings. I think I better hold the barnstorming till next year, Dick. If I get caught out by the weather I won’t make my airline schedule. That wouldn’t be too good. I better get out today and try to beat this stuff.”

“Stu, you make up your mind?” I asked. “Last chance for a free ride home, probably.”

“I guess I’d better go back with Spence,” he said. “It’s been a pretty good time … I’d be stretching it a little if I stayed. School starting before too long.”

They packed up the Travelair at once; parachutes and oil and clothes bags and shaving kits. I cranked the engine alive and handed one of the FLY $3 signs to Stu. “Souvenir, Mister MacPherson.”

“You gonna autograph it for me?”

“If you want.” I laid it out on the wing and wrote, SEE YOUR TOWN FROM THE AIR!, then signed it and handed it up to him as he made his place in the front cockpit.

I shook hands with Spence. “Glad you could make it. You’re pretty nutty to come all the way across the country for two days’ barnstorming.”

“It was fun! We’ll do it again next year, huh?”

I stepped up on the wingwalk and nodded once to the young jumper, wondering how to say goodbye. “Good times, Stu,” I said at last. “Do what you want to do, remember.”

“Bye.” Way down in his eyes, the glimmer of a signal that he was learning, and for me not to worry.