The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [20]
"I'll see you in Hell first, Maclaine." Cass took a dollar bill from her depleted stack and tossed it into the ante.
"Tsk, Cassie. That's one for Mother." Reaching across, Della plucked up another wrinkled bill from Cass's pile of ones and dropped it aside into the cuss pot, which they always divvied after the game.
"What's the program here," Cass said crossly, "to get rich off my vocabulary? That's chickenshit, Della."
The others eyed her. They knew Cass had the best cockpit nerves in the human race; when she was not at the controls, things could fray at the edges now and then. Beryl, ritual elder of the group, was about to say something but thought better of it. This time, Della only crept her fingers a little way toward Cass's pile, asking as if it was a matter of etiquette: "Another for Mother?"
Knowing that she needed to get a grip on the situation, Cass theatrically fanned at her mouth as if shooing off flies, then forked over another dollar for swearing during the game. As everyone laughed, she sneaked another glance at the nearest window port and still saw only fog; Seattle was socked in tighter than she could ever remember—that was saying a lot—and there were mountains out there. Even she, who had to have faith in instrumentation, was ready to divert to sunny Moses Lake. She caught the eye of Linda Cicotte, her B flight lead pilot, and pointed urgently toward the cockpit. Linda nodded, teetered to her feet, and felt her way forward to talk to the pilot. The rest of the dozen women, all in the baggy flying gear called zoot suits, slouched in sling seats along one side of the aircraft; the majority of the cabin was taken up with bulky crates. TARFU Airlines, these numbing transport trips in the equivalent of a boxcar with propellers were known as: Things Are Really Fucked Up. Circling in grade A fog this way was worse than usual, on these trips to the Coast, but there was nothing to do about it but go with the routine. Linda's team of fliers as usual were curled up as best they could, trying to catch some sleep. C flight, Ella Mannion's, did crossword puzzles and read books. Cass was not sure she wanted to know what it said that hers always sat on their parachute packs in the tail of the plane and played cutthroat poker.
Right now, Mary Catherine palmed the deck in cardsharp fashion, ready to keep dealing. "Cards, sisters in sin?"
"Honey"—Della was only from somewhere in southern Ohio, but when she poured it on, she sounded like Tallulah Bankhead on a bender—"I couldn't possibly stand one more good card."
Cass flinched inwardly. What am I getting myself into here? A lot of that going around lately. Saying "Hit me twice," she slid the deuce and trey to the discard pile. The new cards might as well have gone straight there, too. Lucky in love doesn't seem to count in poker either, Ben. Even so, when Della upped the ante, she stayed with her. Della raised her again, which mercifully was the limit. Cass met the bet and, fingers crossed, produced the jacks.
"Pair of ladies." Della laid down queens and scooped up cash. "Thank you for the money, y'all, it'll go for good causes, widows and orphans and the home for overmatched poker players."
Cass looked at Mary Catherine, and Mary Catherine at Beryl. Simultaneously they reached to their piles and each flung a dollar into the cuss pot. "Piss in the ocean, Della!" they chorused.
"My, my," Della drawled, cocking a delicate ear. "Do I hear a whine in one of the engines?" Cass had to hand it to her; shavetail latecomer or not, she was sharp as a porcupine on most things. The full lieutenants, Beryl Foster and Mary Catherine Cornelisen, had earned their wings in the very first contingent of WASPs, as Cass herself had. The three of them together had