Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [108]
Bob stared through the window at a cloudless, sunlit deep blue sky and mumbled something to himself. He pulled on his cap and began walking outside. “Think I’ll check on the storm.”
“Isn’t that sort of dangerous?”
“Depends on how close you get.”
Abbie pushed open the kitchen door carrying a syringe. She leaned on the table while Rocket licked her toes and spoke around the Actiq filling her cheek. “Cannnn weeee goooo?”
Petey walked in a circle on the table. “We go? Hell no. We go? Hell no.”
Bob shook his head. “I’ve tried teaching him some new words but…” He shrugged. “He’s very religious. Always talking about heaven and hell. Aren’t you, Petey?”
Petey flapped his wings. “Hail Mary. Hail Mary.”
I whispered to Abbie, “Honey, there are only two left.”
She pulled the cap and handed it to me. “Let’s hope it lassssssts a lllllllong timmmmmmme.” She looked again at Bob, the wrinkle hard creased between her eyes. “Cannn weeeeee?”
He tried to make light of it. “You been drinking?”
“I wwwwisshhhh.”
“You can be rather determined, you know.”
I piped in. “She gets it from her dad.”
“It can get bumpy. If you thought the carousel made you woozy…”
I pulled the cap and she nodded as I injected the dexamethasone into her thigh.
“You sure?” Bob asked.
She nodded and lifted the lollipop. “Yyyyyes, on one connndition.”
“Name it.”
“I want to do a lllllloopty…looooop.”
He smiled. “I think I can handle that.”
We stood next to his plane. He said, “You know much about planes?”
“I know it’s bright blue and yellow, has a propeller, four wings and a couple of wheels.”
He ran his hand affectionately along the part behind the engine. “This is a Stearman Kaydet. During World War Two, they served both the Navy and the Air Force and saw aerial combat in several theaters. Manufactured ’til 1945, about ten thousand were made.”
Abbie put her hands on her hips. “Youuu donnn’t saaaayyy.”
Other than the slurring sound of my wife’s voice, the year 1945 bothered me a bit. “Doesn’t that make her rather old?”
“Rebuilt every square inch myself.”
“Didn’t that take a lot of time?”
Bob smiled. “That’s something I’ve had a good bit of. A priest with no collar is…questionable. Up there, I’m a man flying a plane. Folks don’t care as long as their crops grow.” He continued, “It’s a two-seat biplane. Part wood, part fabric, part steel. Landing gear is nonretractable tail-wheel type. After the war, the government surplused thousands of Stearmans. Some were used for aerobatic competitions, some served in the air forces of other nations, while most of the rest were converted to crop sprayers.” He walked toward the rear and ran his hand along a weird-looking pipe with a whole bunch of little nozzles sticking out of it. “When converted with crop-spraying bars and hoppers, the standard issue two-twenty horsepower Lycoming engine didn’t measure up.” He tapped the nose. “Many, like this one”—he stroked her as a middle-aged man touches his Ferrari—“were re-engined with brand-new war-surplus R-985 Wasp junior radials. About four-fifty hp—or twice the original power. We fly about five feet above the ground, so it helps to have good control and response.”
To me, it looked like something out of Peanuts. But I kept that part to myself. He continued, talking as much to the plane as to us. “Empty, she weighs a few pounds shy of a ton. About nineteen hundred thirty-six pounds. She’s got a wingspan of thirty-two feet and a length of twenty-four feet. Initially her max speed was a hundred and twenty-four miles per hour, but I can do a good bit better now. She’ll fly to just over eleven thousand feet with a range of five hundred and five miles.”
Abbie smiled. “I’ve heeeard modellllls, descrrribed wwwwith lllessss affffection.”
I raised a hand. “You ever crashed?”
“Not in her.” There was more there but he didn’t offer and we let it go.
Abbie looked at me, the dexamethasone kicking in. “I don’t think I want tttttto know anymmmmmmore.