Voodoo Heart (30 page)

The farmer’s wife laughed. “I have thought that, in fact.”

Not knowing what else to do, John put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. The pebbled fabric felt scratchy against his skin. He smiled at the farmer and his family.

“My blushing bride,” he said.

The farmer nodded. “Del Bradison,” he said, putting out his hand.

John went to shake, but the girl beat him to it.

“Mrs. Helen Barron,” she said, smiling in her wedding dress and boots. “Pilot.”

The crowds in Gunnison turned out to be better than John had expected. More than forty people showed up at the farm to ride on his Jenny that first afternoon. He was busy from morning to sunset. The farmer, Mr. Bradison, helped him set up a small table in the grazing field where Helen could sit and collect money from the waiting passengers.

At first, John didn’t like the idea of trusting Helen with the money, trusting her to sit there with all his bills in a pot. But what could he say in front of Bradison and his family? No matter, though; he knew there was no way for Helen to steal without him finding out. He could count the passengers himself. He knew his math.

It was an easy format. For $2 a customer got a quick tour of the town’s landmarks—the church, the school, the mill, and then back. For $3, John flew a stunt with them, a barrel roll or free fall, maybe even a death spiral, if the customer was feeling particularly adventurous. For $5 he’d take a photograph with them in front of the plane. When he needed fuel, he paid one of Bradison’s daughters a nickel to a make petrol run for him. Which she did by hauling cans back and forth from the garage in a toy wagon. To his surprise, John went through three cans in the first afternoon alone.

Bradison let them a room in the attic, at the back of a storage space. It was hot and cramped inside, and John slept poorly the first night. He spent a good deal of time staring at the lump beneath the covers that was Helen, wondering how long he’d be stuck with her.

The second day in Gunnison was even better than the first, financially speaking. John could hardly believe his luck. At least two-thirds of the people who’d rode with him the day before were back to go again. Some went three, even four times. And lots of them wanted extras this time around. They wanted the tricks—the rolls and spins during their flights. Afterward they paid for photos with John and Helen beside the Jenny, the wooden propeller gleaming behind them.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, the line to ride still snaking toward Bradison’s barn, that John realized Helen was at least partly responsible for his new popularity. He was coming in for a landing with a passenger, a young boy who’d brought his basset hound up with him, when he noticed a knot in the line of people waiting to ride. The knot was at the front of the line, up near Helen’s table. As he touched down, he saw that Helen was talking to them, the whole group. She was saying something funny, gesturing with her hands, and the crowd was chuckling—really laughing now, some of the women covering their mouths or stomachs, slapping their knees, convulsing with laughter.

“Watch out, mister,” said the boy, looking back at John from the front cockpit, the goggles too big for his head.

John turned and saw a cow standing in the Jenny’s path. He yanked the elevator and wrenched the plane upward, just missing the animal. The boy held tight to the dog on his lap. Its long ears flapped in the wind.

Again that evening, John couldn’t sleep. The attic room felt even hotter than the night before. The dust stuck to his skin, creating an itchy film. But deep down he knew that there was more to his sleeplessness than just the heat. The day had been one of the best of his career. He’d made forty-three dollars, which was practically unheard of for him, especially on his second day in one town. He squinted across the mattress at the buttoned back of Helen’s nightgown.

“How’d you do that today?” John said.

“How did I do what?” she said after a long moment.

“This.” John reached beneath the edge of the mattress and pulled out the envelope of bills. “What did you say to those people to get them to keep coming back?”

Helen glanced at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t
say
anything. I was just talking to them.”

“Talking to them about what?”

“I don’t know. I made up some stories about places we’d flown. Our travels. Don’t you ever talk to them while you’re up there?”

“I’m usually a little busy,” John said. “Flying the plane?”

Helen turned toward him, propping herself on an elbow. Again John was struck by how pretty she looked. Her hair was down, softening her face.

“Well, you should try catering to your customers,” she said. “It’s just good showmanship.”

“I cater to them,” he said.

“Maybe to the girls…” She smiled at him.

John couldn’t help smiling himself.

“That’s right,” she said, about to laugh. “I see right through you. Expert pilot.”

“So, what about it?” he said. “I don’t have time to make friends.”

“Right,” she said. “A night of fun. Then on to the next town.”

“Exactly,” said John.

“So where, oh where, great pilot, are you off to next?”

“I don’t know.” John glanced up at the small, dirty window near the room’s peak. “I thought I’d head south before it gets too hot. Fly through Oklahoma, Texas, west toward California. Or maybe I’ll go north, up to Montana.”

“I heard Montana’s nice,” Helen said. “Lots of moose.” She lay down again, her hair pooling around her head.

“What about you?” he said. “Where are you headed?”

“I don’t know,” said Helen. “I’ll figure it out. Trains run in all directions, right?”

“I could take you someplace myself,” said John. “I mean, if you want a lift.”

“That’s all right,” said Helen, yawning.

“Well then I’ll give you money for a ticket. You earned some of that pot today.”

“I’ll be okay,” she said.

John watched her as she adjusted her sheet, getting comfortable.

“I’d take you with me, you know,” he said, “but I don’t work that way. It’s just impossible.”

“No one’s asking,” said Helen.

“I’m just saying,” said John. “I’m a solo act. No partners.”

“A one-man show.”

“That’s right. So you get some dough from today, but that’s it.”

“Fine,” said Helen.

But the next morning, no mention of the train was made. Instead, the two of them left Gunnison together, flying south in John’s Curtis Jenny.

It took them two days to cross into Oklahoma. They moved in little hops, traveling forty, fifty miles a flight. The engine was too loud for them to communicate without yelling, so for the most part, they flew in silence. Helen kept the map up front with her, and she spent long stretches of time studying the names of cities and rivers. The strangest ones she yelled out to John.

“Kangaroo, New Mexico!” she called over her shoulder.

“I passed through Dirty Hand, Minnesota, a couple of weeks ago!” John called back.

The weather was perfect spring on the first day, and the prairie was in full bloom, bright with paintbrush and bluebonnets, pink clusters of catchfly. The fields shimmered; every few moments the wind skated a secret pattern through the grass. Ponds and lakes mirrored the sky. For a while John and Helen followed the train tracks, dipping down whenever a train passed, waving at the faces pressed to the windows.

They made camp less than a hundred miles from the Oklahoma border, on the open grassland. While Helen unpacked the blankets, John went to wash their goggles in a nearby stream. By the time he came back to camp, Helen had a small fire going.

“Make yourself useful, why don’t you?” John said.

Helen stirred the fire with a stick, sending a swarm of sparks into the sky. “How far do you think we came today?”

“I don’t know.” John opened a can of noodle soup and poured the broth into his pot. “A couple hundred miles. Those lights up there, that’s likely Barley.” He sat down beside Helen and held the pot over the flames.

“I think that’s Yupa,” said Helen.

“Can’t be. We didn’t come far enough.”

“Look for yourself,” she said, spreading the map on the ground. He noticed that she was no longer wearing her engagement ring. Instead, she wore a simple gold band that appeared too big for her hand. Likely, John realized, this was the ring she was supposed to give to Charley during the wedding ceremony. It slid and jiggled on her finger as she traced their path across the map, reminding John of costume jewelry, of children playing dress-up.

“See?” she said. “Yupa.”

“Beginner’s luck,” John said, handing her the soup pot to hold. He unlaced his boots and lay back on his elbows.

By now the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and the sky was dark. Fireflies emerged from the grass and flitted about the plane—landing on the wings, the fuselage, the propeller—turning the Jenny into a blinking outline.

Helen warmed the soup over the fire. Back in Gunnison, she’d bought some pairs of men’s long johns to use as camping pajamas, and she was wearing one set now. The knuckles of her spine were visible through the waffled fabric and John felt a sudden urge to trace them with his finger, the way she’d drawn the plane’s path on the map.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “So, what’s the story, Mr. Barron?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, “when did you first realize you were in love with me? What was the moment?”

John felt his stomach tense up. He stared at her.

She laughed, causing the soup to slosh around in the pot. “Relax. What I’m saying is, if we’re going to be a flying couple, we need a story to tell the customers…. So?”

John considered the question, but nothing came to mind. “I don’t know,” he said. “When was it you realized I was the guy for you?”

“Hmm.” Helen dipped a finger in the soup and tasted it. “It’d have to be,” she said, “the night you first took me flying.”

John waited for her to go on.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “What?” she said. “You don’t remember? It was only six months ago. You were just back from the war—”

“I never made it overseas,” John said. “I wanted to, but the army kept me stationed in Texas. Place called Platter. I did get to learn to fly, though.”

“Like I said, you were just home from your time in Texas. I was still living in our hometown of Layman, Missouri. With my parents.” She held the pot low over the flame, moving it in a slow circle. “I hadn’t seen you in two whole years,” she said. “I was so lonely. You didn’t write much—you couldn’t—so I had no idea whether or not you were coming back. I used to sit alone in my room at night and just cry. My folks bought me a phonograph to cheer me up. But the records always made me sadder. I used to listen to them and feel sorry for myself. Everything I heard was about something I’d never get to do, someplace I’d never see with you.”

She put the pot on the ground to cool. “The night you came back, I remember, I had on that record ‘My Dark Star.’ About the guy and girl who’re separated. And they wish on the same star? It’s such a sappy one, but it really got to me. I kept listening to it over and over. And then, out of nowhere, I heard a knock on my window. I didn’t even know you were back yet.