The Flying Circus Read online

  “I don’t think folks round here’d be interested.”

  “I used to think like that, too. Turns out people everywhere are crazy about airplanes. But not to worry. Captain Gilchrist always respects a landowner’s wishes, so we’ll be gone as soon as we get some gasoline.”

  The man rubbed his chin. “We might could work something out. Pasture’s empty right now anyhow.” Then he gave Gil a harsh glare. “Gotta be compensated for the milk scared outta my cows, of course.”

  Gil rolled his eyes. “Cows—”

  “We can work something out,” Henry cut him off.

  Fifteen minutes later, not only had they settled on a deal to use the pasture, but the farmer was driving them into town with several old milk cans to get gasoline. Henry insisted he and Gil ride in the truck bed, just to make sure Gil didn’t open his mouth and say something that’d put the man off.

  Henry sat with his back against one side of the truck bed, Gil the other. “We could have found another pasture—probably for free.” He sounded mad.

  “And burned up time and gas doing it.”

  After sitting with his lips pressed together for a while, he said, “I wasn’t an ace. You can’t tell people that.”

  Henry shrugged.

  “And I didn’t fight the Red Baron. I didn’t fight anyone.”

  “Come on. You’re selling a show, an image for people to get excited about. You did fly in the war, right?”

  Gil sat stone-faced and crossed his arms over his chest, but didn’t disagree.

  Henry thought about the medicine shows and carnivals that traveled around, drawing crowds and relieving folks of their hard-earned money. Plenty of their barkers stretched the truth to get people’s blood up. “You know the Lizard Boy in the circus really wasn’t born from an alligator egg, don’t you?”

  Gil stared at him.

  “All I’m saying is that you could have been up there when the Red Baron was. All show folk do a little truth-stretching.”

  Gil’s breath was rough, the way it had been when he’d been having his nightmares the night before. He looked as if he wanted to take a swing. “Not about the war. Honors were hard earned—and not by me.” He scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “As far as war goes, the truth is horrible enough, no need to stretch it.”

  Peter’s face flashed in Henry’s mind, a face forever frozen at seventeen. It made his chest hurt, even after all of these years.

  “Okay. Okay,” Henry said. “Sorry. I was just trying to whip up some excitement. You said yourself the biggest danger a barnstormer faces is starvation.”

  Gil was silent a minute. “I make my own deals with landowners.”

  “With your sensitivity and understanding of farm folk,” Henry said, his own irritation rising, “it’s a blue wonder you haven’t been shot yet.”

  “I do fine.”

  “You could do better.”

  “Not your concern.” Gil shifted his gaze to the passing fields.

  “You’re right. Makes no difference to me if you starve to death and your plane falls to pieces when a little showmanship could prevent both.” And it shouldn’t matter to Henry. But he felt invested. Today was the first day since Peter had left that the world showed all of its colors. It was as if a gray fog had lifted from Henry’s heart. It got his nanny just thinking how Gil was ruining the opportunity to live the life he wanted just because he couldn’t stop being a sullen ass.

  What Henry wouldn’t give to be in Charles Gilchrist’s footloose shoes.

  It took a long time to repeatedly fill the large glass reservoir at the top of the gas pump and empty it into milk can after milk can. Gil said it was a rare thing to have this many containers. Normally he had to make multiple trips for gasoline, often between giving rides, making people wait. Or wander off with their five dollars still in their pockets, Henry thought. For a man who continually griped about burning daylight, Gil sure wasted a lot of time searching and borrowing to transport fuel. The system begged for improvement.

  Henry waited on the tailgate for Gil to go inside the station building and pick up a case of oil and pay. The courthouse clock chimed the hour. Henry glanced at it over the top of buildings across the street. He was damn lucky not to be sitting in one of those right now. The fact was, he was only two counties away from the Dahlgren farm. Not near far enough to be out of danger. Would he ever be far enough?

  Nothing but forward. Nothing.

  So he sat tight and swung his feet, trying to look as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Being in a town full of people was different. Someone could be watching him that he couldn’t see. To keep the nervousness from giving him away, he busied his mind with ways to improve Gil’s efficiency. How much gas Gil’s plane must burn per hour; dividing that by the number of rides he could probably give in that much time and how many miles he probably averaged between towns. How far could that engine go between overhauls?

  The farmer returned from Craycraft’s Dry Goods with a brown-paper-wrapped parcel under his arm, whistling an off-key version of “Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet.”

  A shout sounded from across the street and down about a half block. A tall, skinny man wearing a blood-smeared white apron ran out of a small storefront, a meat cleaver in his hand. “That’s the last time you steal from me, you little bastard!”

  Henry got up and looked to see whom the man was chasing.

  A silver-gray streak ran past Henry’s knees. A single dark sausage link landed near his feet.

  The skinny butcher held the cleaver over his head, barreling straight for Henry. The man stepped on the sausage and his foot logrolled forward, throwing him off-balance. The meat cleaver sliced so near the side of Henry’s head that he felt the air move.

  Oblivious of Henry’s near de-earing, the butcher regained his footing and followed the thief’s path around the truck.

  The streak passed Henry’s knees again. A dog. With a rope of cured sausages hanging from his mouth.

  The butcher screamed in frustration and passed Henry a second time.

  On the dog’s third orbit of the truck, he jumped up into the bed and hid behind the milk cans. A single sausage link remained visible.

  The butcher caught himself on his fourth lap around the truck, realizing he was chasing only himself. He looked right, left, up and down the street, toward the open station door.

  Henry stepped between the butcher and the telltale sausage. “He took off down the alley. That way.”

  The butcher took off, shouting and shaking the cleaver.

  “You’d probably do better if you sneaked up on him!” Henry called behind the man.

  Gil came out of the brick building, looking around. “What’s all the shouting?”

  The station man followed him out, laughing. “Third time this week the little booger’s made off with some of Chet’s goods. That stray is so good at it I’ve started rooting for the pooch. He deserves to win.”

  Henry knew something about being a hungry stray. He climbed in the truck bed, sitting between Gil and the dog’s hiding place. The mutt could use a few miles between himself and that meat cleaver.

  Gil cranked the truck, then came around and hopped on the open tailgate.

  When the truck started, Henry worried the dog would bolt. He looked up to see the butcher coming back their way, taking time to look behind every trash barrel and stacked crate in the alley.

  The dog stayed put. Henry supposed the stray hadn’t survived this long by being stupid.

  At the edge of town, they stopped for a train to pass. Gil sniffed. “I smell . . . sausage.”

  Henry lifted his nose and made a show of smelling the air. “Really? I don’t smell anything.”

  Gil looked puzzled and shrugged.

  A loud belch came from behind the milk cans.

  Gil shot a look over
his shoulder at Henry.

  Henry patted his chest and covered his mouth. “I do beg your pardon.”

  Gil shook his head.

  The train passed.

  They traveled on, back toward the Jenny.

  Henry steadied the cans as they bounced across the pasture. They stopped at a place where the gasoline could be stored in the shade. Gil hopped off and Henry started to move the heavy cans to the tailgate. The dog stayed hunkered down, looking up at Henry with unsure brown eyes, holding half of a chewed sausage between its paws.

  “It’s okay,” Henry whispered. “I’m on your side.” He reached down and picked up the scruffy terrier. The matted fur and prominent ribs confirmed the filling-station attendant’s claim that this was a stray; a dog this size should weigh eighteen or twenty pounds. He didn’t feel as if he was anywhere in that neighborhood. “Can’t blame a starving animal for fighting to survive.”

  Gil came back and looked up. “Oh, hell no.”

  “He needed help.” Henry set the dog back down on his paws. “Now he’s going on his way.” Henry took the half-eaten sausage and tossed it out of the truck, expecting the dog to follow. Instead the pooch just sat there and stared up at Henry with hope in his eyes.

  “Maybe Mr. Sowers”—Henry had read the farmer’s name written in the shingles of his barn roof—“will keep him?”

  The farmer shook his head. “Dog’s no hunter. Why would I keep him?”

  At that the dog jumped out of the truck bed, picked up the half sausage, and headed toward the road.

  The sight of that skinny mutt walking slowly away with his head low made Henry sad. But a man who wasn’t sure how he was going to feed himself had no business taking on a dog. No matter how much he sympathized with the hungry stray.

  4

  The crowd did come, just as Gil had predicted. It came smelling of the anticipation of discovery. People came on foot and in cars, in wagons and on bicycles, in groups and alone. They gathered around the field in little knots made colorful by women’s spring hats and dresses. The bolder of the men and boys ventured close and asked Gil questions about the plane. Two different times, Gil swatted a boy away when he tried to climb up onto the wing. Must have been a bold little devil; the scowl on Gil’s face was enough to scare most folks off.

  The whole atmosphere reminded Henry of a medicine show he and Peter had seen years ago. Henry had watched the performances. Peter had watched the crowd.

  Even with the good turnout and the excitement, when Gil stood in the seat of his cockpit and invited anyone with five dollars to come and take a ride, people fell silent, their eyes shifting to the ground beneath their feet, to the person next to them. Anywhere but Gil and his Jenny.

  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, folks,” Gil said, his hands on his hips. “How many airplanes have you even seen in this town?”

  Plenty of folks looked as if they had money in their pockets. Many faces held a spark of longing and curiosity. Henry spied a man in a nice suit and starched collar standing with an equally starched and knickers-clad boy of about twelve. Alongside them was a girl a year or so younger than the boy. Her dress, shoes, and bows would have made the Dahlgren girls jealous. The boy was pointing toward the plane, a pleading look on his face as he chattered to his father. The girl had her hands clasped over her heart, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet so vigorously her ringlets looked like springs.

  For one instant Henry was ten years old again and watching his big brother at the Harvest Festival. Henry had stood in grass so heavy with early-morning dew that it seeped through his shoes, at a time of day when most folks held on to their pennies, carefully deciding where to spend them. Peter opened the Lutheran church’s booth, whose purpose was to raise money for Christmas gifts for the children at County Home. (Ironic, when Henry now thought about how close he’d come to becoming a resident there.) Peter started talking, a smile on his face, his arms open and hands gently gesturing for people to come to him. People stopped. Inched closer. Moments later they began to hand over their pennies. Peter’s skill at gathering the crowd and separating them from their money had been so good that the medicine-show man came up and tried to convince Peter to come and travel with his show. Ma chased the man off in short order. Later, when Henry asked Peter how he’d known what to say to get people to spend their money, he’d said, “Just stay friendly and keep talking. Don’t push too hard. Watch their eyes. Everybody wants to feel like they’re doing something special. Make them think they are and you’ll get that first penny, that’s the hardest one. People follow people, money follows money; it’s a fact of life.”

  From that moment on, Henry had made a game of studying people, trying to read what they were thinking, figuring how they’d react if he said or did certain things. By looking at their eyes and the way they held their bodies, he could tell if he had a chance of softening them up, or if he should just keep his head down. This became a handy tool of survival when the rules of civility were devoured by German hate . . . and then later with the Dahlgren women.

  He slipped through the crowd around the Jenny, keeping the man with the two children in sight.

  Less than a minute later, Henry was escorting the trio toward the plane. “Here!” Henry shouted. “Captain Gilchrist! We have our first adventurers. These children refuse to miss the chance to tell their children that they flew in an airplane with a war hero!”

  Gil glowered. Henry hoped no one else noticed.

  At least Gil managed a smile as he reached down and pulled the boy up onto the wing. Gil instructed where it was safe to step and not put a foot through the fabric, then helped the boy with the deep step-over into the front cockpit. Once the kid was seated, Gil hopped down, turned his back to the crowd, and whispered to Henry, “How’d you do it?”

  “The boy flies free. The dad and daughter go together for five dollars.”

  “That’s fifteen dollars’ worth of rides!” Gil hissed.

  “We need to break the ice. Show folks it’s safe. What better way than seeing a parent let his kids fly? Besides, the father’s sworn to secrecy about his special deal.”

  Gil’s glower returned.

  “Maybe you’d rather get back up there on the wing and try to intimidate these folks into handing over their money.”

  “I don’t intimidate—”

  “You intimidate just by the way you stand up there with your hands on your hips. People need to be courted, not scolded.”

  “I can’t buy gas if I fly people for free.”

  “Oh, you’ll make money. Leave it to me.” Under his breath Henry said a prayer hoping he could deliver. “Climb in. I’ll prop the plane.”

  Gil didn’t move.

  “They came because they’re curious.” Henry looked over his shoulder. “Check out their eyes, the way they’re standing. We have ’em. Let’s not lose ’em.”

  “There’d better be a line when I get back down here,” Gil groused as he hoisted himself up onto the wing.

  Henry gave a confident grin.

  After the spectacle of the Jenny lumbering airborne and people oohing and aahing as the boy waved his cap as he flew overhead, Henry went to work. When Gil landed ten minutes later, four people stood behind the man and his daughter, their five dollars each already safely in Henry’s pocket—insurance against second thoughts.

  Once the boy bounced excitedly around the crowd, describing the miracle of flight and the amazing sights to be seen, ten more got in line.

  Henry took the money, assisted people in and out of the Jenny, and propped the plane, cutting Gil’s time on the ground by at least half. While Gil was in the air, Henry entertained the folks with stories of dogfights and heroism (based on newspaper accounts and his own imagination). He left Gil’s name out of the stories, just in case he got wind of Henry’s exaggerations. Henry even drummed up a little business for farmer Sowers’s
wife, who, in addition to refreshments, had a nice assortment of jellies, early peas, cheese, cream, milk, and fresh eggs for sale.

  The line for the Jenny was still growing, as was the crowd, when Gil and Henry had to fuel the plane—another process that went much more quickly than usual with Henry helping filter the gasoline through a chamois to reduce the amount of crud that ended up in the plane’s tank. Gil was back on the ground with the empty milk can and Henry was just screwing on the plane’s gas cap when he heard the sound of a high-winding motor. Voices in the crowd started to rise.

  From his perch on the wing, he saw Cora and her motorcycle cutting pell-mell across the pasture. She seemed oblivious of the flapping of the broken chain guard that downed the occasional wildflower like a scythe. Once she got in front of the crowd, she perched one knee on the seat and held her other foot out behind her, much the way Henry had seen on a poster for the circus, only those girls were wearing feathers and sparkles and were on horseback.

  Cheers and whistles went up.

  Gil muttered a string of curses.

  Henry’s heart seized up. She was going to ruin everything.

  When Cora maneuvered back onto the seat, she was close enough that Henry saw the gray fluff he’d taken for a neck scarf tucked into her jacket was actually a familiar scruffy gray face nestled just under her chin. She aimed her bike at the side of the Jenny and hunkered down, the Red Baron zeroing in on a dogfight.

  Gil shouted for her to stop, spread his arms, and braced his feet, as if his body could shield the Jenny from the momentum of nearly four hundred speeding pounds of mammals and machine.

  Henry shook off his stunned amazement, jumped off the wing, and rolled away from the plane.