“Don’t do anything foolish, Mattie,” Leo said as soon as she turned toward him. At first, he looked as stiff and impassive as ever, except for the slightest tightening of the muscles around his mouth. Mattie opened her mouth to lambast him, but then she saw it: a flicker of concern in the blue depths of his eyes and maybe, just maybe, the slightest tinge of fear.
He knew she wasn’t going to tinker, but to fly. It appeared, though, that he didn’t intend to peach on her to her brothers for once. She appreciated his discretion but not his concern.
“I won’t, Leo,” Mattie said wearily. “I might not be like you and lay out my flight path as if I were General Pershing planning troop movements, but I know what I’m doing. One of these days, I’m going to prove that to you.”
Leo nodded stiffly. His Adam’s apple jerked as he visibly swallowed. He’d spread his feet apart, his hands clasped behind his back, his muscular chest puffed out. She’d dubbed it hiswar-monument pose, and she knew he assumed it whenever he felt uncomfortable. Eons ago, before the War to End All Wars, she would have teased a laugh out of him. But she hadn’t tried for years, and she doubted that she could even coax a slight smile.
“Thanks for keeping my secret this time, Leo,” Mattie told him softly just before she turned and opened the door to the hangar.
Mattie breathed in the familiar scent of Rockol engine oil, grease, and gasoline. The clink of gears, the rattle of chains, and the pump of pistons had been the background sounds of Mattie’s childhood. She still loved watching cold, motionless pieces of metal suddenly transform into something almost alive. But even those marvels could not compare to taking flight. She’d never forgotten the rush she’d felt the first time the wheels had left the ground and the plane had pitched its nose straight into the wide blue sky. She’d begged her father to stay up longer, and he’d managed to hold the old-fashioned, kitelike bird aloft as long as he could. Ever since that day, she’d been absolutely air mad.
Walking past the worktable tucked away in the back of the hangar, Mattie headed instead to the Shaker peg rack that held their gear. Alfred’s still hung next to hers where he’d placed it after his last flight before leaving for France. Mattie could still remember Alfred laughing as he’d flung the leather strap of his goggles over the cylindrical piece of wood. He’d promised to write home to her about all his adventures.“I won’t leave anything out, Matt. I promise. Gosh, I wish you could come with Leo and me. With us three flying in formation, we could chase the Jagdstaffeln back to Germany in no time.”
But she hadn’t been there at her brother’s side on the Western Front. Even now when she woke in the middle of the night or when things got too quiet in the workshop, she’d wonder if her presence could have made a difference. Maybe she would have managed to waggle her wings to signal to her brother that he was going the wrong way. Even if she’d just been a ground mechanic, perhaps she might have developed a better navigation or communications system that would have alerted her brother to his fatal confusion before it was too late.
Mattie reached up with one finger and gently stroked the leather cap that her brother had worn. “I won’t let you be forgotten, Alfred. I’ll keep your dreams alive.”
The leather felt rough and dry under her fingertips. It was time for her to clean it again with saddle soap when no one was looking. After giving the helmet one last touch, she straightened her shoulders and headed toward her own gear. She shoved her helmet down over her red hair and stuffed the rest of her long braid under her flight jacket. She planned on doing stunts, and she didn’t want any auburn strands whipping about her face and causing problems.
Huffing out a sigh of pent-up frustration, Mattie headed toward her Curtiss JN-4, or “Jenny.” The aircraft’s buttercup-yellow nose and wingtips normally made her smile, but even the sight of the sunshine-bright highlights on her baby-blue plane failed to penetrate the heaviness settling inside her. Only taking to the air would accomplish that.
She stepped on the wing, hoisted herself into the cockpit, and started the routine preflight checks. When she flicked the switch to check the spark that ignited the fuel, she frowned as she realized the first magneto wasn’t working. She’d modified all their planes to include a backup magneto, which had become a safety standard after the war. The Jenny, being an older, cheaper design, hadn’t originally had such a safety net.
Thankfully, Mattie’s second magneto worked. She eased back in the cockpit for a moment, debating if she should take the time to fix the first one. But the pressure inside her threatened to fissure the seams of her control. She wanted in the air. Sheneededto be in the air.
Her decision made, Mattie hopped down and yanked on the Jenny’s propeller, starting the noisy motor. Leaping into the cockpit again, she pulled back on the throttle. The responding roar of the engine pounded through her heart, breaking through the suffocating pressure encasing it.
Mattie maneuvered the aircraft into the bright, late-spring Missouri day, and more of the smothering vexation inside her dissipated. Her brothers and father must have still been crowded around the table, since no one had rushed to stop her. She spied Leo on the porch, hiseyes shaded as he followed her progress across the clay landing strip. It wouldn’t surprise her if he planned to take out his own plane and follow. Sometimes she swore that he thought he was still a squadron leader like he’d been during the war, constantly burdened with the safety of the new pilots. At least Leo was letting her soar today.
As Mattie buzzed farther down the runway and picked up speed, the nearby stand of hickory, cedar, and black walnut trees melded into a blur of pure green. By the time her wheels lifted from the ground, she forgot about Leo and her brothers in her delight at rising with the grace of a phoenix. Like the mythical bird, she felt rejuvenated, reborn even, every time she soared. It never got old, this wild, freeing ascent. As the whitewashed walls of the flight school grew smaller and smaller, so did the pain. Up in the air with only swifts, hawks, and swallows for company, Mattie could think of Alfred without a sharp sting of bittersweetness.
She set her course for the nearby town. Despite living near an airstrip, the residents still loved when the planes flew overhead. The grocer and the druggist sold postcards of Leo and his stunts, a sight that always sent him into his monument pose as he rubbed the back of his head. All summer long, local sweethearts would spread out blankets on the hillside by the airfield and eat a picnic lunch just for a chance to watch one of the Jennies take off. Mattie had even spied more than one young fellow proposing to his gal.
Reaching Main Street, Mattie let out a whoop as she flew her biplane low and woke up the formerly sleepy midwestern town. Folks puttering down the road in their Model Ts paused to watch her flight. Girls abandoned their jump ropes, and boys looked up from their games of marbles. Storekeepers wandered out of their shops as they shaded their eyes to track her progress. Some people waved enthusiastically. Others watched unabashedly openmouthed. Everyone—young and old—smiled.
The maneuver looked deceptively simple, but buzzing so close to the buildings took skill... and nerves. With the wind buffeting her, the engine roaring in front, and the landscape rushing below, Mattie couldn’t tamp down the wild excitement begging for release. She wanted—no, shecraved—the exhilarating freedom only soaring could bring. Flinging away her remaining caution, she whooped again and did a roll, letting her Jenny skim perilously close to the dirt road leading away from town. In the inverted position, her leather-clad head dangling downward, she could see patchworks of farmland and remaining stands of trees from ancient forests. Young stalks of corn blurred into a sea of green, and the wind from the propeller caused the field to form magnificent, undulating waves.
Feeling on top of the world even as she hung upside down near its surface, Mattie grinned. Other than her, only Leo would dare try this trick. Her brothers would never risk it, except for... Mattie’s smile slipped.Except for Alfred.
The return of the old memories threatened to suck away the bliss of flying. Resolutely, Mattie rolled the plane upright and yanked the stick backward to shoot into the sky, letting the thrill once again chase the pain away. When she executed a swooping figure eight, her joy rekindled. She could make airplanes dance. Shelivedto make airplanes dance.
Unable to stop herself, Mattie flew low again, banking the Curtiss JN-4 hard on its side, enjoying watching the patchwork of fields from a perpendicular position. Just as she began to right the plane, she caught sight of a cherry-red Duesenberg convertible coupe. Despite the Jenny’s height and speed, Mattie recognized the sleek outline of the unique car immediately. The Duesenberg brothers had earned a name for themselves in the racing circuit, and anyone who knew anything about automobiles dreamed of owning one of the sleek, prohibitively expensive motorcars.
To Mattie’s surprise, a fashionably dressed woman drove the coupe with no male companion in sight. The driver wore no hat, and the wind caught the black curls of her bob, her bright-red scarf trailing out behind her. She looked just like a magazine model or a movie star. Mattie normally didn’t give a fig about women’s fashion, but something about the flapper’s flamboyant elegance drew her attention. Grinning, Mattie waved as she finished straightening the plane. The stranger lifted one gloved hand, the fabric dyed to match the car’s gleaming paint job.
Intrigued, Mattie looped back. On her second pass, she spotted a small spaniel perched in the passenger seat, its ridiculously long ears flapping in the wind. To Mattie’s shock, she thought she spotted a flash of a red scarf around the dog’s neck that matched its owner’s. As Mattie started pulling away, she knew the woman was laughing merrily, even though the Jenny’s engine drowned out any sound.
Mattie started to whoop again, but the mirth turned into an expulsion of air when she felt an odd prickle run down her neck. Turning slightly, she squinted and searched the airspace around her. The bright spring rays made her eyes water beneath her goggles just as she spotted a flash of white and navy blue. Leo’s Curtiss. He’d approached her with the sun directly behind him, a stealth maneuver he’d learned during the war.
Hell’s bells and buckets of blood.It wasn’t easy for anyone to get the drop on her. Leave it to Leo the Flying Lion to manage it.
Deliberately ignoring her unwanted tail, Mattie had begun to pull the plane farther skyward for another barrel roll when, with a sudden puff and splutter, her engine died. Utterly and completely.
Instead of panic, the energy that shot through her was sharp, focused, and precise. Mattie didn’t have a backup magneto. She had one—one—chance to restart the engine. And that would require plenty of nerve. Luckily, she had that in abundance.
Mattie dived like an osprey toward the ground. It was the only way to pick up enough speed to spin the propeller and give her theopportunity—the only opportunity—to try to restart the engine. The cornfields transformed into an angry sea of swirling green, threatening to swallow her up and drag her under. The effect of the sharp plummet was dizzying, but she let the spinning sensation fuel her rather than disorient her. If this was to be her last dive, she was going to make it one heck of a spectacle.
Just as the nose of her plane seemed destined to crash into the field, the propeller began to spin. Mattie flicked the control to the magneto. The temperamental mechanism sparked back to life, and the engine roared. She did, too, whooping and hollering as she steadied out the deadly descent and skimmed over the farmland. As she shot high into the air, joy, excitement, and pure release mixed inside her. Yelling out her triumph, she spun her bird madly through the atmosphere.
