Mattie didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge the loudmouthed drugstore cowboys. She’d heard similar and worse during her career as a pilot. Rather than argue, Mattie much preferred another method of shutting them up: empirically proving them wrong.
That was when she spied Leo’s left hand clenching in response to the last jeer. Although he was generally a reserved man, she knew from her brothers that Leo was as handy with his fists as he was in aerial combat. And Mattie didnotwant the spotlight to move from her and Leo’s competition to a brawl between him and the three bozos.
“Well, aren’t you going to say something, Mr.Yesteryear?” Mattie marched over to Leo, purposely placing herself between him and the crowd. With her back to the audience, she shot a meaningful glare toward his balled fingers. Leo gave her an almost imperceptible nod as he unfurled them. His ready compliance mollified her a bit, but she wasn’t about to release all her frustration.
“He doesn’t need to say anything to you, doll,” the man with the troll-like voice shouted. “His record proves he’s better than you. You really think a dame can beat an ace?”
When she answered the troublemaker’s question, she addressed Leo and Leo only. Stabbing a finger at his chest, she said, “Any trick you try, I can improve upon it.”
Leo crossed his arms and stared down at Mattie. He only had a few inches on her, but he made the slight difference count. “Let’s be sensible, Miss Modernity. This isn’t a competition. We’re in the same flying circus.”
Although Leo’s words held a faint echo of his normal arguments, he was definitely adding an arrogant twist to his words. He was playacting, sounding just like one of her brothers. Unfortunately, he sounded stiff and a little too practiced. Theyneededthe spark of a real argument.
“How good are you at avoiding obstacles?” Mattie drilled her finger farther into Leo’s chest, trying not to notice how his muscles refused to give under the poke.
Mattie heard a few boos, but she ignored them. Leo’s eyes narrowed, but not at her... at the hecklers. Desperate, Mattie leaned closer and whispered in his ear. “Ignore them. Argue withme. Treat me like one of the fellows. Bait me. Don’t defend me.”
Leo’s eyes blazed as he stepped closer, mimicking their old tiffs. This time, with the argument only half in earnest, Mattie registered the heat rising from his body. She could feel the puff of his warm breath against her cheeks, almost like soft caresses. Her already heightened emotions swirled into an intense, heady mix. For one mad moment, she didn’t know whether to kiss him or jab him again.
“I was pretty swell at evading the German Albatroses and Fokkers while I was defending freedom.” One side of Leo’s mouth twisted into a cocky, lopsided grin. Knowing it was for the audience and not a real smirk, Mattie unfortunately found it intriguing instead of irking.
And that thoughtdidrile her.
“Well, I can fly under that covered bridge.” Mattie jerked her finger toward the quaint, red-painted structure stretching over the gorge. When they had first surveyed the field before the show, Leo had specifically recommended that they avoid using the tempting hurdle for a stunt. Mattie had no intention of listening.
“There’s barely enough clearance.” Leo’s anger blazed, and Mattie could no longer tell how much was real and how much he was feigning. It felt like it had last night. Almost. This time the intense emotions crackling around them didn’t just push them apart; they paradoxically drove them together.
“Plenty of room for me.” She recurled her extended finger and instead pointed her thumb toward herself.
“It’s a fool’s errand. We’re not doing that stunt.” Leo ground out his words, his nose practically brushing against hers.
“Oh, you don’t have to, Mr.Yesteryear, but I am. Just try and stop me.” Mattie jammed her leather helmet over her head, the edge of her hand brushing against Leo’s cheeks. Ignoring the explosive ripplethatcaused, she pivoted and marched straight toward her Jenny. As soon as her back was positioned toward both Leo and the audience, she allowed a triumphant smile to bloom across her face. She wasn’t just going to dive under the picturesque roofed bridge. The trick she had in mind was much more diabolically dangerous, and the mere thought triggered a white-hot thrill. She felt like a bare wire arcing with energy.
By the time Mattie strapped herself into the cockpit and snapped her goggles into place, Leo had also assumed his position in his JN-4. Even from several yards away, he appeared terribly grim, his jaw set so tight she was surprised it didn’t crack. She wondered for a moment if he’d looked like that before he’d set off on patrol. For the briefest of moments, a flicker of sympathy shimmered through her. It seemed like the joy of flying had all but vanished from Leo, leaving nothing but hardened determination to get the job done.
But she couldn’t afford to dissect Leo’s deeply hidden emotions right now. She had a plane to fly and a contest—no, abattle—to win.
Vera started Mattie’s engine, giving her a wink as she yanked down on the propeller with a Herculean flourish. The crowd thundered with excitement. No one sat now. They had all clambered to their feet, ready to follow the path of the JN-4s as they danced and looped their way toward the river.
As Mattie buzzed the ground, she could spy the upturned faces of the crowd. By chance, she caught a glimpse of little Milly clutching her Planey.
The last trick is going to be for you, Milly, and me and all the girls like us who not only want to soar with the men but who can fly even higher. Hopefully by the time you take to the skies, you won’t have to constantly prove yourself.
Mattie held back, strategically allowing Leo to zoom under the barnlike covered bridge first. She knew he’d jockey for the forward position. It wasn’t that he needed to be a trailblazer. Leo never seemed to mind when she took the lead or even if she beat him. No. Whatbothered him were the risks that she took. And now he wanted to test the clearance first. It was a move to protect her, not to upstage her. Yet it rankled all the same.
But she had her own reasons for permitting him to take the first pass. It freed her up for her fait accompli.
Sucking in her breath to prepare for a long battle cry, she zipped toward the elongated structure spanning the gulch. The bright-red siding flashed before her eyes like a matador’s cape. Going nearly one and a half times faster than Leo had, she whizzed under the lower chord of the wooden truss. The thick stone abutments rose inches away from either side of her yellow tips, like stout sentries guarding the bridge from below. Mattie saw the underside of the crisscross pattern of lateral wooden floor braces above her. The threaded ends of wrought iron tie-rods extended down from it, like the teeth of a great beast. Below her the silvery river rushed, forming white foam eddies around the rocks jutting through its glistening surface. The roar of her motor intensified in this shadowy place of wood, stone, metal, and water.
Then Mattie was through to the other side, zipping once more into the blazing sun. Ahead of her stood the newer railroad bridge, its stone arches glowing nearly white in the harsh light. Several hundred yards downstream from the pretty little wooden one, it crossed the gully at a broader, deeper section. Tall, with narrow repeating barrel arches, it looked like a formidable Roman aqueduct. Although it offered more vertical clearance than the covered bridge, its closely spaced repeating piers presented a tight horizontal squeeze. Mattie knew she couldn’t fly her plane straight through the openings. If she did, she’d clip off both wingtips.
Leo had swept over the structure and was doing loops above it. She’d known ahead of time that he wouldn’t try to maneuver through the supports of the railroad bridge out of concern she would follow. Mattie grinned. She didn’t point the nose of her Curtiss upward. Instead, she dipped a wing. With another yell, she scooted her planeat an angle through one of the barrel arches. Gray, immovable stone surrounded her. And then she was back in the blue sky. Leveling the trusty old trainer, she bolted up and over Leo. Upside down at the apex of a loop, she noticed to her delight that a steam locomotive was chugging straight toward them. Whipping underneath Leo and over the engine’s stubby steam dome, she barreled through the cloud of coal smoke and back into the view of the breathless crowd. Mattie ignored the acrid scent and waved down at the train before soaring back over the Southern Michigan fields. Leo joined her, his plane moving in unison with hers. They landed together in formation.
Mattie killed the motor, and the roar of the crowd immediately replaced the engine’s loud thunder. She swiveled in the cockpit and waved with both hands, clapping her fingers off her palms. She could hear the higher-pitched chorus of women’s voices mixed with the men’s. Even some of the older matrons in their broad-brimmed merry widows had forgotten to act prim and proper. One lady, her face wrinkled and browned from the sun, was waving her hat in a circle above her neat, tidy bun.
Mattie had never really been one for girlie gestures, but when she saw Vera clapping, she was suddenly inspired to blow kisses to the crowd. A couple of men pretended to pluck them from the air. Mattie ignored them and instead focused on the ecstatic faces of the women who had just watched one of their own soundly trounce a celebrated male aviator.
As soon as Mattie’s feet touched the ground, the women of her troupe stampeded her. Carrie reached her first and enveloped her in a huge hug. “I knew you could fly like that! Just don’t get too cocky. You’re made of flesh, muscle, and bone, and that plane is just canvas and wood.”
