Cassada (6 page)

Cassada's parking spot was at the far end of the line. Dumfries waited at the edge of the ramp as he came trotting, his helmet still on to keep his ears warm. The snow was coming down harder. To the west it was white, earth and sky had vanished. It was a dry snow, small and hard, blowing along the ground like ashes, consuming the trees. The only place it was sticking was in the grass.

Joking, feeling good, they hung up their equipment and went into the briefing room, working the cold out of their faces.

“Wow,” Cassada said, grinning.

“Good thing you heard that call, ordering us back.”

“You wouldn't think it could go bad that quick. The weather.”

Wickenden had walked in behind them carrying some letters he'd just received in his hand. He stood there, flicking the envelopes with his thumb.

“We just barely beat it in here, Captain,” Cassada told him excitedly. “You could see the snow, big wall of it, right out to the west.”

“I don't know about beating it in,” Wickenden said, “but when you pulled out of here you blew stuff all over the place. You must have been using ninety percent.”

“No, sir,” Cassada said.

“Don't say, ‘No, sir.' I was watching it. I saw a pair of chocks go flying twenty feet.”

“No, sir,” Cassada told him. “I don't know how much I used, but it wasn't over fifty or sixty. It wasn't even that.”

“The hell it wasn't.”

“It was fifty or sixty percent at most.”

“Would you like to make that an official statement?”

“Official statement?”

“Yes. You know what that is? You can get court-martialed for making a false official statement.”

“I'll make any kind of statement you want.”

“Just watch what you're doing,” Wickenden warned. He left the room.

Cassada looked down at his shoes. He kicked a little at something that wasn't there. Then, silent, his face expressionless, he began to take his flying gloves off, intent, pulling at the tip of each finger with his teeth to loosen the clinging leather.

“Well . . .” Dumfries began.

Cassada glanced at him.

“You'll get used to it,” Dumfries said. “That's just the way he is.”

Cassada said nothing. Finally he let out a sigh.

They stood near one of the radiators and talked about the flight, the earlier part of it. The snow was coming down more and more densely, curling as it neared the ground, sweeping along. Cassada was looking at it moodily, nodding every so often at something Dumfries said.

“Don't let it bother you,” Dumfries advised toward the end.

“It isn't that,” Cassada said after a moment. He slapped his gloves against his leg, staring blankly at the spot. “It's not just that. If he doesn't want to believe me, then don't ask me. It's the same as being called a liar. I'm not a liar.”

“That's just the way he talks. It's different than in the other flights.”

Dunning sat down in Isbell's office with a broad smile, laced his fingers across his stomach, and stretched out his legs. He had been looking at the flying time chart. “We got them this month, all right, Tommy,” he said.

“Yes, sir. I think we do.”

“Wait till Pine finds out.”

It was the end of the month. They had outflown everyone, the yellowtails especially. “It would be nice to beat them for the year,” Dunning added.

“If we get the maintenance.”

Dunning nodded sagely as if he knew something about that.

“Well, Friday night,” he said, gathering himself. “You getting up to the club before long?”

“I'll be there.”

There were a few things left to be attended to and the last flight had yet to land. Isbell sat working at his desk. There was the faint sound of the adding machine in the outer office striking out sums
in bursts. The operations clerks would be working late. He was looking out the window when there was a knock.

“Are you busy, Captain?” Cassada, slightly reticent, stood in the doorway. “I'd like to talk to you for a minute if I could.”

“Sure. What's on your mind?”

“Is it all right if I close the door, sir?”

Isbell was still looking out the window. He turned his head. “What for?”

“It's something that I . . . it's something personal.”

“It is, eh?” Isbell said unconcernedly.

He thought he heard them then and glanced out the window, then turned once more to Cassada who was wearing—Isbell was a little surprised by it—a look of impatience. “Sit down. What's the problem?”

“I wanted to ask about something. Maybe I should have come in sooner.” He paused. “The thing is, ever since I've been in the squadron . . .”

“Which is what, all of three months?”

“Almost.” Cassada began again: “When I started flying here it was with Lieutenant Grace and his flight.”

Isbell felt a certain resentment rising in himself. “Yes. Grace had you for transition.”

“I really learned a lot from him.”

Cassada was looking down at his hands. “I wondered if there was a chance of my being put in his flight. I mean, if it wouldn't make too much difference. I think I'd pick up quite a bit from him.”

“I'm sure you would.”

Cassada looked up, uncertain at the tone. “To tell the truth I sort of expected—I suppose it was wrong because nobody had said anything to me one way or the other—to be in his flight from the beginning.”

“Why?” Isbell said. He heard and saw them, coming along the
main taxiway, gliding like ghosts, like something borne on a river, through the fading light. The sound rose as they came closer, slowing.

“Well, because I'd flown with him all along.”

The last ones were down. All was as it should be. Freed of concern then, fully attentive, “Just because I'm curious,” Isbell said, “why did you wait until now to come in here?”

“I guess I shouldn't have.”

“What is it, three or four weeks you've been in Captain Wickenden's flight now?”

“Yes, sir.”

The last two planes were entering their hardstands, the crew chiefs skipping backwards as they came, waving them around in a tight, fetal turn, the engine cut even before the wheels came to a stop. The sound escaped, piercing and faint. It fell to nothing, to a deep, full silence.

“Well, what made you suddenly decide?” Isbell repeated. “There must be a reason.”

Was it possible Isbell did not know what Wickenden was like, how overbearing, Cassada thought in confusion. Would he be angered to hear? “I guess I didn't have the nerve.”

“The nerve?”

Cassada was silent.

“You can learn just as much about flying right where you are, if that's what you're really worried about. Maybe more.”

“That's just it,” Cassada insisted.

“What?”

“I think I'd do better. In fact I'm sure of it.”

“Grace already has four men in his flight. If you were in it there'd be five and Wickenden would have three.”

“I thought maybe there could be a switch. I might be able to get someone to agree to change.”

“No,” Isbell said instead of “Just try.” “There's not going to be any change.”

“Captain, I . . .”

Isbell made a gesture of what more do you want?

“Maybe I didn't explain it right.”

“No, that's all. I have work to do.”

A few minutes after Cassada had gone, Isbell picked up his cap and walked out of the office himself. There, inspecting the time chart with a grave air stood Wickenden, finishing a cigarette. “A lot of hours this month,” he commented when Isbell was standing beside him.

“Yeah.”

Some ashes had fallen to the floor near Wickenden's foot, Isbell saw. He'd been there for a while. It was hard to know for how long. “We'll be the top squadron this month,” Isbell said, watching for a hint in Wickenden's face.

“Pine is probably holding back fifty hours till the last day.”

“I know. He usually does. We figured that in.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Sure. It's a game.”

“Next month we'll fall on our face.”

“Next month is Tripoli.”

“Oh, that's right.”

“Coming to the club?”

Wickenden seemed still engrossed in the figures, the names of the pilots, how many hours each had flown, the total for each flight easily calculated. Isbell stared at the firm profile.

“I suppose I'm expected to,” Wickenden said.

In the car he sat looking straight ahead, pointedly disaffected. How much he might have heard was hard to guess. Perhaps it was only his suspicions. He was slow to reveal himself, sometimes it took months. Sometimes he brought up things long past as if they
had happened the day before. He began whistling through his teeth as they drove, difficult, touchy as an old dog. My ranking flight commander, Isbell thought wearily. The most experienced.

Some colonel up from Landstuhl had his 300
SL
parked below. They were admiring it from Harlan's room. They could see down into the rear window, the seats, tan leather and soft.

“They hand rub the lacquer between coats,” Godchaux said.

It was after lunch. Harlan was picking his teeth.

“I like that color,” Godchaux said.

“Maroon fades,” Harlan said. Cars held no mystery for him. He had changed transmissions lying on his back in the hard dirt.

“There isn't a car that can touch it,” Godchaux said.

“What does a car like that cost?”

“A lot.”

“How much?”

“Six thousand dollars in Stuttgart. They guarantee you can do a hundred and fifty when you leave the factory.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“It's a fact. Look at it. Look at the way it's humped over even standing still. They put the engine in there on an angle. It's canted.
It's not straight up and down. That's so they can keep the hood low.”

“What's wrong with that Mercury you have?”

“It practically shakes to pieces at ninety.”

“That's the roads over here,” Harlan said.

“Even on the autobahn.”

“Well, if I had six thousand dollars I wouldn't be buying that. I don't see the point of driving around in a year's pay.”

“What a feeling, eh?”

“It looks fine, but what can you do in it that you can't do in yours?”

“A hundred and fifty,” Godchaux said.

The sun had come out and was shining off the snow. The room bloomed with light.

“Looks like it's melting,” Godchaux remarked. “Did you hear what Cassada said at lunch?”

“No, what?”

“He said he wanted to pack some up and send it home to his mother in a box.”

Cassada had never seen snow.

“Oh, yeah? Where's he from? Alabama?”

“No, he's from Puerto Rico.”

“Puerto Rico? You'd never know that from looking at him. Was he born there?”

“I think so. His father died or they got divorced. He lived with his mother.”

“Puerto Rico,” Harlan said. “Well, how'd he get in the American Air Force?”

“Puerto Rico's part of the United States.”

“Since when?”

“I don't know. A long time.”

“I must of missed hearing about it.”

Harlan continued to pick his teeth. He had figured out Cassada. It was written all over him. He followed Grace through a couple of rolls on that first ride and got the idea he could fly. You could tell what he was thinking about just by looking in his eye, like a bull.

When Cassada was assigned to Wickenden's flight, Harlan had thought: perfect. Sometimes they show a little sense.

In with Wickenden and them was where he belonged. They could sit around when the ceiling went below a thousand feet and go over questions from the handbook. He'd fit in fine.

“What time is it?” Godchaux asked.

“Five to one.”

“Come on, I'll give you a ride. We'd better be getting on back.”

The phone was ringing. From the bedroom Isbell called, “Can you get that? I'm busy.”

“I'm sure it's for you,” his wife said. She got up, keeping her place with a finger, and went over to the phone. “Marian Isbell.” She had never learned and refused to say, “Captain Isbell's quarters.”