He tried to get up and cried out in pain. Pancho steadied him.
You’re gonna have to quit screaming like a girl if this is gonna work, she said. Leave the light off. We gotta move quick. It’s not gonna be long before some goddamn junior crewman on six hundred a year takes a nighttime walk and spots the scarlet marvel on his ground.
Harrison looked at her.
You got the plane here? he said.
You bet your sweet ass I do, Pancho said. It’s a goddamn air force base, ain’t it?
How did you even know I was here?
Got a call from an old friend, she said, pulling his arm over her shoulder. Was told to come pick you up. Jeez, you got any pants? Forget it, we ain’t got time.
Harrison hadn’t realized he was only dressed in a hospital gown.
Steady! he said as Pancho dragged him across the room. Jesus! I broke my goddamn ribs.
Quit your whining, she said. We don’t have long. Deke said he’d only be able to give us ten, fifteen minutes tops.
Deke?
Stand here, Pancho said. Don’t move.
She pulled his bedside table across the floor and shoved it under the window.
Think you can manage that? she said.
Maybe, he said. My side hurts pretty bad though.
C’mere, she said. Look.
She made a stirrup with her hands and hoisted him onto the table. He looked out the window.
Pancho, we’re two floors up.
There’s a ladder on your left, she said. You’d better be able to manage that.
He swung himself around, out, onto the ladder. He held his left side and lowered himself down. Pancho followed, giggling. At the bottom, she pulled the ladder down and laid it flat on the grass.
Where’s the Mystery Ship? he said.
C’mon! she said.
Pancho led him along the side of the hospital, over the road, between two buildings and against the wall of a hangar.
Damn, he said when he saw it. I’d forgotten what a beauty she is.
The Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship was a low-wing racing airplane, one of only five. Pancho had broken Earhart’s airspeed record in it, years before. The wings were thin, braced with wires, the fuselage sleek and streamlined.
Took me three years to fix it up after I won it back, she said. Felt good to get her up again. Now get in.
He got in.
Pancho looked at him and laughed hard.
What? he said from the front cockpit.
If it ain’t the funniest goddamn thing I ever seen! One of NASA’s world-famous astronauts sitting in his underwear in the back of a monoplane. I sure wish the boys could see this.
Hurry up, would you, before we get busted, he said. Plus I’m cold.
Pancho climbed in.
Fastest damn airplane in the world when I bought it, she said. Cost me a goddamn fortune.
Can we go?
All right, all right, keep your peckerwood on; we’re goin.
She started the engine. It stuttered and stalled.
Would it help if I got out and pushed? he said.
Quit bitchin, she said.
She fired the engine again and it rumbled and roared and she taxied toward the runway and took off.
Attagirl! she said, as it howled into the air.
The wind whipped through the thin wires and through his hair. He felt the pressure on his face as they rushed into it. He smiled. The engine hacked and spat and Pancho yelled, we got a problem, and Harrison yelled, what?
Outta gas, Pancho said.
Sweet Jesus, Harrison said. Some rescue.
The Mystery Ship dipped and bucked.
Didn’t figure on not being able to refuel at the base like normal, she said. Hang on, I know a few places round here.
They made it to a corn farm near Ocala and landed. Pancho said she and Telly, the farmer, went way back.
Far enough to have you bangin on his door in the middle of the night askin for gas? Harrison said.
Least the sonofabitch can do, Pancho said.
Telly appeared in the doorway in his underwear.
Telly, Jim; Jim, Telly, Pancho said. Jesus, am I the only one not standing around in my goddamn underwear tonight?
Telly kept his fuel by his barn. He had an old Stearman 17 he’d converted for crop-dusting.
You need food, water? Telly said as he refueled the Mystery Ship.
We’re good, Pancho said. Thanks.
Real pleasure, Telly said.
Come out to the desert sometime, Pancho said. Do some proper flyin.
Hell, I might just do that, he said. He laughed and waved them off.
They hopscotched cross-country, back to California. Pancho flew by dead reckoning, using a compass and Rand McNally road maps, stopping only to refuel at private airfields; nothing more than dirt strips with tin hangars. She gave Harrison a gallon of water and a bag of beef jerky and told him to be grateful. After the third stop, Harrison fell asleep. After the fourth stop the fuselage caught fire and Pancho brought the Mystery Ship down into the mesquite and jumped out to throw sand on the flames and took off again. Harrison stirred and said, what happened? and Pancho said, don’t worry your head about it, sleeping beauty.
They got back to Pancho’s in the middle of the afternoon, landing on her strip by the back barn.