They reached Gunnison at around nine in the morning. It was much smaller than John had expected, like a sketch of a town: a train station, a church. Hardly anybody was out on the sidewalks.
John circled the surrounding farmland until he found a property he thought would make a good operating station. It lay just on the outskirts of town, a modest estate, less than twenty acres. John brought the plane down right in front of the farmhouse.
A family stood waiting on the front porch, apparently led outside by the sound of the approaching plane. A farmer in denim coveralls, his wife, and three blond children hiding behind their legs.
John hopped down from the cockpit. “Hello, there!” he said to the children. “Are you three the owners of this beautiful farm?”
The children clung tighter to their parents. A piano of pale, unfinished wood stood on the porch.
“Go on and look at this, now,” the farmer said. He was entirely bald, built with big plates of muscle across his shoulders and chest. He wore tiny gold-rimmed spectacles that flashed in the sun. “Husband and wife flyers. That’s a development.”
John laughed. “She isn’t my wife,” he said, helping the girl down from the cockpit. Strangely, her wedding dress seemed even brighter than it had that morning. The beadwork glittered. Maybe the wind had polished it up, John thought.
“Well, whose wife is she, then?” said the farmer’s wife.
“Exactly,” said the farmer.
John froze, suddenly realizing the scope of his mistake. Tales about the kidnapping and seduction of young women had become wildly popular in the last year. One appeared in the papers practically every week: a story about a pretty fiancee or new bride followed home from the dance hall or nickel dump by a man looking to sell her into white slavery. The man would wait for her to turn a corner and then jump out at her from the shadows, blowing powder into her face—shimmering, soporific powder that caused her vision to swirl and darken and close in on her like a gloved fist. And then, once she passed out, the man would roll her up in a carpet and carry her off.
Both the farmer and his wife were staring at John, waiting for an explanation. He could see their suspicions hardening. The girl would tell them he’d kidnapped her. She was taking revenge on him for destroying her wedding. How had he been so stupid? He could already see himself being shoved into a police wagon, see his Jenny being impounded.
“I didn’t mean that, sir,” John said to the farmer, who stood staring at him from the porch.
“Oh?” said the farmer.
“He meant he likes ‘blushing bride,’ instead of wife,” said the girl. She slid an arm around John’s waist. “Wife sounds so chilly, don’t you think?”
The farmer’s wife laughed. “I have thought that, in fact.”
Not knowing what else to do, John put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. The pebbled fabric felt scratchy against his skin. He smiled at the farmer and his family.
“My blushing bride,” he said.
The farmer nodded. “Del Bradison,” he said, putting out his hand.
John went to shake, but the girl beat him to it.
“Mrs. Helen Barron,” she said, smiling in her wedding dress and boots. “Pilot.”
The crowds in Gunnison turned out to be better than John had expected. More than forty people showed up at the farm to ride on his Jenny that first afternoon. He was busy from morning to sunset. The farmer, Mr. Bradison, helped him set up a small table in the grazing field where Helen could sit and collect money from the waiting passengers.
At first, John didn’t like the idea of trusting Helen with the money, trusting her to sit there with all his bills in a pot. But what could he say in front of Bradison and his family? No matter, though; he knew there was no way for Helen to steal without him finding out. He could count the passengers himself. He knew his math.
It was an easy format. For $2 a customer got a quick tour of the town’s landmarks—the church, the school, the mill, and then back. For $3, John flew a stunt with them, a barrel roll or free fall, maybe even a death spiral, if the customer was feeling particularly adventurous. For $5 he’d take a photograph with them in front of the plane. When he needed fuel, he paid one of Bradison’s daughters a nickel to a make petrol run for him. Which she did by hauling cans back and forth from the garage in a toy wagon. To his surprise, John went through three cans in the first afternoon alone.
Bradison let them a room in the attic, at the back of a storage space. It was hot and cramped inside, and John slept poorly the first night. He spent a good deal of time staring at the lump beneath the covers that was Helen, wondering how long he’d be stuck with her.
The second day in Gunnison was even better than the first, financially speaking. John could hardly believe his luck. At least two-thirds of the people who’d rode with him the day before were back to go again. Some went three, even four times. And lots of them wanted extras this time around. They wanted the tricks—the rolls and spins during their flights. Afterward they paid for photos with John and Helen beside the Jenny, the wooden propeller gleaming behind them.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, the line to ride still snaking toward Bradison’s barn, that John realized Helen was at least partly responsible for his new popularity. He was coming in for a landing with a passenger, a young boy who’d brought his basset hound up with him, when he noticed a knot in the line of people waiting to ride. The knot was at the front of the line, up near Helen’s table. As he touched down, he saw that Helen was talking to them, the whole group. She was saying something funny, gesturing with her hands, and the crowd was chuckling— really laughing now, some of the women covering their mouths or stomachs, slapping their knees, convulsing with laughter.
“Watch out, mister,” said the boy, looking back at John from the front cockpit, the goggles too big for his head.
John turned and saw a cow standing in the Jenny’s path. He yanked the elevator and wrenched the plane upward, just missing the animal. The boy held tight to the dog on his lap. Its long ears flapped in the wind.
Again that evening, John couldn’t sleep. The attic room felt even hotter than the night before. The dust stuck to his skin, creating an itchy film. But deep down he knew that there was more to his sleeplessness than just the heat. The day had been one of the best of his career. He’d made forty-three dollars, which was practically unheard of for him, especially on his second day in one town. He squinted across the mattress at the buttoned back of Helen’s nightgown.
“How’d you do that today?” John said.
“How did I do what?” she said after a long moment.
“This.” John reached beneath the edge of the mattress and pulled out the envelope of bills. “What did you say to those people to get them to keep coming back?”
Helen glanced at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t
“Talking to them about what?”
“I don’t know. I made up some stories about places we’d flown. Our travels. Don’t you ever talk to them while you’re up there?”
“I’m usually a little busy,” John said. “Flying the plane?”
Helen turned toward him, propping herself on an elbow. Again John was struck by how pretty she looked. Her hair was down, softening her face.
“Well, you should try catering to your customers,” she said. “It’s just good showmanship.”
“I cater to them,” he said.
