The heads of the cows started to come up, a sign that something disturbed their grazing. A lion? Standing, he surveyed the plains with his hand shading his eyes. The brow of his dark face was burrowed. Lions were not common, but possible. He knew he could not afford to lose any cattle and might not be capable of scaring a lion off by himself. Then he heard it; an airplane. He had seen them before, miraculous things, carrying men into the air. What it must be like, he could not imagine. Searching the sky, he saw the plane coming toward him from the northeast, just above the horizon. This thing makes much noise; it is too loud; how could anyone stand to be in it for even a little bit of time? All the cows’ heads were up now, some were moving about as the sound of the plane drove them away.. It was then the herdsman saw the smoke. Do they have ovens on these things, he wondered. It must be a small oven for the smoke was thin.
***
The plane came in low over the plain, at seven hundred feet, low enough to see the road and anything near it. Hanley was following the road from Shambe southwest toward Yirol, the village now a mile from where they were. Sister Marie Claire was describing the area and the road as they passed over, a herd of cattle moving near the old, rough track they would use as a landing strip.
“This will do,” Hanley said.
“Yes, I believe it will too. Anyway, it is all we have,” she said.
“I will swing around and land going toward the village to reduce the distance you will need to walk. The girl will have to help you with the door, but you can do it.” He coughed and stiffened, his chest against the yoke, which brought the nose of the plane down slightly. Sensing the change, Hanley leaned back and brought the nose of the plane up. His voice was a wheezing whisper. “When the plane touches down, I want you to push the tops of both pedals forward as hard as you can. That will apply the brakes. If I’ve told you this before, I’m sorry. We will have plenty of room to land, but I want to get the plane stopped and the children off. Sit them in the shade and leave them with the girl. Tell her, if someone approaches, tell her to get the children back on the plane and shut the door and lock it. Show her how before you leave. Do you understand?”
Sister Marie Claire said she understood.
Continuing southwest, Hanley climbed to fifteen hundred feet and swung the nose of the Beech a few degrees to the right and started a semicircle that would bring him around to a northeast heading following the road back to Shambe. When he asked, the nun pushed the left pedal and helped ease the plane through the maneuver. As the plane completed the arc, Hanley set the flaps and reduced his speed, easing the plane down toward the road. He strained to see, focusing as best he could on the picture developing before him, watching the roadway, which appeared as a line of a slightly different shade of beige across the arid ground. As he pushed the controls forward, he said, “Watch my rate of descent on the altimeter here,” pointing to the dial on the panel between them. “Count the seconds between the longer marks and tell me if there are less than three seconds between them.”
She watched the altimeter needle fall, her lips moving slightly as she counted off the rate of descent. The Beech was losing altitude at a rate of just over one hundred feet every three seconds.
The plane passed over the herdsman and his cattle, all of whom by now were alarmed and heading in the opposite direction of the plane. At five hundred feet, Hanley dropped the landing gear and began pulling the nose of the plane up slightly. The ground seemed to be coming up faster than he expected, causing Hanley to pull back on the yoke. The stall-warning signal came on and Hanley dropped the nose, adding a bit more throttle. The warning went off just as the plane touched down hard on the road. The force of the contact caused the Beech to bounce back into the air and come down hard again. The children began to scream and cry as they bounced along with the plane. After two hard bounces, the Beech settled onto the roadway, running and bouncing toward Shambe. Each bounce caused large waves of pain to run from Hanley’s lower back, down his legs where it vanished into the numbness of his feet. Dizziness overtook Hanley where he leaned against the side of the cockpit for support; he would not let go of the controls.
Her prayer was answered, but the language of answered prayers is God’s language. The nun had failed to understand God’s message. Much had been gained, but much had been lost.
The plane, the tool she had hoped God would send, shook relentlessly, the children screamed and cried as the nun’s shoes slide off the pedals. Sister Marie Claire brought them back to the worn metal once more. Pushing as hard as she could, the nun applied the brakes while Hanley kept the plane on the roadway. Thirty seconds after touchdown the plane rolled to a stop. Hanley cut the ignition, silencing the roar and thrum of the big engines and slumped over, his wounded body failing faster now. Struggling out of her seat, the nun slowly pulled him upright. Taking water from a bottle, she splashed his face and patted it while saying, “Hanley, wake
