Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

“Adam needs me at his side, too,” she argued.

“Up there you couldn’t help him. Let me go. Have faith. In him and me.”

She looked like she was going to argue. Instead she quietly nodded.

Thirty minutes later Lori watched as I put another tick mark on my preflight checklist—the bolts holding the wheels in place were solid. I’d already checked the bolts on the wings and the engine mounts, and of course I’d filled the tank to the top from one of the six-gallon plastic cans we had in the garage. Nobody had noticed just how much gas I’d put in. With the added weight of Herb aboard we’d be using far more fuel. If he’d been with me on that first solo flight it would have been the last of anything for either of us.

“Almost ready?” Lori asked.

I held up the checklist. “It’s all checked and ready for another flight.”

“So when do I get to go up?”

“Today’s second flight is already booked.”

“I guess we’re never going to have that first date, are we?” she said.

“Were you just asking me out?”

“That’s probably the only way it’s ever going to happen,” she said, “although technically I think I was asking you up rather than out . It would be so cool to be up there.”

“And we wouldn’t have Todd as a chaperone.”

Herb rounded the side of his house. Trailing behind him were the twins. Danny was still annoyed that it wasn’t him going up with me. Herb had binoculars around his neck, a big bag on his shoulder, and a scoped rifle slung over his back.

“Are you going hunting or flying?” Lori asked nervously.

“It’s never bad to have a little backup in case somebody gets the idea of hunting us. Are you ready to go, Captain?”

“Safety check completed. Let’s go.”

“And I better go as well,” Lori said. “Those cows aren’t going to milk themselves.”

“I could help,” Rachel offered.

“And I could watch,” Danny said.

“I’ll take both offers,” Lori said. She threw her arms around me. “Be careful up there.”

I was too speechless from the hug to reply. She let go and walked away. The twins went with her and I was glad. I didn’t want them to witness things if they went wrong.

“Funny, she didn’t ask me to be careful,” Herb said.

“I think she realizes you’re too tough to be hurt,” I suggested.

“If that were the case I wouldn’t need these.” He pulled two armored vests out of the bag he was carrying.

“Where did you get those?”

“It’s amazing what’s tucked away in my basement. Put it on.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?” I asked.

“I’m not trying to make a fashion statement. Put it on.”

It certainly couldn’t hurt. I slipped it on and did up the clasps.

Herb put his on and then we took our seats. I turned the ignition and the engine caught. While it warmed up I slipped on my helmet and Herb did the same. In the helmets were headsets that would allow us to talk over the roar of the engine.

“Can you hear me?” I asked after we both had plugged in our communication cords to the console.

“Yes, or should I say ‘roger’?”

“I think we can do without that. Clip on the harness.”

“Harness?”

I reached down, took the belts, and clicked them in place. “There, now you can’t fall out.”

“I appreciate that. Did I mention that I’m afraid of heights?” Herb asked.

I laughed. “Nope. You do know I’m planning on flying higher than a few feet?”

“Yes, I gathered that. Let’s get going.”

I snapped my harness on, released the foot brakes, and fed the engine more fuel. It roared and the ultralight inched forward. All around us a crowd was gathering. It wasn’t just people from our street but from other streets in the neighborhood who’d heard about our flight. They’d been moved back, well away from the road itself. Clipping one of them with a wing would have killed them and probably us as well.

I goosed the throttle and we picked up speed as we rolled down the road. I knew my mother had made a point of leaving to go back to her station and so wouldn’t be there to watch. She wanted me to go, but she wasn’t going to be there to see it happen.

We kept gaining speed, but not gaining any separation from the ground. The extra weight was making it necessary to reach even higher speeds before the wings would lift us up. Was this street going to be long enough?

I gave it more gas. This was no time to back off. The plane suddenly lifted off the ground, and I pulled back on the stick and gunned the gas. We started to climb, easily clearing the roofs of the houses at the end of the street.

I banked to the right, turning us toward the station and the city beyond. Herb reached out and grabbed my arm. “Not so steep if you don’t mind.”

“That wasn’t very steep.”

“Steep enough for me,” Herb said.

“You being afraid of heights surprises me.”

“People are all full of surprises and contradictions. It makes us interesting,” Herb replied.

“You didn’t have to come up here if you didn’t want to,” I said.

“It’s important for me to be along. From my ham radio contacts I know what’s happening halfway across the country, but I don’t know what’s happening twenty miles away. What is your range?”

“It depends on weight, speed, and elevation, but six hundred miles is a possibility.”

“That’s a fair distance. Could you stay low, please?”

“It’s actually safer to be higher. More elevation gives us a chance to choose a landing site if we need. Besides, it gives us separation from anybody on the ground.”

“It doesn’t give you separation from a bullet,” Herb said.

“But it gets us farther away from whoever is shooting at us.”

“Height isn’t a deterrent to a high-powered rifle. Being high up just puts us in their sights for longer. Lower is better because by the time anybody sees us, we’ve already flown by and gotten behind cover. That’s the way fighter pilots did it in World War One,” Herb explained.

“And you brought the rifle along to fire back if we did come under fire?” I asked.

“If we needed to I could, but it’s like I’ve always said, it’s better to have a weapon and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

We came up to the river, and the land beneath us dropped off. It was a big wide ravine and the slopes were steep, lined on both sides with grass and woods. The river cut a thick, dark line down the middle. I’d come to appreciate water. It was beautiful. All along the river I could see people, colorful water containers in hand, gathering water. Most of them stopped and looked up, and many pointed.

“If we bordered this river instead of the creek we’d never have to worry about water,” Herb said.

“It’s not that far. Maybe we could draw water from it if we needed,” I said.

I pulled up so that we could clear the far bank. I was using the wide expanse of the highway as my guide to lead me to the other police station. The highway was cluttered with cars, but there was nothing moving. There was nothing moving anywhere. Where were all the people? I banked slightly to the right so that we could fly over the subdivisions that were south of the highway. Most houses looked to be intact, but an occasional burned-out home dotted the subdivisions.

“I understand looting, people grabbing things to survive, but what’s to be gained in setting something on fire?” I asked.

“Some of these fires are accidental,” Herb said. “And with no fire department even a little fire becomes out of control and destroys an entire house, or a row of town houses.”