Peter Heller - The Dog Stars

Lastly. I already knew but I double checked. I took a stout wooden paint stir stick out of the same seat pocket. It was ticked with a Sharpie at intervals along its length and marked 5 10 15 all the way up to 30. Gallons. I climbed up on the strut, untwisted the fuel cap at the top of the wing on the wing tank and lowered in the stick. Drew it out turned it away from full sunlight and noted the fast vanishing and pungent wetness. Did it to the other side.

The guys in the white coats. The fighter pilot in his flight suit. With the wife in the beehive. Humming, tapping his fingers on the yoke of the Cessna to Rock Around the Clock. In 1955. All of it about to break open: the manic music, Hula Hoop, surf girls, Elvis, all now from this distance like some crazed compensation—for what? The Great Fear. Lurking. First time in human history maybe since the Ark that they contemplated the Very End. That some gross misunderstanding could buzz across the red phones, some shaking finger come down on the red button and it would all be over. All of it. That fast. In a ballooning of mushrooming dust and fire, the most horrible deaths. What that must have done to the psyche. The vibrations suddenly set in motion deeper than any tones before. Like a wind strong enough for the first time to move the heaviest chimes, the plates of rusted bronze hanging in the mountain passes. Listen: the deep terrifying slow tones. Moving into the entrails, the spaces between neurons, groaning of absolute death. What would you do? Move your hips, invent rock n roll.

The men at the Cessna test center compiling those numbers, those distances. Erecting them against the smallest accidents while the gut fear of the Big One gripped their dreams. Is that how it was? I don’t know. I overdramatize. But given what has happened how can you? Can’t really overdo anything. There is no hyperbole anymore just stark extinction mounting up. Nobody would believe it.

The test pilots were working in perfect conditions on smooth tarmac. A soft field knocked off a percentage of performance, and the rough track in this sage field was another story. We could fill in the ruts, smooth it out as best we could, but.

I uncoiled the hose and siphoned the twelve extra gallons back into the cans. We wouldn’t need them to get to Junction and it would save us seventy two pounds. Then I thought, Don’t cut it too close, and I climbed back on the strut and poured back what I judged to be about two gallons. I left one full can in the sage and emptied the other one out in the dirt and then nestled it, the empty can, back into the Beast. Then I went fishing. I took my rod case out of its bracket behind my seat and the light nylon daypack with flybox and tippet and walked back down into the canyon.

My calculations showed that the best way to have any chance at all of taking off, of clearing the trees, was to leave the old man.

I could imagine how well that was gonna wash. I could imagine the conversation. I could just about hear the snick of his big knife clearing the plastic sheath, my own peep as the point of the blade came to my throat. Don’t bullshit me Higs! I told you not to fucking bullshit me .

I caught five carp. Rolled a pheasant tail along the bottom and yanked them out one after another. The peregrine glided along the wall above and let herself fall, flaring just over the trees above the creek. I think she was watching me, curious. Do peregrines eat fish? The carp were skinny fish, long and thin and I realized with a whomp of sadness that they were starving. The shift in water temperatures was affecting them, too, or their food. I unhooked them with special care, the care I had always reserved for trout, and held them gently while they finned in my cupped hand against the current, until their gills filled and the undulations of their tail strengthened and they wriggled away. I gave up, didn’t feel like fishing anymore.

The trout are gone the elk the tigers the elephants the suckers. If I wake up crying in the middle of the night and I’m not saying I do it’s because even the carp are gone.

I pictured the conversation. I can take your daughter, twenty pounds of jerky but not you.

But. The light bulb went off. Hig, you had what they used to call an epiphany. When discovering something, some intellectual connection, had a value like gold. Eureka.

I’d bring the weight and balance sheet, the pencil and worksheet, the fragile POH with its disattached cover and its incontrovertible tables and go through the numbers as if for the first time and let everyone draw their own conclusions.

She had lunch on the table in the shade. Pitcher of cold milk, salted meat, a salad of lamb’s quarter and new lettuce, green onions. I sat down. Pops watched me. He followed me with his eyes, watched me while he chewed. She ate. She moved easier today, lighter. The bruises seemed to be fading, her mood brighter. She ate slowly, breathed deep as if smelling the creek, each new blossom.

Can you? he said at last. He put down his cup, wiped his mouth on his sleeve waited.

No.

She put down her fork. The pack was at my feet. I pulled up the slider, loosened the drawstring, drew out the manual, the sheets, took the stub of pencil out of the band of my cap.

Weight and balance, he said. I nodded. Takeoff distance, he said.

Yup.

He was no fool. I had scrawled only the formula, left the weights blank. At the top of the page in the right corner I had jotted down some weights: One gal. avgas=6 lbs. One gal. water=8 lbs. Presently in tanks: 14 gals.

I slid it over. I ate.

He was sharp. Whatever he did before on the ranch, in the service, he didn’t waste time. He took the pencil and went to work. Didn’t ask, Is this right? Is this how you do it? Been a while … nothing like that. A man without the habit of justifying himself, making excuses. Didn’t ever say, Higs check my math, will you? Nope, the SOB looked once at the problem, began to multiply, fill in the blanks work the equation. I saw him make a list down the right side of the page of provisions, each with its weight estimated. He worked it three different ways and each time I saw him scratch two or three items off the list. Saw him reduce the water to three gallons. Scratch off the steel gas can.

Unh uh.

He looked up.

The gas can. The siphon hose. Ten pounds. Need them absolutely. What if we have to walk to get fuel?

He nodded, restored it to the list.

Then he siphoned out avgas, reduced the tanks to 10 from 14.

No.

I interrupted him again. Pencil stopped, eyebrow raised.

Fuel stays.

Thirty five miles to Grand Junction, tops. One twenty mph with a headwind. Point three hours thirteen gallons an hour. Ten is plenty.

Forget it. If we have to circle, check all the runways, taxiways, if we get fired on, if we have to find a road.

He nodded. Went at it again. Finally he put down the pencil, straightened his arms against the side of the table, sat back. Stared at me. Thought I saw hatred. Hard to tell with Pops.

You did it already didn’t you?

I nodded.

I stay, she goes.

Nodded.

You already knew that.

Nodded. He stared. A mobile light moved over his features. Gave them a look of animation though I don’t think anything moved. I’d say, Could’ve heard a pin drop, but. Not with the creek right there. He stared at me, nodded slowly.

Okay, he said.

Just like that. It was done. Now I really liked the old coot, have to admit. He took his medicine, no whining.