aimed the nose for Union. I made no comment on the inverted climb out, even though if the engine had failed, we both would be dead.
As we crossed the north shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain, I looked down at the landscape and thought that there are many books written on the warriors in the sky, but I've read little of the joy of flight. For me flying had the effect of transforming hours into minutes, a kind of unlocking of time. We flew on through the sky into the mystery of what was ahead, a knowledge only of the air behind us.
I switched the radio frequency so that we could monitor Atlanta Center. As we came abeam of Meridian, we heard Atlanta call a TWA flight.
"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right forty-five degrees."
"Center, we are at thirty nine thousand feet. How much noise can we make up here?"
"TWA 2341, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"
A different voice, probably the Captain, said, “TWA 2341 is turning right forty-five degrees."
Hebrone made a smooth landing on the grass strip and we taxied to my hangar and shut down the engine. We sat quietly for a minute listening to the pinging of the cooling metal, smelling the hot oil, and savoring the experience of being aloft.
Pushing the Stearman into the hangar, we closed the doors, got into my truck and headed for the little cottage in the woods.
"So how is life in Key West?" I asked, as we drove out of the little airport.
"I need to know everything about our situation, now. We can discuss my life later."
I almost laughed, for his response was exactly what I expected. We have known each other for a long time, and have become friends. Hebrone Opshinsky had saved my life on more than one occasion. I have always thought of him as a soldier, for that is what he was during the Vietnam War, and that experience molded him into what he is today, a controlled killer.
He lied about his age and was inducted into the army at sixteen. Two years later he was a highly trained assassin, adept at getting into and out of Vietnamese villages and army encampments to kill selected enemy targets. He wore no uniform, carried no I.D., and as far as the military was concerned, did not exist. It took years for him to talk to me freely about the experience, but when he finally got to know me and trust our relationship, we would sit for hours and he would tell me many things, though I always felt he left out some events, not for what it would do to him to relive them, but how it may have affected me.
He said that on some occasions when he was "in-country," everything seemed wrong, nothing you ever learned was true anymore. When you came out – if you did – you couldn't remember. You had to put the killings back together by the rules, and when you did, you ended up with a lie. That's the best you could do, and when you told it, it would still be a lie. He said a soldier fights on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, and the one facing what we do to the enemy.
I wanted him here with me now, not to protect me, but because of the threats to Rose and Sunny. If Hadley Welch was in fact murdered, then whoever did it would not hesitate to kill again. Shack and I could probably handle the situation, but having Hebrone around made me feel more comfortable.
"Twenty-five years ago, a Piper Cub took off from a private runway near where my cottage is today, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. No wreckage was ever found, no record of the airplane has surfaced. The pilot was a woman named Hadley Welch, owner of Upton Pharmaceuticals. She left a six-year-old daughter. It is the daughter, whose name is Sunny Pfeiffer, who wants to find out what happened to her mother. A few weeks ago someone sent her an anonymous letter saying her mother was murdered. We made a few inquiries and were warned off by someone hanging a live coyote from my door facing with a not so polite note attached."
Hebrone thought for a minute. "Seems simple enough. We find out who sent
As we crossed the north shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain, I looked down at the landscape and thought that there are many books written on the warriors in the sky, but I've read little of the joy of flight. For me flying had the effect of transforming hours into minutes, a kind of unlocking of time. We flew on through the sky into the mystery of what was ahead, a knowledge only of the air behind us.
I switched the radio frequency so that we could monitor Atlanta Center. As we came abeam of Meridian, we heard Atlanta call a TWA flight.
"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right forty-five degrees."
"Center, we are at thirty nine thousand feet. How much noise can we make up here?"
"TWA 2341, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"
A different voice, probably the Captain, said, “TWA 2341 is turning right forty-five degrees."
Hebrone made a smooth landing on the grass strip and we taxied to my hangar and shut down the engine. We sat quietly for a minute listening to the pinging of the cooling metal, smelling the hot oil, and savoring the experience of being aloft.
Pushing the Stearman into the hangar, we closed the doors, got into my truck and headed for the little cottage in the woods.
"So how is life in Key West?" I asked, as we drove out of the little airport.
"I need to know everything about our situation, now. We can discuss my life later."
I almost laughed, for his response was exactly what I expected. We have known each other for a long time, and have become friends. Hebrone Opshinsky had saved my life on more than one occasion. I have always thought of him as a soldier, for that is what he was during the Vietnam War, and that experience molded him into what he is today, a controlled killer.
He lied about his age and was inducted into the army at sixteen. Two years later he was a highly trained assassin, adept at getting into and out of Vietnamese villages and army encampments to kill selected enemy targets. He wore no uniform, carried no I.D., and as far as the military was concerned, did not exist. It took years for him to talk to me freely about the experience, but when he finally got to know me and trust our relationship, we would sit for hours and he would tell me many things, though I always felt he left out some events, not for what it would do to him to relive them, but how it may have affected me.
He said that on some occasions when he was "in-country," everything seemed wrong, nothing you ever learned was true anymore. When you came out – if you did – you couldn't remember. You had to put the killings back together by the rules, and when you did, you ended up with a lie. That's the best you could do, and when you told it, it would still be a lie. He said a soldier fights on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, and the one facing what we do to the enemy.
I wanted him here with me now, not to protect me, but because of the threats to Rose and Sunny. If Hadley Welch was in fact murdered, then whoever did it would not hesitate to kill again. Shack and I could probably handle the situation, but having Hebrone around made me feel more comfortable.
"Twenty-five years ago, a Piper Cub took off from a private runway near where my cottage is today, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. No wreckage was ever found, no record of the airplane has surfaced. The pilot was a woman named Hadley Welch, owner of Upton Pharmaceuticals. She left a six-year-old daughter. It is the daughter, whose name is Sunny Pfeiffer, who wants to find out what happened to her mother. A few weeks ago someone sent her an anonymous letter saying her mother was murdered. We made a few inquiries and were warned off by someone hanging a live coyote from my door facing with a not so polite note attached."
Hebrone thought for a minute. "Seems simple enough. We find out who sent
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