Changes of Heart Page 2

  “Yeah,” Rich added. “Thanks, Danny.”

  Maggie awakened shortly before 5:00 the next morning. Her husband was already gone; his side of their bed was cold under her hand. She’d known he wouldn’t be there when she woke up—it was part of a ritual they’d established whenever Rich was flying a new, untested aircraft.

  After they’d checked Dusty and Dancer one final time the night before and come back to the house, Rich had put the jeans and shirt he’d put on the next morning on one of the kitchen chairs. Neither of them spoke of what he was doing—there’d been tears and stilted conversations and a palpable tension the first few times Rich had piloted untried planes. It was terribly hard on both of them—particularly Maggie. They’d had to find a solution. Fortunately, Maggie was a sound sleeper—once she was out for the night, an earthquake couldn’t wake her. Rich slept like a feral cat, leaving sleep quickly, ready to do what needed to be done, immediately in full command of all his senses. So they decided that on the days he would be flying untried planes, he would leave very early in the morning, before Maggie woke up.

  A small smile began to form on Maggie’s face as she swung her feet out from under the covers. The first time Rich had snuck out of their bed to pilot a jet fighter that was more like a rocket than an airplane, he’d left a note on the kitchen table for her in his neat, almost surgically precise handwriting.

  Dear Maggie:

  It’s like driving a bus, honey. No sweat. What’s for lunch?

  I love you,

  Rich

  Maggie knew there’d be another note, worded exactly the same way, on the table this morning. She had an even dozen of them neatly folded in her jewelry box. On each, a random letter or even a full word was slightly smeared from where her tears had fallen on it. Rich didn’t know that, and she never planned to tell him about how such mornings almost tore the heart out of her—how she begged the Lord to bring him back to her safely this time, just as he had in the past.

  She saw the note on the table but didn’t immediately go to pick it up. The kitchen, with its brightly polished maple table and gleaming pots and pans hung over the stove, shimmered in her vision. She shut her eyes, forcing away the tears. The lights on the Christmas tree—which Rich had turned on before he left—seemed to mock her with the peace and joy they represented. The wrapped gifts they’d exchange later were piled neatly at the base of the tree, but the glossy sheen of the silver and red gift wrap did nothing to counter the strange feeling of dread she was experiencing.

  Christmas morning and they’ve got to do this—they’ve got to fly that thing. Rich had explained how the new fuel mixture—some top-secret stuff—had a very short life and needed to be used almost immediately or its chemical composition would change, and how the plane itself had to be secured in a hangar with a half dozen armed special forces personnel guarding it at all times, and how the atmospheric conditions were perfect... and so forth.

  What is it with these men? she thought. They’re like little boys competing to see whose bike is fastest or who can climb the highest tree. Always faster—always higher. They laughed about what they did—they goaded one another, and then they would stand there in their full-dress uniforms while another one of them was buried. At the wake they’d give their sympathy to the widow and then cluster outside and talk about the top-secret plane Lockheed or Boeing or some such firm was building.

  Maggie shook her head angrily, and it was then she noticed that her fists were clenched so tightly that her fingernails had drawn blood from her palms. For a long moment, she gazed at her right hand as if she’d never seen it before, her eyes following the tiny trickles of blood. Then, woodenly, she walked to the sink to wash her hands, her lips moving as she prayed. Please, Lord, bring him back this time.

  She turned to the table and picked up the note and was immediately shamed by the flash of anger she’d just experienced. The words on the scrap of paper were exactly the same as they’d been on the others, but at the bottom of this one was a stick-legged sketch of a foal with musical notes floating in the air around it and little lines indicating that the legs were moving... dancing.

  Just like him, she thought, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. The perspective—the point of view—of a boy in a fully grown man’s body.

  She recalled one of their conversations about the new plane and propulsion system he was testing this day.

  “It’s a real leap in technology, and that’s the important thing, Maggie. Our country has millions and millions of dollars and thousands of hours of research and development into the X-417. America needs this plane to keep it safe, to keep it strong. My part in all that is tiny—I just steer the thing. The scientists and the engineers are the real heroes.”

  Then he’d added sheepishly, “’Course, the fact that going at twice the speed of sound is absolutely a ton of fun might enter into it too.”

  Maggie did her best to hold on to that image as she pulled on jeans, a sweater, boots, and her sheepskin coat. As she hurried from the house to the barn through the almost arctic chill in the pristine air, her senses were assaulted by a roaring, high-pitched shriek that seemed too loud and too piercing for even the vastness of the Montana sky to contain. The X-417 looked more like a dart than an airplane, and as she stared upward, the silly-looking stubby wings rocked back and forth in a salute to her. Then the aircraft seemed to stand on its tail for a heartbeat and rocketed straight upward like a bolt fired from a gigantic crossbow. Brilliant bright-blue flames appeared at the tail for the tiniest part of a second, and the scream of the engine threatened to deafen her. Before she could get her hands to her ears, Maggie lost the plane in the face of the morning sun.

  Dusty nickered as Maggie approached the birthing stall. Maggie had expected the mare to instinctively put her body between Maggie and the foal, but Dusty greeted her owner like a proud mother, licking the noisily nursing foal and then finding Maggie’s eyes with her own.

  “You should be proud, Dusty,” Maggie said with a laugh. “He’s a beautiful baby—a perfect baby.”

  Dancer’s head popped out from under his mother at the sound of Maggie’s voice. He had the typical big-eyed, surprised look of all foals. His coat, after hours of Dusty’s licking, gleamed like burnished brass, and the snippet of white midpoint on his muzzle was as pure a white as new snow. He stared at Maggie for a long moment, huffed wetly through his nostrils, and ducked back under his mother to find the nipple he’d left. As he shifted his body, Maggie noticed that the walking-on-stilts, tangled-leg shakiness that a youngster not a full day old would normally exhibit was conspicuously absent. Dancer shifted his hips easily and smoothly, and his forefeet followed with the same grace.

  Dusty poked her muzzle toward Maggie, asking for a treat, and Maggie scratched behind the mare’s ears. “Of course a new mama needs a carrot,” Maggie whispered. “I’m so proud of you, Dusty.”

  She turned away to the basket of carrots on the floor, selected a large one, and wiped the grit and dirt from it on her jeans. She was turning back to Dusty when a whistling shriek tore the peace to sharp-edged shards. Less than a full second later the entire barn trembled, windows rattling, beams and boards groaning as a massive shock wave assaulted the structure. The explosion was far too loud to be called a mere sound—it was a palpable and physical cataclysm that slammed into Maggie like an unexpected kick to the stomach. She dropped the carrot and ran frantically to the front of the barn and outside, unaware that she was screaming.

  A white contrail pointed from the depths of the sky straight to the ground, where a red-orange fireball spread upward in a ferociously burning, roiling, deadly fist.

  The church in Coldwater had survived an attack in 1877 by a band of marauding post–Civil War night riders, in which the men of the town turned away the wild-eyed horsemen by firing at them from inside the church through rifle slits cut into the heavy wooden shutters for just such a purpose. The church had stood, strong and resolute, through the First and Second World Wars
, the Korean conflict, and the Vietnam War. It had withstood and triumphed over televangelist hucksters, free love, and New Age crystals.

  And in the past dozen years the church had held memorial services for three test pilots. The service this day was for Rich Locke. A sea of USAF full-dress uniforms occupied the pews, as did almost as many ill-fitting and rarely worn suits and strangely configured tie-knots of the ranchers, horse people, barrel racers, trail riders, and calf ropers who knew the Lockes. The pilots wore spit-polished black shoes; the others wore Western boots. More than a few of the Justins, Tony Lamas, and custom-made boots were still damp from the process of hosing off horse manure to get them ready for the service. The two rear pews held women from the ages of fifteen to perhaps fifty-five who were dressed sedately in Western-cut dresses. Most of the ladies wore small silver pins with the letters NBRA on them.

  Ms. Elspeth Traynor stood in front of the altar in a black robe, one hand holding her Bible, the other resting on the aluminum walker in front of her. Reverend Helmut Traynor, who had died more than a year ago, was as much a part of the church as the wood and mortar and stained glass, even in death. His wife, Ellie, as she was known to the congregation, was now approaching her seventy-sixth birthday. She’d come to Coldwater with her husband immediately after he completed divinity school, and neither one of them had left since that day. The search for a minister had begun shortly after Helmut’s death, but the people of Coldwater had begged Ellie to stay on in the ministerial home and continue with her church work at least until a new shepherd was found.

  The lapel microphone on Ellie’s robe was a recent concession to her age, but with its amplification, her voice reached every part of the old church, rich and true, although at times tremulous as emotion overcame her.

  “How I wish Helmut were here to comfort all of us,” Ellie said. “But we all know where Helmut walks now—and we know that Richie Locke walks with him.” She paused. “There’ll be no sermon today, nor will there be a eulogy as such, at least not from me. I’m not qualified to present either. But I can say this to you, my friends: Richie was loved—is loved—because of the man he was, a humble child of the Lord, a wonderful husband, and a protector of our great country who died doing what he devoutly believed was his duty and his mission in life.”

  Only the quiet sobs of Maggie Locke disturbed the solemn quiet in Coldwater Church. Ellie’s voice broke again as she opened her Bible. “Let us pray together...”

  “... So here I am at sixty-five thousand feet, pulling almost three g’s at the top of a loop, with the fire light goin’ crazy and the system’s warning honker blasting in my ears, and here’s my wingman drifting toward me like he’s asleep or something...” The young pilot held his hands a little above shoulder height, moving them slowly together a foot apart, his left moving closer to his right as he scribed an arc in the air. The cluster of other men, the silver wings on their shoulders glinting in the bright sunlight, leaned forward toward the speaker, their eyes locked on his hands.

  “You guys know how shaky the stabilizer on the Thunder-Bolt 336 is, right?” Heads nodded, and a couple of the pilots grunted.

  “Well, all I could do was keep the power at max and try to engage my—”

  Maggie and her parents walked around the end of the Toole van. The speaker’s hand froze in the air in front of him. The heads of the flyers turned to Maggie, their faces like those of a band of little boys caught smoking cigarettes behind the barn.

  “Maggie...” one said. “We... uhhh...”

  Maggie’s voice was harsh, raspy, and she felt as if she were tearing the words from her heart and throwing them at the uniformed men. “I didn’t even have a body to bury! There was nothing left of Rich but black smoke and the stink of that fuel. And you... you stupid, selfish children stand out here playing airplane! How can you—”

  “Maggie,” her father said gently, taking her arm and leading her away from the stunned and silent group of pilots. Janice Stuart, Maggie’s mother, put her arm around her daughter’s waist, helping to move her away toward the Stuarts’ vehicle. “Come on, honey,” Janice said. “Let’s go home.”

  Maggie had been physically present throughout the service for Rich, but it was as if her body were a poorly functioning but automatic machine and her mind was stuck in a loop of images of her husband—his smile, the manner in which he used his hands as he spoke, the spontaneity of his love for her that so frequently ignited in his eyes for no particular reason, the way his hand so sweetly and unselfconsciously found hers when they walked together.

  Brad Stuart clicked his key fob, and the automatic locks of the Mercedes SUV popped open with a metallic snap. He opened the rear passenger door, and Maggie slumped inside, choking against tears and her sudden anger at the men who had been Rich’s colleagues and friends. Janice followed her daughter into the car, tugging Maggie to her, enveloping her, wiping away her tears with her fingers. “We’ll get through this, baby. You’ll see,” Janice whispered. She held Maggie tighter as Maggie’s body convulsed and her voice choked out bits of indistinguishable words.

  Brad walked around the SUV to the driver’s seat. He hesitated a moment before opening the door. He was a wealthy man—the owner of more than a dozen “Get Rollin’ ” auto tune-up and repair facilities—and he’d never felt quite so helpless in his life.

  Maggie was his and Janice’s only child, and they’d raised her with perhaps too many things and too much money, but despite that, the girl had a flinty foundation of independence. Maggie had babysat as a kid and had worked a few hours a day at a local bakery all through high school. She agreed to borrow two thousand dollars from Brad when she was fifteen to buy her first horse, although she’d been riding since she was seven. She paid the loan back in weekly increments over three years, without missing a single payment. He’d accepted Maggie’s payments each week with more than a little pride in his child’s spirit.

  That was one of the reasons Rich’s almost frantic call ten days ago continued to trouble Brad. “I can’t tell Maggie, Brad—I can’t,” Rich had said, his voice low, almost a whisper. “But this plane I’m going to fly in a week is powered by a brand-new fuel that’s going to revolutionize jet air travel. I mean it—and there was an opportunity to buy into the fuel provider. It’s not insider stuff—it’s all legal and aboveboard, and lots of my friends are buying the stock. It’s a way for Maggie and me to get out from under our mortgage and pay off the barn and have more operating capital for Maggie’s horse operation. It can’t miss, Brad—I give you my word on that.”

  “The ones that can’t miss are the ones that bury people, son. You know that. There’s no such thing as a sure thing in the market.”

  There was a pause, and then Rich’s voice became a tad louder and more assertive. “Brad,” he said, “I wouldn’t tell you how to run your stores. I know jet engines and flying as well as you know auto repair. This will be a short-term loan—after I fly that plane with the new fuel, the aviation market is going to go berserk. I know this, sir. I know it.”

  “How deep are you in, Rich? You must’ve taken a big bite if you need money for basic operating expenses.”

  “Well... yeah. I’m in up to my ears.”

  “How much, son?”

  “I... I’d rather not give you a number. The thing is, I refinanced the house and barn, used our savings, sold what little stock we had—the whole smash. I even borrowed against the value of the insurance policy the Air Force carries on me. It amounts to nothing until I pay back the loan.”

  Brad struggled to bite off his quick reply. After a moment, he said, “And you did all this without Maggie knowing? Do you feel right about that?”

  “Yeah, Brad, I do. This is going to surprise her. It’ll be the biggest surprise of her life. I came into our marriage with next to nothing. It took me years to pay off my mom’s hospital bills. But now, with this opportunity, Maggie can buy more horses, buy the six-stall trailer for when she’s campaigning her stock, and buy whatever else
she needs. I owe this to Maggie. I really do—and I’m going to see that it happens for her, no matter what.”

  “Rich... you’ve got to understand that I’m not questioning what you want to do for Maggie—and it’s not the money, either. I have it and you and Maggie will end up with it anyway, after Jan and I are gone. But I can’t do this behind my daughter’s back. She’s got to know about the loan, and approve of it. I’m sorry, but I can’t do a thing unless we agree to that condition.”

  Again, Rich’s words were rapid. “The only way this thing can get messed up is if I drive the X-417 straight into the ground—and that’s not going to happen. I know that aircraft like Maggie knows her horses—better, probably. Animals can get nutsy, but machines can’t.”

  “I’m not doubting your skills, son. I know you’ll make that plane do precisely what you want it to—just as you have with the other ones. That’s not the point. It’s just that I can’t do this behind... Look—can you hold out until Christmas Day? Jan and I’ll be there midday at the latest. Can we talk then?”

  Rich’s response was a bit slow in coming. “Sure—that’ll be fine. By the time you get to our place I’ll be back from Toole, with the test flight behind me. We’ll talk then, OK?”

  What sounded like a tornado approaching from the west snapped Brad Stuart’s eyes to the sky. The sound became a high-pitched, screeching, all-encompassing roar, and five jet fighters in a tight V formation blasted toward the church. Directly over the building they turned sharply upward, the needle-noses of the planes seeking the upper reaches of the universe, the creamy white contrails strikingly defined against the cobalt blue of the sky. The space to the right of and below the lead jet was conspicuously and quite solemnly vacant—the pilot’s salute to a fallen comrade.