Blue Bloods of Bois D’Arc Read Free Page A

of his Texas A&M teammates. “If it hadn’t been for the war, Coach Lowe said I could have played in the pros. At six-four and two hundred forty-eight pounds, I was usually the biggest man on the field. We had already beaten Texas on Thanksgiving Day and just finished a good season with a big win over SMU when Pearl Harbor was bombed.”
    His mind drifted as he stared into space. Then all of a sudden Jack snapped back. “You couldn’t believe the commotion around there when Pearl Harbor went up in smoke. The whole damn corps volunteered. I was going to be a hotshot fighter pilot, but they said I was too big to fit into the cockpit and assigned me to a transport squadron.”
    “Did you see any action?” Rod broke in, pleading for more with his eyes.
    “Sort of,” Jack said. “I spent most of the war flying supplies over the hump , as they called it, into China. They had their own private little war going on over there between the communists and Chiang Kai-shek, as well as the one with the Japanese.”
    Jack bolted up from his seat. “How about you and me going up and grabbing some sky?”
    “I don’t know if I can.”
    “Don’t worry about Mr. Gardner, I’ll square things with him,” Jack said, crossing the clubhouse dining room, a little unsteady on his feet in search of the men’s room first, then Mr. Gardner.
    Rod quickly ran back to the kitchen. “Junior, Jack’s going to take me up in his airplane!”
    “Are you crazy? Going up in an airplane with a drunk? That man’s already flying, he don’t need no airplane.”
    About that time Jack reappeared. Rod brought Junior with him from the kitchen.
    “Come on, Rod, let’s go.” Jack slurred a little. “Everything’s okay with Mr. Gardner, he just said he won’t be responsible if we don’t come back.”
    “Wait, Jack, I want you to meet my friend Junior.”
    “Glad to meet you, Junior. Heard a lot of good things about you from Rod here.” Turning toward the door, Jack called Rod again, “Come on, son, we’re wasting flying time.”
    It took only a few minutes to reach Jack’s private hangar at the airfield where he operated his airfreight business. He taxied his Cessna 210 out to the main runway. Rod’s knuckles were bloodless from his death grip on the metal frame of his seat. The takeoff was smooth and the air calm as the red and white single-engine Cessna cruised above Bois D’Arc so low he could wave to people busily scurrying around downtown. Rod’s breakfast almost came up when Jack pulled the nose up and made his stomach do flip-flops. They zoomed over countryside that looked like a patchwork quilt. Jack put the plane through some deep turns and barrel rolls to impress Rod. Three beers were nothing. Jack could hold his booze and knew what he was doing.
    It didn’t seem as though they had been the air any time when the sun began its western descent.
    “We better start heading back,” Jack said. Not much was said during the return flight. Rod was too caught up in keeping his breakfast down and the thrill of soaring through the air free as a bird. The landing was a little bouncy for the lightweight aircraft.
    Jack taxied the aircraft as smoothly to its hanger as if he were driving his Lincoln Continental.
    “Well, what do you think?”
    “It was really cool. Can we go up again sometime?”
    “Sure, anytime you want. But right now I better get you home before your mother starts worrying.”
    They climbed into his silver Lincoln Continental. Jack’s size fourteen cowboy boots hit the accelerator, kicking up gravel as they sped off.
    On the ride back to town, Rod relived the free feeling of flight with his friend. Dust settled on the Continental as it rolled to a stop in front of Rod’s house on Alamo Street. It wasn’t exactly the neighborhood one would expect to house the star quarterback dating the granddaughter of the town’s richest citizen. All the homes were exactly alike—small and well-kept with yards full of young