The Rocketeer Read Free Page A

from Bigelow’s chair. The resulting crash the next morning and shouted profanities could be heard all over the airfield. From that moment on, Malcolm felt eternally indebted to Cliff. Most people wouldn’t care about some washed-up old rummy, but not Cliff. He cared about everybody.
    That’s the way Cliff was. A guy who was willing to carry the weight of the world on his back.
    As Malcolm guided and the others huffed and puffed, pushing the racer, two figures converged on it from the far side of the airfield. Malcolm glanced up and smiled. It was them all right. Cliff and Peevy, together as always. Practically joined at the hip.
    Cliff Secord was a handsome young flier, the way that Malcolm wished that he’d looked in his prime. He sported his customary brown leather flight jacket with the silver buttons that lined the flap across the top and down the sides. His white jodhpurs were crisp and clean—he was always excessively fastidious the night before he made an important flight, although he was a perfectly decent slob the rest of the time—and his brown boots were slickly polished. Secord moved with the easy stride of a natural athlete.
    Beside him strode Ambrose Peabody, who was called that by his mother and maybe his priest. Everyone else called the bespectacled, weather-beaten, and quick-tempered man Peevy. Peevy had been a part of the aviation scene for as long as anyone could remember. Now in his late fifties, he was more than a mechanic, more than an engineer. He was Cliff’s friend, father confessor, conscience, all of it rolled into one.
    Matching Cliff’s stride, Peevy was talking quickly and with controlled excitement. Cliff, for his part, was calmly chomping away on a piece of chewing gum. It might have appeared to the uninitiated that Cliff Secord was not paying the least bit of attention, and Cliff might have even claimed that he wasn’t. He was, in fact, taking in every single word. He’d just be damned if he gave Peevy the satisfaction of knowing it.
    “. . . and keep her straight and level,” Peevy was saying. “Don’t let me catch you gettin’ fancy first time up.”
    “Who, me?” said Cliff, the picture of innocence. He was busily pulling on black leather gloves, and he worked the gum faster.
    Peevy ignored the pure-at-heart act and continued. “Remember, she stalls at around a hundred. Keep your air speed up or she’ll wallow all over the sky. If those ailerons start to shimmy on ya . . .”
    “Peevy, I have flown a plane or two, you know,” Cliff said with a laugh.
    The mechanic was starting to get annoyed. It was hard to tell with Cliff if what you were saying penetrated that hard head of his. “Not like this one, dammit! She’s a handful! You gotta concentrate on her every second! Sneeze once and you’ll be tail up in the bean field!”
    They had reached the plane, and Cliff exchanged terse greetings with the four men. He seemed faintly distracted, as if his mind were already in the clouds, just waiting for his body to follow. Absently, he removed his chewing gum and stuck it on the rudder, and then moved toward the cockpit. Peevy stopped, staring in appalled amazement at the wet wad that was now affixed to the plane’s tail. “That’s fresh paint, dammit!” he said.
    Cliff glanced at him, looking slightly hurt. “You want me to crash?”
    “You and your lamebrained superstitions,” said Peevy, shaking his head. “Chewin’ gum ain’t gonna keep your ass in the air.” He didn’t bother to add that he himself was wearing his lucky socks and that they would be more than enough to keep Cliff airborne. Gum. Honestly. Kids nowadays.
    Cliff slung his leg over into the cockpit and hoisted himself up. He settled easily into the tight pilot’s seat and smiled. A perfect fit. It was like the plane had been measured specifically for him. Of course, he grimly reminded himself, you could say the same about a coffin.
    Goose prepared to lower the canopy over Cliff when Peevy stopped