Lone Rock

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

When Martin Prize was only five years old, his father, Navy Lieutenant Harley Prize, led him through an Iowa wheat field for a day of fishing. The tall wheat grass waved above his head, but Martin brushed it aside with a swimming motion and stretched each leg to its limit to walk in his father’s footsteps as Harley trampled the path ahead of him. Though he tried from that day on, time did not make it easier to match the stride of Harley Prize. Harley had burned a path through the Naval Academy, graduating fifth in his class. Later Martin finished forty-third in his class at Florida State. Harley made every promotion ahead of his pears on his way to his current rank of Rear Admiral. Martin’s promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade came on schedule and even though he finished first in his pre-flight class, a Navy career that would make his father proud remained a vision for his future.


Cash - no one called him Martin anymore - taxied to a rigid stop on the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Fallon ramp. He slumped in the Rapek ejection seat. His arms hung like lead on the canopy rails while he waited for the plane captain to put the landing gear pins in place. In seconds, lanky PO3 Crines scurried form under the wing and gave a cross-eyed, tongue out, neck slashing cut engine signal. Cash let the humor fly past his head, instead allowing a wave of despair to take over. So much for my illustrious Navy career. The Admiral ought to love this!Before the whine of the J-65 engine faded, Crines appeared at the top of the ladder with red flagged seat pins in hand as Cash opened the Canopy to the smell of jet fuel and a blast of desert heat.


“Good flight?” Crines asked.


“Seen better,” Cash answered.

* * *

Cash headed back to the line shack avoiding the jet wash of the next flight of four A-4s taxiing out. As he approached the door of the line shack a grim faced Lieutenant Commander Crane stepped out and held the door. “You had me worried out there good buddy,” Cash nodded and passed him without saying what he was thinking.


“I've taken you off the schedule for the rest of the day. I think you could use a break. I told the Skipper it wasn’t as bad as it sounded over the radio, but he wants to see you in his office.”

* * *

Commander Byron Chester pushed the coffee stained Naval Academy mug aside and rocked back in a swivel chair that looked like it had gone through the big war. Cash stood at rigid attention in front of the steel grey Navy desk, staring at a fly fighting his way through a little oasis of short curly blond hair surrounded by a desert created by a hairline that had gone over the horizon. Chester placed his fingers tip to tip in the executive praying position, pursed his lips and contemplated the lightning bolt on the squadron flag hung by two nails on the wall behind and to the right of where Cash stood. After what seemed an interminable pause, he cleared his throat and began his measured rant. “Mister Prize, I’m sure you’ve heard talk about the pilot you replaced. I really believed that boy could fly that airplane - until he flew the damn thing into the water. I won’t misjudge that kind of thing again. Any pilot in this squadron that doesn’t show me stellar airmanship at all times will be on the first stagecoach out of here." He paused to brush the fly off his forhead. "Now I know your daddy’s an admiral and all that, but it doesn’t mean squat to me. What the hell were you doing out there on Bravo Nineteen?”


Cash looked at the floor, “No excuse, sir.”


“That’s for damn sure. The C. O. of the replacement squadron told me you were a winner. Well son, that remains to be seen. I only know that if anything, and I mean anything, like this happens again you’ll be heading right back there where they can deal with you and I won't have to. I have way too much to do to get this squadron ready for deployment.”


The fly flew in lazy circles around the little patch of hair.

* * *

Cash ambled across the hangar parking lot with a glum faced stare focused on the scorched asphalt directly ahead .


Someone shouted behind him, “Hey, lone ranger, did you lose your horse?”


He turned to see a purple Corvette convertible backing out from behind a gray Navy maintenance pickup. It was Walker Stroll. Stroll was a pilot in the air wing F-8 squadron and was Cash’s best friend throughout flight training.


“Get lost, fighter puke.”


“No, really, you look like your girlfriend ran away with the mailman. What’s the matter?”


“Well, except for trying to kill myself on the bombing range and getting chewed out by the skipper, nothing.”


“Hey, everyone knows Crazy Chester is an asshole. Get in, it’s way too hot to hang around here on the pavement.”

* * *

Cash relaxed in the Corvette's bucket seat, with his eyes closed, letting the airstream take away some of the August heat. "The Skipper raved about flying into the water. What does that have to do with me?"


"It's his aspirations to make admiral that are going into the drink."


"Huh?"


"Earl."


"Oil?"


"No, Earl, Lieutenant Earl Shaeffer."


"Who's he?"


"The guy that flew into the water. And that's not the worst of it, it's the simulated nuclear weapon strapped to his A-4 that went down with him."


"No shit?"


"Yup, Crazy Chester's feeling the heat."


Normally, Walker's lopsided grin and pointed one liners defused Cash's tendency to blow things out of proportion, but after a hectic weekend and particularly the morning events, Cash needed some time to think and let his stress level diminish. "Drop me off at the corner, I think I'll get something to read at the base library."


Walker's red hair waved in the wind like a rooster's comb, as the Corvette sped off toward the Officers' Club. Cash wheeled around and then froze as he came face to face with a dilapidated u-shaped temporary building standing like a dead end canyon in his path. The faded and pealing oversized number thirteen sign painted above the door shouted a warning of impending danger. He reached up and wiped the trickle of sweat above his eyebrow with the sleeve of his flight suit.


Steering clear of the building from hell, he dodged into the base library at the opposite end of building thirteen's parking lot. A dark haired girl in maroon Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes leaned too far on a step stool trying to reshelf a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Cash's mouth dropped open, and in his initial awe he surveyed the attractive vision before him. When the book began to slip through her fingers he stepped forward, dropped his kneeboard on the nearby table and in a single motion caught the book on its flight to the floor.


The girl stepped down, turned and glared with piercing dark eyes. Cash cringed wondering what else he could do wrong in one day. "Don't worry, I caught it."


"Your kneeboard, your stupid kneeboard's on the map."


"What map?"


"It's a one hundred year old trail map. It's irreplaceable. Get your greasy kneeboard off."


Picking it up, he said, "Whoa, sorry 'bout that. What's a map like this doing in a base library?"


"I'm doing a history of Native American tribes in the state."


"That's cool. What's the big deal about Indians in Nevada?"


She stopped, hands on her hips, cocked her head to the side and squinted. "I guess that would be tough for the all American Naval Aviator to comprehend?"


Cash began to think about how wrinkled and sweaty his flight suit was. He reached up to straighten the collar behind his neck. "I didn't mean it that way, aren't you the librarian?"


Her tone eased, "Summer volunteer. Working on a master's thesis."


"Wow . . . so this is cowboy and Indian country."


"Es cierto, Lone Ranger."


"Are you local?"


"Nope, Navy brat . . ."


"I'm Cash, what's your name?"


"As in small change. Oh . . . I didn't mean that. I'm Carmen, is there anything I can help you with?"


"There's a book about flying called 'Wind, Sand and Stars?"


"Sure, Saint-Exupery, he'd be more famous for writing 'The Little Prince.'"


"Haven't heard of it. Is it about flying?"


"Nu-uh, more about life."


"Flying's better than life."


"What is essential is invisible to the eye."


"What's that mean?"


"A quote . . . from the Little Prince."


"Oh."


"The other part is that 'only with the heart can one see rightly.'"