Corcovado, Or Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

He watched as she walked through the gangs waiting to order at the counter, how they parted and let her pass - almost like they were afraid of her.

He never asked her about the meeting, or why she'd brought him along, and she never mentioned that afternoon - ever again - but he never forgot how those bikers moved out of her way.

And his mother was as good as her word, too. She was gone before we woke to tackle his chores the next morning.

A few days later he saw something on the evening news, something about a murder in San Antonio, Texas, where a meeting between members of a motorcycle gang - the Banditos - and a suspected Chinese underworld crime boss had been disrupted by an assassin's bullet. The old Chinaman had been killed as the group walked across a street outside a restaurant called Joe Ts. A rival motorcycle gang was suspected...but for some reason he knew - he just knew - his mother had killed the man. He knew, and it didn't bother him. Not in the least.

His mother returned to the ranch a few days later.

She seemed preoccupied.

With what...she would not say.

+++++

He opened his eyes, looked around the room. A nurse was working on a tablet, entering figures on the pad, and he tried to speak - but his mouth didn't work - no sounds came from his mouth - at all. He tried to lift his hand but it did not move, and now real panic broke over him like a hot wave. He tried to clear his throat and he heard a sound this time; the nurse turned to him, saw he was awake and put the tablet down on a cart.

"Mr Patterson? I'm Dr Jeffries, from neurology. You've had a slight stroke, but we got it fast and I think you'll be okay in a few hours. Try not to panic right now, okay? That will only make things worse..."

He tried to digest the woman's words and came up short. A stroke? And now I can't talk, or move? I don't want to go out like this...

She was watching a bank of monitors, then she injected something into an IV port and he felt himself falling away...

+

He opened his eyes again, saw Ted and Susan talking with Brigit across the room, and he tried to speak again. "Ted?" he croaked.

"Dad!?"

"Yup. At least I think so," he said, looking around the room. "Where am I? This looks different."

"It is. Some kind of neuro-ICU unit. You threw a blood clot, went out like a light."

"How long?"

"All told, three weeks...but it was deliberate this time. They kept you out so you wouldn't panic, until the vessels in your brain could heal."

"Three weeks?"

"Yup," Brigit said, by his side now.

He saw she had a cast on her wrist. "What happened to you?" he asked.

"I fell," she said, smiling, her voice and eyes full of understanding.

"Fell?"

"When you were shot, but I'm okay now."

He didn't understand those words, not at all. "I was shot?"

Then, for some reason, he thought of his mother...and all her secrets.

+++++

He walked around the Waco, checking her struts and aileron straps, tire pressures and fuel tanks for water, then he climbed into the cockpit and settled into the leather seat. He felt Pops climb up behind him and stand beside the open cockpit. He was looking down at him, and he had a weird expression on his face...and in his eyes...

"Here's some money, in case you want to get a burger somewhere along the way."

He looked down, saw a wad of hundred dollar bills and his eyes went wide. "Pops...?"

"Just bring me the change."

"Yessir."

"You got that sectional folded, like I showed you?"

"Yessir."

"VORs penciled in?"

"Yup."

Then his grandfather put his right hand out and he took it.

"I'm proud of you, boy. And...don't forget to have some fun along the way."

And then he was gone, walking back to the house.

He wiped away a tear then set about waking the old girl, and a minute later he taxied down to the end of the runway...watching temperatures and pressures as he worked through his run-up.

He looked at the house, saw Pops standing on the porch - another cup of coffee in hand - then he pulled his mind back into the cockpit and concentrated on the job at hand.

Magnetos checked, lights on, power to 40% and let it settle...work the controls, watch the rudder in the mirrors, look at the ailerons. Throttle back, watch oil pressure then ease the throttle forward...hold her against the torque...feel the tail lift at 35 knots...eyes on the runway now, feel the airspeed build...check the airspeed indicator...65 knots...70 now, and...a little back-pressure on the stick...feel the wheels leave the ground...eyes on the horizon for a moment, then check instruments...all registering...climb at 400 feet per minute, 90 knots now - keep an eye on the VOR...then the needle swung into position and he turned to follow the inbound radial. He turned his head, saw the ranch fading, Pops still on the porch, and smiled.

"It's wonderful to be alive," he said to the sky - and as the earth fell away he reveled in the moment.

Then he heard the Morse identifier in his headset: 115.3 - Rattlesnake VOR - and he wished the old Waco had DME then realized he didn't need it. 110 miles away, doing 120 knots? He'd be there in less than an hour. The Grand Canyon? Less than 300 miles, and he'd land, get a burger and fill the tanks, then turn around and fly back to the ranch. Then, with these final six hours under his belt he could get his license...

He pulled his mind back, stopped daydreaming. The Jemez Mountains off to his right peaked out at over 11,000 feet, and thunderstorms were building behind them...still well off to the north...but that bothered him...

He saw Farmington ahead a little later, re-centered the needle and chased the radial to the edge of town; when the needle swung he turned to 243 degrees and re-centered the needle, flying away from Rattlesnake now. He set the Tuba City VOR on 2 and kept an eye on his altitude for a minute, trimming pitch and fiddling with the throttle until the Waco settled-in after the turn.

He thought of the past few weeks. About his mother, stating she had retired from whatever it was she did, but he could tell she was lying. His father had moved to Florida, was apparently buying a boat of some kind and, in effect, telling the world to fuck off. And Pops...he was just trucking along, doing his thing, ignoring the world as best he could. Flying, riding his horse all over the ranch, running the fences, as he called it. He had a couple hundred head of his own now, and he was running them with the transient herds. He'd picked up an adjoining parcel of land and now had 4000 acres.

The temperature dropped suddenly and he looked around, saw a couple of big, new thunderstorms brewing over the Jemez, then the temperature really dropped - like 10, maybe 15 degrees and he checked his drift. Yeah...out of the north. A big frontal passage...and that meant big rain, maybe some snow on the mountains...and he scrunched up his mouth as he worked over the possibilities in his mind - then the Tuba City needle swung and he set that to VOR 1.

He nodded his head, turned and looked at the blossoming anvil-headed storms building over Farmington and he guessed the cloud-tops were already at 40,000 feet...the sky beyond the white anvil a deep slate blue. "Well, at least I won't need air conditioning..." he sighed.

He passed Tuba City a half hour later, tuned in on the Grand Canyon VOR as he watched a line of clouds building off to the north. He figured that line was still in Utah - but it was closing, fast, on the North Rim - and now he could see lightning under the advancing wall. He turned, saw the anvil-headed monster behind - now covering the four-corners regions - and he shook his head. That one was pushing in from the northeast, and this new wall was squeezing from the north-northwest - and he had maybe a half hour to go to make the Grand Canyon.

"If I can't make the canyon, I'll try for Flagstaff," he told the threatening sky, looking at his remaining fuel. He figured he could make Phoenix if he had to, but right now he wanted to get on the ground, get the Waco tied down.

Altitude nine thousand, airspeed 120. Ground elevation increasing, around 7300 before dropping to 6600 at GCN. He flexed his shoulders, eased around in the seat to work out a hotspot on his butt, then shook his head. Now what? He felt sleepy?

He forced himself to sit up straight, took several deep breaths and shook his head again, this time roughly. He cleared the ridge, saw the airport in the distance and sighed.

Yeah, I'll just make it.

+

"Dad?"

"Huh?"

"You're drifting. What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, my third cross-country. I flew from the ranch out to the Grand Canyon and back. Huge storms building, too, so after I got on the ground I called my grandfather. He'd been watching the weather too, and was frantic. Anyway, he told me to stay put, stay the night. Hell, I'd just turned sixteen, had never stayed alone anywhere, not once, and there I was...out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thunderstorms..."

"What did you do?" Susan asked.

"I got a room down on the south rim; a place called the Bright Angel Lodge. Nice name, nice view, too. After I got there I went out and stood out on the edge of the rim, looking at all those converging storms...lightning everywhere...and it's funny, because what I remember most is the color."

"The color?" Brigit said, puzzled.

"Yeah, the canyon, the walls were red, under walls of blue rain - then sun peeking through, shooting streams of amber light on the north wall while lightning danced..."

His eyes drifted...and he was there again...

+

Standing close to the edge, cold air coming across the canyon, meeting warm air rising out of the depths just beyond his feet, slamming into the sky. The thunder was deafening, lightning flickered everywhere - yet he stood, transfixed - looking up at the sky. Not at the sky, he thought, but - into the eyes of a living beast - as if there was some kind of secret life lost inside all that boiling energy...and if only he could get close enough...maybe he could see...

"It's amazing, isn't it?"

The voice startled him, and he turned, saw a woman standing a few feet away - and yet, she seemed to be in a trance.

"It is, yes."

"Are you here with your parents?"

"No. By myself."

That seemed to break the spell.

"By yourself? How..."

And he told her. About the flight, the weather, all of it, and she looked at him while he spoke, obviously not sure she believed one word coming out of his mouth.

"Are you hungry," she asked.

He frowned, looked at her words hanging in the air, as if he was considering the idea of eating, of hunger in general. "I don't know. Maybe?"

And as she looked at him she tried not to laugh. "You don't know if you're hungry?"

"I, well, I just haven't had time to think about it."

"Come on. You need food. I can tell just be looking at you."

There was a dining room just a few steps away, and he could tell she had just come from there - perhaps to come look at the advancing storm...

"Oh, I don't want to interrupt..."

"You aren't. I was just about to order," she said, motioning to a waitress. "Could we have another menu?" she said to the girl.

She sat, motioned for him to sit and he did.

She was, he guessed, thirty, maybe thirty-five years old, and she had bright, inviting eyes - though, he saw, she had a commanding presence. Her clothing was immaculate, her jewelry almost outlandish, and her face was heavily made up. He saw wrinkles under her eyes, a fringe of gray in her hair, and somehow she seemed the exact opposite of his mother - and the thought struck him as odd. His mother was, after all, about the only woman he had ever really known. Teachers had come and gone, classmates too, but his mother had been an imperfect constant in his life.

"What's your name?" the woman asked.

"Jim."

"Jim? I'm Sara, with no H."

He stuck out his right hand. "Pleased to meet you," he said, grinning.

"Now tell me. All that stuff about the airplane...did you make that up?"

He frowned. "You think I'm lying?"

She shrugged. "You look a little too young to be out here by yourself in an airplane."

"I'm working on my private pilot's license. You have to make a couple of long, cross country flights to qualify. This is my last one."

"Oh? Where was your first?"

"Lubbock, Texas."

"What's next?"

"Next? What do you mean?"

"In order to get your license."

"Oh. I take a written exam, then a check-ride with an FAA examiner."

"Then?"

"Then I work on my instrument rating."

"What's that?"

He thought for a moment, then said: "It's when you fly in the clouds for a long time, and can't see the ground."

"I see. And...can you see the ground right now?"

"Excuse me?"

She laughed at that. "Well, Jim, I've been in Reno. Spending some time there on my lawyers advice."

He shrugged. "Okay."

"I'm getting a divorce, Jim."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not."

"What happened?"

She looked away, rolled his words around for a minute while her thoughts advanced like a storm all their own...and he watched the turmoil behind her eyes, fascinated with lightning he saw inside.

"My husband is a famous man, a singer, a movie star. You know him, if you know what I mean."

"I do?"

"Yes, you do. Everyone knows him. He has his own TV show, he makes movies - all that crap," the woman said, her voice full of venom. "And now he has a younger girl, a new version of me, like me - years ago. So...I was suddenly, I think you could say, disposable, and it was more convenient for him to ship me off to a place like Reno."

He shrugged. "I'm sorry."

She looked at him and sighed. "Oh, how I'd love to be your age again." She looked at the storm raging on the other side of the glass and shook her head. "It's nice to be inside, where it's warm, isn't it?"

She wasn't paying attention to him now so he looked at her, looked at the anger playing out on her face, in the movements of her fingers...then she turned back to her menu. "They have huckleberry iced-tea here. Can you imagine such a thing?"

"Aren't those like blueberries?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, but I feel trying something fresh and new. How about you?"

"Sure," he said, suddenly wary of the changes playing out in her eyes...full of anger one moment, placid, almost serene the next - then, her eyes were full of tears.

"Excuse me," she said, "I need to go powder my nose."

He stood, got her chair and watched her walk off. She had a good figure and dynamite legs, and he was conscious now of her devastating femininity. He sat as the waitress came up to the table.

"Do you know her," the girl asked.

"No, we just met."

"Well, be careful. She's been here a few days, staring and crying, talking to herself a lot."

He nodded. "She looks like a bird with a broken wing," he said, and the girl looked at him, puzzled, then she nodded too - before she walked off.

The woman, Sara, came back to the table a few minutes later - and she noticed the menus were gone.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but the kitchen was about to close. I hope you don't mind, but I ordered for you."

She nodded. "Thanks. That was sweet of you."

"It looks like the storm is going to blow through fast," he said as he held out her chair.

She looked at him, at his seeming innocence, then she looked out at rain pooling on the flagstone terrace...and her thoughts seemed to coalesce out there, pooling in the moment, then she sat and watched him while he took his seat again, wondering where he came from, what his parents did...then she pulled back from the precipice. 'No,' the voice inside said, 'don't go there. Don't do this...not again...'

They ate French onion soup and Crab Louie, and for some reason she wanted pineapple sherbet. "I love Hawaii," she said as she took a bite.

"Why don't you move there?"

She seemed to roll the thought over in her mind for a moment, staring at the little silver bowl as she drifted. "That's something for the living," she said at last.

"The living?" he asked, then a sudden chill gripped him - as he turned and looked at the rim, and the canyon beyond. "Have you given up? Is that it? Is that why you're here?"

She seemed defiant then, before she turned in on herself.

"What did he do to you?"

"I couldn't even begin to..."

"I'd like you to tell me. All of it, everything you can remember."

"Why? Why do you want to hear all that garbage?"

"I don't know. Maybe I need to. Maybe I can help."

"Here? Or do you want to go to my room?"

"Does your room have a nice view?"

"No, not really."

"Well," he said, "mine does. Let's go there." He paid the bill and they walked off, the waitress looking after him as they left, shaking her head.

+

"So," Ted said, "those storms chased you all the way to the Grand Canyon?"

"Yup. There's nothing like that place when big storms roll in from the north. I was sitting by a fireplace later that afternoon and could see snow falling across the canyon, on the north rim, and it was June. Sitting by a fireplace...in June. I love it out there, you know...? Nothing like it, anywhere..."

+

"I think that's the second time I've caught you staring at my legs," she said, smiling.

He shook himself from the sight, smiled, then looked at her again. "I'm sorry, but I keep falling off."

"Sleepy?"

"Yup. I started yawning right after I passed Shiprock. I guess I didn't sleep much last night."

"Start a fire, would you?"

"Sure."

There was a little adobe kiva in the corner and he set some piñon on the grate and lighted some kindling; soon he had a little fire blazing away.

"Take off your clothes and get on the bed, face down."

"What?"

But she was already taking off her clothes, folding them neatly and putting them on a little dresser by the patio door. He stood by the fireplace, transfixed, not sure what was happening just now...then she walked over to him, ran her fingers through his hair.

"Just relax, Jim."

He lips trembling, his eyelids twitched uncontrollably - then she started to unbutton his shirt...

When he was naked she led him to the bed and laid him out, face down, then she put a light blanket over him before she straddled the backs of his thighs. She leaned forward, began massaging his neck and shoulders and a long, low moan passed his lips. He felt himself adrift in a foreign place, this someplace new, a new place that, somehow, felt more than right.

He felt her move up some, felt coarse hair against his skin, and he felt something new, new and unsettling.

"Turn over, Jim," she sighed.

And then she took him someplace very unexpected...

+

"It snowed? In June?" Susan said, not believing him for a moment.

He nodded his head. "New Mexico. Arizona. Utah. And Colorado, of course...it can snow there any time. That afternoon? Well, they call it thunder-snow. A cold front running into all that warm desert air...and man-o-man, did it snow that afternoon."

"You mentioned a fireplace?" Brigit asked...

+

She lay beside him - after - looking at his labored breathing, the sweat running off his brow, and she ran her fingers through his hair - still loving every minute of this boy, suddenly in love with the idea of living again...then she saw he was looking into her eyes.

"Feel better now?" he asked.

She nodded once, smiled - then kissed the tip of his nose.

"You see into people, don't you?"

"I don't know, but I think I see into you."

"And what do you see?"

"Someone full of love. Someone who needs to love, and to be loved."

"Doesn't everyone?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I think there are some people who don't know how to love, or anyone but themselves. Other people are just means to ends, people to be used up and discarded."

Her eyes narrowed a little. "You do know, don't you, that you're not supposed to be this wise? Not at your age...?"