Coast to Coast (13 page)

“Slow down, Birch.”

“I can’t. Pop’s waving at me to come. Oh, he wanted me to tell you we went four hundred ten miles yesterday and used twenty-seven and two tenths gallons of gas. Anyway, last night we could hear coyotes, Mom, real coyotes. The lady said they come in the garden to eat melons. I go, ‘I didn’t know coyotes ate melons.’ She goes, ‘Oh, yes, there’s a green gourd that grows in the desert called the coyote melon because they like it so much. They eat it and yowl.’”

Birch shifted her weight and gave Pop an ‘I’m coming’ wave.

“I’ve got to tell you one more thing. We’re getting ready to go over the big mountains. The San Gabriels. We’ve been over some terrible mountains, but these are supposed to be the worst. I started worrying about them way back in Texas. But after we landed here, Pop asked the man about where was the best way to cross, and the man said, ‘It’s easy. I’ll show you.’ He’s German, I’ll do his accent. It was a shock when I first heard him on the radio. He said, ‘Haff a safe landing.’ That didn’t sound like him, but you get the idea.

“Anyway Pop asked him about crossing the mountains. Pop said, ‘Wait, I’ll get my map.’ The man said, ‘You don’t need a map, chust stay to the rrright of the mountains. Take the second walley—not the walley the rrrailrrroad goes through—the next one. You should be able to see this airport and this lake …’

“Anyway, he made it sound easy but I don’t believe him. Oh, I really do have to go now. Pop’s got his hands on his hips. I’ll call you tonight.”

“Birch,” her mother said, “you sound … better.”

“I am better, Mom. I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

Birch hung up the phone and ran across the ramp. “I’m sorry I took so long, Pop, but you know Mom. She has to hear every detail.”

Pop took off his glasses and blotted the sweat from his face onto his sleeve. “Well, we can’t put it off any longer. Get in. The takeoff roll’s going to be a long one—this field’s one of me highest so far.”

Pop set the altimeter on 3390, and they taxied to the end of runway 21. They rolled and finally lifted off the ground. Birch watched the San Gabriel Mountains as the J-3 climbed slowly toward them. Clouds were forming over the peaks. The mountains seemed to grow as they got closer.

She said, “When I look at mountains like that, I get a new respect for pioneers, don’t you?”

Pop didn’t answer. Birch checked the altimeter. They were at 5000. The Cub was beginning to labor.

“What’s the name of the pass we’re going through?”

“Soledad. Watch for a four-lane road. See that white dot on the mountain?”

“Yes.”

“I think that’s the place we turn in.”

“Oh, there’s some black, coffee-colored water, the kind I hate.” Suddenly Birch grabbed the support bar. “Pop, it’s getting bumpy.”

“There’ll be turbulence.”

“I don’t mind bobbing up under the clouds. I hate sinking down later. Like that!”

The compass sung wildly back and forth. Birch checked her seat belt again. Ace barked sharply in protest.

Pop shot a nervous look up at the mountains on the left. “I don’t care for the downwind side of the mountain.”

“Why, Pop?”

“The upwind side lifts you up, helps you. The downwind side—” He broke off. “Oh, that’s where the railroad goes through. We don’t take that pass. We want the next valley to the left.” All his thoughts seemed to be on not cutting through the mountains too quickly.

Birch checked the altimeter. They were at 6000 feet now, close to the base of the clouds. The peaks of the San Gabriels rose still higher.

“There’s another plane, Pop. And that white dot on the mountain you mentioned is a house with an antenna. Things are so disappointing—you see an interesting white dot and it’s a house. You see a glistening castle and it turns out to be a power plant. Cliff dwellings turn out to be—”

“Don’t talk so much, Birch.”

“I always talk when I’m nervous, you ought to know that by now,”

“Well, I don’t like to listen when I’m nervous. I’ll feel better when I can see that lake the man was talking about. You don’t see a lake, do you?”

Birch strained forward. “No.”

“I was afraid of that. How about an airport?” He pushed his map over her shoulder. His thumb marked one of the magenta circles.

Body rigid, she strained forward again. “No.”

“Well, keep looking.”

Birch hugged herself. She looked at the slopes below. It was as if somebody had pulled up the cloth of the earth and then let it drop back down in folds. Some peaks were as smooth as the plastic ones in model railroad villages. Roads wiggled through the brown hills. Small red-roofed developments were set in the deepest wrinkles.

“There’s the four-lane road,” Pop said. “Here we go!”

In one breathtaking moment they cut through the mountains, and Birch saw the valley beyond.

The air was rougher. Birch held on with both hands. Ace barked a series of high barks.

“There’s an amusement park. That ought to be on the map.” He shook his head. “… but it’s not.”

“All these valleys and interstates look alike. I don’t know why that man said it was so easy.”

There were mountains on either side of them. Below irregular-shaped fields lay in bends of the road. A riverbed twisted beside the highway.

“Now, that river
is
on the map. I see it. We’re right, Pop.”

“I believe we are.”

“I never did see the lake though.”

“Me either.”

“It’s getting smoother.” She glanced at the ground. “They ought to call this condo valley—look at all those houses crammed together. No wonder they have mud slides … Have we got a head wind? We sure are going slow.”

“We aren’t going slow at all. We’re going seventy miles an hour.”

“It seems slow when you can’t see any place you could land.”

“That’s right.”

“The map’s getting greener—that’s a good sign. And the mountains are getting flatter.”

Birch glanced at the altimeter. 3500 feet. They were descending. The fields reached up the sides of the hills now. Every piece of land had been made into a field or a golf course.

They were at 2500 feet now. To Birch it was like floating down an invisible river, heading for the sea.

“There’s the Santa Paula airport!” Pop said. “We’ll land there. I’ve been looking forward to this. There’s every kind of antique airplane in the world there.”

“Just what I wanted to see—airplanes.”

“It’s a busy airport though. You help me watch for traffic.”

“Well, there’s a plane.” Birch pointed. “And there’s another one—at three o’clock,” she added with a smile.

“I see that one.”

“And there’s one taking off and one getting ready to take off. Do they have a tower or do you just sort of get in line?” She broke off. “I know, I know shut up so you can talk on the radio.”

“D
O YOU SEE THE
Pacific?” Pop asked. Birch was leaning forward, peering over the cowling. “No! Why? Do you?” She had been looking for the ocean ever since they took off from the Santa Paula airport fifteen minutes ago.

The Santa Paula canyon had opened into a broad valley. The city of Ventura was just ahead. “I see it,” Pop said.

“I don’t see anything but haze! Pop, where is it?” He pointed straight ahead with a long sunburned finger.

“Pop! I don’t see it!”

“It sort of fades into the sky.”

“I know it’s there, but I can’t see it! Oh, now I do. I think I do.”

She sank back in her seat as if she were giving up. “This is not at all the way I dreamed it would be. I dreamed I’d see it and start screaming, ‘I’m the first one to see the Pacific!’”

“Well, you weren’t the first one to see the Pacific.”

“I’m not even sure I see it now.” She peered into the haze. “Yes, I do see some waves.” She gave a mock scream. “I’m the second one to see the Pacific!”

“You want to fly on up the coast a little bit?”

“I want to do something,” she said. “What’s happened to me? I’ve been looking forward to getting here and looking forward to getting here and now I am here and I want to keep going. I wish the United States didn’t stop. I wish there was some more of it.”

“There is. Hawaii. It’s out there somewhere.”

“Pop, I’m serious. Do you feel sort of let down?”

“No, I believe this is the best I ever felt in my life.” His lips curled in a smile. “I thought you’d be popping another poem.”

“Why do you feel good and I feel let down?”

“I couldn’t say. You want to fly up the coast?”

She nodded.

“We could go to—” He checked the map. “San Luis Obispo is a nice little town.”

“Have we got enough gas to make it?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

They swung out over the Pacific. Below, the shadow of the plane moved across the green water. “Now I’m sure it’s the Pacific,” Birch said, “because I see surfers down there. That makes me feel a little better.”

“You know how race drivers always take an extra lap around the track, keep driving a little bit?” Pop said. “Well, this is our extra lap—our victory lap.”

The window was open and Birch could smell the salt air. She rested her arm on the window, and let the roar of the engine flow over her.

“I’m glad you said that about the victory lap, Pop. And I must admit this is exactly the way I thought California beaches would look—surfers and movie star houses. Look at those houses on the cliff. One of them even has a cable car to get people down to the beach.”

“That’s Santa Barbara ahead. I’ll give them a call on the radio.”

Birch barely listened. She looked from side to side, taking it all in—the offshore oil rigs, a volleyball game on the beach below, the fishing boats, the white circling gulls, the long piers. It was as if she were seeing all these things for the first time.

“I didn’t expect to see farms. And they go right to the edge of the cliff, Pop. California cows must have a lot of sense not to fall off.”

The mountains beyond the farms were rocky, the vegetation between the rocks so dark it looked black. A white plane moved south just below the top of the ridge.

Another airplane always came as a shock to Birch, because flying gave her the illusion that she and Pop were doing something nobody else in the world was doing. The sky seemed untraveled, new, unknown.

“We’ll turn inland with the highway,” Pop commented.

Birch glanced at the ocean. Far out to sea, clouds were forming. They seemed to curve with the bow of the earth.

Suddenly Birch flattened her map against her chest. She blinked back unexpected tears. The force of her emotion took her by surprise.

Even though the emotion had come unexpectedly, it came with such clarity that it was as if her mind had been working on it in secret, as if her mind had been waiting to spring this on her as a surprise.

She saw the trip in a new way, as a whole. She had crossed rivers and desert valleys, hopped mesas, crossed states without touching them, almost reached the clouds. She had seen garbage and incredible beauty. She had flown shoulder to shoulder with a hawk. The trip as a whole was what was important, just as she, with all the pieces in place, was more important than any single part.

And Pop! Pop was a new person. He could even make her laugh. The night before she had said, “Pop, did you know Granny had two pillows named Willow and Billow?”

“Yes, I am acquainted with Willow and Billow.”

“Did they sleep with you and Granny?”

“Both of them did. But then Billow, or Willow—I never could keep them straight and if I mixed up their names, your grandmother took it as an insult. Anyway I’m pretty sure it was Billow that got washed with my work pants and I thought, well, good, now I’ll just have to put up with Willow but …” He broke off. “What are you laughing at?”

The feeling of happiness crept up on her like daybreak. She swallowed aloud.

“Do you feel a poem coming on?” Pop asked.

“No poem has popped in my mind, Pop, but I have the feeling that someday a poet will fly over this country like we did and write a poem about it and I’ll come across it and …” She shrugged away the rest of the sentence. She was unable to finish.

“Send me a copy. Or, better still, why don’t you write one yourself?”

“I thought you didn’t like poetry.”

“Well, I’d like that one.”

Birch looked down at her map. She marked a place with her thumb.

“That tower is there, so we are here. I’m getting good at this,” she said with satisfaction.

“It’s called navigation,” Pop said mildly.

“Our next checkpoint should be—” she gasped.

“What is it?”

“Oh, Pop, remember when we were talking about endangered species? Remember I said that’s what the J-3 is? Well, look what it says on the map. Pop, I am so excited.”

“About what?”

“Condor Sanctuary! We won’t come close to it today, but maybe on the way home. ‘Notice to pilots. California condor (endangered species) nesting in the Sespe Sanctuary …’ Oh, I hope we see one. It would be the first time I’ve ever seen anything endangered. Pop, you know what I think?”

Birch rested her hand on the control stick so she could follow what Pop was doing.

“What’s that?”

“I think the trip home’s going to be even more exciting than the trip out.”

“Could be,” Pop said, starting their descent. “Could be.”

Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning author of more than sixty books for children and young adults, including
The Summer of the Swans
(1970), which earned the prestigious Newbery Medal. Byars also received the National Book Award for
The Night Swimmers
(1980) and an Edgar Award for
Wanted . . . Mud Blossom
(1991), among many other accolades. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she has fans all over the world.

Byars was born Betsy Cromer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father, George, was a manager at a cotton mill and her mother, Nan, was a homemaker. As a child, Betsy showed no strong interest in writing but had a deep love of animals and sense of adventure. She and her friends ran a backyard zoo that starred “trained cicadas,” box turtles, leeches, and other animals they found in nearby woods. She also claims to have ridden the world’s first skateboard, after neighborhood kids took the wheels off a roller skate and nailed them to a plank of wood.