Phases of Gravity (30 page)

"I'm glad I caught you," says Baedecker.

"Isn't it terrible about David?" she says and her hands clench with emotion.

"Yes, it is," says Baedecker and watches the large Labrador—Sable—come bounding around the side of the building.

And then there they are—four of them—barely big enough to walk, and Baedecker is on one knee, petting them, rubbing behind their ears, and he does not even need the old woman's next words to confirm what he knows.

"So terribly sad," she says, "and David had come so far to pick out just the right one for his little boy."

Baedecker calls from Condon. Diane answers on the third ring.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for breakfast this morning," he says. "I decided to go talk to Bill and the rest of them and get a preliminary report."

"Tell me," she says.

Baedecker hesitates a second. "We can talk tonight when there's more time, Di. I hate to go into it all over the phone."

"Please, Richard. I want to know the important parts now." Her voice is gentle but firm.

"All right," says Baedecker. "First, the starboard engine had shut down completely just like they thought, but they're pretty sure now that Dave got it restarted just a few seconds before the crash. The hydraulics problem was a result of a stress, structural failure . . . no one could have caught it . . . but even that seems to have stabilized at about thirty-five percent assist. I don't know if the gear would've gone down, but Dave was planning to deal with that when the time came.

"Second, he couldn't see a damn thing, Di. He said on the tape that he could see lights when he came out of the clouds at sixty-two hundred, but that was for about two seconds. The mountain ridge he hit was in the center of a squall, heavy rain and zero visibility down to the deck for at least eight miles to the north.

"Third—and this is the important part, Di—the Portland Center controller handling the emergency told Dave that there were ridges up to five thousand feet there. The ridge he hit was at fifty-six hundred; it ran all the way east to Mt. St. Helens. I'd bet anything that Dave had fifty-five hundred as his punch-out altitude. Maybe higher, but the thing is, he'd just got the beast back in the corral—he was on top of the hydraulics problem, he was out of the ice, he'd just got the engine relit, and he was less than four minutes out from Portland. He was doing the best he could, Di, and he would've had it if it hadn't been for that ridge."

Baedecker pauses, seeing . . . no, feeling those last few seconds. Fighting a stick gone as heavy as a crowbar in a box of rocks, pedals trying to kick his knees back into his belly, no time to look out the rain-streaked canopy, watching the tumbling ball, checking the airspeed indicator and altimeter while handling the throttle and waiting for just the right second to try again on the engine restart. And all the time, above the grind and storm, aware of the small noises from the backseat.

Baedecker, knowing in his gut and soul that Dave was no fool, could see him being the first to snort derision at the sentimental suggestion of a pilot spending two seconds too long in a dying airplane because of a dog, but Baedecker could remember the tone of Dave's voice three months earlier, saying, "I can't remember ever being any happier," and in that tone he hears the possibility of a pause of one second or two where no pause is permissible, sees that final straw added to the already significant weight of a test-pilot's determination to save a salvageable aircraft.

". . . appreciate your doing it and telling me; Richard," Diane is saying. "I never doubted, really. There were just so many little questions I couldn't answer."

"Di," says Baedecker, "I know why Dave came out to Lonerock. He had a special present he wanted to give you and the baby." Baedecker pauses. "It wasn't . . . ah . . . wasn't ready when he was here," he lies. "But I'm going to bring it in tonight if that's all right." Baedecker glances at the Toyota where the puppy is making scrabbling sounds in the box in the backseat next to the box holding Dave's manuscript.

"Yes," says Diane and takes a breath. "Richard, you know the sonogram said we're going to have a boy."

"Dave told me," says Baedecker.

"Did he tell you the names we've been considering?" she asks.

"No," says Baedecker. "I don't think so."

"We both agreed that Richard is nice," Diane says. "Especially if you think so too."

"Yes," says Baedecker. "I think so too."

Baedecker drives south on County Road 218, past Mayville and Fossil, crossing the John Day River just past Clarno. The road to the ashram-ranch is wide and graveled, running north from the paved county road. Baedecker drives three miles along it, thinking about Scott. He remembers the drive back to Houston that Watergate summer so long ago, Baedecker wanting to talk more to his son, unable to, feeling—in spite of everything—that Scott also wanted to talk, to change things.

There is a roadblock where the road narrows between two ditches several feet deep. A blue, airport-type limousine is parked diagonally, blocking the road. To the left is a small building with a sloping roof, brown sides, and a single window. It is meant to be a guardhouse, but it makes Baedecker think of the covered school-bus stops that sit by the side of the road in Oregon. He stops and gets out of the Toyota. The puppy is sleeping in the backseat.

"Yessir, may we help you?" says one of the three men who emerge from the shack.

"I'd like to get by," says Baedecker.

"Sorry, sir, no one beyond this point," says the man. Two of the three are large and bearded, but the speaker is the larger of the two, at least six-two. He is in his early thirties, and wears a red shirt under his goosedown vest. There is a medallion on the outside of the vest, and Baedecker can see a photograph of the guru there.

"This is the road to the ashram, isn't it?" asks Baedecker.

"Yeah, but it's closed," says the second man. He wears a dark plaid shirt and Baedecker notices a cheap security-service badge pinned to it.

"The ashram's closed?"

"The road's closed," says the big man, and Baedecker hears the change in his tone. There will be no more "sirs." "Now turn your vehicle around," he says.

"I'm here to see my son," says Baedecker. "I talked to him yesterday on the phone. He's been sick, and I want to see him and talk awhile. I'll leave my car here if you want to drive me in."

The big man shakes his head and takes three steps forward and in that brief motion comprised of swagger and expectation, Baedecker knows that he will not be allowed to pass. He has never met the man, but he knows him well; he has seen his type in bars from San Diego to Djakarta. He has known several like him—far too many—in the Marines. For a while, as a young man, Baedecker had considered becoming him.

Baedecker glances at the third man—little more than a boy really—thin and pockmarked. He is wearing only a red cotton shirt and is shivering in the cold breeze coming out of the north.

"Nope," says the big man and comes closer, too close for psychological comfort and knowing it. "Turn it around, Pop."

"I'd like to see my son," says Baedecker. "If you have a phone in there, let's call someone."

Baedecker makes a move to step around him, but the big man stops him with a thrust of three fingers, hard, in Baedecker's chest. "I said turn it around," he says. "Back it up to that wide spot down there, and turn it around."

Baedecker feels something sharp and cold and familiar well up inside of him, but he stops and backs up two steps. The big man is all shoulders, chest, and arms, broad neck under a wild beard, but his belly is big and soft even under the vest. Baedecker glances down at his own stomach and shakes his head. "Let's try it again," Baedecker says. "This road is still a county road, I asked in Condon. Now if you have a phone or radio, let's talk to somebody who can think and make grown-up decisions. If not, drive me into the ashram and we'll find someone."

"Uh-uh," says the big man and shows his teeth. The other one with a beard takes a step closer to his friend while the youngest one moves back into the doorway of the guardhouse. "Move now, Pops," says the big man. The same three fingers hit Baedecker's chest again. Baedecker takes another step back.

The man shows more teeth, pleased by Baedecker's retreat, steps forward again, and brings his whole palm forward in what will be a straight-armed shove. Baedecker goes with it, takes the offered arm, brings it around and back and up, not quite hard enough to break bone but quickly enough to let softer things rip inside. The big man yells and pulls, Baedecker steps with it, watching the second man, and lifts higher, only his right hand busy now, leaning on the big man a bit as the other goes cheek down onto the hood of the Toyota.

The man with the badge yells something as he moves in, both arms held out wide like a wrestler beginning a match. Baedecker hits him three times with his left hand, the first two blows fast and useless with no extension and little weight behind them, the third solid and satisfying, landing deep in the other's throat. The man backs away with both hands up to his neck, catches the heels of his cowboy boots in the gravel at the edge of the road, and sits down heavily in the deep ditch.

The big man is still puffing and sliding along the hood, kicking now and trying to get his arm back. Baedecker is sliding with him, ready to get both hands into play, when he sees the youngest man come out of the shack with a twelve-gauge pump shotgun.

Ten feet separate Baedecker and the boy. The kid is holding the weapon somewhere between port arms and the way Scott used to hold a tennis racket when he was little before Baedecker taught him better. Baedecker did not see the boy pump the first shell into the chamber, and he feels strongly that it was not done before the boy emerged from the shack. Baedecker hesitates a second, but already the cold, sharp-edged anger he had felt a second earlier is fading to be replaced by the hot flush of anger at himself. He spins the big man around and propels him back toward the boy hard enough that the man stumbles forward, forgets that his right arm will no longer work to break his fall, and goes face first into the gravel and mud at the feet of the boy with the gun.

The kid is shouting something, waving the shotgun like a magic wand, but Baedecker ignores him, gets back into the Toyota, backs it down the gravel road, turns it around where the road is wide enough, and drives back the way he came.

Baedecker had listened to the tape alone, in a small room at McChord Air Force Base. There was not much on it. The young controller's voice was professionally brisk, but there was the sharp edge of fear just under the surface. Dave's voice was in the mode that Baedecker had always thought of as his in-flight voice; speech lazy and unhurried, the Oklahoma accent out of his boyhood quite pronounced.

Six minutes before the crash. The controller: Ah, Roger that, Delta Eagle two-seven-niner, ah, engine shutdown. Do you wish to declare an emergency at this time? Over.

Dave: Negative that, Portland Center. I'll bring it back your way and we'll do some thinking about it before we mess up all the airline schedules. Over.

Two minutes before the crash. The controller: Ah, affirmative on clearance for runway three-seven, Delta Eagle two-seven-niner. Ah, are you . . . do you have confirmation that landing gear is operational at this time? Over.

Dave: Negative, Portland Center. No green light at this time, but no red light either. Over.

Controller: Roger, Delta Eagle two-seven-niner. Do you have procedure if you receive no down and locked indication? Over.

Dave: Affirmative on that, Portland Center.

Controller: Very good, Delta Eagle two-seven-niner. What is procedure? Over.

Dave: Procedure as follows, Portland. GYSAKYAG. Over.

Controller: Say again, please, Delta Eagle two-seven-niner. We did not copy that. Over.

Dave: Negative, Portland. Busy right now. Over.

Controller: Roger, Delta Eagle. Please be advised . . . ah . . . be advised that your current altitude reads seven-five-two-zero and that there are ridges in your flight path up to five thousand feet. Repeat, ridges to five triple zero. Over.

Dave: Roger. Dropping through seven thousand feet now. Copy bumps ahead to five triple zero feet. Thank you, PC.

Sixteen seconds before the crash. Dave: Coming out of clouds at sixty-two hundred now, Portland Center. See some lights to the right. Okay, now . . .

Then nothing.

Baedecker listened to the tape three times and on the third he heard the final "Okay, now . . ." differently. There was triumph under the drawl. Something had begun to go right for Dave in those last few seconds.

The voice recording reminded Baedecker of another time, another flight. He thought of the date on the old newspaper the morning of Dave's funeral—October 21, 1971. It could have been. It would have been in late October, not long before the mission.

They were flying home to Houston from the Cape in a T-38, Baedecker in the front seat. They were over the Gulf, but the only sea visible was the sea of clouds three thousand feet below them, glowing milk white from horizon to horizon in the light from the not-quite-full moon. They had been flying in silence for some time when Dave came on the intercom. "We're going up there in a couple of months, amigo."

"Not unless you get the Pings high-gate sequence right in the simulator next time," said Baedecker.

"We're going," said Dave. "And things ain't never gonna be the same."

"Why not?" asked Baedecker, glancing up. The light prismed on the canopy, distorting the moon's shape.

"Because, Richard," came the slow reply, "we're not going to be the same. People who tred on sacred ground come away changed, my friend."

"Sacred ground?" said Baedecker. "What the hell are we talking about?"

"Trust me," said Dave.

Baedecker had been silent a minute, letting the steady pulse of the engines and oxygen flow surround him. Then he had said, "I do trust you."

"Good," said Dave. Then, "Give me the stick, please."

"You've got it."

Dave pitched the T-38 into a steep climb, adding throttle as they climbed, until Baedecker was on his back staring straight at the moon as they clawed skyward. The Marius Hills region would be perfectly illuminated in the lunar sunrise. Dave held the climb until the straining aircraft was