The Underground Lady (3 page)

"So you felt it prudent not to tell me, of all people, that an airplane took off from my farm and may very well have crashed somewhere in my woods?"

"It wasn't your farm then, and sometimes there are things that are simply none of your business. Besides it was a long time ago. Are you going to help Sunny?"

"Maybe. The disappearance does intrigue me. I'll do some research today, make up my mind by tonight."

"Good. Be at my house for dinner at seven o'clock. You can get to know Sunny a little better. It will be good for you."

"How much do you know about this? Were you friends with her mother?"

"In due time, Jay. Don't be late for dinner, and if you want some decent wine, I suggest you bring a bottle."

"It's hard to pair fine wine with fried chicken and turnip greens."

"There is a boneless leg of lamb marinating that I intend to grill over mesquite. Bring B.W., he needs the company of other cats."

"It won't do him any good. I had him fixed, remember?"

"I didn't say he needed sex, he needs company other than yours. God, men! Maybe getting 'fixed' is something we should consider for you."

"I love you, Rose."

"Piss off, Leicester. Don't be late for dinner."

Maybe some company would do me good. I've been alone for a couple of weeks and realize I'm starved for conversation. I have felt directionless like snowflakes in a swirling wind. There has been a feeling of unhappiness since my failed relationship. But then I can always trust unhappiness. Her face never changes. However happiness, ah she's slick, can't be trusted. She has a thousand faces, all of them just ready to turn into unhappiness once she has you in her grasp.

Pouring more coffee, I sat on the couch in the place that Sunny Pfeiffer had so recently occupied. I imagined that I could still feel her warmth. The check was made out on a bank in New Orleans and the newspaper clipping was from the
Union Appeal
, a local weekly now owned by an old friend. I can research their archives for more on the disappearance of the airplane. After the date and time is established, a check with air traffic control in Meridian may turn up the controller who worked the flight and a tape recording or a transcript of the conversation. It was a long shot, but one worth trying.

Rose. I wanted the full story from her. But once upon a time I wanted to be Johnny Weissmuller and swing from jungle vines and call elephants with a primal yell only African animals could understand. Life is a bitch.

An old friend owns a flying service in Meridian. Dialing his number, I thought that he might remember the missing plane.

"Sanders Flying Service."

"Hello Earl, Jay Leicester."

"Jay, how you doing? I haven't heard from you since that Mexico thing."

"Finally made the permanent move to the country. You and Annie must come up for a visit. Let me show you around God's country."

"That sounds like a plan. So what's on your mind, Jay?"

"Back in eighty-two, a PA-18 took off from a grass strip in Union, in fact from the farm I now own, and went missing. Never showed up, no wreckage ever found. You have any memory of that happening?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, “Hadley Welsh, I taught her to fly, sold her the PA-18. A real mystery. Why are you asking about her disappearance?"

"I have no memory of it happening. Everyone seems to know about it but me. Where was I when that happened?"

"Why don't you check your logbook, maybe you were out of the country. Or that daily journal you've been keeping for thirty years."

"Good idea, haven't thought of looking there."

"So, I say again, why are you asking about Hadley Welsh's disappearance?"

"Her daughter wants me to find out what happened."

"Sunny? I often wondered what happened to that little girl. Pretty thing, and so outgoing and full of energy."

"Well, she grew into a good-looking woman."

"You remember John Roberts? He worked her flight that day. He's retired, but I have his phone number."

"Thanks. Give Annie my love. I may come for a visit in a couple of days."

"Look forward to it."

John Roberts was an air traffic controller, and a good one. As a pilot for Southern Airways, I used to land at Meridian twice a day, five days a week. Roberts worked most of my flights. We got to be good friends. A true professional, I am glad he made it to retirement age. His was a high-stress job, and a lot of his contemporaries died early from heart attacks and other stress related illnesses. I would contact him later, but first a trip to the
Union Appeal
for some research was in order.

After a quick shower, I sat on the couch and read the yellowed article Sunny Pfeiffer provided. The disappearance occurred on Friday, the ninth of April, 1982. It went on to tell about Hadley Welsh, a widower who had lived in the community for a few years. Her plane mysteriously disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from her farm west of Union. A large air and ground search was conducted with no discovery of a crash site. The search was called off after three days. It was assumed, and rightly so, that a hunter or farmer would eventually find the wreckage somewhere deep in the woods. There were unconfirmed rumors her plane was spotted in Wiggins, Mississippi, and on Chandeleur Island in the Gulf of Mexico. There was no mention of a daughter, a fact that I found strange.

Leaving B.W. to tend to the cottage, I headed for my truck and the town of Union. It was mid-winter and cold. The fog had dissipated, the sky an aching blue. The wind had picked up and cut through my clothes like an icy blade. It was still early, and the shadows of the trees, cast by the winter sun, lay like splash-marks of black paint on the terrace row and gravel road and across the roof of my truck.

***

Bill Graham, the Managing Editor of the
Union Appeal
, looked through giant ledgers holding copies of the paper dating back to the thirties and found the article. We looked through several weeks, but there was no further mention of the disappearance of Hadley Welsh and her little yellow Piper Super Cub. He suggested checking with the
Meridian Star
, a daily publication that may have follow up articles. It was a good idea.

On the drive back to the cottage, it dawned on me that Hadley's last name was Welsh, Sunny's was Pfeiffer and, if I remember, she'd said she had never been married. A good question for dinner tonight.

Nearing the terrace row, which serves as the driveway to the cottage, I observed a tractor in my field across the gravel road. It moved deliberately under a sky empty of cloud, over hard ground from a dry winter. High overhead vultures circled patiently waiting for nature to claim their next meal. The tractor stabbed a huge round bale of hay with the front fork then turned around and backed into another bale with the rear fork, raised it up off the ground and moved away with the two bales whose combined weight would be at least a ton and a half. This would be Shack, the cattle farmer who lived a few miles to the north and mowed my fields for the hay. He insisted he needed the extra bales, but I knew better. He cut the fields to keep me from spending endless hours pulling a bush hog in order to keep my little farm from becoming overgrown. Shack was the kind of neighbor everyone needed. Ten years my junior he was stoic, lucid, caustic and courageous, generous with his friends, and unyielding to his enemies. He was a man comfortable kicking cow shit with dirt farmers and other cattlemen, or surrounded by philosophers, academicians, and learned men or women who treasured his wit and his company. He sometimes needed a clear direction pointed out to him or else he could become dangerous.

Shack, like Rose, accepted me into this close-knit and sparsely populated community shortly after moving onto the farm and building the cottage. I have no idea why they "took-a-liking" to me, maybe they didn't want it on their consciouses if a city slicker made some fatal error in what can be dangerous country. One has only to remember the recent past in this part of Mississippi to understand. For the most part, they have managed to keep me out of trouble. I waved at Shack, who waved back, and continued on with his business.

Parking beside the cottage, I observed B.W. worrying a field mouse, teasing it, batting it around, the fear oozing from the mouse like the gray fog from this morning. I hated watching the killing. Picking up a pinecone, I threw it at B.W., whacking him on the head. He glared at me, then lifted his tail and stalked off in such a high dudgeon that it made me laugh. The mouse ran under my truck and hid behind a rear wheel. I did not blame B.W. for wanting to kill the mouse. It was only his way. Nature is a cruel lady.

Inside the cottage, I stoked the fire, went to my flight bag and retrieved an old logbook. Every minute of a pilot's life is carefully recorded in his personal log. It is required by the government. A line was drawn through the entire month of April, 1982 with a notation that read:
VACATION/TRAINING.
Putting the logbook back in the flight bag, I went to a bookcase in the back and picked out a book with a stamp on the spine that read, 1982. The journals went all the way back to 1970. A wise man once told me that if you keep a daily journal, one-day it would keep you. There is enough ink used in these journals to fill a wine vat. It is a daily record of my life: smells, food, wine, flowers, weather, sex, people, art, friends who have died. All memories from the deep past best visited while sober.

Looking at the week Hadley Welsh's plane went missing, I found that I was on vacation and moonlighting, flying a doctor to Aspen, Colorado, in his personal airplane for a two-week stay on Snowmass Mountain. As soon as I got back from this trip, Southern Airways sent me to Atlanta for upgrade training on the newly purchased Douglas DC-9 aircraft. This was the reason I had not heard about the missing woman and her plane. I continued looking through the journal until I came upon a notation about a close friend who had crashed into Mobile Bay during a spring thunderstorm killing all aboard his airliner. That crash made me feel as if my own existence was a privilege with unknown obligations. Slamming the journal closed, I returned it to its place among the others. Back in the living room, I sat in a recliner. All was silent except for the little trance-inducing sounds of the wood fire, and I thought about the fact that we are all doomed to die. As an honorable act of defiance, I simply refuse to fear these general terms of existence.

Throwing another red oak log on the fire, I could not stop thinking about my friend who died in the crash into Mobile Bay. I was sad when hearing about it, and as with one's own death, grief cannot be shared. I could only think that a library closed the day he died, an immense library. Then another death of a true airman came to mind. My mentor and I stood on the ramp watching a Lockheed PV-2 take off with a load of Mirex fire ant poison. At the controls was a pilot with whom I shared a cockpit for many hours. Just before liftoff speed, an engine failed. The Lockheed, full of high-octane gasoline veered off the runway and exploded, burning the pilot and copilot beyond recognition. Later, standing beside the wreckage watching the removal of the charred remains, I heard my mentor utter, "God grant you and I, though we must be at our own death, and worm eaten at last, a more civilized exit." I have a hand scribbled list of twenty-nine airmen with whom I have flown that are now deceased. The list continues to grow.

I needed to get out of this funk, stop thinking of the recent dead. B.W. stretched and yawned in front of the fire. Going to a glassed-in bookcase where I keep my most precious collection of first edition books, I pulled out the only pristine copy of Hemingway's
The Green Hills of Africa
that I have ever seen
.
It is a wonderful book about big game hunting, and illustrated by Edward Shenton. Due to some flaw with an ink process during production, the spine of the book tends to fade into an ugly green/yellow color. This copy is not faded and is inscribed by Hemingway to his friend from Key West, Charles Thompson, who had accompanied him on a safari to Tanganyika in 1934. This made the book even more valuable. Though I have never bought a book for its resale value, this copy is worth an incredible amount of money.

A friend once pointed out to me that of the thousands of writers from the last century the works of only four would survive; Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck. I tend to agree, and have added Welty to the list. Time will tell.

After reading a chapter of
Green Hills,
I thought that works of great originality are usually produced in a state of intense turmoil – a madness of genius. Creativity seems to emerge from extreme emotion, often at the edge of sanity, and sometimes brings about the physical wreckage of the person creating an artistic masterpiece. I knew Hemingway survived two plane crashes in two days causing severe injuries, but he also had other problems. Faulkner and Fitzgerald succumbed to alcohol, Steinbeck to a combination of tobacco and alcohol, Welty to old age. So, who knows? Right now, I had to prepare for dinner with Rose English and Sunny Pfeiffer and try to find out what happened to Hadley Welsh and her Piper Super Cub.

Chapter Three

Lamb? What wine would go with mesquite grilled lamb? Going down the steep steps into the cellar, a true wine cellar I had built under the cottage, both my knees ached. Too much football in my early years, fourteen seasons. Making the steps so vertical made it hard to climb and descend. I remembered the old Choctaw Indian working for the building crew pulling me aside with a warning that to dig deep into the ground would be coming close to the living world of the spirits, and I should be careful. For all I know this may be true. At the bottom, my head brushed against a spider web. I knew instantly from the strength of the silk strands that it was a black widow's web. They are prevalent in these woods and one has to be wary of them. It has always bothered me that I can never know the cold inner working of a spider's thoughts or those of the copperhead moccasin that follows me as I walk around the pond.