The sections on the four American astronauts were — at best — only sketched in, although the direction these chapters would take was obvious enough. As with the portraits of the Antarctic explorers, the Apollo segments would deal with the astronauts' thoughts in the years following their missions, new perspectives they may have gained, old perspectives lost, and a discussion of any frustration they might feel at the impossibility of their ever returning to this particular frontier. Baedecker agreed with the choice of astronauts, he found himself very curious what they might say and share, but he felt that this would be the heart of the book when it was done . . . and by far the most difficult part to research and write.
He was thinking about this, standing at the window looking at the moonlight on the leaves of the lilac tree, when Dave knocked and entered.
'Still dressed, I see,' said Dave. 'Can't sleep?'
'Not yet,' said Baedecker.
'Me either,' said Dave and tossed him his cap. 'Want to go for a ride?'
Driving north on I-5 toward Tacoma, Baedecker thinks about Maggie's call the previous evening.
'Maggie?' he had said, surprised that she had gotten hold of him at the Muldorff's. He realized that it was almost one A.M. on the east coast. 'What's the matter, Maggie? Where are you?'
'Boston,' said Maggie. 'I got the number from Joan. I'm sorry about your friend, Richard.'
'Joan?' he said. The thought of Maggie Brown having talked to his ex-wife seemed unreal to Baedecker.
'I called about Scott,' said Maggie. 'Have you been in touch with him?'
'No,' said Baedecker. 'The last couple of months I've been trying. I cabled the old address in Poona and sent letters, but there was no response. I called out here to Oregon in November, but somebody at their ranch said they did-n't have Scott's name on their residents' list. Do you know where he is?'
'I'm pretty sure he's there,' said Maggie. 'In Oregon. At the ashram-ranch there. A friend of ours who was in India came back to B.U. a few days ago. He said that Scott came back to the States with him on the first of December. Bruce said that Scott had been pretty sick in India and that he'd spent several weeks in the hospital there — or at least in the infirmary that passes for a hospital there on the Master's farm outside of Poona.'
'Asthma?' said Baedecker.
'Yes,' said Maggie, 'and a bad case of dysentery.'
'Did Joan say Scott'd been in touch with her?'
'She said she hadn't heard from him since early November from Poona,' said Maggie. 'She gave me the Muldorffs' number. I wouldn't have called, Richard, but I didn't know where else to get in touch with you, and Bruce — my friend who came back from India — said that Scott's been pretty sick. He wasn't able to walk off the plane when they landed in Los Angeles. He's pretty sure that Scott's at the ranch in Oregon.'
'Thanks, Maggie,' said Baedecker. 'I'll call out there right away.'
'How are you, Richard?' Something in the tone of Maggie's voice changed, deepened.
'I'm all right,' he said.
'I'm so sorry about your friend Dave. I loved the stories you told me about him in Colorado. I'd hoped to meet him someday.'
'I wish you had,' said Baedecker and realized how much truth there was in the statement. Maggie would have loved Dave's sense of humor. Dave would have enjoyed her enjoyment. 'I'm sorry I haven't been in touch,' he said.
'I got your postcard from Idaho,' said Maggie. 'What have you been doing since you were there at your sister's in October?'
'I spent some time in Arkansas,' said Baedecker, 'working on a cabin my father built. It's been empty for a long time. How are you?' There was a pause, and Baedecker could hear vague, electronic background noises. 'I'm fine,' she said at last. 'Scott's friend Bruce came back to ask me to marry him.' Baedecker felt the wind go out of him much as it had four days earlier when Di's telegram had reached him. 'Are you going to?' he said after a minute.
'I don't think I'll do anything precipitous until I get my master's in May,' she said. 'Hey, I'd better go. Please take care of yourself, Richard.'
'Yes,' Baedecker had said, 'I will.'
The fragments of Dave's T-38 take up a significant amount of space on the floor of the hangar. Smaller and more important pieces lie tagged on a long row of tables.
'So what will the Crash Board findings be?' Baedecker asks Bob Munsen. The Air Force major frowns and sticks his hands in the pockets of the green flight jacket. 'The way it looks now, Dick, is that there was a slight structural failure on takeoff that caused the hydraulic leak. Dave got a red light on it about fourteen minutes out from Portland International and turned back immediately.'
'I still don't see why he was flying out of Portland,' says Baedecker.
'Because that's where I'd parked the goddamned thing right before Christmas,' says Munsen. 'I was scheduled to ferry it to Ogden on the twenty-seventh and Dave wanted to ride. He was going to catch a commercial flight out of Salt Lake.'
'But you got hung up for forty-eight hours,' says Baedecker. 'At McChord?'
'Yeah,' says Munsen, and there is disgust and regret in the syllable, as if he should have been in the aircraft when it crashed.
'So why didn't Dave use his priority status to bump someone on a commercial flight if he had to get back so quickly?' Baedecker says, knowing no one there has the answer.
Munsen shrugs. 'Ryan wanted the T-38 at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden by the twenty-eighth. Dave had my clearance and wanted to fly it. When he called, I told him go ahead, I'd deadhead back to Hill.' Baedecker walks over and looks at the charred metal on the table. 'Okay,' he says, 'structural failure, hydraulic leak. How serious?'
'We figure he'd lost about sixty percent of assist by the time he went down,' says Munsen. 'Have you heard the tape?'
'Not yet,' says Baedecker. 'What about the starboard engine?'
'He got a light about a minute after the hydraulic problem showed up,' replies Munsen. 'He shut it down about eight minutes before impact.'
'Jesus Fucking Christ!' shouts Baedecker and slams his fist into the table hard enough to send tagged pieces flying. 'Who the fuck crewed this thing?'
'Sergeant Kitt Toliver at McChord,' says Munsen in a thin voice. 'Best crew chief heading the best crew we've got. Kitt flew down with me for this seminar in Portland over Christmas. The weather closed in, and I drove back up to McChord on the twenty-sixth, but Kitt was in town. He did two inspections of it the day Dave flew. You know how these things are, Dick.'
'Yeah,' says Baedecker, and there is no lessening of the anger in his voice, 'I know how these things are. Did Dave do a complete preflight?'
'He was in a hurry,' says the major, 'but Toliver says he did.'
'Bob, I'd like to talk to Fields and the others,' says Baedecker. 'Could you get them together for me?'
'Not today,' says Munsen. 'They're spread all over the place. I could do it by tomorrow morning, but they wouldn't be very happy about it.'
'Do it, please,' says Baedecker.
'Kitt Toliver's here now,' says Munsen. 'Up at the NCO mess. Do you want to talk to him now?'
'No,' says Baedecker, 'later. First I have to listen to the flight tape. Thanks, Bill, I'll see you tomorrow morning.' Baedecker shakes hands and goes to listen to his friend's voice for the last time.
'Let's get drunk and stick beans up our noses!' shouted Dave. His voice echoed down the dark streets of Lonerock. 'Sweet Christ on a stick, what a beautiful night!' Baedecker zipped up his goosedown jacket and leaped into the jeep as Dave gunned the engine.
'Full moon!' shouted Dave and howled like a wolf. From somewhere in the hills beyond the town came the high yelping of a coyote. Dave laughed and drove east past the boarded-up Methodist church. Suddenly he slammed the jeep to a stop and grabbed Baedecker by the arm. He pointed to the white disk of the moon. 'We walked up there,' he said, and although his voice was low, there was no denying the urgency and pleasure there. 'We walked up there, Richard. We left our little anthropoid, hindpawprints in the moon's dirt, man. And they can't take that away from us.' Dave revved the engine and drove on, singing They Can't Take That Away from Me at the top of his voice.