She smiled at him understandingly, and paper-clipped the checks together, glancing past him at the long line of customers.“That’s all right, sir. I’ll hold them until you get back. Just come to the window, you needn’t stand in that long line again.”
The customer behind him pushed impatiently closer as Lee slipped away pocketing the folder, leaving the young clerk cashing a paycheck.
Outside the post office, moving away around the corner out of sight of the post office windows, he swung into the truck and left, heading back for the ranch, the empty folder safe in his Levi’s pocket. That had been yesterday. Now he was on his way to complete the rest of the transaction.
His stomach dropped as the plane lifted higher yet, to clear the rising mountains, and he tried to ease more comfortably into the sense of flight, into the sudden lift, the speed, the throb of the engines. The wind scoured his face, sharp and cold. Below him the deep, dry washes dropping down from the mountains and across the desert floor looked ancient. Washes that during a heavy rain would belch out enough water to flood the whole desert, flood the highway deep and fast enough to overturn a car and drown an unwary driver. Maybe, Lee thought, every place in the world had its own kind of downside, unexpected and treacherous. Soon they were over San Bernardino, sailing smoothly over miles of orange and avocado groves, the lines of trees as straight as if drawn by a ruler. A few small farms, fenced pastures where horses and cattle grazed, a few small towns surrounded by green hills—and then the square grids of L.A. streets, neighborhoods of little boxy houses, and the main thoroughfares choked with traffic. Blue ocean beyond to his left, rivulets of white waves rolling in, and to his right the Hollywood Hills rose up, their pelt of green trees broken by the occasional glimpse of a mansion roof or the blue square of a swimming pool. This was the moneyed Neverland he’d read about, a place he’d never have reason to visit. Beyond the Hollywood Hills, forested mountains towered up, wild enough, by their look, to lose a man back among their rough ridges and gullies, wild enough to hide a man where the feds might never find him.
Lee eased down in his seat as Mark banked and circled, approaching the L.A. airport, the mountains swinging so close to Lee he caught his breath and clutched the seat hard again, staring straight out at what he thought was his last sight of this earth before they crashed into a thrusting peak, and died.
The ghost cat wasn’t frightened, he rode effortlessly on the wing above Lee, needing no support, watching Lee, amused, entertained by Lee’s fear, laughing as only a cat can laugh—though he felt sympathy for the old cowboy, too. If he had been a mortal cat, at that moment, riding in the little plane, he’d be crouched on the floor scared as hell, wild-eyed and out of control.
When Mark had first landed the plane back at Delgado Ranch and Lee stepped aboard, the cat had leaped lightly to the lower wing and then drifted up to the high wing, unseen. He had ridden there weightless as the plane took off, the wind tugging at his invisible fur, flattening his unseen ears without annoying the cat at all. Riding the yellow Stearman filled Misto with feline clownishness, caught him in a delirium of delight that perhaps no other creaturebut a ghost cat could know as vividly. The yellow tom didn’t often give himself to this degree of madness, he was for the most part a serious cat, but now he wanted to laugh out loud; sailing aboard the little manmade craft was more delicious than any binge of catnip, he rode the Stearman balanced without effort, he was one with the wind, he was a wind dancer, so giddy he wanted to yowl with pleasure. He let himself blow away free on the wind and then flipped over to land on the plane again, cavorting and delirious; he played and gamboled until Mark dropped the little craft smoothly down, to the landing strip in L.A., settling to earth once more. There the cat stretched out on the upper wing, lounging and watching to see what would happen next.
Taxiing, Mark quickly moved her off the runway, moved on past the terminal where passengers were boarding a big commercial plane, and headed slowly for the small hangars beyond and a metal building, its tin roof peeling paint. DUKE’S AIR SERVICE. REPAIR. CHARTERS. FLYING LESSONS.There, he cut the engine.
In the cockpit, Lee sat a moment, reorienting himself. At last he dropped his goggles on the seat, undid the seat belt, eased himself out of the hopper and climbed down.
But when he stood again on the ground he felt so small, and the earth felt unsteady beneath him, his balance so changed that for a moment he couldn’t get his footing. He watched Mark greet the mechanic, jerking a thumb at the prop. “It surges in high pitch,” Mark said. “Surges real bad.”
Lee moved closer to get Mark’s attention. “You going to be a while? I’d like to go into town if there’s time.”
Mark laughed.“See the big city. Sure, this will take … maybe three hours or better. You can catch a bus over there in front of the terminal. I’ll stay here and swap lies.”
The bus was nearly empty. When Lee chose a window seat close to the rear door, when he sat down laying his jacket across the other seat, he sensed the cat next to him, and that cheered him. In the plane, where the hell had the cat ridden? Had he needed to hang on for dear life, or had he been free to do as he pleased? Had he been afraid during that bouncing ride, or was such an experience nothing at all to a freewheeling ghost cat?
It was a half-hour ride into downtown L.A. The instant they passed the first bank, Lee rose and pulled the cord. He expected the ghost cat would tag along, but he didn’t sense him near. He had ceased to worry about the little cat, a ghost wasn’t mortal, nothing of this world could harm him, and how secure and amazing was that? Only something otherworldly could touch Misto, and so far as Lee could tell, he had taken care of himself just fine.
Walking back to the bank from the bus stop, he ran his finger into his shirt pocket, again making sure the paper with its record of the traveler’s checks was safe. He was feeling nervous, beginning to wonder if that young inmate, young Randy Sanderford, had given him the straight scoop about this scam.
The bank lobby was crowded, the lines long, and that was good. He picked a young, gentle-looking teller, and tailed onto the end of the line. The nameplate beside her window said Kay Miller. He fidgeted in line and tried to look worried, and as he stepped up for his turn he let his face twist into despair. Leaning into the window clutching the grill, he encouraged his voice to tremble.“Excuse me, ma’am—Miss Miller—I’m just worried sick and my missus is out in the car just crying her eyes out.”
The young woman’s clear green eyes searched his face, she leaned toward him over the counter, the gold heart on her necklace swinging. “What is it, sir? What’s wrong?”