The Caravan on the Apron

The way home runs back through the west, and the west has one of my weaknesses: a small airfield, concrete apron to the steppe, one white Cessna Caravan parked in the enormous light, a tower staffed by a man with tea and no urgency whatsoever.

He let me walk out, as such men always have. Regular readers know the ritual by now: novelist crosses apron, admires small aircraft, considers the other life in which she flies, returns to her car. “Mail and the miners' rotation,” the tower man said. Twice a week the sky here has a schedule.

I patted the Niva when I got back to it, out of loyalty. But the pull is real and on the record, again. One day this blog will report from a cockpit. Not yet. The road west is long and mine.