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Show 14. In a Pullman car clicking and swaying across Nevada on my way to St. Mary's Preflight I looked out the window and saw a herd of horses standing on the plain watching the train roll by. "They look kind of scrawny," I said to the old guy in the seat across from me. He wore cowboy boots and his leathern cheeks were clean shaven. The horses looked like scrub. He nodded. "This last winter's been tough, boy." "He should of fed 'em." "Who? Hell, boy, no rancher owns them babies. Them're mustangs. Wild horses." "Really? Them?" He pointed out the stallion, we counted the mares. Wild horses! I'd never seen any before and already they looked better, less scrubby, more noble because free. Freedom, that's what I was off to fight for, what I'd left my loved ones for. Henry was already a pilot in the Army and expected to be sent to England. Tina had her Masters in physics and was going to work for the government on some sort of war project. Fanny had hugged me goodby as if I were as vulnerable as her baby boy. Davy would be a senior in high school the next fall, was taller than I was, and shook my hand as briefly as possible. He didn't come down to the train to see me off. My father and my mother did. Neither had wanted me to join something which meant flying airplanes, which they believed was more dangerous than other duties, and while we stood together at the depot my mother's eyes kept filling with tears. When I had left for San Francisco she had given me a lecture on the evils of the big city, but since she didn't tip me off to anything I wasn't already looking forward to |