After learning more details of his flying accident and that his airport was temporarily out of business, and not only because of his crash but because his pilots and mechanics all went to war, they sat and talked about it. Then Barbara told him about the airport she had made a success in California, and then sold it. Now she had a suggestion for something that could help them both.
"Let's you and I do here what I did at Mohave," she said.
"You'd be a real partner, not like your old war buddy was."
Red laughed. "That old beer belly let you do it all, then went to Hawaii! Too bad for him he didn't stay with you in California. I got a letter from another pal who told me Russ was killed in the Japs' raid on Pearl Harbor. He was having a beer in a bar near the naval base when a bomb dropped and the roof caved in on him. But I guess for him, that was how he wished he would go, with a beer can in his hand."
The partnership was sealed with a handshake and the details would be left for later. Barbara rolled her sleeves up again, or would have, but she wearing a short-sleeved blouse.
Barbara took immediate charge of recommissioning the airport for service. One thing she needed most was a few pilots, but men who had a pilot's license for work in private aviation were in short supply since most were in the Air Force. She had a possible answer for that. All it took was a phone call to Bakersfield, California.
"Barbara? Yes, it's Leila. Come to Chicago and fly with you at your new airport? And bring George and his tool box?
Arial, too? Let me ask my man. I mean, tell him!"
Barbara waited on her end of the phone line, but it didn't take more than a few minutes.
"George won't be called into service because of his leg injury, and Ken Knowland's airport has been closed for a year so there's no work for him there. Knowland's in the Air Force now, but not flying. He's teaching flying at one of the colleges."
"Probably too chicken to really get into the war," Barbara ventured before Leila continued.
"I'm waiting on tables at the Jackrabbit Cafe wondering how I can get back flying again. And Arial and her little brother Downwind can play with their toy airplanes in Chicago as well as they can here."
"Downwind?"
"After Downwind Jackson, Smilin' Jack's sidekick in the comic strip. It's our favorite, because it's about flying. We'll be right out there. Hold a cockpit for me!"