The Glass Lady by Douglas Savage Read Free Book Online

sharp.” William Parker carefully loosened the alignment screws at each of the sextant’s two mirrors before he carefully laid the instrument inside an elegantly waxed walnut box. He poured the motor oil from the plate into a plastic bottle.
    Before he took a step, the tall colonel rubbed his right leg below the knee as if to work out a stiffness from sitting in the chilly sand.
    â€œThe old masters used to practice their sextant with a bowl of molasses for a horizon when they were ashore and away from the sea horizon.”
    Colonel Parker studied Enright’s designer jeans, his Irish sweater, and his white Topsiders. “Country club closed today, Jack?” the taller man grinned.
    â€œNope. Thought I’d take you up on your invitation to see the old homestead after all this time.”
    Enright looked uncomfortable at his breach of the Colonel’s zealously guarded privacy.
    â€œYou betcha, Jack,” Parker beamed.
    Relief filled Enright’s clean, lean face.
    â€œGreat, Skipper.”
    â€œCome on up to the ranch, Jack. Pleased to have your company,” the long flier smiled warmly.
    Jacob Enright was pleased that finally he had chosen to visit his captain’s beachfront home, although the two men should have had their fill of each other that morning. Two hours earlier, they had shot six hours of ascent aborts in the simulator.
    You can train with a man, fly with him, sweat and swear with him over flightplans and checklists, and urinate into a plastic bag at his side in the cockpit. But you do not truly know your partner until you have stood in his home and have seen his toys.
    Colonel Parker was an odd mixture of visual impressions. Standing, he was long and leggy. Although his short, graying hair ending at a farmer-red neck betrayed the wear of middle age, his lined face radiated the tightness of a four-stripe airman. Beneath his one long eyebrow which crossed the bridge of his angular nose, clear gray eyes twinkled at the world which he had fashioned carefully from his life. Fine lines creased from the corners of his eyes toward his too-large ears. These were perfect pilot’s eyes: bright and clear and firmly anchored to the creases around them, borne of uncountable airman’s sunrises at the top of the world. The firm leanness of his body and his long, veinous arms were ever covered by a baggy wardrobe of casual clothes and sweat-bleached flightsuits. His clothes hung loosely rumpled upon his spartan frame. He had the look of a man who wears his father’s clothes.
    At ease, the Colonel looked like a tall, almost gaunt man, who would most likely trip if he took a step. But he moved like a dancer with the agile grace and order of slowly flowing water. To watch his long and elegant stride was to watch a body moving onward to a place he longed to be.
    Jacob Enright enjoyed watching his captain walk along the beach. The second in command took pleasure and comfort from the measured determination with which William McKinley Parker walked, flew, and steered his life. But Enright noticed the Colonel favoring his right leg as he walked.
    â€œToo much handball for an old boy,” Enright thought.
    Genuine anticipation warmed Enright as he followed the Colonel toward the wooden back porch. The shorter pilot had often wondered what Parker’s home would say of its owner. He had speculated whether he would find chrome-and-glass furnishings poised lightly upon thick carpet, or a dirt floor with a black kettle suspended above a firepit. For inside the slow-speaking colonel, whose twangy voice revealed his boyhood in the hollows of Kentucky, there lived both a brilliant electrical engineer and an honest-to-God, mud-on-his-spurs cowboy.
    When the lights in the ceiling worked with the sunshine raining through the windows to reveal the room where he stood, Jack Enright was amazed. The Colonel’s home was perfectly ordinary: well-worn furnishings, a few low bookcases, a stereo,