Read Online The Cannibal Queen by Stephen Coonts - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Coonts
Tags: Retail
Ads: Link
works of art, doesn’t that matter? What about all the men and women who strapped themselves into the cockpit and there tried to master the secrets of flight, to fulfill this species’ deepest yearnings? Surely all those hopes and dreams are somehow embodied in this inanimate thing. Surely.
David and I really didn’t need to stop at St. Elmo, Alabama, a little one-runway paved strip just south of Mobile. Perhaps it was the stench that infuriated David as we flew past the refineries at Pascagoula, Mississippi, or perhaps all the coffee I drank earlier that morning, but I didn’t think I could hold out another twenty minutes.
We swooped in to St. Elmo and taxied to the fuel pump; then I abandoned the plane in an undignified dash for the restroom. When I returned the plane was surrounded by a half dozen men and the girl from the desk. She helped David and me fuel while the men admired the plane.
They helped us push the Queen away from the pump, and with much waving David and I departed. We flew across Mobile Bay and alighted in Fairhope, Alabama. There we used the phone and called William E. Butterworth—Bill—who is better known under his nom de plume of W. E. B. Griffin as the author of the Brotherhood of War and The Corps series published by Putnam.
Bill answered the phone and readily accepted my invitation to go for a ride in the Stearman. But first he wanted to buy us lunch, which he did at the country club associated with the Marriott resort in which he lives at Clear Point.
Bill is in his early sixties and has made his living for almost forty years as a writer. He is the author of over 140 books written under fourteen pen names, adopted, according to his wife, because the libraries would only buy one William E. Butterworth book a year.
At lunch he tells us anecdotes of his early writing days and his latest trip to New York for the big thumb-your-nose-at-the-rest-of-the-publishing-world party that Phyllis Grann, Putnam’s president and CEO, threw for her best-selling scribblers. He and Tom Clancy had lunch with Robert Gottlieb, who is also my agent, and Bill tells me about that. All in all, he concludes, he had a great time and he’s glad he went.
Then he launches into a discussion of his upcoming duck-hunting expedition to Uruguay. “It’s one of the few places left in the world,” he says, “that doesn’t have signs saying ‘Welcome American Tourists’ and ‘Thank You for Not Smoking.’ ”
Back at the Butterworth home after lunch, Mrs. Butterworth, who has the flu, presents David with three of Bill’s books and one of her own, for she is a writer too and a recognized expert on calligraphy.
A pilot who hasn’t flown in years, Bill has trouble maintaining altitude in the Stearman. He persists in placing the nose too low even though I am coaching him on the intercom, which is truly lousy. Electronic wizardry is not yet up to the challenge of making a decent intercom for an open-cockpit aircraft. This is Bill’s first ride in one and the newness of the sensations overrides his rusty piloting instincts. Finally I take the controls and do pirouettes a thousand feet above his house, then take him sightseeing along the east side of the bay.
Bill Butterworth is the writer so many of us aspire to be, a man who earned a living doing what he wanted to do. He is an original character, opinionated, self-confident, sure of himself. I bid him good-bye wondering if I have enough of that fire to sustain a career. Oh well, time will tell.
Flying on to Pensacola, Dave and I find the clouds are getting lower and the visibility deteriorating, a typical summer afternoon on the gulf coast. In these climes mornings are the time to fly, the earlier the better.
We cross directly over Saufley Field, the field where I learned to fly, and I point it out to David. The airplanes are all gone now, moved to the main Naval Air Station—“mainside”—and the old runways have been crisscrossed by new ones, so almost the
David and I really didn’t need to stop at St. Elmo, Alabama, a little one-runway paved strip just south of Mobile. Perhaps it was the stench that infuriated David as we flew past the refineries at Pascagoula, Mississippi, or perhaps all the coffee I drank earlier that morning, but I didn’t think I could hold out another twenty minutes.
We swooped in to St. Elmo and taxied to the fuel pump; then I abandoned the plane in an undignified dash for the restroom. When I returned the plane was surrounded by a half dozen men and the girl from the desk. She helped David and me fuel while the men admired the plane.
They helped us push the Queen away from the pump, and with much waving David and I departed. We flew across Mobile Bay and alighted in Fairhope, Alabama. There we used the phone and called William E. Butterworth—Bill—who is better known under his nom de plume of W. E. B. Griffin as the author of the Brotherhood of War and The Corps series published by Putnam.
Bill answered the phone and readily accepted my invitation to go for a ride in the Stearman. But first he wanted to buy us lunch, which he did at the country club associated with the Marriott resort in which he lives at Clear Point.
Bill is in his early sixties and has made his living for almost forty years as a writer. He is the author of over 140 books written under fourteen pen names, adopted, according to his wife, because the libraries would only buy one William E. Butterworth book a year.
At lunch he tells us anecdotes of his early writing days and his latest trip to New York for the big thumb-your-nose-at-the-rest-of-the-publishing-world party that Phyllis Grann, Putnam’s president and CEO, threw for her best-selling scribblers. He and Tom Clancy had lunch with Robert Gottlieb, who is also my agent, and Bill tells me about that. All in all, he concludes, he had a great time and he’s glad he went.
Then he launches into a discussion of his upcoming duck-hunting expedition to Uruguay. “It’s one of the few places left in the world,” he says, “that doesn’t have signs saying ‘Welcome American Tourists’ and ‘Thank You for Not Smoking.’ ”
Back at the Butterworth home after lunch, Mrs. Butterworth, who has the flu, presents David with three of Bill’s books and one of her own, for she is a writer too and a recognized expert on calligraphy.
A pilot who hasn’t flown in years, Bill has trouble maintaining altitude in the Stearman. He persists in placing the nose too low even though I am coaching him on the intercom, which is truly lousy. Electronic wizardry is not yet up to the challenge of making a decent intercom for an open-cockpit aircraft. This is Bill’s first ride in one and the newness of the sensations overrides his rusty piloting instincts. Finally I take the controls and do pirouettes a thousand feet above his house, then take him sightseeing along the east side of the bay.
Bill Butterworth is the writer so many of us aspire to be, a man who earned a living doing what he wanted to do. He is an original character, opinionated, self-confident, sure of himself. I bid him good-bye wondering if I have enough of that fire to sustain a career. Oh well, time will tell.
Flying on to Pensacola, Dave and I find the clouds are getting lower and the visibility deteriorating, a typical summer afternoon on the gulf coast. In these climes mornings are the time to fly, the earlier the better.
We cross directly over Saufley Field, the field where I learned to fly, and I point it out to David. The airplanes are all gone now, moved to the main Naval Air Station—“mainside”—and the old runways have been crisscrossed by new ones, so almost the
Similar Books
