My back ached, everything ached – my shoulders, my arms and legs – and my eyelids weighed a ton.
I felt them begin to close and reached for the coffee Thermos.
It was empty.
I looked at my watch. Twelve hours since I had left Roosevelt Field.
I stuck my hand into my pocket and took out the box of pills Morrissey had given me. I put one in my mouth and swallowed it.
For a few minutes, I felt nothing, then I began to feel better. I took a deep breath and scanned the horizon.
The way I figured, I shouldn't be too far from the Rockies. Twenty-five minutes later, they came into view.
I checked the fuel gauge. It held steady on one quarter. I had opened the reserve tanks.
The fringe of the storm I’d passed through in the Midwest had cost me more than an hour's supply of gasoline and I'd need a break from the wind to get through.
I turned the throttle and listened to the engines.
Their roar sounded full and heavy as the richer mixture poured into their veins.
I leaned back on the stick and began to climb toward the mountains.
I still felt a little tired so I popped another pill into my mouth.
At twelve thousand feet, I began to feel chilly.
I slipped the huarachos back on my feet and reached for the oxygen tube.
Almost immediately, I felt as if the plane had just jumped three thousand feet I looked at the altimeter.
It read only twelve four hundred.
I sucked again on the tube.
A burst of power came roaring through my body and I placed my hands on the dashboard.
To hell with the gasoline! I could lift this baby over the Rockies with my bare hands.
It was only a question of will power.
Like the fakirs in India said when they confounded you with their tricks of levitation – it was only a question of mind over matter. It was all in the mind.
Rina! I almost shouted aloud. I stared at the altimeter.
The needle had dropped to ninety-five hundred feet and was still dropping.
I stared over the plane at the mountain creeping up at me. I put my hand on the stick and pulled back.
It seemed like forever until the mountain began to fall beneath me again.
I lifted my hands to wipe the sweat from my brow. My cheeks were wet with tears.
The strange feeling of power was gone now and my head began to ache.
Morrissey had warned me about the pills and the oxygen had helped a little, too.
I touched the throttle and carefully regulated the mixture as it went into the motors.
I still had almost four hundred miles to go and I didn't want to run out of gas.
6.
I put down at Burbank at two o'clock. I had been in the air almost fifteen hours.
I taxied over to the Cord Aircraft hangars, cut the engines and began to climb down.
The engines were still roaring in my ears.
I stepped to the ground and a mob surrounded me.
I recognized some of them, reporters.
"I'm sorry, men," I said, pushing my way through them toward the hangar. "I’m still motor deaf. I can't hear what you're saying."
Buzz was there, too, a big grin on his face.
He grabbed my hand and pumped it.
His lips were moving but I missed the first part of what he said, then suddenly my hearing was back.
"… set a new east-to-west coast-to-coast record."
Right now that didn't matter.
"Do you have a car waiting for me?" "Over at the front gate," Buzz said.
One of the reporters pushed forward.
"Mr. Cord," he shouted at me. "Is it true you made this flight to see Rina Marlowe before she dies?"
He needed a bath after the look I gave him. I didn't answer.
"Is it true that you bought out Norman Pictures just to get control of her contract?"
I made it into the limousine but they were still popping questions at me.
The car began to roll.