The young men helped her to refuel her plane, and watched her climb in. Wes Clark looked at his wrist watch and said:
“It’s pretty late in the afternoon to head for Pine Top. I wouldn’t try it for the first time at dusk, if I were you.”
They were right. To explore half-mountainous terrain, by air, in fading light would be foolhardy. Besides, she was growing tired, and there was still the return flight to San Francisco to make.
“All right, I’ll try for Pine Top tomorrow,” she said. She smiled and waved at the five young men.
“Thanks a lot for everything. I hope to see you all again sometime.”
“See you,” they repeated. “Get home safely. Happy landings.”
That night Vicki dreamed of Pine Top and of a dark, fantastic house clinging to a wooded mountainside. Those troubled pictures were the reflection of her worry about Lucy.
Actually, when she was wide awake on Saturday noon, and looking down from the Cessna 150 in the bright sky, Pine Top turned out to be a cheerful place. There wasn’t much of Pine Top, just a few houses clustered together in the refreshing green of forests and hilly grazing lands.
She looked down and circled, losing altitude, searching for an area to land. The one level place she could see was a back road—a wide, empty, dirt road. Vicki came down bumpily, then staked down the plane at the side of the road, and hiked toward the houses.