The moonlight, which had been a guide, now played tricks on the earth below. A white haze had moved in from the coast and covered the shore line and the stretches of desert. In the light it was difficult to tell the one from the other. Amelia strained her eyes, looking for telltale signs to help her navigate. Now she caught the light on the rolling breakers, then a black shadow on the scalloped sand, but the short glimpses were not enough for pilotage.
She scanned the instrument panel. Her eyes stopped short at the dials on the lower right. The hand of the oil-temperature gauge pointed beyond the red quadrant. The engine was burning hot. Amelia reduced throttle, then readjusted the propeller at another setting. Neither helped. The Wasp continued to overheat.
She pulled out her flashlight, flicked it on, and checked her maps. According to time and distance, Mazatlán, on the Mexican coast, should be directly below. Gently she applied left stick and rudder, leveled her wings, and headed east. Mexico City should be 600 miles away. She stared directly before her and slightly to the left at her compass: it had rolled into the new heading.
Left and right under her wings the mountains of Central Mexico sloped upward into high tables. She found the towns of Tepic and Guadalajara. She hoped she would not wander from her course: unknown winds had a way of keeping a plane from making its track.
The Vega, cruising at 10,000 feet and at an indicated air speed of 150 mph, sped over the mountains and plains. Amelia caught sight of a railroad below. A railroad? It should not be there. She wondered where she might be.
She had estimated her time of arrival at one o’clock, Mexican time. The chronometer for total elapsed time clicked past the hour for arriving over Mexico City. She looked down, trying to find something on the ground to correspond to the markings on her map. She flicked off the flashlight. She was lost.
As if in insult an insect flew into her left eye. Amelia tried to dislodge it by rubbing the closed eyelid with her finger; the rubbing made the eye sore, and it started to burn and cry. She flickered her eyelid, trying to keep the eye open so that she could see. It was no use. Suddenly she decided to make an emergency landing.
Amelia thought of Wiley Post, who could make a landing easily with one eye. He had learned to get along without depth perception in judging distances and lining up objects on the ground. Would that she had his ability now.
She circled, looking for a likely place; then she spotted what seemed to be a pasture. She swung down low and swept by in quick inspection. Unlike the time in Ireland when Gallagher’s cows fled in all directions at the sound of the plane, now the goats and cattle were placidly indifferent to the roaring plane, and the Irish green grass and shamrock were replaced by cactus and prickly pear.
Amelia fixed her good right eye on a patch of the pasture, swung a wing up in a steep turn, and eased the plane into the final approach. Reducing the throttle, she brought the stick back slowly, held the nose up, and dropped the tail skid then the wheels onto the ground. The plane clattered to a stop.