Fine, said Morrow. But if he comes back empty-handed, I’m going to put on a flight suit myself and join him.

On the morning of the fourth day, a noise came from the southeast. For some reason Irene heard it first. She told Sam to wake up, somebody was coming, an airplane was coming. Sam crawled to the emergency kit for the flare gun and went outside. In his fatigue and dehydration, he nearly misfired it. Then it went off and sent an arc of red smoke through the air. The noise shifted a moment later.

“I think he’s seen us,” Sam said. By now, his voice was like the rasp of a saw. Irene couldn’t really speak at all. As she listened, she perceived that this airplane had a single engine, and that it was not in the best of condition. A moment later, the ship came into view through the open hatch, flashing in the sun. Irene watched it approach them in an acute descent. Whoever he was, he was a good pilot who understood the exact limit of the airplane’s capabilities. She thought all this without emotion, without any joy, because joy was now impossible. The ship landed two hundred yards away in a roar of propeller blades, a plume of fine desert sand. Seconds later, the hatch opened, and a man jumped to the ground, followed by another man.

At first, Irene couldn’t see their faces, because the morning sun struck fiercely on the fuselage and cast halos around them. They were both running. In seconds the halos faded and Irene, struggling upright, could at last see their faces.

The first man was her husband, George Morrow.

The second was Raoul Velázquez.

Hanalei, Hawai’i

November 1947

By the time we return to Hanalei, dawn is breaking to the east behind a bank of gathering clouds, and the wind is picking up. I seem to have forgotten my fear of flying, or maybe I no longer care what happens to me. The bumps and jerks of the airplane induce no more panic than the twists of a roller coaster. Instead I stare out the window at the clouds around me, the wondrous, monstrous three dimensions of them, the delicate pattern of wave meeting shore, the infinite beauty of the earth, and I begin to see why man must fly.

We drive back silently to Coolibah down the empty road. When we reach the driveway, Lindquist stops the car and reaches into the back for the cardboard box she was carrying earlier.

“This is for you,” she says.

I peek inside and close the lid swiftly. “Thank God. I thought it was the cat.”