He’d passed the requirements and medical exams and set off for training. The sticky summer—one of the hottest on record—found him in the swamps of Georgia. Sweating on grids of wood constructed many stories high as they conditioned their bodies into lean perfection. Marched endless miles in the large leather boots specially constructed to strengthen ankles as they landed. They jumped from ten feet, a hundred feet, two hundred feet in succession as they became accustomed to the kind of bounce unique to jumping out of an airplane. They entered wind tunnels designed to blow against their parachutes so they could learn how to maneuver with them on the ground.

They bore the monotony of being instructed on how to fold their parachutes. Bit by bit. With meticulous precision. All the while being told that “on your parachute hangs your life.” It felt like a threat, though they knew it to be a warning. They coiled the cords until their vision turned dizzy from spiral upon spiral. Even in their sleep, they folded, coiled, jumped. Repeat.

The first time Tom jumped from an airplane, William and John were right behind him. On that occasion, they’d agreed that among the three of them, the one who landed farthest from the target had to buy the others a round of beer later that night. Or whenever the next opportunity presented itself. The precursor to their competitive arm wrestling.

Men, Tom discovered, were at their best when they had something to prove. Even in the company of friends.

The whir of the plane’s propellers made it nearly impossible to hear each other talk, but Tom knew there were no finer two men than the ones on the line behind him.

He jumped. At first, the fall through the wind sounded like thunder. The skin of his cheeks flapped with the fluidity of a flag, and the scant contents of his stomach threatened to resurrect themselves. But at the right altitude, he pulled the cord of his parachute—desperately praying that it would work. And in a second, he was being pulled up higher and higher into the sky before the parachute found its place and he began the gentle glide to the ground.

From the air, he could see green farmland. Jagged ridges of scattered hills. The people waiting below who looked like colonies of ants. And as he descended, all of it grew closer to their proper proportions. He yanked the cords to manipulate his position in the air and landed—thunk—within the wide circle of the landing target. The velocity of the action tried to pull him off his feet, but he’d done well in the rehearsals and managed to steady himself.

He gathered the vast white canvas in his arms and looked up. John had jumped behind him and was nearing the landing zone as well.