"I've wondered how anyone could bear up under such a terrible thing," Barbara said. "Even a brave man like Charles Lindbergh."
"We can bear more than we think we an," Edna said with a patient smile.
After a while, Buck told Barbara he had a "Notion." "Tell you what. You can ride our sorrel mare, Becky, for free. If you promise when you're set up and able at your airport, you'll take Mother and me up for a loop-de-loop."
So he did hear and understand, Barbara realized, when she had talked about the airport.
"Oh, heavens no!" Edna protested to her husband. "You can go up in one of those itty-bitty airplanes, if you want. But I'd be afraid it'd feel like I was sitting in my kitchen chair, dragging my hind end across the sky!"
Barbara told Buck it was a deal. Within ten minutes she was riding a beautiful and gentle sorrel mare up a mountain path. It led just past the ranch where the late afternoon sun was diffused by the tall pines and the air was a bit cooler and fresher.
Trotting Becky up an incline, she forgot all about the airport and the hard work she had ahead of her to make it a success. She had always felt she belonged somewhere, when her mother had moved them from apartment to apartment in Chicago and from neighborhood to neighborhood. An empty new apartment suddenly had the feeling she was going to live there, and be comfortable.
The same feeling came over her as she rode into the Tehachapi mountains that hot February afternoon, realizing that back home in Chicago it was probably below zero and snowing. But there was nothing now to chill her. She had escaped Chet Armstrong and put days and miles between herself and the desire for Paul that she fought against but from which she was unable to free herself.
Even the thought of turning a ghost airport into a going business did not give her a chill. She felt invigorated by the challenge ahead of her. She didn't even need reminding herself of Dale Carnegie's success theories. Over the years, she had developed her own. It was keep trying and never give up. That much she had inherited from her foster mother, no matter who her real mother had been.
It felt good to be riding again; very, very good. She promised herself that from now on, no matter where the future might take her or what she would be doing, she would never be far or long away from what seemed not only to sustain but revitalize her; that gave her new confidence and hope.