ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND: The Untold Story of History’s First Flight. By Richard Kigel. Part 34.

THE SKY WAS ALMOST COMPLETELY DARK. IT WAS PEACEFUL. I SETTLED IN FOR WHAT LOOKED TO BE A QUIET, RESTFUL NIGHT. THEN IT BEGAN. OUT OF NOWHERE, THE ENTIRE SKY LIT UP LIKE IT WAS MIDDAY. SHOOTING STARS BEAMING IN EVERY DIRECTION, FIREBALLS BIG AS MOONS, FLAMING SHOWERS OF LIGHT. THE HEAVENS BECAME A FLASHING EXPLOSION AS FAR AS WE COULD SEE.


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SUMMARY: THE STORY SO FAR…


Josiah, a young slave 12 years of age, lives in a cabin in the slave quarters of a Virginia tobacco plantation with Auntie Bee, Mose, the plantation handyman, two young children, Randall and Emily. He notices Mose leaving the cabin in the middle of the night and follows him to his secret workshop in the woods where Mose is building some sort of strange contraption. Mose tells him it is a machine that will fly him to freedom. Now that he knows Mose’s secret, he stays to help build the flier. After mishaps, false starts and setbacks—the flier tumbles down the mountain and is seriously damaged—they are attacked by snakes—mountain lions lurk all around them—they realize someone has been spying on them and they think their escape plan has been discovered. Finally, their time has come. Now they are in the air, riding on the wings of the wind.


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I had one more question I wished I could ask Mose. When we do decide to land, how can we bring the flier down softly, without crashing?


Mose never told me.


These were important questions. Our survival depended on whether Mose figured out how to deal with them.


Mose was the smartest man I ever knew. He created a miracle. He did something nobody had ever done before. He made a machine that could fly. So far, it was working exactly as he planned it. But it seemed to me that he neglected key parts of the plan, especially the part where flier has to do the one thing every flying machine must be able to do—return safely to land.


I grew alarmed and frightened. We had no good way to come down.


Oh, how I wished Mose was here. He would know what to do. But he wasn’t. So I had to think. Maybe if I tighten the valve on the jar, letting in less fuel to the boiler, the engine would cool and the propeller would slow. We would certainly lose height. I might be able to bring her down that way, as long as we didn’t fall too fast. I didn’t know if I could control the landing, but I couldn’t think of anything else.


That’s when I started looking at the terrain below, seeking safe places to land, a grassy field, a marsh, a river bank, any soft ground. I had to make sure we would not land on sharp craggy rocks or in the middle of a river.


For now, we were flying high and going strong, floating above the trees, as free as the birds soaring around us.


Late that afternoon I noticed we were losing height. The propeller was sluggish. The rods and gears were dragging.


I’d been waiting for this all day. Now I was ready. I grabbed our last fuel jar. With my other hand I pulled the spent jar out of the boiler and threw it away. After a long fall, I heard glass shattering below.


I slid the pig’s artery into the boiler slot and loosened the valve. Immediately, a rush of gas blew into the chamber. The stink was awful.


That did the trick. The engine growled with new fervor. The propeller quickened and purred. Wind gusts swirled around us. We began to climb.


Dusk was coming. We watched the spectacular show of color and light of another gorgeous sunset. With darkness setting in, Auntie Bee’s basket started glowing. Randall opened it and brought out his firefly. We watched the little bugger shining proudly to let us know how happy he was to be with us.


That little creature brought us more comfort, confidence and hope than you can imagine. His glowing light reminded us that Auntie Bee was still here, still with us, smiling on us and caring for us.


The sky was almost completely dark. It was peaceful. I settled in for what looked to be a quiet, restful night.


Then it began. Out of nowhere, the entire sky lit up like midday. Shooting stars beaming in every direction, fireballs big as moons, flaming showers of light and dust as white as snow—the heavens became an explosion of flashing light as far as we could see.