It didn’t take her long to catch on, tracing the road from above, holding the nose level by gauging the horizon line and keeping her eye on the key chain. Next he started her on turns, then figure-eights. Each day was a new challenge; each day, another thrill. Ben had never had a female student as quick to learn and as fearless as Pancho, one so eager, one who took so much pleasure out of the act of flying.

When the lesson was over, Ben would take the plane up around 1200 feet and perform aerobatics — wing-overs, loops, barrel rolls, slips, stalls and spins. He wasn’t trying to scare her anymore. He was just having fun. He was also showing her how it felt when an engine stalled out, which happened often in those tiny planes, and what to do when the ship started spinning. One evening, at dusk, they were flying back in after another lesson when, with Ben at the controls, the plane went into a dizzying spin and came down to within fifty feet of the ground before Ben pulled it out and landed. As soon as they stopped taxiing, he jumped out of the cockpit and leaned against the side of the plane. Pancho joined him.

“Well, Ben, I’ve got to the point where nothing worries me anymore,” she said, laughing. “You were pretty low that time but, you know, I’m just so used to these maneuvers that I never get scared.” Ben didn’t say anything, so she looked at him more closely. His breathing was quick and shallow.

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