Chapter 23

For nearly two years Jennifer had made frequent trips between Phoenix and Biloxi, usually in Skyhook, but occasionally in Songbird. The purpose of these trips had always been the same, to see Will and keep some shreds of their marriage alive until the time came when they could be together.

This time was different, mostly because it was the last time she would be making this trip. Though Jennifer might possibly fly a charter into Gulfport-Biloxi Regional at some time in the unforeseeable future, it might not happen, either.

Will had been back to Phoenix a couple of times since the decision to buy the ranch had been made back in September to sign paperwork and work on plans for the ranch and finally, the month before, to be present at the closing. Somewhere in there Jennifer had asked him if he was planning on driving his car to Phoenix from Biloxi when he moved back, but he had said no. “I ain’t sure it would make it all the way anyway,” he explained. “The last year or so it’s always seemed like it was going to fall apart in the next five miles or so. I’ll sell it at Keesler for what I can get out of it, then buy a pickup for the ranch when I get back out here.”

He’d actually bought the pickup on his last trip to Phoenix, the trip where they signed the papers and got the keys to the ranch; it was sitting at the Skyhook Aviation hanger awaiting their return.

Even though they’d been married for almost two years, Will had lived his life in the Air Force like he was a bachelor, the same way he had lived for the rest of his service. Since he was living alone in a room in the BEQ, he hadn’t accumulated much, just clothes and odds and ends, which included a couple of saddles and some tack that didn’t even make a start at filling Skyhook. “Seems sort of strange to be using it as a moving van,” he said as they loaded everything aboard the Learjet.

“It will be the last time it’s going to be this easy,” she warned him. “But with any kind of luck, it’ll be the last time it’s needed.”

“I surely hope you’re right,” he agreed. “All in all, this ain’t been a bad place to be stationed. I’ve been at a lot worse. But not havin’ you with me means that it ain’t been a good place, either.”

“I’m just glad to have it over with,” she replied. “You were the only thing here that really interested me, and I’d have been just as happy to never see the place again after I landed the Airbus here that time. That changed my life more than I wanted it changed, and you were the only good thing that came out of it. Is that everything?”

“Yeah, that’s it. I need to say goodbye and slip a few bucks to the guy who helped me haul it out here, but then let’s get buttoned up and get in the air.”

A few minutes later they were climbing for altitude and heading toward Phoenix; she let Will fly it to gain more experience with it, as she often did. “You know, I can’t believe this is happening,” she said as she sat back and watched him. “I figured the Air Force would throw a monkey wrench in the works at the last minute.”

“I was a little worried about that myself,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t have mattered much in the long run since I’ve only got about two and a half months left on my enlistment, and if they’d tried to change things at the last minute I’d have just let it run out.”

“So have you made up your mind whether to re-enlist?”

“I haven’t yet but I’ve been thinkin’ about it. They’ve offered me a pretty good bonus for me to do it, but I don’t know that I ought to. They’re talkin’ six years. While I’m pretty sure I ought to be at Luke for three of them so long as I don’t get shipped off for temporary duty somewhere, it’d just about take an act of congress to keep them from sending me overseas when I’m done at Luke. So whatever I do it’s not going to be for more than three years.”

“That could louse things up royally,” she agreed. “But then, if you let it run out, it would louse up getting your twenty in.”

“There is that, and I’m not sure how much it means to me anymore since I won’t be needin’ the retirement money to live up at the ranch in Nevada. Honestly, Miz Hoffman, I’m of two minds about whether I should re-enlist for three. I suppose I could let this enlistment or the next one run out, and then finish out my term in the reserves, but I sort of feel that when I’ve started something I ought to finish it. Besides, I can put most of that money toward payin’ off the shares on the folk’s ranch, which I still have to do.”

“Well, you’ve still got a little time to make up your mind.”

“I’ll work out somethin’. I’m lookin’ forward to working with the horses on our ranch, but it’s gonna take a while to get goin’, so I guess I wouldn’t mind havin’ somethin’ else to do, too. Like I said, a lot is gonna depend on what they’re really gonna have me doin’ at Luke. I don’t have to report in until the first of next week, so I suppose I’ll find out what I’m gonna be doin’ then. That gives us a week to get settled into the ranch.”

“I’ve got things pretty well ready to go out there,” she reported. “I had my stuff moved out there early this week, not that I had much more to move than you did, so I’ve been staying there. After so long in the condo it seems strange, but I think it’ll be better with you there.”

“How about the bunkhouse? How’s that coming?”

“I’ve been mostly letting Norma deal with that, although I donated most of the furniture I had in my condo. We’re pretty close to having that ready to go. She’s still looking for someone to be a housemother, but we think we know somebody when the time comes. It looks like Liz Wardell is going to move down to Phoenix and get a job in an emergency room here. We offered free room and board to her if she wanted to stay out back, but her hours would be weird enough that she really wouldn’t work as a housemother.”

“So you’re close to getting started.”

“Close, but not quite there yet. We’re still trying to get some paperwork taken care of so we can bring in girls under eighteen, and we really can’t do that until we have the staffing issue taken care of. We’re not ready to do actual interventions yet, and that’s a whole different problem, but Norma tells me that we’ll start getting referrals as soon as she notifies the agencies concerned that we’re ready for them.”

“So it’s gettin’ close to bein’ a reality.”

“Yes, it is. We want to start off a little slowly so we know what we’re doing, but in a year or so we ought to be fairly busy. I’m probably not going to have a lot to do with it, other than to be a public face for Hearts of Gold if need be. I’ll do that as Learjet Jenn, not as Jennifer Hoffman. Really, it’s Norma’s idea and her project, and I’m just doing what I can to make it a reality for her. It’s something that needed to be done, and if I had any question about that, our experience with Robin proved it.”

The flight back to Phoenix was just as long as ever, although this time it seemed shorter. Still, it was late in the day when they pulled up to the Skyhook Aviation hangar and unloaded Will’s belongings into his pickup, which was not very new but was in good shape.

An hour later they pulled into the ranch. “Does it feel like you’re coming home, Will?” she asked as they pulled to a stop behind the house.

“I expect it may take me a while to feel like it, Miz Hoffman,” he replied. “But so long as you’re here, that makes it home.”

They each carried a load as they went inside. By now the new furniture she’d bought had long been put in place, and the interior decorator had gotten the place to looking suitably Western, with comfortable peeled-log furniture, ranch décor and a couple of prints of Charlie Russell paintings. “You know,” Will said as he looked around – he hadn’t seen it done before – “this is sort of what I’d hoped our house up at the ranch would have looked like, if we’d had to build the house up there.”

“We’re still lacking a few things, like horses,” she laughed. “I had a chance to buy a couple last week, but I decided I didn’t know enough about them to tell whether they were any good or not. That’s your department, Will.”

“Well, maybe we could go look at them tomorrow, anyway. I’m plannin’ on bringin’ down a couple of horses from the ranch up north just to get some horseflesh around the place.”

“If you’re thinking about bringing Mudfoot down here you’d better plan on bringing Robin along with her.”

“We don’t have to be in any big rush on that,” he smiled. “I’d just as soon we have a few days here by ourselves before we bring a teenager into the house. We’ve got some things for the two of us to do together, and there’s going to be other stuff to do anyway.”

There was actually quite a bit to do the next few days. They went over to look at the horses that Jennifer had been offered, and wound up buying them even though Will said they were no great shakes. They would make good easy riding horses, and it gave the place some validity as a horse ranch. Besides, a little negotiation brought a horse trailer along with the deal, one of those things they were going to need.

The horses were in fact easy riding, so the two of them went out on them around the property and on a couple of nearby back roads just to get a little more familiar with the area, but that was for pleasure when they had time for it.

When the first of the following week rolled around Will had to report in to Luke. That evening he told Jennifer that he wasn’t going to be doing what he had been doing at Keesler, but would be doing some other administration, which seemed like something he wouldn’t have any problem with. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to be bad duty,” he told her. “Of course, we’ll have to see how it works out over the next few days.”

As Christmas approached Will had settled into his new job and had few objections. Things came to a halt around the base for the holidays, and so Will took a little more leave and they took the time to make a quick run up to the ranch.

This time it was a little different than past trips; Will wound up driving the pickup towing the horse trailer. Jennifer left several hours later in Magic Carpet and still managed to beat him to the ranch. He left the truck there, and they made a short hop together over to the cabin, where they had their Christmas holiday for the fourth year in a row. Christmas at the cabin was becoming a firmly established tradition with them, one they hoped to continue for many years to come.

The next morning they flew back over to the main ranch, had Christmas dinner with the family, which included Robin; late in the afternoon they flew back to the cabin for a final night there before heading back.

In the morning they flew back to the main ranch again, where they loaded up Mudfoot and another horse in the trailer. Robin decided to ride along with Will to keep him company and help him with the horses while Jennifer flew back alone. As it turned out, not surprisingly, she beat them back by several hours. The horses seemed satisfied with their new home, and Robin was thrilled to see hers.

After the first of the year Robin started in at the local high school. It had been a while since she had been in school and it took her a little while to get used to the routine again, but she soon settled in. She had plenty to do at the ranch, mostly caring for the horses, but it proved that she was a good cook, better than either Jennifer or Will, and she was a big help with the housekeeping, as well. She was being well paid to do all that, and she was banking money with the idea of going to college at some point in the future.

Also with the first of the year came the first Hearts of Gold residents in the bunkhouse, both of them referrals from an agency Norma had been working with in Phoenix. They were still in need of a housemother, but between Norma and Liz they managed to get things going. Norma’s original contention that the primary thing that was needed was to get the girls away from the life and the pimps and the drugs still held true, and while Jennifer didn’t keep close tabs on things they seemed to be going well so far.

By the time it got into late January the question of whether Will was going to re-enlist came to the foreground. “Will, it has to be your decision,” Jennifer told him. “I’ll back you either way, but I don’t want to make the decision for you.”

One day at the end of the month Will came home from the Air Force base in good spirits. “I knew there was a good reason to hold off on re-enlisting,” he reported. “They’re having real retention problems with all the troubles in the Persian Gulf, so today they offered me the bonus they had been offering me for six years if I’ll sign up for three.”

“That sounds like a good deal,” she replied.

“I think so too,” he said. “Anyway, I told them that I’d have to run it by you, but I think I might as well take them up on it. In three years we’re going to have the same old deal in that they’re probably going to want to ship me overseas again, and it’ll be even harder to avoid it. But this way I’ll still have the veto power of not re-enlisting at all.”

“Like I said, it’s your choice. It’s not something you have to do, but if you want to do it you might as well. I’m just worried that they’ll send you to the sandbox on temporary duty or something.”

“It’s not going to happen, at least with the job I have now,” he told her.

“Then do what you want to do,” she said.

The next morning he went in and signed the papers. When he got done with this enlistment he’d still have five years to go to get in his twenty years for retirement, and it was still an open question if he’d do it when the time came or just call it good enough. He could answer that question when the time came.

Jennifer was still working at Lambdatron, of course, although she wasn’t in the office as much and did a lot of her work from the office she’d set up in one of the rooms in the main house at the ranch. However, she was at her Lambdatron office one day in the middle of February when she got a call from Brenda. “They’re going to be running the new story on WNN Newsmagazine in a few days,” she reported. “I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”

“So how does it look?”

“I think it looks pretty good and accomplished what we set out to accomplish. The people upstairs haven’t messed with it very much, either.”

“Good. I’ll be looking forward to seeing it.”

At first, Jennifer thought that she, Will, and Robin would just gather in the living room, perhaps with Norma, to watch the broadcast. As she thought about it she realized it was too good of an excuse to miss for an open house at the main house, which they had talked about but had never gotten around to doing.

Then it started growing almost uncontrollably. Jennifer thought that Jon, Tanisha, and Nanci would be interested in being there; they had seen the ranch before she and Will had moved in, but hadn’t seen it in operation. Once they agreed to come, they agreed that Stan and his wife ought to be invited. Of course, Mike and Nancy Hanneman from Skyhook Aviation couldn’t be left out, and with them Joe Brockway and his wife had to be invited.

Then, Norma thought that it would be good if some of the people they worked with ought to be there, and that could include something of an open house for the bunkhouse, and that the current residents of the bunkhouse ought to be there, too. Within a couple of days Jennifer found herself calling in a caterer on short notice; it was clearly turning into quite the social occasion. As a result there was a crowd in the main house well before the documentary was schedule to be aired. Jennifer knew some of the people there very well.

It was the first time that Nanci and Norma had met for a while, and Jennifer was nearby when she heard them talking. “So how is school going?” Norma asked.

“Not badly, although I’m looking forward to having it over with and doing the next thing,” Nanci replied.

“Well, there might be an opening for you with Hearts of Gold,” Norma said hopefully. “We still need a housemother here for the residential facility, and I think you would do well in the position.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to do it,” Nanci told her. “As soon as I graduate in a little more than a couple months I’m going to be back in the Grand Canyon again for the summer, and then I’m going to be starting seminary in Kentucky in September.”

“So you made up your mind that you want to be a minister, then?”

“Yes I did, and it wasn’t an easy decision to make. Norma, I’m sorry I’m not going to be much help with Hearts of Gold, but I feel that I have other things I have to do. God helped me get out of the rathole I was stuck in, and I think it was for a purpose. But my best wishes and my prayers will be with you every step of the way.”

“You have to do what you have to do,” Norma said, clearly disappointed that she’d been unable to talk Nanci into being a housemother. “But you’re a good example of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that’s to teach girls who were in the position you were in that they don’t have to be there, and that there are better things they can do with their lives.”

Although they were recording the documentary, they turned on the television in the living room of the main house in order to watch it real time. People who had been standing around talking or working on the munchies found places to stand or sit, and the room was relatively silent as Brenda’s face came onto the screen.

“A little over two years ago,” Brenda said into the camera, “we were privileged to do a story titled The Fast World of Learjet Jenn. The story was about the woman who landed a Southern Airlines airliner at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi after it had been hijacked by Muslim terrorists and then been retaken by the passengers. After that incident, it was revealed that Jennlynn Swift was not only an exceptionally skilled pilot who owns her own charter company, who works at her main job in high-tech engineering, but was also someone who moonlighted as a licensed legal prostitute at the Redlite Ranch in Nevada. That set off a firestorm, and she agreed to that interview to set the record straight about a few things in the life of the extraordinary woman known as Learjet Jenn.

“Recently, we decided that we should revisit the world of prostitution and try to take a wider view of the subject, rather than just one woman’s perspective of it. We quickly realized that we could have no better guide on the subject than Learjet Jenn herself.”

The camera pulled back, to where the audience could see Jennlynn – as she was for these few moments – sitting next to Brenda on the sound stage in New York months before. “Jennlynn,” Brenda asked, “what made you decide to work with us on this?”

“While I appreciated the chance to state my position on Fast World,” Jennlynn replied, “I thought it was a rather narrow view of something that takes many different forms, so once again, I’m willing to help set the record straight. I had a good experience in the business and it worked well for me. I know other girls who have been in other parts of the business, and have also had it work well for them. But at the same time, there are many other women for whom sex work has been a disaster, and I know some of them, too. Some of them managed to pull out of it. Others haven’t. It’s a life where there often isn’t much sweetness and light.”

The program continued, with brief interviews with several girls, along with footage that said something about the lives that they led. The interview with Robin, who had essentially been abducted to be a teenage prostitute, was especially heart-rending. “I finally got lucky and found some people who helped me get away from all that,” she told Brenda in the interview that had been filmed months before in Las Vegas. “If they hadn’t found me, I’d probably be dead now. As it is, I now have a future I didn’t dare dream of.”

Finally the program came to an end; Will got up and shut the television off. “That certainly paints a different picture than we had from Fast World,” Stan said into the silence.

“That’s pretty much what I was hoping for,” Jennifer said. “There are people in this room who can tell you just how skewed the viewpoint of Fast World was, and I wanted to set the record straight.”

“You were Learjet Jenn for a long time,” Nancy Hanneman said. “Don’t you miss it in a way?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve moved on to other things in my life, and Will and this ranch are among them. I never really was Learjet Jenn except for a few days a month, but I finally realized that she wasn’t who I am. I’m still going to have to be Learjet Jenn once in a while for things like that program, but I don’t want to have to go back to those days. I just hope that things like this program will allow me to repair some of the damage I may have done along the way. That’s why I agreed to do it, and why I’m working with Norma on Hearts of Gold. I’m probably going to have to be seen in public as Learjet Jenn in the future to continue to get the message out, but as soon as the cameras are off I’m just going to be Jennifer Hoffman.”

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