When Nanci looked out the window of her room at Mrs. Keller’s Place, she could see snowflakes dancing in the yard lights. They weren’t coming down heavily, although she sensed there was a dusting of snow on the ground – the color of the few lights made it a little hard to tell. She could remember back to when she was a kid, when her old neighborhood in a Chicago suburb would sometimes get blasted with snow. She hadn’t seen a great deal of snow since then. Flagstaff was high enough in elevation that it got hit with it every once in a while, but then her winters the last three years had mostly been spent in Phoenix where the use of the word approached blasphemy. She was sure she was going to see more snow than that this winter.

She turned her eyes back to the screen of her laptop, a present from her brother before she’d come to Hickory Run. She’d made it through Black Mesa College on an old desktop he’d rescued from where he worked, and there had been times it had taken his skills as a computer nut to keep it running. Since he knew he wouldn’t be around to tickle the old machine, he figured the next best thing was to give her a high quality laptop to help her with her studies. Although he wasn’t very religious at all, he had a lot of respect for what she was trying to do, and wanted to help in any way he could.

The paper she was working on was going well; only another couple of pages and it would be complete. It would be subject to editing and revision, of course, but she had a couple more days before it was due, and with God’s help she would have it the best she could. Then it would be Christmas break and the end of the semester; time to relax a little. Most of the residents of Mrs. Keller’s place would be taking off for their homes and families, and the place would be quiet.

She was contemplating the annual family Christmas celebration in Flagstaff when she heard a tapping on the bathroom door, since there was no one else who would be knocking there, she called; “Come on in, Sarah!”

The door opened, and Sarah came in; Nanci could see that she’d been crying. “What happened, Sarah?” she asked.

“It’s what’s going to happen,” her friend said sadly. “The missionary society has been allowed to take a group to investigate reopening the missions, and my folks will be going with them. If the group going can work it out, well . . .”

“Your folks will be going back to stay, right?”

“Yeah,” she replied, wiping her eyes. “I just got off the phone with Daddy. He thinks it’s maybe two chances in three that they’re going to be allowed to reopen.”

“And they’ll go,” Nanci nodded. She and Sarah hadn’t discussed the topic very much since Thanksgiving, at least partly because it seemed then like it would be a long shot.

“Yes,” Sarah nodded. “It’s all they’ve wanted for years. They’ll be back there if there’s the slightest chance.” She let out a long sigh and went on, “The only thing that could keep them from it is if they get there and find the conditions are absolutely impossible, and I don’t even know if that would stop them.”

“I don’t know what to say, Sarah, other than the fact that you’ve known it could happen.”

“Knowing it could happen and knowing it will happen are two different things, and right now I’m pretty sure it will happen. They know I don’t want them to go, and I just told them that again, but they say I’m a big girl now and it shouldn’t matter to me. I feel almost like I’ve just been thrown out of their lives.”

“Oh, Sarah, you shouldn’t think that,” Nanci replied supportively, although she privately thought Sarah had every reason under the sun to feel the way she did.

“Why shouldn’t I?” she scowled. “They’re even abandoning me at Christmas so they can go check out their lousy mission.”

“They’re leaving you for Christmas?”

“It was the only time they could get the clearance to go. They’re leaving Saturday, so I can’t even go over to tell them goodbye, at least not before classes get out.”

“Boy, that really stinks.” Nanci had the temptation to use somewhat stronger language, a temptation that only came upon her rarely and was usually easily repelled, but she knew Sarah wouldn’t appreciate it.

“No fooling. Now, I won’t even get to have a last Christmas with them. I really . . . well, I wanted to make it something special since I thought it might be the last time, and now I don’t even get that. Nanci, I don’t want to sit around this place all through the holidays crying my eyes out.”

“I can’t blame you in the slightest. That would really be a bummer for you,” Nanci replied, busily flipping a nickel in her head. At that, she didn’t know why she bothered, since she knew what she was going to say even before she started making the decision. “Hey, I wasn’t looking forward to sitting around this place by myself, either,” she said. “I’ve just been sitting here thinking about hopping in the car Saturday and heading home for Christmas. You could come along with me if you’d like.”

“I thought you were going to be staying here for Christmas, or maybe taking off from here for a few days.”

“I’d been kicking around going up to see my dad. My real dad, that is. It turns out he and Doris decided to go to New Orleans for the holidays, and if you knew my dad you’d realize that Doris really had to work on him to get him to do it. I guess they want to go to some jazz clubs, and every time I think about it, I can’t believe it’s my dad I’m thinking about.”

“That has to be disappointing to you.”

“Oh, not really. He deserves to have a little fun. I may drive up and see them some long weekend or on spring break since it’s only a solid day’s drive up there. But really, we could hop in the car Saturday morning and head for Flagstaff.”

“Nanci, I appreciate your asking, but I wouldn’t want to intrude on your time with your family.”

“No big deal,” Nanci shrugged, knowing that she was offering the right thing, if for no more reason than to keep Sarah from moping around Hickory Run for two weeks, with plenty of reason to be unhappy. “It’s kind of an extended-family thing. There are always extra people around for Christmas who have no other place to go, especially at the Christmas dinner.”

“The last time we talked about it you said it was too long of a drive.”

“It’s a long drive, that’s for sure,” Nanci nodded. “It’ll be two days of real hard driving, even if we only make pit stops for fuel, and since you don’t drive I’ll have to be at the wheel every inch of the way. I was thinking that it wouldn’t be worth the effort for just me, but with the two of us it would be a little different. You could help me stay awake, and maybe chip in on the gas.”

“Nanci, I would . . . could I maybe see the Grand Canyon?”

“Sure, the South Rim is only an hour and a half or so outside of Flag. It would be an easy day trip, and there are some other neat things to see. Some of them I’ve never seen, either. No rafting, though, it’s the wrong season for it.”

“Maybe that’s just as well,” Sarah shook her head. Her tears were rapidly going away. “I, uh, don’t think I’m quite as brave as you are. But it seems like such a long drive for a short stay.”

“It would be better than sitting around here bored to tears,” Nanci rationalized as her cell phone rang. It was no cute ringtone for her, just an annoying electronic bell. Nanci grabbed it off her desk, flipped it open, punched it on, and said, “Hi, it’s me. May the Lord be with you.”

“Wow, that place must really be getting to you,” she heard her sister-in-law Tanisha say.

“It’s pretty intense,” Nanci replied.

“So what’s the weather like?”

“Spitting a little snow.”

“You’re a minister, Nanci. You shouldn’t be using dirty words like that. The only time I want to see it is when we have the skis strapped to the roof of the car. That’s part of why we’re in Phoenix, after all. So I hear from your mother you aren’t planning on coming home for Christmas.”

“I’m reevaluating that a little,” Nanci admitted. “It’s a real stinker of a long drive, so I’d been giving some thought to just staying here, but that may change.”

“Look, Nanci, I’m sitting here in the kitchen having a cup of coffee with Jennifer while we’re waiting on Jon to get through with some running. She was just telling me that if you want to come home, she has to fly a charter to DC on Saturday and will be deadheading back. You’d be welcome to hitch a ride if you want.”

“That would solve half the problem, but there’s still the getting back.”

Nanci could hear a little talking in the background, and then Tanisha came back on the line. “It’s not a problem. She has to fly the reverse charter on New Year’s Eve to pick these people up and bring them back.”

“Can I bring a friend?”

Again there was a little background talk for a moment. “She says it would be fine. It’s only going to be Will and her on that leg anyway. He needs the seat time.”

“OK, just a second.” She put the speaker of the phone on her shoulder and turned to Sarah. “That ought to be a lesson for the both of us,” she grinned. “When the Lord sees a need, He will provide.”

“Huh?”

“It turns out we’re not going to have to drive to Arizona after all.”

“Nanci! It’s good to see you again!” the tall, good-looking and well-dressed woman with exotic dark hair said as she gave Nanci a big hug. “How’s it been going at Hickory Run?”

“Pretty well. They’re keeping us busy.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, this is my suitemate, Sarah Lackamp,” Nanci explained.

“Your sweetie, huh?”

“Yeah, but not quite like it sounds,” Nanci laughed. “Sarah, this is Jennifer Hoffman. She’s the one who offered to fly us to Phoenix. She works with my brother and sister-in-law, but she also owns an air charter outfit on the side.”

“Let’s go out and get loaded,” Jennifer suggested. “They’re still tanking the bird, but Will is keeping an eye on it. I told him if he wants the seat time he gets to do the dirty work. If they’re not done yet it’ll give us a few minutes to talk.”

“It works the same way on the river,” Nanci laughed. “I take it Will is rated now?”

“Working on it,” Jennifer smiled as she led the two out the door and across the ramp to where a white executive jet was waiting. Nanci was carrying a small suitcase, while Sarah had a much larger one. “It is a family business, you know.”

Something didn’t seem right to Nanci, and in a moment she realized what it was. “Hey,” she said, “that’s not Skyhook.”

“No, it’s not,” Jennifer explained. “Skyhook is no more. The engines were starting to get a little high on time, and they don’t give away rebuilds for CJ-610s these days. They’re really getting obsolete and the feds are going to clamp down on excess noise sooner or later, so when some guy offered me two and a half million for it I wasn’t in the mood to walk him.”

“Considering that I seem to recall you only paid a hundred grand for Skyhook, that sounds like a heck of a profit to me.”

“It did to me, too,” Jennifer laughed. “That just about paid for this thing, anyway. It’s a Cessna Citation. It’s a little slower than Skyhook, but a lot cheaper to operate, has better range, and it’s almost twenty years newer, so I made out on the deal that way, too. Besides, I wanted to get away from Lears. I’m a little too associated with them and this lets me be a little more anonymous. We haven’t even gotten around to naming it, and I don’t know if we will. I used to want to call my next jet Hustler, but since it’s slower I didn’t think it fit.”

“It’s amazing,” Sarah almost gasped, her eyes big.

“Well, in some ways I don’t think it’s as nice as Skyhook,” Jennifer shrugged, “but at least I can take this out of the country. I quit trying to do that with Skyhook years ago.”

“I mean that you’d give us a ride on a plane like this,” Sarah managed to say. “I mean, isn’t it awful expensive?”

“It is, but the people who paid us to fly them to Washington would also have to pay us to leave it on the ground there,” Jennifer explained. “It’s cheaper for them to pay us to fly it home for two weeks, and then come get them. Some people really don’t like to fly airlines and have all the hassles that go along with them, and are willing to pay for it. You kids were only a few miles out of the way, so it’s no big deal. This is my main toy, Sarah, but it has to earn its keep, too.”

Sarah was still gaping as they walked up to a tall, lean man wearing blue jeans, a denim jacket with an embroidered western shirt underneath, battered cowboy boots, and a Stetson hat. He was keeping a close eye on the fueling of the plane, but swung around when he saw them approach. “Reverend Chladek,” he drawled as he tipped his fingers to his hat. “Good to see you again.”

“Will, you can call me Nanci, you know,” she said, giving him a hug.

“Fat chance on that,” Jennifer snorted. “I only rarely hear him call me by my first name, and I’m married to him.”

“Maybe it’s ’cause I like callin’ you Miz Hoffman,” he chuckled. “I do like the sound of it, too. An’ Reverend, who’s this young lady you have with you?”

“Oh, this is Sarah Lackamp, Will,” Nanci smiled. “She goes to school with me.”

“Are you a Miz or a Reverend?”

“Oh, just a Miz,” Sarah grinned. “Maybe Reverend someday, but not yet.” Clearly she was taken with this flying cowboy, and Nanci thought it was understandable – she liked Will too. Just like his wife, he was one of a kind, and they were both of a kind she doubted Sarah had ever encountered before. She’d decided to not explain just who owned this airplane, just to see what Sarah would say when and if she figured it out.

“Wal, pleased to meet you, Miz Lackamp,” Will smiled. “They’ll be done fuelin’ this thing in a couple minutes, so you might’s well get on board.”

“Fine with me,” Jennifer said. “It’s a little chilly out here. I may have grown up with this kind of weather, but there’s a reason I like Phoenix.”

Jennifer led the two of them aboard the plane. It was not high enough inside for them to be able to stand up, but it didn’t matter much. After Jennifer helped them stow their luggage, she directed them to the front seats in the passenger cabin, side by side across a narrow aisle. “If you like looking out the window, your view isn’t blocked by the wing as badly here,” she explained. They chatted for a moment or two, then Jennifer went up to the cockpit and got into the right seat.

“Nanci,” Sarah sighed. “This is amazing. When you said we could hitchhike a ride to Phoenix on a plane, I was thinking some little something, not an executive jet, of all things. How do you know these people, anyway?”

“Just friends,” Nanci shrugged. “Jennifer works with my brother and sister-in-law on her day job, and I got to meet her through them. She’s a real interesting person to talk to, and she set my head straight on a few things when I was trying to decide whether to be a minister or not. Will is pretty cool, too. I was at their wedding a few years ago, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a more diverse bunch of people in my life. It was real interesting, out on their ranch about this time of year.”

“Ranch?” Sarah said, wide-eyed.

“Will and his family own a huge cattle ranch way out in the middle of the Nevada desert,” Nanci explained. “Although Will and Jennifer live in Phoenix, they consider the ranch their home. I don’t know if they fly this thing in to the ranch or what. Jennifer told me that she always felt a little iffy flying Skyhook in there.”

“Skyhook? What’s that?”

“Her old Learjet,” Nanci smiled. “I only got to ride on it a couple of times.” She leaned out and raised her voice. “Jennifer, you still only have the three planes, right?”

Jennifer turned to reply, “Yes, if you don’t count the 207 I lease to the missionary group in Bolivia for a dollar a year. I consider it their plane, but it’s in my name as a tax dodge. Will and I have been kicking around the idea of getting something like a 180 to use at the ranch. Hey, while I’m thinking about it, one of the things this bird doesn’t have is the cabin intercom system I used to have on Skyhook, but it’s quiet enough that it doesn’t really need it. If you need something, just yell. If you’re interested, I can put Air Traffic Control on the cabin speakers when we get going.”

“Sure,” Nanci replied. “It’ll help pass the time.”

About that time Will stepped into the cabin, then closed and latched the door. He tossed the big Stetson behind the pilot’s seat and began to strap in. “Might’s well get goin’,” he drawled. “Miz Hoffman, would you like to help me with the startup checklist?”

There wasn’t a terrifically good view into the cockpit, but Nanci and Sarah could see him throwing switches and doing other things they could barely comprehend. After a couple of minutes, there was a low rumble behind them followed by a second one, half a minute later. “Boy, that is a lot quieter,” Nanci commented to her friend. “On Skyhook you could barely hear yourself think on the ground.”

Sarah just sat there wide-eyed at all this. “This is sure better than sitting in my room at Hickory Run,” she shook her head.

“Yeah, that would be a little boring,” Nanci agreed.

Will’s voice came over the cabin speaker. “Bluegrass ground, Citation three Charlie Charlie at TACair, taxi for takeoff.”

“Ah, roger that,” came a reply. “Taxi left for the active, hold short of the runway.”

“Roger that,” Will replied. After a moment, his voice continued, obviously not talking to the ground controller, and in a polished, professional tone, not that of a Nevada cowboy at all. “Ladies, welcome aboard Skyhook Aviation’s executive service from Lexington to Phoenix. Our normal flight time would be about three and a half hours, but we’ve got a little headwind today so it might be closer to four. Please remain seated unless you need to use the rest room at the rear of the plane. Cabin service will be limited today, but we do have a couple thermoses of coffee and some bottles of water if you’re interested.”

In a few minutes they turned onto the runway, and the engine noise increased to where it really wouldn’t have been comfortable to talk in the cabin, but after the nose of the plane pointed skyward the racket moderated appreciably. Sarah’s eyes were out the side window, watching the ground fall away rapidly. The white plane continued to climb, and occasionally there was some conversation with air controllers. “Citation Three Charlie Charlie, contact center,” they heard, and the controller added, “Have a good day.”

A few seconds later Jennifer’s voice came over the speakers. “That’s one thing I actually sort of miss from Skyhook,” she said, perhaps a little wistfully. “It used to be that every smart-mouth controller would sign off by saying, ‘Party hearty, Skyhooker.’ Then after that thing in Biloxi, a lot more of them would say, ‘Thank you, Skyhooker.’ I may miss being Learjet Jenn a little, but I sure don’t miss it much.”

Nanci grinned and glanced over at Sarah, whose jaw had dropped wide open. Her eyes were as big as those of a character in a Japanese cartoon. She was trying to say something, but the words wouldn’t quite come out. She’d finally made the connection, Nanci thought as her friend pointed at the cockpit and stammered, “Th . . . th . . . that’s . . . that’s . . . that’s Jennlynn Swift!”

“She used to be,” Nanci shrugged casually. “She goes by her married name and her real first name, now. Now slow down, take a couple of deep breaths, and try to get your heart rate under control.”

“She . . . she landed that hijacked airliner a few years ago,” Sarah replied incredulously. “Daddy . . . daddy preached a sermon about her. He said that even though she was the nation’s most famous prostitute, she had to have a good side to her or God wouldn’t have put her in the place to do what she did.”

“She was the subject of a lot of sermons, and your father’s has to have been more positive than most. But that’s in the past and she never set out to be the nation’s most famous prostitute in the first place. She hung up the spike heels when she and Will got married.”

Sarah started laughing hysterically, laughing so hard tears started to run down her cheeks. Nanci was tempted to go get her a bottle of water to help settle her down, but reasoned that she might choke on it. “What’s so funny?” she finally asked.

“God works . . .” Sarah shook her head, still laughing and struggling to get the words out. “God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t He? I mean, my folks are crammed into tiny seats on an airliner somewhere after abandoning me at Christmas so they can go risk their lives in a dangerous, filthy hole in Africa, right?”

Nanci was starting to get the picture as Sarah went on, “And I’m flying off to have Christmas with my best friend and her family on a luxury private flight aboard an executive jet owned and flown by Learjet Jenn, of all people. God sure must have a sense of humor, doesn’t He?”

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