Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/769056
I wasn't a Catholic, but I lit a candle to St. Jude anyway. M ud hut Mfuwe in the Lower Lapunde, 300 miles northeast of Lusaka. Two days by Land Rover; leopards, elephants, and rouge cops in the road; travel by night not advised I flew. There was an airport at Mfuwe, an old military strip built by the Brits during the Rhodesian War. Since there were also very occasional flights to Mozambique and Botswana, it was "Mfuwe International." A lion just broke through a thatched roof some months previous and ate a woman at Mfuwe; a maneless male like the man-eaters Colonel Patterson killed at Tsavo. The lion paraded himself up and down the street in broad daylight, carrying his victim's purse in his bloody maw, but nobody dared shoot him. Bad juju. But I was heading out on safari and needed to get to Mfuwe, even if I did not particularly want to. God is my copilot. Beechcraft King Air 350 idling on the runway at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, Lusaka. With a pressurized cabin and more than a thousand turbocharged horsepower, the King Air would make 300 knots and was fitted out with wood grain and leatherette interior to shame a Coupe de Ville. It has a tolerable safety record, at least in the U.S. But the Zambian Air Force was conducting its monthly maneuvers in their three Russian MIG 21s still fit to fly, and nobody wanted to share airspace with those clowns. So we waited. And waited. Only when the last MIG landed, only when the pilot was out of the aircraft with both boots firmly on the pavement, did we request permission to take off. But the maneuvers had every bush flight in the whole damn country scared to fly, so we had to wait our turn. On the tarmac at Mfuwe, a jukebox was blaring in the tiki-hut terminal and the neon signs advertised Mosi Beer, named for Victoria Falls—Mosi oa Tunya, "the smoke that thunders." There was a bevy of brown girls at the bar. And I was safe on the ground. As safe as a man could be in Mfuwe, anyway. that nose up! Hail Mary, full of grace, San Juan here we come! We cleared the trees somehow, but there was no way we could clear those mountains. We flew the valleys and passes instead, cloud-bound peaks to left and right. Brothers and Sisters, I am here to testify, when we landed in San Juan there were 36 gallons of fuel left, 18 in each tank. Just another day in paradise. I tipped the pilot 50 bucks and hailed a cab. "Llevame a la catedral, por favor." somehow. I was assigned the copilot's seat. God is My Copilot? It was a book and later a movie, and my mantra whenever I fly in a bush plane. But now I was the copilot and was not comforted by the promotion. Taxi downwind to the end of the gravel. Taxi some more, way out onto the grass. Wheel the plane around, lock the brakes, rev the engines till they roar, the airframe shudders, and the prop-wash peels weeds. Down flaps, release the brakes, and roll. Nose up, nose up, get 44 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S