Eyston's Dancing Daughters

Deck

CHAPTER ONE

THE GREAT SALT FLATS, 1934

The world is about to explode, but today, like every other day, the soft blush of the gloaming gives a feeling that all is well. The sun will rise tomorrow and the birds will give voice. Here, the evening breeze whispers through miles of sage and carries the sharp aroma out of the valley.

The lowering sun splashes swirls of color across the building clouds over the Rockies. A small biplane, flying at 3,000 feet, is heard and barley seen in the distant low sun as the Rocky mountain’s shadows reach across the flatlands. Whistling wire struts sing a wind-song filled with memories for BJ Riley. She does a loop and dives at a long freight train making it’s way across the valley. In the back cockpit a young man, Jeff, is shaking his head. He knows what she has in mind and grabs his seat and yells. But the noise of the plane covers his bellowing.

BJ laughs as she pushes the yoke forward.

No, no, no, no BJ. Not the train again. Do not buzz the train! Jeff bellows, BeeeJjaaaaayyyyy.

Pulling up just above the train and matching the trains speed, BJ gently touches down on the roof of the next to last car. The engineer in the caboose drops his coffee cup and glares out his copula window. BJ opens the throttle and lifts into the sky. She does a barrel role as Jeff sinks back into his seat.

BJ Riley closes her eyes, her face radiant in the sunglow as she remembers…Pictures on her bureau of the 1917 air squadron of American men lined up in front of their glorious flying machines, bravado smiles, her father with his hand resting on the propeller, so strong, she knew he could fly – without the help of wings.

She pushes the yoke of the little 1924 Swallow Airplane and hits the left peddle and starts a four-point barrel. The feeling of weightlessness as she turns from point to point gives her a rush, an exoneration of speed that helped fill an emptiness. A childhood memory - her laughing father lifting her so easily, flying her over his head and landing her on their pouch swing, then hugging her and her mother. Him so beautiful in his uniform. And then he was gone. Forever.

UTAH

The sun just tips over the mountains as BJ Riley jumps into her big Poindexter convertible, waves at Jeff, her teacher, and drives away.

The quiet of this land is deafening. In the distance headlights follow the serpentine road across the foothills and out of the amaranthine darkness of the vast Rockies. You can hear the sound of tires on the road a mile across the bone-dry valley. Just under that sound vibrates the growing beat of Gene Krupa’s drums chasing Zutty Singleton’s rhythm out onto the flatlands. The last reddening rays of sun flare past mountain crags and shatter the Rockies into light and shadow as Krupa works his kit on the distant car radio. The sound grows. BJ Riley’s car blurs through switchback after switchback, turning hard out of the skids that seem to keep pace with the beat of Bugle Call Rag. Mountain vistas flash past to the pulse of music and light. Wind whistles to the Goodman solo as it flows around the big Poindexter convertible. The lowering sun reflects across the windshield. BJ, her red-auburn hair caught in the wind like fire, moves in sync with the music. She is almost twenty, in transition from tomboy grease monkey to a beautiful young woman.

Out here, away from the world, she chases her demons.

Small against the distant mountains a second car cruses out of the shadows secreted in the sunset’s slowly drawn curtain. There’s a crossroad, then the road straightens and descends to the flatlands. The headlights of the two cars seem drawn to each other like magnets. In the second car, a new Cadillac, Mr. G.E.T. Eyston stops at the crossroad. In his early fifties, The London Times has called him a handsome figure.

Trim, late of London, this is his second trip to the Great Salt Flats. Because of the slight hill at the crossing, he can’t see BJ’s car. He’s struck by the vastness of this country, of the great change of flora and fauna in just the few miles he’s driven. He could have come with his crew but there is always business talk. Here, alone, he can think, and absorb the quiet, changing color of the country. He shifts into first gear, releases the clutch, and drives across the intersection.

BJ, caught up in the beat of the music, is startled to see the big Cadillac roll across the road. She slams the brakes as Krupa’s radio solo explodes! Her car almost broadsides the Cadillac. She floors the gas, pulling out of a spin, turns the wheel hard, goes off the road, misses the cliff-side, muscles the big Poindexter under control, brakes hard, and expertly allows a ninety degree spin. Spraying gravel, she skids to a stop just feet from an arroyo that drains into the flatlands.

She looks in the rear view mirror, doesn’t see anyone through the cloud of settling dust. Figuring the other driver drove on, BJ collapses against the plush leather seat and smiles as Goodman finishes his riff. She turns the music off. Quiet. Sunset. Wind. If she smoked she'd have one now.

The light sound of a car on gravel is barely heard over the wind in the brush. The Cadillac pulls in back of the Poindexter. A car door opens. George Eyston, impeccably dressed in Gieves Hawkes blazer, ascot, fedora, military twill trousers, and Church cordovans, exits his sedan. He walks calmly to the Poindexter. Mr. Eyston speaks with an educated English accent, brisk, but not too pompous. He’s used to getting his way. He holds every land speed record in the world.

You there! he says. You know you could bloody well kill someone like that?

BJ turns, startled to hear a voice. I was just driving…

Why, you're a woman!

Maybe it’s his impeccable enunciation and English accent, maybe it’s his superior tone, or maybe it’s just because everyone this side of the Rockies has an opinion on women drivers in general and her in particular. She turns to meet the challenge. And, what! Women can't drive?

Driving? My dear young woman, that was temerarious, irresponsible, capricious–

What?

and foolhardy. Speed is for racing drivers.

Eyston pivots on his highly polished heel and walks back to his car. BJ twists around and shouts. And what would a dandy like you know about racing! Eyston pauses, his hand on the chrome handle of his Cadillac, tilts his head, and with just a hint of a smile he glances at BJ.

Oh, I know a little about automobile racing.

He steps into his car, closes the door, and drives off at a tedious thirty-five miles an hour. BJ turns angrily, starts the Poindexter, slams the car into gear, sprays gravel, and she roars past Eyston.

CHAPTER TWO

UTAH RACETRACK, 1934

Lightning flashes across the distant dry horizon briefly illuminating the airless Utah night.

Crash!

Metal slams against metal. Two cars collide, spin out and send a billowing wall of dust and burning oil mix that hangs heavy over the quarter mile oval dirt racetrack. Eight cars bunch together and barrel around the far turn. Three more cars blast through the cloud, ricochet off car parts scattered on the track and roar on. Two cut-down cars, rusted and battered so badly it’s impossible to tell their make, model, or year, are spun in reverse and face the oncoming rush. The crowd stands to cheer as four cars smash and lock together. Then the first two cars manage to break away from the pack and aim at each other trying to ram their way to first place. Two crashed drivers scramble out of their wrecks, stager through billowing smoke, and dodge their way across the track madness to the cheers of the crowd. One of the drivers, soaked in oil, still clinging to his Ham’s beer, takes a long swig and heaves the bottle at a passing car. He spins and hits the second driver in the face. They keep swinging at each other as the drifting calx of their cars slowly hides them. The crowd loves it.

BJ pulls the Poindexter alongside the admission booth and parks. She picks up a palm fan with the First Christian Missionary Alliance Church printed in elaborate Victorian lettering above the blue-eyed face of Jesus. She flutters the fan and winces at the destruction going on at the track. Distant thunder is drowned out by the sound of eight sweaty musicians on a ratty sound system fighting the roar of battle. The band happily attacks Gene Autry’s latest hit – ‘Tumbling Tumble Weed’, not well, but at least loud. The crowd of about three hundred seems happy with loud. Admission is ten cents. Children are free. Kids race around the bleachers under never- removed strings of Christmas lights that cast a rainbow of colors over the crowd. A sun-bleached canvas sags over wooden bleachers. A Mexican/American with a bucket full of ice and Elder Brau bottled beer takes his time getting from customer to customer, who wave quarters and shout, Beer, beer, beer, cerveza, cerveza, beer.

If you can survive the American dirt track race circuit, you can drive anywhere. The conditions are dangerous. The tracks are dangerous, the cars are dangerous, but the drivers are the most dangerous, just wanting to run someone out of their way. Loud blaring choruses of eight cylinders without the benefit of mufflers aren’t needed to keep this crowd awake and shouting insults at the assembled drivers. Twelve cut-down hopped-up cars are on the starting line waiting for the next race. All except one have almost sober drivers bent over their motors trying to keep them going long enough to get on the track. The average price for a new car in America is $625.00, but these jury-rigged jalopies are far from new.

Two gas pumps with gallon glass bowls on top of sun bleached and weathered bases stand under a large, red, winged tin horse. It flies over the pumps advertising gasoline for TEN CENTS A GALLON. Next to a rust-stained corrugated tin garage/ticket booth/cold drink stand, a faded sign reads: The Herman Hustle Race Track and Drive-in- Movie. Sheriff Herman Hustle Esq. proprietor. Several Native Americans stand motionless in the shadows of the building watching the show some call civilization. Parked in back of the building are six horses and eighty dust-laden cars and trucks. Churning her fan, BJ slides across the seat, shoves her door open, steps out, and leans against the Poindexter. Jim Riley, her cousin, is the only person on the track who she thinks is a driver with any style – besides herself.

The 1930’s have not been kind to Utah. First came the drought in the Tooela valley; then the dust storms; then the fires; and then The Great Depression hit the valley harder than most. Unemployment soared over 35 percent. But most farmhands are off the books, so who knows what the actual numbers are. Wages fell drastically and are still almost fifty percent less for those who manage to keep their jobs. A third of the population is receiving food, clothing and housing on relief. One third of Utah’s banks collapse. Farmer’s incomes fall by sixty percent. Very few farmers are able to do more than break even. In the cities, soup kitchens run out of food and still long lines wait. Men and boys shine shoes; sell fruit, hardware, shirts, socks, and ties on the street. Hundreds of men from out of state were collected off the streets by the sheriff in Salt Lake City and ordered to move on. There were no jobs for the locals and the bread lines were already too long. Homeless families, unable to meet mortgage payments or rent, were camped in the parks. A free-for-all broke out on the steps of city hall where tax auctions were held. Several hundred angry citizens rioted at the auction of neighbor’s houses and farms taken for back taxes. Tear gas and fire hoses were used to break up the riot. The mob charged the deputies and turned the hoses on them and flooded the city hall. The sheriff blamed Communist agitators for the disturbance.

Once the New Deal programs are started, school lunches and adult education programs are established. Thousands of miles of roads, sewers, parks and public buildings are built to employ citizens. The CCC employ over a quarter of a million men across the country. For most of them that is the first work, clean bed, and three full meals a day they have seen in months.

Even in his small town sheriff Hustle tries to keep the local youth occupied, dreaming of speed and winning glory. The Friday/Saturday night race has a five-dollar grand prize. Every kid in the Southwest who can tune an engine finds release in these dirt racetracks. Despite the fact that most of the cut-down hulks were held together with baling wire, there is pride in their effort.

Raucous laughter rises from a group of seven young men standing at the edge of the bleachers. All are listening to a red-haired, red-faced, tall, bowlegged, young man trying to impress the quiet Jim Riley. Jim is twenty-six, blond, tan, blue-eyed, athletic, six foot two, newly graduated from MIT, and BJ’s cousin. He’s a few years older than this crowd, and they all know he’s leaving the high desert and going to Europe to design engines for Daimler. They’re all sure it was luck, not talent that got him and not them where he is. However, they have yet to see anything except his dust on the track.

Red slaps Jim on the back as he finishes his story, which no one has heard because of the racket of all the cars with straight pipes and no mufflers.

So Ellie May sez’ she never seen a dip stick’ that long. Red says. Har, har. Jim rolls his eyes and shakes his head as he walks to his car. Six of the seven chug-a-lug the last of their beers, toss the bottles in the back of Red’s car, and swagger to their own car doors. Red is shouting some profane rejoinder at the group but the noise is so loud his eloquence is lost to the crowd.

Herman Hustle, a stocky, no-neck man, mops his brow like an overheated windshield wiper. He jokes with the group of young men who are getting a buzz on before the last race. On their way to watch the next race, drivers toss their Apache Beer bottles and nearly hit a rusted trash drum. They jostle one another like kids. One knocks another on the arm; a fourth gooses the fifth on the way to his race-car, trying for man stuff.

BJ has a smile that could light up the stadium, but she’s not going to. She leans against the Poindexter – brooding. Jim scans the line of cars waiting for the next race as he talks to an extremely pretty young woman in a nearly buttoned cotton dress. She smiles at his every word. Spotting the Poindexter, Jim and the young woman wave at BJ. BJ looks away quickly, disapproving of Jim’s choice in women. She shifts to watch the band, then pushes away from the car as she sees Sheriff Hustle ambling her way.

Herman Hustle pulls out a fresh red bandana and wipes dust off a poster advertising his third campaign for sheriff. He laughs, walks, and talks with a heavy Western accent. He stops in his tracks, like a man about to step on a rattler. The auburn-haired vision that is BJ Riley is advancing on him. He braces himself.

Hi yawl BJ.

Sheriff Hustle, she says coldly.

Na here BJ, don’t squinch your eyes all up like that at me. You know your daddy an me, was ta State together. Yes m', an' he best man for Bess an me. But, BJ, I know that tone of your look an it tells me you’re goin' ta ask, an BJ, it's just too darn hot. BJ?

You won't even listen.

Listenin's easy.

Past Hustle and the crowd in the stands, BJ can see Jim checking the only shiny car in the lineup. It has fins on the roof, and the rear finders look like an airplane tail’s horizontal stabilizer. His is a car apart. It looks like a Buck Rodgers affair, but under the hood is the real difference. He has used the engine to feed itself on its own heated fuel – something she has watched but barely understands. But Jim made it work. The revving pulses louder to the beat of the mariachi band as the starter shuffles to the starting line.

You're goin' to let those half-drunk Yahoos drive, and what about me? BJ yells over the noise.

Hustle hands her a quarter.

You all want a drink? Here, get me a Dr. Pepper too. The drivers glare at the starter, motors suck gas and bellow louder. BJ has to yell louder. Bang! The starter gun is barely heard as the race explodes from the start line.

Damn it Sheriff Hustle, I don't want a drink, I want a drive.

BJ? Language darlin’. Hustle says, keeping one eye on BJ as he watches the start. Ever preacher West a the Mississippi's preachin' fire an’ brimstone on the sins o life –

I'm writing the commission myself. And the Temperance Committee and-

BJ. Hustle tries to interrupt her, BJ, BJ! The temperance don't even approve of dancin'.

They’ve had this argument dozens of times. Sheriff Herman Hustle has known BJ all her life and after her father’s death, and then her mother’s death just two years later. Hustle watches over her like a doting uncle, but the law’s the law. His attitude is almost modern for this place and time. Maybe women got the vote, but women cannot race cars – it’s the law, period."

…and I’m writing Eleanor Roosevelt! BJ finishes.

And they certainly don’t approve of Mrs Roosevelt. Hustle exhales. BJ, you a fine example of a modern woman, but the church, the Klan, and the voters'd hide me, tar me, and feather me fer' such extravagance…This, this, modern thinking…

For just driving?

Racing! Racing, BJ –

The noise is up. BJ’s hand is on her car door. Sheriff Hustle.

Stop Sheriff Hustle'n me, BJ. I know you at your mother's bosom, God rest her soul…she…

Don't bring my mama into this again. Driving has nothing to do – BJ throws up her hands in exasperation, opens her car door and drops into the front seat.

How many times I tell you BJ. Racin' ain't drivin'!

I can beat Jim.

Not where I can see it. At'd be illegal.

I could just drive right in there an' race.

The Sheriff puts his hand on the door – as if he really thinks she might. Oh no you wouldn't! he says.

Would!

Wouldn't!

Would. That you, flustered BJ squints at Hustle, you, won't even…This car will take anything here. This car has more power, this car…

It ain't your car, BJ. It's your – well – your - You're a…a female.

You can't even say it.

Say what?!

SEX! She shouts and roars off the track in a cloud of dust.

Hustle shouts after her. Wash your mouth out young lady. He quickly looks around to see if anyone heard her.

Bang! Roarrrrrr! The next race starts.

CHAPTER THREE

GREAT SALT FLATS TESTING GROUNDS

Ten o'clock, and already heat waves distort the vast Great Salt Flats. It’s seventeen hundred square miles, it’s great, it’s salty, and it’s flat. Once upon a time it covered most of what is now Utah in salt water. Eyston's Cadillac is parked next to a large flatbed truck, a bus, three cars and a fuel truck. Jim Riley watches two-dozen men with a mission prepare for another world speed record run. There are mechanics, fuel truck drivers, electricians, a newspaper reporter, a photographer, and a notary. Chairs and table are arranged to one side under a large, open, yellow and white striped tent, the only shade for miles. A radio fights a loosing with static while one of the mechanics fine-tunes it’s dial to hear Paul Whiteman’s Wagon Wheels. Six men work at last-minute adjustments on a cream and brown, horizontally striped MG EX135, nicknamed Humbug. It looks like half a watermelon cut lengthways. Eyston watches the mechanics as he talks to the timer who hooks a thirty-foot electric line to a large timing device in front of the official’s tent. The notary stands, shakes Eyston’s hand, and walks to the timing table.

Shouldn’t we be playing Hail Britannia, sir? the timer smiles.

The group works as a team. They’ve all been here before. The world speed record has a lot of challengers and changes almost every month. The Great Salt Flats is just one of the racing worlds venues. A workman checks the timer’s clock, looks at his watch, and taps it. Electric wire is unrolled by two men who stretch the cables along the ground at the starting line. A gas hose is pulled from a truck alongside the Humbug.

Fresh sparkplugs are removed from their packages, gaps are measured and put in the MG, and torque checked. The engine’s hood hatches and latches are locked. Clipboards full of checklists are checked. A photographer with a large Speed Graphic clicks shots of Eyston zipping up his white, fire-resistant coveralls over his shirt and slacks.

Tommy Wisdom, ex-RAF wing commander, friend, and acting chief mechanic for Eyston, double checks the hood, kisses the palm of his hand and slaps it against the windshield. Everyone stops to watch George Eyston walk to the Humbug. The only sound now is the wind blowing salt across the flats. He climbs into the car. ROAR! The MG engine comes alive. Humbug rumbles a mile down the track and pulls up to the start mark. The flagman places an electric pad under the front wheel and steps back. The timer’s lips move as he counts down. Eyston runs his finger under his chinstrap, pulls his driving gloves tight, and glares at the flagman.

In the distance BJ can see the testing grounds shimmering in the heat of the morning as she enters the hard pan of the salt flats. She pulls up on the shade side of a bus and parks. She watches men hustling into position, their total focus on Eyston. She gets out of her car. The timer looks at the flagman. The flagman steps forward, raises on his toes, and does what can only be described as a Cab Calloway dance - waving his flag like a baton he spins and the Humbug roars over the electric line, leaving two arrow- straight tracks half an inch deep in the salt. The photographer snaps running shots of the Humbug. Click, click, as the Humbug runs over the finish line timing cable. The timer, an exacting Scotsman, bangs his hand on the table and curses.

BJ watches the Humbug coast to the tent service area where mechanics push the car into the shade of the tent and check the tires. Eyston starts to get out of the Humbug. The timer holds up both of his arms and shakes his head.

Th’ bloody wire failed, Mr. Eyston. The timer is not a happy man. I'm sorry sir, but we gotta do ‘er again.

Jim Riley leans against the Humbug watching the timer punch the side of the electric clock. He sees BJ, removes his hat, and waves her over with his panama. She doesn’t bother to uncross her arms as she casually strolls to the tent. She’s focused on the strange looking MG Humbug next to a half dozen folding rattan chairs. In the hard morning light Jim’s eyes are barely seen under his straw hat. He smiles, tilts his head, knows that BJ look, then glances at