"His name's Scrub, after the desert," Oberman said, offering her a green kitchen table chair that stood on her side of his desk. "He just wandered in out of the Mohave one day, near to dead, and we kind of took to each other. Now he's all I've got."
She thought that was probably so, after seeing his airport.
Oberman went to an old wooden ice box next to the lone file cabinet in the small junk room he called an office. He got out two perspiring bottles of beer and opened them. She didn't recognize the brand, but welcomed the cold feel of the bottle he put in her hand.
"You tell me your story first," Oberman told her.
Barbara made her life story short and as sweet as she could. "I did everything for Red from secretarial to fueling and small maintenance jobs. I can fly a plane any way you want. I heard flying's taking off in California, so I've come to get in on it."
His story was almost as brief. It certainly was succinct.
In between breaths, he spat tobacco into a spittoon beside the desk where he sat on one side and Barbara the other as they drank their beer. Scrub liked beer, too, and had some added to his water bowl which he lapped up in between naps.
"Came out here after the war. Did some barnstorming with Red, then on my own. Got a partner to invest in this here airport. We put on a Air Circus for revenue. Poor son of a... Poor guy had no sense of balance. One day he fell out of a Jenny we used to have, doing a loop-de-loop. He had no kin, so I got the business all to myself. I'm shit at business, so this is what I got left. Not much, huh? I drink too much and don't go with wimmin flyin'. Guess if I thought I had a job for you when Red wrote me, I don't now. But you sure are pretty."
"The beer's cold, anyway," Barbara replied.
Oberman laughed so hard, he almost fell out of his chair. He got up and went to an ice box where he got out two more bottles of the same.
"It's Mexican and cheap, but it's got a little mule kick to it, don't you think?"
"Definitely a mule."
While he had talked, Barbara did some thinking. She needed a job and doubted they were anywhere near as plentiful around Mohave as little green rattlesnakes or jackrabbits. She wanted work that would take her flying. Oberman need to get his airport on its feet, or it would become more a part of Death Valley than it already was.