Chapter 1: The Sweetwater Furnace

July 1943

The train lurched to a stop with a screech of brakes that sent Eleanor Vance stumbling against the window. Through the dust-streaked glass, she saw nothing but flat brown earth stretching to a horizon that shimmered with heat. No trees. No water. Just dirt and sky and a hand-painted sign that read: SWEETWATER.

This was Texas.

Ellie pressed her forehead against the warm glass and tried not to think about Iowa—about the green cornfields and the cool creek behind the barn where she’d learned to swim. About her mother’s face when she’d announced she was leaving, and her father’s silence that had said more than any words could.

“Is this really it?” A woman’s voice, cultured and skeptical, came from behind her.

Ellie turned to find a brunette in a dove-gray traveling suit peering past her shoulder. The woman’s lipstick was perfect despite the twenty-hour journey from wherever she’d come from. Her dark eyes swept the desolate landscape with unconcealed dismay.

“Guess so,” Ellie said, grabbing her battered canvas bag from the overhead rack. Everything she owned was in that bag. It hadn’t seemed like much when she’d packed it back home, and it seemed like even less now.

“Christ,” the woman muttered, then caught herself. “Sorry. Sofia Rossi.” She extended a gloved hand.

“Eleanor Vance. Ellie.” She shook Sofia’s hand, noting the softness of the leather glove, the manicured nails beneath. This woman had money. The kind of money that meant you could choose to be here, rather than being here because it was the only door that had opened.

“Tell me you know how to fly,” Sofia said as they shuffled toward the exit with the handful of other women disembarking. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who actually has hours.”

“I can fly,” Ellie said carefully. She didn’t mention that her “hours” consisted of crop-dusting runs over her uncle’s farm in a patched-together Piper Cub that was held together with baling wire and prayers. She had a feeling Sofia’s flying experience looked different.

The heat hit them like a physical blow when they stepped onto the platform. It wasn’t just hot—it was a blast furnace, a wall of scorching air that seemed to suck the moisture from Ellie’s lungs. She gasped, and beside her, Sofia made a small noise of distress.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” another voice said. “They didn’t mention Hell in the recruitment materials.”

A compact woman with auburn hair and freckles fanned herself with a folded newspaper. She wore a simple cotton dress and sensible shoes, and something about her reminded Ellie of the teachers back in Mason City—a certain tidiness, a careful precision in how she held herself.

“Jacqueline DuBois,” the woman said, offering her hand to each of them in turn. “Jackie. Boston. And before you ask, yes, I know how to fly, and no, I have no idea what I’m doing here in Satan’s armpit.”

Despite herself, Ellie smiled. “Iowa,” she offered. “And same.”

“Manhattan,” Sofia said, smoothing her suit. A dark stain of sweat was already blooming across her back. “Upper East Side. And I’m starting to ask myself the same question.”

“Ladies!” A woman in military uniform—khaki shirt and trousers, leather jacket despite the heat—strode toward them. She held a clipboard and wore an expression that suggested she’d seen a thousand nervous recruits and wasn’t particularly impressed by a thousand and three more. “If you’re here for WASP training, there’s a truck at the end of the platform. Leave your bags—they’ll be brought to your barracks. Move it!”

The truck was an open-bed military vehicle that had seen better days. Ellie climbed in, followed by Sofia and Jackie. Three other women were already seated on the wooden benches—a tiny blonde who looked barely old enough to have graduated high school, a tired-looking woman in her thirties, and a slender Chinese woman who sat very straight and watched everything with dark, careful eyes.

No one spoke as the truck rumbled away from the station. They were too busy staring at their new home.

Avenger Field appeared out of the flat landscape like a mirage. Rows of white barracks buildings. A massive hangar. And aircraft—dozens of them, gleaming in the brutal sunlight. Training planes lined up like soldiers. Ellie felt her breath catch. All her life, she’d looked at the sky and wanted to be up there. And now—

“Holy hell,” Sofia breathed. “Look at them all.”

The blonde girl leaned forward, her eyes shining. “Are those Stearmans? Oh my God, they’re beautiful!”

“You the one who wrote thirty-seven letters to get into this program?”

Another woman had appeared at the end of the truck bed—tall, with dark hair pulled back severely and skin tanned deep brown from the sun. She spoke with a slight accent, something southwestern, and her gaze was fixed on the planes with an intensity that bordered on hunger.

The blonde blushed. “Virginia Lee. Ginny. And it was forty-two letters, actually.”

“Marta Sanchez. New Mexico.” The dark-haired woman nodded toward the aircraft. “Flew out of Albuquerque. High altitude work. How many hours you got?”

“Hundred and fifty,” Ginny said proudly.

Marta’s expression didn’t change. “You’re gonna need every one of them.”

The truck jerked to a stop in front of one of the barracks buildings. The woman with the clipboard—they’d learn later her name was Lieutenant Morrison—hopped down and consulted her papers.

“When I call your name, sound off. Barracks three, bay A: DuBois, Jacqueline!”

“Here,” Jackie called.

“Johnson, Pearl!”