Summary
A daredevil aviator plummets from the canvas sky of a ramshackle traveling circus, his biplane pirouette ending in abrupt silence; the canvas city folds like a cheap tent, and two sideshow grifters—breezy Billy Wardell, who bills himself as “Sky-High,” and Domino, a card-sharp with a grin like a switchblade—are clapped into jail for hawking tin watches to rubes spinning a crooked wheel. One filed key later they are ghosting through boxcar dusk, arriving in a whistle-stop where the air smells of cinnamon and lye. At dawn Jane Higgenbotham, flour on her cheek, offers them still-steaming pie; Billy’s heart somersaults higher than any wing-walker ever dared. He reinvents himself as ink-stained newspaperman, discovers Jane’s father Dave blueprinting an “aerochute” meant to feather-fall pilots from death’s ledger, and floats a barefoot stock company—shares sold to overalls and aprons—until Ed Warmbath, spurned suitor with sheriff’s star in his pocket, unearths the fugitive warrant. The town wants blood and refunds; Jane’s eyes cloud. To unsully his name Billy volunteers to leap from a rickety Jenny piloted by Murphy, the pickled barnstormer who once looped the loop for peanuts. Murphy nips the bottle, passes out, Billy vaults into stratospheric gamble, the silk blooms like a ghost-white peony, and he glides to earth between silos and shame. The town exhales, wallets open again, and Jane’s hand finds his, the couple framed against a horizon no longer treacherous.
Synopsis
When an aviator dies performing in a traveling circus, the circus closes and side show con men "Sky-High" Billy Wardell and "Domino" Dominick are arrested for giving out fake watches to wheel of fortune winners. After Domino springs the jail's lock, they jump a freight train and arrive in the next town, where Billy falls in love when Jane Higgenbotham allows them to breakfast on her freshly baked pies. When Billy, who gets a job as a reporter, learns that Jane's father Dave, an inventor, has no money to manufacture his "aerochute," designed to insure airplane safety, Billy opens a stock company and sells shares to villagers and farmers. After Ed Warmbath, a disappointed rival for Jane's affection, learns that Billy is wanted for jailbreak, he informs the townspeople, who demand that Dave return their money. Because Billy sees that Jane doubts his honesty, he volunteers to test the chute in a plane piloted by Murphy, a circus friend. Murphy's drunkenness inspires Billy to jump, and he lands safely, thus winning back the townsfolks' confidence, and Jane's love.
