by Hunt, Jack
“Oh yeah?”
“I fly out to some remote locations. Not all of them provide a lot of space when you land. This beauty lands on a dime.”
“I noticed. So when you’re not rescuing pilots like myself, you chartering?”
“Something like that,” he said looking distracted. Landon went to hop in and Dustin put out a hand to stop him. “Payment first.”
“But Dougy said you owed him a favor.”
“I do but I still need to put gas in this thing.”
“Dougy said it was covered.” Landon reluctantly took out his wallet. “I’ve only got forty bucks.”
“Well shit, it looks like you’ve got a long way to walk then.”
“What?”
Dustin burst into laughter and slapped him on the back. “I’m just kidding. Put your wallet away. Man, the look on your face. Get in,” he said, roaring with laughter. Ellie thought it was amusing as Dustin closed the door behind him and went around to his side. On any other day Landon might have seen the funny side but his nerves were on edge. Dustin got in and put on his headphones and cranked the engine. He flicked a few switches, adjusted a couple of knobs and the three-bladed propeller spun to life. The plane rolled out over the uneven surface causing them to bounce in their seats. “Make sure your seat belts are on and hold on tight,” he said. “Takeoff can be a little bumpy.”
As a pilot familiar with the ins and outs of flying, it was clear that Dustin had been at this a while as his demeanor was relaxed. While Dustin was preparing to take off, Ellie announced she had a phone signal. “Finally. Just in time too. I’ve got to take a photo of this as we go up.” Seeing the opportunity to phone Sara, he placed the call just to let her know that they would be running a little behind. He breathed in deeply and dialed only to find himself getting put through to the voice mail.
“Hey, it’s me,” he said. “We should be back in Maine around nine, give or take. Though it might be a little later before we arrive home so don’t wait up.” He paused for a second as the plane lifted and hit a rough patch of air. “Look, I’m sorry about the way we left it. Ellie is fine. She loved the flight and I got you and Max a nice gift from Alabama so…” he trailed off thinking he was trying too hard. Even though she’d let him go, he knew her better than that. He’d spend the next few days under her glaring eye and have to make up for it in other ways. “Anyway, I love you. See you tonight.”
Landon turned off his phone and stared out the window as they climbed.
Ellie was texting, oblivious to the minor turbulence.
Dustin glanced over his shoulder at him and pitched the plane a little higher. “So you been ferrying planes long?” he asked.
“Too long,” he replied.
“You must have seen a lot of countries in your time?”
“A fair amount,” Landon said as he sent a text to Dougy, asking for more time off. He was looking for any way to make it up to Sara. A few days off wasn’t enough. He didn’t want to come back until the new year. Though the chances of that happening were slim to none. In their line of work, there wasn’t a slow period. Clients ordered planes before Christmas and after, and most weren’t patient.
“You thought of doing something different?”
Landon spoke loudly so he could hear him. “At times, though I’m not sure what I would do.” The world below looked like a colorful tapestry or a patchwork quilt. That was the upside to being a pilot, no two places looked the same.
“You should move to Alaska,” Dougy said.
“Alaska? Is that where you’re based?”
“I was but a few things came up and I decided to work for someone who paid more. But when I was up there, I loved it. I worked for a lodge that offered Alaskan excursions and adventures for those wanting to take photos of the wilderness and reach spots you can’t by land.”
“Oh yeah? Sounds like magic.”
“It is. Flying into St. Elia National Park, or taking folks over the Wrangell Mountains. Some of these places you can’t get to by foot even in the summer. It’s quite something to see. Here, take a look,” he said reaching down between the seats and handing back a small camera. Landon turned it on and flipped through gorgeous images of snow-brushed mountains, forest, blue rivers and sandbars that stretched for miles. He’d been to Alaska twice to drop off planes but had never really had the time to explore it, and he didn’t figure Sara would be up for relocating. She was a homebody, a small-town girl who liked to dream of adventure but when it came down to it, she would have a panic attack if they ventured beyond Maine. Him, he’d always wanted to experience wild, rugged terrain and live off the land but the need to make money had always kept him traveling through life at a hundred miles an hour.
“Nice,” he said handing back the camera. “It didn’t pay well?”
Dustin shrugged as they flew over a huge blue lake below. Landon nudged Ellie and she looked up from her phone and smiled. It felt good to have someone else to share the views. That was the only downside to traveling alone, he’d see so much beauty but showing a picture on a phone was a lot different than soaking it in from thousands of feet in the air. It just didn’t compare.
“The wages were fair but I’m getting on in years and I didn’t see myself settling down in Alaska. I wanted to be closer to family. My parents are gone, and I only have one brother. Carting adventurers around Alaska was great while I was young but it didn’t really give me a chance to squirrel away a nest egg so that’s what I’m doing now.”
“No, I hear yah. So what’s paying more?”
“I deliver packages. In fact that’s why I said I could take you. Did Dougy tell you about that?”
“No he didn’t,” Landon said, his brow furrowing. That meant delays which meant they weren’t likely to get home until at least midnight.
“Yeah, I have a drop-off in North Carolina, then another in Maine and one more in New York. Hope you don’t mind. It shouldn’t take too long. Flight time should be around seven hours with the drop-off, refuel and whatnot.”
Landon nodded as he continued.
“We’ll head up to around 8,000 feet and cruise east over the Nantahala National Forest before coming down in Maggie Valley. You been there? North Carolina?”
“Once. A long time ago.”
“Ah, you’ll love it, it’s beautiful around this time of year. Anyway, once I’ve delivered that package, we’ll head up over the Appalachian Trail. Now that is something else. A friend of mine hiked it back in ’72. Took him six months, can you believe that? Six months. Apparently, people do it every year, starting between March and April. Some heading northbound from Springer Mountain in Georgia, others heading south from your neck of the woods. What’s that mountain called?”
“Katahdin.”
“What’s that?” he yelled over the noise of the engine.
“Mount Katahdin,” Landon replied. “And yeah, I know about it.”
It wasn’t far from Castine and he’d met a number of people who hiked the trail but never completed it. Landon sank back in his seat and reached over placing his hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “You good?”
She nodded, gave a smile and then asked if she could get her tablet out of the luggage. “Yeah, should be okay. Just buckle up in the back, okay?” She unbuckled and slipped between the seats into the last row. Landon heard the zipper and then her fumbling around.
He stared out the window as Dustin continued. “Hey, look, I can hook you up with the guy I work for if you like? Who knows, maybe you’d like it. The beauty of this job is you land, drop off a package and head out again. It’s easy money.”
“What’s in the packages?”
“No idea. I don’t ask and I don’t look.”
Landon frowned. There was no chance in hell he would go up in the air without knowing that kind of information. It was safety 101, but then looking at Dustin, he figured he was at an age he didn’t care. Desperation could make the sanest people do crazy things.
“You don’t know what
you’re delivering today?”
“Nope,” he said. “I don’t want to know. It’s none of my business.”
“And yet you’re the one on the hook if it’s illegal.”
He burst out laughing. “It’s not illegal. I wouldn’t get involved in that kind of stuff.”
“Well then why aren’t they shipping it via FedEx?”
Dougy glanced at him before checking his instruments. “Don’t know. Don’t ask.”
Landon didn’t like the sound of that but before he could say any more the plane banked to the right and changed course and Dustin muttered something over his headset. It didn’t take long before they were flying over Georgia and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dustin had to point it out as not only had the sun disappeared but it was hard to distinguish as it butted up against the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests. However, he seemed convinced he knew where he was. Far below they could see mountains and green for miles. The drone of the engine vibrating the plane made him close his eyes.
They continued flying until the sun dipped below the horizon.
Dustin was in the middle of telling them where they would be coming down when the engine spluttered. Landon had heard that sound before. He’d run into a number of issues delivering rust buckets and it was never good to hear. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He opened his eyes to see the instrument panel had gone dark. No lights. Nothing. What the heck?
“Dustin? What’s going on?” he asked in a calm and controlled manner trying to not to scare his daughter. He had a rough idea but he hoped Dustin had just flicked the wrong switch or was pulling some kind of prank. But no.
There was no power.
“I don’t know. It just went blank.”
He gripped the yoke tight trying to control the plane as it glided through the clouds, quickly losing altitude. Landon leaned forward, shouting out a few things for him to check, his years of experience kicking in. Nope. All signs were pointing to an electrical failure. The upside to being inside a single-engine plane was that it was possible to glide and land safely. He’d done it once in his years as a pilot, but that was years ago and it scared the crap out of him.
Still, they were losing altitude fast.
“Dad. What’s going on?” Ellie said.
For a second, he’d forgotten she was there. So used to flying alone, he’d only ever had himself to worry about. Fear shot through him. “Ellie, get back in your seat,” he said as she unbuckled to try and make her way from the back seats to the front.
Dustin was doing everything he could to bring it down in a controlled manner. He was yelling out that they’d flown past the drop site and they were now over the Pisgah National Forest. Few pilots with their years of experience panicked but this was definitely one of those moments.
“I’m gonna try and bring it down safely but…” Dustin trailed off and Landon knew what that meant. He was flying blind. It was one thing to have the electronics go out and fly by what was known as VFR, another to be flying over a blanket of darkness with nothing to guide them. It was pitch dark outside. No city lights. No headlights. Nothing. It was as if the world had gone black.
Landon leaned back in his seat and tried to calm his daughter but it wasn’t working. She was terrified and rightly so. The odds of survival were extremely low and that was with all the instruments working but at night, and with no references to determine how high they were, there was only one thing left he could do — pray.
6
Thirty minutes earlier…
The weather had taken a terrible turn for the worse. Beth gazed out the window at the whiteout conditions as she waited for her father to return from town. All she could see was snow blowing and swirling. He should have been back hours ago. He’d left early that morning just as the sun was coming up and had promised to return before dusk. Still no sign of him. Grizzly let out a whine. Beth ran a hand over the dog’s head. “I know. I know, boy. We’ll give it another fifteen minutes and then I’m going down.”
She crossed the room, took a seat at a wooden table and turned on the radio to get the report from the National Weather Service. Static came out of the speakers and then she dialed into the frequency.
A SEVERE WINTER STORM SYSTEM WILL MOVE THROUGH PARTS OF NORTH CAROLINA, WITH THE WORST CONDITIONS OCCURRING ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS AND PISGAH NATIONAL FOREST… THE WINTER STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT STARTING THIS EVENING AND IS EXPECTED TO LAST UNTIL LATE TOMMOROW… ACCUMULATIONS OF 12 TO 22 INCHES AND WINDS UP TO 60 MILES PER HOUR WILL CREATE BLIZZARD CONDITIONS.
EXPECT MINIMAL VISIBILITY AND ONLY TRAVEL IN THE CASE OF AN EMERGENCY… THOSE THAT MUST TRAVEL ARE BEING ADVISED TO TAKE EXTRA BLANKETS, FLASHLIGHTS, FOOD AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE… AND DUE TO THE SEVERITY OF THIS WINTER WEATHER, VENTURING OUT ON FOOT SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.
Beth switched it off and brought a hand to her forehead. She hoped to God that her father wasn’t passed out in some drunken stupor or worse — had taken a fall somewhere on the mountain. He was more than capable of surviving under the worst conditions but that was if his mind was clear. As of late he’d been hitting the bottle a little too frequently and that could easily cloud his judgment. She crossed to the fireplace and tossed a few more logs on the fire. The wood crackled and popped, shooting out a few golden embers that hit the fireplace screen.
Grizzly padded over and she wrapped an arm around his huge frame, nuzzling her head against his. Having lived for so long on the mountain with her father she wasn’t afraid, her father had made sure she knew how to be self-sufficient from an early age, but that didn’t mean she didn’t worry. Her mom had been his world. There wasn’t a day that went by that she hadn’t seen them snuggling up to one another and him kissing the crook of her neck.
Heading down the mountain would go against her father’s wishes but she’d all but run out of patience. “Screw it, I’m going,” she said heading over to bundle up in a thick coat that she’d made herself from elk hide and sheep’s wool. It beat any of the expensive winter coats they sold in town. Her father had taught her how to clean, gut and skin a deer, then her mother had shown her the process of tanning a deer hide. Nothing went to waste. Unlike hunters who killed for sport, in their world it was all about survival. Grizzly went over to his leash and picked it up in his mouth.
“No. I can’t take you, boy. The weather is too bad and it’s faster if I go alone. You stay here, it’s warmer.”
He dropped the leash near her feet and gave her those puppy eyes. He wasn’t a pup anymore and was closing in on five years of age but he could still melt her with one glance of those big brown eyes. As the storm was getting worse and there was a chance she might get lost or caught in it, she considered collecting her backpack — the one that she took on weekend hiking excursions in preparation for her trek of the Appalachian Trail next year.
It was lightweight, no more than 20 pounds and contained the essentials she might need in the event she ever got lost or stranded: shelter, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, food, water container and some additional clothes. There were other items in there like a first-aid kit, a fixed blade, fire starter, water purifier, headlamp batteries and so on but the first items were the main essentials. The rest usually could be picked up along the way in different towns. The key was not to overload the pack, far too many hikers did that and the mountains were littered with items that hikers had tossed out of their backpacks.
She scooped it up, pulled the hood over her head, slipped into her thick waterproof boots and grabbed up her bow before heading to the door. Grizzly let out another whine and she looked back at him. “It’s too cold, Grizzly. Dear me, Dog, you don’t let up.” He dashed to the back of the room and she smiled when he returned with a black bag that contained small boots for dogs. He was too damn smart for his own good. They were waterproof and anti-slip and he looked ridiculously funny in them but her mother had got him used to wearing them since he was a pup. They only put them on when the weather was really bad. He dropped the b
ag and she groaned. “Uh. Grizzly, it’s not just cold it’s deep snow. Far deeper than those boots. Besides you won’t be able to keep up. Now go on back to your bed. I’ll be back soon.”
She would have taken him had it been just a light dusting of snow but one glance at the thermometer hanging outside and it was clear the temperatures had dropped considerably since the morning. The dog padded back to his bed. He turned a few times and settled in. “Good dog.”
Beth scooped up ski goggles and gloves, readying herself for all that Mother Nature had to throw at her. A gust of wind nearly knocked her over as she opened the door and forged ahead. This was the kind of weather people died in, she thought.
Her father had taken the ATV so she hopped on the snowmobile and fired it up.
Snow kicked up behind her as she roared off down a trail on the side of the mountain, the motor groaning beneath her. It wouldn’t take long. She’d head over to the outdoor education center and if he wasn’t there go on to Dazzles, the one and only bar in town.
The blizzard was worse than she thought. Every bump and curve threatened to hurl her. She sucked in air quickly trying to catch her breath. The initial onslaught of snow blasting her in the face nearly flung Beth clear off the back. They’d experienced snowstorms before but nothing like this. She tightened her grip on the handlebars, slaloming around tall pine trees. The glow of the machine’s halogen headlights bounced and illuminated the way but because the barrage of snow was so hard, it was like smashing through one wall of white after another. She eased up on the throttle but only to make sure she was still on the trail. On a regular day she would joke with her father that she could have navigated to the foothills with a blindfold on but she was quickly learning that maybe it wasn’t as easy as she thought.
Another sharp gust stole her breath filling her lungs with frigid air. “You better not be drunk,” she said.
If she found him lying in a pool of vomit on Christmas Eve, she was going to lose her shit. She tried to convince herself that her father had simply taken cover inside the outdoor education center and was planning on returning when the wrath of the storm had calmed. She’d even thought that he could have stopped to help someone who might have broken down. That would have been just like him. A good Samaritan, always thinking of others. It was what had driven him to his current line of work — that and his love for nature.
