Montana Maverick

by Debra Salonen

  Jacob tried to turn to look in the back but his harness stopped him. Hank stilled his hands. “Whoa. Calm down. I need you to take a deep breath and tell me if you hurt inside. Ribs? Spleen? Anything broken?”

  Jacob inhaled and let it out, the air crystalizing between them. The warmth from the heater was gone. And the meager emergency light was dimming. “I’m okay.”

  “Thank God.”

  Hank grabbed the flashlight near his feet and turned sideways to shine it into the back compartment. The shell of the bird was noticeably caved in on Annie’s side but all three occupants appeared safe and unhurt.

  Sweet little Annie, the quiet one, had her face pressed into her mitten-covered hands, her thin shoulders sobbing. Her half-brother, Bravo, was on the opposite side of the bird, strapped into a high-back booster seat. The normally boisterous three-and-a-half-year-old had his thumb in his mouth, his eyes wide and unblinking as he took in everything.

  “You okay, Bravo?”

  The little boy nodded.

  “What about you, baby doll? Are you hurt?”

  “My…my foot. Something landed on it.”

  His toolbox had come loose, Hank figured. Molded plastic—which could become lethal in this cold.

  Hank reached behind the seat, his bad shoulder screaming in pain. His bare fingers stretched until he felt the handle. He didn’t have the right leverage to pull or push it away and there wasn’t room to maneuver.

  “I’ll get it, Hank.” Jacob, skinny as Hank had been at that age, squeezed between the seats, his butt nearly in Hank’s face. It was a tight fit with the bulk of the boy’s snowmobile bibs.

  Hank heard him grunting, followed by the sound of something sliding. “Got it.”

  Hank grabbed a hunk of fabric and tugged backwards. “Good job.”

  Annie, who was the spitting image of his daughter at eleven, pulled both knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them to bury her face and cry.

  Luckily, their rich, maternal grandmother, who once lived in Montana, had sent all the children snowmobiling boots for Christmas. The bulky black and yellow waterproof fabric didn’t appear to be torn or compromised. “Your foot’s not broken, is it?”

  She shook her head. The Chargers logo on her stocking cap reflected off the light.

  He noticed she was still wearing the high-end headphones her paternal grandmother had sent, too.

  Bribes, Hank thought bitterly. What little money he’d saved over the years had gone to cover his daughter’s final hospital bill and cremation.

  Hank unzipped his outer jacket to reach for his phone. No signal. Big surprise. A full charge, though. That was good. Maybe the search and rescue team could ping it to locate them in the morning.

  From the cargo hold came a familiar whine.

  Damn. He’d forgotten about Rook, his nine-year-old Alusky—part Malamute, part Siberian Husky, with a drop or two of wolf, the breeder said.

  “Take it easy, Rook, I’ll get you out in a minute, buddy.” Smartest animal he’d ever known and his best friend. The dog usually flew in the co-pilot seat with a special harness. This time, because Hank knew it was going to be a rough flight, he’d put the dog in the heavy duty cage they used to transport wolves that got too close to Hank’s specialty highland cattle.

  “Is your sister okay?” he asked Annie.

  Hank had cursed his clumsy fingers and all the hooks and buckles that came with an infant car seat when he frantically tried to install it so they could beat the storm, but the darn thing was built like a brick shithouse. If anybody could survive a full-on helicopter crash, it should be his littlest grandbaby.

  Annie peeked under the alpaca receiving blanket an old friend of Laurel’s had sent.

  “Still sleeping,” Annie whispered.

  Probably the dose of fever reducer he’d given the fussy, squalling, feverish infant after talking to some stranger on his Ham radio.

  His whole HR community had rallied to help, but since most of his friends were on the other side of the world, what could they do? When Mystic’s fever spiked to 104.5-degrees, Hank made the decision to go for help. He’d be the one who had to live with the consequences of that decision.

  And now he was going to have to break the first rule of winter survival: stay with your vehicle.

  The moment he opened the cockpit door the forty-knot wind would blow a foot of snow into their steadily chilling shelter. But the alternative wasn’t much better. At this altitude, with the temperature dropping, if he did nothing, they’d freeze to death.

  Not the worst way to go, a voice in his head said. He’d seen worse.

  He cursed silently as he shone the flashlight around, taking stock of the damage. Each kid had a backpack filled with extra clothes and snacks and water bottles he’d figured they would need at the hospital. There were plenty of blankets and emergency provisions in the far back. If he let Rook out, Hank might be able to make a small fire in the tail—with enough ventilation to keep them from dying of asphyxiation. Possibly, just possibly, they could last the night—or until rescue came.

  Like that was going to happen any time soon.

  There wasn’t a crew on the ground within fifty miles that could make it to this elevation in time to help them.

  The baby made a little mewling sound that sent a shard of fear straight to his belly. He’d do what he could. Some of them might survive. Mystic wouldn’t.

  Hank spent the next forty minutes doing triage. Luckily, the bumps and bruises the children had sustained weren’t major. Mostly, his passengers needed hugs and reassurance that they’d be rescued.

  Hank lied through his teeth.

  “We’re safe. We landed, not crashed,” he told them. A bogus distinction, given he had no idea what his rotors looked like and he’d pretty much landed without rudder control.

  He honestly didn’t know how they managed to land in one piece. A guardian angel, maybe? Had Laurel reached out from heaven to protect her babies? What other explanation was there?

  He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. “I’m gonna need a little more help here, Gracie.”

  Laurel Grace Firestone. The best thing that ever happened to him. Becoming a father at eighteen may not have sounded providential to most people, but his baby girl stole his heart with her first cry. She gave him purpose and focus. He’d treasured each of her thirty-one years and when she died four months earlier, her death left huge gaping holes in their hearts—and a mountain of unresolved custodial issues that made Hank feel like the captain of the Titanic. The iceberg he dodged yesterday might capsize them tomorrow.

  Of course, the upcoming custody war with Bravo and Mystic’s paternal grandmother was a moot point at the moment. First, they had to survive before they could argue over which children were going to live with whom.

  Hank would fight with all his might to keep the children together. Unfortunately, he knew there would be armchair quarterbacks who would question his decision to fly on a night like this.

  He’d made a judgment call—one he hoped didn’t kill them.

  *

  JJ curled in a ball in the co-pilot seat, listening to the squeaks and moans and popping sounds as the helicopter settled into its death.

  A lot noisier than Mom.

  Her last sounds—the one time he snuck in to see her at the end—were low, ugly gasps that came from deep in her chest, like a trapped animal trying to crawl out. He would have done anything to make it stop, but everyone—the doctors, Grandpa, even God—had given up trying to help her.

  A few hours later she died.

  Cancer.

  Mom’s death wasn’t his fault, but this was.

  He made a fist and pressed it to his gut to keep from throwing up.

  He’d nearly killed them all.

  Maybe I did.

  They’d crash landed in the middle of nowhere in a freaking blizzard. They’d probably freeze to death before help arrived.

  He leaned sideways to look into the back seat.
/>
  Bravo was strapped in his seat, crying. His nose a snotty mess, like usual. The kid cried more often than Annie, who was a girl.

  JJ got to his knees so he could check on Mystic. He’d die if Mystic was dead. His mother gave her life for that baby. Mom had refused any sort of cancer treatment for fear it would hurt her baby. Mystic River Landry. Mom had the name picked out before the doctor confirmed the baby was a girl.

  If Mystic died so soon after Mom, JJ would be glad to freeze to death. At least he wouldn’t have to live with that guilt, too.

  “You okay, buddy?” Hank asked in the pilot’s seat beside him. Hank. To the little ones he was Grandpa, but JJ used his given name because that’s how Mom always addressed her father.

  JJ swallowed hard to keep from crying. He had to man up.

  Be brave, my love. I’m counting on you to keep it together for the sake of the little ones, Mom said before she got bad.

  “Yeah. I’m okay. But, your bird…” Hank always called the helicopter a bird. The thing even had a name, but JJ couldn’t remember it. “I…I’m sorry.”

  Hank, who appeared to be concentrating hard on assessing their situation, gave JJ a questioning look. “Sorry for wha…? No,” his grandfather said sternly, his deep voice going hard and serious. “This is not your fault, JJ. Something mechanical gave out. I heard a pop right before the rotor went wonky.

  “Could have been from the cold, the snow, structural fatigue, who knows? But whatever the cause, you are not to blame. Are we clear on that?”

  JJ wanted to believe him, but JJ had been the one holding the stick when the popping noise happened. Hank had given him the controls so he could reach behind them to keep Mystic from choking to death. Annie and Bravo had been crying so loudly JJ thought his ears would bleed. He’d held the stick with all his might and tried to pretend the whole thing was a video game.

  But what happened next wasn’t pretend. The helicopter lurched and bucked like a living beast. His hold slipped. The bird tilted sideways—only for a second until he got it straightened out again—but that’s when the bad sound happened. The helo cried out as if he’d shot it. The moaning and groaning and vibration seemed to move through his body as they fell.

  He’d never been more scared in his entire life. He’d prayed to God, his dead mother and the dead father he barely remembered. He prayed hard. And, it looked like his prayers were answered.

  They were still alive, right?

  A gust of wind hit the helicopter—Betsy, he thought, that was the bird’s name—rocking it enough to release a fine white mist of snow inside their shelter.

  He tried to see into the blackness beyond the frosty plastic window, but there was nothing. Just a black snowy void.

  His prayers might have saved them, but for how long?

  Chapter Two

  ‡

  Meg was grateful for the wicking material that kept her sweat from becoming a liability. Even with snowshoes, walking through fresh powder was a slow, hellacious task. The crust of ice that formed just under the new layer was more of a nuisance than assistance.

  Luckily, the wind that tried to rip off her fur-lined hood eased a bit once she moved into the trees. She consulted her backlit compass often to be sure she wasn’t walking around in circles. She had only a rough idea of where the helicopter might have gone down, and she knew sound had a way of playing games with you in the mountains.

  She shone the powerful beam of her flashlight back and forth, watching for debris. So far, she’d only spotted two pieces of wreckage, but each hunk of metal fueled the hope that she was on the right track. Plus, she trusted her instincts—something she’d learned from her association with and study of wolves.

  In her years of observing wolves in the wild, she’d become convinced that when hunting, sometimes they simply guessed well. Yes, their ability to smell was one of the best in the nature world, and their eyesight was remarkable, but many times she’d seen a wolf make illogical choices, which turned out beneficial either by avoiding something bad or stumbling across hidden prey.

  “Watch out,” she’d heard students say. “Dr. Z is channeling her inner wolf. We’re in trouble.”

  Meg stopped dead in her tracks and listened. What the heck…?

  She pulled back one side of her parka and strained to hear beyond the wind. Was that the sound of a dog barking?

  A big dog.

  Or a young wolf.

  She looked around, the hair on the back of her neck lifting eerily. Chances were extremely slim there’d be a nuclear family at this elevation in this kind of weather, but that didn’t preclude the chance of a lone male or two out exploring. But she’d hiked the entire mountaintop last summer and early fall without finding any sign of wolf activity.

  Still, it paid to be vigilant. She took another reading on her compass and adjusted her course slightly. The tree line appeared to thin to her left.

  “If I were a pilot in distress, I’d look for an opening. Any opening,” she murmured.

  About a hundred feet to her left, she spotted the reflection off something metallic. She didn’t bother stopping to look at the debris. Instead, she picked up her pace.

  Her metal breadcrumbs were few and far between, which fed the hope that the helicopter might still be mostly in one piece. And, with luck, Henry and his passengers would still be alive, awaiting rescue. She refused to think otherwise. The Henry Firestone of her memory was larger than life, too vital and determined to let a helicopter crash determine his fate.

  Before she reached the end of the tree line, she heard the barking sound again. This time it came as a warning. The dog in question either heard her or smelled her. A pretty amazing feat, she decided. This was no ordinary dog.

  A sudden gust shot down from the peak beyond, striking Meg with the force of a water blast from a fire hose. The writer in her was tempted to personify the storm. She pictured a witch cackling gleefully over her bounty. “It’s my prize, paltry human. You can’t have it back.”

  People had told her no all her life, but Meg never let that stop her. “Fine,” Meg muttered. “Keep the chopper, bitch. I want whoever is in it.”

  She lowered one shoulder and pushed on.

  A mass appeared at the edge of her beam twenty paces ahead. Tilted awkwardly, a black and silver beached whale, appeared caught in the grasp of a swirling wind that felt colder and stronger without the trees for protection.

  The witch liked her prize and wasn’t letting go without a fight.

  Meg played the beam back and forth as she approached, hoping for a sign of life. Suddenly, an answering light in the window of the pilot’s door rewarded her. Dim but visible. She detected movement, too.

  Adrenaline pumped through her veins. Hope gave pep to her slow, plodding steps, but a part of her mind cautioned to pace herself. If there were survivors—and there appeared to be at least one—she still needed to get them off the mountain.

  When she reached the hull of the chopper, she wiped away the accumulated snow and put her face to the glass. Before she could say anything, a missile of fur and teeth struck the window from the inside with shocking force. She gulped in a breath of frigid air and pulled back, careening onto her butt.

  The helicopter rocked momentarily, until a man’s shout punched through the upset barking. The dog—she knew that much, now—quieted immediately. The pilot, she assumed, was alive. Thank God.

  Getting up was no easy task with snowshoes, so she undid the connectors, her fingers clumsy from the thick gloves and accumulated snow.

  Before she could stand, a hand appeared—a bare hand. “Sorry about that. Rook’s just protecting us.”

  First impressions hit hard. Tall. Big. Scruffy five o’clock shadow. Us?

  She couldn’t feel anything beyond the firmness of his grip through her gloves, but the fact she rebounded to her feet like a springboard told her he was strong, hale and uninjured.

  Henry Firestone. She hadn’t seen him in several years, but he hadn’t changed
a great deal. The three-day growth was a new look for him. The man she remembered was clean-shaven, crisply pressed shirts with the top button closed, even if he seldom wore a tie. This hint of beard had some gray in it but that didn’t make him any less substantial. And handsome. She’d always found him annoyingly good looking when they were sparring over wolves and dead cows.

  “No thieving drug runners, at least,” she mumbled.

  Luckily, her words were lost in the wind.

  He put one hand to his bare ear and shook his head.

  She leaned in and shouted, “How many people?”

  He held up a hand and mouthed, “Four.”

  Apparently he’d failed to latch the door tight because a moment later, a four-legged body shot out. Silvery black. Wolf-like. Part Husky, she guessed.

  “Five. That’s Rook.”

  Rook. Aluit for wolf. Did Henry Firestone know his dog’s name meant wolf? How ironic was that?

  The animal checked her out but kept his distance, waiting for a signal from his owner.

  “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Minor bumps. My grandson has a scrape on his temple but the bleeding appears to have stopped. We’re all getting colder, though. How’d you find us?”

  How did someone come through a life and death crash like this and remain so calm? Shock? Crap. I hope not.

  “I have a cabin about a mile from here. I heard you coming down.” She arced the beam of her flashlight. “I expected to find your chopper in pieces.”

  “We got lucky.”

  “Or you have a guardian angel,” she murmured. “It is Christmas Eve. Grace happens. Can your passengers walk?”

  He heaved a quick sigh that didn’t tell her a lot. “I hope so.”

  He looked her over as if assessing her worthiness. She could tell he hadn’t recognized her yet. She wasn’t surprised. With her fur-lined hood, Northface jacket and cashmere face scarf pulled up to her nose, she probably looked like a bright yellow version of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

  Normally, Meg would have been offended if a man judged her so critically. This time a curious tingle shot from the backs of her knees to her solar plexus. Her mouth went dry.