by Basil Sands
“Don't worry, Hilde,” Lonnie said. “It really is safe, probably safer than driving a new car on the highway. I ride in it all the time.”
“I'll get in, but only because you say so, Lonnie.”
“C'mon, honey,” Mike said. “It’s a Beaver—you know, buck teeth, diligent dam builder.”
“Safest of all animals.” Marcus completed the preflight inspection and gave them the all clear to load up.
“Why don’t you sit up front, Hilde,” Mike said. “You’ll be less likely to get airsick.”
She climbed into the plane, surprised to find that it was larger than it appeared from the outside. As she buckled in, Mike motioned from the back seat to the radio headset hanging on a hook above her.
“You’ll need that if you want to hear anything other than the engine.”
She put on the headset and glanced out the window as Lonnie loosed the mooring line and tossed it to Marcus where he stood on the pontoon. He tied it off, and the plane rocked as he climbed into the seat and started the engine. The 450 horse power Pratt and Whitney engine rumbled to life with a throaty roar, drowning out every other sound. Marcus pulled away from the dock and taxied into the lake. Hilde stiffened, pressing her shoulder blades into the seat as the plane rocked on the shallow swells caused by its own wake.
“You look nervous,” Marcus’s voice sounded tinny over the headphones. “Just relax. It's smoother than taking off from the land, and wait till you see the landing.”
She acknowledged him with a nervous smile, then leaned back. Marcus pushed the throttle forward and the engine's roar increased tenfold, drowning out every other sensation. Her knuckles glowed bright white as she gripped the armrests. The thirty-foot-long craft glided over the water. When Hilde opened her eyes, she was surprised to discover they were already several hundred feet above the ground. She glanced sideways out the window, then back toward Mike. He grinned at her and winked with an “I told you it would be fine” look.
The city of Anchorage descended beneath them as they climbed into the clear blue summer sky. Within moments, she could see hundreds of miles in every direction. Her mouth gaped in wonder at the immensity of the wilderness around her. She had flown frequently as part of her job, but only around the eastern half of the country, and never in anything smaller than a 727. Every time she had been in the air, it felt as though the ground beneath her was a patchwork quilt of multicolored squares and rectangles bordered by trees, roads, and power lines. In Alaska, outside of the few small cities and towns, there are no farms, no borders, no boundaries, no squares or straight lines. Even the roads meander like winding estuaries of asphalt and gravel. She found herself having to rethink her perception of what the earth looked like.
Perpetually ice-capped mountain ranges and gray-green scribbles of river mark the closest thing to boundaries, intertwining and caressing one another to a point of barely discernible division. The whole of Alaska is one massive place with no end and no limits as far as the eye can see. Time seemed suspended as Hilde stared in awe at the magnificence of the scenery. Ahead of them, Mt. McKinley, a stocky white nub on the horizon when they took off, rose like a waking giant. Her breath caught in her chest at the sight. The late-morning sun cast its powerful beams against the blue-and-white surface of the great mass of rock until it glowed as bright as a terrestrial-bound sun.
The tallest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley is often said to be second highest in the world, behind only Mt. Everest. In reality, Denali, as it is known locally, is the tallest single mountain in the world, as it ascends directly from sea level to a full height of over 20,327 feet, whereas Everest's base starts on the Tibetan Plateau that is already 17,000 feet above sea level, the mountain only continuing another 12,000 feet to a total height of 29,029. Regardless of the semantics of the mountain's measurements, Hilde had no idea what that meant in perspective until she was in a plane two miles above the ground and saw that the summit of Denali was still three miles higher. Marcus drove the plane straight toward the mountain until there was nothing else visible in the front windscreen.
“Shouldn’t we pull up or turn away?” she asked.
“Afraid we’re going to hit it?” Marcus replied with a grin.
“Well, it is getting awfully close.”
“It’s still forty miles away, ma’am.” Marcus reassured her. He pointed to the northeast. “We land over there.”
In the distance, Hilde made out the barely visible shape of a clearing in the dark evergreen forest. It looked like a hole in the surface of the earth.
“I thought you said we’d land on a lake.”
“That is a lake.”
Marcus banked the plane toward the clearing and dropped to just above tree level. Hilde’s stomach tickled like she was on a roller coaster. She closed her eyes and again gripped the armrests. In a replay of the takeoff, the skin on her knuckles stretched tight, whitened to the point where it looked like her bones had come through. When she opened her eyes, she saw that there was indeed a lake below them. It was much smaller than the one they had used for takeoff, and there were no float plane docks or sidewalks, or parking areas—no signs of modern life anywhere around them.
Marcus dipped the nose to a steep angle toward the water. Hilde’s heart jumped, catching in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the impact and trying to push away visions of her body being smashed to pieces in a wreck of DeHaviland Beaver debris.
Suddenly the plane leveled and the roar of the engine softened. She sensed that they were still moving, then laid back like she was being gently forced in a La-Z-Boy recliner. The engine shut off. She opened her eyes and found that somehow Marcus had landed the plane without her even realizing they had touched down. The plane drifted across the surface of the water, powered by inertia that slid it toward a narrow beach comprised of smooth round rocks, a secluded hideaway rimmed by massive spruce trees, spires pointed heavenward.
“Well, this is it,” Marcus said.
Hilde regarded their surroundings as if unsure they were actually still on the surface of the same planet. Marcus took off his headset and she did the same. The plane drifted to a halt against the rocky shoreline and he climbed out.
“Told you it would be a nice landing,” Marcus said as he stepped onto the pontoon.
He jumped toward the rocks with the rope in his hand, the splash of his feet landing in the water like a quotation mark announcing the beginning of a new dialogue. He walked toward the shore pulling the plane forward until it stopped, then tied the rope to a tree. Mike and Hilde climbed out and joined him. They piled the gear at the forest’s edge and Marcus started setting up camp with Mike’s help. Hilde, who had only slept in a tent once in her life, was totally unfamiliar with the whole concept of real camping. Backyard sleep overs as a twelve-year-old Girl Scout seemed like staying in a hotel by comparison. The peace and quiet of this place lay on her like a comfortable blanket. Mosquitos quickly found them, and Marcus tossed her a bottle of bug dope.
“Put this on your exposed skin,” he said, “but not on your lips or eyes. It’s pure DEET. Works like a charm, but not good to eat.”
“I don’t want to rub poison on my skin,” she said.
“It won’t hurt you unless you use it every day for months at a time,” Marcus said. “It’s definitely better than getting eaten alive by the mogies. They’re the only evil scar on this otherwise picturesque scene.”
As she rubbed the clear lotion onto her skin, she was amazed at how the “mogies” immediately seemed unwilling to land on her. The silence of the forest gradually became an entity of its own. Wind whispered between the branches of the spruce trees and clusters of willow that grew along the edges of the lake. Small insects skimmed the water as if inspecting its surface. A gathering of swallows flitted out from a tangle of willow branches, spinning and turning then dashing back into the trees as if playing a game of tag, their song like laughter on the warm afternoon air. The air had vitality. It was not just so
me unseen necessity here. It was a being in its own right, clean, fresh, sweet. Her lungs felt as if they were being filled properly for the first time in her life. Hilde breathed deeply and let the undiluted purity of it soak into her blood stream. She felt the sensation that since infancy, she had been on the verge of drowning, kept alive by artificial means for the past thirty-nine years and only now discovered what oxygen really felt like. She had the fleeting thought that it was original air, an untouched leftover from Creation, air that God had reserved, kept in a secret store house, unspoiled, holy.
Hildegard Farris had found heaven on earth.
Chapter 4
Muldoon Neighborhood
Anchorage Alaska
Saturday, June 18th
7:30 p.m.
“I’m not doin’ it.” Sammy Davis Jr. started for the door. “I told you a hundred times, no houses.”
Jimmy snorted. “Look, Babe, why don’t you just admit what you do and stop pretending to be freakin’ Robin Hood.”
“Don’t call me Babe! I said no, and that’s final.” Sammy stormed out, letting the door bang shut behind him. He threw the truck door open and jumped into his beat-up eighties model pickup, jolting awake the ratty-haired mutt sleeping on the seat. The sudden movement elicited a tinkling sound from the metal tags on the dog's collar, one with his veterinary info, the other with his name inscribed in bold letters, “Deano.” The frame rattled and the truck door’s bent hinges squeaked when he slammed it. He gave it a quick yank to make sure it would stay shut.
“Jerk,” Sammy grunted as he turned the key in the ignition. The dog cocked his head, ears raised. “Not you, Deano. You’re cool. I just wish my other friends were cool like you.” He turned the ignition again and the engine made a sound like an over taxed coffee grinder then went silent. On the third attempt, it fired over. The tape deck instantly started up with Sinatra’s “My Way” as he slammed the truck into gear and backed out. While Alaska’s Sammy Davis Jr. was certainly no relation to the famous singer of the previous century, unlike most of his head banger or hip-hop friends, he and Deano loved the music of the Rat Pack as if it were, in fact, their own.
“If he calls me Babe one more time, I’m going to punch him in the nose!” Sammy slammed the truck into reverse and quickly backed up. Deano gripped the seat with his paws to avoid sliding to the floorboards as the truck lurched. “Just ‘cuz I cried in that pig movie, he thinks I’m a wimp. Well, I ain’t gonna break into a house and have some little kid crying for real ‘cuz I made him scared forever, and I ain’t gonna have some wife bein’ all upset after her wedding ring goes missing. No way—I’m just not that kind of guy.”
He turned the wheel abruptly when the truck hit the road, turning toward south Anchorage and sending Deano sliding across the vinyl bench seat. He flipped the gear lever into drive and floored the gas, spitting gravel from beneath the tires as he shot down the road.
“We’ll see who’s stupid.”
The truck bounced over a rut, making Deano’s head bob as if nodding in agreement.
“You’re my only real friend, boy.” He reached over and rubbed the dog’s head. “Jimmy don’t know I’ve got a big score coming, and he’s not going to be part of it.”
Deano rested his head on the seat by Sammy’s leg, looking up at him with watery brown eyes. As they rounded a bend, Deano slid closer, his head landing on Sammy’s lap. Sammy reached down and massaged the dog’s neck.
“Homes got a moral barrier around them. Churches, too, ‘cuz you don’t wanna mess with God’s house. I’m pretty sure I ain’t going to make it to heaven, but I don’t want to totally blow whatever chance I got by burglarizing God’s house. My folks are Messianic Jews.” The dog had heard the story before. His eyelids fluttered, then slid back shut. “I was both Bar-Mitzvah’d and baptized, so there’s a chance in there somewhere.” He slowed to make a turn and came into view of the Hillside Nazarene Church’s steeple, its cross highlighted against the crystal-blue sky. “Now cars is different, of course, if some idiot leaves it unlocked, or not locked enough.” He laughed at his own joke. “Cars and mosques.”
A new Muslim Retreat Center and Mosque now stood on the rural south side of Anchorage, away from prying eyes, and far from regular police patrols. The previous week’s news said it’d been built because of a split with the congregation from the only other mosque in Anchorage. One group was called “Sunny” or “Soomee” or something. The name of the other group was easy to remember. They were Shiites. His friend Martin had made a joke about the name. He raised his foot, looked at the bottom of his shoe, curled up his nose, and said, “Aww, man! I just stepped in some Shiite!”
Sammy laughed so hard when he heard that, he could never forget the name. He had no idea which group owned this mosque, nor did he care. The only thing that mattered to him was that the mosque was out of the way and in a very quiet location on the south end of the city just beyond the edge of the wealthy neighborhoods. It was perfect. Sammy had seen pictures of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. If they had enough money to build a mosque with the whole roof covered in gold, they had more than enough to spare.
“All of it stolen from Jews and Christians, no doubt,” he said as he drove down Skyline Drive toward the retreat center. “Well, I’m just going to take back what belongs to my people anyway, right? Like Jimmy said, it’s like being Robin Hood.”
Sammy smiled in the mirror as he imagined being the famous English bandit stealing back what belonged to the rightful owners of the land. But unlike Robin Hood, Sammy had no intention of sharing the stolen booty with anyone else. He needed to pay a couple of debts, and maybe he could get himself a better set of wheels with the imagined piles of gold and other untold treasures within the mosque.
With single-minded determination fueled by utter greed, Sammy pulled his truck to the side of the road near the entrance to the mosque. The gate at the end of the long driveway stood open. He looked up into the dusty dirt parking lot and saw no cars. He rolled down the window, cranking the stiff handle and swearing his next vehicle would have power windows and locks.
Birds chirped in the trees outside his truck window. A bee flew into the cab and buzzed around Deano's head. The dog watched it, ears raised, alert and ready to snap at the tiny creature. The bee seemed to sense the animal's intention and zipped away, leaving a heavier silence in its absence. A squirrel chattered in a tree a few yards away, and a blue jay landed on a perch across the shallow ditch alongside the road. Sammy felt the peaceful sights and sounds were a message from God. He thought about a show he had seen on CNN about the Taliban and how they made little girls wear sacks over their bodies to hide themselves from dirty old men who married twelve-year-olds.
“These dirty bastards deserve what they got coming to them,” he muttered as his truck rolled up the long drive into the parking lot. A low cloud of yellow dust settled back to the ground behind him as Sammy shut off the engine and opened the door to get out. The dog glanced over at him with pleading eyes.
“All right boy, you can go, but come right back and wait here. We may have to leave fast.”
The dog hopped out and trotted into the woods while Sammy approached the building. A recent rain shower had washed the air. Even though the bright twenty-four-hour sun had instantly dried the ground to a fine dust, the air itself still smelled fresh and clean. He moved with caution, ears straining to detect the tell-tale sound of people. On the off chance that someone was there, and if they caught him snooping, he would say that he owned a landscape and building maintenance company and was just checking to see if they'd like to hire his services. He even had business cards and a pad of invoices complete with a logo, address, phone numbers, and website to verify the claim. Those, of course, along with a laptop computer and a nice, new metal coffee thermos, had been stolen from a legitimate contractor who had been so kind as to leave his truck unlocked.
Sammy went to the front door of the mosque. The door itself made his heart leap with excitement at the
potential treasures inside. It was an intricately carved and highly complicated series of geometric shapes and patterns with Arabic script overlaying portions of it. He touched the wood and whistled lightly, then leaned close and listened through to the other side. All was silent. He grasped the door handle and twisted it. The latch gave way with a soft click and he pushed it open. No alarms sounded, so he stepped into the building. Just inside the door was a long rack for shoes. It was empty.
Looks like nobody’s home.
The inside of the mosque was just as elegantly decorated as he had expected. Round pillars lined the entry and the hall that ran perpendicular to it. Large ceramic tiles of turquoise, midnight blue, sea green, and scarlet reds on the floor and smaller tiles covering the walls combined to form complex geometric patterns that forced him to blink repeatedly to adjust to the visual confusion. Gold leaf sparkled along the joining edges of each tile, randomly illuminated by soft light shining through arched stained-glass windows set high in the ceiling. A summer spent panning for gold with his cousins as a teen had taught him what real gold looked like. This was the real thing. A smile of wonder spread across his face, awed by the amount of the yellow metal in the walls.
Sammy’s footsteps echoed in the hall. As he walked through the building, his initial excitement started to abate, and then slowly evaporated. For all its beauty, there were no visible treasures he could carry away. No golden objects like one might find in a church or cathedral or even a synagogue. No crosses or menorahs or silver-plated scroll handles. No offering plates or communion cups or bottles of kosher wine. No statues. Not even any paintings. Just walls and floors decorated with thin strips of gold leaf, not exactly an easy thing to steal.
The treasure must be further inside. They’ve gotta have something.
He made his way down the hall until he found the opening into the main worship area. The large open space, about fifty feet in diameter, consisted of more of the same type of wall decorations with neither pews nor chairs. It was empty except for a covering of Persian rugs. On a raised platform opposite the entrance stood a small podium, barely two feet tall. He crossed the center of the room. He looked under the podium, only to find it empty.
