The Great Escape

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Joan’s eyes bulged at his words, which only made him grin. “Just trying to yank your chain, so to speak.” Then he sobered. “You locked in your seat belt?”

  Joan tested her halter and lap restraints and vigorously nodded her head. Her pilot gave her a thumbs-up sign and then returned his attention to his craft. Thumbs up? Despite the winds, the buffeting they were taking and the dipping and wobbling the itsy-bitsy plane was enduring, he thought things were thumbs-up? Then maybe it wasn’t as bad as she feared.

  Just then, he surprised her by reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. “We’re going to be okay, Joan.”

  He’d called her Joan. They were going to die. Tears sprang to her eyes. He must have noticed them, because he shook his head, saying, “Uh-uh. None of that. It’s not allowed. We’re going to be okay. You believe me?”

  Joan blinked back her tears and tried to undo her frown. But couldn’t. She had to settle for biting her bottom lip and nodding.

  Dan faced forward again. “Good. Hang on.”

  Hang on? Joan searched the cockpit. To what exactly? He was the most solid thing about this Christmas stockingstuffer enveloping them. But he was kind of busy right now. So Joan clutched her parka and closed her eyes, mumbling every prayer she knew. The tossing and tumbling, the up and down, the side to side, her abject fear, all combined to bring on nausea. Oh, good. Let me throw up. That’ll certainly add to the ambience.

  Just then, the deputy blurted out a particularly descriptive curse. Joan’s eyelids snapped up like sprung venetian blinds. And admitted he had reason to curse—the Cessna kept balking at staying right-side-up, much less level. She squeezed her eyes shut again. Every muscle in her body locked as she hunched down in her seat and retreated within herself.

  Then she heard his voice, realized he was talking. She opened her eyes. He wasn’t talking to her. He was speaking into the black mike boom attached to his headset. She heard him say something like Albuquerque Approach. She tried to hear everything, but got only disjointed words and phrases that did nothing to ease her terror. “…primary flight instruments…failed…”—something, something— ”…declaring an emergency.”

  Then he ripped the headset off and called out, “Hang on, Joan. We’re going down.”

  And he wasn’t kidding, either. The plane sought hard earth with the straight-arrow, nose-first vengeance of a hurled javelin. Like the man said, they were going down. “We’re going to die!”

  “Not if I can help it.” His voice was grim. His gaze darted with singular intensity from the instrument panel to Mother Nature’s fury outside and then back down to the gauges. “Come on, dammit,” he urged. Then, as if suddenly remembering he had a terrified passenger, he called out, “I’m trying to bring us in level so we can slip across the snow to a stop. Instead of plowing into the ground and digging our way to hell.”

  Joan nodded quickly but said nothing. Her heart racing like a stuck motor, she stared at the fast-approaching earth. Bald rocky patches poked through the snow-covered mountain terrain below. That’s how close the ground was. She could see that, could make out individual stands of pine, could see white meadows. This is not happening.

  Too terrified to watch her fate rising to meet her, Joan snapped her desperate attention to Dan. His concentration was singular as he worked to control the Cessna. Finally its nose inched up and up until the craft was more or less parallel to the ground. Only then did he call out to her. Joan didn’t catch his words. She strained toward him, needing very much to hear the sound of his voice over the tripping hammer that was her heart.

  “I said we’re ice-covered right now. That’s to be expected. See this wheel I’m holding? It’s the yoke. Watch. Very slight back-pressure on it…like this. Nice and easy. I’m heading for that clearing right below us. With any luck, it’s deep enough to cushion us. We’re going in with the wings in a level attitude. That’s all I can do. See you on the other side, kid.”

  Still staring at him, unable to look away from him, no matter how much she wanted to close her eyes, Joan held her breath and clung to his profile. She’d said it earlier today—her life was in his hands—but she hadn’t known then how true that would be.

  And that was her last thought before they met the starkest sort of reality in the high-mountain snowfield. The Cessna hit. The world kaleidoscoped into the fractured, fragmented images of swirling trees caught in a spin cycle. The plane pushed through the deep snows covering the meadow. Like a spun bottle in a kissing game, the Cessna swirled across the icy snow. And finally headed directly, sickeningly, with fast-forward swiftness, for the thick trunks of some monster pines.

  Joan opened her mouth, thought she screamed. But no sound came out.

  4

  JOAN SLOWLY, achingly rejoined the conscious world. Something was strapped diagonally across her chest and holding her hunched forward in a seat. Where was she? And why was she staring at her tennis shoes with such intensity? Ditto her ponytail. It hung over her shoulder, brushed her knees. But the worst part was, she hurt all over and felt sick. She looked at her hands. She was also handcuffed. Why?

  Then it all flashed back to her. Tony LoBianco. Houston. Dan Hendricks. The plane. The storm. The javelin. Ah, yes. They’d crashed. And my, wasn’t she calm about it all? I’m in shock. That’s it. I’m in shock. Or I’m dead. No, I prefer shock. Who wouldn’t be shocked?

  Hurting everywhere, she pulled herself upright, wondering why she had to fight gravity to do so. Then she realized that the Cessna tilted to the left. But something, someone, was missing. Where was Dan?

  “Dan?” No man, no body, no answer. The door on his side gaped open and, frighteningly, didn’t appear to be impeded by contact with the ground. Don’t even tell me we’re up a tree. She swallowed and took a deep breath. Had Dan fallen out to his death? Would she too if she tried to get out?

  Squinting at the blindingly bright, snowy world outside the damaged aircraft, Joan assessed her situation. Okay, the storm had abated some, the world was white and long shadows blanketed her, the plane and the trees. So maybe hours had passed. She shivered. She was certainly cold enough for it to have been hours.

  Pushing that thought aside, she took in her more immediate surroundings. The Cessna’s crumpled nose was bumped against a thick tree trunk. So, it wasn’t up a tree at all. It was on the ground because…she looked to her left and then to her right…she could see other thick-bark trunks. And through a clearing in those, some big purple mountains. But where was Dan? Scared now, she all but whispered, “Dan?”

  Still no answer. “Dan?” she called out louder, maybe a little hysterically. “Dan, where are you? You didn’t leave me, did you?” Which was a pretty stupid thing to say, she realized. Because if he had, he wouldn’t be here to answer, now, would he?

  Panic set in. He left me alone and handcuffed in this snowdrift. I’ll freeze to death or get eaten by a bear. Oh, please let me freeze all the way to death before I get eaten by a bear. Stop it. He probably went to get help. Now get the heck out of this Cessna before it catches on fire and explodes. Good idea.

  Then she remembered Dan saying it probably wouldn’t catch fire because of the fuel and winds or something. But still, thinking better safe than sorry, she tugged frantically at her seat belt. With her hands cuffed and moving together like synchronized swimmers, she fought and scratched until she got her restraints unclasped. Shrugging out of them, she pushed her shoulder against the door on her right as she two-handedly fumbled with the latch.

  No dice. Stuck. Jammed. Wedged. It wouldn’t open. Great. Close to tears now, she slumped in her seat and thought about giving up. Then a gust of cold wind drew her attention to her left, to the other open door.

  Making a face at her own idiocy, she hitched and flipped, in beached-seal fashion, until she could pull herself up out of her seat. The plane lurched. Joan froze in position—on her knees and holding on to the seat back. Then she sucked in a very cold breath. Don’t do this, nice airplane. I’m sorry for everythin
g I ever said about you. Just hold together until I get out. Please?

  When the plane stayed in place, Joan inched her wary way over to the pilot’s seat. But her knee slipped, and she lost her balance. She tumbled face-first and squawking right out of the Cessna, rolling and finally landing in a deep drift of oh-so-chilling snow. Slowly, she came to her knees, spitting and hissing and rubbing her numb fingers over her face. A noise behind her jerked her around. The Cessna shuddered and slid a notch down its snowy embankment. Toward her.

  Wide-eyed, Joan struggled to her feet and cleared the area in a dead run. Stopping only when she felt she was a safe distance away, she turned back to the disabled airplane. It slipped another notch. She jumped, fully intending to respond to her instinct to flee.

  But just then, a spot of orange in the snow, and in the plane’s eventual path, caught her eye. She froze, more from sudden realization and fear than from the cold. The deputy hadn’t gone for help at all. Far from it. Because there he was. Lying on the ground. And he needed help. Her help.

  Not liking herself one bit for it, she hesitated, told herself she was free now. Everyone, including Mr. LoBianco’s cronies, would think she was dead and that maybe wild animals had carried off her body. She could change her hair and her name and live her life. Be free of her past. Pick a future more to her own liking.

  Yeah, and eat her heart out for the rest of her miserable life because she’d left a man to die. What if he was just unconscious? Could she just stand here and watch the plane crush him? Or leave him here, to die of exposure? “Great,” Joan huffed. Still, she looked at the orange parka half buried in the snow…then up at the Cessna…and around the expanse of open country surrounding her.

  This was her last opportunity for freedom. Already hating herself, she turned away from the crash site, took a step and walked right into a low-hanging branch. “Okay, I was kidding,” she said aloud, fighting off pine needles. “Can’t even take a joke.”

  Without asking herself who she was talking to, she turned around and trudged back to the deputy, telling herself she may as well stay with him. God knows, in her stable, boring, adventure-challenged existence, she’d couch-potatoed enough action-adventure TV shows to know that you always stayed with your craft.

  By the unconscious lawman’s side now, she stared at his broad back and splayed arms and legs. With his face turned toward her, his cheek rested on a pile of snow-dusted leafy undergrowth. Well, she’d gotten one wish—his sunglasses were gone. Another good thing was his face. It wasn’t a bloody pulp. That was never good.

  She knelt beside him in the snow, feeling the cold wetness penetrate her jeans. She looked him over. What should she do? Maybe feel his neck for a pulse? Sure. Why not? Holding her freezing fingers against his neck, she felt around, found nothing. Seconds and hope ticked by. Joan moved her fingers to another spot on his exposed flesh. And then, there it was. A pulse. Strong and steady. “Yes!” She slumped over him, hugging him for being alive.

  When she raised up, she marked how stiff her muscles were, and how low over the mountains the pale sun was. She had to get him up somehow. She raked her gaze over the man’s still form. Maybe she’d better check him for broken bones before she tried to turn him over. Surprised, she sat back on her legs. Look at me. All of a sudden I’m Miss Wilderness Survival. Where’s all this stuff coming from?

  After all, nothing in her citified, foster-home-living, unwitting-accountant-to-the-mob lifestyle had prepared her for this. Good thing that, between boyfriends, she’d kept company with her TV, huh? Strike a blow for the boob tube later, all right? For now, worry about broken bones and then find shelter from the cold.

  Fine. She leaned forward again, moving her manacled hands awkwardly over the deputy’s body. He was so warm under his parka and so finely muscled. Under any other circumstances, Joan told herself, this would be a very…touching moment. But not like this. Poor guy. He was out cold and helpless. And here she was…feeling him up.

  Clearing her throat, as well as her hormonal thoughts, she rolled him over as gingerly as she could, given his bulk and her cuffed condition. She then brushed the snow off his face and shook his shoulder, calling out, “Dan? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  Nothing. Joan sank back on her haunches and looked skyward. Great. Now what? Die here with him? What am I supposed to do? Find someplace warm. I know that. But where? Her gaze directed itself to the crumpled Cessna. No, thanks. But there might be blankets inside. And there’s the radio. Maybe it works. Sounded like a plan.

  But first, she had to get Dan out of the plane’s path. She mentally measured his length and breadth. The guy may as well be Gulliver and she a Lilliputian. Was he never going to wake up? This just wasn’t fair. She needed him. He was going to help her, save her from herself. Somebody needed to. She couldn’t do it herself. She frowned. Did that make sense?

  About as much as this. Just when she met someone who was kind and gentle, even funny, someone she thought she might be able to trust, look what happens. She’s charged with murder and he gets whacked in a plane wreck. What were the odds? She looked again to the Cessna and frowned. No telling when gravity would wrench it down on top of them. She looked down at the prostrate deputy. And jumped. His eyes were open, but not very focused. He grimaced and mumbled, “What happened?”

  Joan slumped in relief, blinked back tears. “Well, remember earlier when we were airborne, how you kept saying it was going to be okay?” She shook her head. “It wasn’t. Here’s how un-okay it is—you can forget that press conference. We’ll be the news. Our crash, that is.”

  He stared up at her. Blankly. Great. All the lights are on, but nobody’s home. He tried to sit up, but Joan restrained him with her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t move. Something besides your Cessna could be broken.”

  She thought he looked a little less dazed and confused as he pulled himself up onto his elbows. But then he said, “My what?”

  She huffed out a cloud of warm breath and pointed at the winged expanse of steel teetering just up the slope from them. “Your Cessna. It’s broken. Your taxpayers are not going to be amused.”

  Dan craned his neck in the direction she pointed. Then his eyes flew open wide. “Holy—!” He jackknifed up, grabbed her around the waist and rolled over and over and over with her. Finally he rolled to his feet…obviously nothing was broken…and brought her with him. Grabbing her arm, he took off like a Boston Marathon legend, dragging her along behind him.

  Stopping somewhere in the next county…in Joan’s estimation…he let go of her and bent over, bracing his hands against his knees. Breathing hard, looking pale, he croaked out, “Why were you sitting there? We could have been killed.”

  “You think?” Sarcasm came naturally when she had wet, tangled, stick-embedded hair, was chilled from a roll in the snow and breathless from being forced to sprint at an Indy 500 pace. Between gasps for air, she griped, “What do you think I was doing? I was trying to make sure you were okay before I moved you. But then you woke up and…well, you know the rest.”

  Looking somewhat dazed again, if not dizzy, Dan plopped down in the snow. “We crashed. I can’t believe we made it. But…I was out cold, and you stayed with me?” He stared up at her in a purely assessing way. “That was a pretty selfless thing for a cold-blooded murderess like yourself to do.”

  She shrugged. “We have our moments.” Then she got defensive. “I thought you’d left me first. You weren’t the only unconscious victim here. When I woke up, I was still buckled in that plane and contemplating my shoes.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay. But what made you think I’d left you?”

  You’re glad I’m okay? Joan studied him. He was a nice guy. Then she said, “Because the door on your side was open, and you were nowhere to be seen. Didn’t I say that yet?” She then surprised herself by clogging up with tears. To her horror, her chin quivered and her voice wavered. “I thought you’d left me here to die.”

  Dan’s expression softened. �
�I wouldn’t do that” Then he came unsteadily to his feet, put a hand to his forehead, swayed slightly, blinked several times, and then surprised her by reaching for her. “Come here.”

  From sheer human need, Joan stepped into his embrace. With her cuffed hands held between her chest and his, she pressed her cheek against his coat’s zipper and didn’t mind its cold roughness against her skin. She clung to his quilted nylon jacket For the longest time, she stood melded to him, reveling in this feeling of being safe. She closed her eyes and sniffed again and again.

  “Joan?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Run.” With that, he broke their warm cocoon of an embrace, clutched at the back of her parka and again dragged her with him.

  Having to trundle along somewhat like Quasimodo, given his backward grip on her, Joan concentrated on staying on her feet From behind them came the metallic wrenching and moaning and cracking apart of the Cessna as it apparently worked on its descent Dan finally slowed and then stopped, swinging his arm around her to steady her. “Look,” he commanded.

  Joan turned in his embrace and looked. What she saw transfixed her. She could feel the deputy sheriff pressed to her back, but her thoughts were with the dying Cessna. “Oh no. It’s going to slide right over that cliff and down the mountain. There go the radio and the blankets.”

  “Yep,” Dan agreed, watching it go. But then he shifted his weight, causing her to look up at him. “How’d you know there were blankets?”

  Joan thought about it, shrugged her shoulders. “I assumed. Were there?”

  Dan nodded. “Yeah. Why didn’t you get them out?”