Impact (Wild Men of Alaska)

by Tiffinie Helmer

  “Skip?” she yelled his name but knew he couldn’t hear her over the roar of the engine and static of the wind. The plane leaped and fell, the tundra suddenly too close as the nose dipped. Over the noise and panic, she heard Skip swear followed by his shout, “Brace for impact!”

  “What?” He didn’t just say that. “Oh God, no.” She reached out and grabbed Jim’s shoulders and shook them. He slumped farther forward in his seat.

  Skip didn’t spare her a glance. One handed, he grabbed the headphones from Jim and slammed them onto his head. Next she heard, “Mayday, mayday, mayday!”

  The plane seesawed back and forth with the wind, trying to find some sort of balance, or perch, but the wind seemed to laugh as it blew them down toward the rapidly rising ground. They touched—a brush really—then a slam that knocked the wind out of her, followed quickly by the nose digging into the tundra and the plane somersaulting.

  Then nothing.

  Chapter Two

  Wren moaned and wiped at her face. Her head hurt like a son of a bitch. And why was she wet? She winced as her fingers bumped a tender area on her forehead, and she opened her eyes a slit. Blood painted her hand.

  Why was she bleeding?

  What kind of partying had she done this time? Oh please, no. Not again. She hadn’t relapsed, had she?

  No. NO. The price of relapse was too high. People had been hurt because of her and her weaknesses. She blinked and forced her eyes farther open.

  The place was a mess, like it had been tossed. Why was she hanging upside down in her seat? Wind whistled like a sick siren, chilling her further. She needed a blanket, a warm wash cloth, and some thick band aids.

  Suddenly everything came rushing back. The plane, the threatening weather front. They’d crash landed.

  They?

  Oh, God. “Skip?” His name screamed in her mind but only came out as a whisper. “Skip,” she said louder. The wind stole her words. She couldn’t see him or the pilot and wiped at her face with her sleeve again. She wouldn’t panic. They always say head wounds bleed a lot. Who the hell were they anyway? Her head hurt, she was bleeding, and it was really cold.

  This was Alaska.

  It was September, which by anyone else’s standards meant winter. They needed help, and they needed it fast or they were as good as dead.

  Crap, they were in more trouble if she was the only help.

  Wren struggled to release the seatbelt with one hand, the other on the ceiling—er now the floor—of the plane, helping to brace her weight. She still fell with an oomph when the belt released. She scrambled to her knees, her shoulders bumping into the seats as she crawled forward, wiping at more blood as it smeared her vision now that she wasn’t hanging upside down.

  “Skip? Jim?” No one answered. A coldness traveled up her spine that had nothing to do with the wind leeching through the cracks and broken window of the plane.

  Both men hung upside down in their seatbelts just as she had. They looked somewhat like bats, which had her stifling a hysterical giggle. With trembling fingers, she checked Skip’s neck for a pulse.

  “Please, God, please.” She felt nothing, and a whimper of dread escaped her. She pushed harder in the cramped space, her knees digging into whatever the hell the manufacturer had placed in the ceiling. Probably never took into account anyone having to kneel on them.

  Still no pulse.

  She felt around, blindly. “Come on, damn it.”

  Skip suddenly coughed. “Stop,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What are you trying to do? Choke me?”

  A relieved sob bubbled up. “Oh, thank God. You’re alive.”

  “Guess you never thought to hear yourself utter those words,” he muttered.

  She ignored him and turned toward Jim. She didn’t have to feel for his pulse. His eyes were wide open, but he would never see out of them again.

  “Skip?” she whispered. “Jim...?”

  “Yeah. I think he had a heart attack or aneurism. One minute he was there, and then he wasn’t.” Skip rubbed his eyes. “Damn it. The man had a son. Sixteen I think.”

  “Mother?”

  “Ran off years ago. Drugs.” He glanced at her and then away. “Come on. We need to get some things done before that weather front hits.” Skip winced as he moved to release his seatbelt. He braced himself much the way she had, but there was more of him hanging on the strap. “I can’t get out of this thing. Do you see a knife anywhere?”

  Wren glanced around the twisted frame of the plane. She didn’t see a knife, but she saw smoke.

  ***

  “The plane’s on fire!” She scrambled back. Where the hell had Jim said the fire extinguisher was? “Will the plane explode?” She didn’t want to die that way. Though it would be better than freezing to death.

  “Wren! Calm down. Tell me where you see fire.” There was an urgency in his voice that focused her panic.

  “I-I don’t. There’s smoke in the tail of the plane.”

  Skip let out a heavy breath. “There isn’t anything to burn back there. The engine’s up front, gas is in the wings. It’s probably dust or fog from the crash.”

  She took a closer look. It could be dust, but it sure looked a lot like smoke.

  “Help me get down.” Skip’s words captured her attention. “Find a knife.”

  “Don’t you carry a knife? You’re a cop. Aren’t you supposed to be prepared for anything, like the Canadian Mounties?”

  “Huh?”

  “The motto for the Canadian Mounties.”

  “No. That’s, ‘They always get their man.’”

  “Well, what the hell is the motto for Alaska Wildlife Troopers?”

  “Just cut me down. There’s a Leatherman clipped to the right side of my belt.

  “Then get it.”

  “I think my arm’s broken. You’ll have to reach it. The faster the better.”

  “Great. I’m gonna have to save your sorry ass.”

  “It’s not like I haven’t saved yours.”

  Smoke or dust started to seep into the cabin from the tail of the plane. They needed to get out of here. She didn’t trust that the plane wasn’t ready to go up in flames at any moment. She’d seen plane wrecks before. She watched the Discovery Channel.

  Wren reached around his seat, groping around his hip.

  “Too far to the left,” Skip said, adding in a softer, sexier voice, “Though I am enjoying your hand there.”

  Shit.

  Good thing he couldn’t see her as the heat flaming her face was enough to help her forget about the cold. She blindly found his belt and traced it until she located the Leatherman clipped in its leather case. She released the snap and worked the blade free. She crawled to the left in between the two seats, trying to forget about the dead pilot staring sightlessly forward into nothing. Her fingers shaking, she fought to open the damn blade. The seatbelt was pulled tight with Skip’s two hundred pounds hanging on it. She slid the knife under the belt where it clicked into place, giving her some space where it wasn’t digging into Skip’s body.

  “Wait!”

  Too late, Skip came crashing down in a crumpled mess.

  “Shit. I told you to wait.”

  “Sorry, the knife was sharp. I didn’t think it would slice through the belt like that.” She regarded him lying upside down on his back, his legs flopped forward. He had nowhere to go in the cramped space.

  He angled around on his shoulders, keeping his hurt arm next to his side and used his feet to kick open the door. Wind, bearing teeth, rushed in. It aided in pushing the smoke back.

  She grabbed the fire extinguisher Jim had haphazardly mentioned right before they’d taken off, but miraculously, the smoke was no longer there. Skip might be right about that, but she was holding onto the extinguisher until they knew for sure.

  “Come on, we need to take a look outside and see what kind of condition we’re in,” Skip said, his voice strained with pain.

  Condition? They were screwed.

&n
bsp; Skip struggled to climb out of the plane, and she crawled out after him. He cradled his arm, and her head pounded, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. They stood outside the plane and regarded the wreckage.

  Cushioned somewhat by the mossy tundra, she lay upside down on her wings looking like a squashed bug.

  “Guess, I’m not much of a pilot,” Skip said.

  “I don’t know. They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”

  He choked out a laugh. “Thanks for that.”

  “But I wouldn’t fly with you again,” she added.

  The wind blew at the plane, making it shudder. Good thing it was laying on its wings or the wind would probably pick it up and toss it off the bluff and into the rolling surf below.

  “Wow, you could have dumped us into the water.” They were seriously within twenty feet of the bluff where the deadly ocean could have swallowed them.

  “Yeah, crash landing could have been worse.”

  Chapter Three

  Skip cradled his arm next to his side, knowing it was broken. At least it seemed to be a clean break. He needed to immobilize it. The sooner the better. But first he needed to know where that smoke had come from. He was pretty positive what he’d told Wren was the truth. It made a lot of sense, what he’d been spewing, but he’d been surprised before. Besides, he’d helped Jim load the plane. There was more being flown to Egegik than him and Wren and their luggage. Supplies were back there. Supplies he hoped contained food and nothing flammable.

  He nodded to the fire extinguisher Wren clutched in her hands like a safety blanket. “You know how to handle that thing?” Being down to only one good arm, he wasn’t much help.

  “Uh... yeah.” She looked at him weird. “You forgot about that Fourth of July when we lit the garage on fire?”

  He barked out a laugh. “Damn, that seems like forever ago.” They’d been what? Ten, eleven and had wanted to see fireworks go off in the dark. Alaska’s daylight summers were horrible for firework displays. So they’d concocted this idea of lighting them off in the enclosed garage. Almost burning down the house. If it hadn’t been for Wren and her quick thinking with the fire extinguisher, the house would have been a goner, instead of just most of the garage.

  They walked around the plane, hunching into the wind. It still had enough power to push them back. Wren stumbled around on the mossy ground.

  There didn’t seem to be any sign of fire. Thank the good Lord. That would nail their chances of surviving for sure. They needed the plane for shelter from the brewing storm.

  “Looks as though the smoke was from the landing but keep the extinguisher close.” They trekked back to the front of the plane, the wind blowing them making the trip faster. Nothing seemed to be coming from the engine. But then the nose of the plane was buried deep in the spongy tundra. They climbed back into the plane, both shivering by the time he got the door wrenched closed behind them.

  Skip tried not to look at Jim. He didn’t have time to mourn his friend. Not when he needed to get help on the way, or he’d be mourning more than just Jim. The radio. Hell, why hadn’t he thought of that first. He reached for the mic. “Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is November2195Charlie we are crash landed—” He glanced at the GPS coordinates and recited them, repeating his mayday call twice more before the Coast Guard answered.

  The reply came back interspersed with a load of static over the radio. “Condition.”

  “Three people. Pilot dead, one with a broken arm, another with a bleeding head wound, possible concussion.”

  More static, and with dread, Skip made out the basics of what they were saying.

  “Weather...grounded...buckle down...blows over.”

  “Roger that.” Skip turned off the radio to save what battery they had left. He turned to Wren. “Looks like we are stuck here for a while, tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  “Tonight? Tomorrow?” Wren said. “Lori’s wedding is the day after tomorrow. We can’t miss the wedding.” That’s the reason Wren had gotten on the blasted plane to begin with. “What about your parents? And the wedding guests? They are going to be so worried.” She’d caused her friends and family too much worry over her short lifetime. Besides, she couldn’t spend the night with Skip out here in the wilds with a dead body, no bathroom, no bed, no coffee!

  “Wren! Keep it together.”

  She took a deep breath, held it until her lungs hurt and released it in a big huff. “Got it. Is there a plan?”

  “Shelter. Chances are this front will bring our first snowfall. At any rate, it’s going to rain and get really cold.”

  Colder than it already was? She’d forgotten how hostile this part of Alaska could be when it blew.

  “I don’t want to sound insensitive, but what about Jim?” Were they going to spend the night next to a dead body?

  Skip’s jaw tightened. “We need to move him.”

  What about predators? She couldn’t bring herself to voice the thought, giving it power. But it was a serious probability. Who knew what lurked out there? She swung around, trying to see as far as she could with the drooping clouds. The tundra was pock-marked with alder bushes and scrubs. Anything could be hiding out there. Bears weren’t to bed for the winter yet.

  She shivered and regarded Skip. His arm was swelling, his hand almost twice the normal size. “We need to brace your arm first.” She glanced around, took out Skip’s knife that she’d pocketed after cutting him down and sliced the seatbelt free from the plane. Now what to splint it with? Planes weren’t made of wood. She climbed back into the tail where the luggage was stowed.

  A webbed netting held the bags in place upside down. She cut one side and worked her bag free. Tossing it to the middle of the plane, it slid to a stop on the ceiling/floor between the seats. She unzipped it and pulled out her curling iron.

  “You got to be kidding?” Skip scoffed.

  “It’s rigid. Got a better idea?”

  In her bag, she also pulled out a water bottle and Tylenol. “Might want to start with this.”

  “Got anything stronger?” he mumbled before tossing the pills back and shutting up.

  “Want to bite down on something?”

  “Just do it.” He ground his teeth together.

  “Fine.” She climbed over her bag and carefully took his arm. It was a clean break, as near as she could tell between the elbow and wrist. She knew from experience that if they could immobilize it, the pain would lessen. “Brace yourself, this is going to hurt.”

  “Talking about it isn’t helping.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and tightened her grip on his hand, moving the arm back into place the best she could. Skip did really well until she was almost done, and then he hollered, followed by cursing that was more colorful than anything she’d heard in jail.

  She did her best to ignore it and do the job. She was good at that. Tunnel vision, her mother used to call it. Whatever. She focused, and when his arm looked as straight as she could get it, she made quick work of bracing it with the curling iron. But the seatbelt was proving troublesome. The fabric was slick and didn’t want to stay tight. “This isn’t working.”

  “Duct tape,” Skip gritted out. He pointed to the back. “There’s a toolkit. Any bush pilot worth his weight has duct tape.”

  “Hold this, and don’t move it.” She didn’t want to go through that again. She doubted he did either.

  “Don’t worry.”

  She regarded his pale Aleut skin, the sweat beading on his upper lip. Could you get sick with a broken arm? Infection? What if the bone had cut open blood vessels? An artery?

  What if he died on her, too?

  “Hey, I’m not going to die,” Skip growled.

  Had she voiced that out loud?

  “We’re both going to make it out of here alive. All we have to do is survive the night. We’ve lived through the worst.”

  She didn’t agree. Surviving the night alone with Skip just might do
her in.

  “Stop thinking like that.”

  He couldn’t still read her like a book, could he?

  Damn it. She’d worked so hard on not letting her emotions play over her face like a movie. She needed space away from him, but the only space she was going to find was out there in the wide open wilderness.

  And that would definitely kill her.

  Chapter Five

  Skip loved the vivid expressions on Wren’s face. He’d forgotten how fun it was to talk with her, be with her, and love her. She’d been the most open, emotionally free woman he’d ever known.

  He wanted her back.

  He’d needed alone time to do that. Being stuck somewhere on the bluffs of Bristol Bay in a plane wreck was more than he’d counted on. He certainly didn’t appreciate Jim’s death giving him that time.

  Jim.

  They needed to do something about him, but first they needed to see to Wren’s injuries. She finished duct taping the curling arm to his arm, using his knife to cut the toe off one of her socks to protect his skin from the adhesive.

  “I need to check that cut on your forehead,” Skip said, his fingers reaching up to smooth her hair back.

  “It’s okay.” She jerked out of his reach.

  He curled his fingers with regret that she didn’t want him to touch her. Surely, things weren’t that bad between them.

  “The cut needs to be cleaned and bandaged.”

  “I can take care of it.” She tightened her lips.

  “How?” He gestured with his good arm, hitting the top of the seat hanging above them. “You see a bathroom? A mirror. Don’t be stu—”

  “Don’t call me stupid.” Her expression shut down.

  Ah crap. His tone was sorry when he spoke again. “I wasn’t calling you stupid. I was going to say stubborn. You’re stubborn as hell, Wren, but never stupid.” He remembered her dad and his constant verbal abuse. Skip had even confronted the bastard when they were teenagers, and her father had gone after Wren with words that sliced and stomped her struggling spirit. She’d been called stupid so many times in her life that she’d begun to believe it, which Skip believed was the reason she’d looked for an escape. And drugs had been her vehicle.