by Lou Cadle
21
Camas, noon.
Chad continued to stare at the erupting volcano, riveted by the sight.
“Wow,” Francie said.
The hearing in his right ear was messed up; her voice sounded like it was coming through a cotton ball. It was impossible to focus very long on that, or on his nausea, when the distant column of black ash pushed up and up into the distant sky.
Suddenly, lightning broke out in the ash, red flashes all through it, white bolts snapping out of the edges. A chunk of the cloud dropped down and he could see it tear down the steep white slope. Above it, the lightning continued to flash.
Chad’s heart pounded. It was like the end of the world over there. Angry gods hurling red thunderbolts. The ash column, colored darks shades of gray, continued to rise and rise. In just moments, it towered far above the mountain. As he watched, it began to spread out laterally at the top, a mushroom cloud of dark menace.
Francie licked her finger and stuck it into the air, muttering “Please please please.”
“Please what?”
“The wind. Thank God, it’s from the northwest,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “Ash. Ashfall, you were thinking.”
She nodded. “We have to—.” She looked around, left, right, back at the sky. Then she turned to him. “Fuck a duck, Chad, I don’t know what we have to do.” She grabbed her radio and said her name into it. “Requesting orders, over,” she said, but the radio stayed silent for several more seconds. Maybe they were asking themselves what to do now, too, back at the firehouse.
While she waited, Chad continued to watch the eruption, which was not slowing. If anything, it was churning harder. The ash billowed out and billowed out. The top of the mushroom expanded, shading the glaciers, going lighter gray with distance from the mountain. He tested the wind himself. It was blowing almost exactly away from them, west-southwest. Maybe from the side, you could see the ash drifting off to the southeast with the wind, but from where they stood, it was a symmetrical mushroom cloud, a round bulb of light gray stuff at the top, a billowing darker column in the middle.
The longer he watched, the more dissociated from reality he felt. This had to be a dream, right? For the first time in his life, he understood what “surreal” meant. The red lightning had just begun to taper off—or maybe it was just getting hidden from sight by more ash—when the radio crackled to life. “Hold for new orders. Keep your radios clear, everyone.”
Chad’s nausea faded. His ear still rung but his knees felt better able to support him. He felt wholly impotent against the vision of the volcano, but he steeled himself for action. Whatever orders came, he would do his very best.
Then the screaming started.
What the—?
Chad whirled around looking for the source. A man stumbled around the corner of an apartment building, his scream fading off to a wail. He tripped and fell in the mud. “Help me, help me,” he said. “Somebody help, please.”
Chad ran towards him. His front foot went into a slide on the gooey mud. His free arm pinwheeled to find balance. Just before he was going to fall, his toes slammed into the hidden edge of a curb and brought him to a jerking halt. His momentum pulled his upper body forward, but he was able to regain his balance before he face-planted in the mud. Francie had gotten ahead of him now, stepping quickly but carefully. He followed her. The man was wailing now, a pitiful sound.
“What’s wrong?” Francie called to him.
“They’re in my head!” he said.
She pulled up short, glancing back at Chad, and continued moving towards the man more cautiously. She stopped a good six feet from him. “Who is?”
“They are. Can’t you hear them?” He stood and wiped at his face with his shirt sleeve, which was filthy, leaving a patch of mud around his eyes. “They’re singing. Devils singing.”
“It’s okay,” said Francie. “We can help.”
Chad arrived at her side with the first aid kit, but it probably was of no use here. Maybe if he needed to whack the guy on the head with it if he got violent. The guy was crazy, right? Voices? Devils? No—in a flash of intuition, he understood. “It’s the blast,” Chad whispered to Francie.
Francie spared a quick glance at him.
“You just took the blast wrong,” Chad said to the man. “It’s fine. There aren’t devils singing. Your ears are ringing. Mine are too.”
The man’s blue eyes shone at him from the mud-covered face. “You hear them too?” He swiped at the air around his head, as if brushing away mosquitoes.
“No. I mean, sure, yeah, I hear them. In a way. But they’re not devils. They’re harmless.”
“No, they aren’t,” said the man, but he sounded less certain. His frenetic slapping at the air stopped.
“Let’s get you inside,” said Francie. “It’ll be better there.”
“We can hide from them?” He trapped his hands under his armpits.
“You bet,” she said, moving forward slowly, palms up, showing him she had no weapons, nothing to threaten his safety. She turned and mouthed to Chad, “Stay back.”
He watched them closely, worried the guy would freak out worse, and he’d have to wade in and try and subdue him without hurting him and before the guy hurt Francie.
She reached the man. “Where do you live?” she said. “In this building?”
“Washougal,” he said, naming the town east of them.
“Ah. So we’ll get you into this building right here.” She gently took his arm and guided him over to the steps of the apartment building. “Let’s….” She looked back at Chad. “Let’s go and sit on the steps, clear of the mud, and have Chad find us a nice place to hide. Is that okay?”
“Hide,” said the man, nodding.
“You bet. We’ll find you a safe place.”
Chad stepped and slid his way along to the front door of the apartment and held it for Francie and the crazy guy. Once they were in, he looked around. Old building. A short hallway, four polished wood doors opening off it. A flight of steps up. Up was good. They’d be away from the sight of the mud. Maybe if the guy couldn’t see the mud or the volcano, he’d be calmer. Though if Chad had guessed right and it was ringing ears bothering him, no place would be better than any other, and he’d just have to wait until his ears quit ringing. Chad’s still were, though the ringing was fading. No way to tell if the crazy guy’s was fading at the same rate, though.
He ran up the steps. At the front of the building, the landing opened up into a carpeted space that had a potted fake plant and a high window facing south. If they could keep the guy from looking out that window and at the mountain, it’d be as good a place as any to treat the guy.
He started banging on doors. The third finally opened a crack.
“Yes?” a woman’s voice said.
“Chad Keppler, Camas Fire Department,” he said.
The door opened to reveal a woman in her 40s or 50s, in shorts and barefoot. “Is there a fire?”
“No ma’am. We have an injured man we’re caring for. Could I trouble you for some wash water? Bucket, empty milk jug, whatever you have.”
“Of course, young man. I’ll do that right away. Can I help with the man? Do you want to bring him in here?”
“Well, the guy is a little overwrought. Probably be better if you stayed in there and he stayed out here.”
“Do you know when the electricity will be back on?”
“No ma’am.” He wondered if it had shorted out from the moisture or if lines had broken or if it had been turned off up the line somewhere.
He ran down and spoke in a low voice to Francie. “We can put the man in the hallway upstairs, or leave him here on the steps, whichever you want. I asked a resident for some wash water. But we’ll wreck the place if we clean him up there on the carpet.”
“We won’t have him take a bath. Just get his hands and face clean, right, Joey?” she said to the man who was huddled beside her, his eyes closed, shivering despi
te the warm day. He didn’t answer her but he mumbled to himself. Chad strained to hear but could make out no clear words. Chad worried that the man might start raving and flailing again and hurt Francie. Or hurt himself. Or run away and do damage elsewhere. Chad knew nothing about insanity. Maybe this guy wasn’t even insane on normal days. Maybe he was just freaked. And who could blame him?
Chad got on one side of him and Francie on the other, and they guided him upstairs to the front hallway. The woman had set a bucket of water outside her door, which was closed again, Chad was glad to see. He didn’t particularly want to be next to the crazy guy, either, with the non-stop mumbling monologue.
Francie helped the man clean his face and hands. She kept saying his name as she worked, kept up a steady stream of murmuring reassurance, counterpoint to the muttering from the man. Chad wondered how she had coaxed the name from him in the first place. Outside the window, Chad could see the volcano, still spewing. He moved to open the window. It resisted but when he pushed harder it opened with a squeal. Chad glanced back to make sure the noise hadn’t set off their crazy man, but he seemed lost in his own world now. Chad stuck his head out and looked around. The volcano still was churning out stuff like it would never stop. The lahar mud stretched through every street he could see.
A passenger jet was coming in low over the Columbia River, a common flight path into Portland’s airport. But this jet was low. Far too low. And Chad couldn’t hear it. He could see it, big as you please, moving downriver. He strained to hear, but the city was quiet, eerily quiet for a midday. No traffic. He should be hearing jet engines. Maybe it was his hearing at fault?
“Francie,” he said. “Over here, quick.”
She hopped up and joined him.
“Did you see it?” The jet was out of sight now.
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear it? I can’t hear so well from one ear.”
She spoke quietly. “I think its engines were out.” She took her radio in hand. Speaking low, she called in while Chad kept his eyes on the crazy man.
^ ^ ^
On flight 8421, Dallas to Portland.
Aboard the Boeing 777, the flight crew hadn’t seen the eruption, just ahead of them to the east. Had there been a window on the floor of the flight deck, it would have been an amazing sight, one seldom glimpsed from such an angle.
On the flight deck, the slight motion of the shockwave momentarily lifting them didn’t warrant comment, no more than any other bit of random turbulence. As they descended toward the Columbia River, the crew prepared for the approach to PDX.
Air traffic control came on the radio. “All traffic, be advised that there has been an eruption, a volcanic eruption of Mount Hood. Southwest 8421 heavy, turn north immediately. XE643, descend to twelve zero zero to avoid heavy traffic.” The voice went on with specific instructions to eight other flights, professionally calm but quick.
When there was a pause from the radio, Captain Bryce Smith said, “Roger that, Southwest 8421 heavy turning to heading zero now.” To his first officer and navigator he said, “What’s outside on your side, guys?”
Audrey Mack, his co-pilot said, “Seeing nothing.”
The navigator, Jesus Perez, said, “Want me to go into the cabin to get a different view?” He was peering over the captain’s right shoulder and out the port side of the plane.
“Too much hassle,” the captain said.
Then flames shot out of the left engine. When they died back, the engine glowed with white light. The eerie light began strobing. In another two seconds, the flashing light was gone. The engine died.
The navigator went back to his seat, strapped in, and the pilots initiated engine shut down drill.
“Fire extinguishers armed,” said Mack. Then, “shit.”
“What?” Captain Smith was distracted by a light show at the front windshield, like an aurora, primary colors glancing off its surface like rain.
“I smell sulfur, don’t you?” said Perez.
“Screw that, the starboard engine’s flaming out, No. It’s gone,” said Mack.
“First officer,” said Smith sharply. “You know what to do.”
“Roger, initiating shutdown engine two,” she said.
“Restart on engine one,” said Smith.
“Restart,” she said.
Bryce watched the port engine out the window, but nothing happened. Mack confirmed no restart. “Try again,” he told her. “And keep trying.”
The radio gave their flight again. “Southwest 8421 turn heading three-three-five, descend.”
“Phoenix Center,” he said into the radio, “Southwest 8421 heavy. Be advised we have lost both engines. Repeat, both engines flame out.”
“Southwest 8421, are you declaring an emergency?”
“We are in a fall, Portland.” A glide, in reality. They weren’t dropping like a rock. They were soaring like a glider plane, a 250,000 pound glider plane. Gravity was taking them down, but at a low angle. The 777 had a 9:1 glide ratio. For every nine miles they moved straight forward, they’d drop a mile. Not that they had enough miles below them now for that to matter much. And not that he could go straight. He had to turn west to get out of the mountains, and turning ate up altitude. This situation fell under the heading “not ideal.”
“Souls aboard, 8421?”
Mack said, “212.”
“Two-one-two souls,” confirmed Portland.
“Any assistance you have, we’d appreciate. Give us vectors and weather, please.”
Air traffic control gave them a heading down the river—their regular flight path on any normal day. Captain Smith tuned out the radio chatter that cleared all traffic below and ahead of them and ran through his options. Ditching on the river would be better than ditching into the side of a mountain, of course. And far better for any civilians on the ground. But he wasn’t going to ditch, not if he could help it. Volcano or no volcano, his would not be the name attached to a fatal crash. He tweaked flaps and rudders to get them on the right heading.
“Restart those engines,” he said to Mack.
“I’m trying, sir.”
The light show at the windshield was gone, at least. St Elmo’s fire? That had been bizarre.
A flight attendant’s voice came up. “Captain. We have smoke in the cabin.”
What the hell now? “Go back and see, and let the marshal know what you’re doing,” he said to Perez. The crewman left, locking the door behind himself.
“Try a windmill,” he said to Mack, doing his damnedest to get them headed correctly with the minimum loss of altitude.
“Don’t need to,” Mack said. “Finally. Restart on one.”
Smith felt control return. “Keep trying on two.”
He leveled them out and got them over the river, following it to the west toward the airport. A dam passed under them. He thought through the dam locations, in case they needed to ditch. He’d want to do that well before another dam came up, or after the final one and well before the busy ports. That didn’t leave him many choices of ditch sites.
He spoke to ATC. “Portland Center, Southwest 8421 has port engine restart.”
“You’re clear for runway four-two right, 8421.”
Was he doing all he could? Again, he ran through a mental checklist. A memory of something he had read on the Iceland volcano a couple years back popped into his head.
Captain Smith took the moment to make a cabin announcement. “Ladies and gentleman, we have a slight problem. There has been a volcanic eruption in our path, and that is likely why you smell a bit of sulfur and see some haze in the cabin. We lost an engine for a moment but we have it back now. We hope this has not inconvenienced you in any way.” He clicked off.
Mack: “Engine one is out again.”
“I know,” he muttered. He realized the passengers could see the flameouts, too, and was surprised they weren’t screaming back there.
Perez came back and belted in. “No fire,” he said. “You nailed it, Cap, wh
at you said, but I don’t know how you figured it out.”
“Restart that engine,” he barked at Mack. He was starting to get irked at the engines.
They were coming down faster again, gliding down the line of the river, losing too much altitude. Look at all the river traffic, boat, boat, ship, tanker. And what the hell was wrong with the river? It was all gray. Ships seemed stuck. Aw, man. He couldn’t ditch in that stuff. Could they make the ocean? He thought they’d hit before the Pacific at this rate of descent.
“Mack,” he said. “Any time.”
“I’m trying. Trying both.” He heard her say under her breath, “It’s not like I can jiggle something.”
As he was starting to get a little worried about the container ship right ahead of them, engine one caught again. Engine two seemed to be a goner. He lifted them a hundred feet and the container ship passed safely beneath their belly. He heard the breath of air Mack let out in relief.
The flight crew prepared for landing. Smith told the flight attendants to get the passengers ready for a possible hard landing. From ATC he checked his approach vector. He willed engine one to stay with them, just a few more minutes, buddy, hang in there until we’re on the runway and moving slower. He jogged them southwest, and west again, lining up with the runway and easing her down.
When the wheels touched, he could hear the cheering back in the cabin. On one engine, they taxied through fire trucks and ambulances and up to the nearest gate. The crew breezed through shutdown.
“I’d just as soon not go through that again,” he said to his crew.
“Great job,” said Mack.
“You too. Both of you.” He made the same announcement to the passengers that he always did. “The weather in Portland is clear. Local time is 12:28 p.m. Thank you for flying Southwest.”
And then his hand started shaking.
^ ^ ^
Chad kept his head out the window, trying to catch another glimpse of the jet, expecting to hear another explosion, this time of the jet hitting the river. Or a tree-covered island. Or the city of Vancouver. But nearly a minute passed, and he heard nothing at all but a few distant voices down on the streets.
“Okay,” said Francie, coming back to his side. “Let’s go.”
