by Carol Shaben
As Erik stood wondering how the hell he was going to manage the flight, two men approached. One, about 5′10″, bull-chested and casually dressed with a hedgehog coat of close-cropped auburn hair, dropped his shackled left hand heavily on the counter. Handcuffed to him was another man. Of similar height, he had a brawny build with an unkempt mop of frizzy brown hair, and deep blue eyes that softened the strong angles of his face. Sideburns stretched like woolly carpets down either side of his cheekbones and above his upper lip, a generous arch of moustache curved over small, even teeth.
“Where do you want me to sit?” the first man asked. Below a prominent brow, green eyes regarded Erik intently as he explained that he was an RCMP officer escorting a prisoner to face charges in Grande Prairie.
Erik swallowed hard. He remembered the story of a prisoner getting loose on a charter flight out of Vancouver and trying to attack the pilot.
“At the very back,” he said, regarding the prisoner warily. The man exuded a nervous energy like a charged circuit, and wore only jeans, a wool-lined jean jacket and an open-collared shirt: not exactly appropriate for the weather.
“I’d like to board him first,” the cop said.
Erik nodded, then asked Linda to finish ticketing the passengers while he went to the nearby weather office to see if Luella Wood, High Prairie’s airport manager, had filed her customary 6 p.m. weather report. She had, and the news wasn’t good: the cloud deck was broken at 500 feet and overcast at 900. A visual approach required a 1000-foot ceiling and 3 miles’ visibility.
As he walked back to the counter, Erik surveyed the other passengers in the departure area: four men and two women heading home on a Friday night. He stepped behind the counter and grabbed the PA system mic.
“Attention, passengers on Wapiti Flight 402,” he announced. “I’m not sure whether we’re going to be able to land in High Prairie because the ceiling is so low. If we can’t, we’ll have to go on to Peace River because they have a controlled approach. If there are any passengers headed for High Prairie who don’t want to take the flight, please let me know.”
Erik scanned the faces of the passengers in front of him. Regardless of the weather, they expected him to get them home. They weren’t going to give him an out. He ran a hand wearily across his forehead, trying to erase the tension that had settled there. He’d done what he could. At least if he overflew High Prairie, it wouldn’t come as a surprise.
As he walked outside to load the luggage, an icy wind whipped along the tarmac, wet flakes dampening his face. The airport—a dark triangle of land slashed out of the bald northern prairie—was shrouded in fog and beyond its muted southeastern border, the lights of downtown cast a dull violet glow. A collection of squat buildings flanked the airport’s southwestern perimeter and beside them silhouettes of airplanes perched like frozen birds, wings outstretched as if already in flight.
Erik took a deep, shuddering breath to calm his nerves and tried to focus on the positives. He’d warned his passengers about the flight, so there wouldn’t be any flak if he ended up taking High Prairie passengers on to Peace River. Linda had done the ticketing, so he’d been able to check the weather—a luxury he seldom had time for. He’d even had a dinner of sorts, eating the untouched half of a sandwich left by a Wapiti pilot who hadn’t had time to finish it.
Erik’s efforts to stay upbeat didn’t last. When he got to the plane, the fuelling service hadn’t yet arrived and he had to scramble to get the tanks filled. By the time they finished, he was behind schedule. He hastily piled some of the luggage into the plane’s nose compartment and then crammed the rest into the rear hold behind the seats. Though regulations required that he calculate the weight and balance for the aircraft, he didn’t bother. What difference would it make? Erik didn’t feel he could leave passengers or their luggage behind, and in winter conditions like tonight it would be foolish to skimp on fuel when he didn’t know whether he’d be able to get into the uncontrolled airports on his route. He estimated the fully fuelled, nine-passenger flight would be overweight to the tune of about 200 kilograms, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The queasy feeling in his stomach grew as he walked back to the terminal to escort the cop and his prisoner outside.
When they arrived at the aircraft he watched uneasily as the constable unlocked the handcuff from his shackled wrist and snapped it closed around the prisoner’s free one. Erik pulled open the hatch and gave the go-ahead to climb aboard.
Behind the terminal doors, Larry Shaben squinted through thick wire-rimmed glasses at the snow falling in white waves across the tarmac. Forty-nine, with a broad, balding forehead, olive skin and enormous brown eyes, Larry was immaculately dressed in a navy suit and brown ultra-suede topcoat. A second-generation Canadian of Arab descent, Larry was an elected member of the Alberta government and the country’s first Muslim Cabinet minister. His executive assistant had driven him to the airport directly from his office at the Alberta Legislature just in time to catch his flight home for the weekend. Now he waited impatiently to board.
The doors opened and the pilot entered, bringing a blast of frigid air with him. It blew the thinning strands of dark curly hair from the crown of Larry’s head and he quickly smoothed them back into place. The politician had watched the pilot frantically working to prepare everything for the flight. He was young and seemed on edge. Larry had detected strain in his voice when he’d made the announcement about possibly not being able to land in High Prairie, and had immediately called home to let his wife, Alma, know.
“I’ll tell you what … if we can’t land and you have to pick me up in Peace River, I’ll buy you dinner.”
Though he hated the thought of Alma driving on the highway in these conditions, there wasn’t another option. And it was only 130 kilometres. Larry would drive the two of them home after dinner and let her sleep in the car.
It had been a gruelling week at the Ledge, as he and his colleagues often called the Alberta Legislature. That morning the government’s fall session had begun. For the next six weeks Larry would spend his days sitting in chambers debating and voting on bills and motions. In preparation for the time away from his office, he had spent the past week working twelve- to fourteen-hour days to get on top of the mountain of paperwork he had to deal with as the Minister for Housing and Utilities.
As he typically did every Monday morning, Larry had flown south from his home in High Prairie to Edmonton, where he rented an apartment five minutes’ walk from the Legislature. By Friday, he was so tired that he couldn’t imagine driving the twenty minutes across the city to the municipal airport, let alone the four hours north to High Prairie. Now that the weather had turned, the thought was even less appealing.
As he’d dashed out to his aide’s car, Larry could feel the chill weight of moisture in the air—unusual for Edmonton, which was prone to brittle cold and clear skies. The city roads had been thick with slushy new snow and Friday night traffic crawled.
When he’d arrived at the terminal Larry had little energy for conversation, but among the cluster of passengers at the check-in counter were some he knew well. One, Gordon Peever, a next-door neighbour whose kids had grown up with Larry’s own, was director of finance at a vocational college near High Prairie. Gordon often travelled to Edmonton for work and that morning he’d caught a ride to the city with a friend to attend a meeting. Gordon had planned to take the bus home that afternoon, but for some reason decided to catch a cab to the airport in hopes of getting a flight. He’d worried he’d be on standby, Gordon told Larry, but had been lucky enough to get a seat after a passenger cancelled. Larry also greeted another local resident, Christopher Vince. The young British-born man had recently moved from Calgary, a city three hours’ drive south of Edmonton in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, to take a government job training social workers. His wife, Francis, a schoolteacher, had just started teaching at the local junior high school, and the two seemed to be settling well into small-town life. Larry didn’t
recognize the other two men and women in the departure area, but had said hello. As a high-profile elected official, people often recognized him and he prided himself on being friendly and engaging, even at times like this when he felt utterly drained. Fortunately tonight the passengers’ attention was elsewhere. They were abuzz with gossip about the rakish man in handcuffs who had just boarded the plane.
Scott Deschamps stiffly stood guard beside the ten-seat Piper Navajo Chieftain, the only departing plane on a barren stretch of tarmac. Snow had thickened the night, and an icy wind sent shivers through him. His prisoner and all but one passenger and the pilot were already aboard. Scott watched a trim, suit-clad man in his mid-forties hurry across the tarmac, briefcase in hand, and climb the few steps to the cabin. When he’d disappeared inside, the pilot motioned Scott to follow. He ducked through the open door and stood near the rear aisle seat next to the exit. The pilot entered soon after, his tall frame bent almost double as he pulled the hatch closed. He turned the handle and looked over his shoulder at Scott.
“Watch me.” The pilot’s voice was just above a whisper as he inserted the safety pin. “You need to know how to open this door in case of an emergency.”
Dale Wells discouraged his pilots from giving safety briefings to passengers because he felt they frightened them unnecessarily, but Erik wasn’t taking any chances.
Scott leaned forward to watch and listen. If there was one thing he was confident about, it was his ability to handle himself in an emergency. He gave the pilot a nod when he finished and watched him move up the aisle and settle in the cockpit next to the well-dressed passenger who had arrived late. Scott dropped into the empty seat, buckled his seatbelt and glanced at his prisoner. He was holding his handcuffed wrists in the air in front of him.
“Can’t you take these off?”
Scott studied the man beside him. The constable hadn’t known what to expect when he’d arrived in the city of Kamloops in British Columbia’s southern interior that morning to pick up Paul Richard Archambault, who had a long rap sheet of B and E’s and robberies dating back to 1976. As the day had progressed, however, Scott had been surprised to find himself enjoying the company of his prisoner, who had proven to be quick-witted and likable, with a ready if off-colour sense of humor.
He and Paul had been together since early morning and Scott felt like he had a pretty good read on the guy. He wasn’t likely to be a danger. Scott fingered the key inside his jacket pocket. It was against RCMP regulations to remove his prisoner’s handcuffs, but he felt comfortable with the risk. He fixed Paul with a stern look.
“Okay,” he said, “but let there be an understanding: if there is any trouble, the full force of the RCMP will be on you.”
Paul nodded solemnly and then a smile cracked the rugged lines of his face.
Scott slipped the key into the lock of the handcuffs, unfastened them, and tucked them into the briefcase at his feet. He turned to gaze out the small cabin window. Falling snow and a veil of cloud muted the city lights. Beyond their glow, the world was darkly smudged. Scott exhaled heavily. It had been an exhausting day. Ten hours had passed from the time he first picked up his human cargo. Since then they’d been bounced unceremoniously from flight to flight. Scott had a confirmed booking for the two of them that morning on a flight out of Kamloops. However, when Scott arrived at the RCMP detachment, the staff hadn’t done the paperwork for Paul’s release and the men had missed their flight.
Finally, they were on the last leg. Scott had managed to snag two seats on one of the few planes flying north from Edmonton to Grande Prairie that night. The flight was a milk run with three en route stops, which meant it was going to be another couple of hours before he arrived in Grande Prairie. Scott was sick of takeoffs, landings, and the confined space of airplane cabins. He laid his head back and felt something jut into the back of his neck from the rear cargo hold directly behind his seat. He turned to adjust the baggage so he could get comfortable. Above his head, he could see briefcases, small suitcases and a computer monitor piled precariously at a 45-degree angle to the ceiling of the cabin. The compact luggage compartment was completely full and there appeared to be nothing separating him from the cargo in the rear hold. Spotting his garment bag, Scott pulled it out and rolled it into a makeshift pillow. The fabric scratched the back of his neck, but at least it was soft. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. But sleep wasn’t an option. Not yet.
He’d sleep when he got home. The thought carried an edge of melancholy. Grande Prairie didn’t seem much like home without Mary. Two months earlier his wife had moved back to the west coast to take a job. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. After all, they’d had an agreement. She’d promised to give Grande Prairie three years. She’d stayed nearly five.
In contrast to the breathtaking stretch of southern coastal British Columbia where Scott had grown up, Grande Prairie was a rough-edged, northern prairie city attracting more than its share of transients and troublemakers. Just north of the 55th parallel, it was the largest and final urban centre between Edmonton, Alberta, and Fairbanks, Alaska. The city served as a provisioning stop for people travelling north, as well as a hub for the region’s two economic powerhouses: agriculture, and oil and gas. In the midst of the oil boom, Grande Prairie had also been one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities with its population nearly doubling from 13,000 in 1971 to its current size of 25,000.
The place had its own beauty. The open vistas and bright skies were a stunning contrast to the often grey and rainy coastal climate of British Columbia. Grande Prairie summers were pleasantly warm and the days languorously long. Bear Creek, a verdant belt of treed parkland, bisected the city from north to south. Beyond the city limits, the landscape, though relatively flat, was not featureless. Farm fields rolled out to the north, east and west in a golden patchwork of barley, wheat, canola and oats. To the south was a vast boreal forest extending to the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.
In many ways his first posting had been good for Scott. An avid outdoorsman, he’d loved being able to get into the bush to hunt and fish. He also enjoyed the steady income and the stature his job gave him in a small city where the locals treated you like family, and over time he’d built a circle of friends.
Winters, however, had been challenging. The days were short and bitingly cold, and temperatures frequently plummeted to -20°C. At times an unbearably fierce wind would barrel across the prairie, pushing the wind chill as low as -50°C. At that temperature, exposed skin would freeze almost instantly and locals would rush to plug in their vehicles’ block heaters to keep the engine oil warm so their cars would start. The snow often flew in late October and stayed until May. This year it had arrived even sooner. Yesterday, the first winter storm had swept across the region, bringing heavy snowfall. But Scott hadn’t been in Grande Prairie to see it. Earlier that week the head of his detachment had asked for a volunteer to fly to Kamloops and bring in an accused criminal arrested on an outstanding warrant. Scott had jumped at the chance, hoping to tie in a brief layover in Vancouver to visit Mary.
It had been wonderful to see her, yet so much felt unresolved. Scott had put in for a transfer to the coast so they could be together, but there was no telling when or if it would happen. To make matters worse, she had recently begun talking about starting a family. Scott wasn’t sure he was ready. He was only twenty-eight and just beginning to hit his stride as a cop. After five years he was making decent money. He’d recently banked enough to buy a BMW—the envy of the detachment. There would be plenty of time to have kids. Even as he thought this, Scott’s confidence wavered. In this one area, he felt completely out of his depth.
Erik was running almost half an hour late and somehow he’d have to make up time. He clipped his lap belt and his eyes darted uneasily to the passenger in the co-pilot’s seat—a last-minute arrival for the flight. Erik offered a clipped hello, wondering nervously whether the official-looking gentleman next to him might be a government air safety inspector. Tr
ansport Canada occasionally had inspectors ride along anonymously to check on airline operations, and recently Wapiti Aviation seemed to have had more than its fair share of scrutiny.
Erik tried to put the man beside him out of his mind, and reached forward to grab his headset. He was stopped short by his shoulder strap’s broken recoil mechanism. It was just one of the small maintenance issues that irritated him. He flicked the useless strap from his shoulder, pulled on his headset, and radioed for clearance. Edmonton Departure gave him the go-ahead, and he taxied to runway 34. Above him the sky was black. Wet snow smacked the windshield and Erik felt his heartbeat marking time amid the roar of the engine. He checked his watch: 7:13.
“Wapiti 402,” a voice squawked into his headset. “Runway three-four cleared for takeoff.”
“Four-oh-two rolling, three-four,” Erik replied.
Within minutes, they were off the ground, climbing toward a bank of thick cloud.
As the plane flew north from Edmonton, Erik brooded. He needed to get a handle on what he was going to do. He had filed an instrument flight plan to Peace River, an airport 385 kilometres northwest of Edmonton that had an instrument approach. That meant that even if Erik could see only a few hundred feet in front of him, he could still get in safely. But Erik had to get in and out of the airport at High Prairie first. The runway there was a short, dimly lit strip of asphalt equipped with only a single non-directional beacon—a simple radio ground transmitter that did little more than help Erik pick out the airport amid a vast swath of snowy terrain. The only way he would be able to land was to drop below the clouds and try for a visual approach, a tall order considering the cloud ceiling there was 500 feet off the deck and broken, and completely overcast at 900 feet.
