First of my Kind

by Stevens, Marc

  Tom had left for Minatoe in the 206 to pick up a track for a Snow Cat to deliver to Kerney. The flight is a six to seven hour trip depending on how much time he was delayed at each stop. The Helio and the Super cub were the only aircraft we had equipped with skis. The Helio could haul over thirteen hundred pounds with a full load of fuel. It had a range of around 950 nautical miles in good weather. As long as you flew through Bonner pass, it was right at 320 nautical miles one way to the research station. If you had to go around the mountains, it was another 110 and just under an hour of additional flight time.

  Wisener looks at me and says, “We have two 55 gallon fuel drums in the warehouse. I know they were supposed to go elsewhere, but we’re going to take them to the research station. Get the pallet pulled out and get it ready to go in the Helio. I’ll get the plane ready and you better get yourself ready because you are going with me.” I just stood there with a look of disbelief on my face and said, “Like hell I am.” Wisener walked up to me and said, “Look Nathan, there are only two people at the station in the winter, a man and a woman. Even with your help, it will be hard to manhandle those barrels because they weigh almost 500 lbs. apiece. The storm that’s coming could keep them from getting fuel for weeks. Now man up and get your ass in gear. We need to get moving because we are running out of time.”

  I knew he was right, if Bill or Karl were here, they would go in a heartbeat. The station was far enough north if we didn’t leave soon the weather would force us to turn back. The situation had to be serious because Wisener had never called me by my first name, ever! We got the pallet in the Helio and secured. Wisener helped me lock down the buildings and close the front gate. I left a message for Tom telling him what we were going to do, and if the weather got severe, we would turn around and come back. I went to the cabin to lock up, and like an epiphany from on high, I hear my grandfather in the back of my mind saying plan for the worst and hope for the best! I turned around and went back inside and dug out my cold weather hunting gear. I knew it was going to be well below freezing the farther north we went. I put my hunting knife back on, and at the last minute decided to grab Bill’s big 44 caliber revolver and put it in a shoulder holster under my jacket. I put my balaclava, gloves, and three energy bars in my pockets with a bottle of water. Then as an afterthought, I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of plastic grocery bags, because you just never know. I locked up the cabin and slipped on my sock hat then jogged down the hill towards the plane.

  I climbed in as Wisener started the plane. I was pretty sure he knew how nervous I was because I had never flown with him. We turn off the tarmac onto the runway and Wiesner pushes the throttle to the firewall and the Helio lurches forward. We quickly accelerate to 40 knots and I can already feel the load coming off the skies. At 50 knots the ride suddenly gets smoother as we become airborne. He holds the plane in ground effect, and almost immediately, we get two simultaneous bangs that startle me, even though I know it’s the lift slats sliding back into the wings. Wisener looks over at me and gives me a smirk before saying, “Don’t worry farm boy this is what I do.” I don’t know if he was trying for levity to calm my nerves or if it was just the old Wiesner trying to piss me off. He succeeded in doing both.

  We started climbing at a steady 90 knots and in the far distance I could see Bonner Pass looming. Through the gap on the horizon, I could just make out a thin ribbon of dark gray that gave me an ominous feeling in my guts. Wisener must have somehow sensed what I was thinking because he glanced over and said, “Don’t worry if the weather stays north of us we’ll be in and out before it can catch us.” In the back of my mind I could hear my grandma say, “Nathan, IF, is a gambler’s word that seldom pays off!” As we climb up to clear the pass we hit a stiff headwind and turbulence that tells me, IF, isn’t going to pay off this time. As if to reinforce that little tidbit of information Wisener says, “I’ve heard the puking stories Myers and if you puke in my aircraft, I’ll throw you out the door.” Ah levity, the double-edged sword!

  I did not have anything to say to Wisener, and I guess the feeling was mutual, because we flew into the progressively stronger turbulence in silence. We were going to have to start losing some altitude to duck under the line of dark cumulus clouds. They went east and west as far as the eye could see. We were getting bounced around pretty good now, and it was starting to sleet and snow. I looked at Wisener out of the corner of my eye and saw his mouth was a thin flat line obscured by his bushy mustache. I remember Karl saying he was a decent pilot. Right now I was hoping it was a huge understatement. We dropped a little more altitude and were only getting snow now. Icing was bad mojo, and we had another 30 to 40 minutes flight time to the station. I gripped the plastic bags in my pocket harder as the plane bounced up and down 50 to 100 feet at a time.

  The altimeter was indicating a fluctuating 1500 feet. I looked out my door window at the mountainous countryside below. It seemed to jump up at us only to fall away again. The look on Wisener’s face was taking on a decidedly grim turn for the worse. We lost a little more altitude with the lowering cloud deck and it was snowing harder. His constant scanning of the instrument cluster is S.O.P. for all pilots but then I started noticing a pattern that fixated on the fuel gauges. I suddenly started thinking back about my early days of flying with Karl. The way he used to make me exercise muscles you don’t normally think about, like your sphincter for instance. He had been balancing the fuel tanks on a routine basis and was favoring the wing tank on his side. I knew he was keeping that wing down into the strong quartering headwind while crabbing to maintain our heading. None of this changed the fact the strong headwind was burning up reserve fuel, and we hadn’t made it to the station yet.

  I knew this was one of Wisener’s routes, and he had flown it for many years but I was starting to wonder if we were lost. I was working up the courage to question him about it when out to the left of the aircraft through the blowing snow I see a blinking marker light. Wiesner makes a course correction and gets on the radio. Relief floods over me and my estimation of Wisener’s navigation and dead reckoning skills climbs off the chart that a moment ago was taking on submarine like characteristics.

  Wisener comes off some throttle and pitches the nose up, killing our airspeed. We start coming down quick with the nose 45 degrees off the white snow covered strip of ground that did not have trees. He looks calm and all business as he applies full flaps. He’s wing low on his side and standing on the right rudder. My sphincter is doing pushups while I am looking at trees out the front glass. What passes for the runway is just coming into sight out Wisener’s door window. BaBam! The twin bangs of the lift slats springing forward on the wings, makes me jump, and I’m thinking we clipped a tree. Just when I really feel the need to give him assistance with the left rudder pedal he chops the throttle and kicks the nose around while leveling the wings. Crunch! We bounce, then crunch again, followed by the low bass roar of the skis making full contact with the icy snow. I didn’t need an invitation to throw off my belts and get the barrels ready to move.

  Wisener turned us around in the middle of the strip that couldn’t be any longer than two football fields. We head towards three Quonset huts and a big pole barn. The door on the barn slides partially open and a snow machine comes out dragging some kind of sled behind it. I see someone else pulling the door back closed. Wisener pulls the plane sideways to the oncoming snow machine and shuts down. I throw the cargo door open and even in the strong wind we can smell diesel fuel. I’m not sure how much fuel they lost but there is no way to properly clean up the spill in the dead of winter. I am certain it will be an ecological disaster by the time spring rolls around.

  The snow machine pulls as close as possible to the plane. The operator climbs in the back with us, gives us both a quick hug, and says, “I didn’t think you would make it” Wisener gave him a small smile. “Greg we got to get the hell out of here now!” Then Greg says “the lift can’t make it to the strip in snow this deep, and the sled
was the best I could do.” Wisener jerked his head in my direction. “I know, I brought the kid to help,” We manage to pull the first barrel around towards the door and get it laid over on its side without crushing anybody’s hands. We jump out and disconnect the sled so we can manhandle it around to the door of the plane. The freshly jerry rigged cradle is about a foot short of the low side of the plane’s door. We have no choice but to roll it out and hope it does not crush the cradle. We roll it over the edge and it crunches onto the cradle fracturing the legs on one side. “Shit! It won’t ride like that!” I yell, “Wait.” I took some of the cargo straps I’m famous for not putting away and wrap three sets around the cradle legs and one around the barrel. “That’ll have to do, let’s go!” We hook the snow machine back up to the trailer. Greg takes off slowly with us pushing, and the two-stroke motor protesting every inch of the way. It takes us about fifteen minutes to get the barrel unloaded with the lift in the storage building. We ride on the sled back to the plane to repeat the process. He gives us another quick hug, a hand shake, and says he’ll never forget he owes us.

  We pile back into the plane, and Wiesner does not bother with the checklist, he does an engine start and just turns the plane towards the other end of the strip and shoves the throttle to the firewall. He’s holding the yoke back against his gut and almost immediately the nose starts coming up in the strong headwind so he lets off the yoke some as the Helio leaps into the air in less than 200 feet. It feels like we are going straight up. He cleans up the flaps as he starts a turn towards the south and then the twin bangs of the slats retracting tells me were at 60 knots and getting the hell out of there!

  My relief and elation to be going home is short lived when I notice we are on a heading of 110 degrees. I am confused but absolutely sure we should be heading towards 190 on the compass. Wisener finally looks at my frowning face and says we have to make another stop. I felt as if I had been struck by lightning and practically scream in his face, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Visibility is down to less than a mile and we burnt a shit load of our reserve fuel. If you don’t get us to the pass soon, we’ll have to go around and that won’t leave a hell of a lot of fuel for joy riding. Where are we going that could be so important you’ll risk running out of fuel?” He just sat there stone faced and then in a quiet voice said, “I can’t leave her out there.” I said, “What do you mean, leave who out where?” And then I knew! Bonnie! “You took Bonnie out to her granddad’s cabin! Why would you do that?” Then it hits me, the day he disappeared in the Helio!

  “What the hell is going on at the cabin that you aren’t telling anybody about?” I said. He just sits there staring out the windshield. I cannot believe what is happening. He is possibly risking both of our lives and will not tell me why. I am getting frantic and yell at him, “She’ll be fine until after the storm and then you can get her in a plane with plenty of fuel!” That must have struck a chord because he turns to me and starts spitting venom. “Myers shut the hell up! We have enough fuel to go get her! I promised her I would get her, and that’s what I’m going to do!” Holy crap! Wisener has gone freaking looney tunes on me! “Look Will, if we manage to get her I don’t think the weather will hold long enough to let us through the pass. Do we have enough fuel to go around?” He finally looks at me and says in a much calmer voice. “It’ll be close but we can make it, I know this plane, we can make it.”

  My confidence in Wisener’s ability to fly was rock solid after seeing the way he handled the plane at the research station. I knew he was more than just a decent pilot. It was his decision making I had major questions about. He was taking unnecessary risks that could cost him his job at best and our lives at worst. The weather was getting worse as the brunt of the storm was trying its best to catch up with our southeasterly retreat. We were skirting the leading edge of the really bad crap and we weren’t getting beat up as bad with it quartering at our backs. That would change if we stopped to get the Jennings girl. Wisener’s silence wasn’t bringing any relief to the dread I was feeling every moment we weren’t going southwest. I couldn’t stand it anymore and finally asked, “How much farther?” I got nothing. Perhaps the reality of what he was doing must be sinking in. If we made it back, I know for a fact he would never fly for Bill again. He had to know that by now. You don’t risk people’s lives and you damn sure don’t do it with somebody else’s name stamped all over it.

  Visibility was down to a half mile or less and snowflakes the size of quarters were making endless white ribbons as they flashed by my door. We had been flying at about 900 feet but at times it was much lower because of the large rolling hills below us. Wisener surprises me with a quick turn back to the south only temporarily making me think he came to his senses. Then he chops the throttle and pulls the nose up to kill our airspeed. We drop from 140 to 80 knots in a matter of seconds. He reaches down and yanks the flaps to full which pitches our nose back down sharply. No notice we’re going to land, just goodbye gray gloomy clouds and hello cold snow covered earth. He trims the nose back up a little and clunk, clunk go the wing slats.

  I see a large snow covered oval that’s quickly filling the windshield. I vaguely remember Karl saying something about a lake. Through the blowing snow I can make out the cabin about 300 yards up from the end of the frozen lake we are going to land on. It sits at the base of a large hill and easy to miss in the snow covered tree line. Wisener lands the plane and continues across the ice and snow covered lake towards the cabin. Just ahead through the curtains of blowing snow I see what looks like a small boathouse that marks the fast approaching shore line. We’re close enough now I can see a wisp of smoke blowing at a right angle from the chimney and Bonnie Jennings jumping up and down waving like a lunatic. She starts running down the hill and stumbles face first in the snow, then gets up and repeats the process. We reach the shore line and Wiesner shuts the plane down. The look on his face said it all as he jumped out of the plane and ran towards Bonnie. That and the fact he was ignoring me as I screamed at the top of my lungs we needed to leave right now. The fool thinks he is in love with the Jennings girl.

  They hug and she gives him a quick kiss and then Wisener says something to her and they both look back towards the plane. I take this as my cue to jump down and start screaming again we have to leave. I am shocked to disbelief as I watch her grab him by the hand and start back towards the cabin. As they disappear through the cabin door I just stand there not knowing what to do as the storm redoubles its efforts to bury my dwindling hope. Then a really ugly thought passes through my brain. I ran through the deepening snow to the cabin. As I start to climb the steps to the porch, I glance up at the window and to my relief I see them both standing over by the wood stove. They look startled as I push open the door. I started to say we got to get the hell out of there, but it froze in my throat when I saw the small jar that Bonnie was holding up to Wisener. Even in the soft light of the oil lamp I can see the bright yellow flakes that filled the jar. Then I noticed the inside of the cabin was a wreck. It all fell into place for me. Bonnie needed to get out here so she could find the gold her Grandfather had hidden in the cabin. She was using Wiesner to take everything of value she could get her hands on and the fool did not care! A pretty face and a peck on the cheek blinded him. Nothing I could say to him right now would change that.

  Bonnie turned away from me and shoved the jar into a leather bag. The bag looked to be full of whatever else she determined to be valuable. Then Wisener snaps at me, “Myers we’ll be ready to leave in a minute, go make sure the plane isn’t getting covered with snow.” I just shook my head dumfounded that anybody could be so stupid. I turned and opened the door, what I saw stopped me in my tracks. The snow was blowing sideways past the door and I could barely see the plane. The feeling of dread gripping me was almost paralyzing. I turned back around and said, “I don’t think we are going to get out of here.”

  Bonnie yells, “How the hell would you know, you’re not a pilot!” Wisener pushes me ou
t the door and grabs Bonnie by the hand yelling at me, “We won’t if you don’t quit screwing around.” We run down the hill to the plane and Wisener says Bonnie is riding up front. I drag the snow broom over the wings as best I can as Wisener starts the Helio. The prop wash stirs the snow into a hurricane as Wisener jumps out to help me turn the plane around. I hear my grandmother talking to me like she is standing right there. Then I yell “Will”, and he looks at me. Then I repeat what she’s telling me. “Will, you can’t spend money in heaven or hell.” All he can say is get your ass in the back of the plane or I’m leaving without you! “Will, you won’t make it through the pass. We need to wait the storm out.” Then I hear my granddad and it was scaring the shit out of me as I hear him say, “Foolish choices come with price tags and sooner or later you can’t afford the tally.” He only said that to me on two occasions. Once was rolling my ATV over at high speed into a water filled ditch and the other was falling through the ice on the Larson’s lake. I yell to Wisener as I’m closing the door, “Just make sure you tell Bill and Karl where I’m at!” I turn my back and head towards the cabin. I thought I heard him yell something out his door but I keep walking. The plane engine hits its peak and I turn to look as the Helio literally disappears in the blowing snow. The only evidence of it being there at all is the quickly fading sound of the engine fighting for altitude.

  5

  I opened the door to the cabin and I feel shaky and slightly nauseous. The realization I just stranded myself because of a gut feeling was making my head spin and I wanted to scream "Myers you’re an Idiot!" It did not help matters remembering my high school buddies saying those exact same words. I turned around and looked out the window. The boathouse and the frozen lake are no longer visible and the old thermometer hanging outside the window is reading five or six degrees.