by Darrel Bird
Part 2
“We’re going to crash!” the woman exclaimed! She was directly behind him as he swam to consciousness out of the drugged stupor from a wild night out on the town of Fairbanks.
Owen Durant seldom ever had a night on the town, but the night before was a corker. He was celebrating his 50th birthday before returning to his government job in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
His friend Joe Sitku had poured him on the plane just before takeoff from Fairbanks, wishing him well as he had jammed his cap on and left the plane.
Actually, when he and Joe Sitku got together, they celebrated whatever came to hand.
He sprawled across the two seats and drooled on the floor in his drunken stupor. He and Joe took had taken a couple of bar flies to Owens’s hotel room; they both later returned to the bar and continued drinking. Joe could hold his liquor better than Owen, and he had packed for him and got him to the airport in time to make the shuttle. Joe half carried him to his seat and buckled him in.
He felt something hit him in full force causing him to black out again. He awakened still buckled in his seat but something was wrong; he was upside down, his head about three inches away from a large tree root.
Strange the thought floated across his mind like a gentle cloud; he caught his breath and gasped for air as the pain shot across his forehead.
He saw a seat burning a few feet away, then it hit him; the shuttle plane had crashed. He groaned as he tried to release the seat belt but his hand didn’t seem to want to work very well. With his other hand he found the release and he folded roughly onto his shoulders and lay still.
By the light of the fires burning here and there he saw the wreckage as he slowly sat up the best he could. A few snow flakes tumbled lazily to the ground in the light of the burning seat. His parka had caught in the seat belt, and he pulled it loose, then put it on and pulled the hood over his head.
A woman stumbled past him; blood streamed down her face smothering her eyes; she stumbled and fell a few feet away. The Spruce trees around him stood as sentinels over the weird scene.
The woman lay there moaning as the snow fell steadily.
As the cold began to creep in he laid there trying to think. He tried to move again, and darkness enveloped him in its warm embrace.
When he awoke again it was growing light, the woman still lay where she had fallen and a thin coat of snow covered her shoulder-length hair.
He thought she was probably dead. He gently raised himself on an elbow to sit up and this time, he didn’t black out. He had a minor pain in his shoulder when he got up.
He walked over to the woman, rolled her over and he heard her moan; the blood on her face was dried in the thin air; her eyes fluttered open.
“Can you sit up lady?”
“I…I don’t know”.
“I’ve got to see to the others.” The mountain was shrouded in mist.
He walked on stopping at a body here and there, but he found no one else alive in the strewn wreckage of the plane, not only that but almost everything was burned, including most of the bodies. Now how in the hell did I escape that? When he returned she was sitting up.
“Can you walk? Here…let me help you.” He took her under the arms and helped her to stand; she teetered a little in gaining her balance.
He walked out among the wreckage that was strewn through the trees and began to gather what he could find that might be of use. He took his knife and cut the cover off one of the seats and began to make a pack of sorts in the eerie light of a burning seat.
“What are you doing?”
“We have to get down off this mountain to lower elevation."
“How do you know we are on a mountain?”
“See that snowy clearing through the trees there? We are at the timberline." The land sloped steeply away below them.
“If we leave the plane, they won’t be able to find us will they?”
“If we stay here we’ll freeze; we have to get down off this mountain.” He repeated.
“I’m not going to leave the plane!”
“Suit yourself lady.”
He gathered the pack and pulled his arms through the makeshift straps he had fashioned out of one of the seat belts and began walking down the steep slope; the woman stood there watching him go.
“Wait, I’m coming with you.” She called.
He looked back as she began stumbling through the brush along his path in the light snow. At least, she had on a pair of jeans he observed. Her shoes were thin women’s wear; she had nothing on her head. Her jacket was a light jacket only fit for city dwellers.
“Wait, I’ll get you a better coat.”
He walked back to the wreckage and found her a coat that wasn’t too badly burned; it wasn’t much better, he looked around at her to see if she was watching. She wasn't so he jerked it of the dead guy who wouldn't be needing it.
He handed it to her as he walked up to her. “Put this on over the one you have on, it will help a little."
This woman is going to die, maybe along with both of us. He said nothing as he began to make his way through the thickets of short brush. The plane had crashed into a copse of black Spruce, but only tall brush and boulders stretched out before them on the steep rocky slope.
He could make out more trees, in the distance, below them.
“How long were we in the air, do you know?” He turned to look at her.
“Maybe an hour and a half; I don’t know for sure. I was reading a book.”
That puts us somewhere in the Brooks Range maybe, he said nothing as he walked on. Another hour of slipping and sliding down the steep mountain side the way was becoming steeper, and his feet began to slide in the snow. Soon he came to an outcrop of rock, down below he could see a stream. Over to his right he thought he saw a way around the small cliff he was standing on.
She stumbled up and gazed over the cliff at tops of the trees and stream below.
”I see water; I'm so thirsty.” The woman remarked.
“Let’s go this way.” He began to lead off to the right. The way was very steep, but it led around the cliff. The rocks were loose, and they rolled under his feet in the snow.
The woman fell, rose and fell again as the trail got steeper.
He hung on to limbs and skidded down the rocky slope, eventually coming to more spruce trees before reaching the narrow stream.
The fast-flowing stream made its way around huge boulders, as it tumbled away down the mountain range.
He came to a sandy place in the rocks and bent down to cup his hands in the ice- cold stream; the water was delicious as he drank deeply.
The woman slid off a rock and feverishly drank of the cold water. There was fresh blood on her once white jeans, and she had lacerations on her ankles. One of the thin shoes had a rip in it. She sat staring at it then began to bathe her face.
Her face was white with the blood off; the laceration showed clearly in the line of her Auburn hair; the cut didn’t look too deep.
He got up and began making his way over the rocks. “Can’t we rest a while?” she called after him.
“You can do what you want lady, stay here as long as you want, hell…build your dream house for all I care!”
His mood didn’t change for the better when she stumbled and fell; he glanced back at her and kept walking.
The woman followed him as he picked his way down the edge of the stream. Soon he found what he was looking for, a rock overhang that went back five or six feet into the cliff the stream had worn in its eons of travel.
He left the stream and made his way up the steep sides to the rock overhang; he gathered bark, dried moss and twigs on the way up to the little cave.
He crawled back under the overhang which was about four feet high at the beginning and slanted back to a foot high in the rock face.
He began to lay the dried moss then the bits of bark, then the twigs at the base of the overhang. Taking his Bic lighter he carefully held the little flame to the mos
s, the moss began to smoke, and then caught fire. The little flame soon began to eat its way into the bark and twigs.
He crawled back out of the little cave and began to gather dead wood and tree branches; he found a downed log that still had good wood and drug that to the fire. She watched him as he pulled the single thin blanket out of the pack. The smoke stung her eyes as the little fire began to take hold.
There was barely enough room for the both of them under the overhang.
He lay back against the rock face, pulled the blanket over him and closed his eyes. She sat and watched him.
“Can I have some of the blanket?” she asked.
He opened his eyes, patted the ground beside him. She crawled over and lay down next to him, and he covered the both of them with the blanket.
She was shivering in the cold but soon the reflected heat made its way into her bones, and she fell into a deep sleep.
He awoke sometime later and put his foot against her and shoved her away from him; sending her rolling down the hill.
“Darn you, why did you do that?” she was boiling mad as she picked herself up.
“You were in my way, and I have to piss.”
“You’re just mean!”
“Why, because I don’t cater to you?”
“No, because you’re just mean!” She sent him another murderous glare. She realized that she felt just as irritable as he did, but under the irritability she felt stronger.
He unzipped his fly and let go down the hill; he didn’t care if she saw him or not. No, I don’t care if this person lives or dies. I used to care, but now I don’t.
He finished and zipped up, turning toward her; he stared at her angry face; she was pretty, maybe about forty. Her shoulder length hair framed her pretty face nicely.
He saw his wife in her face and remembered when they were in their 40’s. Life was good back then, but she had died the month before, and he slowly accustomed himself to an apathetic state. He felt empty; he had buried his reason for caring, and he didn’t give a damn any more.
The fire had condensed down to coals, and he figured the chances of either of them living to get back to civilization were few and far between, but he didn’t care about that either.
He crawled back out of the overhang and getting to his feet, began to repack the blanket into his make shift back pack then began walking along the stream again. She looked at him for a minute and began following him.
There was complete silence during the few hours of walking. The stream widened a bit with deep pools of water now and then, the wilderness towered on each side as if to hold them in its frozen iron grip.
“Watch that rock, its slick.” He called behind him. She paid no mind as she climbed the slick rock. She slipped immediately and slid into a pool of water that came over her waist.
He reached down, took her by the hand and pulled her back onto the sloping rock as she gasped for air in the freezing water.
He walked on. Suddenly, he spotted a roof top back in the trees. He left the stream bed and headed for it; it was maybe a hundred yards back in the trees.
He walked up the steep trail to the small house nestled in a copse of Spruce. He could tell it was an old hunting cabin.
“We must be getting near a town!” she called after him.
He said nothing as he climbed the steps to the tiny porch and opened the door. It was one room with a cast-iron stove in the middle. The rusted iron stove pipe protruded through the side of the cabin. He could see through the shingle covered roof in places.
There was a bed at one end with an old mattress that had seen its better days. The sheet was rotten, but the three old quilts looked in fair shape.
He opened the stove door to find a fire laid, which was the custom in Alaska. He lit the paper under the kindling, and it caught immediately and he closed the stove door.
On the top of the stove sat a cast-iron pot with a lid on it. There were two tin plates and three cups, some forks and knives in the tiny cupboard.
There was an old Winchester 30-30 hanging on one wall and wood was stacked to the roof along the wall, an old axe stood by the wood. On the other walls were a couple shelves with a few cans of food on them. He wiped the dust off one of the cans with his fingers; it was expired eight years ago.
There was a box with a few shells for the Winchester. There was an old bucket rusting in a corner.
The woman stood shivering in the doorway looking at the room.
“All the comforts of home; strip your clothes off and hang them over the chair by the stove, we have to get them died out.”
“I’m not going to strip in front of you!”
“Suit yourself, stay wet for all I care, I can throw you in the Creek when you die, it’s no trouble.”
“You really mean that don’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s too hard to bury someone in the ground around here, but the animals will take care of it.”
She began to take her soaked clothing off. “Don’t look please.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you too, that’s why.”
He stood watching her as she stripped down to her panties and bra, shivering.
“You better get under those quilts, if you get sick there’s nothing I can do for you out here.”
She gathered a quilt off the bed and sat in the other chair by the fire; the room was growing warm, and her wet clothes began to steam.
“You’ve got a pretty good build you know.” He stared at her.
“That’s not going to do you any good.” She retorted.
“You married?”
“Yes, I have a husband at home.”
“Any kids?”
“No, we decided to wait until we were well enough off financially to support a family.”
“Where’s home?”
“Alameda, California.”
“What are you doing up here?”
“I was going to visit my sister in Barrow.”
“We must not be far from a town.” She said again.
“I don’t agree; we are probably in the Brooks Range, which is a hundred miles from anywhere. These old hunters’ cabins are a common thing in Alaska, there’s probably a lake within a mile of here. They fly the materials in by float plane.”
“What makes you think that?”
“That we are in the Brooks range? The plane would have flown over it. Not over any town, so I think we are that’s all.”
“Which way do you think we should go then?”
“East, toward the Dalton Highway.”
“When can we leave then?”
“Lady, I don’t think you quite get the gravity of the situation. We are heading into the Alaskan winter, and the snow has already started just in case you didn’t notice. We have only four hours of good daylight now. If I am correct, we have to walk near a hundred miles to get there, and we can’t walk in eight feet of snow.”
“Snow that deep?”
“Or deeper in some places, and how are you going to walk out of here in those slippers you have on, your feet are almost frozen already?”
She began to moan with the pain as her hands and feet began to warm.
“I’m going to get some sleep, bring the quilt; I need your body heat.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“Look, we can’t use wood all night; we'll run out in no time and when the room gets cold again we’ll have to be bundled up the best we can.”
“Here, take the quilt, you bundle; I'll sit here.”
“Suit yourself.” He sighed as he took the quilt. He pulled his wet boots off and stuck them under the stove, then crawled into the bed with his clothes on, pulling the quilts over him.
His eyes closed, and he was asleep in minutes. He awakened to the woman pulling at the quilts as she lay beside him and shivered. She had her damp clothing back on.
“I thought you were going to sit over there?”
“Cram it."
>
He smiled and closed his eyes again, when he woke up in the dim light there looked to be two feet of snow on the ground, and it was still snowing.
He crawled out of bed and gathered the materials to make a fire; there were still a few live coals in the deep ashes.
He took the iron pot and scraped it full of snow off the tiny porch to melt for water, soon the room warmed up.
The woman stirred under the quilts and slowly sat up on the side of the bed. She looked at him as he sat by the stove.
“I dreamed I was at Disney Land with my husband.”
“Never been there.”
“What will we eat? I’m so hungry.”
“I have to hunt; we can’t take a chance with the canned food, and it expired eight years ago, its most likely poison.”
“Hunt what?”
“Hopefully a Moose or Deer, but really anything that moves.”
