“Tell Thor not to worry, though,” Sal had told Mara, “I bought him a crystal bowl in New York.”
“I’m going to cook us a big dinner this Sunday,” Mara said to Doug, as she closed her eyes and nestled comfortably in her seat. “You know, to celebrate how everything turned out.”
The steady drone of the engine was hypnotic, making her snuggle more deeply into her seat. It was warm, comfortable, and so relaxing that she almost forgot she was in the plane, instead thinking that she was home in bed.
What was that thump?
Why was Doug suddenly slumping over in his seat?
“Doug. Doug!” she shook him hard, which only made him slump over even more, his seatbelt the only thing holding him up.
Her scream was long and shrill, and totally within her racing mind, as her body reacted with the speed of time standing still. Before any sound could reach her lips, she reached over and undid his seatbelt, letting her husband slump into the narrow space between their seats. There was no time to try to move him or to slide into the seat to try to control the Cessna before she saw the left wing crumble in slow motion against the jagged mountainside.
She felt herself tumbling, feeling her back slam against the ceiling of the plane, where for just the flash of an instant she could see Sal and Joe below her, their bodies slumped together. Three times she tumbled past them, once seeing Doug fly past her inside the tiny confines of the airplane.
Then there was a thud, a long spinning slide, and then silence—the final noise being the sound of one of the plane’s doors falling to the ground. She was on the ceiling and Doug was there beside her. She felt for his pulse. There was none. She tried to roll him over to help him breathe, but the pain in her ribs kept her from accomplishing the task, even as she tried with all her might to overcome it.
Why wasn’t he moving? Coming to? She reached for his pulse again, and felt the warmth of blood creeping under his arm. With a mighty push, she pulled him over, falling back with her own pain as she did. If she could just stop the bleeding . . .
“Sal! Joe!” she screamed, this time out loud. “Help me! Help me!”
There was nothing but silence.
“Sal! Wake up! Joe! Joe!”
When she finally saw them, she knew why they couldn’t answer. Fighting the urge to faint, she reached again for Doug, placing her mouth firmly over his and willing him to breathe. Only the whimper behind her made her look up as she felt Thor tugging on her pant leg.
“No, Thor. Stop! Drop It! Let go!”
She tried to swat at him, but he kept pulling. She could see his crate lying in the snow outside the plane, its door torn off.
Again she tried to breathe into her husband’s mouth, but her own breath was coming too hard for her to blow. Why did he feel so cold? Where were all the blankets she had packed?
“Thor! Get me a blanket!”
She heard the slow beep of the locator, its sound haunting and far away.
Someone would help Doug breathe when they found them.
“Hurry!” she prayed.
Just then, the feather tumbled slowly downward, touching Joe’s lifeless outstretched hand as it fluttered out the door. Somehow she found a way to grab it and tuck it into her jeans. Only later would she notice that the red dot was gone.
Then Thor tugged again, this time managing to drag her a few feet. She felt herself slipping into darkness as he repeated the motion over and over, but the cold of the snow made her shiver, keeping her from blacking out.
The next thing she knew, she was lying under a tree about a hundred feet from the plane with Thor huddled beside her.
Then she saw the flames, and heard the explosion.
Suddenly, she felt warm again. Someone was telling her that she was in the hospital in Juneau and that Thor was being looked after by one of the staff.
“He saved your life,” she heard a woman say.
Why was Sarah here?
“How . . .?”
She closed her eyes tightly, trying to squeeze out the scene, but someone was touching her now—gently on the shoulder, and reaching strong arms around to hold her even as she struggled to pull away.
“Wake up, Mara. We’re home. Wake up. Everything is fine. We’re all here. Hush for now, okay? You had a bad dream. Everything is fine,” Doug was saying as he stroked her face.
When she opened her eyes and looked around, she was still sitting in the plane and Doug was right there, holding her in his arms, speaking soft words of comfort. Through the window, she could see their house in Hoonah and could see a worried-looking Sal and Joe waiting with Thor outside the plane.
When she looked at them, they waved anxiously. She blinked several times and looked around, trying to absorb what she saw. There was no hospital room, no Sarah, no wreckage, only the four of them near the house on a landing strip in Hoonah. She touched her face, her arms, and her legs. She touched Doug. Everything felt real.
“We’re home now,” Doug said, gently unbuckling her seatbelt. “We’re all home now. It was only a bad dream.”
Books By Marianne Schlegelmilch
One of America’s Most gifted Writers
Feather From A Stranger
An Alaskan Mystery
Two Tickets and A Feather
Present Alaska—Future of her Past another Alaskan Mystery
Driftfeather on the Alaska Seas
Ultimate Future of the Past another Alaskan Mystery
Feather for Hoonah Joe
Alaska Can Be a Very Small Place
Raven’s Light
A Tale of Alaska’s White Raven
Gaston’s Crow’s Nest
An Alaska Tale
Solo Flite
An Alaska Puppy Becomes a Legend
Coho Waterboy
The Flat-Footed, web-Footed Alaska Sled Dog
Slugs Forever!
A Tale from an Alaska Backyard
Feather for Hoonah Joe Page 18