“That ain't gonna happen,” Steve answered.
By dark, with no sign of Dan, the men returned to Steve's place. While briefing Ken Tandry, they informed him that they had seen nothing new on their several over-flights of the cabin and the area surrounding it, but would try again tomorrow.
“Nothing from the guys on the ground, either,” Tandry replied. “They couldn't get into the cabin—said it had been locked down pretty tight for some time. One of ‘em said it was pretty spooky there with the way the wind was whipping through the spruce and making creaky noises that sounded almost like moans. They checked, though, and didn't see any way anyone could have gotten in there.”
“MAY I SPEAK TO YOUR MOMMY?“ KEN TANDRY SAID TO ANNA WHEN SHE answered the phone later that evening.
“MOM-eeeeeeeeeeeee. It's Twooper Tandwyy-y-y---y,” Anna called to her mother, who was rushing to the phone from the other room.
By now Anna had been told that her Daddy's plane had been found and that he was missing. She had taken the news better than anyone hoped. Anna was a plucky little child who showed sensitive awareness beyond most her age. From the moment she learned about her father's plane missing, she had set about doing all she could to help her mother until her Daddy could get home—which she was sure he would do as soon as he knew how much she missed him.
“Yes, Sgt. Tandry, that does sound like the type of fabric that one of Dan's favorite shirts was made from. No, I don't think so…he usually only carried one bag… okay. We'll have Thor ready to go when the officer gets here. Thank you. Thank everyone for all you're doing. Good night,” Ellie said, trying to keep Anna from seeing her tears.
“Sometimes Daddy took two bags, Mommy,” Anna said, pulling on Ellie's sleeve.
“I know, dear,” Ellie said, stooping to hug her daughter, “but one was for the Smith's up in Cantwell and Daddy was coming back from there when he…”
Ellie broke into sobs and could not finish the sentence, which got Anna crying, too.
“But Daddy had two bags,” the child repeated.
“Hush, Anna. Go get Thor for Mommy. Uncle Doug wants him to help him with the search,” Ellie said, gently hugging her daughter.
“I'll wait for the trooper with Anna and Thor,” Mara said. She and Sarah had come into the room in time to hear the exchange between Ellie and Anna.
“Come on, Ellie,” Sarah said to her sister. “Mara and Anna can handle this part.”
Thirty minutes later, Thor was sitting in the back seat of the police cruiser. The blue and red flashing lights of the departing patrol car flashed across the snow as Mara and Anna walked back to the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A Child's Faith
STEVE HELPED STUFF THOR INTO THE TAIL OF HIS CESSNA BEFORE WAITING for Doug to climb into the passenger seat. Lifting his plane off the airstrip, Steve guided it along the Chulitna River. With only the loud hum of the engine to distract him, Doug was reminded again of just how little stress he felt sitting alongside the man who had so abruptly ended a business relationship with his brother—not only ended it, but had done so under a cloud of suspicion that left questions still unanswered even now. In the course of the years Steve and Dan had worked together, both of them had flown this route often. The only person who knew this route better than Dan Williams was the man flying the plane now.
“We'll just follow the river for a bit and keep an eye out along the shore,” Steve shouted over the sound of the engine. “I know Dan usually carried a water filtration system and a portable raft, although neither is likely to be helpful with the river mostly frozen like this. Still, maybe…just maybe…he worked his way toward the river knowing planes would be able to spot him more easily there.”
Doug was also reminded that his comfort in sitting alongside Steve Bitten was unusual since Steve had apparently been Sassy's romantic obsession since long after the two had broken up. The fact that Sassy kept bringing up marriage to him puzzled Doug and made him feel like a pawn in some kind of convoluted triangle.
By all accounts, Sassy's interest in Steve was completely one-sided, not that it would really have mattered to him much if it weren't. For now, Sassy met his needs, but deep inside Doug knew she was not the woman he longed for. Still, he mused, maybe the woman he longed for didn't exist, and Sassy certainly knew how to satisfy his physical needs. Steve didn't show any indication that he retained any passion for Sassy. Last week, in fact, he had announced his engagement to local realtor, Karen Steele.
Doug pulled out his binoculars and began scanning the shoreline for any sign of his brother. The hum of the plane's engine made it hard to talk, leaving the men to their own thoughts. Doug's mind drifted back to Sassy. For some reason, he was spending a lot of time trying to sort out his feelings for her lately. He only fished in the summer now. With Sassy able to come down to Homer to see him, and with him spending winters in Palmer helping Dan with his business, maybe marriage to Sassy had a chance of working out. After all, he told himself, how many people ever really found their perfect mate? He was thirty-six now. Maybe it was time to give up bachelorhood and settle down. Even if marriage to Sassy turned out to be less than he hoped for, it would still be better than the endless loneliness of looking for the perfect woman. Lately he had come to doubt that such a woman existed anyway.
Looking over at Steve in the cockpit beside him, Doug listened as Steve made the only reference to Sassy that he had made in these past few days together.
“There's nothing going on between Sassy and me,” he said abruptly. Karen and I are getting married next month—not that Sassy wouldn't have it differently.”
Steve paused before continuing, appearing to choose his words carefully, “There's a side to Sassy you don't know about, Doug. Be careful.”
Before Doug had a chance to ask Steve more about the strange statement, the two men both saw the movement below. Something dark was moving in the bushes. Steve veered the plane to the left and circled over the area again. He could see the old, abandoned cabin that Ken Tandry had a hunch about, the now well-worn trail used by searchers, and the recent tracks of a moose, but nothing that would explain the movement.
“I was sure I saw something down there,”
Steve said. “I thought I saw it, too,” Doug replied.
On the fourth pass, they both saw it again. There was definitely something rustling the brush—something bigger than the wolves and fox that inhabited the area, but smaller than a moose or the unlikely scenario of a non-hibernating bear. It was definitely something Steve wanted to investigate, and so he set the plane down in the first clearing he could find. Once on the ground, the two men put on snowshoes and headed for the brush some hundred yards back.
Thor bounded out of the plane and took off ahead of Doug, after Doug gave him a sniff of Dan's clothing and told him to go search.
Dan didn't recognize them later when they leaned over him and gave him a sip of water from one of the bottles they had brought with them. He didn't recognize them when Doug removed his own coat and wrapped it around him, and he didn't recognize them when, after checking him for signs of any obvious fractures and finding none, they helped him to his feet. Steve mumbled something to Doug about hoping that the bunny boots Dan wore had protected him from full-blown frostbite, to which Doug just nodded blankly.
“Good job, Thor,” Doug told the dog, who had found Dan leaning against a rock about twelve feet from the riverbank. Running back and forth between Dan, the cabin, and the two men, he had led them to Dan.
The men found remnants of dried food, matches, and empty water containers near Dan. A heat barrier survival blanket lay crumpled on the ground; an empty backpack lay nearby. Anna had been right, her Daddy did pack two bags for this trip.
“How could we have missed him?” Steve kept repeating over and over. “How the hell did everyone miss him?”
“Looks like we found him in the nick of time,” Doug said, pointing to the huge dog-like tracks that came from several directions to
within ten feet of the cabin. Doug thought he had caught a glimpse of a bushy, gray tail disappear into the brush as they approached from the air. Thor must have run off the wolves that were closing in on Dan.
With each of Dan's arms slung around their necks, Steve and Doug held up the rescued man and helped him to the plane, bearing almost all of Dan's weight on themselves. Dan allowed himself to be dragged along, mumbling incoherently, but otherwise not resisting their efforts. Together they propped him in the front passenger seat with Doug sitting behind his brother, helping to hold him upright. Thor's body, from his place between Steve and Dan, helped balance him on the other side. Within minutes they were on the landing strip near Steve's cabin and transferring Dan to a medevac helicopter that had been dispatched the moment they radioed base camp with news that they had found Dan alive. Within an hour after his rescue, Dan had an IV inserted into his left arm, was strapped to a backboard, and was air bound to a medical center in Anchorage.
For the first time in his adult life, Doug broke down and cried. Steve, deep in his own thoughts, pretended not to see as he tended to his plane. Composing himself, Doug pulled his pack out of the Cessna and slung it over his shoulder. Steve did likewise with his pack. The two strode shoulder-to-shoulder to Steve's truck, throwing their packs into the bed of the pick-up.
“Thank God we found him alive.”
Putting his hand on Steve's shoulder, Doug continued, “Thanks, man. I'll never forget what you've done.”
Steve gave Doug a light slap on the back of his shoulder and the two got into his truck, heading for the Trooper station down the road. Ken Tandry was waiting when they pulled in.
“I just phoned Ellie with the news and she's on her way to the hospital in Anchorage, along with her sister and Anna.” Turning to Doug, he said, “I'll drive you to Anchorage myself.”
Sgt. Tandry took a statement from both men before Steve left to return to his cabin. He then called off the search before driving Doug into Palmer to pick his truck up at Sassy's. Doug found the keys to his truck still in the ignition and Sassy nowhere around. He didn't try to find her before following Ken Tandry into Anchorage, and he didn't see her watching him from the field where she continued lunging one of her horses as he drove off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Doug
“I TOLD YOU DADDY WAS OKAY, MOMMY…” ANNA SAID, PLOPPING DOWN on the sofa next to Ellie. “I told you he took two bags…”, as if everyone should have known what she, with her child-like faith and innocence, believed all along.
“I know you did, honey,” Ellie said, bundling Anna into her coat and getting herself ready to head to the hospital. “And you were right, too.”
It was late afternoon and it would take about an hour to get to the hospital in Anchorage. The women had decided that Mara would drive and that Ellie would stay with Sarah in a hotel near the hospital. They would drop Anna off to stay with her friend Kelli and her parents for a few days on the way to Anchorage, because no one knew yet what to expect of Dan's condition and Ellie wanted to shield the child from seeing her Daddy injured for now. After everyone was settled, they agreed, Mara would go back to the cabin and keep an eye on things there.
“He doesn't even recognize me,” Ellie told them as she came out of the Intensive Care Unit shortly after 6 p.m. “He just stares like he's looking right through me.”
“It's too soon, Ellie,” Mara tried to console her. “Give it a little more time and he will.”
One of the nurses told them that the doctors were in the process of ordering tests and were only able to provide a limited assessment of Dan's condition. A short while later, one of the doctors came out and explained what they had found so far. Dan had a broken collarbone on the left side that had punctured his lung and caused it to collapse. They had already inserted a chest tube to try to re-expand his lung.
“It's lucky they found him when they did,” the doctor said, “or he wouldn't have been able to hold on much longer with the pneumothorax greatly limiting his ability to get enough oxygen to his cells; especially under survival conditions when oxygen need is not only greater, but especially critical to both his short and long-term survival.”
Dan was also suffering from dehydration and subsequent electrolyte imbalance, which the doctors thought was the cause of his confusion—that and the decrease in oxygen in his system. He also told her that, amazingly, Dan was only mildly hypothermic and had no evidence of frostbite or any other type of cold injury. There was a laceration over his left eye, which was mildly infected. Because it was beyond the twenty-four hour window when suturing would have been effective, they had left the wound to heal from the inside out. He told Ellie that Dan would have a permanent scar there. He was also awaiting the results of a CT scan to make sure that there was no brain injury causing the disorientation, but was almost sure there wasn't. Lastly, the doctor told Ellie that he was closely monitoring Dan's kidney function to make sure that it returned to normal once he was re-hydrated.
“I'm just grateful he's alive,” Ellie said. “I'll be here in the waiting room in case you need me or Dan calls for me. Take good care of him, doctor,” she finished.
Sarah stayed at the hospital with Ellie, and the two slept on couches in the waiting room outside the ICU. One of the staff brought them pillows and blankets and woke Ellie up to visit her husband several times during the night when visitation was allowed. When morning arrived, there had been no real change except the new knowledge that the CT scan had been normal.
“Well, there's one bit of positive news,” Sarah told Ellie. “Bit by bit everything is going to start being okay.”
MARA WAS STILL ASLEEP WHEN THE PHONE RANG AT 9 A.M.
“Hi, this is Sassy,” the female voice drawled into the phone. “Is this Ellie?”
“No, this is Ellie's friend, Mara.”
“Oh,” Sassy hesitated before continuing. “Oh, that's right, you're that girl from Outside, aren't you? The one that's going to work with ocean worms or something like that, right?”
“Yes, that's right,” Mara replied, trying to contain her annoyance, and abandoning the temptation to explain to someone who obviously wasn't aware of the difference, that she would actually be working with sea plankton. “Ellie isn't here right now. Can I take a message?”
“Well, not really,” Sassy said. “Dougy said that they found Dan and I just wanted to catch her when she wasn't at the hospital to see if I could look for something in the bunkhouse. Well, I might as well just tell you. It's my makeup. I lost my favorite make-up and I just feel naked without it.”
“Well, I will sure let her know that you called, Sassy,” Mara told her. “Would you like her to call you back? It might be a couple of days.”
“Oh, no! Really? That long?” Sassy whined. “Would you tell her it's an emergency?”
“Sure, Sassy, I'll tell her just what you said. Bye now.”
Mara hung up and made a mental note to look in the bunkhouse herself for the stupid make-up. She walked out across the yard later only to find the bunk-house locked. Unable to locate the key, she made a decision not to even trouble Ellie about the call. While her morning coffee was brewing, she walked outside again, this time to the edge of the drive to retrieve the morning newspaper.
The day was sunny and warmer than the day before. Scanning the headlines as she walked back to the house, she was startled by the sound of a truck pulling in. Immediately she recognized Doug Williams. Waving him in, she walked back to the house.
Dan's brother looked tired as he walked in and hung his coat on the hook behind the door. He thanked Mara for the fresh cup of hot coffee and the two sat down at the kitchen table.
“It's such a relief that you found Dan,” she began. “I know he's not out of the woods yet, but it's still such a relief for Ellie, and…well…for all of us.”
Doug began telling her the story of how they had found Dan, beginning with how surprised he had been to find his brother alive.
“Sassy and I and
a whole lot of others searched that area two or three times and never saw or heard anything,” he said, rubbing the day's worth of stubble on his chin.
“It was really Thor that found him,” Doug continued. “The movement we saw was a wolf pack that was hanging nearby. After running off the wolves, Thor led us to a trap door under the lean-to attached to an old abandoned cabin. We had all checked around that cabin a couple of days earlier and it was boarded up tighter than a drum. Looking back, I remember seeing a few pieces of wood missing from the woodpile. You could tell because fresh logs with only a thin new layer of snow were exposed. I figured, though, that some of the rescuers had taken them to build a fire to stay warm. There were no footprints, no noises…nothing.”
Doug stopped to sip his coffee, shaking his head in bewilderment as he spoke, “Thor kept scratching at the area around the woodpile and finally scratched a spot deep enough where we could see the crack of the trap door. We dug as fast as we could to get it open.”
Doug paused again and looked straight at Mara with an expression of disbelief, before continuing, “We found the engine blanket on the ground over in a corner and a down blanket that had been torn out of its vacuum-sealed pack crumpled up on top of it. There were some empty packages of energy bars, like the kind Dan usually carried with him, and there was a broken-off piece of pipe that looked like he had been using it to drink melted snow from. Over in the opposite corner there was human wa…, forget about that part—let's just say it looked like he had been in there since the beginning—all four days.”
“But, didn't someone say you found him outside?”
“We did,” Doug answered.” Well, at least Thor did. The trap door led under the wall of the house into an outer compartment that had a few stairs leading up into the cabin. The one and only room that made up the cabin was insulated from the ground by about three feet of dead space underneath the floor. That's where we found the things I just told you about.”
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