Stranded at Romson's Lodge

by J. L. Callison

  CHAPTER 70

  Detective Summers was frustrated. The file on the Romson-Sitton disappearance was officially going into the cold files today. No matter what possible lead she followed, there had been nothing. Every time she thought there was something, it turned into a dead end. It was as if they were swallowed by a black hole. All of her hopes following the Minnesota trip had been snuffed out.

  The only good thing from her trip had been her growing friendship with Dan Hixon. They talked on the phone at least once a week, and he was scheduled to come to town to interview with James Romson for the company pilot job this weekend, although the hiring was basically a done deal. All that had to be done was to agree on a salary amount and find a plane.

  The Beaver she had helped capture and confiscate in Minnesota was coming up for auction, and James and Dan were going to St. Paul to take a look at it. Since Dan was also an A&P mechanic, he could provide a good evaluation. The best part to Sarah was that she was going to dinner with Dan on Friday evening after his interview. She felt giddy like a schoolgirl again.

  CHAPTER 71

  The Romsons were decorating their house for Christmas, but their hearts weren’t in it. As Jed had gotten older, decorating wasn’t as exciting, but with him gone it seemed they were just going through the expected motions. Certainly they would celebrate Jesus’ birth. Celebrating Jesus’ birth never got old, but the rest of the festivities just seemed empty and hollow.

  Their excitement over Detective Summers’s find in Minnesota and what she had learned from Dan Hixon had long since faded. As with everything else surrounding the case, it all turned up empty. In their low moments, it seemed they would never see Jed again.

  Dan Hixon was the only bright point James had, and James looked forward to meeting him on Friday. Their discussions over the telephone and Dan’s experience and credentials were very positive. Dan seemed to fit the needs for a new pilot and was ready to accept a blend of corporate work with the limited bush work needed. His A&P skills were a big plus. Keeping maintenance on the plane in-house would save a significant amount of money and would allow for a higher pay scale to make it worthwhile for him to make the move. On Monday, the two of them would fly to St. Paul to take a look at the confiscated Beaver before the auction on Tuesday. The only drawback to their trip was they had to fly commercial, which James hated.

  CHAPTER 72

  Charles Sitton found himself with mixed emotions. While he missed Elizabeth terribly, his growing relationship with Sue and his friendship and mentorship of Jimmy was filling the void in his life caused by the loss of his wife. He found himself actually looking forward to Christmas. He had picked out a nice gift for Sue that sparkled, and he hoped, with expectation, she would accept it. He just wished Elizabeth could be there. The ache in his heart for her never seemed to go away, no matter what else was going on.

  For Jimmy, he picked out a nice rifle. Charles had been teaching him firearm safety and the proper care of a weapon, and he felt Jimmy was ready to own his own rifle. Sue was hesitant at first, but when Charles took her to the firing range along with Jimmy, and she saw how careful Jimmy was, she consented to Charles’s gift. She still thought Charles spoiled them, but Charles enjoyed having someone with whom to share his life.

  For the first of December, it was a very nice day, so Charles and Jimmy were busy stringing Christmas lights around the eaves of the Jenson home. Charles wasn’t decorating at his house, not even a tree. With Elizabeth gone it seemed pointless, and he was spending Christmas with Sue and Jimmy anyway.

  CHAPTER 73

  Jed was having a tough time getting enough alone time to work on his gift for Lizzie. Since his bunk was in the open area, he didn’t have a room where he could go alone to work on the gift. Without Lizzie noticing what he was doing, he had extracted all of the claws when he skinned the bear. He carefully bored small holes in the base of each claw and was stringing them on a finely braided, very thin rawhide necklace. It would not be Tiffany’s, but it would be one of a kind and hopefully something memorable she would treasure. One way he tried to hide what he was doing was by carving a crèche for the mantel. When Lizzie saw him sitting back on his bunk working on little stuff, she thought that was what he was doing.

  She nearly caught him one day. “Let’s go see what Jed’s doing, Tommy,” he heard.

  Almost frantically, Jed tucked the necklace and loose claws under his leg and picked up his knife and a half-finished donkey.

  “Ooh. I like it.” Lizzie leaned over his bunk and picked up a sheep. “How did you learn to carve like this?”

  Lizzie sat down on his bunk by him and watched as he carefully crafted the donkey.

  “Oh, it’s easy enough.” Jed looked up at Lizzie and winked, his heart warmed by her praise and having her close by. “I just try to do like Michelangelo said when he carved an angel. ‘I just cut away anything that doesn’t look like an angel.’”

  “I like it.”

  “Thanks.” Jed looked up to see Lizzie looking into his eyes and his heart fluttered. Suddenly, being cooped up in the lodge didn’t seem as bad any longer.

  Lizzie had managed to slip one of the coonskins out of the fur pile from Jed’s snares without him noticing. She painstakingly worked it to make it very soft and pliable, even to the point of treating the hide the way squaws did, chewing some of the edges where she had trouble softening them. When it was softened to her satisfaction she crafted a coonskin cap for him to wear in the cold weather. She would have liked to have made him a beaver hat as had been popular years ago. However, there were only a couple of beaver pelts in the pile, and she didn’t think she could get one without him noticing.

  Shoes had become an issue. Jed had taken to making moccasins and wearing them when out, but with the colder weather they were difficult to keep warm. He had lined some with fur, which felt soft and warm, but they weren’t totally satisfactory either. The last pairs he had made were long and came up to the knees. These were for walking in snow, but keeping the feet warm was an issue. He was going to have to experiment some more.

  CHAPTER 74

  After wrangling with the insurance company for months on end, James Romson and Bernie Watson finally came to an agreement with them on the replacement of the Romson Industries plane. Neither could believe it had taken over seven months to receive a check for the value of the lost aircraft, less a healthy deductible. The day the check cleared the bank, James changed insurance companies. He felt the years of business with no claims, plus the obvious theft of their aircraft, should have prompted the company to be more responsive, but they had not budged. The lack of an aircraft hampered testing on several new items under development. Chartering a plane and pilot had proven to be prohibitively expensive, so they had had to wait.

  The only silver lining in that black cloud was the availability of the confiscated drug plane coming at the same time as the insurance settlement. After carefully checking it out with Dan Hixon, James promptly bid on the Beaver. Even though the plane came with notification from the DEA stating it was a confiscated drug plane, many bidders were afraid of being inspected and trace amounts of drugs being found. This kept the price of the plane well below market value and allowed for some very nice upgrades to be added. Since the Beaver was located in St. Paul anyway, James and Dan took the time to go over to Wipaire, Inc., one of the premier aircraft modification companies in the country. Dan Hixon felt like a kid who had been given the candy store, not just allowed inside. His experience as a bush pilot didn’t tempt him into making the plane fancy, but he added top-of-the-line avionics and performance-enhancing options instead.

  The hard part was determining what had to be done right away and what could be put off until later so the plane could be put into service more quickly. Fortunately, the wheels and skis from the old Beaver would fit the new one. Dan Hixon ordered parts and stockpiled them in the hangar where he promptly began installing some of the new equipment. Upgraded avionics and radios were the first things to ha
ppen. The plane would get a new paint job, in the company colors, but the paint would wait until spring.

  Dan also purchased new, more aerodynamic Wipline floats to increase airspeed by over twenty miles per hour and decrease fuel consumption. He also made modifications to the wings to provide more lift and better airflow.

  James finally had to make him take a couple of days off around Christmas. “Look, I appreciate you are trying to get the plane airworthy right away, but I’d rather have you fresh and ready when I need you. I don’t need you burning out on me before we even get the plane in the air.”

  “Okay, boss. Would it be all right if I pick which days I want off?”

  “I guess. Why?”

  “I’ll try to match them up with Sarah’s off days. Maybe we can do something together.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Yeah, Sarah Summers.”

  “Detective Summers?”

  “Yeah. Cool, huh?”

  James gave him a grin. “Go for it, Tiger. I just want you to take at least two days off between now and New Year’s besides the holidays. I don’t care which ones, and they don’t count as vacation days either. I’ll count them as comp time. I know for a fact you haven’t been clocking all your hours. Being on salary doesn’t mean I want to abuse you. You are already doing much more than I ask of you.”

  “Works for me. Thanks, boss. I think I’ll have everything done shortly after the first. Unless you want skis put on. They will take me another week.”

  “I think we should do that. We need to take some people up to the lodge for some of the new product trials. I’m sure the lake is close to frozen if it isn’t already. I’ll get someone to give me a report on conditions next week.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Charles Sitton picked Jim up at the high school when school let out. They were going to the range to do a little target practice, but Charles’s real purpose was to find out Jim’s reaction to Charles’s proposal to his mother. His stomach felt like he had butterflies, and he just couldn’t get them to fly in formation. This was as bad as when he had had to talk to Collette’s father all those years ago. He didn’t need Jim’s approval, but he really wanted it. The last thing he wanted to do was cause problems in the family.

  “Hey, Mr. Charles!” Jim popped the door open and jumped in the Oldsmobile. He waved at a couple of guys who were watching them leave.

  “Had an interesting day in school today. I told a couple of guys I couldn’t play basketball tonight because we are going shooting. Mr. Swenson overheard us and went ballistic! He started ranting about how guns are evil and war is wrong and stuff like that. He got a big hubbub going in class. I don’t care what he thinks. He’s kind of weird anyway, but several of the guys asked if you would teach them to shoot. Could you do it?”

  “I don’t know. That is a lot of responsibility. I’m teaching you because I can keep an eye on you and make sure you do it right, and you won’t do stupid stuff with a gun when I’m away from you. Guns are not toys! They can be fun to shoot and stuff, but you always have to remember they are tools, and they have to be respected accordingly. I wouldn’t give a power saw to a kid to play with, and a gun can be as dangerous. I would have to think seriously about it and talk with their parents first to be sure they were on board with me teaching their sons.”

  “Cool! Would you? I told Jason I would ask you.”

  “Let me think about it for a few days. Tell them not to go out and buy a gun! . . . Tell you what. You can talk with the boys, but tell them they have to have their dads call me if their dads are okay with it. I’ll not teach anyone unless I talk with his dad first. I have an idea convincing the mothers will be a little different.” Charles paused, obviously thinking. “Also, I’m going to require the fathers to be there for at least the first session.”

  They pulled up at the range and got out of the car. As they unloaded the gun cases from the trunk, Jim said, “I think that will work. You might even be able to charge them something for teaching them.”

  “No. I’ll not charge anything if I decide to do it. They will have to pay for their own ammo and will be responsible for cleaning the guns to my satisfaction, but I’ll not charge them.”

  Jim impulsively gave Charles a hug, something he was not accustomed to doing. “Thanks. You’re pretty cool, you know?”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Charles took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any. “Before we go in, I need to talk with you about Christmas. Will you keep a secret?”

  “Of course!”

  “I want your opinion on something, and I want you to be totally honest. Can you do that?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Look. I bought a ring for your mother. She has come to mean an awful lot to me, and I want to ask her to marry me. I don’t have to have your permission, but I would like to know you don’t have a problem with it. I don’t want to break up your family.”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time!” He threw both arms around Charles’s neck. “Does that mean I get to call you Dad?”

  Charles had to swallow and wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. “I don’t know anything I would like better, son, but you’d better wait until it’s official.”

  “Oh, geez. I hope I don’t let it slip to Mom!”

  CHAPTER 76

  Footing outside the lodge was treacherous. The good news was the freezing rain had not been prolonged, and very few branches were down as a result, but the ice under the six inches of snow created a deceitfully slippery subsurface. Jed tread cautiously as he made his way to the woodpile, grabbed an armload of logs, and worked his way back in the door. Since the wind died down, it wasn’t as cold, with the thermometer hovering at five degrees. On his second trip, he took the bucket full of hickory nut shells and spread them on the path to the woodpile. They helped a bit, but he still had to be cautious. To break a leg or sprain an ankle could be a death sentence at these temperatures. For sure, he would be staying close to the lodge.

  Lizzie experimented with the acorn flour she had so painstakingly ground. It was grainy and nothing like wheat flour, but she was determined to be creative. The end result she fried on a griddle like pancakes. The pancakes turned out more like hard tortillas than pancakes, but with some of the blueberry preserves she had made in the summer, Jed liked them; it was all the confirmation Lizzie needed. Her love for Jed seemed to grow stronger every day. She longed to be able to express herself, but she knew she had to wait. It seemed all her life was about waiting!

  Jed and Lizzie had just finished eating lunch when Jed heard an airplane in the distance. Instantly, he ran out the door, not even thinking to put on a coat. He slipped and fell hard, but was up quickly. An airplane was coming their way, but it wasn’t a float plane, nor did it have skis. Jed knew it couldn’t land, but he waved both arms above his head, hoping he would be seen. The pilot waggled his wings and kept on flying. Feeling the cold now that the excitement was over, Jed made his way, shivering, back into the lodge. Whether or not the pilot would report their presence, he had no idea, but for the first time in a long time he had hope. It might be only December second, but being discovered would be the best Christmas present he could ask for, and he didn’t even mind if it came early.

  Impulsively, Jed picked Lizzie up in his arms and danced her around the room.

  CHAPTER 77

  In accordance with James’s orders, Dan was taking a couple of days off work, but he was not exactly doing so in a manner James would have approved. He was flying his own Piper Tri-Pacer airplane, lovingly restored to its original condition, down to repainting it in its original pale washed-out mauve color scheme. Dan loved the old Tri-Pacer. The first time he had gone up in an airplane was when he was eight years old, and he had flown in a Tri-Pacer that looked just like this one. The Tri-Pacer was one of the last commercially built planes with a fabric wing instead of aluminum, and it was one of the first with a tricycle landing gear instead of a tailwheel
.

  Sarah thought Dan was showing off a little as he pre-flighted the plane, and she walked along with him. He pulled and wiggled and checked every little thing before saying it looked like it was safe to wind up the rubber bands. After climbing into the airplane and cinching the seatbelt snug against her waist, she asked, “Hey, what was with all the looking and wiggling and pushing and pulling on stuff before we got in?”

  “Every pilot who wants to be an old pilot does that every time. I don’t care if he just got out of the plane and then got back in. When you get it up in the air, there isn’t a place to pull off the side of the road like you can with a car. You always check everything before taking off.”

  “I thought you were just showing off or something.”

  “Nope. You do it every time, and you do it the same way every time to be sure you don’t forget something. The time you don’t check may be the time something breaks. Flying isn’t something I like to show off with. I know some guys do aerobatics and stuff, but they have planes built for doing that stuff. Never saw much use in it myself.”

  Sarah Summers sat in the right seat, enthralled by the view. She had flown commercially, but the view from the front, out the windscreen, was different from what she could see out a little porthole on the side of a jet. She held the yoke and had her feet on the rudder pedals, “following through,” as Dan flew the craft. At first, the dials and gauges confused her, but they started making sense as Dan explained each one.

  They were flying to another town for the day, about an hour’s air time away. Because she was a police officer, Sarah was not comfortable going out much in her hometown. Too many people knew she was a cop, and she often wondered about her food or drinks. She had a few places she frequented that she trusted, but those weren’t special for a date. Dan, being a pilot and having a plane, made going out of town for a fun day a lot easier.