He stepped back. She saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. He stared at her. “Ma’am,” he said. “Yes, ma’am.”
She marched behind him to the shed. Although the door was chained and padlocked, the shed itself was a flimsy affair, the sort you could buy prefab at a home and garden center. Russ circled the shed, ran his fingers assessingly over the chain, then headed straight for one of the two Plexiglas windows set into the side walls. He pushed against it and felt around the edges. “You care if this looks pretty or not?” he said.
“No.”
“Okay. C’mere.” He pulled her to him, turned her around, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re going to be the battering ram. Keep your feet about as wide apart as the window.”
She didn’t have a chance to respond, because with a grunt, he hoisted her off the ground, squeezing the breath out of her. She drew her legs up and braced her feet. He staggered back a few steps and then lumbered forward. Her sneakers struck the window with a jolt that made her legs buzz up to her knees, and the entire window, Plexiglas and frame, flew into the shed, crashing and clattering as it fell into a rack of shelves.
He set her on the sill and she slipped through into the oven-hot interior. It was pretty much what she had expected, shelving filled with tools, several small barrels of transmission and hydraulic fluid, rags in a plastic grocery bag. There was a metal cabinet set next to where the window had been, and she pried it open. Bingo: four headsets hanging on a dowel. She took two and passed them out to Russ, then turned to case out the shed more carefully, looking for something that might be helpful. The shelving was too heavy, the clipboards way too small; then she spotted two grimy lawn chairs, folded and tossed into the corner. They would do nicely. She grabbed them and stuffed them through the window.
“What are these for?” he asked.
“Waxman’s going to need some sort of restraint before we move him,” she said. She went back to the shelves, took the bag of rags, and thrust it out, as well. “You can stomp on the chairs to flatten them and tie him down to the webbing with these.”
“The gunk on these rags will kill him, if the lift doesn’t.”
She glared through the window. “I’m open to suggestions, if you have a better idea.” He lifted his hands and backed away. She turned back to the shed’s interior. Now, all she needed to find was…Frowning, she went through the rest of the cabinet.
“No charts,” she said half to herself.
“What?”
She pulled a paper towel from a roll in the cabinet and wiped the sweat off her face. “No charts. I didn’t see any in the cockpit, and I was hoping they would be stored here. Opperman must have taken them with him.”
“Is this something you need to fly?”
She almost said yes, then remembered to whom she was talking. “I just needed them for the radio frequencies. But it doesn’t really matter. Whoever flew the ship the last time would have tuned the radio to the right approach control. Probably Albany. Maybe Boston. It’ll be there.” She up-ended a pail in front of the window space. “Help me out.”
She levered herself over the edge, the shed wall shaking hard beneath her weight, and Russ grabbed her under her arms and dragged her out. She shook herself. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but it actually feels cooler out here after that.”
“You sure you don’t need those charts?”
She looked up at him. “I’m sure.”
“Did you turn on the radio to make sure?”
“We’re in the mountains, Russ. I’m going to have to be at a couple thousand feet before I can get any signal.” He looked pale again. She laid her hand on his arm. “Do you trust me?”
He nodded.
“Then you let me worry about the piloting. You’re the dumb grunt, remember?”
He laughed, an explosive choked sound that was very close to the edge, but not going over. She scooped up the bag of oily rags, satisfied. “Let’s get those helmets and go.”
Peggy was backing out of the passenger-side cockpit door. “I put another two water bottles in,” she said. “I thought you might need them.”
“Thanks, Peggy.” Clare kept her eyes on Russ as he tossed the lawn chairs through the cargo doorway and then clipped his headset over his ears. He adjusted the mike into the proper position. He may not have liked choppers, but he had certainly done this before.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you because”—Peggy tilted her head toward Russ, indicating his attempts to keep his problem under wraps hadn’t been entirely successful—“but I phoned the Glens Falls Hospital while I was down in the office and told them what you were attempting. The triage nurse I spoke with said you should take him straight to Albany Medical Center.”
Clare bit her lower lip. “Without stopping for any medical personnel first?”
“That’s what she said.”
Clare gestured at the sailcloth bag, which was drooping on the ground near the tail boom. “You didn’t bring your phone with you, did you?”
Peggy spread her hands. “I forgot. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m having a hard time stringing two thoughts together.”
“That’s natural. Look, are you going to be okay to drive yourself?”
“I think I will be. I know the route so well from here that it’s like the old gray mare returning to the barn.”
“Okay. We’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as we get into Albany.” Clare stuffed the bag of rags under her arm and placed the headset on her head, tilting the mike into position. “Better get back to the edge of the tarmac. Don’t approach the ship once I’ve got the rotors going.”
Peggy nodded, scooped up her bag, and retreated to the trailhead. Clare switched on the set-to-set transmitter. “Russ?” she said. He didn’t respond. She glanced over to where he stood staring into the cargo area. She walked over, tapped him on one of the headphones, and switched him on. “Can you hear me?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah,” he said.
She pointed up to the cargo boom jutting out over the open door. “That’s what the net hangs from, obviously.” She tossed the rags inside, jumped up into the cargo area, and found the manual control. She unlocked it and cranked the handle, letting the wide web strap clipped to the net spool through the boom until several feet of it lay on the tarmac at Russ’s feet. She secured the control and squatted at the edge of the door. “Can you wrestle that in here?” she asked. He gathered up the pile of netting and tossed it through the doorway as Clare scrambled to get out of the way. She dragged the net toward the opposite side of the ship, pulled back the edges, and slid the folded lawn chairs and the plastic rag bag inside. She looked around for something to secure the stuff during the flight. Hanging from a grommet in the bright orange safety web were half a dozen short bungee cords.
“Perfect,” she said, hooking the end of one through the D ring connecting the net to the boom strap. She hooked the other end through another grommet. It wasn’t very ship-shape, but the bungee cord held the boom strap off the floor and away from the cargo door, so that even if she should have to angle hard during the flight, the net wouldn’t be able to slip though the door and out of Russ’s reach.
She squatted at the edge of the door again. “Hop on up here,” she said. Russ backed against the door and levered himself up until he was sitting beside her. In the small cargo area, his head almost touched the roof. “Okay, I’ve secured the net back here,” she said, thumbing toward the pile on the floor. “This is what we’re going to do. When we reach Waxman, I’ll hover overhead. You take off the bungee strap, drag the net over to the doorway, and get inside.”
“Right.” His tone was so flat, she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or was just scared.
“Once you’re in the net, I’ll use the cockpit control to pull the boom strap up tight. That’ll swing you out the door. Then I’ll lower the netting nice and easy until you’re on the ground.”
“Nice and easy.”
She ducked her head. “You may take a couple of bumps when you reach the ground. I’ll do everything I can to set you down smoothly.”
He bent over and put his head between his knees. “Oh, God,” he said. She thought it might be as authentic a prayer as she had ever heard.
“If anything happens, if you need me, I’ll be right behind you. Look.” She pointed to where one of the passenger seats rested against the partial bulkhead. “You’ll sit there. You can see the pilot’s seat right behind it. I can be up and over in a few seconds.”
“I have to tell you that’s not a big comfort right now.”
“You ready?”
He nodded. He looked like a man going to his own execution, but he gave her a thumbs-up.
“Then let’s fly.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Russ had been there before. Pilots could never just get you on board and go. They had to stretch it out, playing with switches and revving up the engine until it sounded like it was going to explode, and all the time poor jackasses like him had to sit in a puddle of sweat and misery. His skin was itching and creeping, until he wanted to scratch it off, tear off the headphones that made his skull feel like a china cup in a vise, jump out of the chopper, and run far enough away that he would no longer hear the thwap-thwap-thwap noise that was the sound track to all his nightmares.
He was strapped into the left-side passenger seat, hands on knees, eyes forward. He fixed his field of vision on the hunter’s orange of the safety web hanging between him and the cargo area. He tried not to look out the open cargo door, or out the window to his right, although that was damn hard, because the thing was as big as a minivan’s windshield. He tried not to listen to the whine of the engine and the beat of the rotors, which, although muffled by his headphones, penetrated straight into the back of his neck.
Instead, he listened to the sounds of Clare getting ready for takeoff. She had the same habit as one of the helo jocks he had flown with in ’Nam. She was singing under her breath as she worked her controls.
“I don’t know why I love you like I do, all the things you put me through,” his headset sang. Jesus Christ, he thought, I think that’s the same song. What do they do, give them a sound track in flight school?
“Take me to the river,” his headset sang. “Drop me in the water.” Over his head, the rotors powered up into a dull roar. Under his feet, the skids shifted. He braced his elbows on his knees and shut his eyes. Clare was making ch-ch-ch sounds between her teeth, accompanying her mental music.
“Here we go,” she sang out. The floor lurched beneath him and then they rose slowly, slowly into the sky. Beyond the open cargo doors, the world sank out of view. He thought if he looked at the seat to his left, he would see his buddy Mac, his transistor radio blasting between his boots, his hands slapping out the rhythm of the song.
“I-I-I want to know, can you tell me?” his headphones sang.
Mac would have liked Clare. Except she was sixteen years older than he would ever get. And he, Russ, would look like an old man to Mac. How had he gotten to be so old when he still felt the same inside?
“I need your help here.” Clare’s voice cut through his reverie. “I don’t know where the gorge is. I’m having a hard time sighting the road through all these trees.”
He opened his eyes and looked out the window in the cabin door. Forget the minivan. This was a frickin’ picture window. He shifted sideways in his seat and pressed his hands against the solid metal edges of the door to hold back the sensation of falling. “Um,” he said, taking a deep breath. They were creeping along a dozen yards above the trees. “That’s it, down there. The road. Keep heading in that direction and you’ll be over the gorge.” If he turned his head, he could look at the back of Clare’s.
“There?” she asked, twisting and pointing at the window in the cockpit door.
“Shouldn’t you keep your eyes on the instruments?”
“The army gives us special training on how to look out the window and fly at the same time.”
He could tell she was having a good old time. He leaned forward and closed his eyes again. The rotors whined and the chopper tilted forward slightly as she brought it around and headed toward the crevasse.
“Okay, I’ve got it in sight,” she said. “Russ—where are you?”
He sat up again. He could see the curve of her jaw beneath her helmet as she twisted back, craning to see him.
“Are you feeling airsick?” She sounded doubtful. As she should be, since the drive up the mountain road to the spa site had bounced him around a lot more than anything she had done.
“No.”
“Okay. Can you unbuckle and shift seats? I want you to look out the other cabin window. It makes for a better search if you cover both sides.”
“Okay.” He didn’t have the wherewithal to answer in anything more than single-word sentences. He unclipped and shifted to the ghostly Mac’s seat. The geologist’s description of the gorge knifing down the mountains was more clearly accurate from this height. The crevasse looked a lot narrower than it had when he’d peered over the edge. He thought of descending into that crack in the rock, wrapped in nothing but cargo netting. It’d be a miracle if he didn’t end up a smear on the rock wall.
“See anything?”
“No.”
“Are you doing okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to drop her down a bit.” The chopper sank in a series of jerks, like an elevator on the fritz. He pressed his lips tightly together and braced his hands for another look out the window. Green leaves, everywhere green pulsing in the hazy sunlight, with a gray slash through the jungle, a scar in the earth.
Jesus, he thought. Get a grip. He forced himself to focus on the crevasse, picking out boulders and scrubby plants, the tobacco brown trickle that was all that remained of the brook at summer’s height, the flash of metal—
“Wait! I think I see something.”
The chopper stopped its forward motion and hovered, twisting slightly back and forth. He saw it again, a glint of metal on a lumpy bundle rolled against a small boulder. A backpack? He hadn’t noticed one when he’d surveyed the accident scene the first time. “Can you go a little lower?”
Clare dropped the chopper another few yards. He let his eyes spiral out from the backpack, searching, searching…. He spotted the geologist’s hiking boots first.
“I’ve got him.”
“Where?”
“See where there’s a clump of birch saplings growing low on the wall?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“That’s ten o’clock. Look at two o’clock.”
There was a pause as she searched over the floor of the ravine. “Okay, I see him, too. I’m going to maneuver us so that the cargo door is above him. Good Lord, he’s still. Are you sure he’s not dead?”
“If he is, and I go through all this for nothing, I’m going to be seriously pissed off.”
There was a sound in his headset that might have been a stifled laugh. The chopper dipped and swayed into position.
“Okay, you’re on.”
He rose from his seat and, crouching, crossed back to the left side of the chopper and pushed the webbing out of the way. The thing he noticed—and he wished he had noticed it when Clare was going through how all this was going to work—was that there was nothing beside the safety webbing and the bungee cord to hold on to while he got himself inside the net. And he was going to have to unclip the bungee cord anyway.
“Clare,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“There’s nothing to hold on to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Getting into the net. There’s nothing I can hold on to.”
“We went over this. You hold on to the edges of the net while you step inside.”
“It’s in front of an open door!”
There was a pause. Then she said in the patient voice of a kindergarten teach
er explaining something to a new student, “I’m holding the ship dead even. There’s nothing to cause you to lose your balance and fall.”
“What if I trip?” He realized how whiny he sounded, but he couldn’t help it.
“Russ.” The teacher was gone; the officer was back. “Get into the net.”
He took a deep breath. With his fingers clutching the safety webbing, he took the D ring in a death grip. Then he let go of the webbing and jerked the bungee cord out. It sprang back against the bulkhead with a metallic clang. He looked along the wide strap running from the ring in his fist, out the door, and up out of sight to the boom. One twitch of the helicopter and he would be dangling sixty feet above the gorge’s rocky bottom. His palm was so sweaty, the D ring was already slipping in his grasp. He pawed the edges of the net open and tumbled inside with a tailbone-bruising jolt.
“I’m in,” he said. The relief of it made him laugh.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just can’t believe I’m doing this. It reminds me of the time I tried to trim one of the old trees in our yard with a chain saw.”
“That sounds pretty normal to me.”
“I was twenty feet up on a limb at the time. Without a safety harness.”
“What happened?”
“I fell.” He laughed again, this time with the realization that he now had to scoot over to the door so she could reel in the net and lift him out. He tugged the folded lawn chairs half over his knees and kicked against the floor, pushing with his thighs. He and the netting skidded a foot. “It was just two years ago, and I remember thinking that at my age, it was the last really stupid thing I’d ever do. I’m glad to see that I still have it in me.”
He kicked again and moved along another foot. The lawn chairs bumped into his head. The cargo door yawned open behind him like the gateway to the next world. His back was to it, deliberately, so he wouldn’t have to see the tops of the trees shaking madly in the chopper’s wash below. He kicked a third time, but his butt jammed up against a line of smooth-headed rivets sunk into the cargo floor. He shifted his weight and tried again. Nothing.
A Fountain Filled With Blood Page 30