Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  Max and Carrie must have put the paper together and gone to print the minute the storm was over, he thought. Pictures of the storm and the aftermath were damn good, too. And the story on it, with Max's byline, was almost poetic.

  He didn't mind the story on himself as much as he'd thought he would. In fact, he was going to keep his copy, along with his first two issues of The Lunatic.

  Whenever he could get out to Meg's again, he'd take her one.

  A week after the storm blew in, the roads were clear enough. Dropping by her place to take her a paper couldn't be considered a date.

  Giving her a call just to make sure she was there and not flying around somewhere couldn't be considered plans.

  It was just being practical.

  Expecting his staff to come in any moment, Nate tucked the newspaper in a desk drawer and started out to put some fuel in the wood-stove.

  Hopp pushed through the outside door.

  "We've got trouble," she said.

  "Is it bigger than four and a half feet of snow?"

  She shoved back her hood. Under it her face was bone white. "Three missing boys."

  "Give me the details." He backed up. "Who, when and where they were last seen."

  "Steven Wise, Joe and Lara's boy, his cousin Scott from Talkeetna and one of their college friends.

  Joe and Lara thought Steven and Scott were down in Prince William for winter break. Scott's parents thought the same. Lara and Scott's mother got together on the radio last night to pass the time and catch up, and it came out some of the things each of the boys had told them didn't jibe. They got suspicious, enough that Lara tried calling Steven at college. He's not back—neither is Scott."

  "College where, Hopp?"

  "Anchorage." She passed a hand over her face.

  "Then they need to notify the Anchorage PD."

  "No. No. Lara got hold of Stevens girlfriend. Those idiot boys are trying a winter climb up the south face of No Name."

  "What's No Name?"

  "It's a damn mountain, Ignatious." Fear was jumping in her eyes. "A goddamn big mountain. They've been gone six days. Lara's out of her mind."

  Nate strode to his office, yanked out his map. "Show me the mountain."

  "Here." She jabbed a finger. "It's a favorite with the locals, and a lot of climbers from Outside use it for entertainment or a kind of training ground for a try at Denali. But trying a climb in January s just bone stupid, especially for three inexperienced boys. We need to call Search and Rescue. Get planes in the air at first light."

  "That gives us three hours. I'll contact S and R. Get on one of those two-ways, call Otto, Peter and Peach in here. Then I want to know who all the pilots are, other than Meg, in the area."

  He scanned the phone numbers Peach had neatly listed. "What are the chances they're still alive?"

  With a two-way in hand, Hopp sat heavily. "They need a miracle."

  * * *

  Five minutes after she got the call, Meg was dressed and loading up gear. She was tempted to ignore the radio call from Lunacy PD, but decided it might be an update on the lost climbers.

  "This is KUNA responding. Over."

  "I'm going with you. Pick me up by the river on your way. Over."

  Irritation rippled through her as she stuffed extra medical supplies in her bag. "I don't need a co-pilot, Burke. And I don't have time to waste showing you the sights. I'll contact you when I find them. Over."

  "I'm going with you. Those boys deserve another pair of eyes, and mine are good. I'll be ready when you get here. Over and out."

  "Damn it. I hate heroes." She hauled up the pack and, with the dogs beside her, went out. She grabbed the rest of the gear and, using the flashlight, trudged down to the lake in snowshoes.

  She'd made two runs since the all clear to fly and thanked God she didn't have to take an hour now to dig out her plane. She didn't think about the boys, dead or alive, on the mountain. She simply took the steps.

  She pulled off the wing covers, stowed them. It was work, but less work thah scraping the frost from uncovered wings. After draining the water traps in the bottoms of the wing tanks, she climbed up to check the gas level by eye. Topped off the fuel.

  Making a circuit, she checked flaps, tail feathers, every part of the plane that moved to make certain everything was secure.

  Lives had been lost, she knew, due to a loose bolt.

  Her mind focused only on the safety check, she turned her prop several times to remove any pooled oil.

  Swinging into the plane, she stowed the gear, then strapped in.

  She hit the starter, switched on the engine. The prop turned, sluggishly at first, then the engine fired with a belch of exhaust. While the engine warmed, she checked gauges.

  She was in control here, as much as she considered anyone was in control of anything.

  It was still shy of dawn when she released the brakes.

  She set the flaps, the trim tab for takeoff, gave the controls a shove and yank as she looked out to be sure the ailerons were moving, if the elevators responded. Satisfied, she straightened in her seat.

  She kissed her fingers, touched them to the magnetized photo of Buddy Holly stuck to the control board. And rammed the throttle forward.

  She hadn't yet decided whether to head to Lunacy or not. As she circled the lake, building speed for takeoff, she let the decision hang.

  Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't.

  She nosed up, rising into the air just as dawn began to break in the v east. Then with a shrug, aimed that nose toward Lunacy.

  He was where he'd said he'd be. Standing on the edge of the ice with a mountain of snow at his back.

  He had a pack slung over his shoulder. She could only hope someone had told the cheechako what to bring as emergency gear. She saw that Hopp was with him, and her stomach sank when she recognized the other figures as Joe and Lara.

  It forced her to think of what might be. Of the bodies she'd transported before. Of the ones she might transport today.

  She set down on the ribbon of ice, waited with the engines running for Nate to cross it.

  The prop wash blew at his coat, his hair. Then he was climbing in, stowing his pack, strapping in.

  "Hope you know what you're in for," she said.

  "I haven't got a clue."

  "Maybe that's better." She kissed her fingers, touched them to Buddy. Without looking at the terrified faces to her right, she pushed to take off.

  Using the hand mike, she contacted control in Talkeetna and gave them her data. Then they were up, over the trees and veering east, northeast into the pale rising sun.

  "You're eyes and ballast, Burke. If Jacob wasn't in Nome visiting his son, I wouldn't have settled for you as either."

  "Got it. Who's Jacob?"

  "Jacob Itu. Best bush pilot I've ever known. He taught me."

  "The man you shared your popcorn with at the town meeting?"

  "That's right." They hit a pocket of air, and she saw his hand fist against the bumps. "You get airsick, I'm going to be really unhappy."

  "No. I just hate flying."

  "Why's that?"

  "Gravity."

  She grinned as they continued to bump. "Turbulence bothers you, you're going to have a really bad day. There's still time to take you back."

  "Tell that to the three kids we're going after."

  The grin vanished. She watched the mountains, the fierce rise of them, while the ground below blurred with speed and low-lying clouds. "Is that why you're a cop? Saving people's your mission?"

  "No." He said nothing as they shuddered through another patch of rough air. "Why does a bush pilot have a picture of Buddy Holly in her cockpit?"

  "To remind her shit happens." As the sun speared up, she took sunglasses out of her pocket and put them on. Below, she saw the snake of dogsled trails, spirals of chimney smoke, a wedge of trees, a rise of land. She used the landmarks as much as her gauges.

  "Binoculars in the compartment there," she to
ld him. And made a small adjustment in the propeller pitch, eased the throttle forward.

  "I brought my own." He unzipped his parka, pulled them out from where they hung around his neck. "Tell me where to look."

  "If they attempted a climb up the south face, they'd've been dumped off on the Sun Glacier."

  "Dumped off? By who?"

  "That's a mystery, isn't it?" Her jaw set. "Some yahoo too interested in money to blow them off. A lot of people have planes, and a lot of people fly them. It doesn't make them pilots. Whoever it was didn't report them when the storm came through and sure as hell didn't pick them back up."

  "Fucking crazy."

  "It's all right to be crazy, it's not all right to be stupid. And that's the category this falls into. Air's going to get rougher when we hit the mountains."

  "Don't say hit and mountain in the same sentence."

  He looked down—a slice of trees, an ocean of snow, a plate of ice that was a lake, a huddle of perhaps six cabins all appearing, disappearing through clouds. It should have seemed barren, stark, and instead it was stunning. The sky was already going that deep, hard blue, with the cruel elegance of the mountains etched over it.

  He thought of three boys trapped in that cruelty for six days.

  She banked, sharp right, and he had to reach deep inside for the grit just to keep his eyes open. The mountains, blue and white and monstrous, swallowed the view. She dipped through a gap, and all he could see, on either side, was rock and ice and death.

  Over the whine of the engines, he heard something like thunder. And saw a tsunami of snow burst from the mountain.

  "What the—"

  "Avalanche." Her voice was utterly calm as the plane began to shake. "You're going to want to hold on."

  It gushed, white over white over white, an iced volcano erupting, charging the air with the roar of a thousand runaway trains while the plane ping-ponged right, left, up, down.

  He thought he heard Meg curse, and what sounded like antiaircraft fire beat against the plane. The storm that vomited out of the mountain spewed bits of debris over the windscreen. But it wasn't fear that rushed into him. It was awe.

  Metal pinged and rang as bullets of ice and rock struck the plane. Wind dragged at it, yanked at it, pelted it until it seemed inevitable they would crash into the cliff face or simply be smashed apart by shrapnel.

  Then they were cruising between walls of ice, over a narrow, frozen valley and into the blue.

  "Kiss my ass!" She let out a whoop, threw her head back and laughed. "That was a ride."

  "Awesome," Nate agreed, and twisted in his seat, trying to turn enough to see the rest of the show.

  "I've never seen anything like it."

  "Mountains are moody. You never know when they're going to take a shot." She slid her gaze toward him. "You're pretty cool under fire, chief."

  "You, too." He settled back in his seat. And wondered if his pounding heart had broken any of his ribs. "So . . . come here often?"

  "Every chance I get. You can start making use of those binocs. We've got a lot of area to cover, and we won't be the only ones covering it. Keep a sharp eye." She fixed on headphones. "I'll be in communication with control."

  "Where do I aim my sharp eye?"

  "There." She lifted her chin. "One o'clock."

  Compared to Denali, it seemed almost tame, and its beauty somewhat ordinary beside The Mountain's magnificence. There were smaller peaks ranging between what they called No Name and Denali, and there were larger, rolling back, spearing up, all in a jagged, layered wall against the sky.

  "How big is it?"

  "Twelve thousand and change. A good, challenging climb in April or May, trickier, but not impossible in the winter. Unless you're a group of college kids on a lark, then it's next to suicide. We find out who transported three underage kids, dumped them out in January, there'll be hell to pay."

  He knew that tone of voice—flat, emotionless. "You think they're dead."

  "Oh, yeah."

  "But you're here anyway."

  "Won't be the first time I've looked for bodies—or found them." She thought of the supplies and gear in the plane. Emergency rations, medical supplies, thermal blankets. And prayed there would be cause to use them.

  "Look for debris. Tents, equipment—bodies. There are a lot of crevices. I'll get as close as I can."

  He wanted them to be alive. He'd had enough of death, enough of waste. He hadn't come to look for bodies, but for boys. Frightened, lost, possibly injured, but boys he could return to their terrified parents.

  He scanned through his field glasses. He could see the bowel-loosening drops, the skinny ledges, the sheer walls of ice. There was no point in wondering why anyone would be compelled to risk limb or life, brave hideous conditions, starve and suffer to hack his way to the top. People did crazier things for sport.

  He registered the buffeting winds, the uneasy proximity of the little plane to the unforgiving walls, and shut down the fear.

  He searched until his eyes burned, then lowered the glasses to blink them clear. "Nothing yet."

  "It's a big mountain."

  She circled, he searched, while she continued to detail coordinates to control. He spotted another plane, a little yellow bird swooping to the west, and the sturdy bulk of a chopper. The mountain dwarfed everything. It no longer looked small to him, not with everything he had focused on it.

  There were shapes that made its shape—plates of rippling ice, fields of snow, fists of black rock that were punched out of cliff walls and were streamed with somehow delicate rivers of more ice, like glossy icing.

  He saw shadows he imagined the sun never found and vicious drops to nothing. From one a beam of light shot back at him, like sun bouncing off crystal.

  "Something down there," he called out. "Metal or glass. Reflective. In that crevice."

  "I'll circle around."

  He lowered the binoculars to rub at his eyes, wishing he'd brought his own sunglasses. The glare was murderous.

  She climbed, banked, and as she circled, Nate caught a flicker of color against the snow.

  "Wait. There. What's that? About four o'clock? Jesus, Meg, four o'clock."

  "Son of a bitch. One of them's alive."

  He saw it now, the bright blue, the movement, the vaguely human shape, frantically windmilling arms to signal. She dipped the wings, right then left, right then left, as she arrowed back.

  "This is Beaver-Niner-Zulu-Niner-Alfa-Tango. I've got one," she said into her headset. "Alive, just above Sun Glacier. I'm going in for him."