Flight To Pandemonium

by Murray, Edward

  “You’re asking a city guy? What do I know about any of that?”

  “That’s just why you’d be good at it. No preconceptions. No man’ll admit he doesn’t know how to fish. Ahtna might help when he returns. Ice fishing is ‘sposed to be big around here.”

  “There’s a big map on the wall which shows the whole area. I’ll give it my best,” agreed Hirsh. “When is Ahtna returning?”

  “Any time now, I expect,” Mac replied. “He said just a couple of days.”

  At that moment the power shut off. “We’ll that’s my cue to shut up. Who wants what from the cat? Tony and I’ll make another run.”

  “I’ll go and let Tony work on our quarters,” volunteered Pappy.

  “Alright then… orders, custom filled.”

  “The rest of the clothes,” said the Captain. “So far, almost nothing fits me.”

  “That’s easy enough. Who else?”

  “All the seed packets we collected in Palmer,” said Onita.

  “My medical bag we left in the cab… and all the supplies from the pharmacy.”

  “Yea… I’ll grab that first so I don’t forget. We’re off. Weather’s coming.”

  Rain began shortly after arriving at the cat. Jack and Pappy hustled loading the gear, the clothes, and all the remaining books they hadn’t intended to bring, but would now get damaged. Leaving quickly, the medical bag and supplies protected inside the cab were forgotten.

  Kept indoors by weather, Tony, Mac and the Captain tackled the living quarters. The second floor was nearly complete but lacked carpet, cabinets, bathroom fixtures and furnishings. They began installing plumbing fixtures and carpet from the stores upstairs. Cabinets could follow anytime from Tony’s shop. They left the prime corner room undisturbed for Ahtna’s return. Judy and Onita created a paper banner inscribed ‘Welcome Home Ahtna’ and strung it across the doorway.

  After dinner and dishes, the lights extinguished on schedule. They were replaced by LED cove lighting in the lounge and hallways, and under the stair balustrade. The surprise prompted another tour to inspect Tony’s latest marvel.

  Dark evenings were no more. Tony found the electrical panel in the ladies quarters where the owners handily located controls by their bedside. The panel also operated LED flood lights surrounding the lodge, all powered by basement batteries and solar panels.

  For Mac, night had a new ambiance from a continuous string of soft LED lighting under each railing. Visiting the woodpile was no longer an intimidating trip in the dark. Standing outside absorbing the moonless night, Mac marveled at their astonishing new refuge …such a civilized turnabout without the disturbance of wolves or weather.

  Morning revealed the lake blanketed by snow. Wind increasingly chopped the lake. Pappy worried about the condition of the floatplane now only loosely tied to the wharf. He was anxious to break up the remaining ice around the submerged pontoon strut and prevent damage to the float from bouncing on the chop.

  Tony and Mac joined Pappy at the wharf. The stair and stone wharf hadn’t yet accumulated snow. A hemisphere of the lake surface adjacent to the wharf was free of slurry in the midst of feathery thin ice. Tony and Mac felt the stone wharf and found the surface much warmer than the ambient air.

  “Here’s another surprise to this place,” said Tony, “Geothermal snow-melt system… discharging from the lodge into the lake. Gonna make this job much easier.”

  “And to moor this floatplane in warmer water!” added Pappy. “Those people thought of everything.”

  Attacking thin ice first, they poled thin floating slabs away from the airplane. Peering into clear water, Pappy happily declared the pontoon undamaged. The three men maneuvered the listing plane to the wharf and roped the strut against the chop.

  Shortly, Pappy hailed, alarmed, “Hey Mac, look behind you!”

  Mac was startled to see a man stumbling in their direction.

  “That’s Ahtna returning… without his dog.”

  The three hailed and waived, but instead of replying, Ahtna collapsed forward in the snow. Rushing to him, they saw his back and clothing were covered in blood and bloody foot tracks receding in the snow behind him. They gently turned him over and heard him utter, “Bear.” Thereafter, he didn’t move.

  Mac ran to the lodge to alert others and fetch a litter. Grabbing a high backed wooden chair, they managed to carry Ahtna to the veranda, lifeless and deathly pale.

  Judy examined him briefly and said, “Dear God! Let’s put him in the gift shop.” Judy went to work with Onita assisting. The others waited outside in the lounge. Twenty minutes later, Judy emerged and sought Tony. “You once told me your blood was Type O-negative. Are you absolutely certain?”

  “I’m sure,” he replied. “Told me my blood is special… even bled me once.”

  “Then we desperately need a pint of your blood. Ahtna’s critically weak with the loss of blood and fluids. He’s not likely to live without your help.”

  “Then show me what to do,” he said.

  “Please bring a chair and come with me.”

  Tony emerged from the temporary treatment room holding a cotton wad in the crook of his arm. “The kid’s in real bad shape,” he informed everyone waiting for word. “Damn bear tore him up good. He’s lucky to have Judy.”

  Presently, Judy sought Tony again. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Better’n him for sure.”

  “I must apologize, Tony. I took more than a pint. A little risky maybe, but he desperately needed it. I don’t have fluids to give him.”

  “So, how is he?” Everyone listened earnestly.

  “He’s asleep, thankfully. I’m afraid the pain of my probing brought him around. We’ve made special effort to cleanse and treat his wounds, but the deep bite wounds worry me. His lacerations are muddy and ragged. I’ll have to finish closing a few of them later. He’s a fit young man, so I’m hopeful. Onita is keeping watch to be sure that he doesn’t wake up and turn over on his back, but she’ll need to be spelled later.

  “Tony, I need my medical bag and supplies from the cat, but you shouldn’t go. I must insist that you rest. Have someone else go.”

  “Is first thing in the morning soon enough?” asked Jack.

  “Any way to make a quick trip this late?” she asked.

  “Yea…bad timing with the snow, but I’m the guy who forgot in the first place.”

  Jack and Mac were away in the buggy within minutes, churning through muddy snow. As with every trip to the cat, fresh evidence of the wolf pack was everywhere. Having once fed there, the pack returned every day.

  Mac didn’t want to dawdle. It was a simple matter to retrieve Judy’s large medical case and supplies from the cab, but Jack was determined to make the trip more productive. They made a dozen trips over the bridge filling the buggy and its trailer with cans of food, the heaviest load the buggy had yet transported.

  While they loaded, darkening cloud cover poured down corn snow. With weak headlights, Jack advised Mac that he would walk alongside to guide him. Mac felt the forest close in beside the narrow ruts. The buggy strained with the heavy load on the soft ground in low gear.

  Mac’s concentration ahead was interrupted by the retort of Jack’s rifle. Stopping to look around, Mac made out Jack leveling his rifle somewhere beyond them, but saw nothing but falling corn snow. Jack shouted, “Damn wolf pack again!”

  Jack sounded tense, but Mac was stunned. Wolf pack! Damn, just when the black forest was brushing against his shoulders.

  Jack jumped on the buggy facing back, rifle at the ready. His additional weight was too much for the straining machine. It bogged down in a patch of icy mud and churned.

  “Hold up,” yelled Jack, then reached behind pulling the hitch pin. “Okay, go!”

  Relieved of the traile
r, Mac anxiously goosed the throttle. The buggy lurched free of the mud, nearly spilling Jack.

  “Easy does it! No time for a mistake!” he shouted into Mac’s ear.

  The discharge of Jack’s rifle did not discourage the wolves for long. The brief halt brought them ranging around both sides of the buggy. Headlights illuminated furtive eyes in the brush. Mac trained his eyes to one side, away from headlight reflections... and saw wolves. Damn, he hated wolves! Mac yelled, “They’re flanking us!”

  “Stop right now!” Jack yelled.

  Mac watched Jack tracking a moving target. When he fired, Mac heard the terrified yipping of a wounded wolf, then silence. They could detect nothing moving.

  “Let’s try it again… calmly,” said Jack. Mac was not feeling calm when Jack said with anxiety in his voice, “Fucken things are right behind us again!”

  Mac accelerated for the clearing. After they rounded the little copse onto open beachfront, the pack emerged as dark forms against a white snowfield in the dim light of dusk. More than a dozen wolves had been trailing them all along. Stopping on the brick terrace under bright lights, both men turned and watched glowing eyes blink repeatedly, then disappear into the forest.

  Tony stood with Judy on the veranda, rifle in hand. Jack quickly joined them carrying Judy’s medical bag. “That pack gets bolder every day,” Tony observed quietly. “One day soon we need to deal with ‘em. They’ve gotta be taught whose turf this is!”

  “Flanked both sides of us,” replied Jack. “My first shot didn’t impress ‘em much. Had to leave the heavy trailer behind.”

  “I heard two shots,” said Tony. “‘Bout to go lookin’ for ya when I saw yer lights.”

  “Man alone would be up against it. Rifle ain’t worth much in the dark.”

  “You’re right. We should always carry a shotgun in the buggy,” replied Tony still watching.

  Taking the medical bag, Judy said, “Jack, I’m sorry for asking you to go out against your better judgment. If it’s any consolation, my little kit was out of critical supplies we need for Ahtna, so your trip was necessary.”

  “Damn good lesson for me ‘bout putting first things first. No problem.”

  The Captain’s dinner, while not up to Judy’s standard, demonstrated his pot roasting skills. After changing Ahtna’s dressings, the ladies had little to report as everyone cared for Ahtna in turn.

  When morning power returned, the ladies dressed Ahtna’s wounds, thankful for the benefit of bright lighting in the ‘infirmary.’ They refused breakfast and rebuffed all assistance.

  While relaxing over coffee, Jack said. “Hey, I love fresh venison more’n anyone, and I ain’t complaining ‘bout breakfast, but I see we’re avoiding some of that older meat in the cooler. We should eat that first, especially the last of the seared bear.”

  “Don’t you think that meat is getting a little ripe?” asked the Captain.

  “I doubt it.… but if you’re in doubt, feed some to the dog. If he doesn’t get sick, it’ll be fit well enough for the rest of us.”

  Mac asked, “Would you have really said that with the ladies at the table?”

  “If you wantta play diplomat, you ask ‘em.”

  “The nurses have their hands full, don’t you think?”

  “What I think is we can’t waste anything. Ain’t no corner store when we run out.”

  “I’ll see,” said the Captain, “but you may be getting my special chili sauce.”

  “Suits me fine,” said Jack. Blunt talk ended enthusiasm for lingering over coffee.

  Mac brought his cup to his writing desk in the library together with a fresh cup for Hirsh. The storm was now fully upon them keeping everyone indoors. Mac enjoyed just sitting still and warm, watching the swirling snow without walls that flapped in the wind.

  During their ordeal, Mac wanted to record the seminal events of their flight and survival. But his memory had lost much of the dialog which best portrayed his happy band, even the tense moments that weren’t happy. Their new world of socializing was once inconceivable… where casual discourse would diminish to only nine living human beings.

  44

  Western Aleutian Islands, November 4th. The Chief was pleased with the bounty of dressed whale meat. The success stood in stark contrast to the futility of hunting walruses which fled the submarine, too wary to be taken with the sluggish inflatable rafts launched from the boat.

  The boat’s sophisticated passive detection system was reprogrammed to reliably track the low frequency grunts and singing vocalizations of whales from a great distance. Once nearby, the whales ignored the submarine enabling a harpooner to close in and take one.

  Despite suffering bruises, flashing rope burns and severe dunking, several harpooned whales were lost to the deep before the rookies learned how to deploy inflated buoys. Gray whales are monsters; the first whale they killed and kept afloat measured forty-four feet. Butchering was as bloody and disagreeable as depicted in historical photographs. Floating offal accumulated around the boat attracting other predators including a spotted leopard seal. A particularly aggressive seal once leaped onto the whale carcass, and in a reversal of roles, pursued the terrified butcher to the deck before the seal was finally killed and added to the hold.

  Finished with butchering and dressing, the boat simply submerged leaving the huge pool of floating offal behind for marine gleaners. The gory manner of harpoon hunting was considered a troubling step backward by the boat’s conservation minded contingent. Nonetheless, after weeks of very short rations, no one objected to ample dining on meat despite the skimpy portions of everything else. With depleted stores whale meat enabled everyone to remain vitamin healthy.

  After filling every locker and refrigerated space in the boat with meat, the Chief returned to other problems. Well beyond their prescribed maintenance schedule, the prolonged patrol was experiencing troubling anomalies and outright failures of mechanical and electrical systems. Before sailing, the boat’s scheduled refit had been postponed by orders returning the vessel to duty. Corrosion, overheating components, bearing failures, and commonplace leaks kept all hands busy every watch. Nothing critical had yet failed and the Chief managed to solve even the most troubling problems. But he understood the day was coming when patching would no longer be enough.

  Silence from SUBGRU meant no change in orders banishing them from a harbor. Filled with hundreds of tons of complex ageing weapons, the boat could carry on without dry dock attention for just so long and then… he didn’t want to consider what might happen with so many ageing nuclear warheads. The lesson of the accidental loss of the advanced Russian boomer Kursk, sunk in the deep by its own onboard torpedo blast, was fully mindful of the consequence of neglect. And the Chief well remembered the trouble the Navy had had with Trident self-destruct mechanisms.

  45

  Old Man Lake, November 5th. Scudding weather kept everyone indoors. The miners disappeared into Tony’s workshop and were seen only following evening meals after the power cycled off. Jack explained their absence gruffly by saying, “We’re buildin’ stuff.” The basement utility core and its shop were so well insulated from the floor above that little noise of their work could be heard.

  Judy and Onita seldom left the infirmary. Mid morning, four available men were asked to wash up and join the ladies. Their task was to gently lift Ahtna above the bed while his nurses changed all his bed sheets. Ahtna whispered incoherently and returned to sleep immediately. His injuries were concealed with dressings but his face was pale and lifeless. The men feared asking awkward questions.

  That evening, Judy prepared a concoction of broth and analgesic oxycodone for Ahtna, the best she could do having no strong antibiotics. She asked Mac to assemble a bed in the infirmary so that Onita could sleep overnight, making their rotating watch unnecessary.

  Judy joined a late
dinner. In answer to everyone’s concern, she said only, “He’s in pain and feverish… septic infection as I feared. I don’t know more than that.”

  “Anything we can do?” asked the Captain.

  “Perhaps so. Tony, is there any way to heat the infirmary with the furnace? It’s too cold for him when we change his dressings, especially by morning.”

  “I don’t know how to heat that room without heating the whole lodge. It’d take hours each time, but if it must be done…” he added doubtfully.

  “There’s an electric foot heater in our quarters. Would that be better?”

  “Heating with that would be faster if you drape the windows.”

  “We’ve already done that. Any way to increase heating in the morning a little?”

  “Sure, I’ll bump the power up half an hour. Is that enough?”

  “Then, please start the heat at seven. I’ll let you know how it works out,” and she left hurriedly carrying food for Onita.

  After Judy departed, Tony said, “Gotta admit…I’m glad she didn’t push for all day. That’d rip through our diesel.”

  When Mac glowered, he said, “But, I’d a done it…I’d a done it in a flash.”

  Judy sought Tony at lunch. “Ahtna’s very weak and were concerned with heat…”

  “All right,” he interrupted, “I’ll turn on…”

  “Wait…hear me out Tony. There’s an orange plug in the infirmary. Would that be connected to your back up system somehow?”

  “Could be by an inverter.”

  “If we kept the electric heater on low, we think it would keep the little infirmary warm enough if we ran it continuously.”

  “Say… I never thought of that. Might work. Let’s try it. I’ll know if it drains the batteries by morning, but I’ll shut off the balustrade lights to help make up for it a bit. Only the guys will be affected.”