by Henry, Sue
When he looked up, Tobias was patiently, watchfully waiting…understanding the trooper’s reluctance as well as Jensen understood the nature of his earlier question.
“What was she like?” Alex asked.
For a second, Tobias’s eyes narrowed, then he smiled, remembering.
“She was special…Karen was. And I’m not the only one who thought so. She was tough and not just smart…quick…willing to take risks…committed to her job…a very gutsy lady, who laughed a lot. Good…very, very good. But she was soft when it mattered, too. Her kids think she is just about the greatest thing that ever walked. So did I.”
“She had kids?”
“Two…one of each…and an accountant husband, who was scared to death by what she did for a living, resented it. He should be here, but it’s not his style. He’s okay, though. Did right by her, is good with the kids and all.”
“Will you tell him?”
“Only what he wants to know, which won’t be the whole thing, will it?”
Jensen shook his head. “’Fraid not.” He took a deep breath and watched Tobias’s face closely as he told him what he knew.
“A bullet went clear through the passenger door of the Cessna we found her in before it hit her. Heavy-caliber rifle. Coroner says it would have killed her almost instantly. She might not even have known she was hit.”
He paused to light his pipe.
“But there’s more,” Tobias suggested.
“Yeah. She was beaten—badly—sometime before she was shot…before she got into the plane. The index and middle fingers of her right hand were broken and she must have put up quite a fight, if Timmons is reading the position and location of the bruising correctly, and I’d be amazed if he’s not. There was a lot of it. Whoever did it didn’t mark her face, but the rest of her body had been pretty well worked over with a club of some kind—rifle butt, probably. Couple of ribs cracked and should have been more broken from that kind of abuse. A ruptured spleen is what killed her. Bled to death before the bullet ever touched her.”
Tobias’s face was pale and his lips stiff, but he spoke in a quiet, reasonable tone that betrayed his anger and made his question appear the more ominous.
“This Norman Lewis she was flying with? He part of it?”
Alex shrugged. “Honestly,” he said, “we don’t know. His wife, Rochelle, says not, but I think she’s not telling all she knows. That’s why we’re going out there—to find her. She took off early this morning, from the look of it—convinced his body’s out there somewhere—or trying to convince herself it is—determined to find it if she can. It may be there, but he could also have taken off for parts unknown. That’s less likely without his plane, but…who knows. Their house was broken into yesterday, and we haven’t a clue. There’s a lot we don’t know yet. Maybe you can help.”
Headed for a landing, Cas had banked into a left-hand turn, bringing the Maule around to head south down the lake. Almost as still as it had been for Chelle, it made estimating touchdown difficult.
“Bad visibility,” he commented. “Glassy water approaches always make me feel like there’s nothing there to set down on.”
But set down he did, with an easy smoothness that all but lacked sign of impact. Alex momentarily reflected on how it almost always surprised him to find himself back on the earth, or water, when he was flying with Cas. The man was extremely good at what he loved best and prided himself on his flawless landings. It took a lot of weather, or adverse conditions, to give them any kind of bounce.
He was trying to remember the last time he had noticed a landing, when, just as Cas began to heel in the Maule’s floats to slow the plane, Alex was suddenly and unexpectedly thrown against the door, as its pilot gave the craft a hard left rudder. There was a heavy thump from something hitting the right float, a long dragging shudder that could be felt throughout the plane, and the vibration of metal tearing, as much sensation as sound.
“Goddammit,” Caswell’s anger was loud enough to hurt Alex’s ears. “Damn it. Damn it.”
Jensen was dismayed to hear his partner’s reaction. Not because he was inordinately adverse to profanity, but because Cas did not swear casually. When he began to spout four-letter words, he had good reason and meant every one of them. “What the hell was that? What’d we hit?”
“A log, right below the surface…just as I came down off the step. Poked a hole in my float and feels like a big one. Hold on and make yourselves light. Got to get this bird to shallow water while I still can, or we’re gonna take a swim we hadn’t planned on. Damn it all to hell.”
Aiming the Maule at the bank, Caswell increased their speed while fighting the tendency of the craft to drift to the right, in the direction of the damaged float. The plane began to tilt slowly to the passenger side, a condition that grew more pronounced, causing Jensen to picture water dragging them into a roll that would result in an upside-down position.
The punctured and heavier float touched first, slewing the Maule hard to the right, grounding the left float higher in the mud of the bank. Cas shut down the engine and, yanking off his headset, threw open the door on his side of the plane.
“That float’s partly underwater. You two’re going to get your feet wet, so be careful, but get out quick before it goes in deeper.”
Jensen complied, speedily wading the length of the partially submerged metal float and leaping less than a yard of water to the solid ground of the bank, with Tobias close behind him. He could see nothing of the damage, which had to be all on the underside, invisible. The plane shivered slightly and seemed to squat down a few inches in the back, thrusting its nose into a more acute angle.
Caswell joined them, carrying a winch, some cable, and two pairs of waders that he had hurried to retrieve from the aft storage compartment in the Maule, and they stood for a minute, assessing the situation and probable impairment to the float.
“Got to get it pulled up to be able to see,” Cas said. “From the way it filled—fast—I think there’s more than I can fix with hundred-mile-an-hour tape. Have to call for help to get it out of here and back in the air. We can take a look and get it drained, though.”
Tugging on his waders, he started up the bank to where he could fasten the winch he had brought from the Maule. “Can you get some of that survival stuff out of there, Alex? Less weight we’ll have to drag up.”
Looks like we’ll be here a while, Jensen thought. Having learned from previous flights with Cas, he had brought his own hip waders. Pulling them on, he proceeded to empty the plane of survival gear, which he passed to Tobias, who piled it high on the bank, out of the mud. The winch placed and ready, Cas and Alex went into the water to turn the plane around to face the lake. There was still enough air trapped in the float to allow this and—by both lifting hard on the damaged side—to straighten it enough to lie at a ninety-degree angle to the bank.
With the help of the winch, the plane was soon high and dry on the lakeshore. Straining to lift again, little by little they managed to work two pieces of driftwood under the float, and were finally able to take a look at the extent of the puncture in it. The submerged log had ripped a long crease through the aft three of four compartments. From these, water had poured, and still dripped.
Ben Caswell muttered and grimaced as he examined the destruction, stepped back, and shook his head.
“Haven’t a prayer with duct tape. Better get on the horn to someone up there who can call in and get us some help.”
Jensen knew that he meant it would be impossible to radio back to the Lake Hood tower. Their current position put them below and out of reach of its range. They could, however, from the radio in the plane, talk to anyone in the air overhead, who could then relay their problem directly to the Anchorage tower.
“We’ll watch and see if anyone flies over.” Cas heaved a sigh of resignation. “I think it’s going to be at least tomorrow before we can get some repairs. How you guys feel about a cup of coffee? There’s makings in that pile of g
ear you dragged out.”
“Sounds good. I’m going to check out Chelle’s plane first, though.”
“Okay. We’ll get a fire going.”
Alex found Chelle’s Cessna locked, as he expected, and read the note she had left. As he stepped back onto the float from the step that assisted the pilot into the plane, he suddenly focused on the muddy footprints of someone who had worn boots when walking out onto it and back to the shore. The prints were larger than Chelle’s waders would have made. Measuring, he could see that they were slightly larger than his own booted foot.
Carefully, he tracked them from the float to the bank and along it to where they had winched the Maule from the waters of the lake. There they ended, but, looking closely, he could see what was left of other marks, partially obliterated by their labor and footprints, where another plane had rested in the mud. The prints ended beside what would have been the passenger side, if the plane had headed in, seeming to indicate that someone in the pilot seat had stayed inside while the other went to investigate.
When he called Caswell and Tobias to take a look, they agreed with his assessment of the mark, but who?
“Couldn’t have been her brother chasing her,” Cas commented. “We already know where he was. He wouldn’t have had time.”
“More than one person. Could be a friend or pilot for hire. Maybe just someone curious about the plane.” Jensen pondered. “Read the note and took off again.” But it bothered him. Could it be connected to whoever had searched her house? And for what? “Sure like to ask her a few questions about now.”
“At least we know where she went,” Cas commented, when they had collected enough dry wood to boil water. He frowned, considering the situation, but at least half his sight and hearing were directed toward the sky, which, so far, had remained empty of aircraft.
“You guys do this often?” Tobias asked, adding sticks to the small blaze. “From the size of that plane, I hope we don’t have to take turns sleeping in it tonight.”
“Hey,” Ben rebuked him, with a grin. “That Maule’s a sweetheart. Don’t hurt her feelings or we’re in real trouble.”
He balanced a blackened and battered coffeepot on three rocks he had placed strategically around the flames, having filled it with bottled water and dumped in a handful of coffee.
“He’s right about the sweetheart bit,” Alex chimed in. “Combination of that plane and its pilot have saved our hides more than once. I’m not sure about the bunk space in the bird, but Cas usually has enough survival gear packed for an army.”
“There’s a tent, sleeping bags, and a couple choices of the freeze-dried semi-edible,” Caswell confirmed. “We’ll survive.”
As they sat on a pair of logs near the fire and watched the coffee perk, Jensen was pleasantly impressed that Tobias did not push the conversation, as a new acquaintance was often inclined to do. The agent now had time to look around him and absorb the feeling of the country in which he found himself, including the broken trees on the ridge above them—almost the only evidence of the crash of the Cessna Norm Lewis had flown. Buds on the willows were beginning to swell and the warm sun on Jensen’s back was a pleasant reminder that winter was over. He thought about the rapidly approaching fishing season for a minute or two before his mind returned to Rochelle.
Evidently, she had headed west, the direction she had said Norm would be most likely to go if he tried to hike out. He wondered how long she had been gone. The oversized boot tracks had not followed her, but he would have been happier had she not been alone and unaware that someone had checked out her plane, might be looking for her, and knew from her note where she was headed. It was time to go find her.
“You know…” With another glance at the still empty sky, Caswell thoughtfully broke the silence, “I’ve been kicking around the way Lewis’s plane came in over the ridge, before it hit the lake. It’s a better than good bet that, if it came from that direction, it was shot in that direction. He couldn’t have flown very far, or had many choices of puddles to set down on. I wonder if we could find any sign of where those shots were fired. Would the shooter have bothered to pick up shell casings, for instance? Might be worth a try, as long as we’re stuck here for a few hours.”
“Good idea,” Alex agreed. “But I’d like to locate Chelle. Those footprints, even if they didn’t follow her, make me uneasy.”
“You said she headed west?” Tobias asked, after a moment.
“That’s what her note said.”
“Am I off base in assuming that you feel it’s possible someone else might be looking for her?”
“No-o,” said Jensen, and described the current reasons for his uneasiness, along with the breakin.
“If you think she knows something she’s not telling, couldn’t that someone—maybe whoever landed here and read her note—think so too?”
“It’s possible.”
“Knowing she’s headed for that other lake…”
“Lower Beluga,” Cas interjected.
“…couldn’t they fly across and wait for her to get there?”
Jensen and Caswell looked at each other, knowing he was right.
“And we can’t fly with that hole in the float,” Cas stated in disgust.
Tobias nodded toward Chelle’s Cessna. “Is it possible to hot-wire an airplane? I’m assuming she’s got the keys, but you could fly it.”
“Yeah, but I’m not inclined to break in on the strength of a possibility.”
Jensen was on his feet, already moving toward the pile of items they had removed from the plane.
“That’s it”—he tossed back over one shoulder—“let’s get our gear and get after her.”
Caswell used the half-perked coffee to put out the fire.
16
COLLECTING SURVIVAL EQUIPMENT AND FOOD, they quickly started west. Jensen carried Caswell’s larger pack with a plastic rain fly and two sleeping bags. Tobias had shrugged on a smaller daypack with enough food for lunch and dinner, a bottle of water, and some first aid supplies.
Alex had checked the Colt .45 he preferred as an off-duty side arm and had holstered it, as usual, within handy reach. He wished he had some heavier firepower in the form of a rifle, even though the likelihood of tangling with a bear was very small indeed, since though most of the browns avoided man if possible, blacks could be predatory. He did not ask, and Tobias didn’t volunteer whether or not he was carrying.
For a while they quite easily followed Chelle’s trail from the impressions her boots left on bare spots between rocks and vegetation. Though they traveled as fast as they could, hoping to catch up before she reached Lower Beluga Lake, at times they lost her tracks and were forced to search them out before moving on again. Still, she seemed to be going as directly west as was possible in difficult, uneven terrain, and clearly not trying to conceal her passage, so Jensen was not overly concerned with losing her completely. He knew her destination, after all, and would make for it if her trail disappeared completely.
Caswell had opted to stay behind at the lake with his damaged plane, where he would concentrate on reaching some passing pilot on the radio for help. It had been obvious that he was torn between the desire to come along and concern over his aircraft and their ultimate need to get back to Anchorage.
“Plenty to do.” He had grinned ruefully. “Build another fire and make more coffee. Besides, what if Chelle came back on a different route for some reason and you missed her? I may even take a short hike in the direction those bullets that brought down Lewis probably came from.”
Jensen had agreed that it made sense, but would rather have had him along on the hike. Tobias, an experienced outdoors man, wouldn’t slow him down, was doing his best to be helpful while letting the trooper take the lead and make the decisions, but Cas knew both the country and Alex. They had worked together often enough to understand each other’s methods and ideas. There was little he would have had to explain or justify to Cas, and could have turned his complete attention to the tas
k at hand—or, rather, foot—terrain that made hiking difficult and required care.
All of Alaska was periodically covered with ice pack and glaciers during the Pleistocene Era. Three of at least five great rivers of ice that moved down into what would become Cook Inlet filled it to a depth of over two thousand feet. They advanced and retreated, leaving evidence in the rounded shape of Mount Susitna, and the moraines of glaciers that mark the wide plateau around and coast below the two Beluga Lakes. The remaining glaciers that still feed them water and silt, impressive as they appear, are only tiny remnants of ice from far earlier ages. Glacial erratics, enormous boulders carried by ice and deposited where it melted, and rocks of all sizes littered the plateau, as well as exposed bedrock scraped clean by glaciation.
Lumpy was the word Jensen used to describe it as he and Tobias traversed its rocky ridges, scrambled through brush and trees, and dropped down to splash in its boggy low spots. Crossing almost five miles of this in a hurry would not be a complete pleasure.
They found the place Chelle Lewis had stopped to change into her waders at the far end of the lake, at the edge of an extended swampy spot, and passed the moldering remains of an ancient log cabin against a bank full of alder just beyond it, facing south. He wondered who might have built the low-roofed, one-room structure and lived in it long ago, when it was new, and why.
A trapper, perhaps, spending silent winters in the frozen wilderness, subsisting on moose, beans, and sourdough, running his trap lines for marten, fox, hare, a wolverine or two—though they were notoriously wily and hard to catch—shooting the wolves that pilfered his take. Maybe he had died there, far from the slightest hint of civilization, with no neighbors at all. Whatever happened to him, his traveling would have been just as hard as theirs, except for winter, which would have frozen the soggy swamps and smoothed rough ground with an even layer of snow for sleds or snowshoes.