by Jim Craig
"Wainwright!" It was a shout not far away and my eyes snapped open in the dark.
A knife edged pain gripped the right side of my neck. My head was wedged against the side of the airplane cabin at an odd angle. Like an idiot I’d let myself fall asleep braced against the arm rest in the back seat. All the weight of my head had been leaning against one neck muscle. For a couple of hours at least. And the muscle was complaining. In fact, it was screaming.
I sat up in agony and looked toward the sound. Somebody came rushing toward the plane with his flashlight spraying all directions in the dark. He jerked the pilot side door open.
What the hell? I pushed myself to straighten up, but it was a struggle. I winced with one eye closed from the effort and grabbed at my neck.
It was Daniels, wild eyed and breathing hard.
"Get up, Wainwright!" he rasped. "We got a problem. Can you reach anyone with your radio?"
The fog in my head was as thick as the fog all around us. "I don't know, I can try." I struggled to get out of the sleeping bag, and he moved back to give me room to get out of the back seat. I reached around for my shoes and started to pull on my wet socks. They were cold and jolted me into some clarity.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
Daniels had obviously been running and was gasping to get his breath.
"We got jumped at the lodge. The asshole's got Rankin at gunpoint. I need to get backup out here."
I worked at getting my shoes on not worrying about the laces and tried to think. Moving from the back seat into the pilot's seat I looked at Daniels. He was bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees wheezing and spitting.
I looked at my watch. It was just after midnight. I knew no one was likely to answer on the normal radio frequency, but there was an FAA remote antenna site north of us a ways. Problem was aircraft radios depend on a line of sight connection to send and receive and there was lots of terrain between us and that antenna.
I knew Daniels didn't want to hear any of that, so I flipped on the master switch and pulled on my headphones. Keying the mike I made a call. Nothing came back. I switched the speaker system so that Daniels could hear what I was hearing without a headset. Just static.
I told him about the FAA antenna while I reached for the manual in a side pocket of the cockpit that listed all the frequencies. He straightened up and stared at me signaling with his hand for me to hurry up.
The pressure didn't help any, but I finally found the right page and changed the settings on the radio. Making another call I got the same response. Nothing.
I called again and waited. "They monitor this frequency from Juneau and it might take them a minute to get back to us," I said.
He nodded silently and I watched his eyes flashing like his mind was whirling through his options. The time gave me a chance to consider what was going on. Holy crap. This could be big trouble.
When there still was no response, I called again. "Juneau Radio, Cessna four four five nine zulu, calling from Prince William Sound, mayday, mayday."
Nothing.
"The battery might run down if I keep this up. I could start the engine and try again, but I don't think they're able to pick us up."
"Shit!" he muttered looking off into the dark.
I started to worry. What the hell were we going to do? If he was clueless where did that leave me?
Then I remembered the sat phone. I got it out of its box and pressed the power button. Nothing happened.
Oh no. Sure enough the battery was dead.
Daniels was watching me. "You're fucking kidding me, right?"
I looked at him in stunned shock. I couldn't think of anything, so I stayed silent.
"Jesus Christ, we are so screwed." He spun on one heel and walked out from under the wing.
"Hold on, hold on. Daniels, tell me what happened."
"Like I said, the guy jumped Rankin. I was waiting for him with the woman. He said he'd show Rankin the guy's room and when they didn't come back I went looking for them. When I got over there the guy yelled out that he'd kill Rankin if I kept coming. I split to get backup."
"Holy shit, is that what you're supposed to do?"
"Hell yes, that's procedure. What the fuck do you know about it?"
"Sorry, sorry. Look, take it easy. I don't know shit about police work. What are you going to do?"
Daniels let out a deep sigh. "Argh, shit, shit. Can you fly us to Chenega?"
I pulled off the headset, stepped out of the plane and moved out from under the wing. I stared down the airstrip toward the water. All I could see was darkness and a wall of fog.
"No, there's no visibility."
He looked at me hard, the gears turning. He looked back and forth from me to the water.
"Are you sure? This is goddamn life and death."
I looked at the fog again and shook my head. "Yes, I'm sure. There's no way. It would be freaking suicide to even try."
He groaned again and walked off. I went back to the plane and made sure I'd turned off the master switch. I never liked having to say no to taking a flight, but this situation wasn't iffy. Not even close. There was no way I was going to take off.
Daniels had a weapon and it went through my mind that he might be considering forcing me at gunpoint to attempt the flight. What the hell would I do then? It had happened before not far from here. Disgruntled hunters had forced a pilot at gunpoint to fly. He'd lived to tell the story but it wasn't pretty.
Daniels came back to the plane in a few minutes. He looked determined.
"Okay, get ready, we're going back up there. You gotta weapon?"
"What do ya mean?" I asked, suddenly feeling my throat go dry.
"I mean, we're on our own out here, and Rankin's in deep shit. We need to go get him."
"Whattya mean we?" I stuttered. "What can I do?"
"Look, Wainwright, I know you're just a pilot. I get that, but I need you to do more now than just fly a goddamn airplane. Normally I wouldn't ask a civilian to get involved but this is different. Can you help us or not?"
I gulped and stared at him. "Oh man, I don't know. What's your plan?"
"Look, Rankin needs us up there. This guy could kill him if we don't move quick. I'm not sure what's going to happen but I'll keep you at a distance. If I get hit, you've gotta find a way to get out of here and get help. Down here you won't know what's going on, and this creep could come along and take you out too before you knew what was happening."
I swallowed hard. He was right. It was better to go along than stay with the plane and maybe get ambushed.
"Okay," I tried to keep my voice steady but I could feel my knees starting to shake. "But I don't have a weapon."
He frowned. "Oh well," he murmured sarcastically, shrugged his shoulders and turned his back. "Let's go."
Daniels headed for the trail, and I pushed myself to catch up with him after closing the door to the airplane. He turned to watch me coming.
"Bring the sat phone," he barked. "Maybe we can charge it at the lodge.
I turned and ran back to the plane. When I returned with the phone in its box, he spun on one heel and took off again.
"You said there was a woman at the lodge?" I asked when I caught up to him.
"Yeah, why?" He was hiking fast and it was all I could do to keep up. He only used the flashlight once in a while and my eyes adjusted to the darkness better without it as we made our way along the same road I'd already traveled once by myself.
I was feeling nervous as hell, but knowing he had a gun calmed me down some. Besides, Daniels seemed like a warrior and ready to take on any threat. I took deep breaths to try to stay calm. Then I figured I better let him know everything I knew.
"When you guys didn't come back I walked up there and knocked on the door. She yelled at me that they were closed and wouldn't open up."
He looked at me but kept his pace up the old road. After a minute thinking about that, he wanted to know more.
; "When we got to the lodge, it was just the two of them," he said. "She told us she didn't know anything about a phone call. The husband said they had a hired hand and that maybe he knew something about it. I stayed with the woman and Rankin went with him to another building down the trail a ways to talk to this other guy."
"She told me she didn't know anything about any cops."
Daniels shook his head. "That lying bitch, I knew there was something going on. It had to be her that made the call."
"I looked around but didn't see the trail you're talking about. That's why I came back here."
He nodded. "It's not easy to see in the dark. By the time I waited and then went after them, it was probably an hour or so. Then I spent almost an hour trying to talk to that asshole, but he wouldn't budge. Kept telling me to shut up, he had to think. I think the guy may be missing a few brain cells."
I was breathing hard by then and trying as hard as I could to guess what might be waiting for us up ahead. We came around a corner then and Daniels flipped on the flashlight. The road straightened out in front of us and started up an incline. I remembered the lodge was just past the top of that section of the road.
A shot rang out, and I felt a spray of gravel sting my face. Daniels shoved me hard and I dove for the ditch on the right side of the road. I hit hard on the little pile of wet dirt and rocks along the shoulder. Then I rolled further into the gulley. I splashed loudly into about six inches of water in the bottom of the ditch. More shots smacked into the mud around me, and I buried myself into the sidewall of the trench as best I could to get something between me and where the bullets seemed to be coming from.
Then everything went quiet. I strained to hear something but it was dead still. Even the bugs and bird sounds were gone. The cold water had drenched me completely and my hat was gone. I felt around for it and even though it was wet I pulled it back over my head and waited. Where was Daniels?
I was afraid to lift my head and look around, but I wanted out of there. My right side was still in the water and the cold was clutching me with an icy grip. I started to slowly crawl backwards. I figured I could backtrack until I was out of range, then I could get out of the ditch and run for the plane.
Then I heard the scuffling of feet moving fast across the gravel road toward me. Two more shots ripped through the darkness. One of them hit the water just a foot from my head and a blast of frigid water splashed over my face and neck.
Before I could do anything else, Daniel's body landed on me hard and shoved my head into the muck. I couldn't breathe and had to wrestle off his weight to get some air.
"Stop moving," he whispered harshly into my ear. His body was half on top of me and the other side was laying in the water.
"What the f…?" I started to say, but his hand clamped over my mouth before I could finish. I could see he had his gun out but was keeping his head down below the rim of the ditch.
"Sh…h…h," he whispered again.
My eyes must have been bugged out staring at him. He stretched his neck up to peek over the edge and then quickly came back down. He let go of my mouth, his face just inches from mine.
I'm looking at him in total terror then, and he grins at me like a crazed person. "We're in it now, ain't we, Johnny?"
I was speechless and paralyzed. My lips burbled but no sound was coming out. I couldn't believe he was actually smiling, like he was turned on by the adrenalin.
He grabbed me by the collar and shook me a couple of times. "Hey Wainwright, settle down. I need you here. Take a deep breath and listen up."
I looked at him. His eyes were serious then, the wildness was fading away. More like concerned. I could read it in his eyes. We were in trouble.
I blinked my eyes a few times and tried to focus. I just wanted to get away, some freaking psycho was trying to kill us.
I remembered he had a gun, but we couldn't see a damn thing in the dark. How were we going to eliminate the threat? I started crawling backwards again. Get away, get away. That's all I could think about.
He had a different idea. "Stop moving, goddamn it. He can't see us, but he can hear you every time you move." He pressed his face against mine rasping into my ear.
I wiped mud off my mouth and stammered out a whisper, "Got to get the hell out of here."
"You wanna get shot in the back? Stay put and listen to me. I know I was pretty hard on you back there in Seward, I apologize."
I gaped at him, he surprised me with that. "I thought maybe you didn't like to fly."
"I don't, I hate it," he said with a sheepish grin. "But get over yourself, you're a good pilot. You proved that. Now I need you to help me get this guy. As much as I'd love to just lay here in the mud making small talk, we gotta get busy."
He was confusing the crap out of me. First he's a hard ass, and now he's being nice to me?
"How the hell we gonna do that? What the fuck is this shit? I never should have landed. I should have turned around and taken us back to Seward."
I struggled against him and tried to crawl again but he had me pinned. His body was all bones and wiry hard.
"What? And miss all this fun? Welcome to police work, Mister Pilot. Now shut the fuck up and get your shit together."
I quit struggling and just tried to breathe. He snatched my hat off my head, turned away and fumbled with something in the water. Turning back to me he said, "Now, listen up. I gotta plan."
I started to object but a sharp hand motion stopped me cold. "I need you to stay right here and distract this motherfucker. I'm going around behind him. You stay here under cover. Stick this in the mud over there and shine the light on it for a second. Just hold this up and shake it once in a while to draw his attention."
I looked at what he was shoving in my face. It was an alder branch with my hat stuck through it.
I stared back and forth between him and the stick. My mouth was hanging open as I tried to fight off the paralysis.
"Do it now," he grunted and started crawling backwards.
"Okay, okay." I followed directions. I was beginning to understand. This was life or death and I needed to act. Holy crap.
Before I could say a word he low crawled down the ditch and motioned for me to start working the stick. I kept my head down and crawled forward to position the hat and stick above the edge of the ditch. Then I moved back. I looked for Daniels and saw him motioning for me to use the light.
I pushed myself against the bank as tight as I could, held the flashlight beside me and flicked it on. I trained the beam ahead of me and lit up the cap. Nothing happened. I heard a scuffle behind me as Daniels moved. Then a bullet slapped the hat in front of me and spun it backwards into the water. I snapped off the light. Holy Christ almighty, the guy was a crack shot. I looked back for Daniels but he was gone.