Blue Ice Dying In The Rain

by Jim Craig

  I froze inside remembering a story about a pilot being forced at gunpoint to fly in bad weather. Was that about to happen to me? I turned and ducked under the wing to head for the other side of the plane. I wanted distance between us. I walked to the front of the plane, opened an access latch and reached in pretending to check the engine oil. I kept glancing his way out of the corner of my eye, but Charlie didn't move.

  My mind ran over the things I could do. I glanced behind me to the woods where I'd spent the night. If I could get in there again…

  "We really can't fly?" Charlie's voice was right behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin banging my hand inside the cowling.

  I turned and looked at him. He wasn’t rocking anymore, and his hands were loose at his sides, standing between me and the wing.

  I shook my head. "Seriously, Charlie, if that Coast Guard helicopter couldn’t come down through that stuff there's no way I'm flying in it."

  He took a deep breath and cocked his head back to stare up the fog. “Look, Johnny. I’ve got to get parts to fix that generator, and if we can’t fly I’m going to take a boat over to Chenega. Why don’t you come along?”

  I thought about it. Leave the airplane behind? It was probably okay where it was, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving it.

  “I don’t know if that's a good idea or not. This is a screwed up mess. I really need to let my boss know where I am and tell him about his plane. He’ll be freaking out by now.”

  “You can do that over to Chenega. They got phones.”

  He was right. There wasn’t much point sitting there staring at the fog. At least I’d be doing something. When Phil started yelling at me, I’d be able to explain the steps I had tried to get in touch. But the way things were going, I was getting a bad feeling that no one would believe me.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Might as well. Hell, there ain’t nothing I can do here.”

  We started walking back to the lodge. My mind was reeling. Phil was going to kill me. He wouldn’t like me leaving his airplane behind. He would expect me to stay right there and safeguard it against squirrel bites or seagull shit or whatever. He was okay as a boss when everything was going fine, but one misstep and boom, the guy came uncorked.

  I was in a no win situation, but I decided it was better to try to find a way to communicate than it was to just sit there. That’s what I thought anyway. Of course, Phil wouldn’t see it that way. He was going to be pissed that I hadn't called or left a message. Well, you know what? To hell with him. And to hell with the troopers too. I was going to have to do what I thought was right. I was the man on the scene. No one else knew any better than me what was going on.

  Who was going to help? Charlie and Greta? No way. I still hadn’t figured out what was going on with those two. No, it was up to me all on my own.

  Pilot in command. You can be thousands of feet in the air in a small plane, or a big one for that matter, and if something goes wrong, who else is going to handle it? An equipment failure or a weather surprise or some other weirdness like a hijack, who’s going to come up and rescue your ass? Nobody, that’s who. Air traffic control? The FAA? Forget about it. They might talk to you, but that’s it. If anything was going to get fixed or handled, the pilot had to figure it out solo. Even if you have a crew with you, the pilot's the boss. Responsible for everything. The good and the bad.

  Just because I wasn’t flying at the moment didn’t change the reality of my world. I was on a strange voyage and everything was turned upside down. I had to solve this mess on my own, and if someone wanted to criticize my moves later, let them. The temptation to give in flickered through my head. I could always curl up in the back of the airplane in my sleeping bag and hide from it all. Wait for someone else to figure it out. After all, I was just a hired charter pilot. My passengers went off and disappeared. Wasn't my fault. I was just the pilot, waiting for them to come back.

  “Ah, bullshit,” I mumbled and kicked at a stone on the road in front of us.

  “What?” Charlie said beside me as we left the airstrip and moved into the darker world in the forest.

  “Nothing. I’m just pissed off at this whole damn deal. I was just supposed to fly out here and back. Easy money, you know? Instead I’m stuck out here when I should be back in Seward flying tourists around.”

  “Yeah, fucking cops. I never had much use for them myself,” Charlie grumbled.

  I glanced at him in surprise. He leaned over and picked up a stone. I watched as he threw it with a violent heave at the group of seagulls standing fifty feet away. His face contorted with the effort, and filled with rage. The birds turned and stared at us with inscrutable beady black eyes. Otherwise they didn't react. Not a single one jumped as the stone skipped past them with a clatter.

  “Filthy bastards,” he growled. “You should see what they do to my docks.” The effort of his throw left his jacket hung up above his right hip exposing the sheaf of a large knife strapped on his waist. I recognized it right away.

  It was a KA-BAR Marine fighting knife. One of those huge lethal looking things with a serrated edge and a dull black blade seven inches long. It even had a blood gutter like a combat bayonet. It was a brutal weapon designed for one purpose. Killing.

  I felt the blood rise in my throat and fought off the urge to run. I thought about saying something. If I could just make a joke. Something to gauge his mood. But I didn’t say a word. I kept walking beside him, my mind whirling. After a minute he shook himself and fixed the jacket.

  I decided to speak up.

  “So, uh, Charlie,” I said with a forced chuckle and pointing to the bulge. “You packing heat? Got bears out here.”

  He didn’t answer. Just gave me a sideways glance and shrugged.

  Why did he need weapons like that out here? He was carrying a handgun and a huge knife? I didn't think an island this small would support a bear population. Then again Willie always carried.

  I tried to tell myself it was just for looks. Dressing for the role of the wilderness big game guide. The great white hunter look. It was normal to carry a large knife for skinning game, but a lot of guys wore them just for show. A macho thing. But Charlie was a big man anyhow. I didn’t get it.

  We walked along for several minutes in silence. The gravel road crunched under our feet, and the thick fog shrouded the spruce trees on either side of the road wrapping us in fragrant dark shadows. I had to push myself to keep pace with Charlie’s long legs. I was determined to keep my eyes on him, especially his hands and the weapons.

  “So what do you think of Greta?”

  “What?” The question threw me. It was the last thing I had expected to hear. There I was, walking in a dark section of woods with an enormous man armed to the teeth, and he asks me what I think of his woman?

  “You know. Greta.” His voice was matter of fact, but I could feel his eyes looking down at me as we walked. He was studying me, watching for my reaction.

  I struggled to keep my voice controlled and void of all the jumpy impulses running through my skull.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, she seems like a nice lady.”

  “C’mon, man. She’s way more than that. You know she used to be a model?”

  “Really? That’s interesting,” I answered wondering where this was leading. “You don’t see many women like her in Alaska,” I fought to keep my voice neutral.

  “Boy, isn’t that the truth. I couldn’t believe my luck in meeting her. And then when she agreed to come up here with me, I was in heaven,”

  I pictured the situation from above. Like a bizarre foreign film or a reality TV show. Mutt and Jeff wandering along a country road having some kind of a fern bar conversation. As strange as it was, I decided to let it keep going. Better than worrying about being shot and gutted on the side of the road. He seemed to need to talk, and I was more than willing to let him.

  “I met her in California. I’d been living down there for a while. I was married to a great little gal, but she came down with bre
ast cancer. Her name was Tabitha and in less than a year she was gone. Shook me up bad, man. This is gonna sound a little weird, but I met Greta at the funeral home. She was working there as a cosmetologist.”

  I let that image sink in for a minute. Greta in a white lab coat working on dead faces.

  “You know, to fix up the bodies before burial?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I said, not getting it at all. I looked into the woods searching for a way to throw myself off the side of the planet.

  He went on telling me how Greta had comforted him at the side of his wife’s coffin. And how she’d been so kind to Tambourine who was Tabitha’s kid from a previous marriage. He’d adopted the boy after they were married. Apparently there was no other family interested or willing to take him on.

  I walked along listening and wondering about the twists and turns in life that throw people together. He went on and on about Greta and great she was with the kid. We walked in silence again for a few minutes, the quiet broken only by the calling of a pair of eagles through the tops of the trees high above us.

  “I told you it was a long story. Sorry,” he said after a while, looking down at me trudging along beside him.

  “No problem,” I said. “I noticed the boy didn’t look like either you or Greta.”

  “Yeah, the little shit's turning out kind of warped though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I think there might be something wrong with him. I don’t think he’s normal.”

  “Really? I didn’t notice anything,” I lied.

  “Well, you will when you’ve been around him a little longer. He doesn’t talk much. Stays in his room. Barely eats anything. Won’t let hardly anybody touch him. Greta's the only one he'll let get close."

  “You’re kidding. How old is he?”

  “Eleven, almost twelve.”

  I was stunned. “Wow, I was thinking much younger. Was he always kind of different?”

  “Nah, not so much. Maybe a little. When we were first together, he talked more. But then his mom died, and he started to go strange. If it hadn’t been for Greta, I don’t know what would have happened. She found me, you know what I mean, Johnny? I was drowning. And she was like a life preserver. I was standing there at the viewing looking down at Tabitha. And this voice spoke up beside me. I turned and saw Greta there looking at me with those eyes. My heart just fell right to the floor. I looked back at Tabitha, and I swear I saw her smile. Like a Mona Lisa laying there on that silk pillow. She was giving me her blessing. She didn’t want me to be alone, Johnny. She loved me that much. And Greta made me feel like the only man in the world.”

  I shook my head slightly trying to clear the cobwebs and struggled to listen. I pictured the two of them together. The beauty and the beast. The big rough man so vulnerable and in the care of the tiny painted blond. Such warmth and such ice. And the kid.

  I tried to pretend to myself that somehow this world I’d landed in would sort itself out. Some semblance of normal would have to settle in eventually. Wouldn’t it? I looked sideways at him. Tried to see into his mind. Was he losing it? And why was he sharing all this stuff with me? Why me?

  I wasn’t sure Charlie knew I was even there. He seemed to be talking to himself. But one thing seemed clear. He believed what he was saying. He was speaking from the heart, and he was upset and confused. Maybe even desperate.

  I tried to keep one foot in the real world while I listened. Tried to keep reminding myself that the normal world was still out there waiting for me to return. My life back in Seward. At least it was my normal. If Charlie was going over the edge, I didn’t want to go with him. I wasn’t sure I was succeeding.

 

  “You’ve had a really bad year, haven’t you?” I knew that sounded lame, but Charlie didn’t seem to mind.

  “Yeah, no shit. I lost a wife, then my dad and brother. Makes me wonder what the big man’s trying to tell me.”

  “Who?”

  “The big man. You know, upstairs?” He jerked his head upward.

  “Oh, yeah, right.” I glanced upward in reflex, but all I saw was fog. I gave Charlie a sideways look and started to worry that a sermon or some kind of religious recruitment was about to begin.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said stuffing his big hands into his pockets as he walked. Almost like he was reading my mind.

  “I know it’s all bullshit. People pray their ass off when there's trouble. And for what?"

 

  He stopped talking and took a breath. “Tabitha died, man. Where’s the justice in that? I couldn’t believe it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. If he was looking to me for answers, he was dialing a disconnected number.

  “But Greta came along. That was a good thing, right?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t pray for that, she just happened." He went quiet then, staring at his feet as we walked.

  “Yeah, wow,” I mumbled, wondering again where he was going with this. I didn’t know what to say to a giant of a man with rough working hands who sounded like he was about to cry.

  “You know what I think?” he asked, looking at me, but not really seeing. He was getting into some kind of a head game rant. Talking to himself mostly. He didn’t wait for me to answer, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to interrupt him. Let it roll, brother.

  “I think it’s all random. Who gets to live and who has to die? It’s just luck. I used to be religious but no more. It’s just luck, man. The roll of the dice. RAN. DUMB!"

  Then he laughed. A little too loud, I thought. And a little too long. Then he looked at me and it seemed like he grew another foot. His chest swelled and his arms stretched out to his sides. His face contorted into a demented grin, and he leaned over me as he walked.

  “You want to know the craziest part of it all, Johnny? If nobody cares, then what’s the point?”

  He dropped the grin and looked up at the fog choked tree line. His arms reached up, and he shouted, “What’s the point?”

  I looked around embarrassed for him. Embarrassed for me. The trees stared back blankly in confirmation.

  Just then we topped a small hill, and Charlie spotted the road sign. “Speed Limit 80 MPH.” He stopped abruptly and turned with a flourish. Reaching inside his jacket, he snatched out the handgun. His body took on a shooter’s pose, and shots rang out one after another. Shell casings flew past his shoulder.

  The explosions ripped through the dead quiet of the forest, each one echoing for an instant before the next one filled the air. I clamped my hands to my ears. My eyes slammed shut in an involuntary reaction, and I turned away hunched over at the waist. The noise wiped away every other sensation. Dazed by the sudden shock, I bit back on a scream.

  When the roar of the bullets finally subsided, my ears were ringing, and I slowly opened my eyes wondering if I was still alive. I couldn’t hear anything but the ringing. I turned to look at Charlie, panic rising in my throat. How was I going to escape this madman in the woods?

  Being in a gunfight is not something you can forget. How do you deal with knowing that death is flying through the air all around you? I’d been shot at twice in the last year. I still jerked awake some nights remembering it. Brandy had almost blasted me with a shotgun outside the hangar at Seward’s airport. That had made my ears ring too, but I’d survived. At least physically I had. In some ways the dead get the better deal.

  Gradually my senses came back like novocaine wearing off. My throat ached as I realized I’d been holding my breath. I inhaled deeply and smelled cordite. I looked down and did a quick inventory, but I was untouched.

  I couldn’t say the same for the road sign. It was filled with ragged holes. Big holes. There was a moon surface of jagged metal where the number eighty had been. The whole sign and its wooden post were still shaking and smoking slightly.

  Charlie stood frozen with his back toward me. Still in his shooter’s stance, he held the pistol with both hands. His arms pointed straight o
ut from his body toward the sign. He looked like a statue. The slide on the weapon was fully retracted, and the chamber gaped open with a tiny wisp of smoke rising into the cool air.

  I tried to pull myself together. I didn’t want Charlie to see the panic in my eyes, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was alone, in his own world. Fighting demons only he could see.

 

  Then slowly he relaxed, straightened up, turned and tossed the weapon directly at me. It twisted and spun through the air in a high arc. I reacted automatically and caught the heavy hunk of metal before it hit me in the head. The chamber was still open and the pistol body was warm and smelled of burned gunpowder. In my shock I bobbled it but managed to get it under control before it fell to the ground.

  I looked hard at Charlie but tried not to glare. I held my tongue, but I was thinking, 'What the hell?'

  Charlie ignored me, busy with a handful of bullets. He was methodically feeding them into a spare magazine. When it was full, he motioned to me. I held out the pistol but he shook his head and jabbed the full magazine toward me. After I found the eject button with my thumb I pulled out the empty and traded it for the new full one. It slid into place and I slapped it home.

  "Go ahead, Johnny. Fire off a few rounds."

  Firing the weapon was the last thing I was interested in at the moment, but something about Charlie's manner felt like a test. I was on his turf and was being challenged to prove something. Besides, the way he was acting I needed to play along. I shrugged, aimed at the sign and squeezed off a shot.

  The weapon bucked in my hand and surprised me at the light pressure required to make it fire. It was much smoother than the old Army Colt forty five I remembered from years back. I was also surprised to see a hole appear close to the spot I'd aimed at. It felt so easy I pulled off two more then relaxed the gun at my side.

  "Nice group," Charlie said as he stepped forward to check the holes in the sign. I moved toward him and held out the pistol again butt first, but he grunted and poked his jaw toward something behind me. I looked back and saw his holster inside his pack laying open on the ground.

  I turned back toward him but he was busy taking a leak behind the sign post. I shook my head at the oddity of it all, but then I turned and shoved the weapon back into the holster in his pack.

  Charlie was still busy relieving himself, so I turned my back, unzipped and did the same. We started walking again, heading toward the lodge. Minutes went by without any words between us. He seemed preoccupied. After a while he must have remembered he wasn’t alone, glanced down at me, shrugged his shoulders and spoke in the same tone as if it was just an extension of our earlier conversation.

  “See what I mean, Johnny? Life is random.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN