No, he said. You can’t take him! Please don’t take him!
He cried and shook with grief in the cold and his breath showed in the moonlight as he pleaded with his mother and father.
You’re a brave young man, his father said. He was lucky to have you.
No. Please.
You took care of him the best you could, his mother said. We’re so proud of you.
No.
We love you.
No. Please leave him, John Parker said.
***
The sun was rising and it was clear and cold on the mountain and a helicopter was circling in the valley below. It followed a wandering and methodical course up the side of the mountain and then it crested the pass where the plane was and hovered there for a moment and then broke away. At a flat spot in the pass covered with crushed rock and moss the helicopter set down and the pilot cut the engine and two men stepped out carrying large plastic boxes that were their medical kits and they took a litter from the helicopter and carried it with them each man to an end. They stepped and hopped among the scree and boulders and snow on the pass transporting their burdens with caution to guard against a fall. When they reached the place on the mountain where the plane had crashed they stood for a moment in the sun and the cold looking at the situation and thinking about what had happened and they looked at each other as if neither one of them could believe his eyes and then they put down the litter and set to their work.
I’ll check these two, one of the men said. You take inside the plane.
Right.
The man that had been assigned to the plane went first to the cockpit and saw the pilot and his condition resulting from the crash and he saw that there were stones in the plane and in the remains of the pilot’s body and he stepped back.
Jesus, he said.
What?
Pilot’s DOA.
The man that had been assigned to the plane looked behind the pilot but he couldn’t see into the cabin because of the tangle of metal and wires and debris that was piled up and because of how the floor had buckled up there and blocked his view. He went back to the hole in the side of the plane and he had been carrying his medical kit and so he set it on the floor inside and looked around before lifting himself in. The two passengers were dead in their seats with their seatbelts still attached and their bodies were frozen in the attitudes of their final passing. He checked them for signs in the manner of his profession though he knew what he would find and in doing so he looked at their faces and saw that their eyes were open as if in reaction to the ambush of some specter in the dark. He closed their eyes and shook his head at the tragedy of the situation and hoped for the best regarding the two outside whatever the best outcome in this situation was.
Parents are DOA, he said. What about the kids?
The man assigned to the plane stepped outside and the plane rocked and creaked on the rocks with his shifting weight and he took his kit from inside and went to where his partner was. The partner was bent over the one that was lying on a sleeping pad by the canoe and the partner had placed a mask over his nose and mouth that was attached to a canister of gas and the partner had pulled the sleeping bag away that had covered him and was putting a needle into his arm.
This one’s still with us, the partner said. But his vitals are weak. We’ve gotta move. The other one’s DOA.
The man assigned to the plane looked at the one that was DOA and sitting up against the side of the plane. He saw that he was holding a metal bottle that was open and that he had a tourniquet around his leg and that his arm was broken with a compound fracture and he thought about what had happened and tried to comprehend it. He went to where they had set the litter on the snow by the upright and broken pontoon and he picked it up and carried it over to his partner and by then the one assigned to the plane had worked out that the one that was DOA and sitting against the plane had saved the life of the one that was still alive.
Christ this is something isn’t it, he said.
Hell of a thing, the partner said.
Is he responsive?
No, the partner said. The coma probably saved his life.
Among other things.
Among other things, the partner said.
The partner looked at the one that was DOA and sitting against the plane for a moment and then he looked at the one that was still alive and went back to work on him and spoke to the man he had assigned to the plane in a low voice.
You believe in ghosts?
What?
I asked if you believe in ghosts.
The man assigned to the plane thought about that and said I guess a man has to believe in something now and then.
The partner nodded and said that he concurred on the point.
While the partner attached a bag of intravenous fluid to the needle he had inserted the man assigned to the plane saw that there were tears coming from the corners of the eyes of the one that was still alive and they were running down the side of his face and then he sat back on his heels and said oh fuck.
The partner wiped away David’s tears with the sleeve of a shirt that John Parker had put under his brother’s head for use as a pillow. He was finished with his work of connecting the intravenous fluid and they were ready to put David on the litter and carry him to the helicopter but they didn’t. Instead the partner looked at the man he had assigned to the plane and shook his head and the two rescuers looked in silence at each other for some time. As if in shock from thinking about what had happened on the mountain where John Parker and his mother and father and a pilot who was drunk had died.
Also by Brian J. Anderson:
The Ascent of PJ Marshall
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Ghosts of Florence Pass Page 3