by Sue Henry
As they flew over the foot and were low over the ice, the Maule shuddered a few times in the turbulence, but Cas kept it low so they could get a good view. To the right lay Lake George, held back by the dam formed by the glacier resting against Mount Palmer, thousands of gallons of blue-green water contrasting sharply against the white of the snow and ice.
Evidence of the glacier’s motion was clear to see. It rose away from them toward its genesis, growing lighter in color as it carried less of the gray-brown dust and gravel, for more new snow fell and did not melt on its heights. The lower regions were scored by crevasses of several kinds: marginal crescents along the sides, radial crisscrosses where it expanded as it flowed around a turn, deep parallel longitudinal fissures where it broadened and spread out at the foot.
Over the centuries, snow falling on the upper reaches of a glacier is gradually buried by more snow and, through pressure, compacted into ice. This is not the ice that cools drinks or the surface upon which figure skaters spin. The deeper glacier ice is buried; the more pressure that is applied by succeeding layers above it, the more compact it becomes, until it is up to nine times as dense as snow and impermeable to air or water.
This kind of ice behaves differently than other kinds, which are breakable and tend to shatter. Glacier ice becomes plastic and gravity draws it inexorably downhill. As it creeps imperceptibly along, some unseen parts of a glacier flow faster than others, creating stresses that, rather than stretching or spreading, split the surface ice in crevasses and fissures that can be hundreds of feet deep.
Slightly less than five percent of Alaska, approximately three hundred thousand square miles, is covered by perhaps a hundred thousand glaciers, if even the smallest cirque and valley glacier is counted. The Knik Glacier is medium-sized, close enough to civilization to be easily seen and large enough to be recognized with a name.
Caswell flew the Maule low over the ice but, knowing he still had Becker to bring up, was almost immediately ready to turn around. Looking down into the crevasses over which they were passing, both Jessie and Bonnie were silenced by the magnitude of the glacier and the variety of its conditions. In contrast to the brilliant white of the glacier that glowed in the sunshine, the ice was a thousand different shades in the shadows of its crevasses.
“This is Maule nine eight six four Mike, making a right turn to the west to go down the Knik Glacier. Will be on base leg for landing northwest on a gravel bar at the base of the glacier,” Jessie heard Cas say into the microphone, as he dropped the right wing to begin the turn.
As the plane slowly tipped to the west, Jessie suddenly caught a gleam of brightness in motion against the shadows of the mountains, just a flash of silver in the sunlight, coming up from the river flats below to the right of the plane.
“Cas, I think—”
“I see him, Jessie.”
Still turning, he spoke sharply into the radio.
“This is Maule nine eight six four Mike, over the Knik Glacier. Identify. Red and silver Super Cub, you are on my heading. Acknowledge.”
There was no response.
“Acknowledge! Red and silver Super Cub, acknowledge!” He was shouting now. “You are on the heading for my turn! Acknowledge!”
The red and silver plane did not respond on the radio but the pilot seemed to see them, for he suddenly began a steep climb so close that Jessie could see scratches on the underbelly of his plane. For an interminably few seconds, she was sure it was going to fly directly into the passenger side of the Maule, but somehow it missed, sliding by just feet above them as it passed over.
Cas clearly was of like mind and assumed they were about to be hit, for he instinctively shoved the stick forward and attempted to drop from under the other plane. The sky fell out from under them with no warning, and before Jessie could speak, they were headed for the broken surface of the glacier beneath them.
22
THE RIGHT WING, ALREADY LOWERED FOR THE TURN, HIT first and dug its tip into the sun-softened snowy surface of the glacier. The rest of the right-turning plane continued in a rolling cartwheel that swung the nose in an arc with the crumpling wing tip as fulcrum. The propeller slammed into the snow, abruptly halting the forward motion of the fuselage, except for the tail, which was lifted high in the air, transcribing another arc over the nose. As the tail came down, the plane flopped over sideways to land on its back, very close to the forward edge of the glacier.
Inside, some things continued to follow the original forward impetus of the plane while others did not. Accompanied by the shriek of rending metal and sharp reports of shattering glass, the cabin became a tin can full of hard sharp edges in which everything that was or could come loose became dangerous projectiles hurtling forward to impact whatever lay in their trajectory. A tool kit hit the back of Jessie’s seat and the lid popped open to release metal shrapnel in the form of wrenches, nuts and bolts, pliers, electrical wire and tape, and several dozen other items. Two sleeping bags fell forward, then toward the ceiling, as the plane flipped over. A machete in a leather case was suddenly airborne, along with a can of oil that vanished through a broken window, one of many individual items and broken pieces of the plane to be scattered over the glacier along the path of the wreck. The oil can, however, did not come to rest on the surface but rolled and slid until it reached a deep-blue fissure in the ice and fell bounding from side to side against the ice until it was swallowed by the crevasse.
Within the fuselage, there seemed to be no specific direction to the crash. When one motion abruptly halted, another took over. As Jessie was tossed about she caught a glimpse of Caswell thrown forward against the instrument panel, head bouncing off the compass, the throttle and prop-control knobs burying themselves in his belly. She fell toward the front of the plane, then was whiplashed to the left as it rotated sideways and the tail came over. Her head struck the back of the forward passenger seat, then rebounded to hit the right window. She could hear Tank yelp and growl and felt his weight on her feet, trapped between her lower legs and the seat ahead. She stiffened her knees, hoping she could somehow hold him there and keep him from being hurt.
The horrendous sounds of the wreck seemed to go on and on—breaking and ripping, a crash, a bang, thumps and smashes, someone’s scream cut off. It all seemed to happen in some weird kind of slow motion but was over in seconds. Though her seat belt held, it suspended her as the plane came to rest on its back. Her head struck the seat again, and for a little while she was unaware that, except for the small tinkle of a few bits of falling glass, something rolling to the rear, and the gurgle of liquid, it was suddenly and completely silent.
The small red and silver Piper Cub did not circle the site but gained altitude quickly and steeply and headed south up the glacier to disappear over the crest to Turnagain Arm.
Jessie didn’t want to wake up, but something wet came and went on her face, her head ached, and her stomach hurt. She decided to ignore it and let everything fade away again.
Tank was whining. Had she forgotten to let him out? Something was holding her down. No, it was holding her up.
She wanted to see what it was but could get only one of her eyes to open. Tank’s muzzle came vaguely, fuzzily, into view. He licked her face and whined again. Her arms were hanging over her head. She attempted to raise the right hand to her face, but the effort created a sharp pain in her shoulder, so she raised the left. Finding blood and her right eye swelling shut, she let her hand drop and tried to think. Tank licked her fingers. Her open jacket had fallen to hang behind her and she caught sight of the edge of the zipper and focused her limited vision on it. How odd to see it there, above her head.
Someone groaned and she looked beyond the zipper to find Caswell in his seat, ahead of her and to the left. He moved slightly and groaned again.
What the hell happened? she wondered. She tried again to move and realized that she was hanging upside down from her seat belt, inside an airplane. Tank was looking up at her from where he was sitting—on
the ceiling? Like a dream, she seemed to remember a lot of noise and falling.
Cas moaned quietly. He was hurt. She wanted to reach him to see how badly but was restricted by the seat belt.
Her head ached and the belt was cutting painfully into her upper thighs and stomach. Reaching with her left hand, she found she could just touch the ceiling that had been overhead and was now the floor. Looking down at it, she could see her own blood dripping in splatters near Tank’s feet. Shoving him farther away and bracing herself on her left arm, she tried again to move to the right. Pain stabbed through her shoulder and, turning her head as far as she could, she could see that the sleeve of her jacket was torn and soaked with more of her blood.
We crashed, she suddenly remembered. I must have hit something sharp. Though it was extremely painful to bring it up, the arm moved and didn’t seem to be broken, so she used her left hand to unfasten the catch on the seat belt.
Unrestricted, Jessie fell straight down but kept her head from hitting the floor with the remaining strength of her left arm. Crumpled next to her dog, she lay motionless and fled away into dreamland again to escape the resulting agony that had knifed through her body.
“Jessie?” A whisper that was half groan filtered into her returning consciousness. “Jessie. You there—okay?”
“Mm-m-m.”
She could hear Tank’s toenails click against the metal on which she lay. If he was moving, he must be all right. She was lying on something that hurt her hip, so she shifted a little to rid herself of the pain inflicted by the handle of a screwdriver.
“Jessie?”
Cas! That was Cas’s voice, so he was alive. But what about Bonnie? She couldn’t remember anything about Bonnie.
Very slowly, she opened her eye and pushed herself to a sitting position with the uninjured left arm. The part of the world she could see spun and darkened, then gradually settled and grew visible again. On her knees and one hand, she crawled toward the front of the plane, shoving a roll of some kind of wire out of the way, trying to be careful of the fragments of broken glass that littered the surface. The plane rocked slightly as she moved.
Glancing out an inverted window, she was astonished and frightened to see the lip of the glacier under an unbroken wing. Beyond and below it, the braid of streams that formed the upper part of the Knik River was clearly visible. They had come close to falling onto it from the ice on which they now rested. She wondered, briefly, why the impact of the crash had not caused a piece to calve from the face of the glacier, then gave up the thought. There were things to be done.
Reaching up, she took hold of the pilot’s seat and pulled herself to her knees so she could look up at Caswell. One arm hung limply down, but he had pulled the other up, tucking one thumb into his belt, as though to ease some pain. Jessie remembered her glimpse of the control knobs punching into his belly. His face was covered with streaks of blood from deep cuts in forehead and chin, and both eyes were swelling shut. Under the mask of red, he was so pale he looked dead, but he was breathing in shallow rasping gasps.
She reached to lay her fingers on his throat below the jaw, to see what a pulse could tell her. It was there under the cold clammy skin, but weak and rapid. He turned his head blindly toward her touch. “Jessie?” he whispered again, between breaths.
“I’m here, Cas.”
“Okay?”
“Better than you. I’ll do.”
A pause, as he sucked in air.
“Your—friend?”
“Don’t know. I’ll look.”
She turned cautiously to find Bonnie hanging upside down from her seat belt as well, limp and silent. Fragments of glass glittered in the sunshine that poured in through the broken passenger window onto her hair, clothes, and a small amount of blood that was splattered over them. She was not moving, nor could Jessie hear her breathe. There was no pulse and nothing she could think of to do.
Sitting back on her legs, Jessie stared up at her, feeling sick, wondering if she should try to let her down and attempt CPR but knowing it would be wasted effort. Better to leave her where she was. The woman had evidently hit the instrument panel face first and, judging from the lack of blood, died instantly. Bonnie would never know if the second set of bones Timmons had retrieved from the woods was her sister or not. A deep sadness grew in Jessie as she turned back to Caswell.
“She—didn’t make it.”
His breathing hesitated a moment before rasping on.
“Sor-ry.”
“Not your fault.”
“Should have seen—sooner.”
“No. What can I do? Get you down?”
“Can you?”
“I can try.”
He came down heavily, with a thin scream, when she released the belt and did the best she could to support his falling body. They lay tangled together on the inverted ceiling for a few moments, then Jessie struggled to get him on his back and straighten his body. He lay gasping and unable to speak for a few minutes.
Then, “Hard to—breathe.”
She knew he was undoubtedly bleeding internally, but there was little she could do except try to keep him from going into shock and monitor his breathing.
Every loose thing in the plane that had not fallen out in the crash was now in a clutter on the floor, making it fairly easy to sort for useful items. Raising his feet on the now-empty toolbox, she spread a sleeping bag over Cas. The arm that had hung down was broken between the elbow and shoulder, for she felt the bones grate as she straightened it. There was nothing to use as a splint, so she had to be satisfied with removing his belt and using it to strap his arm to the side of his body.
When she had done all she could for the moment, and aching with her own pain, she located her water bottle among the things that cluttered the floor and crawled back to raise Caswell’s head and shoulders onto her lap. She drank a swallow or two, then used a bit of it on paper towels to clean some of the blood from his face and hers, anxious to examine the cuts they had both sustained. Though two of his and one of hers were deep enough to need closure, the bleeding had slowed and was clotting on its own. She left them alone, but it felt a little better to be cleaner.
She sat with him, keeping a close watch, and assessed her own injuries. Her head and right shoulder seemed to be the worst. The jacket had stuck to her arm as some of the blood dried, so she left it alone. A couple of ribs were painful but didn’t feel broken, and she was covered with bruises, abrasions, and small cuts.
Tank, on the other hand, seemed okay, though he favored one front paw. Jessie examined it, found a splinter of glass, removed it, and cleaned the cut.
“Becker.” Cas spoke suddenly in a louder voice.
“What?”
“He’ll come.”
“Oh—yes.”
It was what she had been half-consciously counting on, hoping it would be sooner rather than later.
“Helicopter—when I don’t—come back. Someone will—report.”
It was the longest speech he had made and it took effort, but Jessie was relieved to hear it, to know he was thinking logically.
After that, he lapsed into silence and seemed to doze off every so often. When she spoke or touched him he would groan, but he was breathing, so she concentrated on that.
It seemed a very long time until Jessie knew that Caswell had been correct in his assessment of Becker’s response. She was half asleep herself, leaning against the side of the fuselage with Tank beside her, when she heard the distinctive voice of a helicopter in the distance and knew, with relief, that it was speaking her language.
23
“WHY?”
For the third time, Jessie asked Becker, who drove her home from the hospital early the following afternoon.
She had stayed overnight so the doctor could be sure she was not, like Caswell, suffering from internal injuries. She had stitches in her shoulder and head but had insisted on leaving, though the doctor had not recommended it. He had pointed out that she would continue to b
e so stiff and sore for a few days that she might need help getting around and wish she were still in her hospital bed. Jessie, however, had wanted to go to the only home she had at the moment, where she could, if not get back to work, at least watch the progress on her new cabin. So he reluctantly let her go, with a prescription for pain medication and an appointment to return in a few days to have the stitches removed.
Caswell, on the other hand, with a ruptured spleen, three broken ribs—one of which had punctured and collapsed a lung—a broken right arm, and head injuries, would remain for several days, and it would be weeks before he flew again.
“Why would anyone…? I don’t think it was an accident, Phil. He headed straight at us. I saw him.”
“You don’t know that, Jessie. You said you only had a glimpse through the window—saw only part of the plane—its underside. You didn’t even see the pilot. He could have been pulling up as he tried to avoid you.”
“He came up from the river and must have seen us. We were right in front of him, and he didn’t answer the radio. I think he tried to force us down without crashing himself!” She had to admit she could be mistaken, that her conviction and her anger could be an after-the-fact reaction, though in her heart she didn’t believe it.
“If he didn’t intend us to crash, why did he fly off and not report that we had gone down?”
“Maybe his radio was broken. Maybe he panicked. Maybe he’s the guy who’s responsible for these missing women. Maybe he’s an inexperienced pilot. Maybe…Oh, hell—who knows? You were lucky that someone else saw you go down.”
A pilot flying over the glacier with a couple of tourists had seen the crash and reported it as he circled the wreck, unable to land on the rough broken surface. Someone had come running across the airstrip to inform Becker, who had immediately used the radio in his patrol car to call for the rescue helicopter, then made a siren-screaming run to meet it before it left the hospital. It had taken off and was landing carefully near the accident site in less than an hour, a touchy maneuver on the broken surface of the glacier.