by Sue Henry
When she continued to lie without moving, he whined and licked her face.
One small gasp escaped her lips as she tried for the air that had been knocked out of her by the fall. One hand reached out to claw at the ground, and she slowly dragged her upper body uphill enough to relieve the pressure of the tree that was impeding her breathing. Then she gasped again, drawing much-needed air into her lungs, twisted so she could pull the other hand out from under her, and raised herself on both arms. After several deep breaths, as the color began to return to her face, she leaned forward and threw up.
Rolling over to sit facing downhill, she leaned against the birch trunk and rested from the resulting pain. Tank came to stand on the other side of her, and she lifted an arm over his back to hug him close and pat him wordlessly. The motion hurt her injured shoulder, but knowing her lead dog was alive and seemed all right was worth it. Glancing at it, she saw her shoulder was once again bleeding through the sleeve of her jacket over the stitched cut she had suffered in the plane crash. So much for no more blood-soaked jackets.
Lifting the other hand, she explored the cut on her head, found the dressing in place, and was relieved that throwing her arms over her head as she cast herself off the trail had helped to protect it from further injury. Her hands, however, were bleeding from any number of scratches and cuts, and one fingernail hung loose, where something had caught it on her way down the hillside.
The rest of her body hurt so much she couldn’t tell which of the two batterings had caused it. Nothing seemed broken, but one knee throbbed so suspiciously that she hesitated to stand and put weight on it. So she sat where she was and thought about what to do next.
It was very quiet. Her fall had disturbed the accumulation of old leaves and spruce needles on which she rested and the clean earthy scent of it rose around her, familiar and comforting. Somewhere in the brush a squirrel chattered. Jessie looked down and saw that one of her feet was lying in a trickle of water that flowed downhill. She moved it and realized that she was hearing the tiny gurgle the stream made over a root of the birch, having washed away enough soil to expose it.
Tank whined again and she moved her hand to hold his muzzle in a warning to be still. She listened to a distant crashing through brush to the north of her position, hidden from sight by the rocky ridge. Was she being pursued? She sat still and waited. The sound grew louder, and she realized it was going uphill. How long had she lain against the tree? How long had she sat here, for that matter? Could the rifleman have already gone down and be coming back up, determined to find her and make sure she did not escape? The crashing continued up the slope. She listened until it disappeared and sighed in relief.
Whatever was wrong with her knee—or the rest of her, for that matter—it was time to move. Sitting there waiting to be found was not smart, but where should she go? As the crashing had gone up, she decided to go down—easier anyway. If she could find a place to hide closer to the river, she could wait for Becker to discover that she and Stevie had not followed his instructions to the letter and come hunting for her, as she was sure he would. If necessary, she had the .44 and knew how to use it.
But what about Stevie? Where and how was she?
There was nothing Jessie could think of to do about Stevie at this point that would not result in putting both of them in jeopardy. She had saved herself from the shot she had heard as, instinctively and without hesitation, she had thrown herself over the edge of the trail and into the brush, initiating her terrible tumble and hoping Tank would follow, as he had.
“Good boy,” she told him in a whisper. “Quiet now.”
Slowly, using the birch for support, she labored to pull herself to a standing position, feeling every bruised part of her protest the action. The knee was the agony she had anticipated, but for the time being it held her weight. Gritting her teeth, she stood swaying until the resulting dizziness cleared. Then, quietly, one careful painful step at a time, she started to follow the trickling stream down the hill toward the river below.
Back on the hillside, Becker and his partner still hurried along the track, which now headed decidedly downhill, toward a thin curve of riverbank.
“Look,” Pat said, stopping at a place where he could see the river between the trees and brush.
A red and silver plane sat on the upper end of a sandbar, separated from the bank by a branch of the river’s headwaters. The Knik widened at this point, dividing into many ribbons of water. These were running full, all but submerging several of the bars they had separated and that until now had stood high and dry. The rear wheel of the plane was almost in the water that rushed around the bar on which it sat. If the pilot didn’t return quickly to fly out, leaving would soon be difficult if not impossible. Looking down at the river, Becker checked carefully for any movement that would indicate that the people they were following had reached it and might be headed for the plane, but saw no one.
The face of the Knik Glacier was in full view, and just in sight atop it Becker could see the remains of Caswell’s Maule M-4 lying upside down on the surface. Remembering times he had flown with Cas in that plane and how much his friend had loved and been proud of it, he felt his anger rising at its demise and at the fact that Cas was still in the hospital.
“Come on,” he snapped. “I want to catch up with this guy.”
Of the two sets of tracks they had followed, the smaller had exhibited an unevenness in depth, as if the person who made them was having trouble negotiating the rough trail. On a switchback that required a step down and over a large stone, the damp surface was disturbed where the person who made the smaller tracks had evidently fallen. Something purple lay next to it on a rock.
“Stevie,” Becker said, grabbing it up and unfolding the bandanna she had been wearing when he last saw her. “This is Stevie’s. It must have been Jessie who was shot and went over the edge of the trail back there. We’ve got to find her—soon. But first we’ll have to tackle Mitchell. He’s got Stevie, and he’s going to be between us and Jessie.”
They went on down the trail, running now, leaping over obstacles, taking more chances. Becker was ready with the shotgun, should they find themselves in sudden close proximity to the person they sought.
From where she had stopped falling, two-thirds of the way down from the track above, Jessie moved slowly but steadily toward the river. The bed of the stream was almost a trail, so she walked in it, hoping it would also disguise her tracks from anyone following, should Stevie’s captor decide to search for her. Most trails to glaciers she had experienced divided, taking hikers both to the top, where they could walk onto the surface, and to the bottom, where huge pieces of ice calved off. These pieces fell into a pond that formed at the foot and became icebergs that floated or drifted aground as they melted. If the trail went down to the river below the glacier, he would follow it down, she thought, so she kept a careful watch for any sign of him below.
Because the stream ran down the hill in a series of waterfalls that splashed and small pools that were deep enough to run over the tops of her boots, Jessie’s feet were soon soaked and cold. At one spot, she paused to let the icy water run over her hands, which were beginning to stiffen and ache. It numbed the sting of the cuts and scratches and deadened the throb of the torn fingernail a little as it rinsed away some of the blood and dirt.
As the ground began to flatten slightly, the going grew easier and the stream widened, so she stepped from the water and walked through the grass and weeds that grew beside it. She was nearing the river, still in the shelter of a small stand of birch, when she saw something dark in the stream ahead of her. At first she thought it was a large rock that sometime in the past had bounced down and landed a long way from its source, but she changed her mind as she came closer. It moved.
She stopped and laid a hand on Tank’s head, cautioning him to stillness and silence, and watched carefully. The dark form moved again and made a groaning sound. It was a man, and he was trying to pull himself from the
icy water. Carefully, she took another step, but a rustle of grass betrayed her. The man who was lying half in and half out of the stream jerked his head and one defensive hand in her direction. In it was a handgun.
Between herself and the river, Jessie had found Dell Mitchell.
30
“JESSIE?”
She froze, fingers curled under Tank’s collar, for he was growling at this apparent threat.
She and Dell stared at each other.
“Please,” he said, and his hand began to shake. The gun dropped from it to the bank of the stream and, with another groan, he closed his eyes and collapsed onto his side, slipping a little farther into the swampy pool the stream had become as it flowed onto ground that flattened, then sloped to the river.
As she stepped cautiously toward him, Jessie could see that there was blood—a lot of blood—on his shirt and jacket. Some of it was bright and fresh, but the rest, staining the fabric a rusty brown, was older and had already dried.
Dropping to her knees beside him, she moved the handgun out of his reach, still alert for trouble, not trusting him even in this condition.
“Dell?” she said quietly. “Dell!”
He opened his eyes again. “Thought you were…please, Jessie—I—can’t…”
Suddenly summoning strength and anger from somewhere, he clutched weakly at her arm and spoke clearly.
“Please, get me out of this damn cold water.”
This is the halt leading the blind, thought Jessie, as she used some of her remaining energy to tug Dell’s inert lower body from the pool and onto the bank. He groaned and tried to help her but wasn’t much assistance. Her knee screamed pain, which she ignored, but when his legs and feet lay with the rest of him, on his back on solid ground, she collapsed on her back beside him, in the shelter of the birch saplings that surrounded them. A breath of breeze stirred the leaves, and as she rested she watched their shadows play over Dell’s pale face.
“Thanks,” he said after a moment, opening his eyes. “Thought I was gonna freeze—if I didn’t die first.”
He looked up at her with the hint of a smile that faded into a concerned frown as he observed the condition of her clothes and body. “What the hell happened—to you?”
She hadn’t considered what she must look like after the fall had compounded her already battered appearance and didn’t care now. Looks were, after all, not of primary importance.
“I fell,” she said shortly. “A long way. What the hell happened to you?”
“Shot me—twice—last night.”
“Who?” But she knew the name before he spoke it.
“J.B.”
“Why?”
“He knows I know. Must’ve thought he killed me—like those women—but he didn’t, quite.”
It was enough. Jessie didn’t ask any more questions, knowing she had been mistaken about Dell, but all of it could be sorted out later—if there was a later. Where were J.B. and his rifle now—and Stevie? Was there anything she could do for Dell before trying to find out?
“Where are you hit and how bad? I’ll have to get help.”
“Shoulder and—below the ribs. Went clear through—I think. Is he—gone?”
“Shit, no. His plane’s out there on a sandbar, and he’s got Stevie. Did you see Becker? He’s around here somewhere with another trooper.”
As Dell shook his head there was a sudden shout from somewhere farther along the riverbank toward the glacier. Jessie began to get to her feet, favoring her strained knee.
“What?” Dell questioned. “Hey, don’t go. He’s got—a rifle.”
“Don’t I know it? He tried to shoot me. That’s why I came down the mountain in such a hurry.”
Becker and his partner had fairly galloped down the last of the trail to the river and burst out onto the bank to see two figures struggling to cross the knee-deep water that lay between them and the plane that rested on the sandbar.
Carroty-red hair identified Stevie, and Becker assumed the taller male figure yanking her along was Dell.
“Hey!” he shouted, out of range for the shotgun but not his service revolver. He drew it, as did Pat. “Stop where you are! Drop the rifle, put your hands on your head, and walk back here, Mitchell.”
The answer was immediate and negative. The man in the water halted, turned to face them, and swung Stevie around in front of him. Raising his rifle waist high, he fired a shot in their direction, forcing them to leap for cover behind a log that lay at the edge of the trees. He then began to back up, dragging the woman with him.
“That’s not Mitchell,” Becker said, frowning and raising his head enough to peer over the top of the log. “It’s that other guy on Vic Prentice’s crew. J.B.”
“Whoever it is,” Pat returned, finding a semiprotected point of view from one end of the log, “he’s using that woman as a shield.”
“You can’t get away, you know!” Becker shouted to the figure still moving toward the plane. “Let the woman go and give up!”
Another shot thumped the covering log, but after firing it, J.B. took another step backward. His foot, instead of the firm ground he anticipated, sank into a deeper part of the channel that the increasing flood of water had cut into the riverbed. He flailed for a second or two, trying desperately to regain his balance, but vanished, rifle and all, into the flow, dragging Stevie with him.
Astonished, leaving the shotgun, Becker rose from his position behind the log and watched them disappear. A little way downstream, he saw Stevie’s red hair temporarily break the surface and sink again.
“Dammit. She can’t swim with those cuffs on,” he said, taking several rapid steps toward the water. “She’s gonna drown.”
“Wait,” his partner warned. Turning back toward the isolated sandbar, Becker saw why.
Incredibly, J.B. had managed somehow to keep from being swept after Stevie. By letting her and the rifle go he had regained his footing and was now climbing out on the bar near the plane.
“Go,” Becker instructed Pat. “Get her out, if you can. I’ll take care of this one.” He sprinted toward the water, yelling at J.B. as he went.
From her location behind the sheltering trees at the other end of the slim curve of riverbank, Jessie had seen J.B.’s loss of balance and knew Stevie was in danger of drowning. She saw Becker start toward the river as J.B. climbed out on the sandbar and moved toward his plane to attempt an escape. The other trooper was coming toward her at a run, but the sand of the riverbank made running difficult and the river was moving fast. As Stevie was rolled to the surface again, closer to Jessie than to the trooper, it was obvious that he was not going to catch up in time to rescue her.
Without thinking, Jessie stepped out of the cover of the trees and attempted to run for the water, intending to try to save Stevie herself. She took only three hobbling steps before her knee collapsed, hurling her to the ground in the gravel of the stream that crossed the sand and emptied into the torrent the river had become. Sharp stones, swept bare by the stream, cut painfully into her already lacerated palms and knees, but she ignored them and tried unsuccessfully to regain her footing. Her injured knee hurt like hell and simply wouldn’t hold her.
As she looked toward the river, desperate, frustrated, and dizzy with pain, she caught sight of someone in motion farther down the bank. Hank Peterson came out of the woods at a dead run, reached the river’s edge, cast himself into the roiling water, and, as it swept him along, swam out to a position in line with the place where Stevie had last been seen and disappeared beneath the water. He was lucky. On a second dive he came up with her limp form and made it to a place where he could stagger out and lay her on the bank. Immediately, he went to work to get her breathing again. As Jessie watched helplessly from where she now sat, he had her gasping after a minute or two and vomiting water onto the sand.
Grinning from down the bank, he gave Jessie and the trooper, who had stopped beside her, a thumbs-up, raised Stevie, and began to carry her toward them.
>
“You okay, Jessie?” Pat asked, starting toward Becker.
“No,” she told him, “but I can wait. Dell Mitchell’s hurt pretty bad.” She pointed to where he lay on the grass beside the stream. “Can you or Becker call for that hospital helicopter again?”
“Yes, and I’ll be back,” he said, and took off at a lope to where Becker, handgun leveled, was still shouting across at J.B., who had climbed into his plane and started the engine, clearly intending to try to take off.
It took Becker two shots to hit a front tire, deflating it and making it impossible for the plane to go anywhere. Still, J.B. made an attempt, giving the engine power, which only pulled the other tire in an arc around the deflated one and into the rushing water. Now facing the bank, the plane tipped slowly over to bury its nose in the flood between. The engine died.
“Now, you crawl out of there and get back…”
Becker’s shout was drowned in a steadily increasing roar from the direction of the glacier that startled everyone. The ground trembled, the glacier growled, and a great flood of water began to pour into the river. It took Jessie a few seconds to realize what was happening.
Where the Knik Glacier met Mount Palmer each winter, forming a dam of ice that closed off Lake George above it, the melt had finally widened the passage between until the ice that contained it became unstable. The weight of thousands of gallons of water had become too much for the weakening dam and was breaking it apart, pouring out in its annual flood.
As she watched, a tower of dense blue ice calved off the face of the glacier with a grinding roar and fell in what seemed like slow motion into the lake at its foot. Its thunderous crash resounded through the valley.
But it was not the ice tower alone that captured Jessie’s attention. Riding it down was Caswell’s Maule M-4, which had been perched on the edge. For the last time it flew, with assistance from the falling ice and from the resulting wave and rush of meltwater that poured through from Lake George and filled the river from bank to bank with roiling turbulence. The iceberg and the plane it bore were lifted and thrown forward, coming to rest squarely atop J.B.’s red and silver plane, crumpling it and him into the riverbed like a piece of aluminum foil.