Clear to Lift

by Anne A. Wilson

  “Rescue Seven,” Walt says. “The roads are all closed. The fuel trucks can’t move. They tried to cross the pass near Topaz Lake, but couldn’t get through.”

  Okay, so what else? What else?

  A long shot.

  I switch the frequency on the second radio.

  “Rescue Six, Rescue Seven, over.”

  “Rescue Seven, Rescue Six, go ahead,” Clark says.

  “Clark, what’s your status? We need help. We need fuel.”

  “We’re shutting down at the hospital heliport in Carson City. The weather’s crap.”

  “Can you fly here?” I ask, just shy of panic. “We need you!”

  “Negative, the weather’s—”

  “We’re out of fuel! We have a man in the river! We need your help!”

  “Alison, I don’t—”

  “Please! Clark, please! It’s Will. Will’s in the river!”

  The radio goes silent, the pause so long that I wonder if Clark has just switched off his radio.

  “I, um, I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything,” he says.

  Boomer turns to me, and we share a long, torturous look.

  I put my hand to my chest, something to try to fill an unfillable hole. Holy god …

  My gaze drifts to Jack and my mother, standing arm in arm, and Boomer follows my line of sight.

  Jack has removed his dry suit and stands in the bright green jacket I remember from Palisade Glacier an eternity ago. His chest harness with his radios and gear hangs loosely over his shoulder. Celia, Kelly, and Tawny are there. Kevin and Thomas, too.

  We’ve touched down less than a quarter mile from the cluster of police cars and ambulances, so rescue personnel have moved to our landing spot to receive the family of three that Hap escorts now.

  After handing them over, Hap turns to Jack, relaying the news.

  Jack looks to me to confirm. Slowly, and while gritting my teeth to choke down the emotion, I shake my head.

  Jack’s body appears to buckle. My mom grabs him, and so does Celia, to hold him upright.

  Boomer looks away from Jack, then slams the instrument console. “God damn son of a bitch!” he yells.

  I have no words, my mind blank. All of my ideas, the planning, everything leaves me, and my body grows heavy, turning in on itself with ache.

  I register movement as Jack regains himself and stumbles under the stationary rotor blades, climbing into the cabin. There is no sound save the sleet that continues its relentless pounding.

  “Alison,” Jack says, moving from the cabin into the little space between the cockpit seats. He puts a hand on my arm, but when I meet Jack’s eyes—my father’s eyes—I can’t hold the tears back anymore.

  “I couldn’t—” I say, gagging on the words. “I tried. I tried. I did.” The tears stream out the corners of my eyes.

  “I know you did,” Jack says. “I know—” He stops, removing his hand from my arm to wipe at his face.

  I drop my head in my hands, sobbing, barely noticing when my door is opened. I hear a familiar voice, feel the comforting pull of arms around my shoulders. My mom draws me to her, squeezing and rubbing my back, just as she did when I was little. Only this time, she can’t fix it.

  Damn, this incessant sleet! Rain! Whatever! Will! Oh, dear god, Will …

  My mom hugs me closer, and I shake in her arms. Visions of the rescue mission from beginning to end flicker and flash through my brain. The unchecked efforts of so many people to help save lives despite the danger. And I think of Rich, who never would have put himself in this position. Will would and did. Heroic, brave, selfless. And I lost him because of it.

  No! Will!

  The visions shimmer and morph. Will stands on Donner Summit. He unfolds his arms, standing taller. “You missed something.” And I see myself running. Blinded by rain, darkness, out of breath—

  A wet, golden blur streaks under the rotors, Mojo’s wolfy bark rising. He leaps into the main cabin behind me, issuing a series of yelps, before bounding out once more, sprinting a complete circle around the bird, and returning to the cabin.

  He leaps in again.

  “Mojo!” Jack says, falling backward this time as Mojo launches straight into his chest. “Calm down, boy. Calm down.”

  Jack’s attempts at subduing the Lab prove futile, as Mojo yips and woofs, scrabbling to keep his footing on the metal flooring of the aircraft. Then, quick as flash, he darts from the aircraft once more, turning circles, jumping, barking, in front of the cockpit window. A sprint ten yards toward the right, toward the river, a manic dash back.

  But it’s Mojo’s sudden stillness that causes me to sit up straight. Stable on all fours, he looks up, meeting my eyes, and stares, waiting, alert.

  Beep … beep … beep … beep … beep.

  Like Mojo, we still. Boomer and Jack breathe in, hold it. My mom straightens. And we listen.

  Beep … beep … beep … beep … beep.

  Jack bolts up, and his hands fly to his chest harness, which now lies on the cabin floor. He had been carrying it on his shoulder, having removed it from over his dry suit. He picks it up, fumbling with it.

  BEEP … BEEP … BEEP … BEEP … BEEP.

  The beeps grow louder as he pulls the fluorescent orange avalanche transceiver from its holder.

  “It’s Will,” Jack whispers in disbelief.

  “What?” I say, not daring to hope, but damn it, the spark flares. “Wait, Jack. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, this receiver is beeping because Will turned on his transmitter.”

  “He’s alive, then,” I say, my breaths coming fast. “Jack, where is he? How far?”

  “Less than four hundred yards.”

  “Maybe he washed up on shore,” I say, unstrapping. “Maybe—”

  “Alison, don’t get your—” Jack starts.

  “Which way?” I say, leaping out of the aircraft. But then I realize I don’t need to ask. I just need to follow Mojo.

  The dog sprints away, toward the broad plain that fans out away from the canyon, and I follow. Freezing rainwater soaks my flight suit, and I labor to run as mud from the soggy field sucks and pulls on my boots.

  One hundred yards? Two hundred? Up and over a bridge that’s somehow still standing, the water rushing just beneath.

  But the longer I run, the greater the dread. What if the avalanche transceiver was ripped from Will’s vest and floats on its own. Or what if it’s still attached to Will, but he’s been pulled underwater or remains trapped under debris. It could be all of these things.

  Another fifty yards. Mojo skitters to a stop in a marshy quagmire of a field that borders the widened river, barking nonstop.

  “Where is he, Mojo? Where is he?”

  I pull the flashlight from my survival vest, but it doesn’t have near the intensity that I need. Then, from behind, a high-powered beam shines on the water. Kevin and Thomas run up behind me with Beanie, Boomer, and Jack on their heels. Kevin carries a portable spotlight, which he sweeps across the river.

  Jack holds the avalanche transceiver in front of him. BEEP … BEEP … BEEP … BEEP … BEEP.

  “He should be right there!” Jack says, pointing.

  Please, please, please …

  “I think I’ve got something!” Kevin says. “I have an orange glove!”

  We snap our heads in the direction of the light, to the top of an unmoving mess of debris, piled high, like a beaver dam. The only thing between the glove and us … fifty yards of uncrossable river.

  “It’s gotta be…” But then Kevin’s voice trails away.

  “It’s just a glove,” Thomas says.

  Mojo continues to bark toward the pile.

  “Remember—and I’ve seen this several times—the gear you see on the snow could still be connected to the victim, like a hand in a glove.”

  “What if he’s buried? He could be beneath all that!” I say.

  “The transceiver’s pointing right there!” Jack says. “It’s
gotta be him!”

  “Well, let’s get him! How are you guys gonna—” I stop, when I see their faces.

  “I don’t think there is a way,” says Kevin. “Unless … Jack?” He turns to him. “Any ideas? There’s nothing to anchor to here.”

  We’re joined by Kelly, Tawny, Walt, Hap, and Celia, who begin brainstorming how to get to Will. Assuming it is Will.

  It has to be Will. It has to be.

  Mom is here, too, and I watch in awe as her search and rescue training kicks in. She jumps right in with the group, throwing in her two cents, trying to find a solution.

  The conversation recedes into the din, and my mind whirs, click, click, click, as I tick through takeoff performance charts in my head. And the idea returns, the one I had dismissed originally. Not because it’s strictly forbidden, but because I didn’t think it would be possible.

  I jerk my head up, locking eyes with Boomer, and I see it in his face when what I’m thinking registers with him, too.

  “Boomer—”

  “Alison,” he says, raising his hands. “I already know what you’re thinking. What you’re gonna—”

  “Number one still has fuel.

  “No way. You have no idea how much time you’d have.”

  “It’s cold enough.”

  “No.”

  “We’re low enough.”

  “Still no.”

  “If it’s just two people, we’re light enough.”

  “Goddamn it,” he says, walking away with his hands on his hips before turning and pacing back toward me.

  “It could work,” I say.

  “What could work?” Jack says, the conversation around us suddenly absent.

  The sometimes rain, sometimes sleet continues to fall, but oddly, no one shivers, even though, to a person, we’re soaked.

  “We could fly single-engine to get Will,” I say. “Me and one other person.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jack says.

  “You can’t,” I say.

  “I can,” Jack says.

  I stare at Jack. He stares back.

  “Boomer, we need to strip the bird,” I say, my eyes shifting to his.

  “Goddamn it,” he mutters again. We stare at each other long and hard before he throws up his hands. “I think I trained you too well.”

  He turns and jogs toward the bridge, yelling over his shoulder. “Come on folks, we’ve got work to do! The doors! All of it! We need it gone!”

  “Kevin,” I say. “Stay here. Keep the light on that pile.”

  “Will do!”

  “Jack, you can’t,” I say as we turn to follow the group that chases after Boomer.

  We jog side by side, my mom next to him, and Mojo in front of all three of us.

  “I have no idea how much fuel is left. This has crash landing written all over it.”

  “Do you really want to ask Beanie or Hap to go?” Jack says. “Do you want to put them at risk?”

  “But I don’t want to put you at risk, either.”

  We rush over the bridge.

  “And what if we need to hoist or—”

  “This is one-skid all the way and you know it,” Jack says. “Someone just needs to step off the aircraft, grab him, and put him in. I can do it just as well as they can.”

  “But you just found—” I point to my mom.

  He puts a hand on my arm, bringing me to a stop. “I just found you, too.” He looks at my mom briefly before returning his gaze to me, swallowing. “I won’t abandon you again, Alison.”

  Behind Jack, lights flicker through the sleet, rescue personnel swarming the aircraft, working to strip it.

  I start to shake my head again, but he stops me with a light touch to the cheek.

  “Please, let me be there for you. For once.”

  I blink, my eyes watering, and I find myself nodding, understanding what he’s willing to sacrifice—the love he had thought lost, but now found—for Will’s sake … for my sake.

  “Please,” he says.

  “Okay, Alison!” Boomer yells.

  I turn to my mother. “Mom?”

  “Go on,” she says. “Both of you.”

  Boomer smacks the nose of the aircraft. “She’s all ready!” he bellows.

  “But Mom—”

  She takes my upper arms in her hands and looks at me squarely. “He’s the best person to help you. Now go get it done.”

  I sense no reservation, no hesitation whatsoever in my mom. Same with Jack. They’re not worried about the what-ifs. That there isn’t a security net. That there aren’t any guarantees. And in this, my mom, Jack, and Will are cut from the same cloth. They’re not afraid to put it out there. To risk. To fail. Their energy directed solely—fiercely—on doing the best they can in a given situation. And then, the chips fall where they fall. But there are no regrets. Because at least they’ve tried and given all of themselves in the effort.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

  42

  Jack leans into the cockpit from the main cabin. I flick on the battery switch, and we test that he can hear me.

  “Radio check, over,” I say.

  “Loud and clear,” Jack says, pressing the switch on his radio. He has it attached to his chest harness, which he has donned again, strapping it over his green jacket.

  As soon as the rotors start turning, Jack pulls the avalanche transceiver from his harness, and holds it over the main console, where I can view it, the arrow pointing to the left. I pull up on the collective to lift, flicking on the searchlight.

  I make a beeline for the debris pile, homing in on the searchlight that Kevin keeps trained there. We cross over junk-ridden water that roils beneath us, and all the while Jack’s beacon beeps louder and faster as we close on Will’s position.

  Jack retreats into the cabin to look out the side door.

  “He should be right below us!” Jack shouts, his voice muffled by the wind and sleet that shoot sideways through the aircraft.

  My eyes are riveted on the “beaver dam” that sits in the middle of the flow. Made up of sticks, aluminum siding, trees, and other detritus, this mound of blockage sends the water swirling into a violent, crashing wave on the downward side, chewing up any object unfortunate enough to spin through there, before sucking it beneath in one satisfied gulp.

  My stomach churns, much like the water that devours all in its path below. Shit. This is so unstable.

  “I’ve got the glove!” Jack shouts.

  “In sight!” I say, descending.

  As we move closer, the rotor wash kicks up sticks from the surface of the debris pile … and there he is, bright yellow jacket, orange glove at the end of the sleeve. He lies unmoving, his lower leg bent at an odd angle.

  “There he is!”

  “Got him!” Jack says.

  I move to hover just feet from Will. He’s so clear in my vision as I look to the right, no door to block my view.

  “Getting set in the back,” Jack says.

  I don’t have to worry about working the searchlight, since Kevin keeps his spotlight on the pile. But … What’s this…? The cyclic presses into my left thigh, it—

  “Jack! The pile’s moving! Shit! It’s moving!”

  Because it’s night, because I’m referencing only the debris pile, I didn’t notice our drift. I’ve been moving the control stick to the left to stay with the pile, without even realizing it.

  But now it’s obvious, as the pile begins to break up. And it occurs to me that the rotor wash that helped uncover Will has also disrupted the delicate balance of materials holding the debris pile together.

  “Shit!” Jack shouts.

  “Throw him something! Anything!”

  “Stand by!” Jack says.

  Surely, this pile is only moments from exploding into nothingness.

  The engine hiccups. Oh no.

  “Jack, the engine—”

  I don’t even know if he heard me, because he’s already flying in midair when I say it, an anchoring
rope trailing behind him. He lands on top of Will, clips him to his harness, gives me a thumbs-up, and I go.

  I pull collective and slide left, the mound of debris dissolving into the torrent.

  “We’re riding about five feet below the skids!” Jack says.

  My heart stops as I watch the caution panel light up like a Christmas tree, systems going off-line, and the engine begins to whine. Keep moving, Ali. Turn the nose forward so you can slide head-on!

  Dry ground is ten yards away, nine, eight … The low-rotor-rpm horn blares. Beepbeepbeepbeep! The rotors are slowing. Seven yards to dry ground, six, five … beepbeepbeepbeep! The beeps come faster as the rotor speed drops below eighty-eight percent, eighty-six percent …

  “Jack, cut the rope! Cut it!”

  I can’t control the landing—if there’s a landing at all—and if they dangle beneath us, the helicopter will crush them.

  Four yards, three yards, beepbeepbeepbeepbeep!

  Two yards, one yard. I drop the collective, and the bird thuds to the ground, sliding forward on the wet grass. I manipulate the cyclic as the helicopter tips and yaws, the right skid lifting precariously high before slamming down again. The rotors slow, and so does our momentum, just as the aircraft slides into a rise in the sodden earth and slams to a stop.

  I yank off my helmet and pull my harness release, falling, stumbling over the side of the aircraft in my haste to get out. Twenty yards behind me, a tangled heap lies in the dark. I run to them, and from the opposite direction a rescuing army charges to meet us, Mojo leading the way. I drop to my knees, and Jack opens his arms, Will spilling out next to him.

  I lay my ear to Will’s chest, feeling for a rise, listening for a heartbeat. My head moves up, then down, lifted by Will’s inhalation and exhalation, his slow heartbeat reverberating through every cell in my body.

  “He’s alive,” I say.

  Mojo approaches cautiously, and when I don’t protest, he continues forward, smothering Will’s face in warm licks. Apparently, that’s all Will needed.

  His head rolls to the side and he meets my eyes.

  “You’re okay,” I say. “You’re okay.”

  But in the back of my mind, I know it’s not okay. The roads are closed. Will needs a hospital.…

  Hap is the first to reach us, and he goes to work immediately on Will’s medical assessment.