Max nodded in agreement and shoved the gun back in his coat pocket. We strode out of the apartment, leaving Karl on the balcony, sitting in a pool of his own pee.
21.
I parked the BMW at the entrance of the field, and we walked across the grassy stretch. Papy Volant was sitting right where I left it, waiting for us, its red paint looking black in the dark. I concentrated on the pre-flight check as I moved around the plane, inspecting all of the mechanisms, spinning the prop, checking the fuel, making sure everything was in working order. Clouds had rolled in and now covered the moon, leaving me with little light. I had a small flashlight that I kept in the plane and gripped it between my teeth as I held up a fuel sample in the light beam to make sure no water had gotten in. Max was sitting on the ground, rummaging through his backpack.
I took the flashlight out of my mouth. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for bullets.” His head was almost inside the bag, muffling his voice. “There should be some in here somewhere.”
I opened the cockpit door and flipped on the overhead light. “You can see better in here,” I called out to Max. If he were looking for something, it would be easier to see under the light.
“Thanks,” he said and sat on the edge of the seat, his legs stretched out to the side in the grass. He continued pawing through the bag. “I can’t find them. Shit, I swear I had some in here.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re almost out of here anyway.” Once we were in the air, I felt like everything would be okay.
I started the engine and waited for it to heat up. It took a good five minutes to properly heat the engine oil. While I waited, I took out the GPS and set it to home. Just as I popped the GPS in its holder on the dash, a flood of light burst forth from a pair of headlights across the field next to the BMW, bathing us in its yellow glow.
“Shit! Who the hell is that?” I yelled and slammed the door shut. “How do they keep finding us?”
Max swung his legs in and shut his door as well. “I don’t know but we shouldn’t stick around to find out,” he said. “Go!”
I looked at the temperature gauge and tapped it, willing it to get hot. It wasn’t as warm as I would like it to be, but we didn’t have that kind of time. I could see two silhouettes emerge from the vehicle and head toward us.
“Fuck it,” I said and inched the plane forward, positioning it to take off. The men were getting closer, and I didn’t dare wait any longer. I got the plane turned to where I would start the run for the takeoff. The engine roared, and we barreled down the length of the field. I could feel the lift of the wings as we gained speed.
There was a flash of light to the left where the men stood, and a loud crack penetrated the noise of the engine. They were shooting at us. The bullet went wild. Another shot rang out, and this time, the gunman aimed more on target. A hole the size of a quarter exploded in the Plexiglas door, a web of cracks spidering its legs outward. I screamed and pulled back on the throttle, lifting us. I banked to the right to avoid the trees and rose higher in the air.
The gunman tried one more time to hit us, the report of the gun like a crash of thunder. I heard a small metallic ping as the bullet hit something, but the plane was still moving in a steady flight, taking us out of range from our adversaries. Max and I looked at each other and grinned.
“We made it!” I said, a triumphant smirk on my lips.
Everything felt good, the flight steady, the GPS tracking our location and guiding us across the border toward home. We had been through hell that afternoon. I had managed to keep my thoughts in check, focusing only on the present moment, but once we reached the safety of our home, I needed to decompress, to talk about Frank. I needed Max. I needed the physical comfort of his body against mine.
It would take roughly an hour to get home from Laurent’s field. We had been in the air about twenty minutes and had just crossed the border into Vermont airspace. I looked down at the dashboard to check my instruments. At first, everything looked ok. Then, I noticed the fuel gauge was lower than I expected. There had been three-quarters of a tank left when we took off. Now, it read less than one-quarter, far less than there should have been and not enough to make it home.
“What the hell?” I peered down at it and could see the needle steadily moving toward the big E. We were losing fuel at a rapid rate. Then it hit me; that innocent little ping I heard was a bullet winging the fuel line, causing a leak that was hissing highly flammable liquid out in a trail behind us. We were lucky it didn’t catch fire or explode.
“Oh, no. Fuck, no,” I muttered.
“What?” Max was scared of flying, and I was now going to give him a good reason to be.
“We’re losing fuel.” I needed to see where it was leaking from and if it was something I could fix. If I stopped the leak now, I’d have time to find a decent spot, preferably not in the woods or Lake Champlain, to bring us down. If I couldn’t, well, we’d end up wherever we happened to be.
“Take the steering arms. I need to see something.”
“What? No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? Just take it.”
“No.” He flat out refused.
“Jesus, Max, take the fucking thing now!” I took his hand and placed it on the stick. “You don’t have to do anything, just keep it steady.”
I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned around to face the back of the plane.
“Ellie, where are you going? Wait! Don’t leave me in here!” He was close to panicking.
“I’m not going anywhere. I just want to see where the leak is. Maybe I can fix it.” I pushed open the door and stuck my head out. The wind force was immense, battering me hard as I peeked out to see the fuel line. I could see the leak, and it was within touching distance. I ducked back into the cockpit and rummaged around in my overnight bag.
“What are you doing?”
“I think I can fix it. I just need something to block the leak.” I found a sock and a roll of electrical tape. I hung my headphones on the hook, put the tape around my wrist and held the sock between my teeth. Knowing I needed both hands, I wrapped my left leg in the seatbelt and locked my right leg around the left, then leaned out of the cockpit like an aerial acrobat.
“Are you insane? Get back in here!” Max yelled at me.
As I made my way around the outside of the plane, the wings caught an updraft, lifting it with the warm air current. I slipped as the ultralight lurched, losing the hold on my precarious position. Dangling upside-down, the tape slid off my arm and fell into the black void below. I watched it fall and suddenly realized how high in the air we were.
With a feeling of panic ripping through my insides, I climbed back into the cockpit and looked at Max, my eyes wide with fear. “We’re going to crash.”
“Didn’t you fix it?”
I shook my head, my heart pounding against my rib cage.
“Do something!” he yelled.
I blankly stared ahead, not sure what to do, frozen with terror. The engine sputtered, gasping for the remaining fuel, but continued to chug on the last of the fumes left in the tank.
“At least put your seatbelt on,” he said and pushed me back in my seat, clicking my shoulder harness in place. He popped my headphones back on over my ears with a snap that echoed in my auditory canal. Then he took my hands and placed them on the steering arms. “Steer. Do something, don’t just sit there.”
“We’re going to crash,” I said again, the only words that seemed to be in my head at the moment.
“Stop saying that. Snap out of it and land the fucking plane!”
His words awakened me. I shook my head to clear it and took a deep breath.
The engine coughed, then failed altogether as the last of the fuel ran out. At least we wouldn’t explode on impact. The ultralight was able to glide to a certain extent, but I couldn’t see what was in front of me or what lay on the ground below.
I flipped a switch that turned on a small headlight. I usually d
idn’t use it, worried that it would make me too visible. The light shone out in front of us, displaying the top of a pine tree close in our field of vision. I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting it to whip against the windshield. We missed it by inches.
Blackness spread before us, no more trees directly in our sight. I had run out of options anyway so I brought the plane down, checking the altimeter to see how much lower we needed to go. Our speed was dropping rapidly without the prop as we glided down to a manicured green.
We hit hard, the wheels bumping against the ground with a grinding screech, but luck was in our favor. The landing site was a golf course. We were near the tenth hole. A flag proclaiming our location protruded up directly in front of us. It smacked against the windshield and got stuck in the wings. The plane continued to roll and went over a bump, bounced into the air as it went over the edge of a gully and landed violently in a sand trap, coming to an abrupt stop. The impact threw me against the padded shoulder harness hard enough to leave bruises.
When everything finally stopped, I sat perfectly still, afraid to move.
“Ellie? Are you okay?” Max was looking at me, trying to see any sign of injury.
“I think so. Are you?” My voice was shaky.
“Yeah.” Max started to laugh. “Shit, nice flying, Orville! That was good! You always told me we could survive a crash in one of these, but I never believed you until now!” He laughed even harder, that uncontrollable laughter that bubbles up and takes over. “Oh, shit. That was a ride!” There were tears of laughter streaming down his face. He wiped them away and caught his breath. “Next time won’t be so bad.”
Next time? The crash may have cured his fear of flying, but there was no way in hell I would climb in that flying lawnmower again.
As soon as I felt composed enough to move, I jumped out of the ultralight and examined the ruins from the crash. The plane was sitting like a dead bird, the golf flag piercing the wings like an arrow. The wheels were buried in the sand, one of them sticking up at an awkward angle, the other two hidden under the belly of the plane. There was no way we could move Papy Volant, as much as I wanted to roll it away into the bushes and hide it.
“What are we going to do with it?” I asked, not expecting Max to answer.
“Leave a note and call them when we get home. Explain that you crashed and that you’ll pay for the damages.”
“What damages?” I only had eyes for the damages to my plane.
“Did you look behind us?” He laughed and nodded in the direction we had fallen from. I turned and surveyed our surroundings. A huge gouge raked across the green, dirt furrowed up around it. There was a splash of sand in a circle outlining the plane where it had disposed the contents of the sand trap. The pristine grounds had been deeply marred by our crash landing.
“Oops,” I said, mildly. “They aren’t going to be very happy about that.”
“Probably not,” he said, still laughing. The whole thing struck him funny. I, however, didn’t find any humor in the situation.
According to the GPS, Interstate 89 lay five miles to the south. We decided it would be wiser to walk in a straight line through the woods instead of up to the club house, down the driveway and out on the town road. Not only would it be a longer walk that way, we were afraid that the club house may have some kind of motion sensor alarms to keep people off the golf green at night. It would be stupid to get arrested now for trespassing.
We planned our route, mapping it on the GPS, and I wrote out a quick note explaining the presence of the plane, apologizing for the mess, and saying I would gladly pay for any damages. We decided that if we could get to the highway, we could thumb a ride home from someone or steal a car.
I took my overnight bag, slung it across my shoulder, and picked up the GPS. Max had the flashlight. We headed across the green and into the woods.
22.
The forest was pitch black beyond the circle of illumination from the flashlight. I held Max’s hand and stayed glued to his side as we navigated through the woods. A twig snapped in the darkness, and an animal shrieked. I shrieked back and wedged myself up against the mass of his body, squeezing his hand between my fingers.
“Ow! Not so tight,” he complained. I had forgotten his hand was a bloody, bruised mess.
“Sorry,” I said weakly.
My nerves were shot, but I still felt like a dumb-ass. I spent my childhood playing in the woods of Vermont. I was used to this terrain and the animals that lived there. The only difference was that I usually played outside in the daytime.
Our breath plumed out in gray swirls as it touched the cold night air. I was freezing my ass off; my clothes weren’t meant for a midnight nature stroll through the forest, but rather for an evening in Montreal. My long black coat was made of wool with no lining and was better suited to city travel between cab and restaurant. I was thankful I was wearing jeans and not a skirt, but still, I envied the rugged hiking boots that Max was wearing. My boots were tall black leather, fashionable, but not comfortable. I had worn the fancy boots instead of my usual hiking boots so I wouldn’t look like a complete hick walking into the Ritz.
At least I didn’t try to make up for my short stature by wearing heels; I was too practical for that. The soles had little or no grip, though, and the damp leaves underfoot were slippery, their edges coated with frost.
We were moving along a ridge, the dark making it impossible to see where we stepped. I set my boot on a loose, rotten log and suddenly lost my footing. My feet went out from under me, and I fell down an embankment into an icy cold brook.
“Ellie!” Max came running after me, holding the flashlight.
“Where’s the GPS? Oh, fuck, don’t tell me I lost the GPS.” I looked around in panic, knowing that without the handheld device, we were completely lost. I plunged my hands in the water, patting down the streambed and stirring up the dark muck that lay on the bottom. I still couldn’t find it. By the time I gave up, I was soaking wet and covered in mud. Max looked up and down the embankment for the GPS, but didn’t have any luck, either.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!” I turned in a tight circle clutching my hands to my head. The panic was settling in, and I could feel myself start to unravel. “How the fuck are we going to get home?”
“It’s okay, Ellie. We’ll figure it out,” Max tried to reassure me.
“No, it’s not okay! We’re lost!” The tears that had been waiting to fall all day now sprung to my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I plopped onto the muddy bank, put my face in my hands, and cried. It wasn’t just the loss of the GPS. Max put his arms around me.
“Shhh. It’s alright. We’ll find our way home.” He kissed the top of my head and held me until the racking sobs stopped and the front of his coat was wet with tears and snot.
“What are we going to do now?” I asked, my breath still hitching.
“We’ll follow the brook so we don’t walk in circles. It’ll come out somewhere.” He was right. It might take us longer to get where we were going, but we’d be moving in a steady direction. A good indicator like a brook or stream would keep us from wandering aimlessly. We were lucky to have one.
I rinsed my hands in the babbling water, then stood and tried to wring out my clothes. I was shivering uncontrollably; the cold air dipped to just above freezing. Hypothermia in this temperature was a real concern.
“Let’s get walking,” I said, hoping the exercise would keep me warm.
“Wait, take my coat,” Max said as he shrugged out of his black pea coat.
“No, I’m not taking your coat.”
“Well, at least take my sweater.” He stripped himself of the sweater and put his coat back on over his long sleeved tee shirt. I took it, grateful for the added dry layer, and put it on. It was warm from his body and smelled like him.
“Thank you.” I stood on my toes and kissed him.
We walked for about an hour following the winding path the water wove through the woo
ds. I was still cold, my hands completely numb, my teeth chattering. Ahead, a warm orange glow lit the top of the embankment, and we heard laughter.
“Let’s check it out,” Max suggested.
“What if they’re bad guys?” My imagination was working overtime.
He turned to look at me, amused at my question, and said, “Ellie, we are the bad guys.”
I had never thought of it that way. What did I think I was, your average friendly neighborhood drug smuggler? I was starting to see both of us in a different light.
He took my hand and pulled me up the steep incline. At the top, we could see the fire crackling in a circle of rocks. Four teenaged boys sat around it, drinking beer and joking about some girl giving one of them a blowjob in the locker room. We quietly watched them for a moment, keeping our existence unknown.
“Go say ‘hi,’” Max whispered to me.
“No, you do it.”
“If I go out there first, I’ll scare the shit out of them. They’ll be happy to see you.” He waved toward them. “Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”
I saw the logic in his reasoning. I’d be a lot less intimidating to appear out of nowhere than he would. I nodded and walked into the circle of light.
“Hi,” I said, giving them a shy smile and a wave of my grimy fingers. “We’re a little lost.”
One of them, a heavy set dark-haired boy, yelped and fell over backwards off the log he was sitting on. The other three stared at us in terror, waiting to be arrested.
I looked at them one at a time then continued. “Can you help us?”
Hashimoto Blues Page 15