Absolute Zero

by Chuck Logan

  “Jo, it’s Hank. He ruptured himself. Bad.”

  “Oh, Christ. I told him to have that taken care of.”

  It sounded like she did sit down from the rush of concern in her voice. Succinctly, he explained the storm, the rupture, leaving Milt and Hank in the winter camp, the paddle out, how the guide and the cops were going back with a floatplane, and how he was now stranded in this one-horse hospital with a skeleton staff in a blizzard, anticipating operating under less than ideal conditions.

  “Just be prepared,” he told her in his best level tone.

  The velvet wore thin in her voice as she showed some bare knuckle. “Just what’s that supposed to mean? I’m not some fucking Boy Scout—you’d better give me more than that. You’d better tell me he’s going to be all right.”

  “I’m just saying it’s bad up here, there’s a blizzard. Christ, he’s in this little airplane with some cowboy pilot.”

  “Promise me, Allen. You’ve got to pull him through.”

  “Don’t worry, Jo.” He pressed the cool plastic of the receiver against his forehead and blamed the fatigue, because he found himself looking at all the possible outcomes on this bad morning, and in one of them the plane simply disappeared into the storm and was never seen again. An Act of God.

  She broke his glide. “Give me the phone number for the hospital, there must be an airstrip up there. I’ll watch the weather. I’ll get Earl to find a quick charter . . .”

  “I don’t think Earl is a good idea under the circumstances,” Allen said tightly.

  “He’s handy, he knows how to get things done. Like hire a plane on a short notice. I’m just being practical.”

  “Hank hates him,” Allen said.

  “Let me worry about that. You tuck your head into your surgeon’s cap and take care of business. I’m counting on you.”

  “Yes,” Allen said simply, suddenly helpless before the inadequacy of language; so he gave her the hospital phone number, hung up the phone, and tried to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the sweat on his palms. Enough of this bullshit. It was time to get serious.

  And finally the traction of his willpower engaged and he jettisoned the distractions—his personal life, the exhausting canoe trip out of the park, even Jolene. They became irrelevant as he narrowed in focus until his triangular face seemed to winnow to a point.

  Then he raised his raw, blistered hands and inspected them. As always, he felt contempt for people who never touched anything except keyboards and telephones and money, who talked their way through life.

  He took pride in making his living with his hands. During his surgical residency at the Mayo Clinic he had worn a red-and-white- striped regimental tie under his staff coat. The pattern and the colors invoked the bloody bandages of the barber pole that had served as the original shingle surgeons hung out to advertise their profession. The surgeons had followed European armies out of the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and into the modern era. They’d cut hair and they’d amputated arms and legs.

  Allen smiled. Then, with the help of Mother Church, they’d rooted out the village midwives and the herbalist “witches” and consolidated their hold on medicine.

  He was not without history. He was not without wit.

  A surgeon of his generation couldn’t wear a tattoo on his arm like the new kids coming up—or like Hank Sommer could, and Allen envied Hank the cryptic messages dyed into his skin. And if Allen could have a secret tattoo it would be a Bard/Parker number-ten scalpel blade and it would say: HEAL WITH STEEL.

  Now he mentally stripped himself until he saw himself as nude as a Michelangelo anatomy study. Then he dressed himself in successive layers of knowledge, confidence, and control. Only when he was fully mentally garbed did he visualize the entire operation, starting from the first incision.

  He absolutely believed that anything he could visualize he could make happen in the controlled environment of an operating room.

  When Allen stood up, his brow and his palms were dry. The guide, Broker, did not look like he was intimidated by Acts of God; he would persist. He would bring Hank back and lay him on an operating table and, true to the oath he had taken, Allen would insert a blade of the sharpest stainless steel just above Hank Sommer’s pubic bone and slice him open, lift out his guts with his two hands, repair them, and save his life.

  * * *

  The pilot leaned back, grabbed Iker’s arm, and rapped a knuckle on the map. Broker climbed forward and put his finger on the point in Fraser Lake.

  “The rocks are real bad. You’re gonna have to land in this bay where the point joins the shore, and we’ll carry him out to you,” Broker said.

  The pilot shook his head. “No time. Lots of bad bush in there. We’ll take our chances with the rocks. The guy with the bad arm—can he walk?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Broker said. “He can make it on his own.”

  The pilot nodded. “Okay. Listen up. You two are going to strap him on the Stokes and haul him through the rocks and load him. We do it the first time or we’ll have to ride out this storm on the lake. Which will not be good for the patient.”

  “Eh, Pat?” called a deadpan voice on the radio. “Be advised. I’m looking out the hangar window and I can’t see the wind sock on the point.”

  “Outstanding,” the pilot replied.

  At one thousand feet the clouds were clotting fast, and down below the snow rippled like cheesecloth over the pine crowns and water. What had taken Broker and Allen a day of paddling and portaging to travel now buffeted past in minutes and they came up on Fraser. The pilot knew the lake, fixed the point, and flew straight for the spot that Broker had indicated on the map.

  Gray smoke smudged the snow and Broker figured Milt had dumped pine boughs on the fire. Then they saw Milt’s red parka jerking among the white turtles of rock, waving his good arm.

  Iker grabbed the stretcher as the Beaver hugged a tight turn and bumped down into the waves. Iker and Broker edged through the open hatch and balanced on the pontoon as the plane maneuvered toward shore.

  “Go. Go,” the pilot yelled, pumping his arm.

  They tried to step onto a rock but it wasn’t going to happen, so they jumped at the most solid-looking footing they could see, and both of them splashed up to their waists in the ice-cold water.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” gasped Iker, scrambling for shore.

  They sloshed through the waves and stumbled up the cobble beach. Milt, unshaven, gray with pain, walked stiffly out to them.

  “No water or food since midnight. He’s unconscious,” Milt yelled in the wind. “Thing is, the swelling went down an hour ago and the pain went away and he was feeling great—then he started screaming. Now he’s delirious, burning up.”

  “Aw God, it perforated,” Iker said.

  “C’mon,” Broker shouted. “He’s dying on us.”

  They stamped into the rocky cul-de-sac, swatting at the smoke and, grabbing Sommer, roughly shoved the stiff stretcher under the sleeping bag and buckled him down. Sommer woke up screaming.

  Ignoring the screams, they staggered back toward the plane with their clumsy load. Milt lurched ahead, tripping and falling in the surf until he made it to the aircraft and, using his strong good arm, pulled himself aboard.

  Knee-deep in the rocky wash, Broker’s legs buckled and Iker, on the back end, tripped. The sleeping bag took a wave, and now their load was heavier, soaked with water.

  They dropped him and barely managed to keep his head from going under but the screaming stopped. Sommer had passed out again. Broker and Iker locked eyes and were amazed that the brief exertion had sapped their energy, that they didn’t have the strength to lift the stretcher.

  But they had to.

  Desperate, they wrenched the weight through the rocks and waves and banged it on the pontoon. With Milt pulling one-handed, they managed to get the front of the stretcher into the tiny cargo bay.

  “Fucker’s too big,” Iker yelled, frantic. Sommer’s feet, swaddle
d in the soaked sleeping bag, dangled over the stretcher and bumped against the cockpit seats.

  “Wedge him any way you can, shut that hatch, we’re going,” the pilot ordered.

  Milt, Broker, and Iker worked in a frenzy with the stretcher, as the pilot banked into the wind and grabbed some sky with an impromptu aerodynamic magic trick. For a few minutes they bounced through turbulence, catching their breath, and then the calm voice on the radio said, “Pat, be advised, they’re getting heavy snow and ice—I say again—heavy snow and ice and sixty-plus wind gusts east of Lake Vermilion.”

  “Roger,” the pilot said. Then he yelled, “Map.” Iker held it at the ready.

  As the Beaver lurched at two thousand feet, Broker looked forward, between the tangled arms and legs, over the jittering dials and gauges on the console, out the window.

  God had been busy.

  God had built a solid, grayish-white churning wall all across the sky, and that wall was coming straight at them. Broker could see lakes and woods being vacuumed into its base.

  One eye on the forest disappearing in front of the oncoming blizzard and one eye on the map, the pilot shouted in the radio, “Closest place to land with road access is . . . ah, Snowbank. So. Okay. I’m going to drop into Snowbank ahead of this thing. Get a vehicle to the boat ramp. You got that?”

  “You’re diverting to Snowbank boat ramp. Lay on ground transport,” the radio voice said.

  “Right.” The pilot dropped the mike and yelled, “Hang on.”

  Everybody groaned as the Beaver pitched over into a steep dive and the pilot bent forward, very intent on the churning white wall.

  Broker was thrown nose to nose with Sommer’s corpselike face and Sommer’s eyes popped open as Iker, in the front, climbed his seat while Milt slowly moved his lips: “Holy Mary, Mother of God . . .”

  Their eyes were clamped shut and they were braced in the forty-five-degree dive, so they didn’t see the seething white wall break over the trees and chew inexorably into the western end of Snowbank Lake, as the Beaver leveled out and swooped down five, four, three feet off the waves, then skimmed the white caps, then bounced, rivets rattling, as it careened toward the boat ramp which was fast disappearing into the tempest, and they never saw the pilot smile as he cut the prop and coasted herky-jerky into the white churn.

  It sure beat flying those commercial cattle cars.

  Chapter Eight

  “Next stop’s the dock,” the pilot yelled. “I put her down upwind to try and drift into the sucker, so be ready to jump out and tie us off.”

  But Broker couldn’t see anything because the windscreen was plastered with snow as they bucked, blind, on the waves, and he was definitely swearing off small planes forever.

  And Iker was yelling into his police radio, “Sam, where the hell are you?”

  The radio shouted back, “Dave, I got you visual. We’re on the dock but it’s like looking through oatmeal.”

  “This guy’s looking real bad here.”

  “Hey, we’re lucky to get wheels turning. The Suburban broke down and I had to commandeer a vehicle. We got out fast as we could.”

  Milt lay curled in a ball with his face pasty as chalk, and was gripping his injured arm. Sommer hung from the stretcher straps. The pilot pointed to Milt. “There’s blankets in that aft compartment. Looks like we got some delayed shock there. And get the ropes.”

  Broker lifted the stretcher to open the compartment door and Sommer screamed and they all gritted their teeth because there was too much scream and not enough cabin. But Broker kept moving and got the blankets, covered Milt, and went back for the coils of rope. Then he turned to Sommer.

  “Hurts Jesus hurts,” Sommer said, rocking in his straps as the sweat popped and streaked his scalded face.

  “You’re going to be all right,” Broker said, and suddenly Sommer’s hand groped up and clutched Broker’s arm.

  “Tell Cliff . . .” Sommer muttered through clenched teeth and his eyes were wide-open yellow jets. Not seeing.

  “We gotta do something quick. He’s out of his head,” Broker yelled as he pried off Sommer’s fingers. Then, getting his voice under control, he tried to calm Sommer. “Okay, tell Cliff.”

  “Tell Cliff to move the money. Don’t let them . . .” Sommer reared on a needle of pain, licked his cracked lips, and blinked away sweat. “Gotta tell Cliff . . .”

  “What? Cliff who?”

  “Cliff Stovall.” Sommer collapsed back on his restraints.

  Broker rested his wrist on Sommer’s forehead and came away jolted by the clammy hot flesh. “C’mon. C’mon,” he shouted to Iker.

  “Working on it,” Iker yelled back. Then—“Oh shit!”

  They collided with something hard and as the rivets holding the plane together groaned, Broker flashed on the claustrophobic but also indignant vision of scuttling and drowning in a blizzard. Another violent crash shook Sommer awake, screaming. What? Had they lost a pontoon?

  “Bingo,” the pilot yelled triumphantly. “Quick, help me with the rope.” He clambered over the seat, tunneled through the crowded bodies, and grabbed the coils of rope. “Think fast. Move. Open the hatch.”

  They struggled with the door, pushed it open, and squinted into the blowing snow and saw that one of the pontoons had snagged on the deck and pilings of a boat dock.

  The pilot yelled, “C’mon, we gotta tie her down before we float away.”

  Two bundled figures waiting on the dock turned out to be a county deputy and a paramedic, a woman. They helped Broker, Iker, and the pilot struggle up onto the slippery planks, and they all commenced to fasten ropes to secure the plane.

  Broker concentrated and tied a bowline. He squinted at lights that hurt his eyes and realized he was staring into powerful low beams that showcased the churning snow. A huge maroon Chevy Tahoe with tire chains idled at the end of the dock.

  When the plane was anchored, they hauled Sommer and Milt up to the dock. The robust brunette paramedic took one look at Sommer and yelled, “C’mon, let’s get him in the truck.”

  The pilot accepted a thermos of coffee and, armed with a Louis L’Amour paperback, stayed with his plane. Everybody else piled in the Tahoe. As they plowed back toward Ely, Sommer screamed and writhed and drew his knees up to his chest at every bump and shift. After three tries, the medic gave up running the saline IV. Sommer just thrashed them out.

  Broker huddled in the back, wrapped in a blanket next to Milt, who made a cramped pile on the cargo floor beside Sommer. He sipped a sloshing cup of hot coffee gratefully, but he couldn’t shake off the bone-deep chill from his last dip in the glacier water. He shivered and figured it was a sign of getting old.

  Iker and a deputy sheriff the size of a pro wrestler hunched in the front seat. The way the windshield was catching snow it looked like Star Trek when the Enterprise accelerated to warp speed.

  “Get ready for a hot belly,” the paramedic shouted into her radio. “His pressure is one eighty over a hundred. Pulse is one twenty and he’s running a temp of a hundred and four.” She listened, rolled her eyes, and poked Iker in the shoulder. “ETA?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Iker said.

  “Make that one five minutes,” the paramedic said. Then she punched off the set and shook her head.

  “What?” Broker asked.

  “Procedure,” she said in a weary voice. “Obviously, the helicopter’s out from Duluth, so the administrator wants to throw him in an ambulance and put the ambulance behind a snowplow and ship him down the road to the nearest hospital where there’s a surgeon.”

  “In this weather? What about Falken, the surgeon who paddled out with me?” Broker asked.

  “They’re arguing about that right now. His license is current and they made some calls.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Broker asked.

  “Mike. The administrator. He wants to poll the hospital board before he signs off on surgical privileges. One of them’s in Florida.”

  Iker tur
ned from the front seat and glowered. “Yeah, bullshit! After all we been through, this fucking guy isn’t going to croak because of red tape.”

  “Hey. What the hell,” said the huge deputy behind the wheel. His name was Sam and he rolled his eyes. “It’s like these Yuppie jerks come up here and tell us how to live. They run up the real estate and open Starbucks and bean sprouts. They tell us where and how we can fish. They want to take our snowmobiles and rifles away. They love the wolves from Minneapolis or Chicago or wherever the fuck they live, never mind the fuckin’ wolves eat our dogs on our porches. Then, when they get their asses in a sling they expect us to hang our balls over the edge and pull them out. And who foots the bill for all the overtime? Them in their gated fuckin’ suburbs? No, we pay it out of our dwindling fuckin’ tax base.”

  Sam’s rant broke the tension in the Tahoe and they burst into deranged frontline mirth. The truck accelerated, slipped, and sideswiped a mass of overhanging spruce branches. The swerve brought them out of their laughing jag.

  “Where’d you get this beast, anyway?” Iker asked, suddenly realizing they weren’t in a county vehicle.

  Sam grinned. “Tell ’em, Shari.”

  The paramedic smiled. “The ambulance couldn’t handle the drifts. The Suburban was down and we saw this thing parked in front of Vertin’s Cafe, had the chains on and everything. So we went in and liberated it off this swampy from the Cities.”

  They were still wiping tears from their eyes when they saw the fluorescent glow of a deserted Amoco Station, and it looked like somebody left the door open to an empty freezer the way the lights burned white on white. Soon they glimpsed chimney smoke flapping over the rooftops of Ely like tattered sheets and abandoned cars loomed up, mired in knee-high drifts. Nothing moved except the Tahoe and the banshee wind and the reeling shadows of the trees.

  Finally they approached Miner Hospital, an obstinate red-brick relic of mining-company medicine that vanished and reappeared in whirlpools of snow. They came closer and saw a bright orange wind sock whipped out rigid as metal sculpture from a corner of the flat roof. And a double garage door opened and the Tahoe lurched inside and the doors closed.