Patriot
Page 6
“Here she is. We got a brand new Garmin SL 40 radio, GTX 320A transponder, 296 GPS with panel mount, and a satellite radio dock in her, so you should be all set. We got jump seats in the back too, case you need space for extra cargo.”
Dex tossed his one bag into the cockpit and, gripping the spar, swung up into the seat with the ease of long practice. Jake nodded approval, but paused as Dex looked over the controls, as though debating whether to say something. The moment stretched, then, as Dex looked up, and Jake appeared to lose an inner battle and spoke again.
“It’s pretty lonely country, up at Tasasiuk. It’s not the bears that you need worry about so much - although there are plenty of them this time of year- it’s the isolation. Nothing but trees and water. And about a billion bugs. People have been known to get lost, and...”
“Die. Yeah, I know. It’s what I’m hoping to prevent.”
The bumpiness of the water beneath the floats magnified Dex’s sense of speed as the little plane raced toward the trees at the end of the lake. They seemed impossibly close to Dex, who had never flown in such rugged conditions before. Only 65 mph...70...75... then, almost imperceptibly, the ride became smoother as the floats left the lake, the trees fell away and only lightness remained. The sound of the engine settled into a quiet, rhythmic hum as the plane climbed into the strengthening sun, its wings tilted until the inconsequential ground lay crooked in the corner of Dex’s eye.
He turned the nose of the little Cessna due north and checked the instruments. The skies had cleared and below, a dozen small lakes - ponds, he’d heard them called here - glittered in the sunlight, like teardrops on the face of the endless dark forest.
After a while, Dex started to relax. The forest remained unchanging far below, and a shimmering far to the east suggested the ocean. Leaning over slightly, Dex pulled a crumpled email printout from the top of his bag and glanced at it, keeping one eye on the instruments. He knew the words almost by heart, but he could still barely believe it. And it still made him angry.
Honey,
I’m afraid I have some news. I don’t want you to worry too much - your father is doing enough of that for all of us - but we haven’t heard from Kyle in a while. A little too long, even for him. The last time we spoke, he talked about using the money from Aunt Myrtle’s will to stake a claim in some corner of northern Canada. He said they were flying out two weeks after Labor Day in Max’s beat-up old plane, just for a few days prospecting. But we haven’t heard from him since. The RCMP has flown over the area he was supposed to be in and there’s no sign of them, or the plane. We don’t know what to do for the best....
Dex sighed and crumpled the paper, throwing it into the seats behind him. Wasn’t that just typical of Kyle? He’ll be sitting in some bar in a one-horse town right now, Dex thought, no money and no sign of nickel or whatever it was he was looking for, either. Yet something inside Dex said this time it was different. This was too much, even for his impulsive, thoughtless little brother. And that was why he was in the cockpit of a rental plane several thousand miles from where he should be, in his observatory.
“Damn it.” Dex whispered and banked to the right until Tasasiuk Lake came into view. He had to put this baby down in one piece.
The moment he turned off the engine, the silence surged back like a living thing. The roar of the machine was still loud in his head, and it took Dex a few moments outside the cockpit to pick up the murmur of a dozen different sounds: the call of a loon, the whisper of a breeze through the trees, the lap of his own wake against the half-rotten logs that passed for a landing ramp. Tasisuak was used occasionally by the kind of sport fishermen who had shared his flight over from Halifax. They came for the arctic char and brown trout, but there would be none around today.
With one eye on the sky, Dex checked the plane’s lines and jumped onto the strip of sand along the bank. He didn’t have much time, and he wanted to make camp before night fell. Reaching into his carryall, Dex pulled out a large-scale map showing the lake, and spread it on a boulder. The location of his brother’s claim had been marked for him by the concerned staff of the provincial Geological Survey Office. It lay above the lake, running north along the valley towards Umiakovik Lake, and if the plane wasn’t here, it must be there. The boys, he figured, could be anywhere in between.
Checking his watch, Dex pulled out a small daypack from the carryall, packed with food, a machete, a fishing kit and other essentials. The bug repellent he snapped open, spreading the DEET over his face, hands and wrists. The bugs on the lakeshore were bad enough, but inside the forest they would devour him.
He could wander forever through the valley, he knew, and not find any sign of Kyle and Max. But further up the hill the ground was harder, the view better and the trees, already stunted at this latitude, were sparse.
It was hot work nonetheless and, after slashing a path through the willows around the lake and up through the spruce, Dex halted to take a gulp from his water bottle. He was three quarters up the hill and the valley lay below, thick and dark, the forest broken by areas of tundra and little ponds, making the going down there impossible.
Nothing moved except an eagle, which keened a lonely cry as it swept overhead .He shivered suddenly, despite the heat. This was some wild country.
After a long night lying awake listening to the night forest and worrying about bears, Dex welcomed the sun as it finally peeped through the trees. He gratefully poured water over the ashes of his small fire, threw his one-man tent into the cockpit and was in the air before the sky had scarcely started to turn from the white of dawn to blue.
“C’mon Kyle, where are you?” he murmured as the little plane swooped low over the valley. Dex searched the ground for any sign of his missing brother: bright fabric, the glint of metal from a crashed plane, a flash of glass in the sunlight. Nothing.
“Right, Umiakovik it is,” he muttered, and he circled around again, rising up to a line of hills that gradually grew into the mountains marking the sharp northern corner of this wilderness.
A small lake came into view ahead, lying beyond a fold in the land. That must be it, he thought. Focused on his mission, it took a moment for the sudden quiet to register. The engine coughed twice, and then all Dex could hear was the wind; the engine had cut out. There was no stall warning, in fact no warning lights of any kind, but there was no mistake; the entire avionics panel flatlined and every single instrument in the plane was dead.
Swallowing his immediate panic, Dex fought to stay in control and remember his flight training. Lesson number 1: Keep it together. His eyes flicked from oil pressure to fuel gauge to power in less than a heartbeat and nothing moved—unlike the plane, which was losing altitude. Fast.
Dex did a quick calculation. He had flown up to 1000 ft to cross a high ridgeline, so he was too close to the ground to try an engine re-start. It would have to be a landing. The little Cessna’s nose began to drop, the lake getting closer every moment. It was his only chance. Dex forgot to be scared, as his old flight instructor’s voice came into his head.
“Get it in a proper glide; the plane wants to fly, so do it right and she’ll land herself....”
Using all his strength, Dex tried to maintain the aircraft’s glide by pulling back on the stick. If he could hold up her nose, he could keep the speed steady, setting her down as gently as possible on the water and not the land.
Land. Oh, God. The trees.
He had less than 40 seconds left in the air when he noticed birds flying in crazy, squawking circles below.
Great, all I need now is a bird strike, said a voice in a part of his brain, the same part that failed to notice the single spike of a long-dead fir rising several feet above the canopy. As Dex’s plane rushed towards the glitter of water, the tree seemed to reach up toward it and smashed in one of the floats. The force of the impact made the plane swing crazily and Dex gave an involuntary yell as he fought, using his entire body to keep her airborne and not get dragged into a dive.
A view of the lake now filled the windshield, flat and hard and coming up much too fast. A smear of dark red away to the right caught Dex’s eye for a millisecond, before the plane smacked onto the water with an almost human shriek. For a long moment, she stayed upright, surfing through foam, the mangled float at least keeping her from tipping over immediately. The skid seemed to go on forever to Dex, who, blinded by spray, could barely tell if he was under the water or above it.
Finally, the plane started to slow, when there was a tremendous crunch, which Dex guessed was the damaged float finally tearing off. With that stability gone, the Cessna dragged in a wide circle to the left, out into the middle of the lake, where she flipped over onto her damaged side.
Dex’s head hit the glass and he almost passed out, but as the cockpit started to fill with icy water, the pain bought him back to woozy consciousness. As the water rose quickly up the windshield, Dex tried to unclip the harness, but his numbed fingers struggled to find the catch and it took a few seconds for him to realize it was because the fuselage had buckled over it. The same red he had noticed a moment before the crash filled the last few inches of windshield, and reflected down into the water.
“A canoe. It’s a canoe.” Dex clung to this hope, struggling to hold his breath as the cold water rose up across his face. Unable to deny himself air any longer, Dex involuntarily inhaled a gulp of water. Then twice more, as his body convulsed, trying to get oxygen to his heaving lungs.
He struggled desperately for another minute, and then he became curiously detached from the urgency for air, for life, and floated into unconsciousness. He didn’t see his side window being smashed in by a paddle, or a large knife cut his harness. The weightless immersion granted by the water made it easier for the canoeist to pull his limp body through the side window just as the plane rolled over, and with a last frenzy of air bubbles, it sank into the cold, gloomy depths of the lake.
Chapter 8
Dragging the man out of the wrecked plane almost overturned Brooke’s canoe. It was fortunate, she thought as she tried to haul his lifeless body over the gunwale, that her camping gear was still on the shore and the canoe empty. Yet getting him into the little craft as quickly as possible demanded so much brute strength, Brooke yelled with frustration each time he slipped from her grasp, or the canoe almost tipped over. Freezing water poured onto her with each attempt, but she was aware that every passing second could mean the difference between life and death for the stranger.
Brooke closed her eyes.
“Now or never,” she whispered and, bracing herself on the floor of the canoe, she took a firm grip of the man’s shirt and belt buckle and with gritted teeth, pulled steadily. The canoe was on its side, the gunwale just inches from the water, and the muscles in her arms and back burned with the strain, but Brooke won the battle and his weight finally tipped forward. The man flopped into the canoe like a large, dead fish, water cascading off him.
Deftly, she checked to see if the man had a pulse. By some miracle, he did, but it was faint, and he wasn’t breathing.
“Dammit.” Brooke quickly dropped him flat on the floor of the canoe. There wasn’t time to get to shore, but a big, stable trekking canoe has a lot of space. Brooke leaned forward and, placing her mouth across his cold lips, blew steadily. Once, then twice. Nothing. She checked his pulse. It was still there, but weak and slow.
“C’mon.” She tried again. On her second breath, there was a flicker in the man’s eyes, a gag, and Brooke flipped him onto his side in time for him to cough up what seemed like gallons of water. As he retched and gasped for air, the canoe rocked from side to side.
“Steady, now,” she told him as she scrambled to the stern and began to paddle hard. “Just a couple of minutes and we’ll be on the bank.”
By the time her canoe bumped against the small patch of sand where she was camped, the man was struggling to sit up.
“Stay still.” She jumped out and splashed up to the bow, then hauled the canoe a couple of feet onto the beach, lashing the end of a rope from the gunwale to a small willow twenty feet away. The man half-stood, but wobbled, and her bare brown arm held him under his shoulders, steadying him as he stepped out of the canoe. She led him over to a large boulder, where he sat down.
“Now, strip,” she told him, and she turned and struck a match, holding it to a waiting pile of tinder. Blowing gently, she coaxed the small flames to catch and glanced over her shoulder at the man, who was sitting as she left him, looking stunned.
“Get those clothes off or you’ll die.” Brooke focused again on the fire, which was now beginning to blaze cheerfully. Comprehension seemed to seep slowly into the man’s mind and he tried to unbutton his shirt, but his fingers were those of someone else - someone very cold - and he pawed uselessly at the shirt. Brooke turned to him and without a word pulled the shirt over his head and threw a towel across his shoulders, before kneeling and unlacing his boots.
It was no more than a minute or two before the man was naked, except for the towel, which Brooke briskly rubbed across his back as the fire began to arm his front.
“There.” She stepped back, satisfied with her handiwork. “Try these for now.” She rummaged in a canoe pack and threw a fleecy top and some baggy combat pants at him. His own clothes were already beginning to steam by the fire.”Coffee?”
“Thanks.” The word croaked out, surprising him into another coughing fit as he pulled on the clothes. They would be too short at the wrists, Brooke thought, but comfortingly warm and dry. She poured boiling water from a pot into a battered tin mug and added some dried milk, followed by three teaspoons of sugar.
“Drink this.”
He took it, wincing as the heat from the tin mug seared into his cold hands.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“I’m Brooke, Brooke Kinley. But you’re the one who dropped out of the sky. Why don’t we start with who the hell are you?”
“Dexter Adams, but anyone who saves my life gets to call me Dex.” He held out a still-shaky hand. “And I am really really happy to meet you, Ms. Kinley.”
Brooke smiled back and shook his hand, noting with a mixture of relief and pleasure that his grip was firm and his blue eyes were coming back to life.
“What happened out there?” She nodded at the now calm lake, where there was no hint a small plane had recently crashed into its shimmering surface.
Dex shook his head and took a few slow sips from the mug. Brooke nodded, acknowledging that he needed time, and made herself a drink, then sat on a rock, waiting.
Eventually, Dex said “I don’t know. Everything just went dead, engine, radio, battery, all of it. I had to fight to keep her in a glide long enough to reach the lake. Nearly pulled it off, too, but I caught one of the floats on some old dead tree and it broke off when I hit the water. Next thing, I’m in your canoe. I’m sure glad there’s so much water around up here.” Brooke noticed there was something of a Southern drawl to Dex’s voice. It was subtle, but it was there.
She shaded her eyes and looked out across the lake. “You were damn lucky to make it.”
“I think I saw you just before I hit the water.”
“Yes, I pushed out the canoe as soon as I realized you were going down.”
“That was brave - I could have hit you.”
“I stayed close to the shore until I saw the plane slow...and then paddled like crazy. Lucky for you I’m here. This - “ she looked around at the endless low forested hills, and the wide horizon in every direction - “This is not the busiest part of the country.”
“Apart from the bugs.” Dex slapped his neck and looked with disgust at the blood on his fingers. “How big are these mosquitoes?”
“Out here? Pretty big. But they aren’t the ones you need to watch out for. The blackfly are worse. Tiny, but with a massive bite. It’ll itch like mad, too. Take this.
” Brooke tossed a bottle of repellent over the fire and was pleased to see he caught it.
“Get some rest, that freezing water will have taken more out of you than you realize.”
Several hours later, Brooke was watching the sun set into the hills beyond the lake when she glanced up at the tent and saw that her new companion was awake. How long had he been staring at her through the netting, she wondered? Brooke was a courageous woman, but she wasn’t reckless, or naive, and they were a long way from anywhere.
“Feel like something to eat? I think your clothes are dry.” She plucked the shirt and pants from their sticks next to the fire and pushed them into the tent. “They’re kinda smoky though.” She turned away as he struggled into them. “And guess what floated to the surface?”
“What?”
“Your pack. I paddled out for it while you were asleep and dried it off so you have your stuff...or some of it at least, I guess. Was there much else in the plane?”
“Not much. Thanks.” Dex crawled out of the tent with some difficulty. He moved like an old man, which he clearly wasn’t. She handed him a bowl of stew and he sat down and began to eat.
Brooke watched him, her own plate finished, a mug of coffee in her hand. He couldn’t be much older than 37, 38, she thought, but he was no wilderness expert, that much was obvious. Not a fisherman or hunter, either. Those hands didn’t look like they did any rough work, and despite his athletic physique, there was a gentleness about him, a lack of machismo. He seemed like a man more likely to shoot with a camera than with a gun. At least she hoped so. So what was he doing out there alone? The reporter in her wanted to ask a dozen questions, but she bit her tongue and let him eat.