Did he see me watching him?
“How many kids do you want?” he said.
He was still scanning their vicinity. Jules exhaled. Even so, she couldn’t get the image of his naked body out of her head. Her mind raced.
Where had that come from? I’m hardly divorced. Logan is my best friend.
A pang of guilt shot through her as well.
That’s all I need–to actually do the thing I’ve been accused of.
The plane dipped suddenly and then rose and she realized she’d just been staring into space. There was another bump and then another.
She checked the wings and then looked at Logan.
“Turbulence underneath this cloud layer,” he said calmly.
“Are we going to be able to get to Lumby?” she asked.
Of course, it wasn’t actually Lumby where they were headed. It was a grass strip at a farm between Lumby and the end of Mabel Lake. But the farm owner allowed the use of it–and also his home for the flu clinic–in exchange for the convenience of not having to travel for medical attention.
It was important to get to as many rural communities as possible. Avian flu was spreading at an alarming rate. No one wanted to use the word epidemic–nor was it really warranted yet–but there were a few patients in particular she was worried about. Even the more remote areas were being hit this season.
Suddenly, Logan pushed hard on the yoke and steered right. The identical controls in front of her mirrored his movements as something flashed by in front of the windshield. Only the shoulder harness kept her in the seat, as she clutched at the arm rest on the door. The binder levitated off her lap and, as gravity disappeared, Jules screamed.
• • • • •
The plane was in a shallow dive but there was plenty of altitude. Logan gave it some left rudder, leveled the wings and slowly pulled back on the yoke. Though they’d changed course, they were flying straight and level.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
He swung the right wing up and looked out Jules’ window. The departing aircraft was heading up into the cloud layer.
“Probably never even saw us,” he said.
And from this angle, there was no way to see the tail identifier. As he watched, they disappeared into the mist.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
Logan swung the left wing up, and then the right, to check the airspace above them. Then he did the usual box scan, clearing the sky in his vicinity. Only then did he look at Jules.
Her right hand gripped the armrest and her left hand the edge of the seat. She was staring out the windshield which, moments ago, was filled with the sight of the ground coming up at them. She seemed frozen.
“Hey,” he said. “We’re okay.”
She didn’t move. He reached out and put his hand on hers.
“Jules?”
She jumped and turned to stare at his face. He looked into her wide eyes.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re all right.”
“What happened?” she gasped, blinking.
“That was a near midair,” he said.
“
What?
” she exclaimed.
“I don’t think they ever saw us.”
“Oh my god,” she said. “Where did they come from?”
“Good question,” he said. “Let’s take a look.”
He banked into a steep, forty-five degree left turn and looked directly down at the ground.
“Let’s not,” Jules yelled.
Logan had just spotted a small, uncontrolled airstrip but smoothly rolled out of the turn. Jules was still gripping the armrest and seat.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s not.”
After all the hours in the cockpit together, he’d started to take for granted that she was used to the plane. But he’d always been careful to keep the turns at thirty degrees or less, often only fifteen degrees, nice and easy. She wasn’t used to steep turns and certainly not collision avoidance.
He scanned the sky and looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to yell.”
Even through the headset, her voice was strained.
“Hey,” he said, putting his hand over hers again. “Don’t be sorry. We’ve spent so much time in the air, I sometimes forget you’re not the co-pilot.” He smiled at her and he watched as she tried to smile back. “No more tricky maneuvers.” He checked his watch, their compass heading, altitude and the landscape below. “I’ll file a report when we get back to Chilliwack.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Are you all right?” He felt her squeeze back and she nodded. “Good,” he said.
And it was good that they had to land two more times today and do another takeoff. When someone’s had a scare, it was best to get back in the seat and not let fear settle in. Though he couldn’t hear it, he saw Jules take a deep breath and she let go of the arm rest. He let her hand go as she reached down to the floor to pick up the map and binder. He adjusted their heading to bring them back on course but what he saw ahead wasn’t good.
In the few minutes it’d taken to recover from the near collision, the weather to the south had changed.
“Lumby will have to wait,” he said.
“What?” she said, sitting up and looking at him. She checked out her window and his. “Is there damage?”
“No,” he said, as he put the plane into a gentle one-eighty, swinging the nose to the left. He nodded toward her side of the plane. “But that weather is going to be a problem.”
The cloud mass had become thick and black and the ceiling had dropped at least a thousand feet. As the weather moved to their starboard, he saw lightning flash and heard it crackle over the headset. Rain began to spatter the windshield but it quickly turned to hail. His hand immediately went to the carburetor heater, pushed it on, and then he twisted the throttle counterclockwise to thin the fuel mixture.
“Is the lightning a problem?” Jules asked, looking out her window.
Logan began a gradual descent.
“No,” he said, truthfully. “Lightning strikes planes thousands of times a year. The metal surface of the skin acts like a cage so it rarely affects aircraft operations or the people inside.”
What he didn’t say was where there was lightning, there was also an unstable air mass. Combined with the hail, it meant thunderheads were towering thousands of feet above them. Only the enormous up and down drafts of a tall cumulus cloud could create ice. It was nowhere for a small plane to be. They needed to get away from those clouds–fast.
Suddenly, hail crashed around them in a white sheet and the plane plummeted.
• • • • •
“Wind shear!” Jules heard Logan say.
Though he hadn’t screamed, the strain in his voice was unlike anything she’d ever heard from him. The plane was being buffeted from side to side and the wings were flexing as though it was trying to fly.
“Full throttle,” he said.
He shoved the throttle forward and yanked back on the yoke. Even over the headset she could hear the whine of the engine and the knuckles on Logan’s hands were white with the effort to keep a grip on the wheel. Some of the dials on the dash were spinning crazily.
“Not enough altitude,” he ground out through his clenched jaw.
Outside, the hail had turned back into a sheet of rain that smeared across the windshield and whipped by their windows in streaking rivulets. Lightning flashed somewhere off to the left as the headset hissed.
Logan was checking left and right and trying to look over the nose of the plane. That’s what he did when he was landing!
Oh my god!
“There it is,” he grunted.
His right hand flicked to the radio and flipped a few dials.
“Squawking 7700,” he muttered.
Then his hand flew back to the wheel as he continued to tug backwards.
“Soft field,” he grunted.
Suddenly, the trees were flying by in the window to Logan’s left. With the nose of the aircraft so high, it was impossible for Jules to see over it. Out her window, they were below the level of the tree tops. How were they not crashing into the trees?
“Brace for impact!” he yelled. “Chin down!”
Jules complied but not soon enough as the plane’s rapid descent suddenly bottomed out. Her chin hit her chest as her head snapped forward with the jolt and the headset flew off. A loud banging sound came from the back of the plane but then they were airborne again.
“Hold on!” Logan yelled.
The plane came down a second time and Logan killed the throttle. Even as the propeller windmilled to a near stop in front of her, the landscape continued to rush by in a blur. They bounced chaotically, the sound of the vibration deafening. Suddenly, an explosion rocked her side of the plane. As it dipped to the right, the last thing Jules saw was her window rapidly approaching.
“We lost a tire!” Logan yelled but he continued to stomp on the top of the left rudder for the brake.
As the right strut ate into the ground, the right wing dipped down.
“Not the wing,” he ground out through his clenched jaw but there was nothing he could do.
Although he still gripped the yoke, it was useless without lift. Momentum and the brake in the left tire were the only things determining their trajectory. But the high wings carried the fuel and if they hit–
A different time and place flashed into his mind. The tires of the CC-130 had shredded on impact and the giant plane had started to skid sideways. His copilot was already dead, hit by the brunt of the shrapnel. He would later learn the plane had been hit simultaneously by two rocket propelled grenades as it’d made its final approach. It’d been a miracle that it hadn’t exploded on impact.
An explosion on his side of the Cessna brought Logan to the present. The left tire was gone. Logan felt his chest hit the harness and the back of the plane lifted.
No, don’t flip!
He pressed back in his seat as though that might help and for a few moments the plane hovered in nearly a vertical position, tail high in the air and the propeller touching the ground. He stared at grass through the windshield for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, though, the tail rotated back toward the ground. The small back wheel thudded down and the plane finally came to a rest.
Chest heaving, Logan finally released his grip on the yoke. He turned off the engine, removed the keys, and hit the red master switch.
“Jules, are you–”
Her arms hung limp at her sides and her head was resting against her window. A bright red trickle of blood slid down the glass.
“
Dammit
,” he muttered as he wrenched his harness off and threw open the door. He jumped to the ground as his right knee responded with a sharp stab of pain.
In the CC-130, he’d immediately crawled to Wick but, as he reached him, he saw his face. Eyes still open, the right hand side of his head was a pulpy mess. Glittering pieces of metal and glass were imbedded everywhere. Part of a small green circuit board protruded from his neck.
“Jules!” Logan yelled, as he opened her door and she slumped outward as far as the harness would let her.
Her eyes were closed and blood ran from a gash above her right eyebrow. He quickly felt her neck for a pulse and finally found one. As he unhooked the harness, he was careful not to let her fall. Already stooped over to fit under the wing, especially now the tires were gone, he bent even lower and scooped her out of the seat. He hadn’t smelled fuel but they needed to get a safe distance away from the crash.
As he cleared the wing, he stood up and ran for the edge of the forest. Whether it was Jules’ light weight or the adrenalin coursing through his system, it didn’t matter. In moments, they were in the forest. The plane had come to rest with little room to spare. A collision with the trees would almost certainly have meant a fire.
Gently, he laid her down next to a large tree trunk, and realized her face was wet with rain.
“Jules?”
Her lips were parted, her eyes closed, and she didn’t move. He bent down over her nose and mouth and heard her light breaths. He took off his leather jacket and laid it over her torso. More than likely the blow to the head had knocked her unconscious and she’d soon wake up–at least he hoped so. He lightly smoothed her hair away from the gash and ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek, brushing away the rain. As much as he wanted to stay with her and make sure she was all right, he knew there was important work to do as his survival training took over.
“Never say die,” he said to her.
He stood and his right knee twinged but he ignored it.
As he trotted back to the plane, he thought of the emergency locator transmitter or ELT and also his 7700 transmission. The broadcast had been brief but hopefully someone had picked it up. If not, then the ELT ought to bring SAR, search and rescue. He ducked under the wing and out of the rain. Unfortunately, search aircraft wouldn’t be leaving the ground until the storm had passed. Nor would they mount any operations in the dark. He looked back toward Jules. They would be spending the night. At least he knew the plane was outfitted with a good emergency kit. He’d prepared it himself.
He went to the baggage door, toward the tail, and used the keys to open it. He grabbed the red duffle bag and also Jules’ doctor’s bag from the back seat and ran back to the forest. As he did, he noted the airstrip. That was indeed what it was. When he’d briefly tried to see where that Piper Super Cub had come from, he’d glimpsed it. In reality, he’d seen it on virtually every flyover they’d done. As he reached Jules and set down the two bags, he briefly surveyed the surroundings. The forest was thick and the ground sloped down and away from their position. In order for the strip behind him to exist, trees had to have been cut down and stumps removed. Large rocks had been removed as well. Though small, the runway had not been an easy thing to construct.
“Or maintain,” he muttered.
If the presence of the Piper Super Cub hadn’t told him it was in active use, the good state of it did. It wasn’t on any sectional maps though. It was private. And there was only one reason to have a private strip in the middle of the mountains and the forest–drugs.
• • • • •