The Blue Edge of Midnight (10 page)

It took another twenty minutes to get him out. My rib cage screamed. Part of me was glad the big man was out cold. At least he couldn’t consciously feel the pain of his broken femur as I jerked him out onto the wing. He groaned only once and I saw his eyes roll up. I bent my face to his mouth and felt the whisper of breath on my cheek. Still breathing. I sat, resting and trying to figure out my next move.

“OK, Fred. What’s next?” I said out loud. If I was taking him, it had to be a joint effort. If I wanted him to live, I had to convince myself he could. I knew that if I didn’t believe it, I’d give up.

I stood and took another bearing on the fading roofline of the fish camp and tried to imagine the route in my head. Once we were down in the sawgrass there’d be no sight line. The straight edge of the wing pointed just to the right of the building, about fifteen degrees off. I could use that at first.

I eased myself down at the crook of the wing and the fuselage and onto the matted sawgrass. The footing was shaky, but I sank only knee deep into water. But when I stepped away from the flattened grass I was suddenly up to my waist. The bottom felt slick and doughy and sucked at my Reeboks when I took a step. I’d never be able to drag Gunther through this. I stood there, warm water filling my jeans, staring down at the water and grinding. The grass was my enemy. Could I avoid it? No. The muck was my enemy. Could I avoid it? No. The water and Gunther’s weight were my enemy.

Float him, I thought. It was the only way.

Would a plane this size have a raft? Doubtful. And I hadn’t seen anything that resembled a life vest in the cockpit. I worked my way back to the fuselage and found the handle to the side compartment where
I’d
seen Gunther rummaging when I first pulled up at his hangar. The recessed handle twisted out and I popped the door and wrenched it open. Inside the space was dark and I had to reach in and start pulling out whatever I could reach: a rolled-up length of canvas tarpaulin, some fishing gear, a sleeping bag jammed deep in one corner, and a large zippered black bag with a U.S. Diver’s logo on the side.

I hesitated only a second to look at the new cream-colored canvas tarp, then pulled the bag into the opening and unzipped it. A mask and snorkel, a breathing regulator and mouthpiece, a set of huge fins, a sleeveless wetsuit top and the piece of luck I was hoping for, a buoyancy compensator.

“You’re a scuba diver, Fred,” I said aloud. Gunther probably ferried clients down the Keys, where the only living coral reefs in the continental U.S. lay just off shore.

I’d
seen the guys from rescue-and-recovery use scuba equipment in Philadelphia, watched them slip down the banks of the Delaware River one morning in their slick black wetsuits and ease themselves into the water looking for the remains of a homicide victim. Strapped across their chests and attached to the air tanks were buoyancy compensators, inflatable vests that they could fill with air or empty out, to keep them afloat or let them dive.

I took the vest and wetsuit out of Fred’s bag and climbed back onto the wing.

“OK, Fred. We’re going on a hike, man. Help me out with this and I promise we’re gonna make it.”

I checked Gunther’s pulse. Maybe I was kidding myself, but it seemed stronger. I wrestled his arms into the vest and clipped it over his chest. I found a stem labeled “manual inflate” and started blowing. My ribs screeched twice with each breath, when I sucked in air and when I blew it out. Ten minutes of pain got it done.

I then took up the wetsuit jacket and slipped it under the big man’s broken thigh. Looking for something to wrap it with, I stripped off the pilot’s belt. Attached to it was a leather scabbard. I unsnapped it and took out his knife. The blade was small and oddly curved but was so sharp it sliced easily through the rubber and cloth of the wetsuit. I trimmed it and then cinched it around the leg using the belt to secure it. I was cutting the corded shoestrings from his boots to help tie the jacket when I fumbled the knife and it plunked into the water below and out of sight. I cursed its loss for no apparent reason.

“OK, Fred. Moment of truth, my friend.”

I pulled the big man to the crook of the fuselage and let his legs dangle. I got back down into the water and with both feet planted on the matted sawgrass, inched Gunther off the wing and let him slide down my chest and thighs and into the water. I laid him out. The inflated vest kept his massive chest up. Even the wrapped rubberized wetsuit seemed to float his injured leg some.

By now we’d lost most of the light. The sky had gone dusky and a few early stars had already popped. My night eyes had adjusted and the white plane held a slight glow. I took a bearing on the wing edge, fifteen degrees, and stepped deeper into the water.

“Just like a night paddle, Fred,” I said, looking at Gunther’s pale face. “Let’s muscle through.”

I don’t know how much time passed. We were in hell on earth. You can’t keep track of eternity.

Every step into the grass wall was a process. I would sweep at the high, saw-toothed blades with one arm and try to find some half-solid purchase with my forward foot. Then, with my left hand gripped on the shoulder strap of the inflatable vest, I would pull Gunther forward and try to plant another foot in the muck below. I was sweating before we started and three steps into the wall the mosquitoes began to swarm around my face and arms. I could feel them in my hair, knew that the few I splattered with a swat on my neck were instantly replaced. They were so thick I drew an occasional group into my mouth with a breath. I would flail at them with my free hand. Then sweep the grass, move the foot, yank Gunther forward eighteen inches, move the other foot, flail the insects, and begin again. Early on I stumbled and fell, going under over my head in the water and discovered it gave at least a few seconds of relief from the mosquitoes, so I took to voluntarily dunking my head every few steps. Oddly, the insects didn’t seem to light on Gunther. Maybe they could sense the odor of imminent death. Maybe the stink of my own sweat and animal oils drew them away from him.

I checked the pilot’s pulse. Still there.

“Stay with me, buddy. Work with me,” I said, then swept the grass, moved the foot, yanked him forward…

I quickly lost sight of the plane. I thought I could establish a line and then use my own created trail to keep it straight. But once we were enclosed in grass and darkness it was impossible to know if we were making headway toward the camp or skewing off to either side. Above me the first few stars had multiplied into a thousand and twice my heart jumped when a breeze momentarily split the grass and a beam of light seemed to flash through. I thought it was a search light at first, only to realize it was a low moon starting to climb the eastern sky, sending its beams flickering through the Glades. I kept moving.

The night was pulling the warmth out of the water. My legs were cold as it leached away body heat. I tried to concentrate but was losing focus. Gunther had groaned a couple of times when I yanked at the flotation vest. He was slipping in and out. At times the water was so shallow I was able to get good footing and fall forward to gain three feet. In deeper water every lunge brought us less than one. I tried counting the pulls, closing my eyes to concentrate on twenty pulls, then resting, then doing twenty more. As I weakened the moon came full into view above the grass, hanging in the air like a soiled silver dollar. The pain in my ribs became a dull mass. I could no longer feel the razor cuts on my arms and face from the sharp sawgrass. I reduced my pulls to ten at a time between resting.

I tried to think of the paddling, the rhythm and strokes of the canoe. I tried to think of running, pushing through the ache, and then cussed myself for putting in three miles this morning and how that strength could have helped me now. I tried to use the stars as some kind of guide to keep a straight course. I’d lost count of the pulls long ago.

I’d quit sweating but couldn’t remember why that was a bad thing. I’d lost any sense of the mosquitoes and then cut my pulls to five at a time and quit talking to Gunther. I thought, more than a couple of times, of leaving the pilot behind.

I was giving up when I swung my arm into the grass again and the back of my hand thunked into something solid. The pain seemed to snap a few brain cells alive.

A piling, I thought, prying my other hand from a cramp-locked grip on Gunther and then using both to feel the squared pole in front of me. I reached up and touched the wood like a blind man. There was a platform above that sloped down in the opposite direction like some sort of ramp. I yanked Gunther around. I got a step up onto solid wood and dragged his chest out of the water. Once he was secure I crawled up the planks toward the moon.

We’d hit the camp off to the south at a short boat ramp that must be used to drag up canoes or skiffs. In the moonlight the weathered wood of the structure glowed like dull bone and the surrounding horizon of sawgrass took on the color of ash. I stumbled along the dock, my legs stiff and barely holding. At the main cabin the door to one side was unlocked and it swung open on crusted hinges.

Inside it was darker, but like in my own shack, I could make out shapes of a table and bunks against one wall. I found a slick blue rain tarp folded on top of an old trunk and carried it back outside to where Gunther lay. He groaned again when I pulled him onto the flattened tarp.

“Bedtime, Fred,” I said, and then twisted two corners together and somehow dragged him up the ramp and into the cabin. Inside I pulled a mattress from one bed to the floor and after deflating the vest and prying him out of it, I rolled the pilot onto the mattress and covered him with every blanket I could reach.

I finally sat on the edge of the bunk, breathing hard and shallow as if only half of my lungs were working. I was caked with mud from the crotch down. A filmy mixture of blood and water covered my arms. My face felt swollen from the insect bites.

Moonlight was pouring through an old-style four-pane window. Gunther’s face was turned up to the ceiling. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. I stared at the spot on his neck where a pulse would be but I could not move myself to it. I didn’t even feel myself fall back into the bed.

I could feel the helicopter blades, more than hear them, a whumping of air that rattled the wood walls around me. In my half dream I could feel the knock of boots on hardwood floors, the hard steps vibrating into my cracked ribs and curiously tickling the bone.

I could feel the words, sharp and urgent medical terms jumping out of men’s mouths, and then I was rising up out of warm water. Up out of pain. I’d spent enough time in hell. It was time to leave.

CHAPTER 10

W
hen I woke up the stiff coolness of the sheets was against my legs and chest so I raised my right hand and it went to the left side of my neck. There were no bandages this time, only the smooth dime-sized scar. I was in a hospital bed but I had not dreamed eighteen months in Florida.

I tried to open my eyes but the lids felt like they were stuck with a dry, cracked paste and when I finally forced them, it felt like sandpaper scraping across my corneas. Billy Manchester was standing at the end of the bed, his arms folded across his chest.

“Good m-morning, Max.”

I blinked a few more times and tried to swallow but couldn’t find any moisture in my cheeks.

“Counselor,” I finally croaked.

“Y-You are alive.”

The reassurance was a light attempt at humor, but I wasn’t sure how close to reality.

“Was there any doubt?”

“I wasn’t here w-when they brought you in. But d-dehydration and exposure are d-dangerous conditions.”

“How long?”

“You w-were in and out of c-consciousness most of yesterday and 1-last night,” Billy said, pouring a glass of water from a bedside pitcher and putting in a straw before telling the story.

When I hadn’t showed up at his tower by late Saturday night and he couldn’t get an answer on the cell phone or at Gunther’s office, Billy had called the sheriff’s office. When he told them of my planned meeting with Gunther, they patched him in with a search-and-rescue unit that was already working reports that Gunther and his plane were missing.

The pilot’s family had been to the hangar. Billy confirmed his ownership of the Jeep parked next to the tarmac. At 11:00 Sunday morning a private pilot radioed his sighting of a downed plane near the Everglades fishing camp. Within an hour a ranger in an airboat was at the camp and was met by an emergency helicopter. A chopper with a pontoon landed in the swamp and airlifted us out.

“Gunther?”

“He’s alive. But he m-might lose his 1-leg.”

I reached for the water glass and sipped at the straw. My arms looked swollen and the thousands of fine lacerations from the sawgrass had been coated with some kind of clear antiseptic cream. Billy had started to pace.

“Your n-name is all over the news. They had to ch-chase one reporter off this floor already today.”

The ranger who first arrived at the fish camp had surveyed the area after we’d been airlifted. He’d followed the mashed sawgrass trail we’d left leading back to the plane. He’d told reporters he wouldn’t have believed it possible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. The press was clamoring for a bedside interview. Billy, as my attorney, had issued a single, unstuttered “No.”

I knew how uncomfortable Billy would be in front of cameras and tape recorders. But his anxious pacing meant more than that.

When he’d gone to get his Jeep late Sunday afternoon after they stabilized me, he’d dismissed the taxi driver and gotten inside the truck. He was pulling out in reverse when he saw the message in his rearview mirror and stopped and got out to walk around back and read it. The words were drawn in a slight film of dust on the back window: “Don’t Fuck With Mother Nature.”

Somewhere back in my cobwebbed brain I plucked out the memory of the owl voice hooing from a stand of pines.

“I c-called Hammonds. He said his c-crime scene technicians would go over it.”

“And the plane?” I said.