• Friday, August 19 – Saturday, August 20 •
Hawk River Valley, Brooks Range
“Is Mom sick?” Nita asked. “Why did she say smelling raw fish made her want to throw up?”
Active glanced back at the girl, crouched in a turquoise and lavender atiqluk and wielding an ulu as she filleted an arctic char.
Something hit Active’s Dardevle lure and another big char broke the surface of the river. He yanked back on his spinning rod to set the treble hook. The fish arched its back and rolled on its side as he fought it toward the gravel.
“Sometimes pregnant women have morning sickness,” he answered as he worked the char in.
“But it’s not morning.”
“Leave it to your mom to have afternoon sickness. Or maybe she’s a little queasy from the flight.”
It was possible. Cowboy had swooped across the ridge where the mangled remains of the 207 awaited them, then jolted down through a crosswind to splash his new blue and white Cessna floatplane down on the river.
Active slid the wriggling fish onto the beach gravel and finished it off with a rock to the head. He sliced open the red belly and tossed the guts and the vivid amber beads of its eggs into the river, then laid the carcass on Nita’s rock.
“You’re nearly as good as your mom with that ulu.”
“Not as fast, though.” She laid her fillets beside the new catch and eyed the harvest. “You gonna catch any more?”
He considered the matter. The two fish already landed weighed six to eight pounds apiece, he calculated, but that was before gutting and heading. Still, it was a lot of fish for four people.
“I’m thinking these’ll do for tonight,” he said. “And, tomorrow—well, the river is full of them.” He jerked a thumb at the clear, cold water rushing downstream toward the distant Yukon.
Nita nodded and attacked the second char with her ulu. The slanting light traced the curve of her cheek and diminutive nose, and Active thought again how much she looked like a younger Grace.
Behind them, the setting sun glinted off the wings of the 185 beached in a little backwater behind their camp on the gravel bar. The scents of spruce and alder laced the air, mixed with wood smoke and that smell of a tumbling cold river in the last crisp moments before sunset.
Active heard the rise and fall of voices as Grace stoked what Cowboy called a bush-pilot fire: a heap of driftwood, a cup of avgas, a match, and more driftwood. Cowboy was setting up his yellow dome tent next to their blue one as she worked.
“Do you think Mom will feel better when we go berry picking tomorrow?”
“Don’t know. You may have to help her a little on this trip.”
Nita frowned. “Will I have to cook?”
“I hope not. We’d all be in trouble then. Maybe I’ll cook.”
“Yeah, right. Dads can’t cook.”
“This dad can.”
An awkward stare froze between them. They hadn’t used the word with each other before. He had been “Uncle Nathan,” even after Grace adopted her and became “Mom.” But now the moment had found them.
Nita turned her eyes back to her work and sliced the head off the second char. Should he say more or leave it alone?
He cleared his throat. “So, how many berries you think you’ll pick tomorrow? A gallon, maybe?”
Nita stared hard at him. “Are you going to adopt me?”
So that was what was on her mind.
“I want to, but there’s a legal process your mom and I have to talk about.”
“Then you’d be my real dad, just like you’re the baby’s real dad?”
“I love you as my daughter, and that already makes me feel like I’m your real dad.”
“Will you and Mom have more babies?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
Her face fell and she scuffed the toe of her Xtratuf in the gravel.
“But even if we have ten more, I’ll still be your real dad, and you’ll still be my real daughter.”
She smiled to herself and went back to work with the ulu.
“Hey, guys, fire’s ready!” Grace waved a cast-iron skillet. “Where’s them fish?”
“Coming right up!” Active yelled.
He turned to Nita and winked. “Looks like no cooking for us tonight.”
He put his hand up and they high-fived.
Active threw four chunks of bone-dry spruce driftwood on the campfire and watched the sparks swarm up. “Still chilly?”
“A little.” Grace pulled up the hood of her atiqluk and took a sip of herbal tea. She gazed downriver to where a full moon was coming up through a notch in the hills. “I’m just happy we’re out here.”
“Me, too.” He moved behind her and massaged her neck.
Cowboy stretched back in his camp chair, rubbed his belly, and dragged on a Marlboro. Nita sat on a log across from the adults, hunched over a sketch pad with a charcoal pencil.
“Can I see?” Grace asked.
Nita walked over and presented the pad. A puppy’s pleading eyes looked up from the page.
“Uh-oh,” Active said over Grace’s shoulder.
“You said we could talk about it.” Nita’s eyes matched the puppy’s.
Cowboy craned his neck for a peek. “You looking for a dog, sweetheart?”
Nita nodded.
“I happen to know of a dog with eyes like that—a Jack Russell terrier, I think it’s called—and he needs a home.”
Nita’s eyes widened. “For real?”
Active grinned. “No way Nita’s interested in your dog, Cowboy. She has this friend named Stacy with a puppy and he is so-o-o cute. I mean the puppy, the puppy’s so-o-o cute. And if she doesn’t get that puppy from him, I don’t know what they’ll have to talk about.”
Grace slapped Active’s hand and shot him a look that said, You are so bad.
Nita rolled her eyes. “Stacy did say his auntie might want it, so . . .”
“Lucky’s pretty cute,” Cowboy said.
Grace laughed and shook her head. “You have a terrier named Lucky? Why is that so hard to picture?”
“I don’t exactly have him. I mean, I do, but only temporarily. He’s not really mine.” Cowboy flicked his Marlboro butt into the fire and gazed into the flames for a moment. “He, uh, he belonged to Evie.”
Silence hung in the air like a chill. The crackling of the fire was the only sound. Nita knelt beside the pilot and gave him a hug.
“You sure you don’t want him, Uncle Cowboy?”
“I do, but I’m always out flying and Linda travels all the time with her job. A dog needs his humans around.”
“Evie’s family doesn’t want him?” Grace asked.
“No, they’ve got a bunch of huskies that are about half wolf.”
Nita shot a look at Grace and Active. “Pleeeeeease?”
“Looks like you’re on the spot here, Mom,” Active said.
“Don’t put this on me.”
“Puppy decisions are mom stuff. Every guy knows that.”
“Really? You want to go there?”
Nita stood still and looked afraid to breathe.
“Okay, let’s confer.” Active put his lips to Grace’s ear and pretended to whisper something important. Then they looked at Nita with stone faces.
“After careful consideration,” Active said, “we’ve decided . . .”
“Yes!” they said as one.
Nita broke into a grin. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“But I’m not feeding him,” Grace said in a warning tone.
“And I’m not cleaning up his poop,” Active said in the same tone.
Nita ignored them. “Thank you too, Uncle Cowboy,” she said. “I’ll take care of Lucky just like Evie did, I promise.”
Cowboy shook his head and a shadow crossed his face for a moment.
Nita glanced at Grace. “Did I say something wrong, Mom?”
“No, you didn’t,” Cowboy said. “I just miss her, is all.”
She reached over and hugged him again.
“Thanks, kiddo.”
“How about getting some sleep, sweetie?” Grace passed the sketch back to Nita. “We’ve got a big day of berry picking ahead of us. And I’ll make some pancakes for breakfast.”
Nita nodded, did a round of hugs and good nights, and headed for the tent.
The fire began to settle into its bed. The moon was high enough now to turn the river to rippling silver. Grace moved over and curled up on Active’s lap. Cowboy poked at the embers with a stick.
“Hey, man, you about ready to turn in?” Active said.
“Nah, I’m gonna hang out for a while.”
“Want some company?”
Cowboy sat back with a heavy sigh. “There’s something about kids . . .” he said. “All that future, like money in the bank. Like Nita, all her dreams ahead of her. She gonna be a pilot, a doctor, an artist, something else we haven’t even thought of?”
“Probably all of the above, knowing Nita,” Grace said.
“Evie, Todd, that baby—they were probably the closest I’ll ever get to any of that.” The pilot fell silent and poked the fire some more. Sparks flew up again. “And then I just turned around one day and they were gone.”
Something clamped onto Active’s bicep. He struggled awake in the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. Grace was pressed into his back, her nails sunk into his arm. As he pried at her hand and jerked free, she cried out and clawed at his sleeve. He rolled toward her, grasped her upper arms, and shook her.
“Wake up,” he hissed. “Grace! Wake up!”
She fought him, her breath coming hard and fast. He continued to shake her gently until she relaxed and came out of it.
“Nathan.” Her voice was breathy and exhausted. “Where are—”
“We’re in the tent. I’m right here.”
“What happ—”
“You had a dream.” He stroked her between the shoulder blades. She shivered. “Your T-shirt’s soaked.”
He rolled it up and over her head and tossed it to the tent floor. She curled her naked torso into his chest. He rubbed her arms and shoulders until the warmth started to return.
“I was falling.” She raised her head and touched his face in the dark.
He folded the sleeping bag clear of their heads. “You were falling?”
“Out of the sky. To the ground.”
“In a plane?”
“It must have been. How else would I—all I remember is being really, really scared and trying to grab onto something.”
“That something was my arm.”
“Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” He cradled her against his chest and fluttered kisses down her neck.
They lay for a few minutes in silence. Active began to drift off.
Warm fingers brushed against his lower abdomen and he felt himself stirring.
“Here’s something else I’d like to grab onto,” she whispered.
“Even with Nita . . . ?”
“I’ll be quiet.”
“You?”
“I promise.”
She eased on top of him and drew the sleeping bag across her shoulders as she guided him in and began a slow, silent rocking.
“You’re safe now,” he whispered. “Back down on planet Earth.”
“Not for long.” Her thighs tensed and she became wetter as they moved together. Her moment came, and when he drew her face down, she bit into his shoulder to stifle her moans.
When they were still again, he unzipped the sleeping bag and pushed the flap aside to cool them off. “Better?”
“Definitely,” she murmured. Her breathing slowed as she sank toward sleep. “Hey, Nathan?”
“Yeah.”
“When I was falling to the ground, when I was scared . . .”
“Yeah?”
“It wasn’t for me. It was for the baby.”
As the sky lightened to a feathery gray, the two men drank coffee and munched on pilot bread smeared with peanut butter. Sweet-smelling spruce smoke threaded the damp morning air.
Finally, they shouldered packs and walked past Grace and Nita’s berry buckets stacked outside the tent for the day’s blueberry harvest.
The first part of the route they had scouted from the plane was easy, a cool walk through scattered spruce. But forty-five minutes in, they were bushwhacking through alders so thick Active couldn’t see anything ahead except more of the python-like branches. And the mosquitoes were coming to life in the warming sun.
Over the thwack of his machete and the clank of the tools in his pack, Active heard Cowboy calling cadence a couple of yards back. “Through the jungle, sun don’t shine. All I do is double time . . .”
Cowboy was playing himself in order not to think about what was over the ridge, Active supposed. The pilot came up and he played along.
“You gonna do that the whole way?”
Cowboy was a dark outline in Carhartts. Mosquitoes speckled his sleeves and swarmed his net-draped head. “Drowns out the buzzing.”
“How long till we’re out of this stuff?”
“Hour, maybe two. I’ll break trail a while if you don’t mind the wheel-dog view.”
“Yeah, just let me spray myself down one more time.”
They applied Deep Woods Off.
“I love the smell of DEET in the morning.” Cowboy grinned.
Active didn’t grin back. “You would.”
Cowboy took the machete and the lead and they continued uphill. From ahead, Active heard, “Ate my breakfast too damn soon. Skeeters feast on me till noon.”
Ninety minutes later, the brush thinned out with the higher elevation and they staggered on rubber legs out of the ravine and onto the rusting tundra mat that covered the gray-brown chert gravel of the upper slopes. The bugs were thinner up here, above the jungle-like vegetation that grew lower down. The two men shrugged off their packs and dropped to the ground, rolled up their head nets, and downed water and strips of dried salmon. Cowboy put on his aviators and lit a Marlboro.
Active studied the folds and peaks and streams of the Brooks Range rolling away on all sides. “God’s country, huh?”
“The big empty,” Cowboy said. “Wouldn’t trade it for all the beaches in Hawaii.”
The mountaintops across the Hawk River disappeared intermittently in the ragged clouds that sailed overhead. The higher crests showed white when the clouds parted.
Active pointed. “Think we’ll get some of that?”
The pilot grunted. “Good chance, this time of year.”
They passed several minutes in silence.
“Well,” Cowboy said finally.
“Well,” Active agreed.
They pulled on their packs and started up the slope toward the crest two hundred feet above. As they neared it, Active fell back a few yards to give Cowboy a moment with what lay on the other side.
The pilot stopped at the top, pulled off his glasses, and gazed at the scene below.
A minute or two later, Active moved up beside him. From here, up close, the ending of Evie’s final flight was even more gut-wrenching than when they had passed overhead in the Navajo.
The crumpled fuselage was closest, the tail canted like a twisted cross.
The wings were perhaps a hundred yards down-slope, apparently having sheared off as the landing gear collapsed and the fuselage plowed uphill through the tundra. The scar was still visible even now, six weeks after the crash.
Cowboy drew a deep breath. “Looks like she was moving pretty fast when she hit. You’d want that, coming down through the clouds like she was. Enough airspeed to maneuver a little, maybe set up for a survivable landing if you got some visibility at the last minute.” He shook his head. “Apparently she didn’t.”
“You okay, buddy?” Active said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do.” The pilot put his aviators back on. “You know I do.”
Cowboy dropped down the slope to the fuselage. “Might as well start here, I guess,” he muttered as Active caught up.
The nose of the plane rested on the tundra. The cowling lay a few feet to one side, presumably having been removed by the federal investigators. The engine had six cylinders, Active saw, laid out flat, three to a side.
Cowboy dropped his pack and peered into the engine, fished through a tangle of twisted wires and broken cables, and pulled out the end of an aluminum tube that Active took to be a fuel line.
The pilot sniffed it and shook his head. “Pretty dry, all right.” He pointed at the propeller blades. “See how they’re bent back? That means the engine wasn’t producing power when they hit. Otherwise, the blades would have dug into the dirt and bent themselves forward.”
“Like the crash report said, right?”
Cowboy grunted. “Let me pull out a couple of spark plugs.”
He dug through his pack, found the right wrench, and slipped it over a spark plug on the front left cylinder. It stuck. He put his shoulders into it, heaved, grunted, heaved again, and it turned. He unscrewed it, sniffed the opening in the cylinder head, then the spark plug, and held it up between them. “Bone dry.”
“It has been six weeks,” Active said.
Cowboy shrugged. “An engine is sealed up pretty tight. If there was fuel in it then, there’d be some smell left even now.”
He pulled out another plug with the same result and sat back on his knees.
“Hang on a minute,” The pilot dug into his bag again, came up with wire cutters and another wrench, and went to work in the bowels of the engine compartment. He came up with a metal bowl.
“The fuel filter is in this thing,” he said. “If there’s any gas left in this airplane, it’s in here.”
He flipped off the cap, smelled the bowl, and turned it upside down. Nothing came out. He looked at Active and grimaced.
“Well, shit, the feds were right. Evie was completely out of fuel when she hit this mountain. But I checked those tanks myself, and so did she. They were full when she left.” He looked downslope at the wings.
Active followed his gaze. “Maybe it leaked out somehow? Or the lines got plugged up?”
“Makes no sense—but what does in this mess?” Cowboy climbed to his feet and started for the wings. Halfway there, he picked up an orange ball cap from the tundra, studied it for a moment, and stuffed it into a jacket pocket.
He turned to see Active watching and shrugged.
Active nodded but didn’t speak.
Cowboy started off again.
Both wings had come to rest with their tips uphill. At the other ends, severed electrical wires and silvery aluminum fuel lines dangled where the wings had separated from the fuselage. Cowboy made a circle around the left wing, then dropped to his knees at its base.
Active pulled up his jacket collar and glanced at the darkening sky. A razor-sharp wind had come up. “Looks like this stuff is moving in, all right.”
The pilot ignored him and blew into a fuel line.
Over the rising wind, Active heard the pilot’s breath whooshing into the line.
“If I can blow in, fuel could flow out,” he muttered. He checked the line out of the other wing. It was clear, too.
“Son of a bitch.” He looked up at Active. “Maybe there was a leak. Let’s flip it over and look at the bottom.”
Sleet pelted their heads and rattled on the wing. A raking wind gnawed at their faces. Cowboy pulled up his hood.
“I don’t know about this weather,” Active said. “Whatever’s here, it’ll still be here tomorrow. You think—”
“Go if you want. I’m staying till I figure this out.”
Active took a last look at the sky and followed Cowboy to the trailing edge of the wing. They took hold and heaved. The wing rolled over and thudded onto the tundra.
They stared at the wing in disbelief, then listened again.
Active frowned. “Is that sloshing?”
“No way.” The pilot pointed at one of the lines he’d just blown into. “If there was gas in this wing, it would be coming out of that line. Pouring out, in fact, because of the slope.”
He grabbed the wing and rocked it on the tundra. Sloshing again. The pilot stood with hands on hips for a moment, then stuck his hand out. “Give me your pack.”
Cowboy took the pack and extracted a hatchet. “One sure way to find out.” He swung the blade into the aluminum of the wing surface.
“Yeah, but . . . a metal ax on a metal fuel tank? What about sparks and . . .” Active threw out his arms to signify an explosion. “Kaboom, right?”
“I’ll take my chances,” Cowboy said. “Stand back.”
Active retreated and tried to remember if he’d seen a fire extinguisher in the wrecked fuselage just up the hill.
Cowboy chopped away and soon had a slash a couple of feet long and two inches wide. He stuck in two fingers and felt around. “What the hell?”
“What is it?”
Without responding, the pilot went back to work with the hatchet. He extended the slash in the aluminum by another couple of feet, then chopped a perpendicular slot at each end to create a crude flap. He grabbed the edge and folded the flap back. Both men leaned forward to peer into the cavity.
Instead of avgas, they saw a white membrane bulging through the opening in the wing, undulating gently as the liquid inside sloshed back and forth.
A little of it slopped out where the hatchet or the jagged aluminum had punctured the membrane.
“What the hell!” Cowboy said again. He wet his fingers in the liquid, sniffed it, tasted it.
“Son of a bitch. This is water!”