A Fountain Filled With Blood (37 page)

They trotted along at a fast pace. Peggy looked drawn and ashy, and Clare felt a wash of guilt at pushing her after her ordeal. But no matter what Leo Waxman had done, he didn’t deserve to die all alone at the bottom of a gorge. Not when she had within her the power to help.

She sighed with relief when they reached the turnoff to the spa site.

“Wait,” Peggy said, clutching at Clare’s arm. “Let me go get the phone. And maybe get a couple bottles of cold water from the office fridge?” She smiled weakly. “You go ahead and do what you have to with the helicopter. I’ll join you there. It’ll be quicker.”

“You’re right,” Clare said. “Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?”

Peggy smiled, more forcefully this time. “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”

Clare threw her arms around the older woman and hugged her quickly. “You sure have. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” She jog-trotted the rest of the way to the helipad, arriving there slick with sweat and breathless.

The Bell was right where she had left it last, center stage on its tarmac square. She tried the door. Unlocked. Key still in the ignition. “Thank you, Lord,” she said. She flicked the key switch on, grabbed the fuel pipette, which the previous pilot had left wedged in the off-side seat, and hopped out to check the fuel.

It wasn’t full up, but there would be more than enough to get her safely to Glens Falls, or even Albany, if necessary. She drew down some fuel into the pipette and held it up to the colorless sky, looking for water or sediment that could spell a serious problem. It looked clean.

She climbed back into the cockpit and checked the buss and batt switches. She tapped the control panel. She knew she should test all the lights, since this was a new ship for her, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and right now, time was of the essence. Reflexively, she did verify that the fire extinguisher behind the pilot’s seat was full before clambering outside again to untie the Bell and do the exterior preflight check.

She had finished the right-side fuselage check, had untied the main rotor blade, and was closing up the tail rotor gearbox when she heard sounds coming from the track.

“Hey! Clare!” Russ emerged from the woods, closely followed by Peggy, who was carrying a large sailcloth L. L. Bean bag. Clare ducked under the tail boom to talk to them. Russ’s shirt was clinging to his chest in damp patches and his hair was plastered to his scalp. Peggy reached into the bulging bag and handed him a bottle of water dripping with condensation. He unscrewed the top and dumped half the contents over his head, shaking his shaggy hair like a dog.

“Is he still alive?” Clare asked. Peggy pulled an identical bottle out of the bag and handed it to her.

Russ swigged most of the rest of his water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes. He didn’t answer me when I called to him, but he shifted a bit. He’s about twenty, twenty-five feet down. Ms. Landry says you have some cockamamy idea about using the helicopter to get him out?”

Clare swallowed a mouthful of the almost painfully cold water and turned back to the ship. “It’s not a cockamamy idea.” She moved to the left side of the fuselage to check the engine compartment and the transmission.

“The hell it’s not. It’s not that I doubt you can fly this monster, but how do you think you’re going to rescue him?”

She looked up from the hydraulic servos. “I’m not going to do it alone. You’re going to help me.”

He held up his hands. “Whoa.”

“The chopper is fitted out for cargo. I fly over to where Waxman is and hover. You get in the net, I lower you to the bottom of the crevasse, you get Waxman, and I pull you both up.”

His face was set in a mask of denial. “That’s insane.”

“No it’s not. I admit that I wouldn’t want to try it on a gusty day, but it’s perfectly calm. The winch can be controlled right from the cockpit. I can do it all without getting out of my seat.” She secured the transmission cowling and climbed up to the top of the fuselage to check the hydraulic reservoir.

“What if something happens? What if you have a choice between leaving the cockpit and…and me falling?”

She looked up from where she was examining the main rotor system. He sounded almost panicky. “It has a four-axis autopilot, Russ. If you need me, I’ll be there.” She gestured toward the locked shed at the edge of the clearing. “I didn’t see any headsets in the cabin, so I suspect they’re in there. We’ll have to break in, I’m afraid. But with those on, we’ll be able to communicate with each other the whole time.” She swung herself down and crouched under the ship’s belly to check the landing gear.

Russ crouched down across from her. “I can’t do this.”

“Sure you can.”

“No. You don’t understand.
I can’t do this.
” He spoke each word slowly and distinctly.

The import of his words finally sank in. “Are you afraid? To fly?”

His jaw worked. “Helicopters,” he said.

“You’re afraid to fly in helicopters. You were in the army, for heaven’s sake. You must have used helicopter transport before.” She stood up on tiptoe to check the windscreens. He stood up as well, leaning across the Bell’s pointed nose.

“I had a bad experience.” His voice was barely louder than a rumble. He obviously didn’t want Peggy to hear anything. “A very bad experience.”

She slapped the windscreen. “Get over it.”

“What?”

She backed away from the ship and strolled slowly around it, giving it a last once-over with her eyes, half her attention on looking for anything out of place, the other half on getting Russ to fall in with her plan. It wasn’t the first time she had had to deal with a panicky crew member. “What happened? You took incoming fire? Lightning fried your electrical system?” She looked up at him. “It’s not going to happen here and now. Here and now, a man may very well die if we don’t get him up out of that gorge. So get over it.”

He stopped dead. “I can’t believe you. This isn’t some sort of whim I just made up. This is real. You think I go around confessing to anyone how I feel? What kind of priest are you anyway?”

She swung around to face him. “I don’t know, Russ. I guess I’m the kind who flies helicopters and speaks without thinking and screws up on a regular basis.” She wiped her oily hands on her shorts, instantly converting them from good to trash. “But I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, stepping into his space, crowding him, hissing her words. “I’m not the sort who would let a man die because she’s too chickenshit to climb into a machine!” She pointed to the shed, never breaking eye contact with him. “Now break into that shed and get me those headsets!”

He stepped back. She saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. He stared at her. “Ma’am,” he said. “Yes, ma’am.”

She marched behind him to the shed. Although the door was chained and padlocked, the shed itself was a flimsy affair, the sort you could buy prefab at a home and garden center. Russ circled the shed, ran his fingers assessingly over the chain, then headed straight for one of the two Plexiglas windows set into the side walls. He pushed against it and felt around the edges. “You care if this looks pretty or not?” he said.

“No.”

“Okay. C’mere.” He pulled her to him, turned her around, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re going to be the battering ram. Keep your feet about as wide apart as the window.”

She didn’t have a chance to respond, because with a grunt, he hoisted her off the ground, squeezing the breath out of her. She drew her legs up and braced her feet. He staggered back a few steps and then lumbered forward. Her sneakers struck the window with a jolt that made her legs buzz up to her knees, and the entire window, Plexiglas and frame, flew into the shed, crashing and clattering as it fell into a rack of shelves.

He set her on the sill and she slipped through into the oven-hot interior. It was pretty much what she had expected, shelving filled with tools, several small barrels of transmission and hydraulic fluid, rags in a plastic grocery bag. There was a metal cabinet set next to where the window had been, and she pried it open. Bingo: four headsets hanging on a dowel. She took two and passed them out to Russ, then turned to case out the shed more carefully, looking for something that might be helpful. The shelving was too heavy, the clipboards way too small; then she spotted two grimy lawn chairs, folded and tossed into the corner. They would do nicely. She grabbed them and stuffed them through the window.

“What are these for?” he asked.

“Waxman’s going to need some sort of restraint before we move him,” she said. She went back to the shelves, took the bag of rags, and thrust it out, as well. “You can stomp on the chairs to flatten them and tie him down to the webbing with these.”

“The gunk on these rags will kill him, if the lift doesn’t.”

She glared through the window. “I’m open to suggestion, if you have a better idea.” He lifted his hands and backed away. She turned back to the shed’s interior. Now, all she needed to find was…Frowning, she went through the rest of the cabinet.

“No charts,” she said half to herself.

“What?”

She pulled a paper towel from a roll in the cabinet and wiped the sweat off her face. “No charts. I didn’t see any in the cockpit, and I was hoping they would be stored here. Opperman must have taken them with him.”

“Is this something you need to fly?”

She almost said yes, then remembered to whom she was talking. “I just needed them for the radio frequencies. But it doesn’t really matter. Whoever flew the ship the last time would have tuned the radio to the right approach control. Probably Albany. Maybe Boston. It’ll be there.” She upended a pail in front of the window space. “Help me out.”

She levered herself over the edge, the shed wall shaking hard beneath her weight, and Russ grabbed her under her arms and dragged her out. She shook herself. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but it actually feels cooler out here after that.”

“You sure you don’t need those charts?”

She looked up at him. “I’m sure.”

“Did you turn on the radio to make sure?”

“We’re in the mountains, Russ. I’m going to have to be at a couple thousand feet before I can get any signal.” He looked pale again. She laid her hand on his arm. “Do you trust me?”

He nodded.

“Then you let me worry about the piloting. You’re the dumb grunt, remember?”

He laughed, an explosive choked sound that was very close to the edge, but not going over. She scooped up the bag of oily rags, satisfied. “Let’s get those helmets and go.”

Peggy was backing out of the passenger-side cockpit door. “I put another two water bottles in,” she said. “I thought you might need them.”

“Thanks, Peggy.” Clare kept her eyes on Russ as he tossed the lawn chairs through the cargo doorway and then clipped his headset over his ears. He adjusted the mike into the proper position. He may not have liked choppers, but he had certainly done this before.

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you because”—Peggy tilted her head toward Russ, indicating his attempts to keep his problem under wraps hadn’t been entirely successful—“but I phoned the Glens Falls Hospital while I was down in the office and told them what you were attempting. The triage nurse I spoke with said you should take him straight to Albany Medical Center.”

Clare bit her lower lip. “Without stopping for any medical personnel first?”

“That’s what she said.”

Clare gestured at the sailcloth bag, which was drooping on the ground near the tail boom. “You didn’t bring your phone with you, did you?”

Peggy spread her hands. “I forgot. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m having a hard time stringing two thoughts together.”

“That’s natural. Look, are you going to be okay to drive yourself?”

“I think I will be. I know the route so well from here that it’s like the old gray mare returning to the barn.”

“Okay. We’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as we get into Albany.” Clare stuffed the bag of rags under her arm and placed the headset on her head, tilting the mike into position. “Better get back to the edge of the tarmac. Don’t approach the ship once I’ve got the rotors going.”

Peggy nodded, scooped up her bag, and retreated to the trailhead. Clare switched on the set-to-set transmitter. “Russ?” she said. He didn’t respond. She glanced over to where he stood staring into the cargo area. She walked over, tapped him on one of the headphones, and switched him on. “Can you hear me?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he said.

She pointed up to the cargo boom jutting out over the open door. “That’s what the net hangs from, obviously.” She tossed the rags inside, jumped up into the cargo area, and found the manual control. She unlocked it and cranked the handle, letting the wide web strap clipped to the net spool through the boom until several feet of it lay on the tarmac at Russ’s feet. She secured the control and squatted at the edge of the door. “Can you wrestle that in here?” she asked. He gathered up the pile of netting and tossed it through the doorway as Clare scrambled to get out of the way. She dragged the net toward the opposite side of the ship, pulled back the edges, and slid the folded lawn chairs and the plastic rag bag inside. She looked around for something to secure the stuff during the flight. Hanging from a grommet in the bright orange safety web were half a dozen short bungee cords.

“Perfect,” she said, hooking the end of one through the D ring connecting the net to the boom strap. She hooked the other end through another grommet. It wasn’t very shipshape, but the bungee cord held the boom strap off the floor and away from the cargo door, so that even if she should have to angle hard during the flight, the net wouldn’t be able to slip though the door and out of Russ’s reach.

She squatted at the edge of the door again. “Hop on up here,” she said. Russ backed against the door and levered himself up until he was sitting beside her. In the small cargo area, his head almost touched the roof. “Okay, I’ve secured the net back here,” she said, thumbing toward the pile on the floor. “This is what we’re going to do. When we reach Waxman, I’ll hover overhead. You take off the bungee strap, drag the net over to the doorway, and get inside.”