False Horizon (6 page)

Annja came back around and opened her eyes. She immediately felt the cold snow around her body and wondered what had happened. But then the memories flashed through her mind and she sat up instantly.

“Wait.” A small hand held her down. “If you get up too quickly, you will vomit and dehydrate.”

The face of the small man swam into view. Annja frowned and then remembered that he had somehow spilled out of the back of the airplane. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Tuk.”

Annja struggled. “Mike—?”

“The man with you is still unconscious. And he is still secured to the seat. I was unable to free him without assistance. Perhaps when you feel better, we might—”

“We’ll do it now,” Annja said. She slowly got to her feet and headed for the plane, followed by Tuk.

“I really think you ought to rest before we do this,” he said.

Annja stopped and looked at him. He was tiny and looked more like a child than an adult. But she could see the creases and furrows in his face that come with the accumulation of life experience. She shook her head.

“If we leave him in there, he’ll get hypothermia. We need to find some form of shelter and start a fire.”

Tuk nodded. “Very well.” He followed Annja around to Mike’s side of the plane.

Annja looked inside. Mike’s face looked peaceful but she was alarmed. She’d already regained consciousness twice and Mike had yet to move. Was it possible that he had a severe head injury? If he did, then they would need a medevac as soon as possible. But Annja had no idea how to go about getting one. The only hope she had right then was that Jomsom air traffic control had launched a search-and-rescue party for them.

“Help me wedge the door open,” Annja said.

Tuk came alongside, and then as Annja held the door handle down he leaned and drove the door back with the force of his body. Annja looked at him and smiled. He might have been tiny but he had a lot of power in that body of his.

Together, they got the door open. Annja looked at Mike. As she twisted, she grunted as a sharp lancing pain shot through her ribs. They were tolerable, but would also need taping at some point.

First things first, she took Mike’s pulse and found it stronger now than when they’d first crashed. That was a good sign. He was breathing well. But his cheeks were pale.

From the waist down he was covered with snow. Annja frowned. “We’ve got to get this away from his body. It’s leeching the warmth right out of him.”

Tuk nodded. “All right, let me help. You have an injury from the crash, it would appear.”

Annja nodded. “You’re no picture of perfection yourself, pal. You’ve got some blood on the top of your head.”

Tuk frowned and reached up. His hand came away sticky and dark. “I hit the top of the cabin when we crashed. I am all right, though.”

“Head injuries often look worse than they are,” Annja said. “I’ve had enough of them myself.”

Tuk stared at her and then looked back toward Mike. “Let me get him shoveled out of there.” He bent low and started scooping the snow out from around Mike’s body. Annja watched him work. He seemed to possess a store of energy.

But who was he?

“You want to tell me what you were doing in our plane?” she asked.

Tuk glanced at her. “I’m afraid my weakness for alcohol resulted in me stowing away there last night.”

“Last night?”

“I was out drinking. I staggered past the airfield and realized I’d never make it home. The planes looked comfortable. I only intended to sleep off my hangover and then head back home.” He shrugged. “However, that plan was soon cast to the wind when I awoke to find us all in the air.”

“You could have said something.”

Tuk shook his head. “I’ve never flown before. I decided it would be best to just let you get us wherever we were going. I took solace in the fact that we would eventually have to return to Katmandu. Once back, I would simply steal away with you and your friend, none the wiser.”

“So much for that plan, huh?”

Tuk smiled and resumed digging out Mike. Annja saw his brow crease with concern. Then he started digging faster.

“What’s wrong?”

Then she saw it. Bloody snow.

“No!”

Tuk nodded. “He must have an injury we cannot see.” Tuk’s hands came away bright red as the snow and ice melted and mixed with the blood. “It’s vital we stop the bleeding as soon as we can.”

Annja maneuvered her way around to the back of the plane where the bags and Tuk had spilled out. She rummaged through the bags and came up with a first aid kit. It wasn’t anything exhaustive, but she found sterile gauze and pressure dressing inside.

She hoped it would work.

She moved back to Mike’s side. Tuk had successfully gotten rid of most of the snow. Mike’s lower torso was now exposed. As Annja came around, she saw what Tuk was staring at and frowned.

“It’s his thigh,” Tuk said. “It appears that a piece of metal pierced it from the plane’s body. Probably when we crashed it came through and shredded part of his leg. He’s lost a fair amount of blood.”

Annja tore open the pressure dressing and handed it to him. “Get some on the wound.”

Tuk dutifully took the dressing and pressed it into the wound.

The effect on Mike was almost instantaneous. His eyes shot open and he screamed. Annja put a hand on him and tried to calm him down. “Hold still, Mike. It’s Annja. I’m here.”

He stared at her. “Are you okay?”

She smiled. “Think so. Took a shot to my head, but that’s nothing new there. I passed out twice, but I’m feeling pretty good now aside from some broken ribs.”

“You sure?”

“That they’re broken? Yeah. I’ve had them before.” Annja frowned. “They’re not fun, but they’re manageable.”

Mike nodded and then glanced at Tuk. “Who is this?”

Annja smiled. “Apparently, we had a stowaway on the plane.”

“He was with us?”

“Yep.”

Mike grimaced as Tuk pressed into the wound more. “I could have sworn I saw something at Jomsom.”

Tuk smiled. “I’m afraid that was me.” He leaned over Mike’s thigh and stared at the wound.

“How is it?” Annja asked.

Tuk looked at her. “The bleeding is slowing, but I can’t tell how bad the tear is. I think it’s fairly certain that the femoral artery was not damaged, but he has lost a good amount of blood.”

Annja looked around. “How long before they send a rescue team?”

Mike grunted. “I don’t know. Depends if they got a fix on our location. There’s a lot of real estate to cover up in these parts. All they knew was we were north of Jomsom. We could have gone down anywhere.”

Annja sighed. Daylight was already starting to fade in the mountains and the chill that her adrenaline had kept at bay was finally working its way into her consciousness.

They needed shelter and fire. If they had to spend the night exposed to the elements like this, there would be no surviving it.

She looked at Tuk. “How well do you know the countryside around here?”

Tuk shook his head. “I don’t know it at all. I’m an orphan and found my way into Katmandu when I was young. All the memories of my childhood have deserted me unfortunately.”

Annja maneuvered around to where Tuk stood. She reached to take over the act of keeping pressure on Mike’s wound. “Well, here’s the reality check, Tuk. We need to find a place that is out of the wind. If we stay exposed like this on the mountain we’re dead before anyone gets a chance to find us.”

Tuk nodded. “I agree. What would you like me to do.”

“Seeing that you’re the most mobile out of all of us, you’re going to need to find shelter of some sort. I know there are a lot of caves around these parts. What are the odds you can locate one for us to take shelter in?”

“I won’t know until I get started,” Tuk said.

Annja nodded. “All right, then. You go and see what you can locate. The bags in the back have some winter coats in them. You should take one along. And don’t do anything silly. Mike’s going to need help getting to wherever we hole up. Try to make it close. Otherwise, we’ll risk worsening his wound.”

“I understand.”

Annja watched him get a coat out of one of the bags and zip it up. He brought them each a winter parka and then nodded to Annja. “I’ll be back as soon as I can find someplace for us.”

“Good luck,” Annja said.

Tuk took a final glance at Mike and smiled. “Fast as I can.”

He trudged off through the snow, but despite his small size, he seemed to make fast headway through the drifts. Mike’s coughing brought Annja back to the moment.

“Is he gone?” Mike asked.

“Yeah.”

Mike frowned. “Leg’s killing me. Got any of that water from the cooler?”

Annja nodded and placed Mike’s hand on the dressing. “Hold this here and press down on it. I’ll get the water.”

She scrambled back around to the cooler and winced as she did so. Her ribs were aching, but she fought off the desire to give in to the pain. Mike was the priority. He needed looking after and Annja’s ribs were a secondary concern.

She dug a bottle of water out of the cooler and came back to Mike’s side. “Here you go.”

He tilted his head back and took several swigs. Annja eased the bottle back down. “Don’t want you throwing up any of it. Just take it slow.”

“What’s the deal with our little friend there?”

Annja shrugged. “No idea. He was in the back of the plane. I passed out right after I found him. He could certainly have done me harm if he wished, but he was actually helping me when I regained consciousness.”

“You trust him?”

Annja smiled. “I’m not exactly in a position where trust can be withheld, am I? We all need one another if we’re going to survive this.”

Mike nodded and took another sip of the water. “What if he works for Tsing?”

“What if he does?”

“He could have overheard our conversations. He might tell Tsing what we intend to do.”

Annja frowned. “Mike, all we said was that we could handle Tsing later after all of this was over and done with. We didn’t necessarily plan the guy’s assassination or anything.”

Mike grinned. “Good point.”

“More to the point, Tuk needs us just as much as we need him. We’re all in this together, and if one of us doesn’t help, we’ll all buy it. So you ask if I trust him? I trust him to do what’s right for everyone involved. Beyond that, well, we’ll take it as it comes. Once we get down off of this mountain.”

“Always the pragmatic Annja,” Mike said. “I’ve missed that over the years.”

“I was busy being pragmatic elsewhere,” Annja said.

“Apparently.”

A strong breeze blew in from the mountain and Annja shivered in spite of the winter parka. The sun was starting to dip beneath the horizon, streaking the sky with purples and oranges.

“Some sunset,” she said.

Mike stared out of the shattered windshield. “They’re amazing up here. I just hope that our new friend finds us a place to spend the night.”

“Me, too,” Annja said. “Otherwise, that sunset could be our last.”

Tuk forged through the waist-deep snow like an icebreaker and headed right for the side of the mountain, trying to get out of the open snowfield as quickly as possible. There could be a chasm hundreds of feet deep under any part of the snow. The closer he was to the actual mountain itself, the better he felt.

As soon as he was beyond range of being seen from the plane, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the cell phone he’d spent twenty minutes digging to find under all the snow in the plane. Luckily, it still worked. He opened it and prayed that he could actually get a signal.

He pressed the number two and waited. A series of clicks worried him at first but then miraculously he heard it ringing on the other end.

“Tuk?”

“Yes!”

Hearing the man’s voice on the other end of the line rein-vigorated him. Help would come for them!

“Did you all survive the crash?”

“Yes, but the man Mike is injured. He’s got a bleeding wound in his thigh. We’ve stabilized him as much as possible, but we will need a medical team to come to us soon or he will not last the night.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “Tuk, I’ve got bad news. We can’t get a rescue team out to you now.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a storm heading your way. A bad one.”

Tuk looked at the sky. If he’d grown up with people who knew how to read the weather, he might have noticed the line of clouds forming and heading right for the peak he was on.

Already, he could feel the temperature falling.

“When?”

“Tomorrow if the storm breaks. But I’m not going to lie to you, Tuk. Not after everything you’ve done for me. The chances of a rescue early on are remote unless this storm breaks before dawn. The odds are long of that happening and you may be out there for a couple of days.”

“We won’t make it.”

“Listen to me,” the man said. “Remember how I told you to stay close to the plane?”

“Yes.”

“Forget that advice. You need to find someplace else to take shelter while the storm rages. Get yourself into an overhang or some other piece of shelter close to the mountain itself, out of the wind. If you can do that, then you can survive this thing.”

“The man may not survive.”

“How is Annja?”

“She collapsed unconscious twice, but seems all right now. She apparently has two broken ribs but is mobile enough.”

The man paused again. “I understand what you’ve told me, Tuk. I wish I had better news. As long as Annja lives, that is the priority. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Then you don’t have any time to waste. Find a shelter and get as many of the supplies into it as you can. Wait this thing out. Keep the phone with you.”

“I’m amazed I got any reception at all.”

“It’s not a cell phone, Tuk. Merely designed to look like one. You can reach me from anywhere on earth with that little thing. It’s tremendously powerful despite its size. Just like you.”

Tuk looked up into the sky. The wind was increasing. “I’ve got to go or I’ll lose precious time.”

“Understood. Call me tomorrow if you can.”

“The woman doesn’t know about you yet. I’ve kept it from them both. But I may not be able to much longer.”

“Do your best, Tuk. That’s all I can ever ask.”

Tuk disconnected and frowned. The news that there would be no rescue irked him, but life had dealt him bad cards before and somehow he’d always managed to come out ahead.

The most important thing just then was finding them an adequate shelter. And fast. It would still take the time to reach it from the wreckage once Tuk found something.

The wind felt stronger on this side of the mountain. The storm appeared to be blowing in from the northeast so Tuk went around toward the other side. As soon as he cleared a large outcropping, the wind died down.

There’d be no guarantee that it would stay blowing in only one direction, but if they could minimize their exposure, then it would be better on this side of the mountain.

His legs kept churning beneath him and he glanced back at his own trail in the snow. If it started to snow, he would be in serious trouble. A rapid snowfall would erase his lifeline back to the plane. And then he would truly be alone.

He pushed ahead for another two hundred yards when he caught a glimpse of dark color in the field of grayish white twilight. He hurried over and felt a small depression in the side of a large rock face.

Tuk pushed his hand into the space and felt a rush of excitement as it seemed to open up into a larger area. The opening itself was barely twenty-four inches across and hardly a cave mouth.

But it would do. Tuk ducked inside and couldn’t make out much in terms of detail. But it had a roof and it would offer them protection during the storm.

He had to get back to Annja and Mike.

Back outside, the first snowflakes swirled through the air. It would only be a matter of time before the storm would embrace the mountain in earnest. Tuk revved himself up and, with lungs already burning, trudged back hard through the snow toward the airplane.

As he came around the side of the mountain, the wind returned and slammed him so hard he fell on his back. He bent forward and made himself as low as possible, then kept fighting to make his way to the plane.

Finally, after another thirty minutes, he saw the tail of the plane ahead.

“Annja!” he called out.

His voice was barely audible over the encroaching storm, but after shouting two more times, the woman’s head appeared and waved him on.

Back at the plane, she had a bottle of water ready for him. Tuk sucked it down, amazed at how hot and sweaty he was.

Annja eyed him. “Any luck?”

Tuk nodded and put the top back on the bottle. “It’s a fair hike on the other side of the mountain, but there’s a place we can use.”

“Is it big enough for all of us?”

Tuk nodded. “I think so, but I couldn’t be sure. I was just concerned with getting back. There’s no time to waste. We’ve got to get going.” He looked at Mike, who actually seemed better now. “Can you make it?”

Mike tried moving and gritted his teeth. “I’ll make it.”

Tuk glanced at Annja. “We don’t have any time. We’ll all die if we stay here. That storm is going to be massive.”

Annja looked at Mike. “I’ll carry you,” she said.

Mike laughed. “Give me a break, Annja. I’ll be fine. The bleeding’s stopped and I’ll make it on my own.”

Tuk reached into the back of the plane and started gathering supplies. “I can carry two bags.”

Annja took another and the first aid kit. “I arranged the contents so we’ve got blankets, food and the water,” she said.

Tuk hefted the bags and found that, while they didn’t weigh a whole lot, they made his walking cumbersome. “You’ll need to help Mike. If the bleeding begins again, he might die,” he said to Annja.

She nodded. “Start leading the way, Tuk. We’re getting critical on time.”

Tuk led them around the front of the plane and then started walking back through his own tracks. The snow increased and more flakes fell. Walking with the two bags strapped to his back made things even tougher, but he couldn’t complain. The choice was clear—march or die.

They gradually managed to limp their way around the bend in the mountain and got out of the direct wind blasts that had assailed them since leaving the plane. Tuk called a halt and checked on Annja and Mike.

Annja looked cold and tired, but still in fairly decent shape. Mike looked pale and winded. He was limping along with Annja as a support for him.

Tuk cupped his hand over Annja’s ear. “How is he?”

“He can make it. I think the bleeding started again, though. How much farther is it?”

“A few hundred yards,” Tuk said. “You’ll see the outcropping and that’s it.”

Snow continued to fall on them as they clawed their way those final few hundred yards. At last, Tuk spotted the outcropping, relieved that it hadn’t been covered over with snow yet. His tracks made just thirty minutes earlier were already mere depressions in the snow.

He waved Annja and Mike over, helping them the last few feet. Annja handed Tuk the single flashlight that she’d retrieved from the plane. “Tell me what it’s like inside.”

Tuk ducked into the outcropping and switched the light on. His heart raced. He had found them a cave. A few yards in from the opening, the roof opened up to a height of seven feet or so and then seemed to go on right into the mountain.

There was always the danger that an animal lived inside, but Tuk was beyond caring. They had a place to wait out the storm.

He poked his head back outside. “Let’s get Mike in here.”

Annja eased him through the opening, which was barely big enough to accommodate his girth. Mike wasn’t obese, but years of football had made him large. Getting him into the cave was a challenge.

Annja ducked through the opening a moment later, dragging the last of their gear with her.

She looked around and nodded. “Good work, Tuk.”

“Thank you.” He moved the flashlight around the walls and floor of the cave. It seemed remarkably dry. “We need a fire to get us warm,” he said.

Annja grunted. “Wish we had some firewood.”

Tuk looked at her. “You’ll be okay with Mike here by the entrance for a little while?”

Annja nodded. “I need to change his bandage. He’s bleeding again.”

“All right. I’m going to see what there is to use in this cave.”

Annja frowned. “You expect to find a tree?”

“You never know what might be around,” Tuk said. “If animals have lived here, they might have bedding or even scat that we can use to burn. Anything to get our temperatures up would be good. Especially for Mike’s sake.”

“Well, you’ve already saved us by finding this place,” Annja said. “Just don’t be too long. I’ve barely got any light over here as it is and that flashlight is our only source right now.”

“I’ll be quick,” Tuk said. He headed off toward the back of the cave and kept shining the flashlight around all the crevices. His feet brushed over bits of straw that he dutifully gathered up in his pockets. It would burn, but it wouldn’t last long. They needed more substantial fuel if they were going to stay warm.

The cave seemed to descend toward a point where the walls converged. Tuk looked down at the ground and saw evidence of smaller animals living there, but again, nothing beyond that. As much of a blessing as the cave was, there seemed to be little of use inside its walls.

Tuk leaned back against the rock face of the wall and took a breath. He hadn’t realized how utterly exhausted he was. Forging through the snow drifts had sapped all of his strength.

He decided to get back to Annja and Mike. They might not be able to have a roaring fire, but at least they were out of the storm.

“Any luck?” Annja asked as he came back around the bend.

“Unfortunately, I only managed to find a handful of straw. It is probably from an old bird’s nest.”

Annja had spread the coats around on the ground and layered them atop one another. “Well, so much for my picture perfect idea of a campfire and ghost stories tonight.”

Tuk smiled. “How is he?”

Annja looked at Mike, who lay on the coats with his leg slightly elevated. “I’ve stopped the bleeding again, but he’s lost a lot of blood. We’re going to need medical help tomorrow or else…” Her voice trailed off.

“I understand,” Tuk said. “We will get him the help he needs.”

Annja waved him over. “I’ve got some survival rations here. It’s not filet mignon but it will do. Eat with us. Then I think we’re all going to have to cozy up to one another and share the warmth. That storm outside sounds pretty awful.”

Tuk helped himself to some of the food and sat chewing for a while as the snow continued to fall outside of their cave.

He hoped the man on the phone would be able to find them.

Before it was too late.