Into the Abyss (18 page)

His words were a devastating blow to Paul, who’d liked his job and been proud of the increasing trust Teddy had placed in him. Recently, his boss had let Paul make the night deposit. He loved the people he worked with and the way Teddy and his wife, Donna, treated them more like family than employees. On top of that, Paul had recently fallen for a waitress at the restaurant named Sue Wink.

The next day Paul returned to the police station to provide a statement. He offered to pay for damages if the cops let him off, but by then they had a copy of his criminal record and asked him if he’d be able to help with some thefts that had occurred in recent months.

“Sure,” Paul lied, “but I don’t know of anyone that’s into stolen goods. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

He left the station wondering how the cops could be stupid enough to think he’d fink on another man. And though Grande Prairie had become the only home Paul had known in his time drifting around the country, he knew he had no choice but to hit the road once more.

F
rom his icy bed, Scott Deschamps watched Erik collapse. Scott had worried about how long they could hang on and now knew with sinking certainty that time was running out. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d prayed, but it seemed like a good time to resume. With the fire’s warmth fading, the feeling of vulnerability that had niggled at Scott all night blossomed to full-fledged fear. He looked at Erik lying on the ground and then in the direction of the wreckage where Paul and Larry had long ago faded into the darkness.
He closed his eyes and tried to conjure some long-forgotten God.

Please
, he pleaded silently,
we’re all going to die here if we don’t get some heat
.

Moments later, as he lay shivering violently, Scott became aware of a warm yellow glow behind his closed eyelids. He heard the crackle of burning wood and a blessed heat drifted toward him. When he opened his eyes he saw that the remnants of wood had burst into flame.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

To his relief, he also saw Paul and Larry approaching down the path. The feeling was short lived. Their hands were all but empty.
The men tossed their meagre findings on the fire and pressed close to the flame, but the heat lasted only a few moments. When it died, it seemed to take the last of their resolve with it.

Hypothermia was making its slow deadly advance on all of them, stealing their warmth by degrees. When it comes to hypothermia, degrees mark the difference between life and death. Once the body’s core temperature drops just two degrees below the normal of 37°C, problems begin. Coordination becomes difficult and one’s ability to function deteriorates. Everyone but Paul was shivering now, and while it would temporarily help keep them warm, it wouldn’t last. Without a fire, the men’s core temperatures would continue to fall, their speech would become slurred, and they would grow disorientated. Severe hypothermia would soon set in. Their bodies would experience a complete loss of reflexes followed by coma, ventricular fibrillation and eventually death.

Scott knew what was happening to him. As a ski patroller, he’d studied hypothermia and now recognized its seductive pull; how it lulled its victims from pain and cold to the paradoxical sensation of warmth and comfort that preceded death. For hours he had fought back, willing himself to embrace his pain and the cold—feelings that told him he was alive.

Now as he stared into the extinguished mound of blackened coals, his mind began to turn toward a terrible reality:
he was not going to get out of here alive. Thoughts of his wife, Mary, his future, his dreams and ambitions raced swiftly past as if his life was in fast-forward. An image came to him of an old man sitting in a rocking chair on a wide, comfortable porch. He was speaking to a young boy about the things he had not done, the places he had never been, the lessons he had not learned, and the people he would never meet. He counselled the young man as a father would a son, urging him to grasp the opportunities that came his way.

Scott wanted so much more for himself. He realized he wanted to
live by the ocean instead of in an isolated northern community. For years he had dreamed of having his own sailboat and exploring the rugged, breathtaking west coast. He wanted to travel the world, to learn another language, to go to university, to run a marathon. Above all, he wanted to have full and loving relationships with his family and friends. Growing up as an only child with few close relatives, Scott realized he had never felt truly connected to anyone. His father, who’d died of emphysema when Scott was eleven, was rumoured to have left a wife and young daughter in Zimbabwe where he’d been stationed during the war. Scott had often wondered about this other family. He had longed to know the truth about it, just as he’d longed for a father’s guiding hand to steer him through the confusing years of adolescence and young adulthood. Scott’s mother, a working single parent, had had little time for establishing the kind of family life that Scott had longed for.

He regretted upsetting Mary when she’d pushed him on the subject of children. With painful clarity, Scott realized that he
did
want to have a family of his own. Until that moment, he had dismissed the idea of
having kids as nothing more than an outdated biological urge. The thought that he would never be a father—never accomplish his dreams—brought a wave of devastating regret that washed over him, pulling him under, submerging him, until he finally accepted the inevitability of his own death.

Defeated by cold, pain and sadness, he opened his eyes. Above him, fog crouched like a heavy beast on the treetops. And then, in the midst of it, there
he
was. Mere feet above where Scott lay, an old man appeared. He had long white hair and a beard. His hands, pale and creased, were folded in his lap and he wore a flowing white gown. The man’s face, though heavily lined, was devoid of sorrow or concern. As he stared at him, Scott was filled with profound peace and reassurance, the likes of which he had never experienced. Though not
a religious man,
Scott knew with utter certainty that he was looking into the face of an otherworldly presence: God, an angel or a benevolent spirit, take your pick. The old man did not speak, but his presence enraptured Scott. Through wide eyes he followed the graceful form as it hovered at the perimeter of the firepit. For the next twenty minutes, the old man kept vigil over the survivors, until, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.

“Fuck, man, I’m fucking freezing,” Paul said.

The others, shaken from their reveries, looked in his direction and saw that the young man—until now seemingly impervious to the cold—was shaking violently. His own deprivations suddenly forgotten,
Larry stepped behind him and embraced Paul in a firm bear hug.

Paul’s first instinct was to pull away. He thought of his father, a man whose affections he’d longed for, but seldom received. His dad had always felt his oldest son was good for nothing and had told him so on several occasions.
Even as a child, he had felt his dad’s constant disapproval. As Larry’s arms encircled him, it occurred to Paul that few people in his life had given him the degree of affection and unconditional understanding he was receiving in that moment from a near stranger.

After several minutes Paul stopped shivering and Larry let his arms drop.

“What time is it?” Paul asked.

Scott squinted at the face of his watch. “Half-past seven.”

“Shit! The ELT.”

Scott unfastened the strap of his watch and handed it to Paul, who took it without comment, knowing that the responsibility of toggling the ELT switch was now his alone. He dragged himself down the path toward the plane.

At the High Prairie airport, Luella Wood felt sick to her stomach as she left her trailer and made her way across the snowy parking lot to the terminal building. Throughout the night she’d returned every hour or two to check on William Whitehead. The slim, wiry First Nations man sat alone on a couch in the small, darkened lounge area, his back against the armrest, knees tucked into his chest and head bowed. As far as Luella could tell, he hadn’t moved a muscle in the ten hours since she’d delivered the news of the downed plane.

Never in her life had she seen such sorrow on a man’s face.

The previous evening Whitehead had driven one hundred kilometres south to the airport from the Whitefish First Nations Reserve to pick up his wife, Elaine Noskeye, who was due to arrive on Wapiti Flight 402. Two weeks earlier she’d been rushed by ambulance to the hospital in Edmonton to prematurely deliver the couple’s fourteenth child. The infant was in intensive care awaiting surgery, and though Elaine had not been scheduled for release until Monday, she’d missed her family terribly. So the thirty-nine-year-old woman
had talked her doctor into letting her go home early to be with her husband and children. That evening marked the first time she had ever flown on an airplane.

Nearby, in High Prairie, a heavy shadow of dread also hung over the tiny, close-knit community. The phone at the RCMP detachment had been ringing off the hook with enquiries and offers of help from local townspeople: farmers, small business owners, concerned citizens and private pilots, all wanting to pitch in any way they could. The local Tags convenience store was delivering free sandwiches and coffee to the airport and police station, and several private pilots were standing by to join the air search as soon as daylight broke around 8:30 a.m.

Hoppy fretted about his officers and the civilian volunteers struggling in the bush. The dense trees, heavy snow and deadfall made the task of clearing a 20-kilometre trail through the wilderness to the
crash site next to impossible. Though the men were bone cold and drop-dead tired, they had made progress over the past four hours advancing slowly with the help of the flares that guided them like orange lifelines from above.

In spite of the challenging conditions, however, Hoppy was beginning to think he’d rather be in the wilderness battling the elements than dealing with the shit that had recently started coming his way. He didn’t mind the calls of concern from the locals. But word on the crash—including the news that Grant Notley and Larry Shaben were aboard the plane—had leaked to the media and he had news hawks up the hoop. They’d been lighting up all five lines at the detachment and Hoppy had quickly lost patience trying to field their questions. He’d put up a wall, telling staff that he wasn’t talking to
anybody
other than search-and-rescue personnel.

In addition to communicating with his officers in the bush, Hoppy had been constantly on the phone with Dave Heggie at the High Prairie airport. Heggie had been keeping him apprised of the military’s search-and-rescue efforts and Hoppy knew that the aircraft circling the area weren’t having an easy time locating the downed plane. He was deep in discussion with Heggie when across the room he noticed one of his staff gesturing frantically for him to pick up another line. “Sarg …” she whispered urgently.

Hopkins held up a finger to silence her so he could hear the latest update on what the military was dealing with. The cloud ceiling at the airport had dropped to less than 50 feet and that ruled out any possibility of an air-rescue attempt until daylight or the weather broke. Now more than ever, Hoppy knew it was vitally important for his ground search crew to get in. He ended his call and looked over at his constable.

“It’s the prime minister!” she told him.

Hopkins took the call. Sure enough, it was Canada’s head of
government, Brian Mulroney, on the line from Ottawa. He’d met Larry Shaben on at least one occasion and wanted confirmation that he, Notley and the other passengers on board were alive. Hopkins couldn’t give it to him.

Aboard the Hercules called in to replace its ailing predecessor, Major Hazen Codner was having a hell of a time. For an hour the second Herc had lumbered blindly through churning fists of grey above the crash site, yet the forty-two-year-old lead navigator had been unable to pick up a signal from the downed plane. Codner, who’d been briefed prior to the Herc’s hasty departure from Edmonton at 5:48 that morning, had expected conditions to be a challenge. Crew aboard the previous Hercules had reported that the ELT signal had been in turns intermittently weak and distorted. But Codner hadn’t expected it would be non-existent. He was voicing his frustration to the pilot, when the ELT signal inexplicably re-emerged.

Codner immediately got to work plotting a bearing. Though he’d been hurried and half-awake when pressed into action, he was grateful for one piece of good fortune: when he’d grabbed his navigation bag, it happened to contain a topographical map of the area. Now, each time the Hercules passed over the signal and the directional needle swung 180 degrees, Codner manually plotted the position on his map. He’d been at it thirty minutes when the ELT signal disappeared. Codner and the pilot began discussing a possible explanation. Had the battery for the ELT suddenly died? The topo map showed hilly terrain below, which might account for spotty transmission, but not the signal’s alternating reappearance and disappearance. The pilot circled the giant Herc once more.