Storm the Author's Cut (6 page)

But he was already gaining height to circle the land and come around, heading into the south wind again.

"Where?"

"South end. Right side."

Luke spoke into his radio.

"Coast Guard twenty-two, this is CF191. We're taking one last pass of Darwin Sound to check out something white on shore, then we're going to set her down for a while."

"Don't blame you," crackled the Coast Guard pilot. "We're about to pack in the whole operation until the wind dies down. Environment Canada has just issued a storm warning for the whole area. We're in for it!"

Chapter 4

Luke throttled back and the seaplane seemed to hang motionless, kept in flight by the fierce wind funneling through the narrow point of the passage. Laurie concentrated on lining up the binoculars on the shore.

"Yes! The wing of the plane—I saw the black stripe on it. A man on the rocks waving his arms!"

Luke pulled back on the stick and Laurie felt the sudden weight of her body pressed hard against the seat as they swept up, away from the water. The sky had changed to a black, threatening wall in front of them.

"Coast Guard 22, this is CF191. Wreckage confirmed on Shuttle Island in Darwin Sound. At least one person alive and signaling. I don't know if you can get near them in this wind. Let me know if you want me here."

"Roger, Luke. Standby"

Ten seconds silence, Coast Guard 22 announced, "We're on our way, ETA ten minutes. We're going to attempt lowering a paramedic in a basket with first aid and survival gear."

"Too rough for that, Walt. Location is in the narrowest part of the passage. You might try lowering a radio and some gear, but I don't think you'll get a man down there till the wind drops. We're running for cover now. It's getting pretty wild out here. I'll find a hole and set her down until things calm down."

"CF191, Coast Guard 22. Thanks for the help, Luke. My co-pilot confirms your appraisal. He says that's one of the worst spots around in a southeaster. We'll try your suggestion and drop a radio and some medical supplies. Check in with us when you're safe on the ground."

"Roger. CF191 clear."

The wild winds buffeted the small plane mercilessly and the Beaver roared and fought the storm until, suddenly, the bottom dropped out of the world.

Laurie closed her eyes as they plummeted. She recognized the sickening sensation... that other crash, the impact, the horrible terrifying awakening that followed.

Something caught at the plane and they jolted into a sickening climb, a wild ride on a turbulent updraft. It seemed a momentary postponement of the inevitable crash when they dropped again.

She relived the past... the storm and the sickening impact. The terrible, tragic awakening. Luke's hand gripping her thigh seemed to her a part of that other nightmare.

Her eyes flew open, fleeing memories.

Luke's was staring intently into the black sky outside, but he must have sensed her panic because squeezed her thigh gently and said, "Five minutes and we'll be on the ground. Try to relax—it's easier if you do. Breathe slow and deep."

She took a shaky breath and realized she hadn't been breathing at all. She forced herself to at least a physical calm, dragging in air, practicing the control she had learned over her fear when she was trying to learn to fly again without terror.

His touch helped, gentle and reassuring on her thigh, but most of all his intent focus on the horrific view through the windscreen helped more.

The Beaver was fighting the gale to stay in the air. Luke's other hand on the stick. When he took his hand from her leg his eyes were glued to the angry, black world outside. They had lost most of their visibility. The ocean passage below was obscured and the mountains that rose out of the water on either side made only a dark shadow through the stormy rain.

As a new wave of storm hit them, the plane tipped crazily, wing pointing to the water, then lurched back to something far from level flight.

Luke's face was grim, but free of panic. Laurie saw that other tragic flight, Shane's face panicking as he fought the controls, and her fear mounted again.

Five minutes, Luke had said.

A minute—or even two—must have gone already. Slowly, carefully, she drew a deep breath and let it out again. She kept her eyes on Luke's face, searching for panic.

His face was lined with concentration.

If she worked at it, she could make out the indistinct shape of some piece of land outside. The small seaplane was sturdy and she knew that, theoretically, it could fly in these winds.

...but it couldn't land in these rough seas. Luke would have to keep flying unless—no,
until
he found a sheltered section of water to land on. Every minute in flight increased the risk that they would fly into a tree... a hill... a mountain.

"Hot Spring Island ahead," his voice said in her headphones.

She couldn't even see the water, much less the island he'd named. The mountains on either side of them had disappeared in the rain, but she had the sense they were gaining altitude.

Suddenly, the engine fell silent.

They began to drop, roughly as if riding on a gravel backroad. She spotted trees on their right, just below, then the Beaver lurched and they suddenly dropped into sheltered air.

The engine roared to life again as Luke put on the flaps and their descent slowed. The water, coming closer, was rough from the swell of ocean waves, but sheltered enough that there was no white froth.

They hit an air pocket and dropped sharply. Laurie's eyes flew to Luke's face and she locked onto his calmness instead of looking at the crazy world outside. He adjusted a control, eyes on the instruments, then on the ground. Then suddenly they were flying low and level, coming in almost silently until they touched the wave tops.

The water dragged them back with a sickening lurch. A turbulent landing, but they were down on the water, sheltered from the worst of the wind by the small island.

Laurie let her breath out.

"Take a look at the shore," said Luke. "Use those binoculars and look for a flat spot on shore. Some sand would be nice, but I wouldn't count on it."

He was wrong. Between the two islands she spotted a stretch of sandy beach. "Not very much beach," she told him. "It must be almost high tide."

He took the binoculars and sighted in where she pointed. "We'll beach her. No point slopping around out here. High tide's in an hour and that wind could change direction and give us trouble if we don't get off the water."

Although the island protected them from the wind, the turbulent water pulled on the Beaver as they made slow, seasick progress to the shore.

Before they beached the plane, Luke called the Cessna they had seen at Lyell Island Camp and gave Gary instructions to call QC Air's planes off the search.

"I've lost radio contact with the base. I've landed in the lee of Hot Spring Island. We're beaching the plane and taking shelter in the cabin here, so we'll be fine, but stranded here until at least the next high tide." He switched to the intercom. "Laurie, do you want any messages sent? Family? The radio station?"

She thought Bev might manage to calm Ken and his mother, but they might call Massett and alarm her own parents. She didn't want her parents to learn that she was out in a small plane in a storm. They would remember the other crash and they would be terrified for her. Because she knew that, it was unforgivable that she had come out on this search at all.

"Could someone call Nat Howard—my boss? Ask him to call the McDonalds and let them know where I am. Please ask whoever calls to make it clear I'm in no danger." Nat would be calm about it. He might play it down enough that Ken wouldn't worry too much.

She listened to Luke pass her message.

"Tell Howard where we are, Gary. We'll be comfortable enough for the night. There's a cabin here, and we've got the plane's survival kit for food. Tomorrow as soon as the wind dies down to a reasonable level, we'll be back in Queen Charlotte City."

When Luke switched back to the emergency channel, Laurie heard Coast Guard 22 talking to Sandspit airport. They could hear only the helicopter's side of the conversation.

"...pretty wild here. We're hovering over the site and we can see two people by the wreckage, waving. Conditions are too dangerous to deploy the man-basket with a paramedic. We'll drop a radio and establish contact."

When the pontoons touched bottom, Luke fixed a rope to the pontoons before they climbed off into the shallow water.

Beaching the Beaver was a complex job.

As the tide rose the final few inches over the next hour, they checked constantly to be sure there were no rocks under the pontoons, pulling the plane farther up the beach, bit by bit, as the rising tide floated it higher. Finally, the water began to go back out and the pontoons settled firmly on the sand.

Luke lashed a rope from the tie-downs to a gigantic log some past storm had washed up on the beach.

"She's not going anywhere now."

They were both soaked from the rain and the sea, but just being alive seemed a miracle to Laurie. She stood beside Luke on the small beach and stared out over the water to where the waves attacked a protective reef, shooting up wild white spray.

Tomorrow the wind would drop and she would be home, back with Ken. Her life would be back to normal, the nightmares gone again.

"I couldn't hear what they were saying on the radio just before you signed off, Luke. Is everyone all right—the crash victims?"

"They dropped a low-power portable radio to the crash site, along with food and water, blankets and medical supplies. They made contact. The pilot has a broken leg, everyone else got off with cuts, bruises, and a possible broken rib. The paramedic talked one of the passengers through injecting morphine for the pain and splinting the leg to stabilize it. "

"How long will it be...?"

"With luck, they'll evacuate in the morning. The Coast Guard chopper is heading back to Lyell Island camp and hoping the wind will drop enough at dawn to evacuate the crash victims."

"A broken leg and some cuts and bruises. No critical injuries, thank God."

Luke said, "Right now we need to look after ourselves. We've got blankets and coffee in the plane. Lets get under cover before it gets worse!"

They loaded up. Laurie brought her pack with the sandwiches she hadn't eaten yet.

Luke led the way up a narrow path through stunted trees molded by exposure to the ocean wind. She followed behind, so it was his back she spoke to.

"What do you think happened? Why did they crash?"

When he didn't answer, she said, "You said you wouldn't go through that channel. What should he have done?"

She had her head down when he turned around, and she just walked into his chest. She gasped from the impact, then stepped back.

"If you want to know what happened to that plane, wait for the Transport Commission to release its accident report. I'm not second-guessing the actions of a professional pilot in an emergency situation I didn't witness. It's damned easy to be an expert from an armchair—or from solid ground on Hot Spring Island. Do you have any idea how little it would take for you to destroy his career? Just a few words on Island Time and he would be out of a job. "

"I'm not trying to hurt anyone. Those people crashed, the plane crashed, and I want to know why—I'm not asking you for a quote, I'm asking personally, for my own knowledge."

The rain had saturated her curls and was beginning to stream down her face. She felt like a drowned rat, but her cheeks were hot and she felt alive. His silent look made her nervous and she licked her lips.

"Are you sure it's just for you?" he asked.

"If you did make a statement judging the pilot's skill, I wouldn't repeat air it. How could I ever know if it were true? If I went around getting involved the station sued for slander, Nat would have fired me long ago.

"Of course I plan to do a story on the crash—the rescue operation. I'll describe the search, the difficulty of searching this coast, the men who volunteered their time and effort, the human drama of it all and—thankfully—the happy ending for everyone concerned."

She told herself to stop talking but her voice wouldn't listen. "There's no way that I would throw accusations around about something I didn't see—don't know about! The passengers on that plane probably aren't even sure what happened. A crash is such a wild, terrifying experience. They can't know for sure what happened and what they only thought happened. The plane is tossing, out of control, then somewhere in a wild, tearing roller coaster ride there's an impact and—"

She shivered, suddenly aware of how clingingly wet and cold her jacket was.

He touched her face, gently pushed back a wet curl from her cheek. "I know you were frightened up there. It was a wild ride at the south end of Darwin Sound. Sorry I blew off at you."

His eyes were so penetrating that she thought he could see through her to her naked soul. The thought frightened her.

"You talk as if you've been in a crash?"