When the plane went into a spiraling nosedive and the pilot shouted back to his passengers, “We’re going in. God be with us,” they all took the news resignedly and with an amazing calm.
She had bent double and pressed her head between her knees, covering it with her arms, praying all the way down. It seemed to take an eternity.
She would never forget the shock of that first jarring impact. Even braced for it, she hadn’t been adequately prepared. She didn’t know why she had been spared instantaneous death, unless her smaller size had allowed her to wedge herself between the two seats more securely and better cushion the impact.
However, under the circumstances, she wasn’t sure that being spared was a favorable alternative. One could only reach the lodge on the northwestern tip of Great Bear Lake by airplane. Miles of virgin wilderness lay between it and Yellowknife, their destination. God only knew how far off the flight plan the plane had been when it went down. The authorities could search for months without finding her. Until they did—if ever—she was utterly alone and dependent solely on herself for survival.
That thought galvanized her into action. With near-hysterical frenzy she struggled to release her seat belt. It snapped apart and she fell forward, bumping her head on the seat in front of her. She eased herself into the narrow aisle and, on hands and knees, crawled toward the gaping tear in the airplane.
Avoiding any direct contact with the bodies, she looked up through the ripped metal seam. The rain had stopped, but the low, heavy, dark gray clouds looked so laden with menace they seemed ready to burst. Frequently they belched deep rolls of thunder. The sky looked cold and wet and threatening. She clutched the collar of her red fox -coat high about her neck. There was virtually no wind. She supposed she should be grateful for that. The wind could get very cold. But wait! If there was no wind, where was that keening sound coming from?
Holding her breath, she waited.
There it was again!
She whipped her head around, listening. It wasn’t easy to hear anything over the pounding of her own heart.
A stir.
She looked toward the man who was sitting in the seat across the aisle from hers. Was it just her wishful imagination or did the Loner’s eyelids flicker? She scrambled back up the aisle, brushing past the dangling, bleeding arm of one of the crash victims. She had studiously avoided touching it only moments ago.
“Oh, please, God, let him be alive,” she prayed fervently. Reaching his seat, she stared down into his face. He still seemed to be in peaceful repose. His eyelids were still. No flicker. No moaning sound coming from his lips, which were all but obscured by a thick, wide mustache. She looked at his chest, but he was wearing a quilted coat, so it was impossible to tell if he were breathing or not.
She laid her index finger along the top curve of his mustache, just beneath his nostrils. She uttered a wordless exclamation when she felt the humid passage of air. Faint, but definitely there.
“Thank God, thank God.” She began laughing and crying at the same time. Lifting her hands to his cheeks, she slapped them lightly. “Wake up, mister. Please wake up.”
He moaned, but he didn’t open his eyes. Intuition told her that the sooner he regained consciousness the better. Besides, she needed the reassurance that he wasn’t dead or going to die—at least not immediately. She desperately needed to know that she wasn’t alone.
Reasoning that the cold air might help revive him, she resolved to get him outside the plane. It wasn’t going to be easy; he probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds or more.
She felt every ounce of it as she opened his seat belt and his dead weight slumped against her like a sack of concrete mix. She caught most of it with her right shoulder and supported him there while she backed down the aisle toward the opening, half lifting him, half dragging him with her.
That seven-foot journey took her over half an hour. The bloody arm hanging over the armrest snagged them. She had to overcome her repulsion and touch it, moving it aside. She got blood on her hands. It was sticky. She whimpered with horror, but clamped her trembling lower lip between her teeth and continued tugging the man down the aisle—one struggling, agonizing inch at a time.
It struck her suddenly that whatever his injury, she might be doing it more harm than good by moving him. But she’d come this far; she wouldn’t stop now. Setting a goal and achieving it seemed very important, if for no other reason than to prove she wasn’t helpless. She had decided to get him outside, and that’s what she was going to do if it killed her.
Which it very well might, she thought several minutes later. She had moved him as far forward as possible. Occasionally he groaned, but otherwise he showed no signs of coming around. Leaving him momentarily, she climbed through the branches of the pine tree. The entire left side of the fuselage had been virtually ripped off, so it would be a matter of dragging him through the branches of the tree. Using her bare hands, she broke off as many of the smaller branches as she could before returning to the man.
It took her five minutes just to turn him around so she could clasp him beneath the arms. Then, backing through the narrow, spiky tunnel she had cleared, she pulled him along with her. Pine needles pricked her face. The rough bark scraped her hands. But thankfully her heavy clothing protected most of her skin.
Her breathing became labored as she struggled. She considered pausing to rest, but was afraid that she would never build up enough momentum to start again. Her burden was moaning almost constantly, now. She knew he must be in agony, but she couldn’t stop or he might lapse into deeper unconsciousness.
At last she felt cold air on her cheeks. She pulled her head free of the last branch and stepped out into the open. Taking a few stumbling steps backward, she pulled the man the remainder of the way, until he, too, was clear. Exhausted beyond belief, the muscles of her arms and back and legs burning from exertion, she plopped down hard on her bottom. The man’s head fell into her lap.
Bracing herself on her hands and tilting her head toward the sky, she stayed that way until she had regained her breath. For the first time, while drawing the bitingly cold air into her lungs, she thought that it might be good to still be alive. She thanked God that she was. And thanked Him, too, for the other life He’d spared.
She looked down at the man and saw the bump for the first time. He was sporting a classic goose egg on the side of his temple. No doubt it had caused his unconsciousness. Heaving his shoulders up high enough to get her legs out from under him, she crawled around to his side and began unbuttoning his bulky coat. She prayed that she wouldn’t uncover a mortal wound. She didn’t. Only the plaid flannel shirt that no game hunter would be without. There were no traces of blood on it. From the turtleneck collar of his undershirt to the tops of his laced boots, she could find no sign of serious bleeding.
Expelling a gusty breath of relief, she bent over him and lightly slapped his cheeks again. She guessed him to be around forty, but the years hadn’t been easy ones. His longish, wavy hair was saddle brown. So was his mustache. But it and his heavy eyebrows had strands of blond. His skin was sunburned, but not recently; it was a baked-on, year-round sunburn. There was a tracery of fine lines at the corners of his eyes. His mouth was wide and thin, the lower lip only slightly fuller than the upper.
This rugged face didn’t belong in an office; he spent a good deal of time outdoors. It was an agreeable face, if not a classically handsome one. There was a hardness to it, an uncompromising unapproachability that she had also sensed in his personality.
She won
dered uneasily what he would think when he regained consciousness and found himself alone in the wilderness with her. She didn’t have long to wait to find out. Moments later, his eyelids flickered, then opened.
Eyes as flinty gray as the sky overhead focused on her. They closed, then opened again. She wanted to speak, but trepidation held her back. The first word to cross his lips was unspeakably vulgar. She flinched, but attributed the foul language to his pain. Again he closed his eyes and waited several seconds before opening them.