Page 28 of Protecting the Flame

Chapter 7

The day bled away,taking the wind with it, though the snow didn’t let up. Smoothing a last length of duct tape to the fuselage, she took a few steps back and ran a critical eye over her handiwork. Not too shabby, actually. The arrangement of luggage along the base reminded her of sandbagged fortifications at forward operating bases and bunkers. A small but soft light diffused along the opaque plastic sheeting through which she could make out Will’s hunched form and, to his left, Mattie’s back as they worked at sorting through the contents of their various packs. The sheeting wasn’t air-tight, and although she couldn’t make out the words, she heard the rise and fall of their voices, the lighter, slightly anxious note as Mattie asked a question and then Will’s low, slow baritone. She also caught a whiff of warm chocolate. Will must have made hot cocoa. The smell made saliva pool under her tongue, though of course her bladder took that moment to remind her that she had other business to attend to.

Might as well scout that out now. If they were here for longer than this evening, they’d have to designate an area well away from the fuselage. Wait, what are you thinking? Turning aside, she slogged through snow in as straight a line as she could manage, heading for a denser, darker area that might be forest. She didn’t know why she had that feeling, but it was the same as when a person carefully wandered a dark cellar or bedroom and sensed a wall coming up, a tower of boxes. Every few steps, she paused to eyeball the plane through dense, heavy snow that fell straight-down, like water gushing over a falls. Several inches already blanketed the fuselage. Will was right about insulation, but all that snow also would make it tough for anyone to see them from the air. Worse, Burke’s plane was white with black-and-red markings on the sides. She couldn’t remember what color the vertical fin and rudder were, but any color was better than none. Clearing snow away had to be a priority for tomorrow and maybe stamp out an SOS in the snow, too.The pack was certainly deep enough. If the sun deigned to make an appearance, perhaps they could use bits of the plane to catch the light?

There was a lot to think about. She bet Will would know the best course of action. He was the wilderness guy, after all. She pushed away the thought that followed on the heels of that, but she couldn’t help but consider that Burt Reynolds’s character in Deliverance was a big outdoorsy guy, and he’d been the one who needed rescuing.

She had to stop thinking so hard.

The going was tough; every step was a posthole into fresh snow that came to mid-calf. She didn’t think what she felt beneath her boots was ground or rock, either, but more snowpack. She was reminded of stories her grandmother told about blizzards and following guide ropes from the house to the barn that were right out of Little House on the Prairie. Getting lost out here would be bad. Tomorrow, they would have to scout out the place, figure out where the cockpit was. The chances anyone was alive were, as her dad always joked, slim to none, and slim had left the building. (It was a dumb joke then and a dumb joke now, but her mom always laughed. That was, her dad once said, why he’d married her.) But there might be maps, like the one Burke had been consulting, or the radio might work.

There has to be something we can do other than wait.

As she waded through calf-high snow, she fanned the beam of one of Burke’s flashlights right and left. She saw nothing fresh or dug out, no trough made by something as large as a cockpit skidding through hardpack, but she was moving at a right angle to the wreck, too. All things considered, if the cockpit was anywhere, it probably lay in front of and on a line with their wreck. That’s what had happened to that rugby team in the Andes. Of course, where Burke and the cockpit were also depended on how the plane had come down. If a wing had clipped a tree, that might have spun them around.

She was still thinking too hard.

She wondered if animals might come to explore and see what all the fuss was about. She guessed that depended on how high they were. This was grizzly and wolf country. Mountain lions, too. Of the three, she put her money on cougars, not because she actually knew anything about the animals—she’d never seen one in her life—but because she’d seen it in a movie…which was it? The one with Jeremy Renner that took place on that reservation. That poor native girl who ran as fast as she could through air that flash-froze her lungs. On the other hand, the mountain lion in the movie came down from a mountain to feed; it didn’t hunt in the mountains.

They might not be able to hunt up here either. Which meant they would have to move to a lower elevation. Maybe they should do that sooner rather than later.

God. Freak yourself out. They hadn’t even passed the twenty-four mark yet. The end of their golden day would come soon enough, at about midnight, one a.m., but it wasn’t here yet.

When she figured she was far enough away to tinkle in peace, she stopped and turned back toward the wreck. The light was still there but very faint. She hadn’t come to any trees, either, which should’ve embarrassed her but didn’t because, well, beggars and all that. Wedging her flashlight into an armpit, she quickly unzipped and squatted. Her bladder wasn’t as full as she’d imagined. From the ammonia smell, she must be dehydrated. Her lips were dry, and her tongue felt huge. Water would taste good right now. Better yet, a mug of hot tea or cocoa.

As she was pulling up her pants, she happened to glance down—and saw something on her panties in the white beam of her headlamp.

Shit.

When she was twelve, she’d slipped on the balance beam and come down in a hard straddle. That had torn her up a bit on the outside. She’d also not been able to walk for a week, what with that melon between her legs. Yet another time when the school nurse had taken a look and rolled her eyes.

The spot on her panties back then had been red.

Thisone was pink.

She must’ve stared for a good minute before her brain started working again.

It’s trauma. She ran the zipper up then secured her pants with decisive snap. Nothing more amazing than that. What the hell? She’d been through enough in one day to last a lifetime.

Face it. You’re one accident-prone chick.

The thought made her laugh. Because wasn’t it the truth that accidents kept happening—

Something, somewhere, screamed.

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