That's Our Baby!

“If you think I’m flying out of here in a plane that’s missing a strut and a float, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Is that so?” Sam leveled his fork at her. “Well, let me tell you this. I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to you if Bert doesn’t show up.”

“You could talk to him when you get to Anchorage, remind him to stop for me.”

“And what if the weather is so bad he can’t make it for weeks? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not any such thing!” Kerry shoved back from the table and winced when her finger hit the edge. She gripped her smarting finger and glared at him. “Why repair the plane at all? Someone’s got to come looking for you, don’t they? When you don’t show up back in Anchorage on time?”

Sam stood abruptly and stalked to the window. He stared out at the blackness beyond the pane; it rattled with the force of heavy gusts. Windblown snowdrifts furled around the tree trunks outside, and the view of the river was obscured by eddying snow.

“I didn’t file a flight plan, Kerry. Nobody knows that I left Vic’s camp and came here.”

Kerry froze. “And you think I do dumb things? Listen, Sam, everyone knows you’re supposed to file flight plans. Including you.” She paused as their situation sank in. “You’re telling me that no one is going to be looking for you. They’ll think you’re still at the camp.”

“For a while, at least. And the Cessna’s ELT isn’t working. Its battery is dead.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Aren’t ELTs supposed to be checked every so often to make sure they’re in operating condition?”

“Every two years. Vic keeps the plane at his camp and evidently hasn’t paid much attention to safety since he’s been going round and round with this illness of his. I didn’t know that when I agreed to fly the plane to Anchorage for him.”

“How about the radio?”

“It’s not much use with the mountains blocking transmission. I’ll try it again tomorrow.”

Kerry didn’t think Sam sounded too hopeful. “Well,” she said lamely, “maybe the radio’s signal will at least reach Athinopa. They could relay the message to the rescue people.”

Sam was silent. “Another thing we don’t know is what this weather will do,” he said after a time, his words carefully measured. “If the river freezes, no float plane will be able to get in or out of here until after the ice breaks up in the summer. The same thing goes for a boat.”

“The only way in and out of this place in the winter is by dogsled or helicopter, and those possibilities are closed to us until Search-and-Rescue gets on the case, right?”

“Right. As soon as the weather clears, I’ll start repairing the plane. It’s our best hope.”

“How much do you have to do to it?”

“I told you. Repair the strut, attach the float.”

“That sounds like more than you can do with two-inch duct tape.”

“Doug kept a good set of tools in the shed.”

“They’re still there, but repairing a strut and attaching a float sounds like a serious job.”

Sam turned back toward her, his gaze level. She thought she detected a glint of worry behind his eyes.

“The thing I’m most concerned about is the weather. There are ice crystals already forming along the riverbank. If the river freezes solid before we get airborne, we’re stuck here. Maybe for a long time.”

Kerry felt a sharp stab of foreboding. “How long does it usually take for the river to freeze?”

His short laugh was entirely without humor. He gestured with a curt nod at the blustery scene on the other side of the window, and his expression was grim.

“Depends. I’d say there’s a good possibility that within a day or so we’ll be able to stroll all the way to Anchorage right down the middle of the river, wouldn’t you?”

CHAPTER TWO

Sam hated the way Kerry’s face fell when he said that. She looked like a kid who’d just had her candy yanked away by a big, bad playground bully.

“Couldn’t you put skis on the plane? Take off from the river ice?”

“I don’t have skis for this plane. That was another of Vic’s oversights.”

“So what happens if we have to stay here?” She remained unruffled, but he sensed an underlying tension, as if she were hanging onto what he might say as a lifeline out of this situation. One part of him, the Sam he wanted to be, longed to touch her shoulder and tell her that everything was going to be all right. The other part of him, the Sam he was, knew that he didn’t dare touch her. And so he found a way to put space between them.

“Well now,” he said, moving away so that he could no longer see the silvery motes in her golden eyes, “I’d say we’d get to know each other a whole lot better than we do.” It was a statement meant to raise the barriers between them. And it worked.

“That,” she replied in a tone heavily infused with irony, “does not reassure me.”

She didn’t laugh, but he wished she had. He’d begun to sense that Kerry was different from the way she’d been in the past—more sober, more serious. Maybe it was because of her widowhood, maybe because of financial problems, maybe because of the pain from her broken finger. As for himself, he was worried about the plane and the river, more worried than he cared to let her know, but any thoughts he might have entertained about bringing a sense of lightheartedness to this situation evaporated. Kerry stood staring bleakly out the window, pale and tight-lipped.

“I assume you’ve got some food around here, enough to last for a while,” he said. He strode to the cabinets ranging along one wall and started hurling doors open.

“A bit of powdered milk. Packets of hot chocolate mix. Freeze-dried chicken stew. A few cans of soup. Canned chili and some other stuff. Is there more food somewhere? In the cache below the trapdoor in the kitchen maybe?”

Mutely she shook her head.

He walked back to where she stood, balancing his hands on his hips and staring down at her. “That’s barely enough for one person for two more weeks. If Bert didn’t show up on time, exactly what did you plan to eat?”

“I expected him to be here on schedule,” she said with admirable dignity. She lifted her chin and treated him to that flint-eyed gaze. “Anyway,” she said, “I thought I could fish. I’ve fished in the river and the creek and the lake before.”

He could barely contain his scorn. “With a broken finger?”

“My finger wasn’t broken to begin with.”

“What would you do if I hadn’t come along? If Bert were never told you’re waiting here for him? Of all the tomfool things to do, woman, this takes the cake. And sitting here with a broken finger to boot.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and glared at him for a moment. “We’ve been through all this before, Sam. I already know you think I’m an idiot, thank you very much, but actually I don’t think you’re much smarter than I am.”

“If I hadn’t come along—”

“If you hadn’t come along, I’d be in deep trouble, okay? Does it make you feel better to hear me admit it?”

“Damn straight,” he said. But he felt no satisfaction when she whirled and marched to the back door.

With one last furious look back at him, she flung a thick woolen shawl around her shoulders and slammed out into the night. Sam recalled that the storage shed that served as an outhouse was partly protected by a breezeway. It wouldn’t be pleasant going out there in weather like this, but she’d be all right.

At least that’s what he thought in the beginning. He started cleaning up the dinner dishes, scraping scraps into a bin, sluicing water over the plates from a pitcher that he filled from a wooden barrel beside the back door, all the while listening for sounds of trouble outside. The kitchen window overlooked the breezeway, and he looked out to see if anything was amiss, but the night was pitch dark and thick with windblown snow. He could barely make out the outline of the shed at the end of the breezeway, but where was Kerry? He worked with one ear cocked to the keening of the wind. By the time all the dishes were put away on their designated shelf, he was feeling edgy. She shouldn’t have gone out by herself. How long could anyone spend in an outhouse, anyway?

Too long, he stewed as he unpacked his things and stashed them in the closet beside hers. It wasn’t a big closet, and he didn’t think she’d like him taking up much space, so he crammed his few shirts and extra pair of jeans into the far corner.