crap, there he went again. He discovered that he’d closed his eyes, but he opened them again, looked at the spectacular scenery, heard the shrill whistle of what he thought might be a pika, a small mammal that lived among the rocks. It was answered by another, and Will blew out a breath. He was okay. This climb had been a good idea. He’d get out in the wilderness often until snow closed it to him, unless he wanted to learn to snowshoe.
Hey, maybe.
The time had come for him to decide whether to go back the way he’d come, the standard route along Stetattle ridge, or try a different and probably more difficult route. Will leaned toward the different route out of the backcountry. He wasn’t in any hurry. He’d brought plenty of food if he ended up taking an extra day or even two, and if he hadn’t, he could fill himself with the sweet blueberries ripe on low-growing shrubs at a certain altitude.
Reluctantly, he heaved his pack onto his back and adjusted the weight. Ice ax in hand, he started to pick his way across a patch of snow that began the slow descent. Far below amid a subalpine area of stunted trees and a bright patch of blooming heather, movement caught his eye and he paused. Was he about to have company? Damn, he hoped not. He wanted this day, this mountain, to himself.
Then he identified the patch of cinnamon-brown as a black bear, probably dining on blueberries, too. Not alone. He shifted his binoculars to see her cub. Smiling, he watched for a few minutes, glad his path wouldn’t lead him too near to them. Getting between mama and her cub wouldn’t be smart.
He’d let the binoculars fall and started forward again when he heard a faint sound that had him turning his head. A growl...no, a hum? It took him a minute to spot the small plane that must have come over Ross Lake and now passed north of Sourdough Lake. In fact, it was heading pretty well directly toward him, which disturbed him on a subliminal level—made him want to sprint to take cover.
He saw the moment the bear swung her head, too, in search of the source of that alien noise. A sudden sharp bang, although muted by distance, shot adrenaline through his body. What in hell...? Will lifted his binoculars again, this time to the plane, adjusting until he could all but see the pilot’s face. Had the guy dropped some kind of load? Not the best country for retrieval, if so.
Frowning, he cocked his head and listened hard. No more irritating buzz. Oh, crap. The engine had shut down; the propeller no longer turned. The nose dropped. That plane was heading down. He watched in horror as it descended precipitously toward the steep, forested slopes beneath him.
“Start the damn engine. There’s still time. Start it!” he shouted.
Following along with his binoculars, he saw the moment the plane hit the first treetops. Cartwheeled. Tore apart.
It might not be safe or smart, but the next thing he knew, he was running.
TAT-A-TAT, TAT-A-TAT, TAT-A-TAT.
Maddy tried to understand the staccato series of rapping sounds followed by silence, then a repeat. Strangely reluctant to open her eyes, she listened hard.
A harsh call. A trilling.
Something brushed her face. She jerked, and pain racked her body.
Have to see, have to see. Somehow she knew she really didn’t want to know what had happened, but...even aside from the pain, so diffused she wasn’t sure what the source of it was, her head felt weird. So she slitted her eyes.
And let out a shocked cry. She was hanging upside down. And looking at a completely unfamiliar landscape. Ground that was tilted. Rocks, the rough boles of trees and feathery sweeps of green branches.
Wanting to retreat into darkness again, she squeezed her eyes shut, but a stern inner voice refused to let her go back into hiding. Figure out what’s wrong. Like why I’m hanging upside down like a bat settling for a snooze. She’d have giggled if she hadn’t known instinctively how much that would hurt.
All right, all right.
This time when she opened her eyes, she lifted her chin to look upward. It took her way longer than it should have to comprehend. A belt across her lap and shoulder held her in a seat anchored to torn metal. Not a car seat, she thought, puzzled. Was that...? It was... A wing—an airplane wing—was attached, stabbing toward the ground amidst the greenery.
Airplane seat belt, not car. It was all that held her from falling. A flicker of memory and she knew. That’s why I’m alive, she thought in shock, trying to imagine the force that had torn the plane into pieces.
The Cessna. In a flood of renewed fear, she listened for voices, cries, anything to indicate one or both of the men were alive.
“Scott!” she called. “Bill!” Her “Anyone?” trailed off weakly.
She heard something; she just didn’t know what.
Getting down had to come before anything else.
She could open the seat belt, but would drop what had to be eight or ten feet onto her head. Even fuzzy-minded as she was, she knew that wouldn’t be smart.
She tried to pull herself upward, grabbing a piece of the wreckage. Metal groaned, shifted, and Maddy froze. Her head swam, and she looked to see bright red blood running down her arm. She must have sliced her palm open. In the greater scheme of things, it didn’t seem important. Being fuzzy insulated her. She found a more solid handhold—the side of the cabin, minus the window—took a deep breath and unsnapped the belt.
Her bloody hand slipped from the wreckage and she fell sooner than she’d planned, twisting to land hard on her butt and side. She skidded, bumping to a stop against a boulder. Pain engulfed her and she gritted her teeth against the need to scream.
When she was finally able to move, she wasn’t sure she hadn’t lost consciousness again. From the angle of the sun through the trees, it hadn’t been long, though. Unless she’d lost an entire day? No, the blood on her hand and arm still looked fresh.
Sitting up proved to be an agonizing effort. The left side of her body must have taken the brunt of the damage. Either her arm was broken, or dislocated. Or it could be her collarbone, she supposed. And ribs, and hip. But when she ordered her feet to waggle, they did, and when she experimentally bent her knees, doing so didn’t make her want to pass out.
Maddy continued to evaluate her condition. She had to wipe blood away from her eyes, which suggested a gash or blow up there somewhere. Her head hurt fiercely, making it hard to think. And yes, she had definitely slashed open her palm, although she was already so bloody, she could hardly tell where this stream was coming from. None of the blood fountained, though, just trickled and left smears, so she wasn’t bleeding to death.
Or dying at all. She didn’t think.
With her right hand she clutched the thin bole of a wispy, small evergreen of some kind and used it to pull herself to her feet. Then she turned slowly in search of the rest of the plane. Not the tail—she didn’t care about the tail. The nose. The front seats, the two men. Logically, they had to be...somewhere in front of her.
Tat-a-tat, tat-a-tat, tat-a-tat.
Woodpecker, she understood. It kept tapping as she struggled forward,
