A Time in Heaven (3 page)

To the
ir
left was an entire wall made of a gigantic stone fireplace. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned all season, but there was still an ample amount of chopped wood waiting to be burned.
There were a couple
of
dusty-looking
couches and several
over-stuffed
chairs
arranged
around an old rug in front of the fireplace.
The large windows let in sufficient
morning sun
light so that the lobby was
somewhat cheery.

Smith took them past the staircase to a small dini
ng room that maybe would seat twelve
people.
The tables were covered with tablecloths that looked rather dirty. Katie thought that the kitchen
must have been behind a revolving door at the other end of the room.
Smith didn’t take time to point out the kitchen.

“One more thing to show ya
,
” he said as they entered the last room. H
ere was a store of sorts.  On the shelves
were dried goods and some canned food.  One section was for toiletries and
a few
first aid supplies.  It wasn’t much, but would outfit a fisherman with essentials forgotten at home.

At the far end of the store was what Smith wanted to show them.  “There’s no phone service here and your cell phone won’t work either, so in case of an emergency there’s this
here
radio you can use. Works off batteries so ya don’t have to worry about the electric bein’ off.”  He
quickly
took them out a door beside
the desk that
the radio
was on
.

“And still no staff,” Jesse said to himself as he held open the door for Katie and Sadie.

“What?” Katie asked.

“Nothing.  It wasn’t important.”  They caught up with Smith at the corner of the building.

“Well that’s about all there is to Heaven.  If ya ain’t got any questions, let’s get the rest of your gear to the cabins, so I can get outta here.”

“Just one question
Mr.
Smith. Where is the staff?  We haven’t seen anyone else since we arrived.
" Jesse said
.

Smith looked very thoughtful for a moment.  He responded to Jesse by saying, “Oh, the staff for the next two weeks will arrive later today.  We were a bit early because of the weather
and I have to get back to Seattle.  They’re coming from Juneau
.”

His
answer made Jesse a bit uneasy but he guessed it made sense. 
“
Then I have no other questions for you.”

“
What is that building over there?
” Katie jumped in.
Through the pines she had noticed an
o
ther small building.

“That’s t
he smoke house.  The staff bunk
house is behind it.” Smith was walking very fast back to the path to the dock.

Jesse
just didn’t like the feeling he had, but he shook it off telling himself that all would be fine.  They had
the radio if anything happened until the staff arrived.

The three of them and Sadie headed
down the path
back to the plane.
They gathered th
e rest of their stuff
from the
plane
and piled it
on the dock
. 
“I really need to get goin’
.  Hope you can handle getting these things to your cabins.” Smith said as he got into the plane.  He started it up and took off leaving Jesse, Katie and Sadie standing on the dock.

“Funny he didn’t say anything about picking us up in a couple of weeks
.
” Jesse commented while trying to pick up the rest of his gear.

Remembering their conversation earlier on the plan
e ride in, Kathie said to Jesse,
“
He told me he wasn’t
the one picking us up, so I guess we won’t see him again.”

“You’re probably glad of that, hey girl?”
Jesse said as he reached down and scratched Sadie’s ears.  They all heard thunder in the distance.  Sadie whined a little. “Better get our stuff to our cabins.”

As they started down the path, Katie decided that she had to say something and she hoped it wouldn’t sound totally
ridiculous
coming out of her mouth.  “You know
, Mr. Danvers,
I meant it when I said that I am a big fan of yours.
” Before he could respond, she continued,
“
But let me assure you,
it’s
okay if we don’t even see each other until we get back on that plane
to go home
.  I know you are probably here to rest
, get away,
and do some fishing. So am I. Sadie and I will respect your privacy
.
”

“If that’s what you want, sounds good
to me
.
I did hope to get off by myself for a while
”
Jesse told her. He
wasn’t so sure he wanted to stay away from her.  But it was probably a good idea.  A relationship wouldn’t fit into his plans right now.
  And he wasn’t ready to trust another fan – he had gotten hurt the last time he let his guard down.

They arrived at Jesse’s cabin and he started in the doo
r. “See ya in a couple of weeks
,
”
Katie said.  Jesse replied, “Do you need help with your gear?”

Katie started toward her cabin
without looking back at Jesse.
“No I’m good.  Come on, Sadie.”
She wanted to get away before she changed her mind.

Katie and Sadie went
directly
inside when they arrived at the
ir
cabin. Katie did a little housekeeping before putting away her clothes. Sadie jumped up on the bed as soo
n as Katie had made it, and curled up to take
a little nap. “You’re a good dog, Sadie.
I do love you.
” She sat down beside the dog and patted her.
“
It looks like we’ll be keeping each other
company for this trip.”  But Katie
didn’t know how she was going to stand have Jesse Danvers so close and not seeing or talking to him
.  “Ah Sadie, what was I thinking
? Why did I
tell him we’d stay away from him? W
hen will I learn to think about what I am going to say before I open my mouth?”

Jesse
, too,
made himself comfortable in his cabin. There was no real bed making with him.  A good shake of the sleeping bag onto the bed and he was set.  His
unzipped
duffle bag set on a chair was putt
ing his clothes away. Satisfied with the cabin
, Jesse decided to get his fishing gear ready so that he c
ould take a walk to the lake. He wanted to
try his luck before the storms came.  But in the back of his mind was Kati
e
. Maybe fishing would help him to forget about her.

THE STORM

About a half
hour later Jesse found himself on
the north side of the pond. 
Smith was right when he called it a pond
.  He was a little disappo
inted that it was so small. 
He looked around for a small boat so that he could get out into some deeper water.
He was
a little
surprised that there was
n’t one.  Jesse decided he had no other option than to fish from the shore.  He had just
started casting as a breeze was buil
ding and
the sky darkened.  Just
then he
got a hit
. To his amazement, he
was able to
land
a nice 15 inch
brown
trout. 

As he started to take the fish off the hook, movement on the other side of the pond
, in the willows,
caught his eye.  Katie and Sadie were coming do
wn the path between the thick
willow
trees
. 
As they came out onto the grass around the pond, t
heir eyes met at the same time.  Jesse raised his fish over his head to show her.  Katie shouted across the pond, “Congratulations. Is that your first one?”  Jesse gave her
thumbs
up just as there was a crack of thunder.  They both made a hasty retreat back to their cabins.

 
             
             
             
             
*
             
*
             
*
             
*
             
*

Mike Smith certainly had been
in a hurry to get back to Seattle.  He was about to make some really good money smuggling a couple of
illegal immigrants
out of the country.  He
hadn’t planned on taking any more customers to the fishing camp when he was offered this job.  He figured that taking this last minute
couple to the fishing lodg
e would be the perfect cover.  He would s
neak them
out of the airport
under the radar
, deliver them to Heaven,
and then come back to t
ake the real paying customers to their destination
.
His
flight plan called for the take-
off
to be at noon
.  A man and a woman with fishing gear
leaving according to p
lan wouldn’t raise any suspicions
.  He
would fly up the coast and deliver his
alien
passengers to
the
Kenai Peninsula.  They would pay him and get picked up to go to Russia. 
“Easy money," he thought.
He smiled an evil smile on how clever he had been.

His new passengers were
there
to meet him when Smith arrived back at the airport.  He told them he would be ready to go as soon as he refueled. “Perfect,” he thought as he started the engine at 12 noon, his scheduled take off
time
. 

As part of his
plan, t
he plane had been parked out in the open so that there would be plenty of witnesses seeing the scheduled vacationers load
their fishing gear
and take off toward Heaven Island.

In the air, Smith told his
customers to sit back and relax. He assured them that
everything was going as p
lanned.  He headed north toward
some heavy rainclouds; the same ones that were bringing in the storm to Heaven Island.  The
air controller
came
on the
radio
and suggested Smith
turn around and wait
out the storm, but he
radioed back, “Don’t look that bad from up here, we’re gonna go for it. Over
.
”

A few minutes later, Smith saw
a
large
flock of geese flying
south and heading toward the plane.  It was too late.  The plane hit several of the big birds.  There was an explosion and the parts of the plane, along with its passengers, went into the rough ocean below.

The headlines
around the world the
next day read, “Singer, another passenger and the pilot killed in plane crash off the coast
of Alaska.
”

             
             
             
             
*
             
*
             
*
             
*
             
*

Katie and Sadie ran back to the cabin and jumped onto the porch just as the heavens opened up.  There was another flash of lightning and resulting boom of thunder. Sadie jumped and they hurried in the door
. Katie closed
it quickly behind them. “Nasty storm coming.” Katie said as she wiped the rain from her eyes.  She went into the bathroom to get a towel to dry Sadie and herself. The lightning cracked again, this time much closer.  It was followed by a loud blast of thunder.

Jesse, too, made it back to his cabin
just
before the storm struck.
The blast of thunder that made Sadie jump had the same
effect
on Jesse. “What a storm!” he said as he hung up his hat on the nail behind the door.  His jacket was wet, too, so he shook it and hung it on the back of one of the two chairs in the tiny kitchen.  Then the second crack of thunder. 
The lightning had been so close that the whole cabin lit up.  “I hope those two next door are okay, maybe I should go check.” 
As he opened the door, t
here was another flash just as bright followed by a deafening clap of thunder.
“And maybe not.” He said
as he stepped away from the door.