Expect the Sunrise (7 page)

She seemed practiced as she braced her back against the victim and loosed the buckle. Sarah’s weight eased onto Emma. With a grim look she crawled toward Mac. He rolled Sarah as carefully as he could onto the bag. Her face looked gut-wrenchingly pale.

Phillips helped Mac as they pulled Sarah out as smoothly as possible and lowered her onto the bracings of the backpack.

Emma climbed out. Other than her rapid breathing, no one would suspect her stress. She knelt beside her friend. “I need a cloth to press against her wound.”

Mac looked to Phillips, who scrounged up a couple of wool socks in less then ten seconds.

Emma pressed them to Sarah’s head wound, then wrapped that with tape. “I need a few towels or something to secure her head.” Exhaling hard, she leaned back and pushed bloody hair from Sarah’s eyes while Phillips went in search of towels. He returned and handed Emma a pair of pants and a fleece sweatshirt. She rolled them into tubes, braced them on each side of Sarah’s head, then rolled out more tape and secured the woman’s forehead to the makeshift stretcher.

Emma closed her eyes. In the silence, the wind lifted her collar, blew her dark hair from her face. Mac saw her swallow hard. “She’s my best friend. She only came to Alaska to celebrate my birthday.”

Mac didn’t know how to respond to that.

Emma looked up abruptly, away from him, moistened her lips, and took a deep breath. “We’re going to get out of this.”

He wasn’t sure her words were meant for him.
Aye, she is a tough one, this lassie.

“What now, Captain?” Ishbane approached, making no attempt to conceal his anger—or maybe fear. “I have an important meeting in Prudhoe Bay that I can’t miss.”

“Let me call you a cab,” snapped Flint. “I think we should be thanking her for keeping us alive. We could’ve been killed!”

Ishbane glared at Emma.

She didn’t flinch, simply regarded him with emotionless eyes.

“Or still in the air if she hadn’t tried to fly through that storm,” Ishbane responded.

“Speaking of storm,” Nina spoke from her perch behind them. “I think it’s moving in.” She looked beyond them.

Mac didn’t miss the tremor in her voice. He glanced overhead. Sure enough, the ceiling had darkened, and thunder rolled in. “We need shelter.”

“We need to get out of here!” Ishbane said. “How far are we from the highway?”

Emma shook her head. “Twenty, maybe thirty miles. I have a map in my gear. I’ll try and chart our path, but once we went into that spin …”

They’d all been thinking about hitting the ground. Preferably in one piece.

Thunder growled again. Mac looked to the sky as did Phillips.

“We need to quickly get as much as we can out of the plane.” Emma’s voice cut through the gathering panic. “Mr. McRae, will you and Mr. Phillips carry Sarah away from the plane? Keep an eye on her breathing. If she starts to labor at all, get me immediately. I’ll dig out my emergency kits.”

Mac felt a gust of relief at the words
emergency kits
. Okay, he’d give her points for preparation.

He moved with Phillips to lift the injured woman while Emma moved toward the wreckage. The smell of gas hung heavily in the air, and the sounds of sparks made his stomach clench.

Spark plus leaking fuel
… the thought clung to him as he watched the pilot wriggle her way back inside.

Chapter 3

THE SMELL OF fuel leaking from the severed wings nearly knocked Andee back as she unlatched the door in the back of the plane. Sparks spit out from the instrument panel. Ignoring them, she focused her attention on retrieving her emergency supplies. Alaska flight rules dictated that she carry enough emergency provisions for each passenger. She had packed that, including her personal bag of provisions. With Sarah’s sudden arrival, however, they were one kit short.

Please, Lord, let Sarah be okay.
She let that prayer fill her soul as she tugged out the duffel bag of supplies, fighting her shaking hands. Being a pilot demanded that she be prepared to land and spend the night in the bush at any time. She’d overnighted near Koyukuk River twice over the summer after rain had forced her down on mail runs from Bettles. But during those overnights, she’d never had to look after passengers—a job she steered away from. She’d been on too many high-altitude rescues and experienced the whims of Alaskan weather too often to enjoy watching out for passengers.

Please, Lord, don’t let anyone die!

She heard a grunt behind her and looked over her shoulder. McRae had wedged himself inside. “Get out! This plane could explode,” she ordered.

“Hand me the duffel.”

Andee waged a half-second debate with herself, then shoved the bag toward him. She yanked another one out. Prying herself through the door, she gritted her teeth as she tugged. The canvas caught on the sharp edges.

Phillips came up behind her and lent his strength to the handles. She heard the material rip but didn’t care as they carried it away.

“Get away from the plane,” Andee said as she saw Nina approaching.

“My camera!”

“No, Nina. There are still sparks. It’s not safe.”

“It’s an entire month of work!” Nina started for the cabin, panic in her movements.

Andee dropped the pack and grabbed at Nina. “I said no!” She pulled Nina away from the plane.

Nina clawed at Andee’s hand on her arm. “Get away from me!”

A spray of sparks spit from the instrument panel. Andee tackled her, bracing herself for the explosion as she threw an arm over the woman.

Nothing.

Andee’s heartbeat filled her ears as she waited.

Nina squirmed beneath her, finally untangling herself from Andee’s grip. “You’re crazy!” She stood, shaking, tears in her eyes. “I’m getting my camera.” She strode to the plane.

Okay, so maybe she’d overreacted. Except Nina wouldn’t have thought that if the plane had exploded in a fireball, would she?

“You did a brave thing,” said Phillips from a few feet away. “
I
ducked.”

He smiled at her, but Andee didn’t reply. Instead she stood and surveyed her passengers. “Listen, I know we’re all rattled, but the first thing in survival is to not panic. God gave us brains, and that’s our most important asset. Right now most of us are unhurt. Those who are hurt need the rest of us to be careful, to use our heads.” She looked pointedly at Nina, now climbing from the plane with her camera bag. “I’m still the pilot, and I’m still going to get us home safely.” She tried to steel her voice, but her words stalled on the thought of Sarah lying so quietly, almost peaceful in her slumber, save for the bloody socks wrapped around her head.
Help me get Sarah home safely.

Andee noticed that McRae had opened the duffel and had begun pawing through the supplies. She knelt next to him. She’d seen panic before, and the way he followed her into the plane told her he might be starting to lose it. Keeping him focused would keep him calm. “We need to treat the injuries first,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

He looked at her, then at Phillips and Flint.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then help me with Flint. We need to move him away from the plane. And Sarah needs to be covered with one of the sleeping bags to keep her from going into shock.” She mentally ticked off the steps in warding off shock, then glanced at her other passengers for shallow breathing or signs of dizziness as she moved to help Flint.

McRae tucked a hand under Flint’s arm, opposite Andee.

“Hey, I can move my own backside. I’m not helpless,” Flint said, jerking his arm from McRae’s grip.

Andee noticed, however, that he leaned on her as she moved him farther from the plane. Once Flint sat, Andee knelt before him to examine his knee.

McRae paced behind her. “What about the ELT? Is it working?”

“Mr. McRae, can you get me the first-aid kit?” Andee asked before she turned to Flint. “It looks like your knee is swollen. I’m going to have to cut your pants to get a better look at it.”

McRae handed Andee the first-aid kit, and she used the scissors to open Flint’s pants. A blue green bruise started at his patella, the knee swollen to nearly double its size.

“I hope it’s not broken,” she said as she prodded gently. The kneecap felt dislocated, but it could be broken, along with the proximal tibia or distal femur. Flint grunted as she probed. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know how bad it is.” She moved down the leg, felt for a distal pulse.

“I feel like I’ve been dragged ten miles behind a pickup.”

“Can you straighten it?”

Flint gave her a look.

“I’m going to try just once. If you can’t, we’ll have to splint it as it is.” As gently as she could, she tried to straighten the limb. His howl could probably be heard in Juneau. “Okay, we’ll splint it bent.”

Flint leaned back, sweat beading along the rim of his renegade-label cap. At least he’d rescued
that
from the plane.

“I’m going to check on Nina’s head wound; then I’ll come back and splint your leg, Flint.”

Nina had her camera case open, scrutinizing her equipment. She shoved it back into the case when Andee approached her. “Thanks for trying to … uh, save me. I’m sorry I …” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Do you think they’ll find us?”

“We’re going to be okay, Nina,” Andee said, putting compassion into her voice. If she had children at home depending on her, she might also be a wreck. “Let me look at that gash.” Andee moved Nina’s hair, matted now with blood, and dabbed a gauze pad to clean it. “If we were in Fairbanks, I’d suggest a couple of stitches.”

“But we’re not in Fairbanks, are we?” Ishbane muttered.

“I’ll have to dress the wound and hope someone picks up the ELT transmission and flies us out of here by tonight,” Andee said, ignoring Ishbane.

“So the ELT
is
working,” McRae said.

Andee glanced at him, saw his eyes fixed on her, and said, “Can you find me another cloth to dress Nina’s wound, please?” She turned back to Ishbane. “How is your nose?”

“How do you think?” he snarled.

She sized up his wounds. He’d sustained a gash along the bridge of his nose. “The bone may be broken, but it looks like the bleeding has stopped.” She noticed his leather jacket drenched with blood. Taking a gauze pad, she attempted to clean the wound.

He jerked away from her, glaring.

“We should probably bandage it, if not apply an antibiotic. Do you hurt anywhere else? Your neck?”

He snatched the gauze pad from her hand. “No. Not that it matters. We’ll probably die out here.”

She wondered if perhaps he might be going into shock. Feelings of impending doom preceded weakness, nausea, and clammy skin. She reached over to touch his forehead, but again he jerked away and glared at her. Apparently she’d assess from a distance. “Try to keep warm, Mr. Ishbane.”

McRae stepped into her path as she returned to Flint. “Did you get a response from the Mayday?”

She stepped around him. “Please, Mr. McRae, I know we need to address our location and situation, but I’m serious about treating injuries first.”

Despite her words, even she could admit that her busyness kept her from facing the reality of Sarah’s injuries. She looked at Sarah, watched her chest rise and fall. Rise. Fall.
Please, please wake up, Sarah.

She felt McRae’s eyes on her while she searched for something to splint Flint’s leg. Stubborn Scot. He needed to get out of the way and let her do her job.

At this altitude and surrounded by tundra, sticks to splint Flint’s leg were scarce. She stood, studying the plane. In the tail section, where she stored extra cargo, she’d rigged two PVC pipes to hold the fishing gear of the early summer clients. Andee hiked around the plane, found the tail section, then climbed inside. Mounted to the bulkhead with nylon straps, the PVC pipe would make a decent splint, despite its cumbersome length. At least for now.

She took it back to Flint. McRae stood not far away, watching, his gaze cool. Rolling up a sweater, she shoved it under Flint’s bent knee, then secured the pipe to his leg so he couldn’t move it. Much. “I’m sorry, Flint. That’s the best I can do. You’ll just have to stay off it.”

She knew the others stared at her as she worked, psychological shock settling into their systems. As long as the shock didn’t turn into a medical emergency, the injuries—save Sarah’s—weren’t life threatening.

Keeping warm seemed priority number two.

Although secluded in a bowl rimmed by peaks, the arctic wind sliding off the northern slope seeped through her clothing, lifting her hair on her neck, snaking down her spine. She guessed the temperature at a tame thirty-five degrees. But by nightfall, if they weren’t rescued, it could drop to zero or below.

Finding shelter fell into the category of keeping warm.

McRae hovered just outside her line of vision, and when she moved over to her duffel bag to open her supplies, he crouched beside her. “Listen, I don’t know if you realized it or not, but we’ve crashed in the middle of nowhere. Do we or do we
not
have a hope of rescue?”