Gathering String (7 page)

He began a slow taxi, and she listened politely to his explanation of checking the yaw indicator and feathering the prop. When they finally took off, Opie kept right on talking, going on about his extensive training, his flying skills, his friends and a social life that consisted of getting wasted every Saturday night. With an occasional chilly nod, Tess mostly looked out the window, her lack of interest now clear though Opie prattled on. Sam dozed for a while. But, as they headed west, the flight become bumpier, and he roused a little, listening with his eyes closed to the one-sided conversation.

In response to Opie’s request to Flight Watch, the radio crackled, “Wind 310 degrees at 11 knots, 3 mile visibility, ceiling 2500 feet.”

Opie nodded, “OK, we can manage, and we’re getting close. But let’s hustle on getting those pictures. We want to be on the ground when that next big front rolls in.” He looked over at Tess and offered a husky reassurance, “Don’t be scared. I’m taking good care of you. My flight instructor told me I was the best he’d ever seen. Told me I had the makings of a Blue Angel or one of those hot shot military pilots.”

“Um-hum,” Tess made a pretense of studying the ground below. The turbulence increased.

From the back, Sam murmured, his eyes still closed. “Didn’t you say your Dad is a Navy pilot, Tess?”

Sam heard her sigh and answer, “He was. And my two brothers are now.” And he laughed softly, when she said to Opie, “So you really don’t have to explain anything more to me. I’ve kind of had a lifetime of it.”

“You’ve been up with them, huh?” Opie asked.

“Sure, in planes like this and even the fighter jets. They’ve flown me around in them all.”

He nodded. “I thought you were different.” The plane jostled and thumped. “You’re not as skittish as a lot of babes I get.” She glanced back at Sam. His eyes were still closed, but he grinned at the word “babes.”

“Let’s just say I’ll know when it’s time to be scared. Give me the camera bag, Sam,” she said. He pulled it free, passing it over the seat, then settled back again. Digging out the Leica, she asked, “Could you circle back, and tip us up? I can zoom in, but I need a good angle.”

“Sure,” Opie smirked over at her, and slowly inched the throttle back. Another bumpy jolt made the plane creak and he laughed, “Like riding a bronco, ain’t it?” She didn’t answer. “So, you know all about flying, huh?” She shrugged, concentrating on the window, watching a low-hanging wisp drift past. “Then you know that in a plane like this you’ve got to,” he leaned closer, letting his hand rest on the denim over her thigh, “pump the flaps and all.” He drew out the word “pump” in an awkward attempt to make it thick with innuendo.

With a snorting laugh, she brushed him back saying, “Let’s keep your hands on the yoke.”

But Sam was no longer amused. His eyes sprang open, and he leaned over the seat with a scowl. “OK, Opie, that’s it. Let me give you the bad news. She’s not interested. She’s not
ever
going to be interested; no matter what you say, no matter how much you talk. So keep your paws to yourself, shut the fuck up, and let the lady work.”

“Hey!” The pilot looked back at him. “No one talks to me like that. Not while I’m flying the plane.” The plane lurched with a chop of turbulence and he turned abruptly back to the controls, nearly shouting, “And stop calling me Opie!”

That’s when they heard the engine sputter and felt the plane shudder. In a split second, they were all quiet, waiting. Then the sputter became a cough, and the shudder became a deep vibration.

Immediately Opie brought the plane level and reached for the fuel selector. But the vibration morphed to a hideous shimmy. “Get that bag stowed.” Opie reached up, flipping the latches of the hatch next to him, and then leaned over Tess to unlock the ones on the passenger side, without even a glance at her. Tess shoved her camera bag at Sam and he quickly, carelessly, dropped it into the storage area behind him. When he turned back, he stared at the windshield in wonder. The raindrops hitting it were leaving odd black smears. Tess moaned, “Oh God,” and then he understood. It was oil, blowing back from the engine.

“We’re going to have to put down. Thank God the highway down there is closed because of the flooding.” Opie grabbed the radio, and his first word was, “Mayday.”

Panic buzzing in his ears, Sam couldn’t follow the exchange between Opie and the Rapid City tower, until a crackling question came startling clear. “1919 Papa, how many souls aboard?”

“Three.” The pilot’s voice cracked in response, and then he repeated firmly, “Three souls aboard.” Even as he spoke, the tortured knocking from the engine suddenly ceased. In the yawning silence, all three gasped as the nose dipped steeply down.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Sam stared straight ahead, aghast at the windmilling prop, Opie’s voice echoing in his brain, “Tower, we have lost all power. Coming down on Highway 96. Request you notify fire and rescue.”

“Roger. Emergency vehicles are rolling. Godspeed, 19 Papa.”

Sam’s eyes shot to Tess. When she turned and looked back at him, her own were wide with terror. He couldn’t take it in, that someone so young, so full of energy and laughter, was going to die. It was his doing, his fault. The editors weren’t going to send her at all, but he’d insisted. Knuckles white with his desperate grip on the arm rests, Sam understood that the gliding, sinking sensation was actually the plane falling through the air. But all he could see was Tess, as she reached into the open collar of her shirt and pulled out a fine chain, clutching something tightly in her hand.

In spite of his strained voice and the shuddering yoke, Opie kept control, and lined the plane up with a flat stretch of rain-drenched highway. “As soon as we’re stopped, get out if you can. Don’t grab your things, just move. Get your heads down.”

The narrow ribbon of wet concrete seemed to be running toward them, and the words “crash and burn” shrieked into Sam’s mind and flashed to his first job out of college. Covering a fire one night, a sadist Boston cop had won an office pool after setting Sam up with a good long look at a charred corpse. He’d puked his guts out. His eyes went back to Tess’s cheek, smooth and clear as a lily. Then she bent, her face disappearing into her arms, and his throat closed with the most profound regret of his life.

Bouncing with the wind, they came in hard. The pavement was covered in standing water. Hydroplaning, the nose dipped, and the prop slammed into the ground. Opie pulled back frantically, and as Tess’s head came up, she caught a glimpse of a sheared-off blade. For several seconds, they mercifully skidded straight ahead, but then the left strut slipped off the pavement, hitting a thick gumbo of mud, and snapped off. The plane went spinning, and Sam’s upper body slammed hard into the seat in front, forcing Opie forward, his head crashing into the instrument panel. Tess cried out as the camera bag winged forward, catching her on the left side of her face. Eyes closed, Sam felt his chest burn as he gasped. It seemed to last forever, the violent spinning, crashing and grinding from every side.

And suddenly everything stopped.

The silence was overwhelming. Tess couldn’t hear anything except her own jagged gasping. She looked over at Opie, his face a bloody mess lying against the yoke. Dead? She felt a scream working up into her throat, but it caught with a chilling realization. The cabin was filling with smoke.

“Sam! My god, Sam, we’re on fire!” She unhooked her seat belt and slid sharply toward Opie’s inert body. Confused, she struggled upright, only then recognizing that the plane rested on its side, the left wing shattered and buried in mud. From the window in her door, her view angled up into the slanting rain. Bracing against her seat, she reached up and pushed hard. The door flew wide with surprising ease, and she turned back. “Come on …” she looked down at Opie. He was breathing, a gurgle from his throat, blood bubbling at his lips. Even if he could be roused, no way could he climb out. But he could be pushed out his door. It was only a few feet off the ground.

“Sam!” she cried again, clutching her seat and hoisting herself until she could finally see him slumped in the back, blood dripping from his lower lip. Stunned, he stared back, then coughed and grabbed at his chest, muttering, “Sweet Jesus, what ... ?”

“Get out! We’ve got to get out! Something’s burning, Sam!” She leaned way over the seat to clutch the front of his windbreaker, trying to shake him. “Reach over Opie, unhook his belt. Get that door open. Hurry! We’re burning!” She pulled herself over even more, trying to get at Sam’s seat belt, but suddenly he understood and grabbed it himself.

Hunched over the front seat, Sam reached for the handle, pulling, and swearing at the knife-sharp pain in his chest as he pushed at the door. “I can’t get it. Fuck! I can’t get it.” The smoke was getting thicker and he coughed and groaned again.

“The frame,” Tess coughed too, “it must be bent.”

“Get out, Tess!” Sam shouted. “Go out your door. Go on.” Sam knew there was no way he could hoist himself up through her door, let alone lift the pilot.

“No!” she shouted back. “We’ll get it!”

Opie moaned softly, coming around, and Sam reached down, unbuckled the pilot’s seat belt, and pulled him back, trying to maneuver around him to put more of his own weight against the door. Throwing his shoulder against it, he heard it give a little, but he sucked in his breath, the pain excruciating. Darkness crowded in at the sides of his vision.

“I can’t,” he slumped over the seat. “Go on, Tess. Get the fuck out. Please!” He heard his own voice catch on a sob.

“No! We’re all going! Damn it, help me!” He heard her yell, but the smoke made his eyes water, blurring his vision. “Help me!” she shouted again, and he realized she had slipped back down into the passenger’s seat and swung her two legs around, over Opie, to the door. Blindly he pulled back on the handle, his weight to the door, as she kicked out violently, both heels hitting the hatch hard. It opened a bit, fresh air rushing in, and increasing the crackling sound somewhere under the deck. “Oh God,” he heard her moan, then she kicked out again, and this time the door creaked wide enough to squeeze through. “Get him out!” she shouted, pushing at Opie wildly.

With Sam leaning over the seat, trying his best to pull, and Tess pushing from the side, they shoved the semi-conscious man out the door. Sam saw him thump onto the ground below and roll out of sight. Then Sam was over the seat, grabbing at Tess’s arm screaming, “Come on! Come on!”

He was aware that she had something in her hand as he tumbled backward out the door, pulling her with him. Landing on his back, he cried out in pain, then rolled with her, splashing through the standing water, the mud underneath sucking and heavy. Coming to her feet first, Tess pulled at his hand, shouting against the wind, “Where’s Opie?”

Squinting, Sam could see a figure staggering a few yards ahead of them. “There!”

Together they started running as best they could, Tess pulling his arm desperately as they struggled toward the open, higher ground of a field beyond. They’d gone only about 20 feet when the plane behind them blew up, flinging them face down into the mud. Pulling her under him, Sam felt bits of shrapnel slice into his back and shoulder, the heat washing over them. Rolling onto her back, she raised her camera, even as she pushed at him.

“Down!” he shouted. “Just stay down.”

“Get off!” she yelled. “Let me see! Let me get it!” Her fist hit him square in the chest, and he fell back with a groan. The whine of her motor drive was almost lost in the roar of flames. Then she rolled up on all fours, crawled a few feet away and threw up.

Watching her as the rain pounded his back, Sam pulled back onto his knees, then struggled to his feet. Slipping through the slick mud, he grabbed her around the waist, and helped her up, holding his side against the pain. Together they made it up hill and caught up with Opie, who seemed to be wandering in circles. Arm still around her, Sam moved to intercept him, but lost his footing, and they slid down again. As Opie stumbled closer, Sam reached out and grabbed his pant leg, pulling him down beside them. Seeing the shattered face for the first time, Sam muttered, “Oh Jesus.” The young man groaned as Sam turned him up on his side, blood and a couple teeth rolling from his mouth. Then he slipped into unconsciousness. For Sam and Tess, there was no such mercy. Shivering with shock and cold, Sam drew her close and they huddled together in the downpour, silently watching the flames devour what was left of the plane and waiting for the sound of sirens.

The Rapid City hospital kept them both overnight for observation. Opie wasn’t so lucky. Of the three, Tess was in the best shape. Besides being bruised all over, she had a large contusion on the left side of her face and she’d chipped a bone in her foot kicking open the hatch, but it didn’t need to be set or cast.

Sam also had a gang of bruises and a couple broken ribs. The doctor dug shrapnel out of two places on his back and one on his shoulder, and those stitches were deep. But they left his lip alone. It was swollen, tender and raw but, he was told, it would heal quickly.

Opie, whose real name they found was Wally Pinser, was taken right into surgery. Broken cheekbone, broken nose, broken upper jaw, broken teeth; he faced a painful recovery and reconstructive work.

Sam’s cell phone had been in his jacket and his wallet in his pocket. Other than that, everything went up with the plane. Neither had a change of clothes, and all the
Trib’s
equipment they’d carried was toast, except for the camera Tess held onto.

It was late when they used Sam’s phone to call their families. Tess spoke to a brother, unwilling to wake her father in Florida with upsetting news. Sam found Judith still at her law office. She was shocked by the accident, and he was surprised at her concern. Usually loath to have her jammed schedule upended, she’d even offered to fly out to help him home. But he’d told her to stay in D.C., insisting he’d be fine, that he still planned to work on the story. He could think of nothing less comforting than Judith marching around asking questions and threatening lawsuits.