Summer's Child (15 page)

Pete glanced behind him toward the darkening water, then turned back to the front of the boat, but not before Daria had caught the look of disgust in his face. She knew what he was thinking.

It was a moment before she realized that another small boat was in the water, ten yards or so from them. Two men were in the boat, neither of whom she could recognize in the fading light, but she was relieved they were there. She glanced back to see Shelly only a short distance behind them, her smooth strokes propelling her through the water, and Daria felt a thrill of admiration at her sister’s grace and energy—despite her questionable judgment at coming into the water at all. If any fuel had spilled from the plane, it could burn her, or worse yet, ignite. But if the water was clear, they might be able to use Shelly’s help.

The two boats came together as they neared the plane.

“Ocean Rescue’s tied up in the inlet,” a man in the second boat said. “Capsized fishing vessel. Don’t know when they’ll get here.”

The boats glided close to the plane, and the situation became instantly, painfully clear. There were two women in the back seat of the plane. One was unconscious, a cut on her temple, blood spilling over her ear. The other woman was screaming, pounding on the window, begging them to release her from the plane. The door next to the pilot had been ripped off by the force of the crash, and the pilot appeared to be unconscious. At first, Daria thought the pilot was a man.
All
of them did. A man who was twisted somehow in the front seat, his body contorted at an angle, his head bent forward, long dark hair covering his face. Daria was not sure he was alive.

Pete struggled with the pilot’s seat belt. “He’s got a pulse,” he called over his shoulder to Daria and Andy. “But I can’t get him out. Let’s go for the passengers first.”

If they’d had a tool, even a crowbar, extricating the passengers would have been easy, since the skin of the plane was thin and pliable. But they only had their bare hands and the oars to use, and although the sea was calm, the bobbing of the plane and boats made the work difficult.

Shelly suddenly appeared at the side of the boat, and Andy was first to spot her. “Shelly!” he said. “What are you doing out here, crazy woman?”

“Get in the boat, hon,” Daria said to her sister. “You’ll freeze.”

“I’m all right,” Shelly said. She was treading water, her hair flowing out from her head like pale sea grass. The water was dark, but Daria could see no skim of fuel on its surface. Shelly would be all right.

Pete barely seemed to register Shelly’s arrival, and Daria thought it was probably just as well. He picked up an oar.

“Move your head back!” he shouted to one of the women in the back seat. “I’m going to break the window!”

The woman cowered beneath her arms, and Pete rammed the oar into the Plexiglas. It popped out in one piece, and the woman let out a scream, then started sobbing. With the window out, Daria could see that the interior of the plane was filling with water.

“We’ll go around the other side,” yelled a man in the second boat. They rowed to the far side of the plane and broke the window there. Pete was able to pull the woman nearest him through the window and into the boat, while the men on the other side of the plane did the same.

“This one’s hurt bad,” one of the men called out. “And the pontoon over here is shot. The one on that side is the only thing keeping this tin can up.”

“Bring her over here,” Daria shouted. She turned at the sound of sirens. An ambulance had pulled onto the beach, lights flashing. It looked very far away.

The woman in their boat seemed more shaken up than injured. “The pilot passed out, or something,” she said. “We just started going down and she didn’t do anything to stop it.”

“She?” Daria asked. That’s when she took another look at the pilot, contorted beneath the seat belt. Long hair, slim body. The pilot was indeed a woman.

The second boat had pulled next to them again, barely visible now because of the darkness.

“I should get in the other boat with the injured woman,” Daria said to Pete.

“No, stay here,” Pete said. “Help me with the pilot. The ambulance crew is on the beach now.” He called to the men in the second boat. “You guys take these ladies in, okay?” he said.
“And bring us back a knife or something to cut this seat belt with.”

Daria was usually crew chief, usually the one giving the orders, but this was not an official call, and she didn’t balk at following Pete’s instructions. She helped Pete and Andy transfer their terrified passenger into the second boat, and as the two men and the injured women sailed away, Daria and Pete turned their attention back to the pilot.

Daria reached into the plane and pressed her fingertips against the woman’s throat, feeling for a pulse.

“Is she alive?” Shelly asked from the water.

“Yes.” The pulse was very rapid, but strong. The woman suddenly rolled her head back against the seat and her brown eyes fluttered open. It was an instant before they registered alarm.

“Stay calm,” Daria said. She was shocked to realize that the pilot was very young, no more than eighteen or nineteen, with long dark hair and a pronounced widow’s peak that only added beauty to her heart-shaped face. Like the passenger, she also had a gash across her forehead, this one bleeding profusely. “We’ve just about got you out,” Daria said as she took off her own T-shirt and pressed it against the woman’s head. It was a lie, but a necessary one. The water was up to the woman’s waist, and Pete’s arms were submerged as he leaned over the side of the boat, struggling with her seat belt.

“The door frame’s twisted somehow,” he said under his breath to Daria. “The belt’s caught in it. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“I’m in the water, Pete,” Shelly said. “Maybe I can do it from down here.”

“You’re just in the way, Shelly,” Pete snapped, and for a brief moment, Daria felt hatred toward him. This was the man she planned to marry in a few months, and at that moment, she didn’t even like him.

“She hardly looks old enough to have a pilot’s license,” Andy said.

“I don’t think we can work on her from the boat,” Daria said. She was losing her balance. Her hand holding the T-shirt kept slipping away from the woman’s forehead.

“Yeah, and we can’t extricate her this way, either,” Pete added. “We’ll have to get in the water.”

The plane, Daria realized, was slowly sinking, seawater creeping up the pilot’s body.

“Andy,” Pete said, “you stay in the boat. Keep it close to the plane. Keep your eyes open for any fuel leaks, too.” He unzipped his shorts, pulled them off and jumped into the water.

Daria took off her own shorts and followed him in. The water took her breath away, it was so cold. “I thought you said it wasn’t cold?” she said to Shelly as she pulled herself closer to the plane.

“You’ll get used to it,” Shelly said, but her teeth were chattering.

“It’s going down fast,” Andy said from the boat.

“We need a knife out here, damn it,” Pete said, and he dropped under the water to try to work the pilot’s seat belt free. Daria felt the fruitlessness of his effort. He would be able to see nothing underwater in the darkness. She tried to keep pressure on the pilot’s forehead as she let her body float out from the plane to make room for Pete to work. She wondered how long the pilot could survive being immersed in the cold water. How long could
any
of them survive?

“Shelly, Andy,” Pete sputtered as he surfaced from the water. “This thing’s sinking like an anchor. Y’all do what you can to keep it upright while Daria and I try to get her out.”

“Okay.” In the boat, Andy skirted the plane to reach the other side, and Shelly swam to the plane’s submerged nose to
do what she could to keep it afloat. Daria glanced over her shoulder at the beach, praying someone would bring tools out to help them.

The pilot’s eyes were open now. Open wide. The young woman stared into Daria’s eyes as Daria tried to stem the bleeding from her head wound. She dared to lift the T-shirt once, only to have blood gush down the frightened pilot’s cheek. She didn’t know how cognizant the pilot was of what was going on or of how much danger she was in. She was not uttering a word, yet her eyes were filled with fear.

“Don’t worry,” Daria said. “We’re going to get you out. You’ll be all right.”

Pete surfaced from underwater again, tossing his wet black hair out of his face with a shake of his head. “Maybe I can get at her better from the other side,” he said.

“I already tried the door over here,” Andy called from his side of the plane. “It won’t open.” He sounded winded. Daria glanced at her sister to see how she was faring. Shelly was treading water directly in front of the plane’s propeller, her hands submerged beneath the plane’s nose. She appeared to be going strong.

A small yelp escaped from the pilot’s lips. The water had reached her breasts, and Daria felt a flash of panic course through her own body. What if they couldn’t get her out? It was beginning to look doubtful, and there was no way that Andy and Shelly would be able to keep the plane above water once it made up its mind to sink. Daria’s legs ached from treading water. She struggled with her free hand to loosen the shoulder harness, trying at the same time to stay out of Pete’s way. Her foot kept catching on the damaged pontoon, and it was tempting to rest it there to give herself a break from the relentless treading, but she knew that her weight would only pull the plane farther underwater.

Pete surfaced once again, gasping for breath this time. Daria saw fear mixed with the determination in his eyes. She wanted to talk to him, try to puzzle out the best course of action, but before she could say a word, he was underwater again.

“Please help.” The pilot’s voice was barely audible, and she reached out to grab Daria’s wrist.

Daria gently extricated her arm from the woman’s hand. “I need my hand to get you out,” she said.

The water was rising more quickly now. It had reached the pilot’s chin, and the young woman tilted her head back as though she could somehow prevent the water from climbing up her face. If only she could.

Pete came out of the water on Daria’s right this time. He looked toward the beach, where a second ambulance had arrived. “Hey!” he shouted vainly against the sound of the sea. “Come on! We need help out here!”

The woman grasped Daria’s wrist again, and this time Daria did not pull away. She watched in horror as the plane sank lower, pulling the pilot completely underwater, her terrified eyes still wide, staring hard at Daria.

“Oh, God,” Daria said. “Pete! What can we do?”

Pete turned to Daria. He looked past her, though, and his face suddenly registered shock.

“Oh my God, Shelly,” he shouted. “Move!”

Daria remembered that Shelly was near the plane’s propellers, and she spun around in terror. But Shelly was safe and sound, treading water, still trying to hold up the plane and wearing a look of confusion at Pete’s reprimand. Daria had no idea why Pete had yelled at her, but there was no time to find out. The plane was suddenly rising again. And another boat was coming toward them, this one motorized.

“Ocean Rescue’s coming!” she said, then under her breath, “Hurry. Hurry.”

The pilot’s head rose out of the water, her hair slicked back from her face. Her eyes were still open, but she was not breathing. Floating on her stomach, Daria struggled to breathe into the woman’s mouth as the rescue boat pulled alongside them. Pete got a knife from one of the men in the boat and, slipping beneath the surface of the water, finally freed the pilot.

“Get her into the boat!” Pete shouted, and he and Daria pulled the woman from the plane and passed her to the men in the rescue boat. The boat sped off, and Andy drew his small craft close to them again.

“Get Shelly in first,” Daria said. “She’s been in the water the longest.”

Shelly was weak now, and Andy had to pull her into the boat.

Daria could barely climb into the boat herself. Her feet were numb and her entire body trembled from exertion and anxiety. Pete pushed her, while Andy pulled. Pete was winded and exhausted when he managed to crawl into the boat himself.

Andy rowed the boat toward shore, and the breakers caught them and carried them onto the beach. They could hear shouting and, in the distance, the whirring of a helicopter.

Too late, Daria thought. She shook with the cold, and her legs threatened to give out from under her as she climbed out of the boat. She was dressed only in her wet underwear, and she shivered as she staggered over to the cot where the medic was working on the pilot. The young woman was intubated, bagged and hooked up to an ECG. Daria peered over the medic’s shoulder and saw the flat line on the ECG screen. The defibrillator paddles rested in the sand, obviously no longer needed. The pilot was dead, her brown eyes still open. Fighting tears, Daria turned away, but even with her own eyes shut, she could still see the pilot’s pleading gaze.

“Sorry, Dar.” Mike, who’d arrived with the ambulances,
handed her a blanket. “We’ll take over from here. Do you need a form for your field notes?”

Paperwork. How could Mike even think of that right now? “I’ve got one in my car,” she said. She tried to wrap the blanket around herself, but her fingers would not do what she wanted them to, and Mike had to help her.

“You’re freezing,” Mike said. “Go get warm.” He walked back to the ambulance, and she turned away from the scene. She was dazed and dizzy. Where was Pete? Where were Shelly and Andy? Her breath was like fire moving in and out of her chest, and her throat was tight with the need to cry. She hugged the blanket tighter around her body, then spotted someone in the crowd handing Andy a stack of towels. Shelly was near him, and he passed a couple of them to her. She clutched the towels to her chest, and even with the sparse lights from the ambulances, Daria could see her violent shivering.

“Do you need a towel?” A woman walked up to Daria and pressed a couple of towels into her arms.

“Thanks,” Daria mumbled. She turned around again, looking for Pete, and finally saw him several yards away, his back to her. By the way he was bending over the water, she knew he was sick. She walked toward him and put one of the towels over his shoulders. He was trembling uncontrollably and didn’t even look at her as he took another towel from her arms and wiped his mouth with it.