Protecting the Flame Read online

  “Lot of ifs.” Hunter sank back into in a black brood. “Lot of fucking ifs.”

  She waited a few beats then turned to leave. “I’ll be back—”

  “Watch out for that Scott,” Hunter said with sudden vehemence. “I mean it.”

  She stared at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I heard him. He was threatening that old man. Said the old guy was lucky he hadn’t suffocated him for his coat. That black eye Scott’s got? That’s not from the crash. The old guy tagged him.”

  “You saw this happen?”

  “No, but I heard it. Heard him threaten that old man, and I thought I better keep my mouth shut or he’d come after me next. Turns out the old guy had a bag of jellybeans he was saving for that girl, Mattie in a pocket. Scott accused him of hoarding ’em, but I think the old guy forgot he had them. Anyway, I heard him telling Scott to share and share alike, to eat only a couple and bring me some? Well, he didn’t. Instead, Scott kept them for himself. Said the old guy wasn’t going to last much longer anyway, no point in wasting food on him or me. He probably thought I couldn’t hear, or maybe he didn’t care. I’m telling you, I know guys like him. He’s either coming down or just out of rehab. You gotta watch out. His wife and the little girl? If they get in his way, he’ll do whatever he has to so long as he gets what he needs.” His eyes held hers. “Don’t think he won’t do the same to you. For a guy like that? As easy as swatting a fly.”

  Chapter 9

  “Thought you’d fallen in,” Earl said as she emerged from the cockpit.

  It was something Bubbe Sarah would’ve said. Her other go-to whenever someone headed for the bathroom: Hope everything comes out all right. Despite everything, she laughed. “We got to talking.”

  “About?”

  She debated about lying then decided to hell with it. “Scott.”

  “Ah.” The other man was quiet a moment. “Never liked him. But he’s the father…of my grandkid.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation, Earl.”

  “She’s my daughter.” He subsided then said, “Kill for her…but I can’t live her life. Can only help…when she makes a mistake.”

  Scott was a big mistake. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t made one helluva mistake herself. “You would’ve liked my grandmother. She’d have told you to knock out a couple of Scott’s teeth for good measure.”

  Earl spluttered a laugh that degenerated into a phlegmy coughing fit. She couldn’t get him into a sit. Will had warned about more damage to Earl’s spine. She settled for slipping a hand under his shoulders and giving him a couple of thumps with a fist until Earl hawked up something and spat. When he was settled again, she dumped snow into the cookpot they’d unpacked from Burke’s stash and set that on the fire to melt. “Let’s get something warm into you.”

  “No.” At her look, he gave a weak wave of a hand, “Save it. You’ll…” He focused on breathing then said, “Save it.”

  “Okay.” She put a hand on his chest. She didn’t know why. For a while, they sat together, and her hand rode the swell and fall of the tides of his breath. Then she said, “I’m pregnant.”

  He was quiet a moment. “The father…”

  “Isn’t a good person. My husband’s dead. Been dead eighteen months.” She drew in a shuddery breath. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  “Your parents…?”

  “Both dead. Three months after my husband. Car crash, the police said. Drunk driver.”

  He waited a beat. “Doesn’t sound like you believe that.”

  “Because I don’t, any more than I believe what they said about Ben.” Some proof to back any of that up would’ve been nice.

  “Grandmother?”

  “Gone. I’ve got a sister. She’s got three kids, all little. She’s married to a nice guy.”

  “If you’ve made a mistake…why are you…”

  “Still pregnant?” She shook her hand. “I don’t know. I came close. I made the appointment and then I…I couldn’t do it. I still have the pills.” Even if she took them now, she wasn’t sure they would work. But she hung onto them for reasons she didn’t understand. They were talismans of the person she always thought she was: independent, decisive. Fearless. Follow that damn story wherever it led and to hell with everything else.

  That hadn’t worked out so well.

  His gloved hand cupped the back of her own. “God’s kept you…safe. He got you this far.”

  She didn’t want to be cruel, but she wouldn’t let that pass either. “I’m sorry, Earl, but a god has nothing to do with it. If a god did, Jews wouldn’t have been led into gas chambers still mumbling meaningless prayers. My husband would be alive. My parents wouldn’t have been…” She almost said murdered to make a point. She really had no proof. “We wouldn’t have crashed, and you’d be walking out of here. You wouldn’t—” She grabbed the rest before it could fly from her mouth. “I’m sorry, but please don’t talk to me about any kind of god.”

  “All right.” He kept his hand on hers. “We’ll…watch the fire then. Keepers of the flame. You heard…of them?” When she shook her head, he said, “Learned about them from…friend of mine. Alaska. Eskimo man makes this lamp…qulliq, it’s called. Gives it to his wife. A gift. Without his wife to keep the fire burning…there would be no home. They’d all die.” He patted her hand. “They know. Without a woman…to protect that flame inside…there is no life.”

  It was a good story and, as Hunter would’ve said, a blind man could see that metaphor with a cane. She knew Earl meant well, too, even if all of it was so much sentimental treacle worthy of Hallmark. But she liked this old man and, for the rest of that night, she made it her business not to fall asleep and let the fire die. She kept that flame going.

  But she couldn’t do the same for Earl.

  THE DRONE

  Chapter 1

  On the fifth morning…

  “Okay, enough.” Will caught her by a forearm as she dropped another armload of wood onto the pile she’d been building up for the last two hours. “Stop. Go back and get some rest. You’re beat. You also haven’t eaten enough to feed a tick.”

  “I’m not that hungry.” Her head was pulsing as if some mini-me monster were inside having a temper tantrum. In another minute, her brain was going to liquefy and dribble out of her ears. Before Will and Scott had appeared, she’d forced down a cup of tea, waited to see if it would stay down, and then followed with half a packet of ramen and broth. That did her in. Five minutes after she was done, a woozy kind of heaviness mantled her brain, and she heaved everything back up again in great, racking spasms that left her stomach sore and her throat burning with acid. Disgusted, she kicked snow over the mess and wondered when the hell the vomiting was going to stop. There was no good time to survive an airplane crash, but not being able to keep down food was going to make her no good to anyone, least of all herself.

  Eventually, Will would say something, and then what? She kept remembering his expression, the way his eyes had narrowed almost imperceptibly when feeling her belly. Her waist had thickened, but could he have felt, well, something else? She wondered if there was some graceful way she could get out of eating in the mornings. Somehow, she didn’t think saying she wasn’t a morning person would cut it.

  And why do you even care? He’s married. He has a life.

  “Hungry or not, you have to eat.” Reaching into his pack, Will pulled out an energy bar. “Eat it,” he said before she could protest. “The last thing we need is for you to get all light-headed and slip on a rock.”

  “Fine.” She unwrapped the bar and caught a whiff of peanut butter and chocolate. Her stomach cramped. All of a sudden, she was ravenous—and that was as scary as her morning heaves. There was this thing in charge, growing inside, asserting its control. Maybe she needed to take those pills after all. But that might not be smart out here. First thing after they were rescued, though… “There’s still a lot to do,” she said, taking a tiny expe
rimental nip and nearly fainting because the bar tasted so good.

  “Which is true, but it’s already noon, and you’ve gone more than thirty-six hours without sleep.”

  “We need more wood.” She’d never truly appreciated how hard people in third world countries had it. A person could spend her whole day gathering wood and hauling water.

  “Scott can do that while I work on getting Hunter out.” He gestured at a spread of tools and the inflatable raft which he and Scott had brought over from the fuselage that morning. “Really, we got this.”

  No, really, you don’t. She eyed the two glass cockpit displays Will had already managed to jimmy free from Hunter’s side of the cockpit. Those displays represented over three hours of work which had done diddly squat. The only thing decluttering the cockpit had accomplished was to give them a better sense of what the situation actually was. They weren’t talking about a bent console or an easy fix for Hunter here. The impact had jammed the cockpit’s frame in upon itself, crumpling and folding metal into large folds like a deflated accordion. No screwdriver or hammer or crowbar…they didn’t have a crowbar, but just supposing…none of that was going to make a dent here. What they needed was a blow torch or jaws of life, something that could cut through metal. They could probably take out every display and every knob, and it wouldn’t make a difference. The situation reminded her of that hiker, the one James Franco played in the movie, who’d slipped and gotten his arm wedged between boulders where he’d hung for a week before cutting off his arm.

  “We got this,” Will said again. “Please, go get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as we get Hunter out. Then we probably will need an extra pair of hands to get the raft up that slope.”

  “Man, if someone was saying I should go lie down, I’d sure do it.” Hands in pockets, Scott crouched in a dispirited hunch near the fire. “Maybe I should. I’m not feeling too good.” Using a thumb, Scott blocked a nostril and blew a runner of snot from the other. “I think I’ve caught something. I think I’m getting sick. On account of the cold.”

  “Yeah?” said Hunter. Will had jimmied out Hunter’s side window, the better to get at the various displays and now, holding up an arm to block the bolts of sun splashing into the cockpit, Hunter squinted at the other man. “Happy to trade places, man.”

  “I think you can probably muscle through this, Scott.” She’d dug deep, trying to find a squeak of sympathy for the guy but had come up empty. She took another nibble of her energy bar then rewrapped and tucked it into a pocket. Best not to push it. “At least you get to walk away.”

  “Barely.” Scott dragged a sleeve across his nose. “If you guys hadn’t come, I’d be some wolf’s dinner by now.”

  She sincerely doubted this. In fact, she wouldn’t put it past Scott for him to back off and let the wolves or that mountain lion take Earl and Hunter first. “If he needs to go back, I can stay,” she said to Will.

  “Scott will pull through,” Will said, dryly. “Sometimes the best medicine is to get your mind off your own worries and focus on how fortunate you are.”

  “Who said that?” demanded Scott.

  “Me,” said Will and then to Emma, “Go.”

  “Yeah, please. Seriously, you look worse than me.” Hunter’s mouth moved in a wan grin. “And I look like shit.”

  What he looked like was a very sick man. Even with the bruising to mask it, she saw the high flush of fever in his cheeks. Despite the cold, his face shone with sweat, and his eyes were glassy. She remembered how bluff and big he was, but he seemed to have collapsed and shrunken into himself.

  Will was also right. Her body was wobbly, her legs were water-weak, and she was starting to stumble over her own boots. If she could’ve curled up right then and there to sleep, she would’ve. Still, as relieved as she had been to see the sun rise and that awful night end, she didn’t want to leave. There was so much left undone. She cast a glance at Earl’s body. The old man seemed much smaller in only his blue jeans and shirt. Everything else Will had stripped from the body. Hunter got the parka, scarf, hat, and gloves. The boots were two sizes too big for Hunter, but Will said when they got Hunter out, they’d probably have to cut off his boots. So, they needed a spare pair.

  It all seemed a little barbaric. She understood that Earl would have no more use for any of these things, that survivors had done this over the centuries. But it still felt vaguely obscene. She’d gone through his pockets and pulled out a wallet, a pocket watch, and a small folding knife with a staghorn handle, all of which she would give to Rachel. (Scott had offered to hang onto the items, but she’d refused.)

  There was still the problem of what to do with the body—and also with Burke, who still lay in pieces, and whom no one had touched yet.

  “What we do about Earl will be Rachel’s call,” Will said when she had brought it up.

  “Rachel’s not awake,” she pointed out. She didn’t add that the other woman might never wake up.

  “Makes me his next of kin, then,” said Scott.

  “Actually, no, that would be Mattie,” Will said.

  “C’mon, she’s a kid.”

  “What did you have in mind?” asked Emma.

  “Well…”Scott had sucked on his teeth. “We can’t bury him.”

  “No.” She’d looked around in mock dismay. “Really?”

  “Emma,” Will warned.

  Scott ignored her. “Could pile rocks, but that’s a lot of work.”

  “Yeah. Work,” she said. “Perish the thought.”

  Scott rounded, a fist already bunched. “Listen, bi—” He stopped, shot a glance at Will, and jammed the fist into a pocket. “You got a better idea? Maybe leave ’im out for the animals? Oh yeah. I bet Rachel would love that.”

  “Eskimos did it.” Hunter shrugged. “I mean, look, wolves already got my dad. It’s not like they can kill him more.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “No, it’s an option,” Will said. “But I don’t think it’s one we should take either. Once the bodies are gone, it’s not as if there isn’t more meat for the taking. I don’t think I want to chance wolves and a couple mountain lions sniffing around.”

  There was one other option no one had mentioned. “What about cremation?” In answer to the men’s collective stare, she said, “It’s an option. There’s wood.”

  “Wellll.” Will rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand. “It takes a fair amount of heat to burn a body. That would mean a lot of wood burning at high heat for a long time, like two or three hours. It’s so cold, I don’t see how that would work.”

  “What about the extra fuel?”

  “You mean, squirt ’em like charcoal briquets?” Scott laughed. “Barbecue!”

  “It’s not funny.” God what an asswipe. She looked at Hunter. “I’m sorry he’s such a jerk.”

  Scott flushed purple. “Who the fuck you calling a jerk?”

  “You. Stop being one, and I’ll stop saying it.” She looked at Will. “What do you think?”

  “It’s a good thought, Emma,” Will said, “but I still think you have the same problem of maintaining the right amount of heat for a long period of time. Constructing a cairn’s probably better.”

  Scott frowned. “A what?”

  “A rock mound, only it’d be a tomb. Yeah.” Hunter rubbed his mouth with a gloved hand. “Better than leaving my dad out in the open to get chewed on.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Will nodded. “Scott can get a start while I work on you, Hunter.”

  “Oh, right. Like I got the energy for this?” Scott protested. “Why me?”

  “Because I have a bum arm I can’t use much, and as much as I like Emma, I’ll take a pass on her relocating my shoulder again,” Will said, calmly. “Scott, we’re all hungry—”

  “Yeah, fuck with this,” Scott flared. “You want me to work, I got to eat! And where the fuck are those rescue planes, hunh? It’s been five days.”

  “The storm only let up day before yesterday. You hav
e to give rescuers time.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better? We’re going to starve to death, man, unless we start eating each other—”

  “Scott, are you always this much of an asshole,” Emma asked, “or do you only practice in front of the mirror when you’re alone?”

  “Emma, stop. And you.” Will put a restraining hand on Scott’s shoulder. “Cool off.”

  “Yeah?” Scott was practically vibrating. “Tell your girlfriend to watch her mouth.”

  “Fine.” Will turned to Emma. “Would you please watch your mouth?”

  “You guys. Comedians.” Hunter let go of a bitter laugh. “You do realize I’m dying here, right? Every minute I’m still in this fucking plane is another minute I get closer to fucking…dying. Do you not get that?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Scott blustered. “But that doesn’t change the fact we’re stuck, it’s going on five days now, and we got to think about where we put our energy.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Hunter showed his teeth in a nasty grin. “Heaven forbid you spend energy helping out a guy.”

  Scott ignored him. “Maybe we need to be thinking of rescuing ourselves. Maybe we have to leave.”

  “You can’t leave me,” Hunter said.

  “No?” Cocking his head, Scott gazed up at blue, empty sky. “You hear any planes? Helicopters? Snowmobiles down valley? Yeah, me neither. Did it ever occur to you that us getting out now might actually help you?”

  “You know it wouldn’t.” Hunter’s mouth trembled. Tears stood in his eyes. “You leave, you might as well put a bullet in my head.”

  “No one’s going to leave,” Will said.

  She hated to do it, but it had to be said. “Could there be something wrong with the ELT? All we know for sure is the antenna’s good.”

  “No, the ELT has to be working. I checked the remote switch by Burke’s seat. It’s on.”

  “But we haven’t actually looked at the unit.”

  “Because it’s locked. Unless we find a key, I don’t see how we can check it out.”