Читать книгу Troop 402 - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 5

Alvin emptied the last of the goods stored below the galley and carried them out to the sled. Then he spent an hour cutting lengths of wire cable from the body of the plane. The rain had stopped and it was light enough so he could see without his flashlight.

He sat on the ground near the body of the aircraft and stared. A long section of the outer skin had been torn off exposing the skeleton. Wires and ducts of all sizes were exposed. There was something important there but it wouldn't come.

Beneath all his study, all the work, was the task he couldn't confront.

Why can't Tony do it? He's probably seen dead guys before. Why not the Incredible Hulk? He felt like a whiner and a wimp and hated it.

Back at the camp McChesney had gotten up and left the shelter with a cloth and soap. He made no comment about the fact that his luggage was in the shelter. He didn't ask how it got there and he avoided looking at Tony and Sherry, didn't even say good morning.

When he got back Sherry made him a cup of coffee.

Tony had had enough of his sullen silence. "What's the matter with you, boy, can't you say thank you when somebody does something nice for you?"

He scowled at Tony. "Look, I know what you think...you think I'm just a dumb guy pumped up on steroids whose afraid of his own shadow."

"Huh...what the hell has that got to do with anything. I didn't make your coffee, she did. I don't give a damn what you think about me, but being rude to a lady really stinks, buster."

McChesney flushed under the old man's stare. He turned to Sherry. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong. Somehow I don't seem to be able to do anything right. I appreciate your making the coffee...and if you brought my luggage, Mr. Genoa, I appreciate that too."

"Don't worry about it so much," Sherry said. "None of us are at our best. Alvin brought all the stuff from the plane. He built a sled out of a piece of the airplane's skin. Would you do something for me?"

"Sure, anything you want, except get in a plane again."

"No, you won't have to do that. Well, for a very short while maybe. Alvin went back to the plane to get some more stuff. Tony and I think he's going to try to get Captain Duckhorn and Mr. Neilsen out...you know to bury them."

"Jesus, he's just a kid, he shouldn't do that."

"Finally, something we agree on," Genoa was still angry.

"I know, "Sherry said.

"Look, McChesney,” Genoa growled, “that boy is like anyone else. He does what his history, his training tells him he has to do. He probably thinks about his father, and does what his father would want him to do. You didn't offer to help and he won't ever ask. One of you better change. You're the adult. Was it me, I'd go see what I could do to help. You can believe it or not but we're going to need that boy if we're going to get out of this mess alive."

McChesney looked at the old man for a long moment, nodded, got up and walked off through the trees.

"That fella's got a lot to learn...trouble is there isn't going to be much time to learn it."

Alvin sat on the floor in front of the door leading into the cockpit. He tried to think the whole thing through, but to think the unthinkable wasn't working.

I've just got to do it. I can't leave them there.

He got up slowly, walked to the door and turned the handle. The door was warped and stuck. He yanked harder. It let go suddenly pushed open by the weight of Captain Duckhorn's upper body which flopped limply to the deck in front of Alvin.

He jumped back and shouted with fright. He couldn't get his breath. Alvin took two more steps back and stuffed his fist in his mouth to keep from hollering again. He bit down so hard he drew blood.

He turned his back on the awful sight lying on the floor, sat down and rocked, back and forth beating his knees with his fists.

The pilot of Flight 402 wasn't recognizable any more. His whole upper body had been mangled.

Alvin tried not to cry but he couldn't stop it. In the midst of his grief he apologized over and over. That was the way McChesney found him, crying, hiccoughing, apologizing.

McChesney stayed out side and waited until Alvin's despair subsided. He stepped back in the trees and broke a limb noisily.

"Anybody in there? Hey, Kid, you around here?" He walked up to the door. "Oh, damn...hey c'mon out of there. I'm going to need some help."

Alvin walked to the door. He couldn't bring himself to look at the remains of their pilot.

"Hey, I know it's a waste, but I need some pieces of this chute to wrap the bodies in. Can you cut them for me? Make them six, seven feet long and four feet wide. Take it easy, okay. I know how to do this, I used to have a job as an ambulance driver. I seen a lot of guys who were ...you know messed up. If you can find something I can use to tie the canvas around their bodies it would help."

Alvin nodded. "Okay..." his voice was still strained, hoarse from crying.

It took McChesney an hour to get the two bodies out and wrapped in the pieces of canvas. Alvin cut lengths of wire from the exposed electrical harnesses and McChesney used them to hold the canvas in place.

He faced away from the boy not wanting him to see the blood that had gotten all over his clothes.

"You stay here with them, kid, I've got to take care of something. I won't be long. You wouldn't have a shovel in that pack of yours by any chance?"

"Yes, I've got a trenching tool."

"You go get it then. I'll be along in a bit. There's a flat area on the other side of the brook. We'll bury them there and put a pile of rocks over the bodies. I guess you've been worried the animals might get at them."

Alvin nodded and left.

McChesney looked after him. "Well, that's one thing you don't know about, Mr. Boy Scout."

It took the rest of the morning to dig graves and pile rocks on top. Alvin made crosses and put one at the head of each grave. Sherry and Tony had come down to help. The four of them stood around the grave.

"Old man, do you want to say anything?" McChesney asked.

"No, I've never been a church goer."

"I'll read from the Bible." Alvin had brought his from the shelter. "Is that okay with everybody?"

"Yes, that's fine," Sherry answered for all of them.

Alvin opened his Bible to Psalms. His voice was tired, too old for eleven years.

"The Lord is my shepherd...I shall not want...he maketh me to lie down..." Alvin read slowly, sounding out the words he wasn't sure of.

"Amen," Sherry said. "You read that very well, Alvin. Now I think we should all go back to the camp and eat a little something. Then maybe we can decide what to do."

Alvin was very quiet through their make shift meal. They ate dried fruit bars and dry cereal with water and one apple each.

When they were finished Alvin got out his note book and began writing.

Sherry started it off. "The only camping I've ever done was in my back yard with a bunch of my girlfriends. I wish I had but that's it, that's all I know about survival in the woods."

"Well, Miss, the only forest I've ever been in was Central Park," Tony said, "and there's only two things you have to worry about there. If you're moving you'll probably get mugged and if you stand still someone will probably paint you over with graffiti."

McChesney had never spent any time in the woods but he wasn't going to admit it.

"I think we should stay with the plane. Someone's bound to send out people to search for us. I don't want to get lost in the woods and find out someone came to the plane and we weren't here."

"That's a bad idea," it didn't occur to Alvin that his statement wouldn't set well. He wasn't old enough to know how to make someone swallow a pill they didn't want to take.

"In the first place I don't think anyone knows where we are. I'd bet money we're in Canada."

"C'mon, Kid, you can't know that. We started out in Boise, that's in the southern end of Idaho. We would have been flying west."

"Nope, the storm blew us north west, a long way north. Look at how the plane is lying." He tapped the face of his watch with the compass. "I checked the heading, we were going north."

"I'm afraid he's right," Sherry said. "An hour before we crashed First Officer Neilsen told me all the communication and navigation equipment had been destroyed by the first lightning strike, and we were being blown north by the storm."

"Even so, they'll figure it out. Those search guys are smart."

"Even if they do, that's not our major problem. Look at the trees. This is first growth forest, very old. When I was at the plane I couldn't see the tops of the trees, so how do you think a search plane is going to find the wreck.

"We're up over six, seven thousand feet. It's very cold. People who are cold need to eat more. We only have a small amount of food, maybe enough for three, four days. When people get hungry, and cold they get run down and make mistakes."

Alvin looked at his notes.

"We have to get off this mountain as soon as we can. I think we should go down until we find a stream or river and follow that down. People settle along rivers, it's the best way to find help. Another thing, if it turns much colder we could have snow..."

"It's a stupid idea," McChesney sneered. "What about the old man, he's got a heart condition. You think tramping through the forest is going to help?"

Alvin had thought about it. It was a constant worry. He started to flare up then eased back.

"Being at high altitude means the heart has to work harder. No, the best way is to go down."

"Look, McChesney you don't speak for me," Tony said. "I agree with Alvin."

"Do what you want old man, I'm staying here."

Alvin lost his temper. "It's no use talking to you. Steroids have rotted your brain." Alvin got up and stalked off toward the plane muttering.

"Asshole kid, I've never taken a steroid in my life. His famous forest ranger father should have taken a stick to him."

"Don't even think about it sport." Tony got up and followed Alvin in to the trees.

McChesney looked across the fire at Sherry. She was shaking her head sadly. "Damn...I'm sorry, that kid gets under my skin. He's such a know-it-all."

She just shook her head, got up and took the pots to the brook. McChesney looked after her.

Tony found Alvin standing outside the plane pacing back and forth snapping his fingers nervously. He had already forgotten about the argument with McChesney.

He turned as Tony walked up. "Hi, Tony," he started pacing back and forth again. "It's driving me crazy. I saw something that we need and I can't remember what it is."

"Well if it has anything to do with food, I'm your man."

"Hah! That's it." Alvin walked over to the part of the plane where the skin had been ripped off. He grabbed a section of tube about a half inch thick. "This is what I want."

He took out his tool kit and began disassembling the section of pipe. When he'd got out a long straight section, he examined it inside and out carefully.

"It's perfect."

"Great. You mind telling me what this thing has to do with food?"

Alvin laughed. "Sure. I'm going to make a blowgun. If you look in the drawers in the galley you'll find some place mats made from stiff paper. Now I have to find some wire, something I can turn into a dart."

Tony climbed into the plane and moved to the galley. Alvin stared at the open doorway to the flight deck. He wanted to look around but hated the idea even though the bodies were gone.

He gritted his teeth and did what had to be done. The whole front end of the plane had been crushed forward into the pilot and copilot's seat. Behind the pilot's seat was a small locker, the door of which had broken open.

There was a 9mm automatic in a holster in a slot in the bottom underneath a fur-lined leather jacket. He didn’t know that it was illegal for the pilot to have a gun on the plane and certainly didn’t care. He looked around in the small locker and found two extra clips of ammunition. He put the gun and extra shells in the pocket and put the jacket on. It bothered him that the jacket belonged to a dead man but he knew that anything they kept for warmth could be important.

There was another locker on the copilot's side, and in the bottom of it Alvin found a Very Pistol and four flares. That, he would definitely take along although he doubted they'd have any reason to fire it for a long time. He also found a Swiss army knife much like his own. That was a real find.

He spent the rest of the morning with Tony making darts for the blowgun. Alvin was very patient. Tony tried to get him to go outside and at least try the damn thing out.

"What if you get all these things made and find out they don't work?" Tony asked.

"They'll work." Alvin kept on rolling the stiff paper is cones around slender pieces of sharpened copper. The copper was part of the electrical system.

"You must have thirty of those things."

"Don't matter. I'm not that good ‘a shot, we'll lose a lot of them."

When he'd completed fifty he went to the door of the plane and looked around. He picked a smallish tree about twenty feet away, loaded one of the darts into the aluminum tube, aimed it at the tree, took a deep breath and blew as hard as he could.

They were both surprised at the result. Alvin had thought it would work but he didn't know how well. The dart hit the center of the tree and went in deep.

"Wow! That's something Alvin. What are you gonna shoot with it?" Tony asked.

"Oh, rabbits...squirrels, maybe birds."

Alvin got up and looked down the length of the plane. "Let's go through it again. Get all the paper in the bathrooms."

Tony laughed. Despite the situation he seemed to be having a good time. "You're a very practical guy, Al. I would never have thought of that until I needed it."

"I read in a book that it's very important that a person who is lost should not let themselves go, that they should keep as clean as possible, you know, do things to keep their spirits up."

"Tony, we have to get off this mountain. We're going to run out of food real soon...and I don't want to be no cannibal like those people who got trapped in the Donner Pass."

Tony laughed nervously. "Well, you won't get much of a meal out of this old carcass. Should be well seasoned though, I've had a glass of good Barolo every day for the last fifty years."

Alvin grinned. "My Dad won't let me drink. Let's find the others. I've got to convince them to go with us...tomorrow morning.