Joy in His Heart (2 page)

“I can’t believe our luck that you’re in the area. I was hoping you could join a search but it looks as if you’ll get there first. Can you stop at Piseco and pick up a spotter? A bunch of hikers just came across some yahoo and a boy. The yahoo was leading some sort of
church camping trip. The hikers found the two of them near Rock Lake. They were both suffering from exposure and are pretty disoriented.”

Joy grimaced. Not an uncommon story, but potentially deadly. She mentally shifted gears from her regular flight mentality to search and rescue as she listened to Russ.

“Near as we can gather he was leading the kids in the Silver Lake wilderness area. He went in on the Northville-Placid trail. Somehow they got lost. You know how those bushwacks are up there. Like I said, he’s not making a lot of sense yet. He says they walked for days, then the kid they found him with fell into a stream swollen by last week’s thunderstorms. He went in to save him and they were swept away. The rest of those kids are out there alone.”

“So the bottom line is that the leader has no idea where the kids are,” Joy said, knowing she sounded disgusted. “How many kids are we talking about here? And how old?”

“He had seven with him, so six are still out there. All of them are thirteen and under. Best we can put together is that they’ve been out there alone now for at least five days. It was supposed to be a daylong hike to a lean-to, a quick overnight then back out again. This ain’t good, kiddo. And we’re looking at some nasty developing weather cells moving in from the Great Lakes right now.”

“I’ll alter course and pick up your spotter. Maybe we can spot them before the weather moves in. I’ll need you to find my passenger accommodations in Piseco.” Joy glanced at her instruments as she began to change
course. “Mind telling me why you only just heard these kids are missing? Where were their parents all this time?”

“Actually, all the parents are away at some sort of mission trip and out of phone range. Their pastor volunteered to look after their kids while they were gone and to take them camping. As far as we know, the parents don’t know yet that their kids are missing. That’s in the works now.”

Brian scrambled into the seat next to her. “Isn’t dropping me off to pick up someone else a waste of time? You only have a few hours of daylight left and I’m guessing less before the storm blows in. If all a spotter does is look for the kids or any sign of them through binoculars, I can do that.”

She didn’t even spare him a glance. “Absolutely not.” As if she’d keep him with her longer than necessary. Puh-leeze!

“Why not? I have twenty-twenty vision.”

She ignored him. “Banking to heading two-eight-two. My ETA at Piseco is—”

“You’re wasting time!” Brian cut in while she still had the mic open.

“If your passenger’s willing, it
would
save time,” Russ said, clearly having overheard the good doctor.

“He’s a novice. This is probably his first time in anything smaller than a 707. And I really don’t want to take responsibility for his safety.” Joy switched off the open mic to keep their inevitable argument private.

“I’m a big boy,” Brian countered with Russ no longer privy to the conversation. “I’m responsible for myself.”

“Not on my aircraft you aren’t.”

“Put your feelings for me aside, Joy. Think of those kids. Another night alone is what your stubbornness may cost them.”

Stung, Joy realized that she mostly wanted to rid herself of Brian’s overwhelming presence. She could usually ignore the most annoying of passengers but she couldn’t forget Brian for even a second. She sighed, thinking of those poor kids in a position that was her personal idea of torture—sleeping in the forest below. She sighed.

Sorry, Lord. I didn’t mean to be so selfish.

“Fine. But you have to realize that even if we spot them, they probably won’t get out of there tonight. This isn’t the Huey. Since I can’t pull them out, we’d need to get a chopper in before the storms hit. Just do what I say, when I say and don’t make me sorry I’m bringing you along or I just might toss you out and let you walk home!”

B
rian scanned the heavily forested land below, searching for any sign of human presence. Joy’s friend Russ set their search area in the most likely spot the missing kids may be, since he knew Joy was fearless and would skim close to the treetops. They’d been flying over the thickening canopy for an hour and were so close Brian thought he could almost identify the species of the trees. He recognized sugar maples mixed in with white pine and every once in a while they passed over a several hundred acre patch of paper birch that tend to spring up in the wake of a forest fire throughout most of the Adirondacks.

Joy mentioned having helped put a fire out several years earlier. Even though he fought it, Brian couldn’t help the anxious feeling he got in the pit of his stomach at the idea of her flying this close to raging flames. She didn’t want his caring and protection, he sternly reminded himself, so why did he still long to give it?

Brian put the thought away and concentrated on the
terrain below. As she took them higher toward the peak of the mountain, sugar maple and white pine gave way to balsam firs. Their engine noise sent a black bear scurrying from a stream then later set a moose in a small clearing running, but there was no sign of the kids. They moved on to the next mountain peak as the sky darkened with the threatening storm, but they saw no sign of them.

“We’re going to have to head in soon,” Joy said.

“Just one more pass. Maybe if you fly a pattern headed down the slope, I’ll get a different view of the terrain.”

She blew out a breath, making her bangs flutter. “Don’t ever call me stubborn again. Okay. You win. We’ll make one more pass but get ready for a rough ride into Piseco. You’ve never been in a small plane in a storm have you?”

“Can’t say I have,” Brian admitted. Considering he’d never been in a plane no matter what size before that morning, he figured that was a large understatement.

He had no intention of volunteering the information to Joy, however. She regularly traversed the continent as if she were driving to the grocery store for milk and bread. He still remembered her sneering at him during the final argument of their big breakup. She’d called him Doctor Brain. It had stung—a remnant of his teens when she and a lot of others ridiculed him for his studiousness. And that day she’d combined it with doctor, making it a slur directed toward his dream for their future. A future, he’d realized at that moment in time, which wouldn’t include her after all.

Just then a spear of lightning lit the darkening sky like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The wings of the Cessna rocked violently and the left wingtip dipped sharply. It felt as if a giant hand had pushed downward on it. Joy had only just straightened the wings again when they flew into a wall of rain that obliterated any view beyond the cockpit. Then, as if the air below the wings had disappeared, the plane dropped within inches of the treetops.

Joy put the plane into a steep climb and the engines whirred louder. “End of search. Buckle up and if you feel airsick there’s a bag under your seat.”

While growing up, fear in Joy’s voice had been something he’d longed to hear. Today it was a quality Brian couldn’t say he enjoyed at all. “Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I’m not a bit sick. What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing.”

“That was wind sheer. It’s been known to slam a 747 into the ground. And these cross winds are blowing us off course.” She reached for a dial and twisted it to 7700, then picked up the radio microphone. “Piseco T—”

Without warning, lightning speared right through the nose of the plane and Joy’s instrument panel blinked, then blanked out. She slammed back in her seat and shook her head as if clearing her mind.

“What was that?” he gasped.

“Lightning.” She glanced at her instrument panel. “It blew out my electronics.” Brian heard a breathless quality in her voice and realized she was simply amazed at what had transpired in such a short time. She looked at him. “Uncle George showed you where the parachutes are kept and how to use them, right?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered, uncertain suddenly of every life plan he’d ever made. Maybe his stomach wasn’t as good as he’d thought. It suddenly struck home. They were in real trouble.

“Get into one of the chutes,” Joy ordered, her eyes fixed onto the windshield. She was clearly trying to get the plane to climb but the engine didn’t sound the same. Not at all the same. He couldn’t imagine what kind of impact a lightning strike would have on the engine and he had no idea how much a plane depended on its electronics.

“There are emergency packs with the chutes,” she went on in a scarily calm voice. “Take the red one. Strap it around your waist. You saw me unlock the cargo door when we got to Ogdensburg. Do you remember how I did it?”

“Yeah, but—”

Joy twisted the dial near the radio to 121.5 and scrabbled around for the microphone she’d dropped when the lightning struck. “There are no ‘yeah buts’ here, Brian. You’re bailing out.” He watched as she struggled with the steering. “Pay attention! The door pushes to the side like a van door. To the left. Got it! It won’t be easy at this speed. You can get sucked out before you’re ready, so brace yourself. Once you get the door open, you have to dive out low so you’ll clear the tail. Count to ten after you’re completely clear of the plane, then pull the ring on your chute that George showed you. Do you remember what it looks like?”

“I remember.” He rolled out into the aisle between them and got himself to the compartment George Brady
had shown him before Joy arrived at Agape Air that morning.

Was that only this morning?

With the sound of Joy calling out, “Mayday, mayday, this is LEU 4211,” ringing in his ears, he wrenched the catch open on a door he’d never thought he’d need to touch. This was supposed to be a quick flight with a sick kid and home by the start of the Sixers game. A sort of mini-adventure in a life that had become too work-centered. Shaking his head at the turns the Lord allowed to enter the lives of His people, Brian grabbed two parachutes and all four of the red emergency packs. Then he stopped, closed his eyes and said a quick prayer.

He’d just turned to drag the chutes and packs forward when the wind seemed to toss the plane upward, then back down. The plane dipped and rose as if it had turned into a roller coaster. Brian hit the floor flat on his face with a painful thump.

“You all right back there?” Joy called as he gained his feet.

He said he was fine and then he heard her praying aloud for wisdom and guidance. It was rough before but it was worse now. The plane bucked and started vibrating like one of those motel mattresses he remembered from family vacations at the shore. “Do you know where we’ll be when we get to the ground?”

He watched perspiration bead on Joy’s forehead as she fought with the machinery. “There’s no
we
in this. Just you. I’m sorry about this. But you’ll be fine. Stick close to where you land and someone will be in to get
you. When I land the plane, I’ll try to let them know around where I dropped you.”

Brian couldn’t believe his ears. “
If
you land it, you mean. You could just as easily crash into a mountain-side. You think I’m jumping to safety and leaving you up here fighting for your life? Did that lightning strike fry your brain?”

“Bri—”

“Don’t
Bri
me. There is no way on earth I’m going to look your mother and brother in the eyes and tell them I let you save me while you stayed behind to save a hunk of metal!”

“Look, Peterson! You said you’d do as I say. Now get that cargo door open and bail!” she shouted over the rattling of the plane and rolling thunder.

Why she’d risk her life for an inanimate object, even one as expensive as a plane, boggled his mind and he intended to find out later. There would be a later for both of them, he promised himself, and he prepared to do battle. He recognized that stubborn set of her chin, but she didn’t know stubborn if she thought he’d leave her behind.

He looked ahead trying to find the right words to convince her how foolish she was being and as he did the windshield was suddenly ablaze with sunlight. The storm vanished in thin air but his relief was short-lived as Joy fought a new teeth-rattling vibration.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she crooned. “I don’t think I can save you. There goes the rest of your oil pressure,” she said, and he knew with a pang that she was talking to the plane and not him. It bothered him for a split second, but then she gave in and started giving him orders.
“It looks as if you’re going to get your way. Hustle into that seat again and take the yoke. Hold it right where I leave it. I was in a climb when I lost the avionics so we’re gaining altitude. And take the radio. It’s already on the emergency frequency. Repeat our mayday and LEU 4211 the way I was doing. Hopefully someone out there is hearing us.”

Brian’s stomach roiled. “You don’t know?”

“The radio may have fried when the electronics did. We aren’t getting anything on it, that’s for sure.”

Brian looked down at the trees whizzing by far under them. She
had
gained altitude. But, sunshine notwithstanding, this plane wasn’t getting them anywhere near civilization. Below was one of the roughest, most isolated areas of the Adirondacks. He reached out and grasped her forearm.

She looked at him, her blue eyes wide and worried. “What?”

“You’re coming with me? You promise? You aren’t just trying to fake me out?”

“I don’t have a death wish, Brian,” she said and stood to wrestle into the parachute and an emergency pack. Then she grabbed a map and stuffed it in the pocket of her jacket. When she took over at the controls again, her voice shook but he knew it was the vibration of the straining engine transferring through the yoke and no longer fear from brave and fearless Joy Lovell. She seemed to have gone into a mental zone where duty and skill had banished all emotion but determination.

“I’m going to keep her as high up as I can. There’s no open land below so be careful of the tree canopy.
Now get that door open. And, Bri, when we go, it’s going to have to be fast. When I lost the electronics, I lost my autopilot. My belt hooked around the yoke is all we’ll have keeping us aloft and that won’t last long. Now move it.”

Joy felt the rushing air fill the plane a minute later and not a moment too soon. This bird was going down any second. Then she heard a lot of scrabbling around behind her. “I mean it! We have to go!”

Brian called back that he was ready.

“Okay, go. I’m right on your six,” she called back to him, then took a deep breath and let go of the jury-rigged yoke.

It held.

Joy didn’t stick around to see how long it would. She just pivoted out of the seat and ran, diving out the doorway toward the ground. As she’d advised Brian, she waited until the count of ten before yanking the cord, and got ready for the inevitable jerk of the parachute catching the air. The open parachute dragged her higher than the crippled plane that had already passed by her.

She scanned the terrain below. They were deep in the wilderness preserve in an area she didn’t think she’d ever flown over before. It was terribly obvious at that moment that they’d been blown way off course. Though still in the state park they were far off the beaten path where few humans ever strayed.

Mentally she created a survival checklist beyond the obvious emergency packs she and Brian had around their waists. They’d need to make their way to the crash site. She looked around trying to memorize what she
was seeing so she could pinpoint the landmarks on the map, then glued her gaze on the plane. The transponder would draw the rescue planes right to them if they were near the plane. Getting to the wreckage would have to be their first priority.

But she had to make sure she landed near Brian, so she twisted until she saw his chute floating below. He’d caught a different current of wind than she was riding. She pulled on her guide wires to close the widening distance between them as they floated toward earth. Once she was sure they were on the same basic track toward the ground, she turned her attention back to the plane.

Surprised and chagrined, Joy saw the plane catch an updraft and bank onto an altered heading. It had remained aloft for much longer than she’d anticipated, especially considering her makeshift autopilot. Finally, the tail rose and sent the beautiful blue-and-white craft skimming gracefully toward the ground, but it dropped altitude slowly and headed in the direction of a different mountain peak from the one where she and Brian would most likely land.

Still, it didn’t drill downward but drifted straight into a hole in the trees’ canopy, then disappeared miles away. She continued to watch, hoping she’d dumped the right amount of fuel to keep it from exploding on impact. She breathed a sigh of relief when no smoke rose over the dense woodlands.

So intent was she on watching for the crash site, though, that Joy didn’t see trouble rushing up to meet her. It was as if the tentacles of a giant wooden octopus reached into the air and snatched her off course. Her feet
cracked into the monster, her ankle buckled and her knee twisted as she slammed into the beast. Pain exploded in her head, then her shoulder, as her open chute caught the wind and dragged her sideways away from one monster and into the arms of another. Then another. And then the world went black with the sound of cracking, breaking branches accompanying each new flash of pain.

“Joy! Yo, Joy. Come on. Quit clowning around and answer me.”

Joy heard Brian’s demand for an answer from the end of a long, dark tunnel she found herself wandering through. It was filled with a thick fog or maybe Jell-O. She wasn’t sure what it was that made her feel nearly weightless, as if she were bobbing and drifting toward the surface.

Wait a minute! Why is Brian Peterson anywhere near me? And how did we get in this tunnel in the first place?

She tried to move but her arms and legs appeared to be tied down even though she was nearly sure her body was floating. Definitely floating.

And who had tied her up?

All at once the memory of recent events collided with the confusion in her brain, and her mind cleared. Almost of their own accord her eyes popped open. Joy groaned and winced as the setting sun drilled into her brain through her eyeballs. She slammed her eyelids shut again but it was too late to retreat.