Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (111 page)

The Silver Bullet was higher still, further in, the original owners trading ease of access for a chance at the better seams of ore that were supposed to be in the higher slopes. Mitch checked his instruments again, heading good, altitude steady, and craned his head to see out the windows. No breaks in the canopy below, no signs of a crash on the rocks and snow above the tree line.

And there was the minehead in the distance, weathered gray against a purplish slope too steep to hold the snow. "We're coming up on the mine," he shouted, and glanced over his shoulder through the open cockpit door to see Lewis scrambling forward.

"Everything's ready to drop if we see them," he said, frowning. "I think — they came over the mine, and then due east —"

Mitch nodded. There was a valley below the minehead; he thought Alma had said once there had been plans to run a rail spur up here, but the ore had run out before the owners could finish the job. He could pick out the outbuildings now, mostly intact, tin roofs piled with snow. The windows in the main building were mostly boarded over, but it looked as though something was moving behind them, at the edges of the frames, weird shimmering non-shapes like crawling color —

A crack of thunder split the sky, and the instruments went out, the controls suddenly lifeless in his hand. He held everything steady, assessing — there was room enough for now, the engines were all still running, though every single instrument was dead. Lewis came scrambling forward, face white, shoved himself into the co-pilot's chair. He grabbed for the radio, and dropped the microphone as a spark nipped his fingers.

Mitch ignored him, still fighting the controls. They couldn't stay on this course, they'd go straight into the mountain, but he wasn't sure he could turn. Time, he had time, a few more minutes just to be sure. He pulled back on the yoke, and nothing happened; he pulled again, harder, and this time the control surfaces responded, the nose coming up. Ok, he thought, and tried gentle rudder. There was no response, and he kicked harder, felt the plane heel over abruptly. He fought it back straight, bringing them onto a course for the narrow valley — if he had to, he could put them down there.

The Terrier was nose-down now, stuck in a shallow dive as though the flaps were frozen. He swore under his breath and hauled back on the yoke. The Terrier pitched up abruptly, and he felt her start to stall.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Lewis said.

The valley was there, opening up before them, a kind of safety — except that there was already a plane there, a Ford Trimotor half buried in the snow, and dark figures waving from beside the fuselage. There was no time to do more than register their presence. Mitch shoved the nose down, and the Terrier responded, catching speed and lift. They roared across the valley fifty feet above the treetops, the engines shaking as he opened the throttle. He tugged back on the yoke, just enough to get her to respond, and she rose again. The horizon indicator twitched, coming back to life, and the compass steadied onto what ought to be the correct heading.

"Mary, Mother of God," Lewis said. He reached for the radio again, flipping switches without result. "Radio's dead."

"So's half the instrument panel," Mitch said grimly. He had horizon and his turn indicators; the compass was moving normally again, but he didn't trust it.

Lewis looked over his shoulder. "We ought to go back, try to drop supplies —"

"We can't," Mitch said. "I don't trust anything here. We're going straight home."

"You're right." Lewis nodded. "What was that?"

"I have no idea. Did you see anything?"

"I'm not sure," Lewis said. "It was — there was maybe a light, like what Rayburn said, like electricity? Only running on the roof of that building…."

"It was electrical, all right," Mitch said. "I'd say it shorted out the instruments."

"But —" Lewis stopped, shaking his head. "Can we make it back safely?"

Mitch looked at his board again. Most of the vital indicators seemed to be working, and they'd be landing in daylight, in passable weather, on a field he knew like the back of his hand. "Yeah. Yeah, I think we can."

"Damn, I wish —" Lewis shook his head again. "I counted four people. I didn't see the kids, but I think I saw four adults."

"We'll be on the ground in half an hour," Mitch said. "We can call Sampson then."

T
he snow was starting to come down again, the first flakes of the new storm falling from dark purplish clouds piling in from the west, making it look like sunset when it was barely past noon. Alma leapt to her feet and ran to the window. "That's the Terrier," she said.

Stasi couldn't hear anything. "What is?"

Alma had already thrown on her jacket and flung the door open, flurries of white flakes flying in. She hurried outside into the gathering snow, and Stasi got to her feet. Her black coat was on the hook by the door and she shoved her arms in the sleeves, not bothering with overshoes, and followed Alma outside. Joey Patterson had shoveled the steps and walk first thing in the morning, but they were already covered again with a light dusting of snow.

"I don't hear anything," she began, but then she did, the familiar sound of the Terrier's engines, though she could see nothing in the falling snow.

"There," Alma said, pointing up the runway. The windsock twitched, almost empty, the snow spiraling down quietly, and there was the Terrier like a ghost in the mist, circling the field carefully. Patterson ran out with the flags, scarlet on white. "Mitch at the controls," Alma said as the Terrier lined up on the runway slick with snow.

"How can you tell?" Stasi asked. "And is it a good idea to land in this weather?"

"A better idea than flying in this weather," Alma replied. "And that's Mitch's touch." She looked at Stasi like she'd just said she couldn't tell Mitch and Lewis apart if they both wore suits.

The Terrier eased in, nose lifting, touching on slippery pavement, sliding and then gripping, speed bleeding off in a way that looked easy, so deceptively easy, and Stasi realized she was clenching both fists as the Terrier took the full length of the field to slow before it turned decorously at the far end to taxi back. The blue tail roundel showed bright in the falling snow.

Alma let out a breath. "Ok," she said.

The Terrier taxied in, engines cutting out right in front of Gilchrist's hangar, props rotating down. Lewis raised a hand to them through the windscreen and Alma lifted her hand in answer.

"Some landing," Joey Patterson said to Alma.

"Yeah," Alma replied absently. "Pressure's still dropping."

Mitch was doing something in the cockpit. The hatch opened and Lewis let the steps down as Alma hurried over. Stasi didn't hear what he said, but she saw the expression on his face as he put his arms around Alma, holding her very tight for a long moment. She stood in the snow in the light from the hangar, slush creeping into her shoes.

Mitch appeared a minute later. "We need to call Denver," he said. "We need to get Colonel Sampson and the National Guard on the horn."

"You found it?" Stasi asked.

"What's wrong with your radio?" Alma asked at the same moment.

"Radio's out," Lewis said. "Along with half of the instruments. It's a long story."

"We found the wreck," Mitch said. "And we need to get the National Guard up there on foot as fast as possible." He started toward the office with his long stride, and Stasi hurried to catch up.

"Where was it?" Alma asked behind her.

Lewis' voice was grim. "Right where I thought it would be. On that long snowfield three miles down the valley from the Silver Bullet Mine. The pilot didn't auger into a mountainside this time. It looked like he belly slid down that slope. Thank God there weren't a lot of trees! The plane seemed mostly in one piece and we saw some people moving around. But it's their second night on the mountain in the cold."

"What happened to the radio?"

"I have no idea," Lewis said darkly.

I
t was half an hour before Mitch got off the phone, what with one thing and another. He put the receiver back on the hook and straightened up, unzipping his leather flight jacket at last. "They're going to get men out there as fast as they can. They may be able to get a truck in on the old road along the branch if the snow's not too bad. In any event, they'll take the truck as far as they can and go the rest of the way on foot. They ought to be able to get up there by dark."

"The snow's bad," Alma said from the front window. "It's coming down hard now."

"That won't stop those guys," Lewis said. "Not now that they know there are survivors."

"Did they see you?" Alma asked.

"Yeah," Mitch said. "They saw us. It was a pretty low pass."

"They'll hang in there," Lewis said. Even Lewis, who usually seemed to have enormous reserves of energy, looked beat. "They know there's help on the way."

"How low?" Alma asked.

Mitch looked at her and it seemed to Stasi that something was being said wordlessly. "A lot lower than I would have liked," he said.

"I want a look at the instruments," Alma said.

"Is anyone flying anywhere right now?" Stasi asked. "Because if not, maybe there ought to be some food and coffee?"

Mitch took a deep breath and let it out. "Maybe so," he said. He looked at Alma. "We can pull the instruments tomorrow. There's not going to be any change overnight."

"Ok." Alma's face was serious. "How could that many instruments fail at once?"

"That's what we don't know," Lewis said.

T
hey picked up food from the diner to carry out and ate it in the farmhouse kitchen while the snow piled up outside, two or three inches of fresh snow accumulating already. The kitchen was warm and cheerful, yellow walls and blue calico curtains.

"I don't know what happened, Al," Mitch said for the seventh time, forking roast beef and gravy into his mouth. "I've never seen everything cut out at once like that. I have absolutely no idea what could cause it."

Alma shook her head. "A lightning strike?"

"There was no lightning," Lewis said. "Nothing. You saw this storm. This is a perfectly normal snowstorm at a perfectly normal time of year. There's nothing mysterious about snow in Colorado in mid-December."

"What about the strange noises and lights that the Comanche guys said they saw?" Alma asked.

"Our hands were a little full," Mitch said shortly.

"Trying not to crash?" Stasi asked.

Everyone stopped for a second.

"Nah," Lewis said.

"We were fine," Mitch said.

"I hate men," Stasi said.

"We're fine now," Mitch said, digging into his mashed potatoes again. "So it's ok."

"We're ok," Lewis said. He glanced at Mitch. "But I did see lights on the ground. Not like a beacon or a searchlight. More like St. Elmo's fire. You know what that looks like. It looked like it was crawling on some surface down there. But I didn't get a good look."

"It stands to reason that what happened to you was what has happened to the other planes. Only they weren't as lucky," Alma said.

"They weren't as good," Lewis said. He stopped, a fork full of roast beef halfway to his mouth as everyone looked at him. "Well, they weren't! You know Rayburn's not as good as Mitch. There's no harm in saying so."

"Rayburn's plane was new," Mitch said. "This thing killed all the electronics. I'm glad I didn't take Henry up on his offer to upgrade the last bits of the Terrier while we were in LA last month. We've still got the old stuff so there was less to screw up. The Terrier can be flown without electronics if it needs to be. But these newer models…. There just ain't nothing you can do if your power goes out."

That was a measure of how tired he was, tired or rattled, Stasi thought. She'd never heard Mitch's grammar less than carefully perfect. It was just like hers in German. When dialect is the language of inferiors, smart people learn how to get rid of their eccentricities.

Lewis shook his head. "We're going to have to go up there," he said. "On foot. We're never going to get a good enough look from the air and there's nowhere we could set down one of the planes."

Alma frowned. "Not even the Jenny?"

"Maybe the Jenny," Mitch said. "On that long slope. But Al? A two seater open cockpit plane in this weather?"

"Won't it crash too?" Stasi put in.

"Not the Jenny," Alma said. "It's an old plane. Nothing electronic, not even as much as the Terrier has. Not hydraulics, not instruments, nothing. But I see your point about the weather." She sighed. "We'll have to drive in when the weather breaks."

"But for now," Lewis said. "I'm going to bed. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm beat. We've done our job and now it's the Guard's turn to do theirs."

Stasi left Lewis and Alma piling the used dishes in the sink and followed Mitch out to the garage, catching up to him at the base of the steps, each step now six inches deep in fresh snow. It was still coming down slowly. "Yoo hoo!" she said. "I need an arm, please."

He looked back warily, but offered his arm anyway on the slippery steps. "I know it's real early, but I think I'm a little too tired for dance practice."

"Just a nightcap," Stasi said.

He unlocked the door at the top and she went to build up the woodstove. It had burned down almost to ashes, but there were a few coals to coax life from. The room was chilly but not freezing. "It will warm up soon," she said.

He rattled around, turning on the radio and pouring her a glass of half and half. He took his straight and drank it down.

Stasi looked up. "Darling, are you all right?"

He poured himself another, this one half and half, not looking at her. "Just worrying about those people out on the mountain. I never can put it away like Lewis does."