Up Close and Dangerous (7 page)

The luggage was loaded into the plane through the baggage compartment door, and secured by a cargo net that kept the bags from flying around the cockpit during rough weather, though she thought her suitcases would probably be too thick to fit in the space between the roof and the high seat backs. The problem was, though most of the roof was now gone and the suitcases would fit through the gaping hole, they would have to be lifted almost straight up, and they were very heavy, and she was so weak and cold and exhausted she didn’t think she could manage the task. She’d have to open them while they were still in the baggage compartment, and get out what she needed.

She’d have to unclip the cargo net. She was sure she could reach the clips, but she wasn’t sure she could manage if the clip was a particularly strong one. If that was the case, then she would need some other way of getting through the net.

“We have to get warm. I need to get more clothes out of my suitcase,” she told him. “If for any reason I can’t get the cargo net unclipped, do you have a knife I can use to cut it?”

His eyes opened a little, then closed again. “Left pocket.”

Getting to her knees, she untucked the blanket she’d just tucked around him and slipped her right hand into his pocket. The warmth was startling, and so delicious she almost moaned, but her fingers were so cold they were numb and she couldn’t tell if she was touching the knife or not. She grasped at whatever was there.

“Careful,” he murmured. “Good Time Charlie’s down there, and he’s attached.”

Bailey snorted. “Then keep him out of the way, or he might get unattached.” Men. Here they were on the verge of dying from hypothermia and, in his case, blood loss, but he was still protective of his penis. “
Good Time Charlie,
my ass,” she muttered, pulling her hand out of his pocket to see if she’d snagged the knife.

A tiny smile curved his mouth for a moment, then faded.

She paused, her gaze on his bloody face. That was the first hint of humor she’d ever seen him display, and it struck at her heart because, despite everything she could do, they might not make it out of this situation alive. He hadn’t given up, he’d gotten them down alive, and she couldn’t bear the thought that he might still die because she made the wrong decision or didn’t do enough. She owed him her life, and she would do everything she could to safeguard his—even sew him up if she had to, damn it.

The pocketknife and a dollar or so in change lay in her palm. Picking up the knife, she slid the change back into his pocket, then put the blanket in place again. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, giving him a comforting touch on the chest.

The plane loomed in front of her, a crippled bird with the right wing crumpled and the left one completely gone. They were downslope of it, which wasn’t the safest place if the wreckage began sliding, she realized. She didn’t think it would, with the crumpled wing digging into the mountainside the way it was, plus the tree branch impaling the fuselage was another anchoring point, but she’d rather err on the side of safety and move out of its path, after she’d changed clothes and gotten warmer, and felt more capable of making the effort.

She didn’t have any pockets, so she held the knife in her teeth as she climbed back into the cockpit, then clambered to the back. Kneeling on the bench seat, she stretched over the luggage compartment, reaching for the cargo net clips at the rear of the cabin. To her relief, the net easily released. Pushing it to the side, she tugged one of her suitcases around and unzipped it; the suitcases were identical, so she didn’t know what was in which case, but she didn’t really care. She wanted to be dry, she wanted to be warm, and the clothes she put on didn’t matter.

Justice’s bag was there, too, but it was the typical pilot’s overnight bag, just big enough for a shaving kit and change of clothes. She dragged the bag up and over the seat, because there was no sense leaving it in the plane even though he likely wouldn’t need anything in there just yet. For now, she had plenty of clothes with which she could cover him; it wasn’t as if he needed to actually
wear
them, since he couldn’t even stand up. He would need clothes, yes, but she thought she’d save the clothes that actually fit him until later.

She began pulling clothes out of the suitcase she’d opened. When she came to a flannel shirt, she stopped right there and peeled off the silk jacket and tank. Her bra was damp, too, so it came off. Shuddering from the cold, she put on the flannel shirt and buttoned it up before resuming systematically emptying the bag. As she came to warm items she could use right then, she stopped and put them on. Socks. Sweatpants. Another pair of socks. A thick down vest, with handwarmer pockets; she put Justice’s knife in one of the pockets. She needed something to cover her head, too, but the only thing she’d packed that had a hood was a cotton knit hoodie. Not wanting to wait until she came across it, she used the next long-sleeved shirt she came across, folding it and tying the sleeves under her chin as if it were a bandanna.

Already she felt better, if simply not feeling quite as miserable qualified as “better.”

She found the plastic trash bags she’d packed to use as dirty-clothes bags, and began stuffing clothes into them. After she emptied one suitcase, she pushed it to the side and hauled another one around so she could get to the zipper. In that bag she found the pair of insulated hiking boots she’d packed, and gratefully she stopped to pull them on. Getting her feet warm
before
she put on the boots would have been nice, but she didn’t have that luxury.

She had enough clothes to cover him, now, so she stopped and left the second suitcase partially unpacked, and the other one unopened. Tossing his overnighter through the open door, she followed it with two trash bags full of clothes, then she followed the bags. As she crawled out, her gaze fell on the vinyl floor cover in front of both the pilot’s and copilot’s seats. Taking Justice’s knife from the vest pocket, she opened it and went to work.

He was lying deathly still, his eyes still closed. The pads covering his forehead were soaked through with blood.

“I’m back,” she said, putting the piece of vinyl down beside him and kneeling on it; getting dry had been important, but staying dry ranked right up there with it. “I brought clothes to cover you with, as soon as I can get the bleeding stopped and get you out of these bloody clothes.”

“Okay,” he murmured.

Thank God, he hadn’t lost consciousness again, but his voice was weaker. Taking two more sterile pads from the first-aid kit’s supply, she placed them over the bloody ones, and pressed down. This time she stayed in position, talking to him the whole time, telling him everything she’d done and why she’d done it. If he disagreed with anything he could speak up, but he remained silent.

She hadn’t thought to time how long she’d been maintaining pressure, but the third time she lifted the edge of the pads to check, the bleeding had slowed dramatically. She pressed down once more, held the pressure for about five minutes, then checked again. No new trickle of blood welled from the ugly gash.

“I think that’s done the trick,” she breathed. “Finally.”

The next step was to wash any dirt and debris from the cut, but for that she needed water. She’d put a bottle of water in her tote bag, wherever it was. It had to be around here somewhere. It had probably gone out of the plane when the left wing snapped off, so if she located the missing wing, the tote bag should be between the wing and the rest of the plane.

“I’m going to look for some water,” she told him.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

No, he wasn’t; she doubted he’d be able to stand on his own.

Standing, she began examining the area immediately around the plane. When she didn’t spot the tote bag, she followed upward, with her gaze, the path the plane had taken, marked with broken and splintered trees and limbs.

Her eyes widened. The mountains loomed around her, silent and shrouded with snow. The only sound was the occasional sighing of the wind in the trees. No leaves rustled, no birds sang.

The mountains were immense, looming high above her on all sides, so tall they would soon block the afternoon sun. Slowly, disbelieving, she turned in a circle. There was nothing but mountains, and more mountains, as far as she could see. They spread out below, massive bases that were veiled by gray clouds. Deep, incredibly rugged folds in the earth created black shadows where sunshine seldom touched. The plane was nothing more than a dot on the steep mountainside, already half-covered by the limbs of the trees into which they had crashed, and those black shadows were spreading toward it.

She felt dwarfed, insignificant to the point of nothingness. She and Justice
were
nothing, she realized. They were completely, totally insignificant to these mountains. Any rescue could conceivably take days to reach them. They were alone.

7

B
AILEY LOOKED FOR THE TOTE FOR AS LONG AS SHE COULD
without exhausting herself, but an extensive search would have involved climbing up the steep, sometimes vertical mountainside, and she simply wasn’t capable of that. Finally giving up, she slowly made her way back to Justice. He looked dreadful, she thought, and it wasn’t just the blood; he was lying so still, as if life were seeping out of him even though she’d gotten the bleeding stopped. What blood loss hadn’t accomplished on its own, cold and shock were finishing. The bottom dropped out of her stomach at the thought. “Justice, are you awake?”

He made an “um” sound in his throat.

“I can’t find the bottle of water I brought. There’s snow, but I don’t have any way to make a fire to boil it. If I sew up this cut without washing it out first, there’s a big risk it’ll get infected. I’ll clean it out as best I can with the alcohol wipes, in a little while, but first I’m going to do what I can to get you warm.” She cast a worried glance over her shoulder at the plane. She still didn’t think it would shift, but she couldn’t discount the possibility. Moving him, though, was something else that would have to wait.

“Good,” he said, the word only a thin thread of sound.

Working quickly, she lifted his feet and stuffed one of the trash bags of clothes under them, to help with the shock. Opening the other bag, she took out another flannel shirt and folded it, then gently tucked it around his head to help keep him from losing even more body heat. Then she pulled the space blanket aside and started layering clothes over him, starting at his feet and working up. When she got to his shirt, cold and wet with blood, she opened his knife and simply sliced the shirt off him, then wiped the blood off his chest as best she could with the first garment that came to hand, which happened to be a pair of her underwear.

When he was as dry as she could get him, she layered more clothes over his chest and shoulders. Finally she lay down beside him, snuggled under the layers of clothes until she was against him and could get her arms around him, and as a last covering pulled another shirt completely over their heads so the air they breathed would be warmer. The shirt didn’t block out all the light, but the effect was sort of like being in a cave. Their breathing almost immediately made the air feel warmer against her face, and the small comfort was so welcome she could have cried in relief.

He felt like ice against her. He needed something hot to drink, or something sweet to eat, to help him combat the shock and cold. She still wasn’t thinking as clearly as she needed to be, because while she couldn’t provide anything to drink she had put a stash of candy bars and some chewing gum in one of the suitcases—evidently the one suitcase she hadn’t opened. She should have thought of them, and taken a few minutes to find them.

Her own shivering was lessening, but he wasn’t shivering at all. That couldn’t be good.

“Hey, Justice,” she said. “Stay awake. Talk to me. Tell me if you can feel any warmth coming from me.”

For a long moment he didn’t answer, making her fear he’d lost consciousness again, but finally he said, “No.”

Maybe she had on too many clothes for her body warmth to seep through to him. Wiggling around under the pile of clothing, she removed the down vest, and worked it over him so that it was the first layer next to his body. She was colder without the vest, but she snuggled close enough that she was partially covered by it, too. The down had absorbed some of her body heat, because she could feel it against her icy hands.

“Feel that,” he murmured in a drowsy tone.

“Good. You have to stay awake, so keep talking to me. If you can’t think of anything interesting to say, just make a noise every now and then so I know you’re still conscious.”

She began running her left hand over his chest and shoulders and arms, to stimulate his circulation. “There are some candy bars in one of my bags. When you get warmer, I’ll dig them out and get some sugar down you; that’ll make you feel better.” She paused. “Now you say something.”

“Something.”

“Smart-ass.” Despite the fact that the word was slurred and his voice incredibly weak, her heart lifted. If he could still be a smart-ass, then maybe he wasn’t as far gone as she feared.