Wings of Love (24 page)

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is November 4649 Delta in the vicinity of Hiline Lake. Position: 61 degrees, 44.4 minutes north and 151 degrees, 22.9 minutes west. I’m going down. I repeat, going down. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is November 4649 Delta in the vicinity of Hiline Lake. Position: 61 degrees, 44.4 minutes north and 151 degrees, 22.9 minutes west. I’m going down. I repeat, going down.”

Brad broke into a cold sweat. He ran to the radio and picked up the receiver.

“November 4649 Delta, this is Wing Mansion, do you copy?”

“Brad!” Mac yelled. “I’m going down. I’m very close to the lake, and I’m in whiteout conditions. Having trouble keeping control.”

“Mac, what do I do?” Brad yelled into the radio.

“Nothing, baby, just say a prayer for me and forgive me,” Mac said. “Brad, I love you, and I don’t care who knows it. If I make it out of this, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

Brad heard the whine of the plane’s engine as it approached the cabin, then felt the vibration as it passed over, seemingly a few feet above the roof.

“Mac,” Brad yelled. “You just passed over the cabin, heading away from the lake. Can you turn around?”

“Can’t!” Mac shouted back. “I need to stay into the wind to help slow me down.”

“I love you too, Mac. I’ll find you, just don’t die, Mac, please don’t die,” Brad begged. “Mac,” he yelled. “Do you copy? Mac?” Silence.

Brad dropped the radio receiver and ran for the bathroom. He pulled on whatever clothes he could find. He slipped on one boot while hopping across the room, and he heard a very loud noise. The cabin walls shook, and he fell to the floor.

“Oh my God, Mac. Mac!” he yelled.

He crawled to the door while sliding the other boot on. He reached for a coat and a pair of snowshoes on the way out the door. He slipped the coat on as he ran, but stopped to put the snowshoes on before he started up the mountain. He ran in the direction Mac had been flying and the sound of the crash but could see very little. He didn’t know what he was going to find, but he knew he had to find Mac, dead or alive.

Chapter 32

B
RAD
knew the crash couldn’t be too far from the cabin because of the force of the impact he’d felt, but where? He looked all around as he ran up the mountainside. He looked up and down for any signs of debris or a crash, but it was so hard to see anything. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore and collapsed in the snow.

I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to find Mac
, he thought. He rolled over in an attempt to get up, and as he looked up, he saw what appeared to be a piece of a wing from Mac’s plane.

I’m so close
, he thought.
I’ve got to keep going
.

He forced himself up and started running again. He barely kept his balance when he ran smack into a piece of the plane. It looked like part of the tail section, but he couldn’t really tell. He ran farther and stopped. Through the wind, something was splashing on his head, and he looked up. What was left of the plane was lodged in the dense trees above him. He touched the liquid on his head and brought his fingers to his nose. Fuel!

I’ve got to get Mac out of there
, he thought.
This damn thing could blow up any minute.
He looked around at the base of the trees and found one he could shimmy up. He kicked off the snowshoes and started to climb. It was difficult and slow going until he got to the first hanging limb. He used the limbs as step ladders until he made his way from one tree to the other and finally to the fuselage. The windshield was broken out, and through the opening he could see Mac slumped over the wheel, covered in snow. He shouted Mac’s name. No response. He called to him again; still no response. He didn’t know how much more weight the crumpled plane could handle, but he had to get to Mac.

He slowly climbed onto the nose and through the windshield as far as he could get.

“Mac, can you hear me?” he yelled. “Mac?”

Brad reached in and pushed Mac’s head back, and blood was gushing out of a cut on his forehead. He felt Mac’s neck and found a pulse. He was alive. Brad ripped off his coat and then his shirt. He used a piece of glass from the broken windshield and ripped off a sleeve of his shirt and tied it around Mac’s bleeding head. He put his coat back on and zipped it up before he reached into the plane and released Mac’s seatbelt. He attempted to pull Mac out of the seat, but his legs were jammed under the dashboard. He had to get to the seat release so he could move it back, but he couldn’t reach it from his current position. He climbed all the way through the windshield and fell headfirst into the copilot’s seat. Brad was able to maneuver himself into a position where he could just barely reach the release and tried to move it. It was stuck, probably from the force of the crash. He turned around to find something to use to release the seat and was surprised to see that the entire tail section of the plane was gone. He positioned himself and kicked the lever with his boot until he was able to move it and finally release the lock on the seat. Once the lock was broken, the seat flew back from Mac’s weight. Brad could see that Mac’s left knee was beat up pretty badly and bleeding, and Mac had a cut on his right thigh. He found a roll of duct tape in a canvas bag and wrapped Mac’s knee and thigh repeatedly until the wounds were sealed. He looked around at what was left of the plane to see what he could use to get Mac down. He spotted the two cables that Mac had used to secure the plane during the last storm and decided that they were his only options.

Brad looked down to determine how far up they were, but he couldn’t see the ground through the snow. He’d have to chance it and hope there was enough cable to make it down. He unwound the cable and fed one end under Mac’s arms and around his chest. He secured it with the hooks attached and wrapped the other end around his waist. He pulled Mac from his seat, laid him on his back, feet first, and slid him little by little to the open end of the plane. When he was positioned at the opening, Brad braced himself between the two seats with the cable wrapped around his waist and used his feet to gently push Mac through the opening of the plane. Mac slid out of the opening, and Brad felt all of Mac’s weight dangling outside of the plane. The plane started to tilt in the direction of the opening, and Brad was thrust forward. Brad and Mac slid about three feet before Brad caught hold again and stopped them. The plane teeter-tottered in the treetops while he held on for dear life. He figured it was now or never. He slowly began to lower Mac to the ground by releasing the cable around his waist little by little and using his body weight to secure them both. Suddenly something gave way, and the tail dropped about two feet and stopped. Brad held his breath but knew he couldn’t panic. He had to work quickly if he was going to get Mac to the ground. After about fifteen minutes of gently sliding the cable around his waist, the weight and pressure were suddenly gone.

He’s got to be on the ground
, Brad thought.

He removed the cable from around his waist and, not knowing if the plane was secure enough to lower himself out the same way he had Mac, he climbed out of the cockpit window and balanced on the nose of the plane while he secured the other cable to one of the trees just within his reach. He climbed back in the nose of the plane and wrapped the secured cable around his waist. He slowly shimmied his way through the rear opening of the plane and rappelled down until he reached the ground. Mac was still out cold. He removed the cable from Mac’s underarms and lifted him over his shoulder. He silently thanked himself for staying fit, and Mac for his lightweight swimmer’s build.

Brad had carried Mac for a few minutes when suddenly he heard a loud crash, and what followed knocked them both to the ground. What was left of the plane toppled out of the trees, hit the ground, and exploded. The explosion engulfed the nearby trees and continued to burn. The wind would fan the fire until all of the fuel was gone, but everything was so wet that the fire probably wouldn’t spread.

Brad stopped every ten minutes or so to rest and then continued on. His hands were becoming numb, and he couldn’t feel his feet, but he had Mac. He knew Mac was alive, but beyond that he had no idea what condition he was in. The going was tough, but luckily, he was going down the mountain or he would have never made it. They were still experiencing whiteout conditions, and the wind was now blowing around sixty knots, with gusts up to eighty. As they got closer, Brad picked up the pace just a little until they reached the back porch. He was exhausted, but they had made it, both alive.

Brad forced open the back door with his foot as he carried Mac to the bed. He laid Mac down and ran back to the door and forced it shut against the wind. Once back at Mac’s side, he reached under the bed for his medical bag. The fire was still going, and the cabin was warm, so he removed his coat and wet boots and took Mac’s pulse—weak, but steady. He removed Mac’s coat and shirt and laid him back down. He unlaced his boots and removed them, along with his socks. Mac’s right ankle was badly sprained and black and blue. He went to the kitchen and got a plastic bag out of the cupboard and went out back to scrape up some snow. When the bag was full of snow, he forced the door closed against the wind, and laid the bag of snow over Mac’s foot.

He then removed the duct tape from both legs and surveyed the wounds. The cut on Mac’s thigh was pretty deep and would require stitches. His knee was banged up pretty badly, with a couple of small lacerations, but in time would be fine. He removed his shirtsleeve from Mac’s head to examine those injuries. Mac had a large trauma to the left side of his head, where he must have hit the dashboard, and a long laceration that wasn’t very deep on the right, presumably from the windshield. The laceration wouldn’t require stitches, but a few butterfly bandages would be required to hold it together tightly. In addition, he was sure that Mac had a pretty bad concussion, but how bad, he couldn’t tell without a CAT scan or MRI.

He cleaned the head wound and made sure there were no glass particles in the laceration, then applied the butterfly bandages. He got another bag of ice, placed it on the trauma to help with the swelling, and moved on to his legs.

He gently slid Mac’s pants off, trying to avoid touching the wounds and trying not to disturb his ankle. He looked through his medical bag and found a tube of topical anesthesia. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was all he had and better than nothing. He decided that Mac was better off unconscious if he had to stitch him up with only topical anesthesia, but either way, Brad knew Mac would endure what needed to be done in order to recover.

Brad cleaned Mac’s knee and wrapped it with gauze and an Ace bandage. He then gently cleaned the laceration on Mac’s thigh. This one was very deep and would require stitches inside and outside the wound. He retrieved the surgical sutures from his medical bag and began the process. Every now and then he looked up to see if Mac was showing any signs of being in distress, but saw no change. He completed the stitches and bandaged the wound. He had done all he could for Mac here and hoped it would be enough until he could get him to the hospital.

Brad went to the radio and picked up the receiver where he’d dropped it on the floor. He pressed the button and said, “Wing Mansion to Hiline Lake Lodge, do you read?”

Static was all he heard.

“Repeating, Wing Mansion to Hiline Lake Lodge, Zander or Jake, do you copy?”

“This is Hiline Lake Lodge. Brad, is that you?”

“Zander, switch to channel three eight. Over,” Brad instructed.

“Switching to channel three eight.”

“Brad, are you okay? Over.”

“Zander, we had an accident up here. Mac’s plane went down. Over.”

“What, how do you know? Over,” Zander asked.

“I heard the Mayday calls on the radio and found the crash. Over,” Brad said.

“We didn’t hear a thing. Over,” he replied. “How bad is it? Over.”

“I’ll explain it all later, but it’s pretty bad, Zander. I was able to get Mac out of the plane before it exploded, but he’s still unconscious and had several external injuries, none life-threatening. But the worst thing is that I can’t tell if he has any internal injuries without a CAT scan or MRI. Over.”

“What do you want us to do, Brad? Over.”

“Can you use your satellite phone to get a medical airlift ASAP? Over.”

“I’m right on it. I’ll radio you back as soon as I can get an ETA. Over.”

“Thanks, Zander. Over.”

“Jake and I will be there as soon as we can. Hold tight, Brad. Over.”

“Thanks, but don’t take any chances. Not much we can do until we get him to a hospital. Oh, and Zander, can you call Jack and Zoe and tell them what happened and that he’s alive? Over.”

“Will do. Over.”

“Zander, tell the airlift that I will be standing by on channel one six. Over.”

“Roger that, Brad.”

Brad switched the radio back to channel one six and put the handheld receiver down. He walked over to the bed and pulled back the covers from under Mac and tucked them in around him. He tried to wake him again by calling his name, but he got no response. He gently kissed him on the lips, brushed his cheek with the back of his hand, and then headed to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. He stopped at the kitchen counter and put both his hands on the counter in front of him and bowed his head. The events of the last few hours and months started to hit him pretty hard, and he sank down to the floor and began to silently weep. When he regained his composure, he decided that he didn’t want any coffee after all. He went back to Mac and climbed in bed next to him. He laid his arm over Mac’s chest and closed his eyes.