head down the Kenai.”
“Good thinking.”
“Just making absolutely sure this is done right—no slips—jumping through all the hoops I could think of, necessary or not, so no one knows where we’re going. Taking good care of you.”
“Thanks, Cas.”
The long valley where the Knik and Susitna Rivers flowed into an arm of the sea drifted by beneath them, discernible in the rapidly increasing light, and in a few more minutes the sun began to cast its light between the spires of the mountains in long golden fingers. Looking down, Jessie recognized thelandmarks she was used to seeing from ground level: the communities of Palmer and Wasilla, the road leading out of Wasilla to her own cabin, Pioneer Peak rising between her and the rising sun. It looked peaceful, benign, and safe as it slid away below.
She could see that new snow had already dusted the tops of the ridges, as Cas swung the plane to the south to cross their western end. From Anchorage, what appeared to be a large wall of mountains was really just an edge of the Chugach Range, which stretched beyond her sight about a hundred and fifty miles directly east until it came to an end at the Bagley Ice Field in the Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness. Intense morning sun added such brightness to some of the white, reflective surfaces of the snow on peaks and glaciers that they were too brilliant to look at without squinting.
It took only a few minutes to fly over them and reach Turnagain Arm, where Caswell turned the plane a little more southwest above the Kenai Peninsula, which was full of small lakes and muskeg and more mountains off to the left. Looking down, Jessie could see the highway, the only motor route that ran all the way down the peninsula, ending at the community of Homer on Kachemak Bay. Examining it carefully, she noticed a few vehicles, including an eighteen-wheeler headed up the long road to Anchorage from the port. A few puffy clouds had drifted in from the south, and as they flew through them, the plane bumped and jerked slightly for a moment or two in the turbulence.
“Alex. There’s a moose…look, down there.”
He craned his neck to see where she was pointing and saw a brown speck, very tiny but recognizable, browsing for breakfast in the reeds of a lake that looked like a silver puddle.
Jensen enjoyed flying with Caswell, though his tall frame never fit comfortably when it was doubled into the small Maule M-4. Seeing some part of Alaska spread out under him gave him a feeling for its enormity. Mountains that rose like giants from the ground—which he saw every day and forgot aboutmost of the time—now looked much different, though they still towered impressively. It always surprised him that the coastline of the south-central part of the state was so rugged and uneven, with its deep arms and channels of ocean. From above, it was possible to understand that it was really a new, sharp mountain range, still forming—that these mountains were twice as tall as they looked, because at least half of each one was below the surface of the sea.
Looking ahead, he could now see the wide reach of Kachemak Bay, running northeast to southwest, and nestled beside it the small community of Homer. Pointing southeast from the town, at a right angle to the shoreline, was a three-mile-long protrusion of land—the Homer Spit. Too narrow to be a peninsula—hardly wider, in a place or two, than the road than ran its length—this finger of land had been the original reason for the town’s location and was the focus of much of the area’s business. In summer, the road, with a single lane in each direction, actually created traffic jams of tourists, who came by the hundreds to park their tents, motor homes, and trailers on the sandy, oceanside beach of the spit. Now it was deserted, shops and charter services closed, and Jensen could see foam blowing from the caps of wind-whipped waves on the unsheltered ocean side.
“It looks rough,” he commented.
“Good thinking.”
“Just making absolutely sure this is done right—no slips—jumping through all the hoops I could think of, necessary or not, so no one knows where we’re going. Taking good care of you.”
“Thanks, Cas.”
The long valley where the Knik and Susitna Rivers flowed into an arm of the sea drifted by beneath them, discernible in the rapidly increasing light, and in a few more minutes the sun began to cast its light between the spires of the mountains in long golden fingers. Looking down, Jessie recognized thelandmarks she was used to seeing from ground level: the communities of Palmer and Wasilla, the road leading out of Wasilla to her own cabin, Pioneer Peak rising between her and the rising sun. It looked peaceful, benign, and safe as it slid away below.
She could see that new snow had already dusted the tops of the ridges, as Cas swung the plane to the south to cross their western end. From Anchorage, what appeared to be a large wall of mountains was really just an edge of the Chugach Range, which stretched beyond her sight about a hundred and fifty miles directly east until it came to an end at the Bagley Ice Field in the Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness. Intense morning sun added such brightness to some of the white, reflective surfaces of the snow on peaks and glaciers that they were too brilliant to look at without squinting.
It took only a few minutes to fly over them and reach Turnagain Arm, where Caswell turned the plane a little more southwest above the Kenai Peninsula, which was full of small lakes and muskeg and more mountains off to the left. Looking down, Jessie could see the highway, the only motor route that ran all the way down the peninsula, ending at the community of Homer on Kachemak Bay. Examining it carefully, she noticed a few vehicles, including an eighteen-wheeler headed up the long road to Anchorage from the port. A few puffy clouds had drifted in from the south, and as they flew through them, the plane bumped and jerked slightly for a moment or two in the turbulence.
“Alex. There’s a moose…look, down there.”
He craned his neck to see where she was pointing and saw a brown speck, very tiny but recognizable, browsing for breakfast in the reeds of a lake that looked like a silver puddle.
Jensen enjoyed flying with Caswell, though his tall frame never fit comfortably when it was doubled into the small Maule M-4. Seeing some part of Alaska spread out under him gave him a feeling for its enormity. Mountains that rose like giants from the ground—which he saw every day and forgot aboutmost of the time—now looked much different, though they still towered impressively. It always surprised him that the coastline of the south-central part of the state was so rugged and uneven, with its deep arms and channels of ocean. From above, it was possible to understand that it was really a new, sharp mountain range, still forming—that these mountains were twice as tall as they looked, because at least half of each one was below the surface of the sea.
Looking ahead, he could now see the wide reach of Kachemak Bay, running northeast to southwest, and nestled beside it the small community of Homer. Pointing southeast from the town, at a right angle to the shoreline, was a three-mile-long protrusion of land—the Homer Spit. Too narrow to be a peninsula—hardly wider, in a place or two, than the road than ran its length—this finger of land had been the original reason for the town’s location and was the focus of much of the area’s business. In summer, the road, with a single lane in each direction, actually created traffic jams of tourists, who came by the hundreds to park their tents, motor homes, and trailers on the sandy, oceanside beach of the spit. Now it was deserted, shops and charter services closed, and Jensen could see foam blowing from the caps of wind-whipped waves on the unsheltered ocean side.
“It looks rough,” he commented.
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