them facing down a nightmare, and the other wondering how he would cope in similar circumstances. Life shouldn’t be as fragile as this, Brandon thought. It shouldn’t be permitted that years of hard work and attention and wonderful times could be wiped out so quickly. Thousands of people logged millions of hours in the sky every year. Why should it be Scott who added a notch to the statistics? Why not a kid who was less deserving of an easy, happy life?
Brandon felt pressure building behind his eyes as he pondered these things. Sometimes life was so damned unfair that he couldn’t stand it. But he wouldn’t lose control. Not here, and certainly not in front of a stranger. If he gave up hope, then so would everyone else. And there was hope, dammit. Plenty of it.
When he glanced up at the chief, Whitestone at first looked away, but then tentatively returned his gaze. “He’s alive, you know,” Brandon said, pleased that his voice still sounded strong.
Whitestone set his jaw, nodded. “And we’ll find him.”
9
W HAT C ODY J AMIESON LACKED in flying skills he made up for in preparedness. Scott had struck the jackpot on tools. The Cessna had a full complement, including the Holy Grail du jour: a three-foot, folding G.I. shovel just like the ones he’d seen in countless war movies. In addition, the toolbox, whose latch miraculously had not even sprung during the impact, contained screwdrivers, a hammer and a socket set. So, if the occasion arose for him to, say, mount a ceiling fan out here, he was all set.
All morning long, Scott had been dreading the task of digging a larger shelter, wondering the whole time how he was going to get this super-powdery fluff to pack down tight enough to make good walls. The answer, he’d decided, was simply to dig deeper, but he didn’t know if he had enough strength left to do that.
That’s when he noticed the severed right wing resting at the base of a towering pine, and the brainstorm hit: why dig when you can build? Sven was the first to encourage his students to take obvious shortcuts, particularly when it came to building shelters, making use of ground cover or natural formations. Caves, he’d said, were a particularly fine choice. With the wing, he could build his own cave. Digging was simple when you didn’t have to worry about the ceiling collapsing.
Invoking the lesson he’d learned last night, Scott removed his parka and turtleneck and hung them up on protruding pieces of wreckage, opting to work only in his long-sleeve undershirt. Even at that, he was sweating by the time he was done.
Using his new shovel, Scott first dug a foxhole, down as close to the forest floor as he could get, and then he placed the overburden up around the edge of the hole until the rim was about as high as his chin. With that done, he built himself a little shelf to sleep on, remembering from his class that the coldest air would settle to the lowest spot of any enclosure. Next, he lined the entire hole with the softest, most pliable pine boughs he could find. Insulation was king out here. If Sven had said it once, he’d said it a thousand times.
The final step in Scott’s construction project was to drag the severed wing over the top of his creation, giving himself a solid roof, which he reinforced with a good three feet of insulating snow, packing it down as tightly as the dry powder would allow. By the time he was done, the shelter was nearly big enough to stand in, and at least as big as any two-man tent you’d buy at the sporting goods store. As more snow fell, the shelter’s insulation properties would only improve. As a final test, he lay down on his handiwork and smiled. Call it skill or call it luck, but his first-ever shelter-from-scratch was actually comfortable. For the door, he utilized the right-hand cockpit door, which he removed with the help of the hammer and screwdriver from the tool kit.
Sometimes, it’s the little things that make you want to dance or belt out
Brandon felt pressure building behind his eyes as he pondered these things. Sometimes life was so damned unfair that he couldn’t stand it. But he wouldn’t lose control. Not here, and certainly not in front of a stranger. If he gave up hope, then so would everyone else. And there was hope, dammit. Plenty of it.
When he glanced up at the chief, Whitestone at first looked away, but then tentatively returned his gaze. “He’s alive, you know,” Brandon said, pleased that his voice still sounded strong.
Whitestone set his jaw, nodded. “And we’ll find him.”
9
W HAT C ODY J AMIESON LACKED in flying skills he made up for in preparedness. Scott had struck the jackpot on tools. The Cessna had a full complement, including the Holy Grail du jour: a three-foot, folding G.I. shovel just like the ones he’d seen in countless war movies. In addition, the toolbox, whose latch miraculously had not even sprung during the impact, contained screwdrivers, a hammer and a socket set. So, if the occasion arose for him to, say, mount a ceiling fan out here, he was all set.
All morning long, Scott had been dreading the task of digging a larger shelter, wondering the whole time how he was going to get this super-powdery fluff to pack down tight enough to make good walls. The answer, he’d decided, was simply to dig deeper, but he didn’t know if he had enough strength left to do that.
That’s when he noticed the severed right wing resting at the base of a towering pine, and the brainstorm hit: why dig when you can build? Sven was the first to encourage his students to take obvious shortcuts, particularly when it came to building shelters, making use of ground cover or natural formations. Caves, he’d said, were a particularly fine choice. With the wing, he could build his own cave. Digging was simple when you didn’t have to worry about the ceiling collapsing.
Invoking the lesson he’d learned last night, Scott removed his parka and turtleneck and hung them up on protruding pieces of wreckage, opting to work only in his long-sleeve undershirt. Even at that, he was sweating by the time he was done.
Using his new shovel, Scott first dug a foxhole, down as close to the forest floor as he could get, and then he placed the overburden up around the edge of the hole until the rim was about as high as his chin. With that done, he built himself a little shelf to sleep on, remembering from his class that the coldest air would settle to the lowest spot of any enclosure. Next, he lined the entire hole with the softest, most pliable pine boughs he could find. Insulation was king out here. If Sven had said it once, he’d said it a thousand times.
The final step in Scott’s construction project was to drag the severed wing over the top of his creation, giving himself a solid roof, which he reinforced with a good three feet of insulating snow, packing it down as tightly as the dry powder would allow. By the time he was done, the shelter was nearly big enough to stand in, and at least as big as any two-man tent you’d buy at the sporting goods store. As more snow fell, the shelter’s insulation properties would only improve. As a final test, he lay down on his handiwork and smiled. Call it skill or call it luck, but his first-ever shelter-from-scratch was actually comfortable. For the door, he utilized the right-hand cockpit door, which he removed with the help of the hammer and screwdriver from the tool kit.
Sometimes, it’s the little things that make you want to dance or belt out
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