Two If by Sea by Jacquelyn Mitchard Page B

crate or kennel, anyone would have had to tunnel through or clamber over the luggage. Large animals, it seemed, were against the sides. Wedged on the far back curve was cargo—goods of some kind, Frank assumed, although what sort of exports were leaving Brisbane right now? It must be household furniture of people like him, getting out of Dodge. Big metal containers were stacked at the far end of the plane’s belly and secured by straps. Fortunately, there did not seem to be much cargo, but the airplane was full, and the luggage was piled ten high in places, and on the tops of some of those piles, Frank could see pet crates.
    â€œThat sucks,” the pilot said, moving to take down the few kennels teetering on the highest piles. Eyes peered from kennels wedged in the middle of heavy pyramids of luggage. The stink alone could have killed people—shit and piss and vomit. How had it been before the lightning hit? Frank was willing to bet not good. At least it was relatively warm; and, according to the behavior of his ears, the pressure was the same as the cabin. It was louder, though, infinitely louder, as though the sound of the engines was magnified, when, in reality, it simply was not blocked.
    From somewhere outside the circumference of the light’s halo, he could hear Glory Bee, shrieking and plunging, her hooves clattering the floor and sides of the flimsy stall. He could hear the rasp and split of wood.
    â€œDo you have a flashlight?” Frank asked the pilot.
    By the focused beam of a medium-sized Maglite, like his own when he was on the job, Frank took a few steps deeper in and saw Glory Bee. She couldn’t get all the way up on her back legs—she was cross-tied and wore a tie-down—but she was certainly about to kill herself and anyone who got near her. Those straps wouldn’t hold forever. Patrick, looking ever more the size of a twelve-year-old, stepped forward, his young and somehow Wizardof-Oz shrunken voice desperate, chanting, “Steady on, girl. Just steady now.” To Frank he said, “I don’t blame her. When we ran into something . . . I thought I’d shit myself, actually. Sure that we were crashing.”
    â€œYou heard what they said,” Frank said. “Lightning hit a wing. Not much.”
    â€œEnough for me, Frank. I never was on a plane. If I get near her now, it’s my death.”
    â€œShe’s like this. It was a chance bringing her.”
    Sweat foamed her neck and sides. Her eyes were blue-white with terror and rage. She strained, her whinny a pure and unceasing scream. He would be surprised if even he, who could always gentle her, could get close enough to give her a shot.
    A score of dogs howled, and Frank spotted the muscled blackness of some kind of big, caged thing. A panther? And another . . . a tiger? The boom of the big cats’ roars seemed to come from inside his chest. The sides of a tall Plexiglas terrarium with two feet of wire at the top were befouled by big flying foxes.
    They were in some kind of nightmare ark.
    Who shipped a bat?
    Frank remembered now: the big park zoo in Brisbane was drowned; how the navy got out what animals they could, to send them places, in-country and across the world, where they could be looked after. These must be some of them. All this chaos, the exigency of the flood.
    He would have to kill Glory Bee.
    In his hubris, he had brought the gorgeous filly onto the plane as a thousand pounds of exquisite horse who, even if she could never conquer her anxiety enough to perform, would throw beautiful babies one day. In humility, he would see Glory Bee taken off as a thousand pounds of meat. Now he was a widower with a stolen child and a crazy horse that would have to be shot.
    Of course, until he died, Frank would remember the flash of Ian’s red sweater as he broke away and ran to Glory Bee. Time went over to a recording, unplugged and slowing down, down, down to a guttural