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Jones!
![]() PROLOGUE Saturday, July 9 “Son
of a bitch.” Nathan
Active jerked upright in the
Navajo’s copilot seat at the sudden sound of
Cowboy Decker’s Bush-pilot drawl
in the headset. He pulled his gaze in from the
terrain off the plane’s right
wing and peered over the nose at the ridge
ahead. Had
he dozed off? It had been a
struggle to stay alert during the ninety-minute
flight through the granite
ridges and green-carpeted valleys of the Cowboy’s
voice came again. “See? Up
from that patch of brush there, maybe a hundred
feet below the crest?” A
honey-brown ripple caught
Active’s eye—sunlight glinting off a grizzly in
summer coat, ambling through a
snarl of alders in a gully that slashed down the
face of the ridge. And just
above that, Cessna 207 parts splattered across
the hillside like bugs on a
windshield. Cowboy
swung the Navajo parallel to
the ridge and Active studied the crash site as
it flashed past. The
impact had separated the tail
and wings from the fuselage, which was crumpled
but looked to be still attached
to the engine. The propeller blades were bent
back and the landing gear was
splayed out, though still attached to the
fuselage. So were both doors of the
cockpit, though the windshield was gone. Active
was glad he couldn’t see
inside. “Son
of a bitch,” Cowboy said
again. “Any
doubt it’s them?” Cowboy
dropped the flaps, backed
off the throttles, and slowed the Navajo to its
minimum safe airspeed, then
rolled into a wide, easy arc over the
sun-splashed valley below the ridge for
another pass. “Of course it’s them. That’s my
plane, and—well, shit. That’s
Evie’s hat. See there, that little speck of
orange? She never climbed in an
airplane without it.” Active
squinted and finally picked
up the tiny patch of color a few yards from the
fuselage. Maybe it was a hat,
maybe not. “Sorry, buddy.” “Her
lucky hat, she called it.” The
pilot’s shoulders were shaking. “Those kids. I,
I . . .” Active
let the silence run on as
Cowboy made another circle. He had ridden with
Evie Kavoonah at the controls on
a couple of village cases. He remembered bright
eyes and a kind of innate
merriness that he had come to associate with the
Inupiat, especially Inupiat
women. “No
way we can land, right?” he
said at last. “Not
in a Navajo, not around here.
Search and Rescue will have to bring in a
helicopter to recover the bod—to get
them out.” It
was what Active had expected.
The Navajo was big and fast, with two engines,
the queen of the Lienhofer
Aviation fleet and perfect for an air search 150
miles out of Chukchi. But it
was no Bush plane. It needed a long, smooth
runway. “They’ll
want confirmation, I
suppose,” Active said. Cowboy
grunted assent. “I’ll bring
you past again. See if you can get the tail
number.” Active
pulled his Nikon from the
case between his knees. “I’ll get some pictures,
too.” They
made the pass. Active got his
pictures and noted the Cessna’s registration
number, then Cowboy pushed the
throttles forward and hauled back on the yoke.
The engines roared, the Navajo’s
nose pointed up at the cloud-flecked sky, and
Cowboy got on the radio to report
their find. “Catastrophic damage,” Active heard
him tell the FAA back in
Chukchi. “Not survivable.” “You
need to check the pictures?”
Active asked when they were level and the
engines had slowed to the steady
thrum of cruise power. “No,
thanks,” Cowboy said. “I never
want to see that again.” After
a long time, he spoke once
more. "I don’t think I ever saw her without that
hat. She said she
wouldn’t take it off even for a kiss from a hot
guy. She told me she knew Todd
was the one when it flew off by itself the first
time she saw him.” Active
could think of no words to
ease the pain, so he didn’t speak. “They
were both so
young,” Cowboy muttered as the remains of
Two-Five-Mike vanished behind them. |