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CHAPTER FOUR

The small lake was shaped like a pair of elongated eggs connected by a narrow strip of water. One side was much larger than the other. The whole thing appeared to be cantilevered out of the ice-covered mountainside on a large shelf at the end of a long, steep spire of a peak that split the glacier into two tongues. The lake was at the downhill end of the split, protected by the northeast end of the spire. The glacier rejoined below the lake and remained intact for perhaps half a mile before it petered out into a canyon with sheer walls and a floor that was a jumble of boulders. This eventually led to the vast plain left by receding glaciers. The whole area around the small lake was littered with boulders protruding from the snow. The only living plants, other than moss and lichen that coated all rocks, was a cluster of willow bushes and three scrub mountain spruce where the lake flowed over into a waterfall. The other end of the lake was guarded by a wall of ice that made a takeoff impossible. One glance was enough to tell both that a landing might be possible from either end but there was only one way to take off.
When Tim at last saw his father, he was standing on a bare rock that jutted out into the lake like a peninsula giving the lake its double-egg shape. Grant’s right arm was high in the air, still flashing the mirror.
“That’s him,” Frank said, looking at Grant through the spinning propeller. Then he added, smiling at his own command of the obvious, “Not likely to be anybody else, is it?”
Frank came in low over the full length of the lake, getting an extra few seconds to look at Grant and the plane. He revved the engine a time or two by way of greeting. Grant stopped waving and stood watching as the plane roared past no more than fifty feet from him. Tim didn’t say anything because now that he knew not only that his father was alive but he had also crashed his plane. Frank didn’t bother waving at Grant as they went past. Tim doubted that he even tried to make eye contact. In Frank’s way of thinking, Grant was alive, he was standing and signaling. That was enough for the moment. It was more important that he study the lake. An instant after passing Grant they passed the plane at the far end of the lake.
“There’s not much left of it,” Frank said.
Tim barely got a glimpse of it before Frank had to open the throttle to climb and bank away from the lake. He turned in the seat and looked back and saw the wreck long enough to know the plane would never fly again. The Fairchild lay on its left side just beyond the edge of the lake and was partly sheltered by three scrub spruce trees. The impact had spun the plane slightly to the left. The right wing was intact, sticking up at a 45-degree angle but the left was folded back beside the fuselage neatly as the wing of a swimming duck. The floats were knocked off and lay together just between the plane and the lake, one crossed over the other like a dog’s paws. The fuselage seemed to be intact but the engine was lying in the snow completely separated from its mounts, face down with the mangled propeller almost hidden in the snow.
It wasn’t necessary for them to speculate what happened. Grant had to make a forced landing and ran out of lake, and in doing so he had made the traditional bush-pilot choice while trying to exercise control over his crash. He apparently lifted the plane out of the water just before hitting the protruding boulders, trying to clear them and reach the trees to let them be his brakes. He didn’t make it. The boulders knocking off the floats would have slowed him some, and then if he had been luckier the trees would have taken the wings. That tactic had saved some lives in Alaska and northern Canada, and every bush pilot swore by it; find two trees and go between them. But Grand hadn’t reached the trees and the unyielding boulders had stopped him. Why he was forced down was a question that would have to wait until they rescued him, but it was obviously the engine. For now, the why of his being there was irrelevant. That was a topic for future conversations, after he was home again.
All of this registered in Tim’s mind after he got a good look at his father standing on the smooth boulder. He was wearing his heavy sheepskin coat, a black wool watch cap and high laced boots. He had strung a tarp between two boulders behind him for shelter, and Tim thought he could see the smudge of a campfire near the tarp. He wondered what he found to burn since wood was not in abundance here at the very edge of the tree line. Grant didn’t wave as they flew past, but Tim waved and tried to make eye contact. He was certain his father gave him an embarrassed grin.
“Okay,” Frank said. “We are going to scare the hell out of him. I’m going to come in as though we are landing so we can see if it will work. I don’t think it will. There just isn’t enough water. He’ll probably think we’re going to try to do what he couldn’t.”
Tim said nothing. Now he knew what had to be done to rescue his father.
A light cross breeze was blowing up the mountain and over the glacier, sending a vague ripple across the lake when they came in. There was no room for a long, textbook approach and Frank had to kick the right rudder to turn tail into the cross wind and side-slip the Fairchild to lose speed and altitude, then straighten again and let it glide down to the lake. When Grant saw what Frank was apparently going to do, he began waving his right arm wildly while keeping the rest of his body rigid. Frank came in low and slow, and had he actually landed, he could have dropped the floats on the lake less than 10 feet from the edge. He then counted aloud, “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand...” and they were almost at the end of the lake. He shoved the throttle all the way ahead and pulled back on the wheel and banked to the right at the same time, then lifted the left wing to just clear the boulders jutting from the mountainside. Then he quickly lifted the right wing to be sure he cleared the trees. The trees whipped beneath them with several feet to spare.
“Not a chance,” Frank said. “Need eight to ten seconds on the water, and we didn’t even have four.”
Tim had been counting, also, in his own way and he was as frightened as he was satisfied.
“Okay, we play Santa Claus on the next pass,” Frank added, as if he wanted to change the subject.
“Are you hungry?” Tim asked.
“No,” Frank answered, then laughed. “We’ll make two passes.”
Tim loosened his seat belt and reached back to wrestle the duffel bag onto his lap. He held the leather strap with his right hand and prepared to open the door with his left because the bag was too big to go through the window. Frank brought the plane around and came in low and slow, and a little uphill from Grant so the package wouldn’t roll into the lake.
“Say when,” Tim said, “I can’t see anything over here.” He opened the door slightly, letting in a blast of cold air.
“Get ready,” Frank said. Tim pushed the door open against the wind and held it open with his right foot. There was little chance that Tim would fall out but Frank grasped his belt to be sure.
“On three,” Frank said. “One. Two. Almost, annnnnd...Three!”
Tim heaved the bag out with both hands and closed the door, then re-buckled his seat belt. Frank released his grip on Tim’s belt and in the same movement banked into another long turn. When they came back Grant was struggling through the snow, dragging the bag slowly, post-holing, breaking through the crust every step and sinking almost to his thighs. Then Tim noticed that his left arm was hanging loosely.
“It looks like his arm is broken,” Tim said. Frank didn’t reply.
“Take the wheel,” Frank said. “If we’re going to donate our meal, the man should have something to read while he eats.”
Frank took a notebook out of the briefcase he carried wedged between the seats and scrawled a note on the back of a blank receipt, speaking the words aloud as he wrote them:
“Having wonderful time. Wish you were here. Be back soon with brilliant ideas for your rescue. Signed, your rescuer and devoted son.”
“He’ll like that,” Tim said.
Frank rummaged beneath his seat and came up with what he called his favorite garment--which he had never worn--a tattered, oil-stained, ankle-length bright yellow rain slicker he bought in a pawn shop. He just liked the idea of it, he said. Made him feel like a real cowboy. He wrapped it around the paper sack and used electrician’s tape to secure it. Tim didn’t say anything but it looked like something rescued from the Juneau garbage dump.
“Ain’t that pretty?” Frank asked. “My turn to drop.”
Tim came in a little higher and faster than Frank because he didn’t trust the wind that could lift the plane if it came in from the east, or pound them down like walking into a waterfall if the wind was coming in over the top from the west. Frank popped open the window and held the package outside with both hands so Grant would know who was flying and gave it a push when Tim said, “Three!” Now Grant knew what they were doing and had stopped the frantic waving.
Tim looked at the fuel gauge. More than half a tank. He hadn’t felt anything unusual with the wind.
“One more pass?” Tim asked. “I want to come in lower from the other end.”
Frank looked at Tim and shrugged. “Sure.”
Tim made a long, easy turn, lined up as much as the canyon walls would permit and glided in, the engine barely above idling, giving it almost no power. He wouldn’t let himself think of anything except the plane and the target he would have to hit. He had never concentrated so completely, and was totally unaware of Frank or anything else except the lake and the feel of the airplane. He brought the plane in just over the boulders that looked like lumps beneath a comforter, followed the contours of the glacier with ten to twenty feet to spare, one hand on the wheel, the other on the throttle, giving it just a little extra now, then back to idle again. Tim was unaware of his own movements that caused the plane to raise one wing slightly, then drop just a bit lower, then rise again a foot or two in the aerial ballet.
Toward the end of the approach, Tim had to rise a bit to clear the low trees and boulders that guarded the lake’s outlet. Instead of giving it a shot of power, he used the maneuver to slow the plane even more, the wheel feeling dangerously loose in his hand, almost all resistance gone, on the very brink of a stall. Shortly before the trees whipped beneath them, Tim stamped the left rudder pedal against the firewall, twisted the wheel to the left, felt the tail swing around and the left wing drop, and now he was looking out the window almost straight down at the lake. They were barely beyond the trees and the Fairchild was wallowing sideways like a shoe box flung into the wind. They were dropping rapidly, the lake rushing up at them. In the same smooth motion he had practiced with the Stearman many times, he straightened the plane and gave it enough throttle to give the elevators something to work with. The floats kissed the water, skipped, then stuck. Tim jerked the wheel back and held it in his lap and kept the plane on the water for no more than two seconds, too fast for the floats to form a suction and sink below the step. Then he jammed the throttle all the way open with the heel of his hand, held the plane on the water for two or three beats, then pulled up and away, banking to the left and down the canyon. It was a remarkable bit of flying and Frank had remained calm through the whole procedure, even putting his hands over both eyes for Grant’s amusement as the Fairchild skimmed over the lake in front of him.
“I don’t want to know what you are thinking,” Frank said. “And I don’t think I want to be there when you tell G.P.”
They both laughed and settled back from the flight back to Jeffersonville.
“Oh, one thing more,” Frank said. “I think we’d better have a closer look to see what the chances are of walking out. Go around again and stay on your side of the canyon at about 200 feet. I know the answer but we’ve got to look.”
Tim turned and came in over his father again, made a banking left turn and glided down the canyon toward Lake Atlin. It was as bad as they feared. The glacier was deeply crevassed all the way from above the lake to its broad snout. Below the glacier for perhaps half a mile was a field of boulders that gradually smoothed out to the broad plain. A rescue party might get in and out but Grant would need both hands to get up and down the ridges of the rotten glacier. He was stranded. If he came out it would have to be in an airplane.
“That’s enough of a death-defying air show for your father,” Frank said, and leaned back and closed his eyes. “Let’s go home and talk about this. Finding him was the easy part. From now on we earn the right to call ourselves aviators.”