Mountain Wilds Bundle (3 page)

“Clear Channel Base, this is Bravo Echo. Do you copy?”

Seth swung his gaze from the TV to the radio set on the desk.

What do they want now?

“Clear Channel, this is Bravo Echo. Do you hear me?”

Seth looked at Frank, who was smoking a joint.

Seth drained the last of his beer and tossed the empty can. It hit Frank in the ear.

“Ow!” Frank yowled.

“Shut up and answer the radio,” Seth said.

Frank took another hit and set the joint in the ashtray.

“You could just say something,” he grumbled.

Sure I could
, thought Seth.
But what fun would that be?

“Hurry up,” he yelled.

Frank was a slug–slow and fat. He also smoked too much weed. If it weren’t for the fact they were brothers, he’d have buried his worthless carcass in the woods a
long
time ago. Frank snorted, coughed and spit in the trash before he thumbed the big button on the base of the mic.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Clear Channel Base,” Seth corrected him.

From the beginning, they had all agreed never to use real names or call signs on open broadcasts.

“Yeah,” Frank said again, scratching his beard.

Even though his beard itched, Frank was too lazy to shave. Seth shaved every day, despite the fact they never saw anyone. The pilot of the Piper’s loud voice sounded in the room again.

“Clear Channel Base, we observed a plane low over the strip.”

“A what?” Frank muttered.

Seth sat up and took his feet off the coffee table. Frank was staring at the mic, his mouth hanging open a little. Seth pushed off the couch and shoved Frank out of the way. Seth hit the mic switch.

“When?” he barked. “And don’t give me any of that Zulu time crap.”

“On departure, over,” said the pilot.

“Did they see our ops?” Seth demanded.

There was silence for several moments and he glanced at Frank, who was taking another hit.

“Unknown,” the pilot finally replied. “Over.”

Damn.
They’d avoided detection for three years. Gone to great lengths to do it too
.

Outside the window, rain was coming down and it’d be dark in another couple hours. The strip wasn’t far but the dirt road would be washed out now, down near the grow barns. They’d need to check everything: the barns, the generators, the strip, everything. Seth looked at his watch as Frank started coughing.

The last thing Seth wanted to do was ride around in the rain and dark, with his brother high and toting a gun. They’d run their checks in the morning.

“Clear Channel Base, did you copy?” the pilot said.

Seth hit the mic button.

“Yeah, we copy.”

• • • • •

Pain in the occipitofrontal region, Jules thought. She slowly opened her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. It was wet. As she brought her fingers into focus, she saw blood.

Blood?

She sat up and immediately wished she hadn’t as pain lanced through her head.

“Probable concussion,” she muttered.

What happened?

The flickering fire caught her attention and, as she focused on it, she saw the plane beyond it in the distance.

They’d crashed.

“Logan?” she said, looking one way and then the other. “
Logan!
” she yelled as she got to her feet, unsteady. A dull ache in her ankle made her pick up that foot.

Where is he? Is he okay?
 

“Logan!” she yelled again just barely keeping her balance.

“
Jules
,” he said, from behind her.
 

She turned but was met by some type of screen made of branches.

“Logan?”

Finally, he appeared to the right of the screen.

“Oh, Logan,” she breathed as she took a step toward him and started to tilt over.
 

In seconds, his arms were around her, holding her upright.

“Careful,” he said. “You took quite a knock on the head.”

She clung to him and rested her head against his chest. A million questions went through her mind. Though the pressure in her head told her she had a concussion, one question made her draw back away from him.

“Are you injured?” she asked, studying his face.

“Not a scratch,” he said, gazing down at her.

“Are you sure?” she said, looking at his arms and down his torso, though he didn’t let her go.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I’m sure.”

He sounded fine and looked fine and relief washed over her as she swayed.

“Here,” he said, helping her back to the ground.

She held on to his firm arms as he eased her into a sitting position. He crouched in front of her, his back to the fire.

“Your doctor’s bag is right here,” he said. He stood and reached behind her. “All the emergency supplies are here at the back of the lean-to.”

He set the black leather bag down in front of her, unlatched it, and opened the wide rectangular mouth. She immediately retrieved the acetaminophen. Aspirin might promote bleeding.
 

“Is there water?” she asked.

He was already fetching it. It was a foil packet he tore open at the top and then handed to her. As he did, she realized that, not only did her head hurt, she was thirsty. She took the pills with the entire bag.

“Thanks,” she said, handing it back empty.

Just the hydration made her feel better.

He took the bag but remained crouched in front of her.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She had been about to say concussed when she saw the deep furrows in his forehead and the tight set of his lips.

“Better,” she said.
 

His blue eyes stared into hers and, with the fire to his back, it was difficult to read his expression.

“Really,” she said.

He reached out a hand to her arm and gave it a little squeeze.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

Beyond him, in the fading light, she could see the plane.

“What happened?” she asked.

He stood and picked up a bundle of firewood he’d apparently been collecting. He untied the rope around it and laid several of the larger pieces on the fire.
 

“Microburst,” he said.

She watched as he stoked the fire.

“Just under the big thunderhead,” he continued. “The downwash overtook us and pulled the lift from the wings.”

“We dropped,” she said, remembering.
 

“Like a stone,” he confirmed, nodding. “We had just enough altitude and airspeed to maximize the angle of glide.”

“We landed?”

“Right,” he said. His eyes focused on her forehead. “Is there something I can do for that?”

She glanced upwards and remembered she’d been bleeding. A cut on the forehead, though not severe, could still produce a lot of blood because the face and head were so full of blood vessels. She reached into the doctor’s bag and withdrew an antiseptic wipe.

“It’s not serious,” she said, slowly wiping it. “So we landed.”

“And then the tires blew,” he said, watching her hand. “Here, let me,” he said.
 

She handed him the wipe but it was full of blood.
 

“Oh,” she said.

He was already opening another one. She sat still as he gently and methodically wiped around the cut, down to her eyebrow and around to the temple.

“I’ve tried the radio but there was no response,” he said. “Could be the antenna’s damaged but more than likely we just don’t have line of sight to any receivers. Same with the cell phones.”

As he finished with the second wipe, Jules retrieved some gauze, tape, and scissors from the bag.
 

“How big is the cut?” she asked.

“About half an inch.”

She cut and folded the gauze accordingly, snipped a piece of tape, and handed them both to Logan. For such a big man, his touch was gentle and he took his time.

He sat back and judged his work. Apparently satisfied, he bundled up the wipes and the empty water bag and put them in a white trash bag she hadn’t noticed before. In fact, as she looked around, she realized she hadn’t noticed much. Logan had been busy.

She was sitting under a lean-to of rough tree limbs that had been lashed together at the corners with bright orange rope. Entire branches with their pine needles had been laid over the framework of poles and tied into place. An open emergency kit was tucked back underneath the furthest corner. Inside it she saw more foil pouches and various tools and supplies. Underneath her there was a shiny silver emergency blanket. The ground was soft though and she saw pine needles and a wool blanket protruding from the edges. Logan must have been working non-stop.

The fire blazed brightly as he fanned it with what looked like the aeronautical map and extra heat flooded over her.

“You carried me from the plane,” she said quietly.

He only nodded, not looking at her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t thank me,” he said, as he stared into the flames.
 

She hadn’t exactly expected a simple ‘you’re welcome’ but his reaction surprised her.

His profile was stern and he looked more serious than she’d ever seen him. She didn’t know what to say but as she watched him, his jaw tightened and he stopped fanning the fire. He had a faraway look and rather than interrupt, she watched. He was seeing something else–or maybe someplace else. His hand slowly went to his right knee and he rubbed the outside of it.

Is he hurt?

As she watched, Jules felt a tightening in her chest. She nearly reached out to him but stopped herself in time. Becoming a doctor hadn’t really been a choice. It’d been a calling. Though it pained her to see people suffer, to think that
Logan
might be hurt was agonizing.

Please just say something, Logan. Please let me help.

He reached for another piece of wood and tossed it on the fire.

Logan had only neared the subject of the Iraq war a few times but, invariably, he’d either shut down or gotten that same faraway look.

Rather than push, she forced herself to avert her gaze. It landed on the plane and a thought occurred to her.

“Will someone come looking for us?” she asked, pulling her jacket tight in front of her.

“Absolutely,” he said, finally looking at her. He was smiling that wonderful smile again. “Royal Canadian Air Force out of Victoria. Someone will hear the ELT, the emergency locator transmitter, and I filed a flight plan. No problem there. But they won’t be coming in this weather–in darkness. We’ll have to be prepared to stay at least one night.”

Now the lean-to and all the other preparations made sense.

“And let me tell you,” he said with a bit of pride in his voice. “I don’t pack an emergency kit with granola bars.”

He stood and she noticed that he quickly shook out his right leg.

In just a couple of strides, he was right next to her, reaching behind her into the lean-to, and he produced a couple of brown paper packages. He crouched down and showed them to her.

“IMPs,” he said. “Individual Meal Packs. Do you want,” he paused to read the packages, “Thai chicken or shepherd’s pie?”

• • • • •

“Shut up!” yelled Seth.

Frank had been coughing in his room for hours.
 

Served him right. You smoke that much BC Bud and you’re gonna cough. Not to mention it was potent as hell.

Frank coughed again.

BC Bud was why they were here but not to smoke it. It was
the
cash crop of the region–illegal but not yet high on the list of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. No way did the RCMP have the manpower to track down all the growers. Seth’s farm was little and still did several million dollars a year. One more crop and he’d be out of here. He’d had enough of the wilderness.

He lay on his cot in the darkness and put his hands behind his head.

Those crops in the grow barns would be the last. They’d stolen B. C. hydroelectric transformers and a hydroelectric bypass to get the power they needed undetected. They’d built the short airstrip and the graded dirt road. They’d built the cabin–small enough to hide in the trees. They’d camouflaged the tops of the barns and the production building. They’d grown 7,000 plants a year.
 

It’d been hard work–a lot of it. And now it was almost over.

The Interstate 5 corridor connecting Southern California and British Columbia had paid off big time. That Piper had been carrying 1,000 pounds of their bud, worth three million dollars. They were rich but living like cave men.

Frank coughed again.

Seth was sick of his brother. Sick of canned food. Sick of year old DVDs. And sick of being without women.
 

Frank kept coughing.

“Shut up!” Seth screamed. “Shut up!”

• • • • •

Logan realized they’d fallen into their usual cockpit pattern. He was sitting on the left about a foot away from where she sat cross-legged to his right. They had their jackets on and faced the fire with their IMPs and, as they ate, he occasionally tossed on more wood and they talked.

“I knew he was seeing someone else,” she said quietly.

She used the plastic spoon that had come with the meal to move the warm Thai chicken around in the foil pouch. The only thing she’d really eaten was the applesauce. They’d been talking about Lumby and the vaccine surviving in the plane when she’d simply started about the divorce.

He put his spoon down and looked over at her.

“You
knew
?”

“How could I not?” she sighed, still staring into the fire. “A million little things tell you.” She paused. “And a couple big ones.” She looked down at the food. “Finding a condom in the washing machine was a
high
point.”

She laughed quietly but without smiling.

“In a way,” she said. “I’m glad it’s finally over.”
 

Logan slowly shook his head and concentrated on the fire.

“I’m not sure which is worse,” he said. “Knowing or not knowing.”

In his peripheral vision, she was looking at him but he fixed his gaze forward.

“I had
no
idea when it happened to me,” he said. “And, let me tell you, it came like an anvil out of the sky.”