Pathways (9780307822208) (27 page)

The gun was still pointed at him, and Eli noticed Bryn’s trembling hand. Gently this time, he reached out to take it from her. “You did it,” he whispered.

“I did it,” she repeated, as if to convince herself. She laid down beside him, reminding Eli of the bear’s collapse. “I had to go and fall in love with a bear magnet,” she muttered. She gasped for breath as if she had been holding it for the last thirty seconds.

“A bear magnet that smells like fresh moose meat,” he added.

Bryn just groaned. She was trembling again, her teeth chattering.

“We gotta find some heat.”

“My fire,” Bryn defended.

“Ain’t doing much. How ’bout that blanket? And our clothes? Are they dry?”

Bryn struggled to rise and felt them. They were as hard as sheets of ice. “Fr-frozen,” she said.

“It was a good thought. Just not warm enough to dry them. Come back here. I’m already colder without you.”

She snuggled up against him.

“Are we going to die out here?” she whispered.

“I hope not. Pray with me, would ya?”

She nodded against his chest.

“Father God, we’re in serious need of a miracle here. Please, Lord, we pray that you will guide searchers to us, as soon as possible. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Bryn awakened, trembling so hard her head hit the ground. She stared over Eli’s chest to the bear she had shot. A thin layer of frost covered each hair of his fur, leaving him looking as if he had bleached the ends of his hair. Unbelievable. It was still amazing to her that she had shot it. She had been ready to shoot Ben’s bear when he broke into her cabin. But he had been more of a rummager than a hunter. This one had been so close, so clearly intent on killing them for a meal. She shivered, double-time.

Her movement roused Eli from his slumber, and he looked at her, then to the tree limbs above them. “Shh. Listen. Hear that?”

“What?” All she could hear was the faint breeze sweeping through the stands of alder and the tree above them. But then, a faint whine …

“C-130,” he said with a grin.

Her eyes widened in delight, and she returned the smile. Pushing herself up on all fours, she rose. On shaking legs, she exited the tree foliage to look upon the lake for the first time that day. There was still a solid cloud ceiling, but it was high enough now for planes to be out and searching.

“Two de Havillands, coming behind her!” Eli called, too wounded and weary to join her. “Quick, come get a rain slicker, something to wave at them!”

She hurried over to him as the C-130 loomed closer, the churning of its giant engines reverberating in her chest. It was coming fast and low. She scrambled under the tree and grabbed the slicker, then hurried back to the beach, panicked that she might fall and blow their chance at being discovered. Their downed plane was covered with snow, so it would look like a jetty from that distance, not a fallen aircraft.

The large plane burst over the treetops, not a thousand feet above ground. And trailing behind, a half-mile distant on either side, were the Beavers, painted orange and white. The Anchorage Civil Air Patrol. They passed in a vivid display of air power, like planes at the Air Force Academy’s stadium on game day. “We’re here!” Bryn screamed, waving her slicker. “
We’re here!
” she yelled after them, as if her cry could pierce the metal sheathing of their fuselages and bypass the engine noise.

“I missed them, Eli!” she cried in despair, wanting to kneel and weep. “I missed them! They didn’t see us! I was too late!”

“They’ll be back,” he said calmly from his perch beneath the branches. How could he be so calm?

Bryn moved five feet to the left in order to see the planes until they disappeared. It was cold, so cold. How could they survive here?
None of the planes turned; they continued to canvass the landscape beneath them as they flew northward. “Oh, God,” she cried. “Please, Lord, I can’t take another night. Please, Father, lead someone to us!” Tears ran down her face. “Please, Lord,” she begged, falling to her knees and bowing. “Please.”

“Doc?” Eli asked a moment later.

“Y-yes?” she said, wiping her face and rising.

“A Cessna. Heading our way. Wave that slicker, honey. Wave it as hard as you can.”

W
hen the rescue team landed on the tiny mountain lake, Bryn sank to her knees again and gave in to the trembling of hypothermia that she had staved off for hours—like a grad student succumbing to a cold on the day after finals. Soon after they arrived, Bryn dimly recognized a helicopter, a medevac from Anchorage or Willow. She was picked up and placed in a sleeping bag, with heating pads in her armpits and an oxygen mask over her face.

“Eli,” she moaned. “Eli!”

“Shh,” said an EMT beside her. “They’re bringing him, too. He’ll be right here beside you in a minute.” The medical technician checked her fingers and toes.

“Fr-frostbite?” she mumbled.

“Maybe,” he said grimly. “I’m more worried over your core temperature.”

“What am I running?”

“Ninety-one.” A body temp of 89 degrees would bring coma.

“And Eli?” she asked, as a litter was placed beside her with a rough-and-tumble clatter. Almost immediately she felt the chopper lift into the air and a cold rush of wind through an open doorway. She blacked out before she could hear the EMT’s answer.

Bryn awakened in a hospital and recognized the warmth of blankets as nurses piled them on her. She was still trembling violently and had
been laid on a board attached to chains that were hooked to a ceiling hoist. With a start she realized that they had catheterized her and there were intravenous needles in both arms. The nurses were pumping warm fluids into her, urging her body back to its normal temperature.

Meanwhile they began to lower her into a warm bath, gradually increasing the heat. After her second dip, her mind cleared enough to think about Eli. Where was he? Was he in worse shape than she? Had he … died? He had been injured far worse than she had, and he’d been so cold for so long. “Please,” she said, grasping a nearby nurse’s arm. “Eli Pierce. He was brought in here with me. Is he all right?”

The nurse gently pried Bryn’s icy fingers from her forearm and placed her hand back under the warm blankets. “He’s doing all right. He’s next door, in a room identical to this one.”

Bryn gasped for breath and realized she’d been holding it, waiting for the nurse’s answer. Tears ran down her cheeks. What would she have done had he died? What would her life be like without Eli?

“Dr. Bailey?” said another nurse in concern over her tears. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said, trying to smile through her chattering teeth. “Nothing at all.”
Thank you, Lord
, she prayed silently.
Thank you, thank you, thank you
.

They lowered the platform again, and the nurses pulled away the towels. As the warm waters surrounded Bryn, she knew she had been plucked from the edge of eternity for a reason.

Eli shook his head, relishing the warm blankets that covered him from chin to toe, but he was unable to quit shaking. His head kept a steady beat on the padded gurney. He chided himself for his weakness and asked the nearest nurse about Bryn.

“For the seventh time, Dr. Bailey is doing better all the time. Just like you.”

“When can I see her?”

“When the doctor says it’s okay.”

“When Dr. Bailey says it’s okay?”

“No. When Dr. Albrechtson says it’s okay. Rest. Get warm. Let us assess how you are faring. You’ll see Dr. Bailey soon enough.”

Eli doubted that. He thought about what they’d just been through. They were alive! And recovering! In a hospital where there was a good chance of saving fingers and toes. “Thank you, Lord,” he whispered. Leon had passed a message to him via a nurse that they were already working on salvaging his Beaver. With any luck, he’d have his girl and his plane both in one piece within the week. Or the month anyway. The month …

It was August. Bryn’s Housecalls contract ended in a matter of days. Eli had seen Carmine walk past his window, to see Bryn, he presumed. Of course, the Housecalls director hadn’t stopped to check on his volunteer pilot.
Ladies first
, Eli grinned.
Think again, Doc. The lady’s taken
.

As the medical team raised his litter and lowered him into the warm pool, he thought about Bryn and their future together. What could he offer her here? He had built a business, a life, in Talkeetna. Was the crash God’s way of getting his attention, of giving him a wake-up call that all he had built could easily be taken away? Maybe Bryn deserved someone better than him, another doctor, like Carmine Kostas.

No, that mind garbage didn’t ring true to him even in his sorry state. He was in love with Bryn, and she was in love with him. There had to be a way to be together. There had to be. But if he pressured
her to stay here when she didn’t truly want to, it would only lead to trouble later. Perhaps a rift that they couldn’t bridge. He couldn’t bear for that to happen.

Would she walk away? He wasn’t a fool. He knew she had that Boston job offer on the line. A prestigious position like that would pay off her “mountain of school loans,” as she called it. Did he make enough at Alaska Bush to help shoulder that debt? He sighed heavily. One thing at a time. One thing at a time. There would be plenty of opportunities for fretting, considering, hoping. For now he would simply appreciate the warm liquid that surrounded every inch of his aching body and revel in the fact that he and Bryn were alive at all to fret, consider, and hope for a new day.

It took them another forty-eight hours to leave the hospital, but both did so on their own two feet. Bryn had a few frostbitten toes that concerned doctors and five Steri-Strip closures on her forehead, but she was otherwise okay. Eli had a broken clavicle, as Bryn had suspected, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken arm. The fingers on that arm were still numb, also a concern, probably due to the lack of circulation and the cold. He and Bryn hoped that with time and prayer all would be okay. “Even if they have to come off, I’m so glad to be alive, I’d call it a small sacrifice,” he said, putting his arm around her. “You can love a one-handed man, can’t you?”

“If you could love a woman who’s missing three toes,” she said. They kissed and walked outside into the dark night, where Leon had parked his sedan, ready to take them home to Talkeetna. It was icy cold, and they each pulled their warm parkas a bit closer; Eli resolved never to take warm clothing for granted again.

“There’s a definite nip of winter in the air,” he said, pulling open the car door for Bryn.

“Winter? It isn’t even fall yet!”

He shut the door and went around to the other side. “You blink in Alaska, and autumn has rolled on by.”

“I can’t wait to see the tundra,” Bryn said, staring out her window into the inky darkness. She turned to Eli suddenly, but he couldn’t see much of her face, just a vague outline in the glow of the dashboard’s gauge lights. “I asked Carmine for the rest of the season off. Told him I wanted to spend my last days at Summit.”

“Oh,” Eli managed. “What’d he say?”

“He agreed. Asked me to come back next summer.”

Eli swallowed hard. “What’d you say to that?” he asked, trying desperately to keep his tone light.

“I said I’d think about it.”

Eli refused to add anything. He didn’t want to sway her decision. She had to do what was right for her. If they were meant to be, the way would be made clear. Somehow.

Why didn’t Eli ask her to stay? Did he not love her enough to marry her? Did he not know yet? Because Bryn knew. After nearly losing him in the water, under that tree, to that bear, there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind.

“You ready to ride in a plane again to Summit tomorrow?” Eli asked.

She shook her head, trying to focus on what he was saying. “Wh-what? Oh yes. I thought about it a lot in the hospital. Back in the saddle and all that.” She turned back to her dark window, to watch ghostly silhouettes speeding by.

“Want me to fly you up there?” Leon volunteered, looking up into his rearview mirror as if he could see her.

“That would be great.” She turned toward Eli, taking a risk. “Can you come too? I don’t want to spend my last days in Alaska without you. But I know you’ve been away from the business an awful lot. I don’t know if Leon—”

“Yes,” he interrupted her. Tenderly he took her hand in his good one and lifted it to his lips. Against the drone of the car engine, he softly kissed one finger and then the next, and then the next, sending tingles of delight up Bryn’s arm and down her spine. How could she leave this man? Ever?

When he kissed her on her river cabin doorstep and left, his parting felt like a tear in her flesh, from the inside out. Did he feel this ache, this longing to remain together and never part? His lips were soft and warm, and his breath covered her face for a long moment as she memorized the feel of being in close proximity to Eli Pierce. Would another man ever move her like he did? Could she ever find this connection, this friendship with another?

“Good night, Doc,” he whispered, kissing one eyebrow and then the other, and then finally giving her a last, soft kiss on the mouth. “Better go in now,” he quipped. “It’s cold out here.”

She stared into his eyes. “I love you, Eli Pierce.”

“I love you, Bryn Bailey.”

“See you in the morning?”

“Yeah. Say, nine o’clock? Think we both could use a good night’s sleep.”

“Yeah. See you then.” She gave in to the rending then, the laceration of her heart.

She placed her hand on the cold pine door as she listened to
Leon’s car drive away. “God be with you, love,” she whispered. “God be with me.” She hoped her Savior would draw closer than ever before, that she could let him in, that he would guide her, lead her, teach her. Because Bryn Bailey had some big decisions to make.

Eli and Bryn flew to Summit Lake the following day. There were some high clouds, but it was mostly sunny. The tundra was alive with autumnal colors—russet and gold and olive. The birch were every shade of ripening squash, from a light green to an orange yellow. And the lake was as pretty as ever, a curvy mass of mercury amid the tundra and trees. Arriving on Summit always felt like a homecoming to Eli. He grinned over at Bryn.