and the sound of it echoed off the shallow sides of the bowl.
'It's fucking spooky,' Lou said, shivering.
Jacob came up, huffing and puffing. His jacket was still unbuttoned, his shirttails hanging out. He took a few seconds to catch his breath.
'Anybody inside?' he asked.
Neither of us answered him. I hadn't even thought about it, but of course there had to be someone inside -- a pilot, dead. I stared uneasily at the plane. Lou threw another snowball at the crows.
'You haven't checked?' Jacob asked.
He handed his rifle to Lou and lumbered up to the plane. There was a door in its side, just behind the damaged wing. He grabbed its handle and gave it a tug. The plane made a loud creaking sound, metal pushing against metal, and the door swung open about five inches, then stopped. Jacob tugged again, putting his weight into it, and got another inch and a half. Then he grabbed the edge of the door with both hands and pulled so hard that the whole plane rocked back and forth, dislodging its shell of snow, revealing the shiny silver metal beneath, but not moving the door at all.
Emboldened by his aggressiveness, I approached the plane more closely. I tried peering in through the windshield but could make nothing out. The glass was spiderwebbed with a tiny, intricate matrix of cracks and frosted over with a thick sheet of ice.
Jacob kept tugging at the door. When he stopped, his breath was coming hard and fast again.
Lou stood a little ways off. He looked like a sentry, with Jacob's rifle cradled in his arms. 'It's jammed, I guess,' he said. He sounded relieved.
Jacob peered in through the crack he'd made, then pulled his head back.
'Well?' Lou asked.
Jacob shook his head. 'Too dark. One of you'll have to go in and check it out.' He took off his glasses and wiped at his face with his hand.
'Hank's the smallest,' Lou said quickly. 'He'll fit the easiest.' He winked at Jacob, then grinned toward me.
'I'm smaller than you?'
He patted his little stomach, the beginning of his paunch. 'You're thinner. That's what counts.'
I looked toward Jacob for help but immediately saw that there'd be none forthcoming. He had a toothy smile on his face, his dimples cutting into his cheeks.
'What do you think, Jacob?' Lou asked.
Jacob started a little laugh but then stopped. 'I can't imagine you fitting, Lou,' he said seriously. 'Not with that gut of yours.' They both turned to look at me, straight-faced.
'Why go in at all?' I asked. 'What's the point?'
Lou started to grin. A handful of crows flapped heavily into the air, changing trees. It seemed like the whole flock was watching us.
'Why not just get the dog,' I said, 'then go into town and report this?'
'You scared, Hank?' Lou asked. He shifted the rifle from one arm to the other.
I watched myself cave in, disgusted by the spectacle. I heard a voice in my mind very clearly analyzing the situation, saying I was acting like a teenager, doing something pointless, even foolish, to prove my courage to these two men, neither of whom I respected. The voice went on and on, reasonable, rational, and I listened to it, agreeing with everything it had to say, while I strode angrily around the plane to its open door.
Jacob stepped back to give me room. I stuck my head inside the doorway, let my eyes adjust to the darkness. It seemed even tinier inside than it had outside. The air felt warm, and humid, too, like in a greenhouse. It gave me an eerie feeling. A thin stream of light entered from the tear in the fuselage and shot across the cabin's darkened interior, like a weak flashlight beam, forming a tiny crescent moon against the opposite wall. The rear of the plane was almost completely dark, but it appeared to be empty, a bare metal floor growing narrower and narrower the farther back it went. Just inside the doorway was a large duffel bag lying on its side. If I'd reached in with my hand, I could've grabbed it and dragged it out.
Toward the front, I could see two seats, gray with the light filtering in through the ice-covered windshield. One of them was empty, but there was a man's body slouched in the other, his head resting against the control panel.
I pulled my head out of the doorway.
'I can see him from here.'
Jacob and Lou stared at me. 'Is he dead?' Jacob asked.
I shrugged. 'We haven't had snow since Tuesday, so he's been out here for at least two days.'
'You aren't going to check?' Lou asked.
'Let's just get the dog,' I said impatiently. I didn't want to go into the plane. It seemed stupid of them to make me.
'I think we ought to check.' Lou grinned.
'Come on, Lou. Cut the crap. He can't be alive.'
'Two days isn't that long,' Jacob said. 'I've heard of people surviving stuff longer than that.'
'Especially in the cold,' Lou agreed. 'It's like keeping food in the refrigerator.'
I waited for the wink, but it didn't come.
'Just go in and check him out,' Jacob said. 'What's the big deal?'
I frowned, feeling trapped. I stuck my head back inside the plane for a second, then pulled it out again. 'Can you at least scrape the ice off the windshield?' I asked Jacob.
He gave a deep, theatrical sigh, more for Lou's benefit than mine, but nevertheless shuffled off toward the front of the plane.
I started to squeeze my way in through the doorway. I turned sideways and slipped my head and shoulders inside, but when I got to my chest, the opening seemed suddenly to tighten, gripping me like a hand. I tried to pull back, only to find that my jacket and shirt were snagged. They bunched up under my armpits, exposing the skin above my pants to the cold air.
Jacob's bulk darkened the windshield, and I heard him start to scrape at the ice with his glove. I watched, waiting for it to get lighter, but nothing happened. He started to pound -- dull, heavy thuds that echoed through the plane's fuselage like a heartbeat.
I exhaled as far as possible and lunged forward. The doorway's grip moved from my sternum to just above my navel. I was about to try again, thinking that one more push would do it, that I could get in, examine the dead pilot, and get out as quickly as possible, when I saw a curious thing. The pilot appeared to be moving. His head, resting against the dashboard, seemed to be shaking ever so slightly back and forth.
'Hey,' I whispered. 'Hey, buddy. You all right?' My voice echoed off the plane's metal walls.
Jacob continued to pound against the glass. Thump. Thump. Thump.
'Hey,' I said, louder, slapping the fuselage with my glove.
I heard Lou move closer in the snow behind me.
'What?' he asked.
Jacob's hand went thump, thump, thump.
The pilot's head was motionless, and suddenly I wasn't so sure. I tried to squeeze forward. Jacob stopped pounding.
'Tell him I can't get it off,' he yelled.
'He's stuck,' Lou said gleefully. 'Look at this.'
I felt his hands grab me just above the waist. His fingers dug in, a rough attempt at tickling. I kicked out with my right leg, hitting air, and lost my footing in the snow. The doorway's grip held me up. Lou's and Jacob's laughter came filtering inside, muted and far away.
'You do it,' Lou said to Jacob.
I was pushing and pulling now, not even sure which way I wanted to go, just trying to get free, my feet digging into the snow outside, the weight of my body rocking the plane, when there was a sudden flash of movement up front.
I couldn't tell what it was at first. There was the sense of the pilot's head being tossed to the side, then something exploding upward, rising and pounding frantically against the inside of the windshield. Not exactly
