“But there’s a lot of sense in both of us living, and that’s what’s going to happen.” She tied off the final knot, then stood up. “Now get on the stretcher,” she commanded, pointing at it as if she were a military commander.
Gordon looked up at her, then broke out in an involuntary laugh. “Damn, you’re stubborn. You could be my kid.” His eyes teared in the cold. “If you ever decide you want a pa, I’d be happy to have you as a daughter.”
She knelt down and hugged him, feeling his warmth against her cold cheek. “Thank you.” She stayed like that for a minute, then stood up. “Now get on the damn stretcher.”
He laughed, then shifted his weight toward it. Carefully, she lifted his leg as he eased onto it. He winced, biting back a cry of pain.
Using the seat belts from the plane, she lashed him to the stretcher, then threw her tool bag over her shoulder. Grabbing the two extending handles, she lifted up one end of the stretcher and began to make her way through the deep snow, heading ever downward.
Chapter 27
Sinking into the snow, H124 trudged down the mountain, each step a massive effort. Every breath was a renewed agony as her cracked ribs protested. The deep snow was good for one thing, at least—it kept Gordon’s stretcher relatively level as she dragged it over the ground. Had the ground been bare, he would have bumped over every log and rock.
Her breath frosting in the air, she worked her way down the mountain, switchbacking down steep sections. Thirst gnawed at her constantly, and with all the exertion, she couldn’t melt water fast enough to drink it. She kept stopping, stuffing new snow into her water bottle, and then tucking it under her jacket to melt.
Gordon drifted in and out of consciousness, groaning on occasion. She thought hypothermia might be setting in for him. At one point he struggled against the seat belts and cried out, “I told him not to go in there!”
For hours she labored on, stopping more and more often to rest and drink. The cold zapped her muscles of strength. She ate the last of their MREs, breaking it in half and forcing Gordon to eat his share. Weakly he pushed her hand away, but finally she got him to chew the ration and swallow it.
As the day wore on, the snow grew less deep. She was making progress. Her lungs burned in her chest, and her body started to tremble with exhaustion. She forced herself onward, stopping more frequently for want of a decent breath. The thick cloud cover continued to send down flurries of snowflakes.
The snow was now only knee-deep. She dragged Gordon down another steep slope, zigzagging across it. More stands of dead trees loomed up out of the mist, gray sentinels in a monochromatic landscape.
Suddenly, far below, she spied an expanse of bare brown earth, and she would have run toward it if she weren’t about to fall over with fatigue.
Instead she forged on slowly, step by step, six inches at a time, closing the distance. Tiny breath. Step. Tiny breath. Step. She paused when she reached the next stand of dead trees. If she could make it to that section of bare earth, she had a chance of finding dry wood and starting a fire.
Gordon stirred on the stretcher, murmuring under his breath.
Above her the cloud layer grew thinner, the wind drawing it to the east. All of a sudden she could see an edge of blue sky. Her heart lifted.
She trudged on. Left foot. Right foot. Her arms trembled with the weight of the stretcher. She stopped, setting Gordon down and taking a long drink from her water bottle. She was about to stop and give him a drink too, when she heard something in the distance.
She remained still. Above the eerie stillness of the mountain, she heard thrumming. She strained to make it out. A vibrating, cyclic noise, coming from the east. A layer of clouds still hung low in that direction. To the west she could see blue skies and the sun hanging above a line of snow-capped mountains.
The noise grew louder, moving above the clouds. She lifted her face, and her heart started to hammer. It didn’t sound like a plane. It didn’t sound like a PPC airship either. She had no idea what it was, as the clouds obscured it.
The sound loudened until whatever it was hovered directly above her, hidden in the mist. Then a machine descended, dipping below the gray clouds. A large propeller spun on the top of it, with a smaller one mounted on the tail. The body of the machine was an oval of sorts, with a large sliding door on one side. Inside the cabin, she saw a woman gripping the control stick. The door slid open, and a familiar face grinned down at her. His blue eyes twinkled beneath a crop of short blond hair.
“Rowan!” she shouted. Unable to control herself, she jumped up and down. “Rowan!” Her ribs cursed at her for the movement, as did Gordon.
“There you are!” he called above the din of the rotors. “Quite a storm!”
“I’m so glad to see you!” She wanted to fall down on her knees and cry. Instead, she knelt by Gordon. “We’re saved!”
His eyes fluttered.
“Can you land?” she called up to Rowan.
He turned to the pilot, then pointed at a flat spot a few hundred feet away. The pilot maneuvered the machine down, and a tremendous wind kicked up snow into a fine mist. The pilot cut the engine as they touched down.
Rowan jumped out and ran to her. She met him halfway, her exhaustion forgotten. He gathered her up in his arms. She pressed her face into his warm neck and breathed in his delicious scent. “I am so glad to see you,” she said, squeezing him so tightly she felt a sharp stab in her ribs.
“When I didn’t
