screen, which was delivering the “Local on the 8s.” In northern Minnesota tomorrow, the prediction was for another beautiful day. A minute later, the coverage returned to the storm in the Wyoming Rockies.
“Is she dead?” Stephen said.
“Why would you think that, Stephen? There’s every reason to hope that she and the others are safe.”
“I don’t care about the others. I just want Mom to be okay.” He stared at The Weather Channel, the shifting of white against green that was the digital image of the snowstorm, a simple representation of a crushing fear. “I wish I could be looking for her.”
“She’ll probably turn up by morning and she’ll have a hell of a story to tell, buddy. And remember, there are good people out there who know what they’re doing.”
“They don’t care like I do.”
“Sometimes, Stevie, in really tight situations it’s best to have someone who’s not emotionally involved. They think clearer.”
“My name’s Stephen and that’s bullshit. If I was out there, I’d be looking for her right now.”
“Sorry about the name. And I’m sure you would,” he said gently.
Stephen fell asleep on the sofa. Cork covered him with an afghan Rose had knitted for Christmas one year. He settled into the easy chair with the phone at hand and closed his eyes. He couldn’t sleep. He kept going over the possibilities, searching for some reasonable alternative, something to hold on to, but his thinking kept coming back to the darkest prospect-a plane in pieces in the mountains, slowly being buried by snow.
He picked up the phone and listened again to the message Jo had left.
“Cork, it’s me.” During the long silence that followed, he heard the wind in the background like the whisper of a ghost. He saw her outside somewhere. He didn’t know Casper, Wyoming, didn’t know the geography, and he imagined her in a vast nowhere standing against a sky that was gunmetal gray, her blue eyes searching the empty horizon, the wind pulling at her hair. “I’ll call you later,” she finished.
But she hadn’t. And despite all the hope he was trying to give his family, in his own mind he fought not to hear the bleak, bitter voice of his terrible fear telling him she never would.
FIVE
Day Two, Missing 20 Hours
The phone woke him. He’d been dozing all night in the easy chair in the living room.
“Yeah, hello.”
“Cork, it’s Marsha.”
He sat up and squeezed his eyes to force the sleep out. “What’s up? Any word?”
“They contacted every airstrip they know of, public and private, and they’ve come up empty. There are still a few that haven’t responded, but they’re beginning to focus on the probability of search and rescue. It’s still snowing heavily out there, but the sheriff’s people expect it to begin tapering off before noon. They’ve also had a report from a couple of snowmobilers who say they heard a low-flying plane sputtering overhead around the time the charter dropped off the radar yesterday, which puts it, apparently, in the east-central section of the Washakie Wilderness.”
“It was still flying?”
“If it was the charter, yes. They couldn’t see anything. The snow and cloud cover was heavy, but they’re pretty sure the plane was heading southeast.”
Still flying, Cork thought and grabbed hold of hope.
“How’re you doing?” Dross asked.
“Hanging in there.”
“When I hear anything more-”
“I know. I’ll be here.”
The phone hadn’t woken Stephen, and Cork let him sleep. He pushed himself out of the chair and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Outside, the sky was clear and the approach of dawn had softened the hard black of night. His muscles were tense, sore as if he’d taken a beating. He watched the coffee slowly fill the pot, then he poured a cup, sat down at the kitchen table, stared at the wall clock, and thought about the fact that she’d been missing nearly twenty-four hours. He’d been involved in enough winter search and rescue operations in the Minnesota wilderness to know that unless the plane was intact or its passengers had at least some protection from the cold and wind, their odds, by the hour, would plummet. He realized his hand was shaking uncontrollably and he put his coffee cup down.
The phone rang.
“Mr. O’Connor, this is Julie Newell. I’m a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I know this is a difficult time for you, but we’ve been notified that your wife’s name is on the passenger manifest of the plane that’s gone down in the Wyoming Rockies.”
“There’s no confirmation that it’s actually gone down,” Cork said.
“Of course. I’m wondering if I could talk to you a few minutes in order to let our readers know who your wife is and how you’re responding to this situation.”
“I’m responding badly,” Cork said.
“I understand. I’m also wondering what your reaction is to the allegation that the pilot was drinking the night before.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know? I’m sorry.”
“Tell me.”
“There’s strong evidence indicating that the pilot, Clinton Bodine”-she pronounced the name “Bo-dyne”-“was in a bar the night before, drinking heavily.”
“Evidence?”
“As soon as news of the plane’s disappearance became public, a bartender in Casper came forward. So did a cabdriver. I’m surprised no one’s told you this.”
“Jesus,” Cork said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Does this upset you?”
“What do you think?”
“The pilot was an Indian, Mr. O’Connor. You’re part Indian, too, as I understand.”
“The word is Ojibwe.”
“Of course. How do you feel knowing that an Indian-Ojibwe-pilot, who allegedly had been drinking, might be responsible for your wife’s disappearance?”
“Mostly I feel like ending this conversation.” And he did.
He called Dross.
“I hadn’t heard, Cork,” she told him. “You know how it goes. Sometimes the media is ahead of us. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Cork didn’t know much about the pilot. He’d had only a glimpse when Jo got on the plane at the Tamarack County Regional Airport. He knew he was Anishinaabe-Ojibwe-from a Wisconsin band, he thought. A drunken Indian? Christ, that was going to feed the stereotype.
Stephen stumbled into the kitchen looking beat. He poured himself some orange juice and sat silently at the table, while Cork flipped pancakes and fried a couple of eggs for each of them. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew they had to eat, and Stephen, when the food was set before him, ate voraciously. These days he always did.
“I heard the phone ring,” Stephen said.
“There’s been some hopeful news.” Cork told him about the two snowmobilers. “I don’t know what it means exactly, but it looks like the plane was headed southeast, maybe back toward Casper, where it had come from.”
Stephen had stopped eating. His eyes were big and hopeful. “Maybe they’ve made it back.”
“If they had I think we’d have heard by now. But it gives the sheriff’s people a better idea of where the plane might be.”
