Ice Hunt

Beside her, Matt grabbed his chair arms to hold himself in place.

“Buckle in,” she griped at him.

He hurriedly snapped his seat belt in place while he craned his neck around to search the skies for the Cessna. The other plane was pulling out of its dive and chasing after them.

“Hang on!” she warned as they crossed the top of the valley rise. She couldn’t let the other plane get above them again, but she also knew her craft was not as fast at the Cessna behind her. It would take some artful flying.

She dropped her flaps and pushed the wheel in, shoving the nose of the plane down into the neighboring valley. Its sides were steep, more a gorge than valley. The plane dropped sickeningly. She used gravity to increase her speed. The Twin Otter swooped down, slicing toward the wide river that carved through the center of the canyon. She followed it downstream.

The Cessna appeared behind her. It stayed high, arcing over the river valley. It again tried to get above her.

Jenny banked tightly and followed the river’s course as it wound through the gorge. “Come on, baby,” she whispered to her craft. She had flown the Otter since joining the sheriff’s department. It had gotten her out of many a jam.

“They’re diving on us again!” Matt said.

“I hear you.”

“That’s good,” he said.

She glanced to him, but he was staring out the window.

The plane sped over the river, arcing around a sharp bend where the river chattered over the series of rapids. Close…She stared ahead. A thick mist wafted over the river ahead, obscuring the way.

“Jen…?” Matt was now staring ahead.

“I know.” She brought the plane lower. The floats now glided three feet above the churn of boulders and frothing water. A rumble echoed into the cabin.

Then a new noise intruded. It sounded like firecrackers going off. A spray of bullets chewed across the rocky bank of the river and splattered into the water, slicing toward them. The Cessna flew overhead, slightly behind them.

“Machine gun,” Matt mumbled.

A slug ricocheted off a boulder in the river and struck the plane’s side window. Cracks spiderwebbed over its surface.

Craig gasped, ducking away.

Jenny ground her teeth. She had no choice but to stay her course. She had committed to this. The walls of the gorge had grown into cliffs and drawn inward on either side like vise grips.

Bullets again struck the wing, tugging the plane down on that side. Jenny fought her controls. The float on the same side hit the water, but bounced back. A single slug pinged through the cabin.

Then they were into the thick mists.

A sigh burst from Jenny. The world vanished around them, and a roar filled the cabin, drowning out the engines. The windshield ran with droplets. She didn’t bother with the wipers. She was momentarily blind. It didn’t matter.

She shoved the wheel forward, nosing the plane in a stomach-dropping dive.

Craig cried out, thinking they were crashing.

He needn’t have worried. Their airspeed rocketed up as they plunged almost straight down, following the waterfall as the river tumbled over a two-hundred-foot drop. The mists parted and the ground came hurtling up toward them.

Jenny again put the plane over on a wing and shot away to the right, following the cliff face on her left.

Matt stared at the monstrous wall. Craig gaped, white-knuckled in his seat. “The Continental Divide,” Matt said, turning to Craig. “If you’re visiting the Brooks Range, it’s something you really don’t want to miss.”

Jenny eyed the cliff face. The Continental Divide split the country into its watersheds, driving up from the Rocky Mountains in the south, through Canada, and down along the Brooks Range, ending eventually at the Seward Peninsula. In the Brooks Range, it split the flows between those that traveled north and east into the Arctic Ocean and those that drained south and west into the Bering Sea.

Right now, she prayed it split the course of her plane from her pursuers. She spotted the Cessna as it shot high over the falls, aiming straight out. A grim smile tightened her lips. By the time they spotted her and circled, she would have a significant lead.

But was it enough?

The Cessna was now a speck behind them, but she noted it swinging around.

Jenny made a course correction, aiming away from the cliff face and toward a wide valley that sloped out of the mountain range toward the lower foothills. It was the Alatna Valley. They were soon over the river that drained south out of the mountains. She continued straight ahead, leaving the Alatna River behind.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked, craning back. “We’re heading west. I thought you wanted to head to Prudhoe Bay.”

“I do.”

“Then why aren’t we heading straight north up the Alatna and over the Antigun Pass?” He pointed back to the river. “It’s the safest way through the mountains.”

“We’d never make it that far. They’d catch up with us again. After we clear the Antigun Pass, there is nothing beyond that but the open tundra. We’d be picked off.”

“But—?”

She glared over at him. “Do you want to fly this thing?”

He held up a hand. “No, babe. This is all your game.”

Jenny gripped the plane’s wheel tighter. Babe? She had to fight the urge to elbow him in his face. Matt knew how to fly. She had taught him herself, but he was no risk taker. In some ways, he was too cautious a flier to ever truly excel. One had sometimes to give oneself over to the wind, to simply trust one’s craft and the power of the slipstream. Matt never could do that. Instead he always fought and tried to control every aspect of flight, like he was trying to break a horse.

“Why don’t you make yourself useful,” she said, “and try the radio. We need to let someone know what’s going on up here.”

Matt nodded and pulled on a set of earphones with a microphone attached. He switched on SATCOM to bounce their signal off a polar-orbiting communication satellite. It was the only way to communicate in the mountains around here. “I’m just getting static.”

Her frown deepened. “Solar storms kicking in again. Switch to radio. Channel eleven. Try to reach Bettles. Someone may still receive us. Signals cut in and out all the time.”

He did as instructed. His words were terse, giving their location and direction. Once done, he repeated it again. There didn’t seem to be any response.

“Where are we headed?” Craig asked behind her, his voice shaky. He stared out the cracked side window at the passing meadows and forests far below. Jenny could only imagine his terror. He had already crashed once this week.