Chapter 6

The hours that followed were spent in a haze of nightmarish dreams broken only by breif and feverish periods of consciousness. I was not aware of anything besides the incapacitating pain that held me captive. Trying to break free of it was like trying to surface from some great black wave that was endlessly rolling. No matter how hard I fought, I could not seem to focus on anything but the enormity of it's presence. The only times I was granted relief was when the pain overcame my body's ability to handle it, and delivered me to sweet unconsciousness. If I had been able to form a coherent thought, I surely would have begged for death. Anything to grant me release.

I don't know how long I spent suspended in that realm of semi-consciousness...time meant very little to me then. Only when I felt the warmth of sunlight bathing my face did I open my eyes fully, blinking furiously against the harsh brightness. My entire body ached, my muscles protesting even the smallest of movements. My headache had ebbed to a dull and persistent throb that seemed to radiate from temple to temple. I groaned softly as I tried to sit up, pain shooting through my back and neck as I struggled to prop myself up on my elbows so that I could survey my surroundings. The first thing I became aware of was that I was no longer in the plane...how had that happened? Had I somehow been ripped from inside during the fall into the ravine? I didn't see how that was possible. My body felt broken, but I doubted I would have survived being ejected.

The forest around me was thick, and the canopy of trees above me blocked much of the sky from view. Below me was a thick bed of needles and leaves, and I realized that there was no way that I could have been thrown from the aircraft. The bedding was purposefully placed, I could tell by the marks in the soil next to me. Mauston must have released me from the plane and rested me here! At the thought of him, I jerked upright, my body instantly screaming in protest at the sudden motion. I looked around me frantically, searching for any sign of Mauston. He must have made it through the fall, if he had gotten me on the bed of leaves. There was no telling how badly he'd been wounded though, and I feared the worse when I remembered the way in which he'd laid the top half of his body over mine in protection just before we'd gone off the ledge.

My pulse picked up a notch when my gaze touched on him. He was sitting with his back against the trunk of a pine, his chin on his chest. There was a garish purple bruise blooming across one of his cheekbones, and there was a dark crust of dried blood near his hairline. His well-bronzed flesh had paled considerably, and his vivid green eyes were hidden beneath his lowered lids. I could detect no rise and fall of his chest.

"Mauston?" I tried my voice. It was choked and rusty, barely capable of even a whisper. I sucked in a breath of the alpine air, my stomach muscles crying from even that small exertion. "Mauston!"

His eyes snapped open and he lifted his head to look at me. He looked confused for a moment, blinking at me almost as in disbelief. Then his features relaxed and he shifted slightly to better face me. "Morning, kiddo. Glad to see you join the land of the living. You had me pretty worried there for a while"

I felt shaky, a residual effect of the fear that had surged when I'd thought he was dead. "How long has it been?"

"The plane went down yesterday morning. I'd say around 4 am. You've been out for over 24 hours." He stretched, wincing in pain at the motion. "At least I think so, anyway. I was out awhile myself."

For the first time, I became aware of the hulking wreckage behind me. I turned, bracing myself against the wave of dizziness I was punished with. My jaw hung slack at the sight of the plane, reduced now to a ball of crumpled metal. How we had ever made it through alive was a concept that was beyond me. "Oh my god." I gasped.

Mauston watched as the full weight of what had happened came down on me. "We were lucky. Your leg is busted up pretty good, and I'm pretty sure I snapped a rib or three. Both of us bashed our heads and there's some cuts and bruises...but so far as I can tell, that's all we've got. We really should be dead." He passed a hand over his bruised cheekbone. "I had trouble getting the bleeding to stop. I thought you wouldn't make it for a while there. I stayed up until I was sure you were done bleedin'."

I frowned. "Bleeding?" I looked down at my leg, fearing I would see my bone protruding from the flesh. No such sight greeted me. Mauston had made a makeshift splint from some thick branches and torn strips from what appeared to be a shirt, but my clothing was not blood stained. I glanced back at him, confused.

"Your head." He tapped his temple, and my fingers roe to my own. The dried blood was tacky under my fingertips, and the flesh was extremely tender.

"Thanks for getting me taken care of." I told him softly, realizing that without his help I'd likely be dead.It was a heavy thought I'd rather have not considered.

"Don't mention it." He closed his eyes again, and silence lapsed between us for a few moments.

I could hear birds chirping and the wind rustling through the pines, but otherwise the sheer quietness of the forest made me uneasy. It occurred to me that search planes would have to be out looking for us...when we didn't show up in Fairbanks, my sister and Ben surely would have alerted the authorities. "Have you heard any planes? They have to be looking for us!" A note of desperation hitched on my voice.

"I heard one, though from the sounds of it it was pretty far away. At least five, maybe ten miles. We got pretty far off course when we went down." He opened his eyes, looking at me again. He looked weary, and I wondered just how long he'd spent watching over me. I couldn't help but feel a bit of guilt. "If we had managed to stay out of the ravine, they'd have a better chance at spotting us. I'm going to have to get a fire going...maybe they'll see the smoke." He looked up at the canopy above us. "We're pretty well covered, though."

I was appalled at how easily he seemed to accept the possibility that we might not be found. "They have to find us! We'll never make it out here. There's wild animals, the nights are getting cold, and to top it off, we're injured!"

Mauston shot me a look. "Speak for yourself, Hollywood." He grunted as he rose to his feet, grasping the tree trunk to steady himself as he made shallow breaths to avoid the pain of his broken ribs. "I'm going to see if there's any fuel left in the tank. That'll be the fastest way to get a fire going. If there's not, we'll have to do it the old fashioned way."

"Hollywood? Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" I wanted to get to my feet, but with the flimsy splint all that was supporting my wounded leg, I didn't think it was the best idea. Instead, I glared at him from my spot on the forest floor.

"I just know your type. People like you think 'roughing it' means a mountain resort with all the amenities." He made his way slowly to the wreckage, as if every step was painful. As my anger flared, I found it hard to feel pity.

"People like me? You don't even know me!" I gaped at him, completely taken aback by his generalization.

"Don't gotta. I been working around your type for years." He had begun to inspect the wreckage, his back to me. "I should've figured when Ben said his sister-in-law needed a ride, that he wasn't talking about his brother's wife." He added dryly.

Thoroughly pissed, I looked around for something--anything--to use as a leverage to get to my feet. There was nothing useful within reaching distance, which only served to piss me off further. I was not going to just sit here helplessly and listen to Mr. Big Shot Outdoorsman put me down, let alone take underhanded shots at my sister!

"Don't you dare take a cut at my little sister!" I yelled at him. "I see what you're doing. You're blaming me for this, aren't you? It's my fault that we were out in the storm, my fault we crashed? Is that how it is?" I raved as he disappeared around the other side of the crumpled airplane.

"You are the reason we were up there." His voice sounded strained, and I heard metal on metal as he obviously was beginning to work his way through the wreckage.

"Because my father was dying!" I couldn't believe just how cruel this man was! "And I had nothing to do with you! I would have waited until morning. No one forced you to accept the favor! If you've got to blame anyone, blame yourself! No one forced you to take the job. Not me, not Maggie, not Ben!"

There wasn't answer as I heard clanging and banging from somewhere on the plane. I silently vowed that the second I found myself a walking stick, I was going to promptly beat the pompous a*s with it the first chance I got. "I can't even believe you're passing judgments in a situation like this anyway! Shouldn't we be focusing on surviving this so we never have to look at each other again?"

There was a loud crunch of metal, a curse from Mauston, and he reappeared around the edge of the plane carrying a jagged hunk of metal. He handled it gingerly, as if it contained the world's most valuable jewels. Slowly, he set it down on the grass, then sank slowly to the ground next to it, breathing heavily. One hand rested on his side, the pain he was going through evident on his face. Slowly, his breath returned to a pace that resembled normal, and his intense gaze rose to meet mine.

"That is exactly what we're going to do." He nodded to the hunk of metal he'd brought. "There's fuel. I'm going to start a signal fire and get us the hell out of here."