Landings
Copyright© 2015 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 4: Cold Comfort
I called back at 0730. “How are they coming, Crawdad?”
Crawdad was still on the other end, and he laughed. “You remember that movie ‘Kelly’s Heroes?’ The general who didn’t want to miss the ‘Big Game?’”
“I remember the part at the end where Kelly and his friends faced down that tank. The scene where they blew out the bank door was priceless.”
“Yeah. Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland. They sure don’t make movies like that anymore! This is the biggest game up here in years. The media assholes are going apeshit!”
“I’m assigned to the 10th Mountain, flying a training flight when we went down.”
He laughed. “Major Tom! Soldiers are worse than old biddy gossips. You’re the ‘Flying Major.’ There’s not a single God damn son of a bitch in the Army who hasn’t heard your story! And you’re friends with Brian Masterman who told the Seahawks to stuff their second string QB job!”
“That was my friend’s choice, Crawdad!”
He snorted. “The sheriff said, at last report, that they would be there by 0800 and 0830. We lost contact with the track that was detached to fetch your pilot about 0630. My daughter is one of the EMTs with them. Hopefully, it’s an equipment glitch.
“The weather boffins say it will clear on the mountain by 1000. Like they got this storm prediction right! There are hundreds of people missing, and we have a list of nearly a hundred and fifty more who are in contact, needing assistance.”
“We’re in good shape; we can afford to wait a little longer,” I told him.
“The National Guard has sent a hundred tracks. Every last track in the state of Washington. There’s some from the reserves as well, as well as a dozen from the cops. Nothing else will work, what with hundred-foot drifts and all. It’s like Mars out here. Sheriff McShane says that if you poke your nose outside and see a blue sheen on the ice — that’s frozen carbon dioxide. If you have a brain given to a gnat, you’ll get back indoors.
“The sheriff reports seeing puddles in some of the low-lying areas — they go around them.”
“Christ! CO2 freezes at 110 below!”
“Welcome to Mars! It freezes there all the time. Here, not so much. Be careful, Major!”
The mind couldn’t imagine it!
I checked on Claire, who smiled at me, then closed her eyes again. I wished I could sleep!
0800 rolled around. 0830. One of the bitter lessons drilled into second lieutenants — you don’t get on the radio every five minutes and ask what’s happening. 0915 came and I turned on the radio and flicked the mike with my index finger.
Crawdad came on. “Major Tom. Major Tom. The cavalry is at the bottom of the hill in front of the lodge. They found a vehicle and a body. Like most really badly frostbitten corpses, he appears black.”
I flicked the mike again and shut it down.
A few minutes later, there was a loud rumble, and a mild shaking.
“Should we go and greet them?” Claire asked.
I shook my head. “I should, but you stay here, safe.”
I went to the lobby, still wrapped in blankets.
A man, with two others behind him, stepped over the body just past the door. “Sheriff McShane, I presume?” I said.
“Major Cross. I swear to God this is just procedure I have to follow. I need the weapon in your hands, and any others you might have.”
“I no longer have my briefcase, else I’d have politely said no. As it is...” I handed them the weapon butt first. “There are three more AKs in the office; one of them empty. My personal weapon is there; don’t lose it. It belonged to my great-grandfather.”
The two men came through the door, and one went to the corpse in the doorway, while the sheriff waved at the third man. “Howie, get a fire going in the fireplace. Be careful of your hands!”
I waved the sheriff forward, so the bodies behind the desk were visible. When he saw them, he made a sound like he’d been kicked.
The look in his face was harder than I expected. “The young woman is Joanna Wilson. My oldest is — was — sweet on her. They were going to a Christmas dance on the day after Christmas. How am I going to tell him about this?”
Three more deputies came through the door, and the sheriff waved them towards the dining room. Well, I’d told him where the bodies were.
“Sheriff McShane. Miss Story’s mother was one of those killed. I cut her down and covered her.”
One of the deputies came out from the hall. “Sheriff, you have to see this!”
I reached out and touched his arm. “You’d be better off not seeing this ... but it’s your job. I didn’t see the like that often in Afghanistan — but it happened. All you can do is respect the dead.”
The deputy led him to the tangle of bodies, the first thing you saw entering the room. I gave him a minute, then pulled on his arm, while asking one of the deputies to shine his Maglite across the room.
The upside-down forest stunned all of them.
“You can’t forget, and if you can forgive, you are better at forgiveness than I am,” I told them.
“We found a vehicle at the bottom of the hill. The driver had evidently sought shelter in the lee of the vehicle. He was quite dead,” the sheriff said coldly.
“There was one at the front door and three here. Reportedly there were seven,” the sheriff stated. “Now, Major, I need to see that young lady.”
“I wanted to spare her this,” I said to him. “She reported that her mother spit on the man who later killed her, then bit him on the face.” I waved in the direction of the door. “That last guy has a bite mark on his cheek.”
The sheriff stopped and sniffed. I was right next to him and I could smell the smoke too. With a curse, the sheriff walked fast back to the lobby.
Sure enough, the deputy told me the light had produced a flood of smoke into the room. The sheriff grabbed the man and dragged him away from the fireplace. “You stupid shit! Where are your gloves? What are you trying to do?”
Another half dozen of the sheriff’s men were just outside. He jerked a thumb at one. “Steve! Christ, build a fire! Watch yourself! It’s colder than bejeezers!
One of the others, a woman I thought, laid a bare finger on the dead man’s throat.
The sheriff rounded on the woman. “Christ! Did I bring a crew of morons up here! Get your gloves on! You sure won’t be much of a doc without any fingers on one hand! Don’t you see that shithead is frozen just as solid as the one at the bottom of the hill?”
The man at the fireplace moved a few pieces of wood around, and then a minute later, the fireplace was drawing properly, and the fire was blazing up.
“Major,” he said, reminding me, “That girl.”
I led the way into the back, with two deputies and the doctor.
Claire was still buried under her blankets. “The cavalry has arrived, Claire,” I said. “This is Sheriff Ian McShane.”
“I’m sorry to meet you, Miss,” he said.
The doctor spoke up. “We need to get her back to the APC so I can run a rape kit.”
“Were you raped, Claire?” I asked.
Claire shook her head.
“Then, so sorry, doctor, no rape kit.”
“It’s procedure!”
“It’s a procedure for rape victims, doctor. Miss Story told me she wasn’t raped. So, no.”
“You have no say in this!”
“I’m sorry, doctor, but I do. Miss Story is under US Army protection until a military doctor releases her. Are you such a doctor?”
“I’m a civilian!”
The sheriff cut through the BS. “Doctor, we need to start documenting the crime scene. This is a mass casualty event, and the county prosecutor is going to want his ducks in a row.”
“I haven’t seen anything like mass casualties!”
I certainly felt for the sheriff!
“Ferguson, you stay here with the girl. You keep warm! Put some more wood on the fire! No one takes her out of here without my permission and Major Cross’s. That’s the two of us! Both of us!”
“Stay a little longer, Claire. These people have a job to do; let them do it,” I told her.
“Yes, Major Tom!”
“You sure trained her well!” the doctor said.
“Did I make a mistake bringing you along?” the sheriff asked. “Doc Haines said you were competent. I’m thinking now, not so much.”
The sheriff led them outside to the lobby and showed the doctor the three bodies behind the desk. She started to pull off one of her gloves.
“Jesus, fuck, woman! It’s maybe fifty below zero in here! Your fingers were nearly frozen off before! Now you have thirty or forty seconds!” He waved at the bodies. “These people spent the night unprotected! They are frozen solid than any popsicle you ever saw! They are dead, lady! D-E-A-D!” He spelled the word out.
He grabbed her jacket and dragged her away.
When we got thirty feet down the hall, standing at the entrance to the dining room, one of the deputies left in the dining room shone his flashlight on the tangle of bodies in the corner. The doctor was sick, instantly.
“Get her back in the track,” the sheriff said. “She’s in mild shock, and that’s not good.”
The deputy who’d dealt with the fire tugged her in the right direction.
The sheriff pointed to where she had been sick. “I can’t say this more clearly. Fuck up out here in this, and you’ll lose bits and pieces you’ll sorely miss!” The puke had frozen in mid-air, leaving a gonzo stalagmite.
“Richards, if your camera still works, get some context shots.
“The rest of you, think of this as swimming in a river filled with piranhas that can strip you to the bone in seconds. Major Cross spent the night in this building. Miss Story spent the night here. I’m sure I’d have heard about it if she was missing bits and pieces.
“If your extremities feel cold, there is a fire in the lobby. Warm up! Don’t try to tough it out thinking you won’t have a problem! That doc will be lucky not to lose any fingers. Howie — I told the son of a bitch to be careful. I don’t know how long he went without gloves, but if it was longer than two minutes, he’ll lose those fingers later today. If he’s lucky, he’ll keep his hand.
“Look at Major Cross! He’s standing there with his hands in his pockets! That’s a careful man, who is going home with all his bits and pieces!”
A man came in from outside, once again stepping gingerly over the body in the doorway. “Sheriff, it’s clearing off; we called it in to the army. They have a helo an hour out.” The man sighed. “There is still nothing from the missing track.”
The sheriff nodded. “Major, we’d better see to the young woman again. She has to be worried about how long we’ve been gone.”
I led them back to the lobby and into the back lobby. It wasn’t easy to tell from the way they were all bundled up, but one of the deputies was a woman.
She crouched down next to the couch and smiled. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”
“I watched my mother, father, and brother murdered. I watched them kill a lot of other people. They were going to kill me until Major Tom came. How do you think I feel?”
I grinned to myself. Evidently, Claire was feeling much better.
“Did Major Cross bother you?”
“I only wish he’d come sooner!”
The sheriff growled, “Connie, enough! There will be time enough for questions later. You and Ferguson stay with Miss Story. I have to walk through things with Major Cross.”
We went back to the lobby. “Walk me through this, as best you can. I’ll be recording it; this is an official interview.”
“Don’t you have to read me my rights?”
“I have two sons and a daughter. I have to tell my oldest that the girl he was sweet on is dead. That is enough to have to do.” He dropped his voice. “The county attorney is a weasel; your colonel has already had words with him.” He looked at me directly. “Your boss told me that if you have broken any laws, you are subject to court-martial, as you were on duty. Do not even think about trying to arrest you.”
“Every last one of the gangbangers I’ve seen was shot from the front or froze to death. I want to give you a medal, Major. There were more than forty people killed earlier in my county by these men. They killed even more in King County. And here ... we’ll count the dead, but it’s a great many more than forty.”
I related the story again, from the crash to the last man in the lobby. We moved to the various locations, and he had men taking pictures every step of the way. At the end, we stood again in the lobby.
The doctor came in again. “I’m fine, sheriff; I can examine the girl now.”
Outside came the roar of a helicopter landing.
In a minute, Colonel Mendoza had joined us. To my surprise, he spoke to the sheriff first. “We spotted your missing vehicle. I’m sorry to say, it has rolled. I had a chopper filled with medics and I detached them to assist, and I have their report. Two of your people were killed, and the rest were injured.”
I spoke quickly. “Do you have names on the fatalities, sir? A friend had a daughter in the vehicle.”
“Crawford,” the colonel stated. “She was a real hero. In spite of a busted wing and a bruised knee, she succored the others. I talked to her father already.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“We saw a man waving a quarter mile away ... it was your pilot. He’s not in good shape, but he’s on my aircraft. We can’t delay long here, he needs to get medical care ASAP.”
“Colonel,” the sheriff said, “I have an injured man I’d like to send out and my doc here, with him. She may have frostbite injuries herself. I’d like to send out the lone survivor of the events as well — this is no place for her.”
“Certainly, Sheriff.
“I have spoken to your county officials. They are ready to send more people up to assist you.”
The sheriff shook his head. “When it warms up, then they can come. I already have two of sixteen on this site screwed up. It’s just too dangerous.”
“Four of my people are from the 10th Mountain Division. They are trained and equipped for the conditions. If you need extra hands, they are available.”
“By all means, Colonel! Glad to have them!”
“And Major Cross, Sheriff?”
“I have nothing but praise for him! So has the young woman he rescued! I assume you’ve heard the news?”
“The cable channels and the networks are running 24-hour, wall-to-wall coverage.”
“I have no idea of how many lives Major Cross saved; there is just no way to tell. Dozens, maybe more.”
“I can’t afford to have any discussion of the major’s duties. He was on a training flight.”
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