Chapter 15

Day Fifteen: Sunday

I awoke to the sound of a light rain on the window next to the bed on this early Sunday morning. The first thing I noticed was that Kari and Julie were already up. I grabbed a clean set of clothes and headed for the bathroom. I figured the rain would taper off in a bit and allow us to get in our flying. One of the things we did without, after the collapse, was meteorological information. I used to joke about how often the TV weatherman missed the forecast, but that forecast, poor as it sometimes was, allowed advanced planning. The first thing I did as a pilot, when planning a flight, was check the weather for all stops along the route. That didn't mean I was never surprised, but it did give me a heads-up that let me skirt a lot of bad weather. I was thankful that it was mid-fall and past the most severe part of hurricane and tornado season. I dreaded the thought of flying next year for that very reason.

I performed my morning rituals in the bathroom, dressed and sauntered into the common area of our rooms expecting to find Kari and Julie waiting for me. It surprised me when I didn't find either of them there. I started a pot of coffee and checked to see if there was anything in the refrigerator to munch on before breakfast. I heard stirrings from Kim's bedroom indicating that she was awake. I hoped I hadn't awakened her with my activity in the kitchen. After finding nothing to eat in the refrigerator I ended up making some toast. I slathered on margarine and homemade pear preserves that Sheila had brought me and was just taking my first bite when Kim's door opened and Kari came out. She was dressed in panties and T-shirt and even with her hair unbrushed looked as sexy as ever I'd seen her. I whistled at her but cut it off in mid effort when Kim emerged wearing nearly the same outfit. Kim's eyes were red and she looked as if she hadn't had any sleep. Kim headed to the bathroom as Kari came over and took my second piece of toast. She looked into my eyes as if searching for something and quietly said, "Steve, I don't know what to do about her. She woke us up crying last night. She said she felt like she wasn't supposed to be here. Julie and I have talked with her through most of the night but I don't know what to do."

At that moment the bathroom door opened and Kim walked out. I smiled at her and said, "Morning ... heard you had a rough night last night. How about some juice and toast?"

Kim tried to force a smile but it just wouldn't come. Her attempt to act normal was both touching and heartbreaking at the same time. I held out my arms to her and the next thing had her clinging tightly to me sobbing into my chest. I saw that Kari's eyes were red as well as she slowly moved away to put some more bread in the toaster. I whispered what I hoped were comforting words into Kim's ear, not really knowing what to say. I was almost afraid to say anything, fearing the wrong thing might send her over the edge. I ended up saying, "Kim, we all love you and want you here with us. We can't take your dad's place and don't want to try but we can be your family. I know that you feel alone but you aren't. You have us now."

Kim lifted her head from my chest and wiped her eyes. She looked from me to Kari and softly said, "I went to sleep almost right away last night and the last thing I heard were the dogs barking outside. I started dreaming about the dogs tearing at my dad's body. Something was holding me back so I couldn't help him. I woke up wondering why I am even here when I couldn't even help my dad. After mom died, life only made sense when my dad and I were out on the boat together. I figured that I didn't die with my mom because I was supposed to be here to take care of my dad. If I had thought he was going to die to save me I would have..." Then Kim lost it and started crying again, clinging tightly to me with her face buried in my chest.

Kari mouthed the words, "She's been like that all night. I'm worried."

I was worried to. There were no facilities to take care of heart injuries of this sort and I didn't know whether or when we would ever have such things again. I knew it was beyond Irene's capabilities and wasn't sure what to do other than to keep her busy. Julie stumbled out of Kim' bedroom and headed for the bathroom. As she walked by she rubbed Kim's head with affection. As she walked away I knew I was staring at one of the answers to our problem.

I thought about it and nuzzled Kim on the head. I said, "Kim, the world is crazy right now and none of us know why. Your dad sacrificed himself because he loved you more than he loved his own life. His sacrifice is the best of what this world is all about. It's why the rest of us don't just give up and quit. Every person who has heard about you and your dad is a better person for it. Every father from now on now has a role model he has to live up to. I know you hurt inside. I wouldn't take away that hurt even if I could because that hurt and your love for your father is a part of who you are. The hurt will dull and fade, but the love you have for your father will always be there."

Kim's sobbing gradually subsided. A few minutes later she sat up, brushed her eyes and gave me a kiss on my cheek. Then she slowly extricated herself from my lap and walked over and hugged Kari. I heard her murmur, "Thank you." Then she headed back into her room.

As soon as the door to her room closed Kari rushed from her seat into my lap. She hugged me and burst into tears, crying for her own loss. I held her tightly to me and kissed the top of her head. After a moment of this she just as suddenly straightened up and said, "Thanks, I just needed to be held for a minute." She then kissed me, got up and headed off to our bedroom.

I was alone when Julie came out of the bathroom. She looked puzzled for a moment and then remarked, "Where did they go?" I shrugged and pointed at both bedrooms.

Julie got a cup of coffee and said, "It's been a hell of a long night. You are certainly a sound sleeper."

I smiled at her and replied, "I knew you could handle it."

Julie frowned and said, "I don't think I handled anything very well. I've never hurt like she has. All I could do was try to be there for her."

"That's all any of us can ever do. Let her know she's loved."

About that time there was a rap on the door and Julie retreated behind the kitchen counter as the T-shirt she had on didn't quite cover her panties. I went to the door and opened it. Sheila was outside under an umbrella and made no effort to come in. Instead she announced, "Breakfast is going to be in the reception building. No need for everyone to try to eat in the rain."

I thanked her and as I watched her go to the next door silently chuckled that the officer's club was now the reception building. Sheila did more than any three of us men. I needed to ask Jim and Tom again to speak to her about taking it a bit easier. I turned around and noticed that Irene, Lana and Laura were fully dressed. It was like someone had changed the scene in a play, all the characters were different. I explained about breakfast. Lana immediately got up, gave me a peck on the lips and headed out for the reception building where she was helping with breakfast. I gave Laura and Julie a quick kiss and followed Lana out the door.

The rain had changed to a light drizzle of the type that was commonplace in the area during the fall and early winter. The rain or drizzle would last for a day or two as weather fronts moved through, and then the temperatures would move 10 degrees one direction or the other. Since we had been experiencing temperatures on the warm side of the curve I expected the thermometer to drop a bit. Still, for much of the country this would be considered nice weather. Lana and I walked silently arm in arm to the reception building for breakfast. At the halfway point I ventured an interruption, "Penny for your thoughts, dear."

Lana smiled up at me in the warm drizzle and said, "I was just thinking how much my life has changed in the past couple of weeks. If none of this had happened Laura and I would have been heading back to FSU after a normal weekend at home. Now I'm happily married in a completely different world, years ahead of where I would have been in that life, learning to fly, and with no earthly idea of what changes I will experience in even the next few weeks."

As she said that she held onto my arm even more tightly. Then she said, "It's almost as if it's all a dream."

I pinched her lightly on her wrist and she said, "Stop it that hurts. I know it's not a dream; my dreams were never that good. I can hardly believe we all married each other with my parents there and everything." She smiled at me and I smiled back at her. This was the kind of walk I should have taken before we were married. I never even knew they were college students. What else didn't I know?

I broached the subject with a question. "Lana, I'm sorry I haven't had much alone time with any of you. I wish we could have taken a couple of weeks to do nothing but get to know each other. Every time we talk it seems I learn something else new about you."

Lana asked, "What do you want to know? People get married all the time hardly knowing anything about the other person, at least they used to. The only thing that's important is that I love you and all my other sister-wives and that you love us. You do love us, right?"

I laughed, "Of course I do. Still, I want to get to know you better, you know; your hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes. Usually that is what a honeymoon is for."

Lana giggled and replied, "That's funny; I thought we had a good start on doing what a honeymoon is for over the past couple of days. You did it so good that I'm still sore." She blushed at that and pulled my arm, hanging on with both of hers. "Besides," she said, "we have time in the air to talk about stuff. I've known you're the man for me since I first heard your voice when you rescued us. I told Laura and she said she felt the same way. We knew you had to care a lot for others, to try to rescue people so soon after what happened. Most people were busy just trying to get by and you were trying to bring all of us together."

At that moment we reached the foyer of the reception building and I turned, pulled her to me and gave her a quick peck on the lips. Lana wasn't satisfied with that and grabbed my neck and pulled me into a real kiss. A moment later as we stepped into the lobby of the building we were met with a smattering of applause from the early risers. I bowed and Lana curtsied before she rushed off to help Sheila and the others in the kitchen.

I walked over to the wall and saw that everyone was gathered around the first edition of the plan of the day, called the New Times. I only vaguely remembered signing off on the duty list the day before. There was a very descriptive article on the wedding and reception with quotes from me that I didn't remember making. Still the article and the two sheet paper were very professionally done. From the remarks made by the readers it was also being very well received. There were no errors in the duty list that I could see and the flight list showed my crew was Kari, Billy, Ron Simmons and Trisha Willoby. I knew that the drizzle would hamper our search if it was widespread but had no idea how widespread it was.

Trisha Willoby was scheduled for the only familiarization flight of the day. Kari got her suited-up and gave her the ground training she needed. It seemed like all of the flights were blurring together in my mind. Normally, at this point, flying regular syllabus flights, I would fly a few days and take a few days down time. There was too much area to cover for me to take any additional time off. There are good reasons for limiting your time in the air but like most pilots I extended those limits when it was necessary to do so.

The familiarization flight was in the air a little after 10:30 that morning. The weather was still drizzly and the further west I flew the worse it got. Not knowing what was ahead and hoping for the best I told Trisha we were changing our flight plan and heading to fly towards the east. I explained to Trisha that the procedure for any changes was to notify the MCP, which I did. Kari let me know that the weather at base was about the same as when we left.

The wet weather was accompanied by gusting winds that buffeted the plane, making the ride rough for a familiarization flight. Trisha was a real trouper though and talked to me as if nothing was out of the ordinary. The drizzle seemed to lighten up the further east we flew and after a final buffeting as we flew through the front we saw clear skies out the canopy. These clear skies began at the western edge of Walton County, a good sixty miles from the base. I went with a downdraft as we moved through the front and decided to start our search at that point.

As I flew lower I again briefed Trisha on her search quadrant. This was another farming and timber area in northwestern Walton County. The search area was north of Eglin Reservation. There were half dozen very small communities in this area. I wanted to fly along state roads 83 & 187 and along several of the large creeks in the area. I was doing all of this from memory as our charts were of the area to the far west that we had initially intended to search.

We had just started searching along 187 south of Paxton, Florida when the aircraft shuddered as it hit a large bird. The strike was my fault as I was paying more attention to my search area than the sky ahead of the aircraft. By the time I regained control of the plane, I knew from the smell we had hit a large turkey buzzard. The bird hit the tip of the prop which deflected it primarily into the starboard (right) wing. Blood and guts were everywhere though, which created problems including reduced visibility out the front windscreen. The main problem was a cracked propeller and foreign object damage (FOD) from material ingested into the engine intake. This FOD both reduced air to the engine and destroyed engine compressor blades. The end result was that we were going down.

Trisha was a real trouper and reported on damage that I couldn't see. The plane was now basically a glider. I had all I could do to control it so I asked Trisha to call Kari and let her know we were going down south of Paxton on state road 187. She tried and reported that the radio didn't seem to be working. I asked her to try the survival radio. She got out the message several times but received no reply.

I found a fairly level section of road between wrecked cars that I could use as a landing strip and lined up my approach as best I could. With the engine off the flight control hydraulics became iffy and I knew I only had a limited number of control movements I could make. That, and no engine power, meant I had to put the plane down soon, and on the first attempt.

We were lucky that this road had been sparsely traveled and I managed to land the plane safely. Landing on a road is not as easy as it sounds, as roads are much narrower than runways and the shoulder on this particular road was soft and overgrown. I braked sparingly and as soon as we stopped we exited the aircraft leaving it in the middle of the road. After examining the damage I realized how lucky we were. Had the strike been a foot higher or a foot closer to center Trisha and I would have had company in the cockpit. The smell from the half roasted bird was terrible. Turkey buzzards are one of nature's foulest smelling creatures when they are alive and this one's odor certainly hadn't improved in its afterlife.

As soon as we were on the ground we removed the M16 and M9s from the storage area. We had no maps of the area but I had hunted and fished this area in the past and so had some idea where we were and where we needed to go. State road 187 runs north-south and basically goes from I-10 to US 90 and then to the state line, where it becomes a state road in Alabama. It was about 20 miles south to US 90, which was the nearest east-west road. If I remembered correctly there was a small town a few miles down the road where we might hopefully find a car or truck that still worked.

Our survival radios were no help; they were primarily for ground to air and didn't have the range to reach the base from the ground. I discovered the VHF radio antenna hanging from the plane, a victim of the bird strike, and knew that no message had gotten through on that radio. I could only hope that Kari had received a message on the survival radio and wouldn't be too worried. My greatest fear, given the incident with Kim, was packs of wild dogs. I knew from past searches that the dogs we had noticed traveled in large packs and were dispersed many tens of miles apart. I didn't want to worry Trisha, though, and said nothing. We pulled the CB radio out of the Styrofoam and inserted the batteries, but again got no answer. Most likely it was out of range as well. We took it with us hoping that it might allow us to contact the base at a greater range than the survival radio.

We started walking south as I explained everything except the dogs to Trisha. Again, she was a trooper and treated this as if it was a normal part of every familiarization flight. My mouth was dry from the stress of the forced landing. Because of my dry mouth I limited my responses to answering Trisha's questions. I kicked myself for not including a case of bottled water in the storage compartment for such emergencies, and knew we would have those on board in the future. During the walk to the small town of Gordon I learned a lot about Trisha and found her to be very pleasant company. The conversation included normal beginner questions about flying, but also included a fair amount of personal history. In the end Trisha explained she was actually happy with the changes that came after the collapse, as she had been bored with the mundane events and repetition of her life and five-year marriage. She and Frank had discussed this problem at length but had not found a solution. She felt that coming to the base was an answer to a prayer.

We walked into the backwater town of Gordon about half past noon. The town consisted of a gas station, a nearby convenience store and a few homes clustered around the road. The homes were mainly small single-wide trailers. We found a three year old Jeep Wrangler in the back of one nice brick home that looked perfect for our drive home. The door was unlocked and the house was immaculate, appearing to be one of those places owned by a neat freak. After a brief exploration we finally found the keys to the Wrangler on a cup hook in a kitchen cabinet. The gas tank was near full, but we drove to the convenience store to top off our internal tanks with stale crackers, beef jerky, Slim Jims and bottled water. Trisha mentioned needing to use the toilet and of course, after she said that, I needed to go as well.

We drove south past Hwy 90 to I-10 and drove west on I-10 to Milton. We figured the extra couple of miles we drove to get from Hwy 90 to I-10 were worth it because the wide shoulders and median on the interstate made driving around the wrecks so much easier. The drive was reminiscent of the drive I had taken from Navarre up to the base a couple of weeks earlier. There was no point where we had to really go off the shoulder, and there was a sameness to the wrecks that was almost boring. We were almost into Defuniak Springs before we saw the pack of dogs. It was scary, even being inside a car. The dogs must have been alert for any movement, because they lit out after us and chased us for a short distance.