Hawkeye's heart took a miserable skip. He turned his attention briefly to Ellie as her scream was carried off by the increasing wind. His eyes then shifted back to glow over the horizon and the crackling sound that echoed over the flat land and the tumbleweeds.
Margaret was suddenly beside him and she was talking but he couldn't hear her. All he could tell was that her mouth was moving. The orange horizon was reflected in her watery eyes. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh.
"What are you saying? What are you saying?" He shook her but she kept talking. Charles Winchester broke from his hypnosis and pulled Margaret away.
"Pierce, we have to go," Charles said, but made no indication of whether he meant to the crash or back to New England. Tex bound up the porch stairs with Ellie following close behind. Barbara was already on the phone, raising the alarm in town. From far away, the warning siren began to wail. Tex had his bag and every bottle of medicine from the bathroom cabinets in an old duffel bag.
"Dad, Hawkeye, Barbara...let's get going. Ellie's going to get the old farm truck started so we can haul people out if we need to. Margaret, go downstairs and grab the box of flashlights and ride with El."
Ellie was pouring gasoline into the truck's carbuerator when she heard the Jeep crank up. Her mother came into the barn, looking frightened. She threw the box of flashlights and a large searchlight in the back of the rusted-out International Harvester.
"Mom, get up there and let's start it up," Ellie said, stepping back.
Margaret climbed into the old jalopy and sat down, causing a huge puff of dust to erupt from the seat. The key hung from the ignition. She turned it and gunned the engine. The truck belched noxious clouds of smoke, but it was actually running. Ellie slammed the hood, causing rust to sift down to the ground, and jumped into the cab as Margaret moved to the passenger side. She watched her daughter pull the choke and mash down the clutch and without warning they flew out of the garage and rocketed across the dusty barnyard. The truck kick up rooster tails of gravel as it slalomed on the county road. Margaret was being flung around its interior until Ellie was able to get the thing under control. It shimmied up the road, bouncing in the ruts. In no time they caught up to the Jeep. Tex spotted the round headlights in the rearview mirror and thanked God Ellie hadn't run that damn uncontrollable truck into the house.
No one said much in the Jeep. Hawkeye ran his hand across his bottom lip, causing it to bleed a little. Charles was fascinated by the potential of this accident. He was also a little sick about what those last moments must have been like for those poor souls. He glanced back at Barbara, who was shuffling through the medical bag to be sure the gauze and scissors were on top. Tex had thrown an ax in the rear of the Jeep, praying they wouldn't have to use it for medical reasons.
Ellie watched as the Jeep turned off on an old country road. She followed them, jerking the wheel and sliding around on the seat.
"Watch your stomach, please," Margaret said sternly. Ellie frowned at the thought. Her mother didn't say anything else until Ellie slammed on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the Jeep. Tex had come to a dead stop and was apparently trying to get his bearings.
"Over there! The west! Use your compass," Ellie yelled from the truck. He shook his head and waved them around the Jeep. He'd follow her now.
"You know in all these years I've never been tempted to cheat on your father," said Margaret. "But things are different these days."
Ellie's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Bringing up strange things at inappropriate times was a Houlihan speciality. Cinders were hitting the windshield and Ellie fancied she could smell the burning fuselage. Every second they weren't there, someone was dying. She hit the accelerator and hummed softly to calm herself. A rich smell of burning oil permeated the cab. The humming turned to singing, and although Margaret didn't know the song well and thought "Cheeseburger In Paradise" was completely inappropriate, soon she was singing too.
She had been right about the directions. Pieces of insulation began to dot the landscape, and the glow semed to come from just over a small hill. At the top, Ellie exhaled sharply. The plane had crashed into a small pond. The tail was undamaged and lying right side up. You could even read the letters "BI" on it. Everything else was on fire. The jet fuel was burning away, making the whole pond a circle of flames. Some cottonwood trees around it were incinerated.
They got out of the truck and shielded their eyes. Neither could see any sign of life. One of the plane's engines sighed and burst. Metal engine parts richoted everywhere and hit them like shrapnel. One of them broke the truck's windshield. Another one glanced off Ellie's forehead. Margaret pulled her into an embrace. Her shoulder and neck were wet with her daughter's tears and blood.
The Jeep pulled up beside them momenst later and Tex charged down the hill with the duffel bag slung over his shoulders. Barbara, Hawkeye, Charles, Margaret and Ellie dutifully followed. Ellie had an old fire extinguisher and used it to quell the flames around the base of a tree. Its branches were decorated with coats and suitcases and papers.
Hawkeye made a terrible discovery a few yards away. Margaret heard him yell and ran toward his voice. A pair of blue aircraft seats were lying in the grass. A pale hand was sticking out from underneath and a pool of blood was forming around it.
"They're beyond help," Hawkeye said sadly. Margaret struggled to lift the seat to double check. Sightless eyes greeted her. She laid the seat back down gently and stepped back slowly. One of the bodies was missing everything below the seat belt. Hawkeye grabbed her by the wrist and led her away.
Charles wasn't having any better luck. He was looking up in the trees at all the strange leaves that seemed to be growing up there. Tex appeared, looking a little lost and ghostly in his white coat. He was just about to tell his father about the seats Hawkeye had found when the wind blew again and something heavy fell from the tree, landing behind them.
"What the hell was that?" Tex asked no one in particular. The two of them picked their way over an overhead bin only to find a torso had dropped from some great height. They looked at each other and quite stoically marched away.
Ellie had a gigantic flashlight she swept around the pond. She was screaming at the top of her lungs for anyone alive to yell back. Barbara was praying loudly for everyone's souls, including her own. Tex was pacing impatiently, waiting for the firefighers to arrive.
Margaret found her husband on the far edge of the pond, stomping through the cat-tails.
"There could be some of them here. Help me find them," he said, pleading. She joined him but could only find a leg, still wearing a running shoe very much like the ones Hawkeye had on. When Ellie swept the light over their area, Hawkeye caught sight of Margaret's face, scratched and bloodied from the engine explosion.
"Maggie, your face is bleeding." She wiped her palm across her forehead and stared at her hand.
They both startled when a shout crossed the area. "Ellie, get back here!"
It was Charles. Hawkeye and Margaret sloshed out of the weeds and up the bank just in time to see their pregnant daughter half-wading and half-swimming to a piece of wreckage. Barbara ran up to them.
"Tex thinks he saw a baby lying face-down in the water over there. Ellie just jumped right in. I couldn't stop her," she said.
"The light, Charles, shine the light!"
Ellie was feeling around in the general area. Everyone was watching her wade through the murky, smelly, fiery waist deep water, which was now more jet fuel than anything else. "It's in front of you! About ten feet," Tex yelled as Charles trained the spotlight.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Ellie chanted, teeth chattering. She stumbled over something submerged and went completely under. Ellie came up sputtering and cursing. The baby was floating freely face-down on the surface in a circle of napkins. She reached out tentatively.
It was a life-sized baby doll.
"It's a doll," she said, giving Tex the "ok" sign. Then she was hit by a wave of sadness. Was this a gift for a little girl who'd never se her daddy/mommy/grandpa/grandma again? Or did she clutch the doll in those long minutes as the jet hurtled towards the ground? Ellie stood still, clutching the doll and shaking, unable to hear what they were shouting at her. Then the fog cleared.
"...behind you...!"
Ellie turned around slowly. Something was bumping her in the rear end but she'd been too preoccupied to worry about it. The "thing" was a body, floating free on the surface of the water. She yelped and ran into another body, burned beyond recognition. Tex was about to come down the bank and grab her when she suddenly moved quickly, stuffing the doll down her shirt and grabbing both bodies, the skin peeling off the burnt one like parchment. With a great heave she tossed them on the bank and scrambled up, dripping and reeking of jet fuel. Ellie took the doll out of her shirt and hung onto it for dear life. She collapsed in the mud at Hawkeye's feet.
"You're crazy! You have a baby to think about! Why'd you do that? You could have..."
Margaret stood over her, scolding. She stopped when she saw the cuts Ellie had from the flying metal, one of which was a jagged open wound right over the eyelid. Ellie goggled up at her mother and held out a hand full of the burned skin.
"Mom, your face," Ellie said. "You're all cut up."
The firetrucks were arriving. Tex ran to greet them while Charles and Hawkeye walked the perimeter, still looking for signs of life. Ellie, Margaret and Barbara pulled more bodies ashore at the bottom of the bank. A helicopter buzzed overhead with a searchlight.
"Plane spun in, no survivors," said one firefighter into a crackling radio. Margaret stopped her recovery efforts and stood straight up. She'd ripped a nail clean off. This is how they found Henry Blake, if they ever did. The thought saddened her beyond words. She sat on the bank and said a silent prayer for everyone.Ellie sloshed up to her and sat down.
"You're thinking about Colonel Blake, aren't you?"
Margaret nodded. Ellie looked a lot like Hawkeye at that moment. She even sat like him. Margaret draped an arm around her and they sat to watch the firefighters put the flames out. "This is when I could really use a drink," Margaret said, pulling up handfulls of dry grass in each hand.
"I think I understand what you mean," Ellie said. Tex was waving frantically at the two of them. Some of the firefighters were cutting themselves on the jagged wreckage and choking on the acrid smoke. Charles was patiently washing their eyes out and Hawkeye was talking to some that were traumatized at the whole scene. Margaret got up and went to help. Ellie sat for a while longer before walking down to see what she could do.
XXXX
The first light of morning began to peek through the clouds five hours later. The NTSB was there, the FAA and every sort of Braniff investigator you could imagine. They learned that out of 70 passengers and five crew members, no one survived. It was severe turbulence, the NTSB ventured, and it caused the plane to break up in the air. A wing was found a mile away and part of the passenger cabin was spotted just over two miles away. Reporters were beginning to queue up to talk to everyone. Charles handled them beautifully.
Ellie still had the doll. She tried to give it to the FAA rep, but he told her to hang onto it until they could figure out who it belonged to. She was covered with mud, grass, vomit (her own and and a firefighter's), blood and bruises. Tex found her by the water's edge. He was a bit cleaner but terribly tired.
"I don't think I want to fly for awhile," she said, poking in the water with a scavenged golf club.
Tex nodded and wiped her face with a semi-clean cloth. The cuts weren't as bad as they looked. "When we get home, I want you to rest for a few days...for your sake and the baby's."
He expected a fight, but she just shrugged, still lost in her own little world. Tex left her there to check on Barbara, who decided to make piles of clothes and car keys just to help out. Some firefighters joined her, eager to do something to make sense of the chaos. Hawkeye and Margaret were opening wallets in search of ID's. Charles just stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the bodies covered by sheets and tarps. A light rain began to fall, making the sheets nearly transparent. There were some children on the plane. He hadn't noticed this while they were pulling them from the water.
"You guys need to clear out of here so we can start the investigation," a Braniff guy told Charles as he surveyed the bodies. The Pierces were already loading everything into the truck and the Jeep. Ellie allowed herself to be dragged up the bank by a fireman. Tex straggled towards them, his arm around Barbara.
"Dad, could you drive us back?" he asked, waiting for a "no" from Charles. Instead, his father took the keys and climbed into the Jeep's driver's seat. Barbara climbed into the back and Tex joined her. Hawkeye was asleep from the moment he sat in the passenger's seat.
Ellie got the old truck running and had just about made it into the cab before she threw up again. Margaret leaned out, her eyes involuntarily closing. When she opened her eyes again, Ellie was back in the truck. They had a perfect view of the plane's tail.
"BAC-111. Braniff International Airways. A green one," Ellie recited before popping the clutch and sailing over the top of the hill. She chattered on about the plane's specifications the whole way home. It was a trick to keep herself awake. Margaret let herself cry for the first time and laid her head on Ellie's shoulder. Ellie kept talking, oblivious to her mother's actions.
At the house, it was a struggle just to make it up the porch steps. They let Ellie shower first. Tex went off to wash in a watering trough that was behind the house. He came back in to find Ellie naked and in a deep sleep on top of the bed covers. She'd put a Band-Aid haphazardly over the cut. Tex tucked her in and was quickly asleep as well.
Charles took a quick shower and wobbled downstairs. He fell across the bed, upsetting the pile of records and the kitten. Hawkeye and Margaret showered together. They had to prop each other up. She wrapped her arms around him and didn't let go until they made it to bed.
"I told Ellie today I have never been tempted to cheat on you," Margaret sighed.
"Okay," Hawkeye said, and promptly fell asleep. She watched him for awhile before nodding off.
Barbara Sills couldn't even make it to the shower. She took some pillows and made a little nest for herself on the downstairs couch.
The house was quiet for a grand total of twelve hours. The kitten roamed from room to room, meowing and batting at noses, but it soon gave up and curled into a little ball by Charles and fell asleep, too.