Mac stood on the tarmac listening to the ancient pilot bustle around his Cessna 172 Taildragger getting the little plane ready for takeoff. Light, quick footsteps approached from off to his left.
"Mr. MacGyver?" the young voice asked.
He turned. "Hi," he greeted warmly.
"I'm… uh… Christy," she said with the edge of uncertainty that told him she hadn't been around many blind people. He put his hand out to shake hers. She took it, and though her hand was small, her grip was surprisingly strong. "Is this our plane?" she asked.
"Yep, let me introduce you and we'll get your gear stowed," Mac said, glad for something to do.
Christy was an undergraduate in the University of Idaho Wildlife and Fisheries program. She had signed on with the Phoenix Foundation for a summer internship trip into the Selway River to study salmon populations and the impact of the dams on salmon migration. Mac had jumped at the chance to lead the project, and Pete gave him the green light, joking, "you'll be safer in the wilderness than you were in London at least."
Now, Mac stood on a tiny airport in Orofino, Idaho, having spent the last two days on airplanes and buses to get here. Puck, of course, lay beside his left foot, panting as the sun warmed his all-black fur.
"Jerry?" called Mac to the pilot, who seemed to be buried in the cargo bay of the little plane, judging from the muffled banging of tools and shuffling of gear.
He emerged and called back, "Yeah?"
"Jerry, meet Christy. She is on my team," Mac stated.
"How do, ma'am," said the wizened man, and returned to his banging.
"Can I take your pack?" Mac offered and was glad to find that she hadn't packed more than about fifty pounds. They would be doing quite a bit of hiking and he certainly didn't want to be slack-packing her when she got tired.
With Puck's doubled service leash looped over his elbow, Mac walked toward the four-seater, his right hand raised to find the wing before his forehead found it. When his fingertips brushed the metal flaps on the back side of the wing, he followed it along to the body of the plane.
"One more bag," he told Jerry cheerfully, setting it on the ground beside other bags and packs with the testing equipment.
"Too much weight," complained the old pilot, but Mac knew from experience that it was well under the limit.
"You just like flying a light plane," he joked. "Here, let me help." He handed gear to Jerry who stowed it carefully in the tight space.
"Have you ever flown on a little plane before?" he asked Christy.
"Yeah, once," she replied. "My Uncle has one." Her voice held a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Mac knew from descriptions of her photograph in her file that she had long dark hair, blue eyes and was about 5' 6". He tried to get a sense of her personality but guessed it would just come with time. He knew she was an Idaho native and really cared about the wildlife in her home state, if the application essay counted for anything. He also knew from her file that she had asthma, so he wasn't surprised to hear the sharp sigh of an inhaler.
"Time to load up," announced Jerry.
"You can have the front seat," offered MacGyver to Christy. "You can see better and I'll sit with Puck."
"Puck? That's your dog?" Christy asked timidly.
Before MacGyver could answer, Jerry spoke up, "F**k? Why the hell did you name your dog that?"
Both Mac and Christy laughed.
"Puck with a P," said MacGyver.
"Oh, I see," laughed Jerry. "My hearing ain't so good after flying this thing so long." Mac assumed he gestured toward the plane.
He ran his hand along the fuselage until he found the handle to the passenger door and opened it. Getting a German Shepherd and his own tall frame crammed into the back seat of the cramped cockpit was a squeeze, but he made it. Christy climbed in and so did Jerry.
"We're off!" commented Mac as the rising pitch of the motor told him the propeller at the nose of the plane had begun to whir. He was glad when Jerry pointed out a pair of earphones with attached microphone hanging on the seat back near Mac's scrunched knees.
Although he could barely make out her voice over the noise of the plane even with the headphones, he heard Christy exclaim, "Look at the fields! They look like a patchwork quilt!" He smiled at her enthusiasm, remembering the view from the small planes he'd flown before.
Her descriptions continued, much to his personal enjoyment. "The trees are darker now. Lines that are natural are curvy, whereas man-made lines are straight."
"Lines?" he asked.
"Lines in the landscape," she explained. "Edges of things. Edges of fields. Tree lines. Roads. Lines."
Mac admired her perceptiveness. For a college student, she seemed to be a thoughtful, observant person. He had a feeling he would enjoy working with her.
"So many little lakes!" she exclaimed.
"Glacier-formed," Mac contributed, remembering a long-ago science lesson in which he had pushed a block of ice across a pan of sand, observing the shapes of the cuts and valleys left in the "land" after the ice had passed.
He remembered feeling the sand in the tray with his fingers, the tactile memory almost as strong as the visual one, and imagined the forested land below them marked with tear-drop shaped gouges from the ancient glacier.
"There's the river!" Christy said excitedly. "That has to be the Selway!"
"Nah. Lochsa," corrected Jerry laconically.
"Oh, ok," replied Christy, unabashed. "The Selway drains into the Lochsa, which drains into the Clearwater, then the Snake, then the Columbia," she recited, and Mac knew she was mentally tracing the long route the salmon took to get all this way upstream to their spawning grounds every year.
"Pretty amazing, isn't it?" he asked her with a smile.
"It really is," she agreed. "They come to the same place year after year."
"As long as the dams don't get in the way," said Mac.
"But that's why we are designing better fish ladders! And counting the fish that use the ones we have," she explained. "If we do it right, the dams can supply hydroelectric power without disrupting the yearly migration."
Mac cautiously agreed. "If they are working the way we hope they are. That's why the Phoenix Foundation sponsored this project: to gather data on whether they are really working."
"Part of my class project last year in one of the Fisheries classes was to design a more efficient fish ladder for Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River," she explained. "Parts of our design went to the engineers who actually build the ladders." The pride in her voice was evident.
Mac, on the other hand, still felt dubious. The population of the Chinook Salmon had fallen drastically, and even the efforts by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to plant salmon eggs and fry, or young fish, in 1981 and 1985 were yet to be proven to be as effective as conservationists had hoped. Maybe the in-depth study they would perform this summer would help.
"I don't think I really realized how big the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness is," said Christy. "The trees just go on and on."
Mac thought of the tactile map that the Phoenix Foundation had provided for him. He had spent hours poring over the rivers, the trees, the shape of the land, the X-shaped runways at the Moose Creek Ranger Station. Now Christy was seeing that same landscape spread out below their plane.
MacGyver felt the plane bank to the right, and then it continued on its circle as it descended toward the backcountry airstrip at Shearer. The air rising off the mountains caused the plane to buck once, and Mac felt his stomach heave. He sure preferred to be the one with the stick in his hand rather than the passenger in the back seat unable to even look out of the windows. He closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath.
"You ok?" Asked Jerry.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Mac answered shortly.
Jerry apparently returned his attention to the landing, because he said nothing more until the plane had descended sharply and touched down on the bumpy unfinished field. The strip was short as evidenced by the speed of Jerry's braking, and then he shut down the engine.
When they opened the doors, Mac expected to be greeted by the ranger that worked out of the Shearer Station, but no one came.
"They must be out and about," commented Jerry, who had evidently also expected to be met.
Once Christy had climbed down onto the ground and was rustling through the grass toward the end of the wing, Mac released the seat back and began the tedious process of unfolding his long frame from the sardine can in which he was lodged.
Puck followed, delighted to be freed. Mac unsnapped his leash, letting him run freely on the empty airstrip, against the advice of the training center. He figured that the dog had nowhere to go at the moment, so wouldn't run off. He turned toward Jerry who had arrived on the passenger side of the plane and was opening the cargo door. Mac helped pull out packs and bags into a pile on the ground.
Christy came back toward them.
"It's so beautiful here!" She enthused. Mac had to agree. They were awash in the smell of sun on the evergreen trees and the grass of the airstrip. A few insects buzzed in the quiet that seemed even more still after the droning noise of the plane. Mac tipped his face to the sun, his eyes closed, and breathed in a lungful of the pine-scented air.
He heard Puck bounding through the rustling grass nearby, exuding joy at the freedom to run.
"Need to mow it again," muttered Jerry.
"Do they have a mower out here or do they have to mow the whole airstrip by hand?" Mac asked.
"They do it by hand," replied Jerry, once again from inside the cargo hold, fishing around for something.
"Wow," commented Christy. "That's a lot of work!"
"Yup," agreed Jerry.
"Got it," Jerry announced in delight. "My fishing pole. Might as well get some trout this afternoon."
Mac and Christy untangled the pile of packs, each looking for their own gear. Mac pulled out the special dog pack full of kibble that he had bought for Puck. He called the dog over and put on his harness, leash and the pack of food.
"Here you go, Puck," he said. "You can carry your own food."
Once he had the dog harnessed, Mac slung his own pack onto his shoulders. Because he carried the testing equipment in addition to his camping gear, he had opted for one of the new external frame packs that centered the weight on his waist instead of hanging from his shoulders. He buckled the straps and stood up straight, finding his balance with the extra seventy-five pounds that he carried.
"Ready?" asked Christy.
"Yup," answered Jerry and Mac heard him start off through the swishing grass.
"Go ahead," offered Mac, thinking Christy might feel more comfortable in the middle.
She drew in a breath as if to argue, seemed to think better of it, and headed off after Jerry.
"Puck, follow," requested Mac, and the dog joyfully tugged at the harness, following the other two. MacGyver walked alongside, imagining the yellow of the summer grass, the blue of the Western sky and the greens and browns of the evergreen trees that covered the landscape. He knew the Selway drainage was dry, so the trees would be spread farther apart than they were in the rainforests of the Cascades. Their biggest threat would be rattlesnakes, not bears or mountain lions. And, he thought sadly, the gray wolves are gone. Maybe someday they can be reintroduced here...
Once the small group was off the cleared airstrip and into the trees, the path narrowed, and Mac found that his right foot was more often on the sloping edge as he and Puck jockeyed for a double position on the single-width path. After a while, they adjusted their strides to accommodate their terrain and things went more smoothly. Puck had agreed to hug the left side of the path, and Mac raised his feet higher to avoid the rocks and roots with which the uneven path seemed to abound.
Mac felt the canopy of trees open out and sun washed over his vision again.
"Is this the Shearer cabin?" he asked.
"Yup," answered Jerry, who wasn't far ahead.
"We'll wait here for tonight, and start our hike in the morning," Mac told Christy. "I want to talk to the rangers before we go."
They both bid goodbye to Jerry, who was heading down to his fishing hole on the river, which Mac could hear through the trees to his right. They thanked the pilot, and Mac reassured him that his fee would be sent shortly from the Phoenix Foundation. The small elderly man bid a short farewell and stumped off toward the melodic sound of the river.
"Puck, find the door," said Mac, and the dog turned left toward the cabin, which Mac couldn't see but soon felt its presence against his face. He still hadn't become used to using facial vision and it always surprised him when he felt a wall or a building before he touched it, even if his eyes couldn't make it out.
Puck stopped, seeming perplexed, and Mac put out a hand, finding a rough wooden porch, but no stairs.
"Find the stairs," he encouraged, but Puck simply whined.
"Oh, they're over on the side," offered Christy, walking left toward them herself. Puck followed her and led MacGyver up the three wooden stairs onto the covered porch. They skirted something that Mac guessed were chairs or a bench, and Puck stopped at the closed door. Mac tried the handle but it wouldn't open. Feeling up the frame, his fingers encountered a hasp and padlock.
"Well, guess we're waiting out here for now," he said wryly to Christy.
"That's ok," she responded, standing on the edge of the porch and facing out into the forest. She used her inhaler, then took a slow breath.
"What's it look like?" asked MacGyver, to his own surprise. He hadn't asked that before.
Instead of replying, Christy turned to him and asked, "are you… totally blind?"
"Not totally," he answered. "I can see light and a few shapes and colors."
"I was surprised to find out that you were blind," she offered candidly, and Mac laughed.
"I bet," he said.
"Have you always been blind?" Her next question was one he'd anticipated.
"Nope. Accident about a year ago," he explained briefly.
"And you're okay… uh… hiking and stuff?" she wanted to know.
"I'll figure it out," he said, smiling.
"Well, it's really beautiful out here," Christy began, then stopped. "I'm sorry. I hope that didn't make you feel bad."
"Nah," chuckled Mac. "It doesn't bug me."
"I can't see the river through the trees, but I can see the mountain on the other side. There aren't that many trees over there. Big, open meadows and these gray rocks that stick up here and there. Wildflowers, yellow and white and red… It's amazing."
"I can hear the river," offered Mac.
"Yeah, it can't be far. There are a couple of trails. I kinda want to go explore," she said.
"Have fun then," he assented, knowing they would be putting on plenty of miles tomorrow and having no desire to add to them today.
"See ya then," she said, then gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry!"
"Why, for saying 'see ya?'" asked Mac. "It's ok to say that. I'll see you in a bit."
"Ok!" she said joyfully, and bounded off the front of the porch and down a path straight to the east in front of the east-facing cabin.