15C sun and cloud
M got home at 7 last night. They even had time to hit Costco on the way!
Autumn is certainly in the air, you can feel it and see it in the summer plants.

He slid out and through the door, and then wrenched it all the way open, snapping the upper hinge as he did so.

  He leaned back in, put his hand to Fred’s carotid artery, there was a pulse but weak and thready.  Fred was breathing shallowly, starting to make small snoring noises, his head had smashed into the wheeled stick and blood was pooling at his feet.  Nat backed out of the plane, ‘what to do? maybe he has a broken neck? Will he bleed to death?’ Nat pondered.

  Talking aloud he said, “Well he can’t stay there, if his neck is broken he will die there, if he bleeds to death, he sure as hell will be dead”.  His mind made up, he took out the ‘leatherman’ he carried on his belt, reached in and sawed through Fred’s seat belt.  He wrenched the door clear off the remaining hinge and reached in and pulled Fred over so his head was pointing at the open doorway, he pulled him as far as he could then squeezed back into the back and leaning over the seat managed to twist Fred’s lower body around so that it was more or less aligned with his torso.  He wiggled back out again and after several Herculean tugs managed to get Fred out onto the gravel.

  Back in the wreckage, Nat found the first aid kit and then tried to slow the flow of blood coming from Fred’s head and face, he noted that blood was also trickling out of one ear and thought ‘that can’t be good’.  He got back in the plane and started removing everything that wasn’t bolted down. There wasn’t much.  He tossed out his small emergency knapsack he took everywhere, he found a blanket behind his seat, a boys hatchet in a bracket, there were a half dozen flares wrapped in oilcloth and a canvas bag with a screwdriver and a small set of box end wrenches.  In the seat pocket there was his map and a plastic lighter.  As he exited the plane he noticed a piece of brown paper sticking out from under Fred’s seat, it was a bagged lunch containing two cheese sandwiches and an apple.

  He took the blanket, spread it out and as easy as he could moved Fred onto it then wrapped him up as much as possible.  Fred was still breathing raggedly and his pulse seemed even slower. Nat thought, ‘he’s probably in shock and there is nothing I can do’.

  He moved the things he had retrieved closer to Fred, as he was doing so, Fred groaned and his eyes fluttered open.  He stared about for a few seconds, Nat leaned over him, “You did good Fred, you got her down and on shore.”

  Fred stared for a few seconds, gave a small smile then as he tried to speak his body contorted, his face twisted in pain as he grabbed for his chest and then he died.

3

N

at slumped back onto his haunches, leaned forward and felt again for a pulse. With a choking cry he straddled Fred’s body, pumping on his chest and giving mouth to mouth. There was no response, he tried again with the same results and slowly the realization sunk in that Fred was dead and he was alone in a walled canyon, miles and miles from civilization in a part of the province he had never seen before.  He slumped down onto the rocks in utter despair.  His body was hurting, he was cold and shivering, and then it started to rain. He lay there, a young man of twenty-six years, always sure of himself confident in his strength, his abilities, always looking forward to better things.  He raised his head and looked around; he was lying on a gravelly little bar perhaps twenty feet from side to side and eight feet wide at the widest point.  A dead man beside him and a crumpled airplane at his feet;  Sheer rock walls rose up through the rain and clouds, a fast moving sullen river beyond the airplane and more sheer cliffs beyond that.

  He put his head down and the tears came. He cried for his sudden loneliness, for the dead man and for himself and the hopelessness of his situation.  “Oh God, God why, why did this happen, what will I do?” He cried aloud.  The cliffs echoed back, “do, do, do” and then there was just the noise of the river once more. He lowered his head once more and lay there, the sobs lessened and his mind whispered, ‘survive, you have to survive’.