hair back from her face,
hair already flecked with snow. Beside her Rubenstein crouched, as if
waiting.
Rourke stopped walking, a yard or so from her still. He held up the knife.
“Never told me about the Bali-Song knife.”
She only smiled. Rourke glanced back where the plane had disappeared; if
anything could be salvaged, it would have to wait. The leather jacket was
bunched in his left hand along with the CAR-. He approached Natalia,
squatted down beside her, and draped the coat across her shoulders. She
was already shivering, as was Paul Ruben-stein. And so was Rourke. . . .
“I had the Bali-Song for a long time. For some reason I didn’t carry it
when you found me in (he desert. I don’t remember why- But I took it with
me to Florida, just in case.
“Are you good with it?” Rourke asked her, shivering.
“Yes. If my hands weren’t so cold—I could show—” She shook from the
freezing air temperature; sub-freezing, perhaps close to zero, Rourke
thought as he started down the side of the embankment, carefully, slowly,
for the rocks that formed the purchases for his hands and feet were
ice-coated. “Be careful, John.”
“Once I get down there, I can snake up a rope; then you and Paul can join
me and at least we’ll have some shelter—unless it looks like it’s going to
blow or something.”
“I can—” Rubenstein began.
“You stay with Natalia. If I break every bone in my body doing this, I
want someone in one piece to take care of her.” It was getting dark as
Rourke started climbing again, the aircraft still some thirty feet below
him, its portside wing broken in two, the starboard engine
snagged in a clump of rocks some fifty feet farther below it and
half-obscured now by snow.
Rourke’s hands were numb as his fingers played along the glistening
iced-over rocks, his shoulder still ached from where he’d hit the road
surface, and one desire suddenly obsessed him—to urinate. Rourke’s right
foot edged down, then his left. The left slipped as loose shale under him,
crusted over with ice, broke away from the dirt that had held it. His
fingertips dug into the rock surface against which they pressed as his
right foot braced against the coated rock against which only the toes now
pressed.
“John—I’m coming down,” Natalia shouted.
“No—I’ll be—” Rourke swung his left leg out, finding a purchase against a
gnarled stump of bush growing out of the dirt embankment. “I’m all right.”
Rourke edged his right hand down onto a lower ledge of rock, then his left
foot, then his left hand, then his right foot. Slowly, methodically, his
kidneys screaming at him to let go, he kept moving.
His hands were numbed to the point where he could barely sense the rocks
under his fingertips, and his feet were becoming chilled as well. A
numbness was setting into his thighs. But the plane was nearer.
He glanced up once; Natalia and Paul, peered down at him, over the edge.
The thought crossed his mind that even if one of the bikes had remained
serviceable, how would they ever get it up to the road surface? And the
freak storm—when would it end?
The plane was a few yards away from him now, across a wide break in the
ground and below the break, a drop of seventy-five feet or more. Rourke
settled himself against the rocks, checking his footing, then awkwardly
because
of the narrowness of the ledge, swung his left leg around behind him,
found a purchase for the left foot, then simultaneously swung his left arm
out and around, twisting his body. He moved his feet slightly, firming the
position he had, his back now against the rocks and dirt of the
embankment. The snow, falling in larger, heavier flakes, covered his
shoulders, lingered on his eyelashes-freezing him.
The jump to the opposite side of the break in the ground was only ten or
eleven feet. But there was no running room. He would simply hurtle his
body off the ledge and that would be it.
He sucked in his breath hard, glancing up one nfiore time; he couldn’t see
either Natalia or Paul cleariy because of the heaviness of the snowfall.
“Now!” he rasped, pushing himself away from the embankment wilh his hands.
His knees slightly flexed as he half-jumped, half-fell forward, his
fingers reaching out. His righl hand, then his left touched the opposite
side of the open space, his hands clawing at the dirt and loose rocks
there. His hands slipped, his thighs slamming down hard against the
surface of the ground, his body starting back down the incline, slipping.
He couldn’t dig in his heels—his feet dangled in the air. As he started to
slide backward, he spread-eagled his arms, his fingers clawing for a
purchase on the ice-coated ground. A rock—he held it, then the rock
dislodged and he was slipping again.
His left hand snaked behind him, snatching for the A.G. Russell Black
Chrome Sting IA he carried in the little inside waistband holster. His
fingers closed stiffly around it as he slipped toward the edge, his left
arm swinging around his body in a wide arc. The point of the Sting IA bit
deep into the ground, penetrating the ice. His right
hand grasped for the knife handle as well now, both fists bunched around
it; his body below the breastbone dangled in midair.
He sucked in his breath, flexing his arm muscles as he tried pulling
himself up. There wasn’t time; the knife was already slipping from the
soft dirt beneath the ice, and his cold-numbed fingers were slipping from
the slick steel of the knife’s handle.
“No!” Rourke heard the shout come from his lips and for the first time
became conscious of it. Summoning all his strength, he drew himself up.
The knife slipped from the dirt; his body lurched forward, onto the ice
and snow. He rolled, flattening himself, the knife still clutched in his
left fist.
He couldn’t see through the snow now to the road thirty feet above, but
through the whiteness he heard a voice. “Answer me, John—John!” It was
Natalia.
“I’m all right,” Rourke shouted back, already starting to edge across the
ice.
Two yards from the still intact fuselage, he stood up, slowly edging
forward. He started into the plane, but stopped.
His stiff right thumb and first finger worked at his zipper; there was
something more important than inspecting (he plane that instant. . . .
He stood inside, shivering with the cold, but at least out of the wind.
Natalia’s borrowed motorcycle, a vintage BSA, had been the first of the
three, farthest forward in (he fuselage; the other two bikes had hammered
against it in the crash. It was twisted, as was the underside of the
fuselage where apparently the craft had gouged against a large rock, or
one of the supports for the steel guardrail.
But his own jet black Harley-Davidson Low Rider appeared undamaged, as was
the bright blue Low Rider he had found for Paul Rubenstein after the
younger man’s motorcycle had been abandoned to lighten the plane during
the Florida evacuation.
With effort, still shivering, he got Rubenstein’s bike aside so he could
get to his own. The Lowe Alpine Systems Loco Pack was still strapped in
place behind the seat. Rourke got to it, opening one of the pockets. There
was a red-and-silver Thermos Space Blanket, the kind larger than the
original disposable models developed for the astronaut program. The silver
reflective side toward him, he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders,
leaning heavily against one of the fuselage ribs. Rourke rammed his hands,
palms inward, down inside the fr\>nt of his trousers, warming them against
his testicles to reduce the numbness o( his fingers so he could move them
well enough to work. He stood there, the blanket around him, his hands
starting to get back feeling, his eyes flickering from one part of the
fuselage to another— the damage.
The plane was a total loss, as he had realized it would be from the first
moment he had decided to abandon it, when stopping it on the ice-slicked
road surface had proven impossible. It would have been unlikely that the
iced and stalled engine could have been successfully repaired in any
event. It had been the single-engine landing that had caused the problem
with stopping in the first place—not enough power. Aside from Natalia’s
motorcycle, everything that was important seemed relatively unscathed.
He could move his fingers more now, so he withdrew his hands from inside
his pants, then quickly started
going through his things and the packs of Natalia and of Paul Rubenstein.
. . .
A pair of vintage, heavy leather Kombi ski gloves on his hands, a
seen-better-days gray woolen crew-neck sweater on over his shirt, Rourke
fed out part of the climbing rope from his pack, a rock secured to the