Chapter 11: Whiteout

"Eighty-eight kilos," I said.

"What?"

"The two of them together. Eighty-eight kilos on the Linate scale. She told me shoes and her mother's books."

The line was quiet.

"Lisi's mother doesn't read," Remo said.

"Then I don't know what was in them. I flew them. I didn't open them."

"You didn't ask?"

"I worked for you for two years, Remo. You trained me not to ask."

He didn't have an answer for that.

I hung up and lay awake until the window went gray, adding up kilos.

A week later I flew to Bethel with Ryder.

It was dark when we left and dark when we turned around. In December the sun up there is a rumor.

On the way home the weather closed in behind us.

Anchorage was reporting heavy snow. Visibility a quarter mile and dropping. Wind off the inlet, gusting.

We were forty miles out when the first chime went off.

Hydraulic system A, low pressure.

Ryder said "Huh" in the same voice he used for a burnt pie.

We ran the checklist. We were fine. That's why there are two systems.

Twelve miles out, system B started to drop.

The yoke went heavy in my hands.

Not stiff. Heavy.

"I've got it," Ryder said, and reached for the controls.

"You need to crank the gear."

He looked at me.

The gear doesn't come down by itself without hydraulics. Somebody has to open the hatch in the cockpit floor and pull the handles by hand.

"Your airplane," he said.

"My airplane."

He unstrapped, knelt between the seats, and yanked the floor hatch open.

The cover was thin metal.

The airplane bucked in a gust as he reached in.

I heard him hiss.

When he pulled his hand back, the palm was laid open from the heel to the base of his fingers.

Blood ran down his wrist into his sleeve.

"Ryder."

"Fly the airplane."

He wrapped his hand in a napkin from the galley bag and went back in with it.

He pulled the first handle. The second. The third.

The gear thumped down under us.

Three green.

He climbed back into his seat with his hand held up against his chest and blood soaking through the paper.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Her Birthday Celebration Was My Exit from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.