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Chapter 5: The Storm
At the High Mountain Rangers headquarters, the search had been temporarily delayed. A storm front had moved in, all air traffic was grounded. Many of the snow mobiles and ski patrols were setting up camps to lay-over until the storm passed. Captain Monroe of the elite rescue team had already given the news to the waiting family members. He suggested that they return to their hotels until the search could be continued and he promised he would contact them of any changes in weather forecast.
Walker and Diana weary and stunned by this delay walked out of the headquarters and had to run the gauntlet of reporters to get to their rented vehicle.
"Do you think the plane will be recovered?"
"Do you think your sons survived?"
Walker looked at the reporters with disbelief and opened the door of the Blazer and helped his wife inside. Then he turned to them with disgust on his face.
"I can’t believe you people. Can’t you leave us alone for a minute. Can’t you see my wife is going through hell?" he demanded.
"Mr. Hanson, this is news..." one of the reporters began.
"No." Walker shouted. "This is not a news story. Those are my sons out there somewhere. And, yes they are alive! I won’t, I can’t believe anything less. Now leave us alone, please"
The reporters moved back slightly and let him pass as he walked around to the driver's side of the vehicle. Walker wasn’t a small man, but it wasn’t his size that intimidated the reporters. It was the tears that were streaming down his face. Even some reporters have hearts.
* * * *
Morning dawn was accompanied by an almost eerie silence. Both Ike and Taylor seemed to open their eyes together, a synchronization they were used to because of their closeness. Taylor had thought when he was younger that they were reading each other minds. But Ike, with his scientific mindset, had squelched that idea by reading studies done by doctors on twins and siblings. He had scientific proof that siblings with similar characteristics often had the same thought processes at the same time. It would seem that they were reading each other minds but in reality that each having the same thought individually. Even though he believed his brother, sometimes Taylor still had his doubts. With the three of them, they had the same ideas, finished each other sentences, and often spoke overtop each other with identical words.
"Am I crazy, or does it feel warmer." Taylor ask while extraditing himself from the pallet.
"Actually, I think it is too," Ike said. "Maybe the snow is acting like insulation."
Taylor looked out the window and smiled. "Look at it! Remember how many times we prayed for snow as kids?"
"And Mom said it wasn’t fair to ask God for snow, just because we wanted to play in it?" Ike responded with a light laugh.
"And, all we ever got was that slushy stuff that would melt in a couple of hours." Taylor exclaimed pulling on his boots and an oversized coat. "I remember asking Santa one year if we could move somewhere where it snowed real deep."
"I didn’t know that?" Ike said with a little surprise in his voice
"That was the year we moved to South America." Tay said laughing. "I was what? Six? I cried because I thought Santa messed up but Mom told me he probably just misunderstood."
Ike followed his brother outside and they stood side-by-side just watching the snow. There was a good fourteen inches of new snow surrounding them, still falling silently in huge flakes.
Ike began kicking the snow away from the plane door and then began walking and kicking snow in a path. He was limping very badly. Taylor fell in beside him, replicating his actions and between them they cleared a path of three feet by ten feet long. Then they knocked a good portion of snow off the piles of debris that they carried outside the day before.
Before they went back inside they had to knock off as much snow as possible from their clothing. When they went inside, they dug through the duffel bag of clothing and found two pairs of pants to change into. The kids were beginning to wake up so Taylor took the bathroom duty as Ike went outside to start a fire and heat some water. Taylor woke Zac up and helped him to his feet when he protested against peeing in a bottle again.
Since his brothers head injury was so much worst than his own, Taylor was very patient as he struggled to regain his feet. He was dizzy but determined and after a half hour was able to walk about holding on to his brother for support. Taylor helped Zac outside to use the bathroom and when his brother glared at him for standing so close when he needed privacy, he walked over the see if he could assist Ike.
"What’s on the menu this morning?" he ask.
Ike looked up with a grin. "I wish it was bacon and eggs but it looks like chicken noodle soup, cookies and hot chocolate."
"Hot chocolate?" Taylor questioned.
"Instant coffee creamer, water and a melted chocolate bar." Ike explained pointing towards three juice bottles buried in the ashes near the flame. "I figure we’ll eat a bigger breakfast, but only eat twice today. Zac is going to need more nourishment today because he hasn’t been eating."
Zac walked up the path slowly, using one hand against the plane to steady himself. "Wow, this is some vacation spot you guys picked."
"Winter paradise," Ike said looking up and smiling at his younger brother.
"It is kind of pretty." Zac said and both of his brothers looked around and agreed. It was pretty. Desolate, and barren but pretty.
"You’d better take Zac back inside," Ike instructed as the boy leaned against the plane for support.
Taylor put his arm around his brother to help him back inside and although Zac protested loudly that he didn’t need help, he grabbed for his brother’s support when his knees buckled.
Ike carried the water inside and as Taylor took on the chore of washing the kids and changing their clothes for the first time in five days. Ike took their wet jeans outside and held them over the remains of the fire to dry. Then they ate breakfast and settled in for another day of waiting. Only the day seemed longer. Maybe it was because they were fully rested. Or maybe it was because Zac was awake. Although he had not recovered yet to his usual energetic self, he seemed to want to talk and talk and talk. He voiced all the fears that Ike and Taylor had left unspoken.
So Zac, talked and talked for hours, meaningless chatter that only required a nod or a shake for acknowledgment while Ike scribbled in a notebook and Taylor tried to read the novel that Ike had bought him.
"You know, I saw a movie once. It was about a plane crash in the mountains, somewhere in the Alps, I think and those guys became cannibals." Zac said with the innocent zealous of young child.
Taylor looked over at Ike and Ike rolled his eyes. They had not explained to Zac yet, what lay in next room, and it hadn’t occurred to him yet to wonder.
"We are not going to become cannibals," Ike exclaimed with exasperation. He got out of the pallet and tossed backpacks over to his brothers. "Study time." he declared.
"You’re kidding," Taylor exclaimed in disbelief.
"Nope, unless you have something better to do, hit the lessons. Write the answers directly in the books, save the paper." Ike instructed.
"My head hurts," Zac said suddenly and went to scrunch down under the blankets.
"Not so fast." Ike said stopping his little brother. "I mean it. Get your lessons caught up. Now."
Taylor looked like he wanted to argue, but he dug a pen out of his backpack and picked up his algebra book with a sigh. God, he hated math.
Zac protested loudly, but finally when he found no ally in his closest brother and with Ike glaring at him, he pulled out his history book and began to read. When he complained that his head hurt, Ike took the book and read it outloud.
Hours later, Taylor finally shut his English composition text and stood up to stretch, grabbing the loose fitting pants that were threatening to fall down around his ankles. "Don’t you find it weird, that we managed to get on this plane with all our school books and not one bit of extra clothing!" he complained.
"We are creatures of habit." Ike said putting his own books back into his bag. "We’re responsible for keeping track of our books, if we lose them, Dad would be all over us. So where we go, the backpacks go. And, how many times have we needed the toothpaste and hairbrushes and stuff cause someone has misplaced our luggage?"
"Yeah, but I’m with Tay," Zac protested. "It is stupid to be doing lessons in a crashed plane on top of a mountain."
"If Mom and Dad were here, we’d be writing papers about the experience." Ike said wryly.
"You are writing about it!" Zac complained.
"I’m just keeping a journal." Ike said. "Maybe someday when we’re older we might want to remember what happened."
"If we ever get off this stupid mountain, I won’t want to read about it!" Zac grumbled.
"I’m going outside for a minute," Taylor said interrupted what sounded like an argument starting.. "Katie, Antonio, bathroom, cuarto de baZ o?"
Antonio responded by getting up and Taylor helped him on with his coat. Katie seldom responded, so he lifted her up in his arms to carry out. He looked over to his brothers, but Ike put his hand out to keep Zac from rising.
"You go on, I want to talk to Zac," Ike said.
Taylor grimaced but guided Antonio outside. It sounded like his little brother was about to get lectured, and although he probably deserved it, Tay didn’t want to hear it. He hated conflict of any kind, preferring to act in the role of negotiator between his brothers or with his younger siblings. Not that he didn’t have a temper too, he did, but it just wasn’t in his nature to rant and rave about things he couldn’t control. Ike had already established the lines for command since they had crashed and Zac needed to be told a few straight facts about their situation. Where he and Ike didn’t need to discuss or even voice their problems, Zacs’ personality demanded answers. He was outgoing and forceful and at times blunt but once he was told all the facts, he would stop battling Ike for control. Or at least shut up for a while.
"It’s stopped snowing," Taylor reported when he reentered the galley and tucked Katie under a blanket.
Ike got up to leave and left Zac sitting. The smaller boy had tears on his cheeks which he wiped away furiously.
"I’m sorry Tay, I didn’t know," Zac apologized and pointed toward fuselage, his eyes were wide in some fear and apprehension.
"Its okay, we just don’t need to be reminded, every five minutes. Okay?" Taylor suggested.
"I could have been one of them if I didn’t wake up," Zac complained. "How come Ike changed seats with me? You know he could have killed me?"
Taylor crawled over to his younger brother. "Don’t you ever say that again. Ike exchanged seats with you to save your life. I knew what he was doing. We saw a documentary on plane crashes about a month ago. More people survive sitting on the inside isle seats, not by the windows. He could have been killed trying to save your bratty hide! And you had better never say anything like that to him!"
"I didn’t know, I’m sorry," Zac whispered again his eyes full of tears. He slid down into the pallet and pulled the blankets over him tighter.
Ike was on top of the plane kicking off the snow. He was uncovering the call letters of the plane AY134. He jumped off the top deliberately landing on his but rather than his bad foot. He laughed as he tried to brush himself off. Then he stood looking into the distance at fog or steam rising out of a dark spot in the mountain and then he surveyed the cliff rising above them. His brows were crunched together in consternation.
He returned inside and attended to the children, all the while his thoughts concentrated on his next course of action. After they finished a light dinner, he dumped out his backpack and began to fill it with several juice bottles filled with the left over snow water and put in several packages of nuts and cookies.
Taylor was watching and finally felt compelled to ask. "What are you doing?"
Ike motioned him outside. "Tomorrow morning, at dawn I’m going to hike over there and check out that opening in the rocks."
"Why?"
Ike pointed up at the cliff. "See all that snow up there. There is about seventeen inches of new snow sitting on top of two feet of old snow, and we don’t know how many layers under that. That cliff goes up about a half mile, if that snow comes down on us, we are dead. We will be buried with no way to get out."
Taylor shivered at the thought, but listened to this brother intently as he continued.
Ike pointed back at the dark space among the rocks with fog rising from it. "Tomorrow, I’m going to check that out, if there is steam or fog rising maybe that means there is a sulfur spring inside. There’s no snow there so that indicates something warm or hot is melting it"
"As in volcanic," Taylor inserted.
"As in volcanic," Ike agreed. "All these mountains are volcanic, like Yellowstone, only maybe not as active. But if we can find a cave with a sulfur spring it should be warm. As long as we stay warm, we stay alive."
"But, we’ve been staying warm," Tay protested. "And, if we leave the plane, how will anyone find us?"
"I don’t think anyone is looking." Ike said slowly. "Oh, I don’t mean Mom and Dad aren’t looking for us, I know they are. But I think either they’re looking in the wrong place, or they think we’re dead already. Either way, its up to us if we’re going to beat this and I don’t like that," he pointed to the cliff and added ominously "hanging over our heads. Besides this was a easy storm. Light fluffy snow, no wind. If we get caught up here in a blizzard with winds up to a 50 or 100 miles an hour, I don’t know if we’d stay so warm in there."
Taylor nodded his head in agreement. "But, wouldn’t it be better if I went to check out the cave? You’re limping pretty bad already with broken toes, walking a mile or however much is going to be awfully painful for you."
"No, I’m going," Ike decided. "Moving in this snow is going to be really hard. Your job is to take care of the younger kids."
So the decision made, and the boys went back inside to face another night on their own.