“Breakfast in thirty minutes! Bring your gear, we’ll head over to the airport at six.”

The athletes ate quietly, then boarded the Baranof shuttle to the airport. Miller led them out of the terminal into a predawn deep freeze reminiscent of West Yellowstone. In front of a freight hanger sat a silver tail-dragger right out of the history books. Matt remembered a plastic model he had built back in grade school of the Douglas DC-3. As Miller led them to the plane, a man in the back of a pickup truck was struggling with their skis and rifle boxes.

“It’s about time! Help me get this stuff loaded so we can get outta here.”

In spite of the bitter cold, his insulated flight jacket hung open and a baseball hat emblazoned “Southeast Asia War Games — Second Place” perched above his bright red ears.

“Couple you kids hop in the aircraft an’ pile this gear aft of the door.”

In a few minutes the athletes and all their baggage were on board. The plane had no interior paneling or insulation. Matt could touch the aluminum framework and the thin metal skin of the plane. Cables and hoses threaded through openings in the bulkheads from the cockpit to the tail. The seats were canvas benches on aluminum tubing running the length of the fuselage. The seatbelts were a random assortment, scrounged from an automotive junkyard. The cabin windows were scratched to an opaque white.

A center aisle led steeply to the cockpit where the pilot and co-pilot’s seats faced the sky. John Miller stooped through the hatch and announced, “Welcome aboard Alaska Bush Air Service. Your captain for today’s flight is Joe O’Donnell. I’ll be in the right hand seat, so you’d better hope nothing happens to Joe.”

“Our flight time to Unalakleet today should be three hours, depending on the head winds. If there’s anything we can do to make your flight more enjoyable.…”

“Aw, cut the crap, Miller. It’ll be at least two-and-a-half hours, but it won’t be much more, since we’ve only got fuel for three. Stay in your seats and keep your belts buckled unless you want to be peeled off the ceiling when we land. If you gotta use the head, clean it after you finish. If you’re gonna get sick, use the barf bags; nothing I hate worse than puke in my airplane. It’ll warm up a little back here once we get airborne.”

Roger Edwards joked, “Is this relic going to make it? I saw one of these in the Smithsonian.”
In one stride Captain O’Donnell was face to face with Edwards, “Listen wiseass, this aircraft has flown combat missions for longer than than you’ve been alive. She dropped commandos within walking distance of Hanoi, and she rescued fighter pilots out of Laos. Beyond that she’s carried the mail, medical supplies, and color TV sets to every bush village in interior Alaska since I bought her in ’72. You are goddamned privileged to set foot in this aircraft. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.” It was the first time Matt had seen Roger without a comeback.

“Joe, let’s get this bird in the air,” said John Miller, trying to defuse the confrontation. O’Donnell pointed at Matt, and turned toward Miller.

“This is the kid, isn’t it?” John Miller nodded. The pilot held out an oil-stained hand to Matt. “I knew your dad in ’Nam. We flew together out of Di An, bringing ARVNs into Cambodia, then hauling their sorry asses out of there when the NVA kicked the shit out of ’em. Did you know your ol’ man had four birds shot out from under him in one day! Shit, if it hadn’t been a covert operation they woulda written him up for the Medal of Honor. He saved my ass more than once, I’ll tell ya. Sure was sorry to hear you lost him. I woulda been back for the service, but I didn’t hear about it ’til it was over. Hell of a pilot.”

Matt didn’t know what to say. Covert mission? This new information was another piece of the puzzle. But what did it mean? Who was Michael Johnson? If he was so brave, why couldn’t he stick around for his wife and kids? Being a family man had to be easier than getting shot at. O’Donnell slapped him on the shoulder, “Well there’s a buncha Eskimo kids in Unalakleet that’re so excited you guys are coming out, they’re probably peeing in their mukluks right now. We better get airborne.”

Soon after O’Donnell and Miller climbed to their seats, smoke belched from the engine cowlings and the three-bladed props labored. Finally, the engines caught and their deafening roar drowned all conversation. The plane bounced and jolted as it taxied for takeoff. O’Donnell leaned on the throttles, the tail rose, and in seconds they were flying.
The noise and vibration were numbing, but as O’Donnell had promised, the cabin grew warmer. After an hour, John Miller came back to check his passengers. It was too noisy to talk, but Matt gathered they were flying into strong headwinds and the trip would take three hours. Below them lay endless coniferous forests, broken only by frozen rivers and lakes. There was no trace of human habitation; no roads, no bridges, no towns.
Matt was dozing when a deafening alarm wrenched him awake. In the cockpit he saw O’Donnell’s face, bathed in the red glow of a blinking warning light. Both the captain and John Miller were concentrating intensely on the windshield and the instrument panel. Matt peered out the cloudy window and noticed that the starboard prop wasn’t turning.

Miller shouted from the flight deck, “Hold on. We’re going to crash!” Matt wondered how Miller was so easily heard over the roar of the engines, then he realized the only sound was the annoying wail of the alarm. O’Donnell struggled with the steering yoke as Miller ducked low and covered his face with his arms. There was a sickening crunch behind Matt’s back. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the top of a spruce spiral above a jagged tear in the wing. He was jerked off the canvas bench and doubled in half by the seatbelt. The first crunching sound became a deafening, metallic roar and the plane lurched violently as it hit. The cabin was filled with the screech of tearing aluminum as a fierce jolt rocked the fuselage around him. Matt saw his teammates tossed like dolls. He could see their mouths screaming, but nothing was audible over the hideous rending of metal. The web netting restraining the baggage broke free as rifle boxes, ski bags, and backpacks slammed forward, forcing Roger Edwards into the air and driving him into the cockpit.

It took Matt several seconds to realize that the plane had stopped. He felt cold air rushing into the cabin. Where the windshield had once been, a spruce branch swayed as the wind began to fill the cockpit with snow.

Sandy clutched her hand over her right eye, the side of her face streaming with blood. Burl Palmer was doubled up in his seat, buried under a heavy ski bag. Brett Adams cradled his left wrist, then bent forward and retched all over his shoes. Jenny Lindstrom sat bolt upright, her face the color of the windblown snow. Roger had disappeared under the heap of baggage that barricaded the cockpit.

As if in a trance, Matt surveyed the littered interior of the old airplane. Something warm was running down his neck. As he touched the sticky, matted hair at the back of his head, he spotted his ski hat across the cabin. Even before he checked his palm, he knew it was covered with blood. At the same instant, a thought raced through his mind: plane wrecks often catch on fire!