Endangered Species (9 page)

Using the blunt side of the Pulaski, Anna scraped the smoldering

material into a blackened heap behind her, then, on hands and knees,

crawled under the amputated stub of wing.  Paint had been burned off the

door, and the Plexiglas in the side window melted in black sticky tears

that crept down the denuded metal.  At Anna's request, Guy turned the

paltry stream from his rapidly depleting water pack onto the door

handle.  When it had cooled enough so that it wouldn't immediately burn

through the leather of her gloves, she gave it a pull.  Much to her

surprise, it worked.  'fh(, door opened half an inch, then stuck fast,

the top mired in a mess of smoking rubber and crushed metal ." We're

going to have to pry it out, " she said.

"Hang on.  I'll get the guys and we'll lift this thing so you can get at

it."

The melted window was almost at ground level.  Bending down in the

attitude of a long-adrift sailor kissing the earth, Anna peered into the

cabin.  Energies released from the force of the crash, then the

onslaught of the fire had wreaked havoc inside.  A nauseating odor that

Anna knew to be roasting human flesh and hair was overlaid with the

pungent sting of gases created when many petroleum products were melted

down into their component parts.

Clothing, upholstery, seat belts-all had been reduced to cinders.  The

people they'd held in place had fallen down, crumpled with the rest of

the trash on the ruined instrument panel.  Without stronger light and a

better angle Anna couldn't tell where organic matter ended and inorganic

began.

tery Emer ency medical training taught her to seek the carotid ar to

separate the living from the dead.  In this tangled mass she saw a

blackened tube shape that was very possibly what was left of the

passenger's neck, but she couldn't bring herself to remove her glove and

press her bare hand in through the melt of flesh.

Straightening up, she sat back on her heels in the relatively fresh air

a foot or two from the plane.  While Guy organized the crew she stared

at the canopy of leaves beyond the burn, her brain in neutral.  Inside

the Beechcraft there was no life, she was sure of it .

Training, courage, adrenaline-all the necessary ingredients for

heroics-were of no use.  Now she hoped only to disturb as little as

possible and keep her breakfast down.

"On three.  Ready, Anna?  Anna!"

She jerked her chin up at the repetition of her name.

"Sorry to wake you," Guy said ." You want to pry that door off when we

lift?"

"Sure thing." Anna dropped back to her knees.  She squirmed down under

the remnant of wing and forced the blade of her Pulaski between the door

and the main body of the plane, then braced herself to use the Pulaski

handle as a lever ." Ready," she said.

" On three."

Guy counted down, and as the bulk of the aircraft was lifted from the

scorched earth, Anna dug her heels in and pulled back .

Brittle creaks heralded the breakage of fused hinges.  The door popped

open, swinging out in a crippled are.  The last shred of metal let go

and it fell away from the fuselage.

" Okay," Anna said ." High enough."

She heard scraping as the men wedged a log or limb under the wing stub

and the faintest of groans as they let the weight settle on the prop.

.  With the door removed she could better see the carnage within .

The body furthest from her had burned black but for the right ear,

horribly pink and lifelike in a nest of hair singed into a likeness of

wire.  On the left arm, much of the flesh from elbow to knuckle was

charred and falling away in strips, but a single square of

red-andblue-plaid fabric remained over a chunk of tissue that, from the

ruin of a watch, Anna guessed was the pilot's wrist.

Curled around the dead pilot, as if his had been the first to burn loose

from the seat belt, was the body of the passenger.  It was burned beyond

recognition, beyond human.  It was crisp and sere and, Anna knew from

experience, would crumble if she touched it.

Guy folded down and crawled beneath the plane.  Through the smoke and

sweat and stench, Anna caught a whiff of cologne and was immeasurably

touched by it.  Overwrought, she told herself, but the humanity -the

gesture struck a chord somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

"Done deal," Guy said as he looked inside the cabin ." Get out of here,

Anna.  We're finished.  Fire's out."

Anna crawled backward, rump first into the open air.  As soon as she was

clear, Guy followed.

" Dead?" Dijon asked.

He was so young Anna guessed he'd not seen much death, and she watched

closely to see how he was taking it.  Between the black of his skin and

the gray of the ash it was hard to tell.  His voice sounded

matter-of-fact but he'd probably plit forth some effort to make sure it

would before he'd opened his mouth.

"Crispy Critters?" Rick asked, a little too jovially.

AI worked to get his pipe going and said nothing.

The three radios they carried among the five of them crackled to life.

Guy responded and they stood in a half-circle, their backs to the dead

men, listening.

A helicopter had been dispatched with two paramedics.  They were on

final to land at St.  Marys to pick up the chief ranger, Norman Hull.

It took a few seconds for the name to register ." Hull?" Guy echoed

stupidly.

"Norman Hull, Chief Ranger," Lynette repeated clearly.

"I thought he was our second dead guy," Anna said.

The radio took stage again, this time a male voice scratching through

the either from air to ground issuing orders.

"Apparently not," Guy said.

N UNSPOKEN ACCORI), the five of them retired to the unburned ledge of

the clearing, sat down in the dirt, and began uncapping water bottles.

Rick was putting on a bit of a show, dredging up black humor to ward off

shock.  Dijon bought into it, but Anna noticed the only one eating lunch

was AI.

Every day he had the same thing, two PB&js on white bread .

"Want halp." he offered when he caught Anna's eye.  She took the

proffered sandwich.  In her yellow pack was a peanut butter and honey

sandwich of her own.  Later maybe she'd return the favor.  At the moment

there was something reassuring in the breaking of bread with another.

"Health food again?" Rick jibed.  His hand rested on his belt .

Anna suspected he was secretly fondling his "six-pack," the ridged

stomach muscles that adorned the covers of bodybuilding magazines.

"Ambrosia," AI said, unperturbed.

"I bet your kid loves it when you cook," Dijon put in.

"As a matter of fact, he's wild about my cooking." A dab of strawberry

jelly quivered momentarily on Al's cheek.  Before he wiped it away

Anna's ever-active brain had likened it to blood, guts, and half-cooked

flesh.  The childhood song "great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher

guts floating in the pink lemonade" made its tinny music in the recesses

of her memory and she smiled.

Guy shoveled gorp into his mouth and talked expertly around the mash.

Paramedics would not be needed.  A coroner would.  The radio vied with

the thump of a helicopter and the growl of an A'fV .

The cavalry was arriving.

Anna leaned back against a young oak and poured water into her

dehydrated body.  AI smoked.  Guy, Rick, and Dijon wandered back into

the fray.  By ones and twos it seemed most of the island was trickling

in to see the wreck.  The green and gray of NPS uniforms predominated

and Anna had little doubt she had been introduced to some of them, but

she wasn't good with names and faces .

The only person she recognized was Mitch Hanson.  His thinning gray hair

was slicked over his forehead with sweat and hair spray .

Bright blue eyes sparkled under sparse brows and he seemed of good

cheer; a sweaty grubby Saint Nick only sporadically remembering to look

somber as befitted the occasion.

Everyone else talked in low voices, looked frequently into the

nonexistent distance, and milled around purposefully.  The pattern was

familiar; nobody wanted to take charge.  Anna took another long drink of

water and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, order had been restored.  A glance at Al's

watch told her she'd only dozed for a quarter of an hour but the

difference was marked.  Norman Hull, Cumberland's chief ranger, had

arrived on scene.  Hull was tall, long-legged and long-necked.  A

receding hairline provided him with an impressive brow that ended in a

frizz of graying brown curls.  Pale blue eyes blinked from behind thick

lenses and his rubbery face was in constant motion as he directed the

operation.

Yellow police tape had gone up around the aircraft.  Photographs were

being taken and every third person was talking on a cellular phone or a

radio.

An AfV arrived with a plump middle-aged man in madras shorts and a

crushed fishing cap.  From the unhesitating beeline he made toward the

corpses, Anna guessed he was the coroner.  He and Hull crouched on the

far side of the aircraft, near the broken passenger door.

All Anna could see of them was their feet beneath the remnants of the

wing.  Death was certain; the coroner needed only to give a look and a

signature to make it legal.  They were probably looking for

identification on the second corpse.  She didn't envy them the task.

Tired of floating around the edges of things, Dijon came back and

flopped onto the ground ." They going to leave those guys or what?" he

asked.

"I doubt it," Anna said.  ,,They'll put them in body bags and take them

to the morgue.  Since they didn't die under a doctor's care they've got

to be autopsied.  Besides, if they left them here it wouldn't look good.

Though the critters would get a good supper out of the deal."

"Already cooked." Dijon licked his lips ." If you like your meat well

done."

Anna laughed at the sheer ghoulishness of it and because she could tell

that with his macabre joke Dijon had shocked himself .

The mental picture arrived half a second behind his words and he looked

suddenly nauseated.

Guy separated himself from a knot of men gathered around the nose of the

airplane and walked back toward the crew ." Looks like they figured out

who the second man was," he said as he dug through his yellow pack.

Sweat glittered in beads on his bald pate .

For an instant Anna thought they were blisters from second-degree burns

and felt her stomach lurch.  Guy pulled a blue handkerchief from the

pack and mopped his head and neck ." Face and hands were pretty much

gone but the chief ranger found a brass belt buckle and what's left of a

nine-millimeter handgun.  And he found the guy's badge.  Looks like he

was a ranger.  They've radioed in the numbers on the back of the badge

but nobody's waiting on pins and needles-they only got one law

enforcement ranger on Cumberland."

"Todd Belfore," AI said.

Guy nodded.

"That kinda takes the fun out of it," Rick said.