The Bush Pilot

The strip outside Willow Creek ran between low spruce and a frozen creek, narrow enough that Kyle could see both banks from the cockpit. He had used it in summer, when the ground was soft and brown and the landing surface plainly marked by tire tracks. Winter had buried the edges and polished the center into a white corridor.

The last radio report had called it good.

“Packed snow,” the voice had said. “Flat all the way through.”

Kyle had asked who had inspected it.

A pause. Then: “Somebody did.”

That answer had stayed with him.

He taxied toward the runway, skis whispering over crusted snow. The Cub’s wings flexed in the crosswind. Somewhere beyond the shed, a dog barked once and stopped. Kyle looked toward the treeline. No movement. Bears should have been deep in their dens, but hunger made its own calendar.

He opened the throttle.

The Piper surged forward. Frost streamed off the cowling. The skis bumped twice, then lifted clear, and Willow Creek fell away beneath him in a scatter of dark roofs and smoke.

The flight north took less than an hour, but the country below made time feel larger. Rivers lay locked under blue ice. Spruce forests crowded the hills, their tops buried in snow. The sun climbed without warmth, a pale coin behind cloud.

Kyle kept one hand on the stick and one near the throttle. The mailbags shifted once behind him. He glanced back, saw the medicine crate still tight against the seat frame, and turned his eyes forward.

The strip appeared at last as a white slash between trees.

He circled low.

On the first pass, it looked acceptable. On the second, the wind showed him the truth. Long gray plates cut across the snow, some smooth as glass, others broken into ridges. Near the far end, a drift had swallowed half the runway. The left side dropped toward the creek.

Kyle banked away.

“Flat all the way through,” he said.

The radio hissed without answering.

He circled again, lower this time. The Cub rocked in a gust. Below, something dark marked the center of the strip - perhaps a stump, perhaps a patch of exposed ground. There was no room to turn once he committed. No second runway. No road out. Just spruce on one side and the creek on the other.

He reduced power.

The airplane settled. Kyle held the nose high and aimed for the cleanest stretch he could find. The first ski touched with a hard slap. The second struck an ice patch and kicked sideways.

The Cub lurched.

Kyle corrected with rudder, keeping the wings level as the skis skated over the frozen surface. The left runner shrieked against ice. The airplane slewed toward the creek.

“Come on.”

He eased power, then cut it completely. Snow burst around the cockpit. The left wing dipped as the ski caught a ridge, but Kyle held the stick firm and let the airplane slide instead of fight.

The Cub stopped thirty yards short of the drift.

For a moment, there was only the tick of cooling metal and Kyle’s breath rasping inside his scarf.

He looked down at the left ski.

The forward brace had bent inward. A black line ran along the runner where the ice had bitten it.

Kyle climbed out into the cold. His boots sank through the crust. Wind pushed needles of snow against his cheeks. He circled the airplane, inspecting the wings, tail, and struts. Nothing else looked damaged.

The runway, however, was worse than it had appeared from above. Ice lay beneath a skin of snow, hidden until the skis found it. The strip had not been packed. It had been frozen hard, then abandoned.

A figure stood near the first trees, watching him.

Kyle raised a hand. “You the one who called this flat?”

The figure did not answer.

Kyle walked closer. It was a man bundled in a dark parka, face hidden by a fur-lined hood. He carried no radio, no shovel, nothing that suggested he had come to help.

“Medicine’s aboard,” Kyle called. “I need a clear path to the cabin.”

The man turned and disappeared among the spruce.

Kyle stopped.

The wind moved through the branches with a dry, restless hiss. He looked back at the Cub. The mail and medicine were safe for the moment, but the bent ski would not survive a rough taxi. If he could not reach the settlement, he could not unload the crate. If he could not repair the ski, he could not leave.

He went to the rear compartment and pulled out the small tool roll, a jack, and a coil of wire. The cold stiffened the leather around his fingers. He lifted the ski with the jack and examined the brace.

The metal had folded but not split. The runner itself was cracked along the outer edge.

Kyle swore softly.

He searched the airplane for anything useful. A length of aluminum tubing lay beneath the seat, left over from an earlier repair. He had used it to brace a fuel line. He also found two flat steel straps, a handful of bolts, and the short tow chain he kept for hauling the Cub through deep snow.

The work would not be pretty. It did not need to be pretty.

He needed the airplane to move.

By the time Kyle reached the cabin, his beard had gathered frost and his fingers had gone numb inside his gloves. The dark-parka man was nowhere in sight. A door stood open beneath a sagging roof, and smoke drifted from a stovepipe farther down the slope.

Kyle hauled the crate from the Cub and carried it toward the smoke. The box dragged at his arms. He set it on the porch and knocked.

No one answered.

He knocked again. “Medicine delivery.”

A bar slid back. The door opened three inches.

A woman’s voice came through the gap. “Who sent you?”

Kyle looked past the opening. The room was dark except for the stove’s orange glow. “The clinic in Willow Creek.”

“Who told you the strip was usable?”

“Somebody with a radio.”

“That narrows it down.”

Her tone held no welcome. Kyle looked over his shoulder toward the airplane. The dark-parka man stood at the edge of the trees now, watching again.

“I’ve got insulin in this box,” Kyle said. “If you want it kept frozen, leave it on the porch. If you want it alive, open the door.”

The bar lifted.

The woman stepped back. Kyle carried the crate inside, where heat struck his face and made his skin sting. She pointed toward a table without taking her eyes off him.

“Mail goes there.”

Kyle set the canvas bags down. “Your runway nearly put me in the creek.”

“It has a way of doing that.”

“Your report said packed snow.”

“I didn’t make the report.”

“Who did?”

She glanced toward the window. “You should fix your ski before dark.”

Not an answer.

Kyle turned to leave. “Where’s the nearest shed?”

“Behind the cabin. If the door opens.”

He found it half buried in drifted snow. Inside were old tools, a broken sled, and a stack of scrap lumber. He dragged out a length of spruce plank and carried it back to the airplane. The dark-parka man had gone.

The temperature dropped with the sinking sun. Kyle worked fast, cutting the plank to fit beneath the cracked runner. He wrapped the steel straps around the ski and drove bolts through the aluminum tubing, using the plank as a temporary splint. His hammer rang across the strip. Each strike traveled up his arms.

The woman came out carrying a lantern.

“Name?” she asked.

“Kyle.”

“Just Kyle?”

“That’s what people call me.”

She held the lantern closer. Her face was lean and wind-burned, with dark hair pulled beneath a wool cap. She looked at the bent ski, then at him.

“That fix won’t last.”

“It only has to last until I’m airborne.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Kyle tightened the final bolt. “Then I stay.”

Her eyes moved to the darkening sky. “That could be longer than you think.”

He stood and tested the brace with both hands. The runner flexed, but held.

“I need a clear stretch to taxi,” he said. “Can you mark the ice?”

“I can tell you where not to go.”

“Good enough.”

They walked the strip together. She carried the lantern low, throwing yellow light across the snow. At the center, the ice patches gleamed like black windows.

“Stay left until the drift,” she said. “Then cross right.”

Kyle looked at her. “You’ve done this before.”

“I live here.”

“Then why send the report?”

“I didn’t.”

Again, that quiet refusal.

Behind them, the cabin door slammed in the wind. From the trees came a low crack, followed by the heavy disturbance of snow falling from a branch.

Kyle turned toward the sound.

The woman lowered the lantern. “That wasn’t the wind.”

Something moved between the spruce trunks. Too large for a dog. Too slow for a person.

Kyle reached for the flare pistol beneath his coat. The woman caught his wrist.

“Not yet,” she whispered.

The shape vanished.

For several seconds, neither of them moved. Then the trees settled back into darkness.

Kyle looked at the repaired ski. The brace was already groaning under the airplane’s weight.

He had delivered the medicine. He had delivered the mail. The job was done, except the only way out now ran across broken ice with a damaged ski and night closing over the strip.

The woman released his wrist.

“Your airplane,” she said, “is not the worst thing waiting out there.”

Kyle watched the trees until his eyes watered from the cold.

Then the repaired ski gave a sharp metallic crack.

He turned toward the Cub.

The splint had shifted half an inch, and the runner sagged beneath it.

Night was coming. The airplane was not going anywhere.

End of chapter one. 32 more chapters and about 66,656 words in the full book.