That morning, it was raining. I shuffled to the kitchen to
chug from the orange juice container and eat cold pancakes, by now soggy on top
and crusty underneath. My sister sat at the kitchen table, shuffling through
the day’s mail.
“Good afternoon, Morpheus.” My sister was just one year
older but three years ahead of me in school. She was leaving for another year
of college next month and growing all the wiser for it.
A sudden downpour pounded the roof of our Rabbit Creek home.
“Looks like the sun fled when you woke up,” she said. I spread butter on a
pancake. “If you run low on butter, just pass those pancakes through your hair.
There’s enough grease up there to cook French fries.” I ignored her. Like a puppy nipping at your ankle, she would tire
of her own game when she couldn’t provoke a response. I loaded my pancakes with
homemade raspberry jam, rolled them up, and caught the drips with my tongue. I
always ate standing to avoid dishes. Sections of the Anchorage Daily News lay
scattered about the kitchen. That was the consequence of rising last in an
ambitious household. The crossword had been completed, the classifieds
highlighted, the comics clipped for coupons. The other consequence was no hot
shower. Our hot water tank was as old as my grandfather and had the holding
capacity of a man in his 85th year. Who cared about greasy hair? She was only
my sister.
The headlines stared at me through coffee stains: “Plane
Crash On McHugh Peak Claims Seven.” The previous morning, a twin engine, Cessna
402 crashed into the peak that defines the southern end of the front range of
the Chugach Mountains, just east of Anchorage. It was shuttling workers south
to their jobs on oilrigs in Cook Inlet. They reported no survivors. I held my
breath. The names of the victims had not been released. I exhaled.
Drizzle and fog persisted through that day, into the next,
and the next, and the next. With each passing day, the newspaper reported more
details. A helicopter located the crash site later the same day and landed, but
only briefly. Powerful winds and zero visibility forced rescuers to leave the
bodies at the scene. The next day, as the storm intensified, a recovery team
hiked up the peak on foot and retrieved the bodies. After two days, the media
identified the victims. I knew none of them. Now, four days after the crash,
the front range remained hidden. Five-thousand-foot peaks seemingly vanished
along with seven lives.
McHugh Peak stood in view of our house on Rabbit Creek Road.
As runners, my sister and I considered anything within six miles of the house
our back yard. But our mountainous playground remained wrapped in a shroud, a
featureless and unrecognizable landscape.
Day seven, and thick clouds hugged the ground. Flood
warnings had been issued north of Anchorage, where swollen rivers endangered
several bridges. I awoke early now, at the time the sun rose, even as rain
hammered my bedroom window. I looked eastward before considering breakfast.
Restlessness consumed us as the Gulf of Alaska storm hovered over Anchorage. In
the early afternoon, my sister suggested we go for a run. Normally, the nasty
weather would dissuade me. Instead, I accepted. Neither of us discussed
possible running routes. We both knew where we were headed.
We turned left onto a muddy Rabbit Creek Road. We ran at a
brisk clip, bits of gravel clinging to our bare legs. Within half a mile, we
began climbing. Water filled ditches and overflowed culverts. We cut through
the fog in silence, the muddy road beneath our feet the only visible landmark.
A dog barked, but from what direction, I couldn’t tell. Breaths smoked,
eyelashes dripped beads of water, skin stretched tight in fall-like chill.
Familiarity guided our ascent, but we were blind to what lay ahead.
After two miles, we turned right and continued our climb
into Bear Valley. Houses grew sparse, the smell of wood smoke revealing their
presence. Another mile and a half of steep uphill brought us to the end of the
road.
Above tree line, the air grew noticeably colder. McHugh Peak
remained elusive, but we knew the direction to head. We set out on an uphill
traverse to our right. A thin layer of spongy tundra replaced the muddy
roadway. My feet pressed the sides of soggy shoes as we side-hilled, but we
couldn’t pause to make adjustments. We had a destination.
A constant banging noise beat its way through the fog. We
froze. Where had it come from? Was someone there? We moved up. Then,
instantaneously, it emerged. The tail of the plane jutted skyward. A sheet of
aluminum, peeled back on impact, swung in the wind and drummed against the
remains of the fuselage. The tail and a ten-foot section of fuselage were the
only intact features. The airplane had broken open and scattered a thousand
pieces in a thousand directions.
No one could have survived.
Among the Cessna 402 wreckage lay work gloves, rain gear,
cold water exposure suits, none of which could provide any protection now.
Duffel bags had been eviscerated, their contents spilled on the tundra. We
walked the accident scene together, staying close, treading lightly through the
graveyard. The nose had struck first, and, in boar-like fashion, excavated a
broad swath of tundra. A dark streak scarred the ground where fuel had ignited.
Fifty yards from the tail section rested two airplane seats. I imagined the
victims hurled forward. They had no chance, their seat belts tethered to air.
A company-issued work coat spread out on the ground. I
wanted to pick it up, to see what lay beneath it. My sister hunched over a torn
handbag nearby.
“Should we be here?” She stood as I posed my question.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“The investigation’s complete. It’s been seven days.” The
fog continued to conceal us.
“Snow will bury it soon enough.” She shrugged. We’d reached
the same conclusion.
Tangled wires stretched uphill to my left. A strobe lens, filled with rainwater, balanced in offering on a rock. Clothing lay everywhere, torn and wet. I placed a flotation coat in good shape to one side. Nancy did the same with a Mercedes Benz T-shirt.
“It’ll fit David,” our older brother.
Underdressed for fog and drizzle at elevation, I began to
shiver. A hooded jacket stuck out beneath a twisted piece of cowling. The
jacket was damp, but undamaged. I put it on and zipped it up. The sleeves felt
cold against my bare arms, but they warmed rapidly, and my shivering stopped.
Off to the side lay a Cordura wallet, credit cards inside.
Another pouch contained photos, including a groom and bride, radiant smiles
illuminating their future. But the one on the left was dead.
We met the other six, one by one. Some, we met formally, by name;
others we met in photos; and still others we caught a glimpse of through brands
of soap or chewing tobacco.
Regardless of the type of introduction, we met them all.
“Look.” My sister waved me over. At her feet lay a bottle of mouthwash, unbroken. Why was it spared? Mystified, I tried to recreate the plane’s trajectory. An object, stuck to a flat piece of metal, caught my eye. It resembled a chicken liver, washed a pale red, arranged as if on a platter.
It grew late. Visibility increased as the fog burned off
from above. We gathered the items we’d set aside. After a short descent, I
stopped and faced uphill. McHugh Peak was now discernible through thinning
wisps of fog. The tail of the plane stood like a headstone marking the final
flight. The plane contacted the mountain at 3,000 feet, 800 feet shy of the
upper ridge. But their heading was 90 degrees off course, and higher peaks lay
beyond. Those peaks wore a coat of fresh snow, or termination dust, a precursor
to winter.
We retraced our route across the slope and followed the
jagged ridge down into Bear Valley. Despite the downhill, we jogged slowly,
engrossed in thought. Evening sunlight penetrated the fog, the first golden hue
in almost ten days. I removed the coat and tied it around my waist. Soon, my
sister would board a plane for college while I would begin my junior year.
Thomas
Pease was born in Anchorage in 1963 in the New Providence
Hospital at Ninth and L (now the Municipal Health Clinic). He learned to ski at
Alyeska when it consisted of a single wooden chairlift, and he learned to swim
in Hidden Lake at the top of O’Malley Road. He now lives in Government Hill in
a home built in the 1950s. Pease occasionally walks down the hill to Ship Creek
to fish for king salmon in the shadow of the city’s tallest buildings. His
parents still live in their log home on Rabbit Creek Road. Long ago, they
traded in their eight-party phone line and Spenard postal address for cell
phones and email accounts.
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