Fearing the worse, Gavin gritted his teeth. He knew that wasn’t a sound he should be hearing.
The engine began making a grinding noise, a sputtering sound next, and then a final death rattle.
Amelia considered the instrument panels, then began looking at the area they were flying over.
The smell of smoke and burning fuel filled the air.
Gavin was sure this was bad. He wasn’t going to comment, certain Amelia knew what she had to do, and he didn’t want to interrupt her concentration by stating his biggest fear: they were going to crash.
The emergency light came on, indicating an engine fire. The propeller ground to a standstill. The plane grew eerily quiet.
Another pop sounded. Calm and in control, Amelia tried to call a Mayday. When she keyed the radio in and hit the transmission button, no squelch sounded to indicate it was working. She quickly ran through her checklist. The lights on the instrument panel all went dark. “Emergency backup battery should come on.”
It didn’t.
She glided the plane over a frothing river filled with rocks and rapids, cliffs on one side of the river, trees on the other. She couldn’t land here. “Under normal conditions, we can land a seaplane either with the power off or the power on. With the power on, the pilot has better control of the plane.”
Gavin couldn’t believe it. He hoped they’d make it safely when they landed. With choppy water and no power, he didn’t think they would.
* * *
Amelia prayed she’d reach the lake, even if she couldn’t make it to the more sheltered bay. The land was covered in trees, so she couldn’t attempt to land anywhere else, and the surrounding lakes were too small to land on.
“The transponder,” Gavin said, looking like he’d prefer jumping from the aircraft than landing in it on the rough water that was getting rougher as the winds picked up.
“Electrical system is out, and the emergency backup battery didn’t come on. I would have set the transponder to Mode A Code 7700 to let everyone know we have a state of emergency, but I can’t.”
“What’s the next step?” he asked.
She was glad he wasn’t panicking, despite his fear of flying. She couldn’t believe she could be crashing a second plane with him on board. “I’m gliding us in. If I do this right and we’re lucky, we’ll be fine. If we flip, the plane will fill with water. Quickly. If that happens, unfasten your harness. You have to find the door and swim out. It’ll be dark in the cabin. With our wolf’s night vision, you should be able to make out some things.”
“What about Winston?”
“I’ll get him. You just get yourself out of the plane.” The pup was her concern. She didn’t want to lose a passenger too.
Gavin unbuckled his harness and reached back to get one of his bags.
“What are you doing? Stay buckled in. I’ve got to land the plane.”
“I’ve got to grab my satellite phone and let people know where we are, if you don’t have any other way to do it.”
She glanced at the pocket where she normally kept her own sat phone and realized she was flying her dad’s plane and her sat phone was in the seat pocket on her plane.
“Hurry then.”
The lake came into view, and she flew into the wind to slow the plane down, which would hopefully cause the lowest impact damage if she ran into trouble. She could easily lose control of the seaplane if she didn’t compensate for the shifts in wind, with the gusts picking up.
Amelia began looking for a smoother area in the water to land. She’d never had to do this without power and with the water as choppy as this. From her training, she knew she had to put the plane down in the valley of the waves, landing on the crest of the wave and nosing in to go down into the valley. She only wished she could land under full control. She had to make do with what she had.
As she went over the landing checklist mentally, she realized the gear warning system was not working. She did a quick visual check to make sure. The landing gear was up.
“I’m landing. Return to your seat, and strap yourself in. As soon as we land, if we need to quickly evacuate, open the door to the aircraft, and get out.”
“My sat phone is in one of my bags. I’ve almost got it.” He buckled himself in, then pulled out the phone.
She landed on the crest of a wave. A gust of wind lifted the left wing, making the right wing clip the water and breaking it off with a crack. Her heart stuttered.
The plane flipped so quickly that she felt like she was on a roller-coaster ride, sideways, up, down, holding on for dear life, trying to recall what she needed to do. Make sure Gavin got out ahead of her, unharness Winston, help him out of the plane, then inflate the dog’s life vest. She’d have to get the raft after that.
The plane had flipped upside down and was taking on water.
“Gavin, are you okay?” She hurried to unhook her harness. Every second counted.
It was dark inside as she unfastened her belt and heard Gavin unlocking his.
“Yeah. Door to my right. I’ll get Winston. Do you have a life raft?”
“Back there with Winston, under his seat.” Amelia headed back to Winston. “Don’t inflate your PFD until you’re outside the plane. I’ll get—”
“Do you have another preserver?”
“Yeah. All the seat cushions are.”
“Can you attach the carabineer from my bags to one of the seat cushions and shove it outside the plane?”
“Yeah.” She was supposed to be in charge, but she was glad Gavin was good at coordinating an escape under pressure too.
“Let me help you unharness Winston,” he said.
She unfastened the harness, and Gavin helped the dog to his feet.
“I’m taking him out now. Winston, come on, boy. You can do this.” Gavin swam out of the plane, pulling Winston by the collar.
She hooked Gavin’s bags to the seat-cushion flotation device and pushed them out through the open door. Before she could swim out, Gavin returned and took a breath of the air in the cabin. “Go, I’ll get the raft. See to Winston. We’re a long way from shore, so we could have a problem with hypothermia. Maybe not Winston though. His fur coat might protect him. The raft should help us get in safely. I’m afraid the pup wouldn’t make that long swim.”
Gavin shoved the raft out, and Amelia reached around. She couldn’t locate Winston’s waterproof container of kibble. She swam out to join Gavin and the dog. She’d thought of getting out of the water and sitting on top of the seaplane’s floats. But they might not get rescued until the storms died down, and the wind and cold air and their wet clothes would be worse. Plus, with a thunderstorm approaching, staying out on the water was much too dangerous. Not to mention that the seaplane was sinking.
The winds were whipping up the waves even worse now, and the sky was growing dark, thunder grumbling off in the distance, the storm headed their way. And they were a long damn way from shore. They needed to use the raft to get there as quickly as they could.
* * *
Gavin was tying the box-shaped form of the raft to one of the floats. Starting to feel the effects of the chilly air and water, he fumbled with the rope on the raft. If he could shift, his muscles would heat up significantly, and his wolf coat would help to warm him. But he needed to do this as a human.
The raft secured, he yanked the cord to inflate it. Nothing. Hell. He yanked again, and then with one last jerk on the cord, the raft popped open with such force that it knocked him back a foot in the water.
He was damn grateful the raft was intact, with no tears that he could see. He lifted his bags into the raft with them still hooked to the seat cushion. “My cooler’s still inside the seaplane. Maybe we should get it in case we don’t get rescued for a while,” he said. “Do you want to get in and pull Winston while I push from behind?”
“Yeah,
sure.”
Amelia swam around to the other side, searching, and finally found the rope ladder, then climbed in while Gavin held on to the raft to stabilize it. She crawled across the floor of the raft to reach for Winston’s collar. He was dog-paddling next to the raft.
As soon as she had hold of him and started pulling, Gavin began trying to push the heavy dog. “Up, up,” Gavin said, straining to push the deadweight into the raft.
“Come up here, Winston. Come on.”
The plane was groaning and sinking more.
Gavin was beginning to think he wasn’t going to get the dog in the raft. Hopefully, Winston’s claws wouldn’t rip it. With Amelia pulling, the dog trying to gain purchase, and Gavin pushing from behind, Winston finally scrambled into the life raft and collapsed.
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah,” Amelia said, checking him over. “He looks fine.”
“You?”
“Yeah.”
They needed to untie the rope before the plane sank. Gavin thought about the cooler. “I’m going for the food.”
“The plane is going under. Maybe it’s not such a good idea now. You could be trapped.”
“Untie the rope before it goes down. I’ll get free.”
“Gavin, we need warmth and shelter first and foremost. We can survive without food until someone comes for us.”
“It won’t take but a minute.” He still had a mission, and he planned to accomplish it, despite the setback. He’d need food and all his equipment. And his canoe. It had been secured upside down under the plane. That meant it would be right side up now. The canoe was so versatile that he could convert it to paddle like a kayak, a canoe, or a dinghy. It was virtually unsinkable and untippable. He really wanted to cut it loose.
He swam back to the open door and dove back into the plane, feeling his way around until he reached the cooler. At least it would float on its own. The plane was creaking, and he felt it shift. Hell. He grabbed the handle of the ice chest and shoved it out the door. The chest went straight to the surface of the water.
Gavin went up for air again. Amelia was holding on to his cooler, tying it to the raft.
He wasn’t sure his canoe had made it unscathed, but he wanted to try to release it. He pulled a pocketknife out of his zippered pants pocket and dove down, feeling his way around the canoe until he could grab hold of the rope and begin to cut. It was taking too long. He swam to the surface and took a deep breath of air, and then dove down again. This time, he tried to pull one of the knots free. He felt the plane shifting lower again.
He felt panicked, concerned Amelia hadn’t untied the raft in time before the plane sank completely.
When he went back up for air, he saw that the raft had floated away. Amelia was paddling back toward him.
“What are you doing?” She sounded highly annoyed with him.
“Getting my canoe. Be back in a sec.”
Then he dove under, determined to free his canoe. This time, he felt it give. He tugged and tugged and felt it loosening further. He needed air again, and the plane was sinking. He would lose the canoe if he didn’t keep trying. With a final tug, he felt it come free and shoot to the surface of the lake while he swam to join it.
He finally surfaced and took in great gulps of air. The winds and waves had pushed the raft maybe an eighth of a mile away. He had the canoe but no paddles. His lucky paddle was gone.
“We’re coming for you!” Amelia yelled out to him. They were a little closer to shore.
“I’ll paddle to you.” He finally inflated his life vest. He was so cold that he was having a terrible time getting into the canoe. He finally managed and lay there, exhausted.
* * *
Amelia paddled as fast as she could against the wind and the waves. She was elated that Gavin had freed his canoe, but she was angry with him too. Did he still want to paddle around the Boundary Waters just for fun after this disaster? He could have drowned. In his human form and not wearing cold-weather gear, he had to be freezing after being in the water for so long. She hoped he wouldn’t become hypothermic before he could get into dry clothes and warm up. She was chilled to the bone, and she’d gotten out much quicker than him. If she could strip off her clothes and wear her wolf coat, she’d be fine.
Winston was sitting, panting, and watching Gavin paddle with his hand toward them. The cooler was slowing Amelia down, and she felt she wasn’t making much progress at all.
“Are your paddles with your other gear?” She was glad her family had rafts in each of the planes and PFDs for everyone, including the dog. She was certain Winston couldn’t have swum all the way to shore on his own. And she wasn’t a really good swimmer.
“I think it was left behind.”
“I’m coming and will tow you in.”
The emergency locator transmitter, the ELT, should automatically come on. Then rescuers would know where the plane had gone down. That made Amelia feel slightly better as she continued to paddle toward Gavin. She and Gavin were ten miles at least from the bay where she should have set the plane down.
She kept trying to figure out what had happened to the plane. Why the engine had quit, everything electrical had shorted out, and the emergency backup battery hadn’t come online. She didn’t want to think it was sabotage. If it had been, then had the ELT been disabled too?
Great.
Why would anyone want to crash her plane?
Chapter 3
As a wolf, Gavin wouldn’t feel the cold like he did as a human. But he couldn’t remove his clothes right now and shift. Besides, as soon as he was in the raft, he had every intention of taking over the paddling so Amelia could strip and shift to warm up.
At least he had clothes in the dry packs that they could wear, plus two single sleeping bags—in case one got wet—a tent, a tarp, and food to keep them going until someone came and picked up Amelia. He still had a mission. He was damn glad he’d rescued his canoe. He looked back at the plane that could no longer be seen. It could still be just below the surface, but with the roughness of the waves and the darkness of the day, it was impossible for him to tell.
“Gavin, you’ve got to be freezing.”
“The storm’s coming in fast and furious. You know how they are. It isn’t safe out here with the lightning closing in on us. We need to take cover.” He was stuttering a bit from the cold. “How do you feel? Are you sure you’re okay?” She was cut up and bruised. As long as she wasn’t badly injured, she’d heal quickly with their enhanced wolf healing genetics.
“I’m good. What about you? You look a little banged up.” Amelia finally reached him and tossed him a rope.
He tied his canoe to the raft and then figured it would be just as difficult to climb from the canoe into the raft as it would be to jump into the water and use the ladder to climb into the raft. Since he hated to get into the cold lake again, he opted for showing off his agility skills—which, as cold as he was, were sorely lacking. “Nothing that won’t heal soon. Besides, I’m used to roughing it.”
With an arm and leg over the raft and the rest of his body in the canoe, Gavin struggled to get into the raft while Amelia steadied the canoe. In the middle of making the move, he wondered if he should have just pulled the raft behind the canoe.
Once he collapsed in the bottom of the raft, he said, “Go ahead and take off your clothes and shift.”
“No. You’ve been in the water far too long. You need to shift first.”
Gavin was going to argue that with the water temperature between 68 and 70 degrees, they could have lasted twelve hours if they were floating in the lake the whole time. Amelia picked up the paddle again and headed toward shore.
“All right. For a few minutes, and then I’ll take over.” He began to remove his clothes. He was having so much trouble untying his boots that she set the paddle down and began to help him. They finishe
d untying the boots, and she pulled them off. She tugged off his socks, and then helped him out of his life vest.
Her fingers were numb too, and she was having trouble with his zipper. She finally managed to unzip his cargo pants, while he removed his T-shirt. Finally, he tugged off his cargo pants. “This life vest won’t fit right on a wolf,” Amelia said.
“I can swim without it if I need to.” Gavin pulled off his boxer briefs. He wasn’t planning on being a wolf for very long. Off in the distance, streaks of lightning struck the ground, and thunder boomed only a mile away. “We need to take cover from the thunderstorm. Maybe I should just skip shifting.”
“One of us needs to be a wolf to warm up. We can switch off after a while.”
He wanted her to warm up, so he’d paddle the rest of the way after he changed back. Between the cold-water shock to their systems, the terror of experiencing the plane crash, the struggle of pulling Winston into the raft, and all the paddling she’d already done, Amelia had to be exhausted. He was naked now and calling on the shift, feeling the heat suffuse every cell in his body, warming him like a hot bath deep inside. And then he was a wolf, his thick, double coat of fur able to deflect the water.
“I’m glad you rescued your canoe, but I’m not happy with the way you could have drowned yourself.”
He’d had to try, though she was right.
She began to paddle again. “I have to say, you’re beautiful as a wolf.”
He moved toward her, licked her cheek, and settled next to her to share his heat, his head resting on her lap.
“Now, that’s nice.”
He woofed in agreement. He still didn’t like that she was so cold, but he was glad to help her any way that he could. He hoped she didn’t believe she had to save the day now that the plane had crashed. Looking down at his wolf nails and the raft, Gavin hoped he didn’t puncture the rubber. He glanced at Winston, whose nails were neatly trimmed. He was sitting up, ears perked, nose sniffing at the wind. He seemed to be happy with the rafting excursion now, out in the wilderness, smelling all the interesting scents. Gavin couldn’t imagine the dog had ever been here before, so everything was new to him.