A Father’s Manna

We chose Fairbanks for our vacation due to its proximity to Denali National park.

Bob was a private pilot and had it all planned out.

We figured we’d rent a small Cessna in Fairbanks and do our own sightseeing.   

We took off without incident, and made the cruise to Denali in a little over an hour.

Suddenly, the engine quit. We knew we had a full tank of fuel, but every gage was pegged dead, and the engine was silent. The propeller turned slowly from the airspeed alone. Bob tried to restart it several times with no success. 

“My God, what do we do?” I shouted.

Jim, age 11, and April, age 9, sat in silent with worried looks.

“We’ve gotta set down!” Bob shouted, as he put the plane into a glide configuration with flaps down and the nose pointed just below the horizon.

“All I see is trees!” he shouted, in desperation.

“There, to your left, it looks like a meadow — no, it’s a lake but there’s a lot of shoreline. Can we make it!” I screamed.

“We’ll have to!” he said, slowly banking left, keeping the nose down to maintain airspeed. We felt like we were too slow, but we had altitude and the Cessna was lightweight and designed to glide long distances. We had a mile of solid forest to clear before we could land.

“It’s gonna be close. Kids buckle in tight, honey, do the same,” Bob said, calmly.

The solid green canopy grew close and the shoreline seemed way out of reach. 

The Cessna was slow, but maintained altitude as we continued the glide.

Within two hundred yards to the clearing, Bob pulled the nose up slightly to avoid hitting the treetops with the fixed, landing gear. With fifty feet to go, the back tire clipped a tree but our momentum carried us to the low, brush-bog surrounding the lake. Bob pulled up hard on the wheel, creating a stall, and we dropped abruptly onto the soft marsh. When the front wheels hit the mud we spun sideways and the plane flipped on its roof, where we sat strapped-in, upside-down in our seats. The kids were crying, but were okay and Bob was unconscious. I managed to release myself and climb out. The kids did the same. I ran around to Bob’s side and checked his pulse, he was alive and breathing.

“Jim, April, I need help with your dad. We need to un-strap him and get him out of the plane.”

“Jim, I want you to reach around and undo the buckle, and I’ll try and break his fall. On three, one…two…three!”

Jim unlatched the seatbelt and Bob collapsed in my arms. His large frame pushed me back against the grass as I held his shoulders and head.

“Mom, look at dads foot!” April said crying.

We laid Bob on the marsh grass and I gawked at the sight of his left foot.

In the landing, he must have crushed it against the firewall, and it sat at a grotesque, forty-five degree angle off of his tibia.

“Mom, is he dead?” Jim asked sobbing.

“No honey, he’s just knocked out. I need you and your sister to pull out the ice chest?”

When the power died, the radio died with it. We had no way of sending a mayday or our position coordinates and our cell phones were useless.

This was supposed to be a one hour jaunt to Denali from Fairbanks, cruise the wilderness for a few hours, and be back for a steak dinner at the resort. We didn’t file a flight plan, but we told  Deek McCray, the gray-haired, bush pilot owner of the Paradise Air Service that we were gonna skirt the Denali wilderness, keep our distance from McKinley and be back within four hours. We signed an insurance rider, left a large deposit on our Master-Card, and he and Bob did a short flyover in the Fairbanks pattern before he cleared us to go. Both men did a pre-flight inspection and everything seemed fine.

The best I could tell, we were on the south-western edge of the Denali wilderness. Mount McKinley separated us from Fairbanks which I guessed was 200 miles to the north.

I did a food inventory. We had four, six-inch subway sandwiches, a large bag of Potato chips a box of Oreo’s and three quarts of Coca Cola and a pint of Yukon Jack. There was a small feeder stream flowing into the lake so I figured we were good for water. We each had lightweight jackets and Bob had a Swiss Army Knife, and I had a butane lighter and a pack of cigarettes I hid from Bob.

It was 4:00 p.m. and the temperature was in the mid-seventies, but a light breeze had started up, and there was a weather system moving in from the west.

Kids, I need you to get as much small brush and branches as you can find, and we’ll try and make a fire.

If it weren’t for the dire straits we were in, we’d of considered our location paradise with a ceramic blue sky, stately spruces, and willows and pines in a thick quilt of every shade of green imaginable. Mount McKinley, in its solemn majesty, rose to the north, and a Golden Eagle drifted above us is in the gentle breeze.

Bob began moaning.

“Honey where are we? Are the kids okay. It just died, I don’t know what happened.”

I sat next to him, and stroked his head.

“Honey you did it, you landed us safely, we crashed in the meadow, but we’re alright. Your ankle is severely dislocated, and I’m not sure what to do. How bad is the pain?” I asked.

He propped up on his elbows and could see the grotesque angle of his foot.

“It’s weird, but I don’t feel a thing. I’m probably still in shock. I need you to check the transponder light below the altimeter, is it blinking?”

“I’ll check,” I said, climbing back through the door.

“Nothing, no light at all,” I said, returning to his side.

“Shit, we had a total power failure. We had plenty of fuel. The damn thing just died. I wonder how many hours this thing has on it,” he asked, grimacing, as the pain of the break started to creep-up like a burning fire.

“I don’t know a thing about setting a bone,” he said, with grimace.

“I’m guessing you should try and snap it in place in one quick jerk. There’s an emergency kit in a compartment behind the back seat. Check and see if there’s anything we can use,” he said.

I found a metal box with a red cross and brought it to Bob’s side. There was a pair of surgical scissors, medical tape, packets of aspirin, flares, several aluminum bags containing freeze dried food and a bottle of antiseptic fluid.

“Tell me what to do,” I told Bob.

“First off, let me have a swig of that Whiskey, and then I want you to turn the foot to its natural angle in one quick motion. I’ve never done anything like this so I’m guessing just do it hard and quick. I love you,” he said, looking away, grimacing in pain.

I went to my knees at his foot, and when I touched it, he cried out.

“Do it, do it now!” he cried.

I grabbed his foot and rotated it with all my strength to its natural position. He screamed in pain, but it seemed to snap in place.

“Now wrap it up with the tape so it stays in place, and hand me about ten of those aspirin,” he moaned, with his cheeks flushed, and eyes red and swelling in tears.

“Thanks honey,” he said, and he closed his eyes.

The kids came running with armfuls of brush and twigs.

“What happened, is dad okay?” Jim asked.

“Yea, he woke up, and I put his ankle and foot back in place,” I said, as sweat streamed down my forehead. He opened his eyes and gave the kids a thumbs-up.

“Your mom would make a good doctor,” he whispered.

“Okay guys, we’re gonna have to use the plane as a shelter. It looks like a storm may be moving through in a few hours, and I have a feeling this ground will really saturate in heavy rainfall. We’re gonna have to think about rationing food until help comes, so for now, let’s split one of the sandwiches, and drink some coke. Once we empty the bottle, we can use it to get fresh water from the stream.

Three weeks later, we were starving. We saw jets in the distance and a small bi-plane far away to the east, but that was it. We had gone through the emergency rations and sandwiches in about a week, and Jim found the carcass of a rodent that we devoured raw, as soon as he brought it back to camp. Starvation hurts. It feels like the worst intestinal cramps imaginable. We were all suffering the same symptoms. Bobs foot was healing but he couldn’t put any weight on it. We discussed trying to hike out, but he was dead against it, saying the worst thing we could do was leave the site. The fuel from the wing tank which we used the first few days for a fire had now leaked out completely which left us with brush and the dwindling butane lighter. Any fires we did start were quashed by the intermittent rain squalls that passed through, nearly every day.

“I can’t understand why they haven’t sent out any rescue attempts, “Bob said, as he sat propped against the fuselage. I wonder if something happened to Deek? He looked like he was on his last leg, but geeze this is ridiculous.”

I was to find out later that something had happened to Deek. He was killed in a head-on collision the afternoon we departed from the airfield. Without a flight plan and having rented the aircraft from the grizzled owner who lived a solitary life, we wouldn’t be missed until our friends and family started investigating

Both of our parents knew we were in Alaska, but didn’t expect any communication for two weeks, and even then, it would be several days before anyone started  worrying.

“I don’t how much longer we can survive without food,” Bob said, as a misting rain began to fall.

“What’s it been, a week since we’ve eaten anything?” he asked.

“Something like that,” I replied.

“We can’t hunt, we can’t fish and there’s only so many dead marmots lying around,” he said with a half-smile.

“Where are the kids?” he asked.

“They’re searching for food around the lake,” I replied.

“Okay, what I’m gonna say is something that no sane person should ever have to consider in his lifetime, but the alternative as I see it, is all four of us starving to death, and that is not acceptable to me. I love you and the kids more than anything in the world.  I’ve been blessed with the love of my life and two children who will carry my love with them the rest of their lives. You will make it out of here, I know it in my heart and soul, but I won’t be going with you. The kids won’t understand what we need to do, and maybe never will, but fate has put us here and fate will deliver you. You’ll need to be strong and do what we need to do, because of our love. I am a union meat cutter you know. I’ll leave detailed instructions on how, when, and what you’ll need to do.

“You’re being stupid. We’d rather die,” I screamed.

“You have no choice! We have no choice!” he said, looking straight into my eyes.

“We can try and hike out!”

“No, we have to stay. It’s still a matter of time. It’s really quite simple. We’re far too weak. Trying to hike out would be a death sentence. We’ve run out of options. The kids will fight you, they’ll hate you, and they’ll hate me. Expect it, don’t be angry or try to force anything. Their carnal instinct will prevail.”

“I won’t do it, forget it, screw you, who do you think you are, God? It’s bullshit Robert!”

“Ohhh, you’re mad, you never call me Robert unless you’re mad!” he said, smiling.

“Goddamn right I’m mad. Shut up! Shut your mouth. We’re not, you’re not — going to do it. You’re just acting like a control freak. We’ll die if we have to, but we’ll die on our own terms, you don’t get the easy way out on this.”

He continued to stare at me.

“It’s still too soon, I agree to give it a few more days, but they’ll eventually be too weak to object, and when you and they reach that point, you’ve gotta promise you’ll do it, please forgive me, I love you so much. I love them. I put you all here, I’ll get you out, ” he said, as tears formed in his eyes.

“It’s not gonna happen,” I said, and walked away shouting for the kids.

Starvation hurts, its excruciating pain. We tried the bulbs from water reeds, we ate moss on the trees and got sick, I caught a small frog and got soaked in the process. We tore into it like the animals we had become. Pervasive weakness began creeping up on us, silent truth and inescapable reality.

Silence, foreboding, desperation, hopelessness, acquiescence, guilt, then profound sorrow.

Starvation is a horrible way to die. Lucidity disappears. Eyes turn vacant and humanity curls up shivering under wrinkled sheets that cover flesh, which no longer provides warmth.

Bob knew his trade, and was methodical and efficient in his instructions.

Three weeks later a rescue helicopter circled overhead and landed near the wreckage. The kids and I were carried onto the chopper in silence and returned home.

Ten years have passed. The tempests came each night, and always passed, always replaced by a fairer sky or warm, Santa Ana breeze. Life is convoluted, like a gnarly, hand-made rope, strong in spots, easy to grab and hold onto, and sometimes as thin as floss, slippery and invisible. We’re tied to it through youth and old age, and sickness and health, through love and hatred and doubt and denial; often of things we can’t see or feel. Life depends on our flesh and bones and things we do involuntarily every second with every breath and every beat of our hearts. Life is also like a novel with humor, reflection, action, sadness, anger and forgiveness. Our humanity is built on experience, of mistakes and errors in judgment; with chapters of effervescent joy, and unspeakable horror; filled with love and sorrow and yearnings.

Every life.