The silence was terrifying. Darcy gripped the sides of the cockpit, even after Jack leveled the plane. She wanted to take the controls. Everything told her to take the controls, but Jack was at the wheel, and he’d done this before. On the very first ride he’d brought the engine back to life.
But this time he had two engines to resuscitate, and somehow, in the pit of her stomach, she knew he wouldn’t be able to do it.
“Take the controls,” he said.
It was strange to suddenly hear him after hours of ceaseless droning. She grabbed hold of the wheel.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Keep as much altitude as you can,” he said, the worry not at all hidden.
“How?”
“Not up,” he shouted. “Keep the nose level. Hold her steady. I’m going to check the fuel lines.”
The fuel lines. Darcy’s head raced with her heart. They’d strained all the fuel the day before. Like always, they ran it through a triple layer of cheesecloth to catch the sediment. Mentally, she checked off each of the cans. Yes, they’d done them all. They’d been very careful.
Jack crawled out on the wing and checked the fuel line to the right motor. She held so tightly to the wheel that her hands ached. Keep it level. No turns. Don’t make any sudden moves.
She squinted against the onrushing air, her eyes painfully dry.
Come back Jack. Come back. What was taking so long?
An eternity later, he inched into the rear cockpit, and she breathed again.
“That’s not the problem,” he said once he was seated. “Plenty of fuel in the line.”
“Tell me you’re not going out on the right wing.”
“Not enough time. I’ll take the controls now.”
Darcy’s mouth went dry. She remembered how it felt when they’d crashed on Baker’s field, the sound of fabric ripping, of wood snapping and wire twanging. The propeller digging into the ground, spraying dirt and grass and weeds everywhere.
“Your seat belt on?” Jack asked.
That meant they were going down.
“It might be a bit of a rough landing,” he said. He’d begun to glide noiselessly, taking the machine down gradually without engines. He made large, swooping turns. “Hopefully, we’ll spot a clearing when we come out of the fog.”
Hopefully, they were over land.
Darcy didn’t know if Jack realized just how cold Lake Superior was. They’d freeze to death in minutes.
She heard him try to start an engine. One, then the other. Neither worked.
“If it’s not the fuel, then what?” he growled.
The oil. Darcy knew it in an instant, and dread flooded over her in waves. She’d forgotten. She’d been so flustered after the kiss that she forgot to strain the oil. She could see the filter right where she left it on the table. Sediments in the oil had clogged the oil screens, just like the scout plane.
She was to blame. If they died, it was her fault.
Darcy turned to tell him, but he yelled, “Put your head down. You don’t want it snapped off.”
She turned around and peered into the foggy gloom.
He was trying to find a clearing, hoping the fog had lifted enough that they could get below it, but the gray mist continued unbroken. It must go clear to the ground.
She ducked her head, praying to God, who’d surely forsaken them. “Forgive me,” she prayed silently. “Take me, but not Jack. It’s not his fault. It’s my fault. All mine.”
“Aha,” Jack suddenly cried, and she raised her head.
They’d come out of the fog barely above the treetops.
Then she saw it. A clearing. Small and far away. Could they make it that far?
“Head down,” he yelled.
She ducked. Almost at once the branches ripped through the fabric. The plane elevated for a moment, and then collapsed around her. She shrieked and covered her head as she was flung forward.
Chapter Sixteen
The plane splintered around Jack in an oddly arrested sequence, like a film shown at too-slow a speed. The wings collapsed first, buckled by the trees. Branches scraped past, tearing cloth and skin alike. The lower right wing catapulted over the upper. The motor whirled past their heads. He instinctively shielded Darcy, though if the engine had fallen, they would both have been crushed.
The fuselage shot forward like a missile, and he yelled for her to get her head down.
She turned at the sound of his voice. A branch clipped his cheekbone, opening a gash, but he could think only of Darcy.
“Head down.” His words sent her into a crouch, just as the cockpit framing crumpled and the whole thing smashed to a stop.
Jack’s pulse still raced after the noise died away and the plane settled. He was alive. Aches and a sore shoulder, but he was still alive.
He surveyed the damage. The forward cockpit took the brunt of the impact, imploding to a third its size. Snapped wood. Ripped fabric. Tangled branches.
Darcy. She was somewhere in that mess. He couldn’t see her.
He pawed wildly at the debris. He couldn’t find her.
Thwang. A bracing wire snapped.
He dug faster, searching in the semidarkness for her canvas coat or the soft wool of her sweater.