“If it doesn’t cost extra,” McCready answered.
Without another word, the pilot put the helicopter into a bank so steep the rotor blades were almost vertical; if not for the centrifugal force, and the harnesses holding us in our seats, we might have tumbled down against the cabin door. For the second time in a quarter hour, I found myself circling the column of black smoke. This time, though, I was much lower and closer, and the helicopter bucked in the vortex of turbulence generated by the fire, the wind, and the rocky terrain.
Just as I was getting used to the steep bank, the helicopter plunged downward, dropping into a hover below the ridgeline, crabbing sideways, closer and closer to the mountainside. Looking out the right-side windows, I found myself at eye level with the wreckage of Richard Janus’s jet—a mess of mangled metal that appeared to have been run through a junkyard shredder, doused with gasoline, and then set ablaze. “Damn,” came McCready’s voice through the headset. “That’s what I call a crash.”
“Nobody walked away from that one,” agreed the pilot. “I don’t get it. Richard was a damn good pilot.”
“Friend of yours?”
“I knew him. Flew with him a few times. He was too good a pilot to just auger in like that. Unless something went bad wrong. Or unless he did it on purpose.”
“Why would he do it on purpose?” asked McCready, his voice neutral.
“No clue. Beautiful wife, high-minded work, plenty of adventure. The perfect life, seems like. I guess you just never know.”
I didn’t join the conversation; I was too busy wondering how the hell I’d recover a victim—or even identifiable parts—from the devastation that lay just beyond my window. Almost as if he’d read my mind, the pilot added, “I don’t reckon you guys’ll be needing a body bag. Couple sandwich bags, more like it.”
Years before, I’d helped recover and identify remains from the wreckage of an air force transport that had hit a cloud-shrouded ridge in the Great Smoky Mountains at high speed. The debris from that crash had been strewn for half a mile, and—on the basis of that experience—I’d expected a similar debris field here. Instead, everything seemed to be contained within a narrow wedge of valley, which sloped away to the north. The valley stretched for miles, but the debris seemed confined to its final, highest hundred yards or so. Judging by the tightness of the wreckage, the center of impact appeared to be the base of the bluff that formed the valley’s upper terminus—a bluff that rose all the way to the mountain’s ridgeline, where a long line of emergency vehicles was perched. Fire trucks at either end of the line sprayed feathery plumes of water onto the evergreen trees at the margins of the smoldering debris field.
As I studied the destruction, I heard and felt a boom as the mountainside erupted. Chunks of metal and rock hurtled against the shuddering helicopter, and with a crack like a rifle shot, my window shattered into thousands of shards, held together only by a thin film of plastic embedded in the glass. With a yank on the control stick, the pilot spun us away from the mountainside. “Dam-nation,” he yelled. “Thought for a minute I was back in ’Nam. Oxygen cylinder blew, I guess. Sorry. Anybody hurt?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Nothing a quick shower and a clean pair of pants won’t fix.”
McCready glanced back at Kimball and Boatman, who gave him thumbs-up signals. “We’re all fine,” he told the pilot. His words sounded calm, but I noticed that his voice was pitched half an octave higher than normal.
The pilot lofted us above the ridge and then eased down toward a flat, rectangular surface—a concrete pad, I saw as we descended, its surface weather-beaten and cracking, a cluster of battered meteorological instruments huddled at one corner. He landed the big machine softly—tenderly, almost—as if to make up for his earlier recklessness and our near-death experience.
I heard the inner echo of Kathleen’s recent words—carpe diem—and also heard myself adding a silent “thank you.” But for what, and to whom? To the helicopter pilot, for not quite killing us just now? To Kathleen, for being a loving wife and loyal friend for thirty years? To God, for blessing me—far beyond all deserving—with a fine family, good health, and work that I loved doing?
Maybe all of them, I realized as the turbine spooled down. All of those, and more besides. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.