Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [8]
The chopper capsized, rolling over onto the open rear door. The numbing rush climbed past Deering’s waist.
During his offshore safety training, the clear warmth of a swimming pool had made it easy to do the drill. As the training cage submerged, you reached your right hand for an orientation point on the door handle and placed your left on the seat belt beside the buckle. Not easy to do while they flipped you upside down, so they made you do it until you got it right, or the instructor gave you a break.
Today he couldn’t buy one.
Deering looked down at his left hand in the rising water, at the bandage where he’d had a skin cancer removed three weeks ago. He’d spent a little time thinking about mortality, and had somehow omitted telling his wife, Georgia, about the diagnosis.
Better he should have waited for today if he wanted to think about dying.
His aircraft rolled upside down and he tried to keep track of his life jacket.
Wait . . . wait . . .
All those years, Georgia had waited and worried, first during Nam when a shitload of guys got Dear Johns, then later when he’d flown timber charters and forest fires all over the West. Petite Georgia’s coppery hair shone like the sun, even at night. Today she was probably at their home in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho tending her summer garden beside the Portneuf River.
Cold water covered Deering’s mouth and nose.
Count it out. One cucumber, two cucumber.
At least to eight while the craft’s inverted.
Deering pushed on the door handle. The force of water pressed back.
Hell, he hadn’t done anything by the book today. Why not swim out through the rear door?
Halfway through the space between the front seats, he found out why not as his flight suit snagged on the collective. He told himself he had plenty of air, that it had only been around twenty seconds since the water had flooded his face. The lake was clear, but he couldn’t see anything through the rush of bubbles.
Pressure and darkness came down and desperation swelled. The chopper dropped steadily while he tried to ease the pain in his ears by clearing them. As the water grew colder, he kicked harder, smacking his head smartly on his way out through the rear door.
Free of the cabin, Deering fought toward the surface, still carrying the life jacket. He secured the strap around his wrist and pulled down hard on the toggles that inflated it. The extra lift nearly tore it away, but he managed to hold on as he accelerated through the brightening water.
His head broke the surface and he inhaled deeply, enjoying the draught better than the first sip of any beer he’d ever cracked. Before he could celebrate, he had more trouble. He struggled to lay the unwieldy vest open on the water and get his right hand through it. His arm, already growing heavy and numb, would not slide into the hole. Hugging the vest to his chest, he floated on his back.
Smoke billowed into the sky; an ironic parody of the towering cumulus that everyone prayed might bring rain.
Deering raised his head to see how far it was to the timbered shore. It looked like a long goddamn swim. The old adage about staying with the aircraft didn’t apply when it was probably still drifting down through the almost three hundred feet of water his map had indicated was in West Thumb.
Georgia would be crazy. The Bell was a long way from paid for and the insurance company was going to be all over his ass.
He stirred his arms and legs, treading water in a three-sixty looking for Steve Haywood. His spirits sank further as he remembered that his passenger’s life vest rested beneath the left front seat of the Bell, on its way to the bottom.
CHAPTER TWO
July 25
What