SURVIVE - Love and Murder in Alaska

“There he is!”

A thickly gloved hand pointed out a distant approaching aircraft to the others.

In the biting cold of unforgiving weather, three men, their faces hidden beneath frosted fur hooded parkas, stood atop the Alaska bluff. They followed the pointing hand, squinting into the wind and ice flecks hitting their cheeks. Their boots crunched in the snow, breath clouding the air as they stamped their feet for warmth and craned their necks up at the distant hum of the approaching airplane.

Around them, the snowy terrain was a canvas of untouched wilderness, sparkling everywhere with ice crystals. Only their snowmobile tracks crisscrossing the slope below in a tangled web disturbed it—proof of their long ride up from the snowcapped forest below.

The sky above was a gray overcast, and worse was coming. In the wind, the evergreen branches waved as if applauding the men’s successful ascent to this wintry precipice. For men seldom ride this deep into the wilderness unless something valuable waited at the end of it.

From this high up, the bluff they were standing on offered a breathtaking view to the west of the vast expanse of silver-blue Pacific waters that seemed to go on forever. Here, Malaspina Glacier loomed; to the northwest, Hubbard Glacier rose like a wall of white granite.

“Break out the landing flares,” Samuel Wells’ voice, slightly muffled by wind and gear, ordered.

He’d insisted on a late landing. Men killed for money here—especially for a plane carrying a bulldozer that could turn a mountain into a river of gold. When those at Ingalls heard that plane come in for this landing, they might want to investigate and hijack his cargo. Too late in the day now and too far to reach here before dark.

About now, those undesirables should all be headed back to John Ingalls’ general store by day and a saloon by night, both out of the same building. There, they’d get drunk and pound on the piano while bidding on John’s hooker, Kate. If all went as expected, it should be safe for the plane to land.

But if it crashed, there’d be no bulldozer and no way to work his new claim. All that money gone. Simple as that.

A hand reached into the box. Fingers found the flare. Drew it free.

Get that plane and bulldozer down safe.

Above them, pilot Tom Bodeen’s eyes remained fastened on the snow-shrouded mountain ahead. Behind him in his plane’s 50‑foot cargo bay sat a brand‑new Struck combination bulldozer/backhoe.

Global warming having created new creeks combined with the high price of gold had drawn a fresh wave of fortune seekers here. All one needed was a sluice box and a bulldozer or backhoe to placer mine it. Yet no one had been able to get one up here by road.

So Tom was delivering one by the only means left possible—land it. As the only bulldozer in the new gold fields, it was one mighty valuable prize—and the reason he was being paid so much to deliver it.

Yet for Tom, this wasn’t just about the money. It was about proving the landing could be done at all.

The wind screamed in objection, rattling the plane’s fuselage, ice crystals forming on the windshield. The engines howled in defiance, their relentless roar in his ears like two beasts drowning each other out. This was his machine of death or survival, pitted now against a wilderness that cared nothing for the outcome.

Below him, the forest stretched out, a sea of frosted firs standing under a white carpet, while the mountain loomed above, jagged and unforgiving. He felt his mouth dry with every passing second.

This would be no ordinary landing. It would be a daring meeting between man and mountain. Setting down halfway up a glacier peak was a dangerous thrill where one held their breath until it was over—one way or another.

Tom’s gaze shifted to the vertical speed indicator, his alarm against the lurking threat of a downdraft wanting to force his plane down and crash. If a pilot gets caught in one over a mountain, survival becomes a gamble with fate—one that most don’t win.

To be safe, he approached the mountain at an angle. If he encountered a downdraft, he still had room to turn away.

The descent was precarious. Cold, harsh light from outside blinded the warm glow from his instruments. His hands gripped the controls, steady despite the imminent danger below.

One wrong move, and everything would be chaos. His margin for error wasn’t measured in moments, but in feet—precise, calculated decisions that had to be made now.

The mountain loomed, in icy blues, whites, and grays, but Tom met it with the same cool resolve that had kept him alive through countless flights before. This would be a tricky landing—true—but it wasn’t beyond his skill.

The approach of the aircraft, the unforgiving mountain, and the wild elements all served to key up his senses. Amidst the engines’ noise and the frozen wilderness stretching before him, Tom braced himself for whatever fate awaited.

The ice below waited with a hunger for metal as if it had tasted it before.

“He’s on course,” Samuel Wells called as the other two men prepared the flare, the distant aircraft engine hum building in volume.

As the airplane drew nearer its engines’ roar broke the quiet stillness of the snow-covered mountain. A gloved hand struck the flare—sparks, ignition, a red bloom of flame. Its light pierced through the cold, illuminating their faces with an eerie glow against the glaring white snow.

Exhaling frozen vapor breath, the man holding it took a step back, waiting with anticipation.

“He's coming in,” he breathed.

The airplane, headed straight for their mountain, banked left high overhead to avoid it and turned out to sea, only to circle back, as the men lit another flare. This time it descended much lower, roaring overhead by barely 200 feet, before turning away again, its engines fading.

When it turned back for another pass, its engines slowed and its landing lights came on.

The first snowflake fell—lazy, out of place, and ill‑timed.

Cuny tracked the plane’s descent, breath held against the cold. “Will he make it?”

“He’s the best pilot there is,” Samuel answered, as if the mountain had no opinion.

The men now hastily mounted their snowmobiles, the engines roaring to life. They scattered in three different directions—north, northwest, and west.

Their headlights cut through the first hint of lightly falling snow, and then they each stopped to set off their own flare, creating a rectangular marked-out area of four burning, bright flares on the snow, a crude beacon to guide the approaching plane.

Samuel watched. One mistake, and a fortune lost.

It was out of his hands now, squarely in Bodeen’s. Even if the pilot managed to put the plane down, once it stopped, it might slide backwards on its skis on the ice and plunge off a cliff. Even if it didn't, he'd have to find a way to turn it around for takeoff. Fortunately, none of that was his problem. It was Bodeen’s.

Yet, bravely, the plane and its pilot pressed on, steadily descending and putting down its flaps, extending them like a falcon’s banking wings to slow the plane further. Samuel saw it catch the last updraft past the tree line, climbing just enough to meet the slope. Bodeen was threading a needle and Samuel knew it.

He felt the other two beside him watch with bated breath, as if on the precipice of witnessing the impossible—an airplane landing on the side of a mountain.

Amidst the unfolding drama, a sudden, insistent beeping noise emanated from Samuel Wells’ parka pocket, signaling an incoming satellite call.

Too busy now, he didn’t answer.

He'd never live long enough to return the call.

Elinor Wells set down her satellite phone. Steam curled from the kettle on the stove. Her husband hadn’t answered.

“Help me clean the house,” she told her daughter from their house kitchen usually filled with the pleasant aroma of steamy blueberry pancakes and the sizzling smell of hot bacon. “And bring in extra firewood. We might be having company.”

She didn’t look at Marianne when she said it. She looked at the door, as though expecting someone to arrive.

“Who would that be?” her daughter, Marianne, asked. They rarely had guests.

“Your father hired a bush pilot from Juneau for a delivery today.”

As she spoke, she squinted through the kitchen window, her breath fogging the glass as she checked the weather. It was already clouding over, the cold gray sky a sign her plan was still in place. Snow should force Samuel’s hand.

“I thought they were meeting up on the Osawa slope?”

“They are, but we should be prepared just in case they come back here tonight with their pilot,” Elinor told her.

With the plane due to land soon, Samuel was probably too busy directing the landing to answer her call.

She ran her hand over the blond butcher block countertops to check for any missed dried blackberry jam or leftover sugar grains from making pies.

“I thought father never invited anyone over. Why now?”

Elinor’s cloth paused mid‑wipe. “I asked your father to invite him here. He’s making a late landing, and the weather’s turning. Better he stay here than fly back in the dark.”

Marianne considered this for a moment, her mother’s words sinking in. “That’s probably a good idea, Mother. It already looks like snow.”

Elinor smiled, grateful that her daughter was receptive to the idea. Setting out a clean dish towel as if preparing for company were the most natural thing in the world, she added, “Besides, one should always be gracious.”

Marianne didn’t argue. She even helped put things away. “Who is the pilot?”

Elinor hesitated, then decided to tell her.

“Tom Bodeen.”

Marianne wasn’t an expert on freight pilots, but she seemed to remember his name. Her expression turned to curiosity.

“That name sounds familiar,” she noted in distant recognition while drying and putting away the glassware. “Why is that? Do I know him?”

Elinor watched for Marianne’s reaction. “No. You’ve never met. You might have heard of him, young, successful, liked by all.”

“Is he married?”

“No.”

Elinor had asked her husband to invite him precisely because he was single, a fact her daughter quickly picked up on.

“How old is he?”

“Oh! I don’t know,” Elinor said, scrubbing now to remove the coffee and hot chocolate stains out of the bottom of one of their white mugs while choosing her words with care. “Somewhere between twenty or thirty, I suppose.”

That got Marianne’s interest.

“Really? What sort of fellow is he?”

“Expensive, that’s for certain,” Elinor replied. “Your father has to pay extra for him.”

Marianne paused, mid-task, at the “expensive” comment—the dish towel frozen mid-air as the weight of her mother’s words settled in.

Marianne had seen the men that worked around here—grizzled and hardened by years of scraping a living from the wilderness. No one ever referred to them as “expensive”, only as “cheap.” They were the sort who talked rough and drank harder, the kind her father had qualms about her meeting.

But this—Tom Bodeen—he sounded different. He wasn’t from around here, wasn’t one of the failed miners or hunting guides. He was someone who commanded a price. Elinor could see it made her pause.

“I can look him up,” offered Marianne, wanting to learn more about him. She got out her iPad and connected it to their Wi-Fi satellite internet connection. Though slow, clunky and costly, they’d finally gotten service three years ago. “Where is he from?”

“Juneau.”

Elinor gave a secretive smile, knowing what her daughter would find. She’d already looked him up herself. Her plan was for him and her daughter to meet. Yet her husband equally planned that they didn’t.

He didn’t want his daughter meeting some bush pilot with a short life expectancy. That there was no one else out here desirable worth her meeting was not an excuse in his mind. To his way of thinking, when she was old enough to leave the house and live on her own, she could meet anyone she wanted.

Yet Elinor’s own mind remained unchanged. Marianne was getting too big for her britches and the lowlifes that passed for men in the mining camps around here were looking good to her, her having no common sense about them at all.

Another argument with Samuel was coming. Elinor could feel it. This time, it might boil over. Their differing opinions over Marianne had been a simmering brew for some time. She wasn’t looking forward to a fight, especially with Marianne likely to overhear, but if he didn’t want one, he had best bring Bodeen home with him tonight.

She had planned and thought about this too long. It just might very well prove worth the argument with Samuel for Marianne to meet a worthwhile man.

Outside, the wind rose. Elinor paced, tension mounting, wondering if her plan to invite Tom Bodeen wouldn’t be worth the angry storm with Samuel just to get it out in the open.

The clock on the wall ticked.

Bodeen should be landing right about now.