Lonnie suddenly winced and pressed a hand on her belly.
“You okay?” Hilde asked.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “Little Marcus is just trying to tunnel his way out through my belly button.”
“Why do you always give the child my name when it hurts you?”
“Because I love you, baby,” she replied as they exited the elevator.
“Okay, here we are,” Marcus said. “See you guys upstairs at dinner.”
From their room on the nineteenth floor, they were able to see almost the entire city of Anchorage, as well as the surrounding Chugach Mountains. To an Alaskan, it was par for the course. But for a couple from Ohio, especially Hilde, who had never been west of the Mississippi, it was breathtaking.
Hilde picked up a brochure from the nightstand that listed some facts about the city of Anchorage. The entirety of the city rests at the edge of a compact triangle of low land at the end of Cook Inlet. The Chugach Mountains to the east and the salt water of Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm, northern limits of the Pacific Ocean, flank the city, forming the sides of the triangle. The Knik Arm is a mostly flat, calm inlet fed from the mouth of the Matanuska River. Turnagain, on the other hand, is a beautiful mountainous fjord that sports some of the highest tides in the world and is home to pods of beluga whales and other creatures. It got its name from William Bligh of HMS Bounty fame, who was a young officer on Cook’s ship. Tasked with finding the Northwest Passage, he found himself turned around yet again at the end of the body of water, hence the name. The city of Anchorage itself, founded as a railroad depot village in 1914, eventually grew to become the home of nearly half a million residents. It was devastated by a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in 1964, the second-largest earthquake in the history of the world, but quickly and fully recovered and today, Anchorage is home to fifty percent of Alaska’s population.
“Interesting history,” Mike said.
Hilde folded the pamphlet and placed it back on the nightstand.
“I love this view,” she said, staring out the window at the mountains.
“Me too.”
She turned and saw that he was staring at her.
“Mr. Farris,” she said with a coy swish of her hip, “are you being flirtatious?”
“Yes, ma’am. Dinner isn’t for two more hours.”
She sauntered over to the bed. “Then let’s have dessert first.”
Chapter 3
“Too bad you can’t come with us, Lonnie,” Hilde said. “It would be nice to have another girl along.”
“Something tells me little Marcus will make any camping adventure pretty miserable for me,” Lonnie said as she watched Marcus load the bags into the plane.
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “I don't think the plane can carry all of the food she'd need to bring along for the two of them.”
“Anyway,” Lonnie said, looking sideways at him, “I've been where you are going. You'll love it. It’s beautiful. But while you're enjoying that wonder of creation, I've got a wedding to attend here in town. So I won't be lonely.”
“Hopefully we can spend some time together after we get back,” Hilde said. “You seem like someone I can talk to. Most other women shy away from me once they find out what I do for a living.”
“I know what you mean, sister,” Lonnie said. “Until Marcus came back to save me, I could hardly get a dinner date or have a girls night out without someone being afraid I'd bust them for something.”
Hilde looked at the aircraft before them, took a deep breath, and let out a nervous sigh. “I can't believe you talked me into going up in a boat plane.”
“Float plane, honey,” Mike said.
“It's just as safe as a regular plane,” Lonnie said. “Either way, it's a fifty-fifty chance.”
“Oh, that helps,” Hilde said. “Thanks a lot.”
“That's what I do best,” Lonnie said. “Instill confidence.”
“This thing has been accident free since 1952,” Marcus said.
“1952?” A nervous smile quivered on Hilde’s lips. “This thing is sixty years old, built the year my parents were born, you call it a Beaver, and you want to take me and Mike to the tallest mountain in North America in it?”
“It's perfectly safe,” Marcus patted the engine cowling. “I've got all the state inspection certificates, if you would like to look them over.”
“Don't worry, Hilde,” Lonnie said. “It really is safe, probably safer than driving a new car on the highway. I ride in it all the time.”
“I'll get in, but only because you say so, Lonnie.”
“C'mon, honey,” Mike said. “It’s a Beaver — you know, buck teeth, diligent dam builder.”
“Safest of all animals.” Marcus completed the preflight inspection and gave them the all clear to load up.
“Why don’t you sit up front, Hilde,” Mike said. “You’ll be less likely to get airsick.”
She climbed into the plane, surprised to find that it was larger than it appeared from the outside. As she buckled in, Mike motioned from the back seat to the radio headset hanging on a hook above her.
“You’ll need that if you want to hear anything other than the engine.”
She put on the headset and glanced out the window as Lonnie loosed the mooring line and tossed it to Marcus where he stood on the pontoon. He tied it off, and the plane rocked as he climbed into the seat and started the engine. The 450 horse power Pratt and Whitney engine rumbled to life with a throaty roar, drowning out every other sound. Marcus pulled away from the dock and taxied into the lake. Hilde stiffened, pressing her shoulder blades into the seat as the plane rocked on the shallow swells caused by its own wake.
“You look nervous,” Marcus’s voice sounded tinny over the headphones. “Just relax. It's smoother than taking off from the land, and wait till you see the landing.”
She acknowledged him with a nervous smile, then leaned back. Marcus pushed the throttle forward and the engine's roar increased tenfold, drowning out every other sensation. Her knuckles glowed bright white as she gripped the armrests. The thirty-foot-long craft glided over the water. When Hilde opened her eyes, she was surprised to discover they were already several hundred feet above the ground. She glanced sideways out the window, then back toward Mike. He grinned at her and winked with an “I told you it would be fine” look.
The city of Anchorage descended beneath them as they climbed into the clear blue summer sky. Within moments, she could see hundreds of miles in every direction. Her mouth gaped in wonder at the immensity of the wilderness around her. She had flown frequently as part of her job, but only around the eastern half of the country, and never in anything smaller than a 727. Every time she had been in the air, it felt as though the ground beneath her was a patchwork quilt of multicolored squares and rectangles bordered by trees, roads, and power lines. In Alaska, outside of the few small cities and towns, there are no farms, no borders, no boundaries, no squares or straight lines. Even the roads meander like winding estuaries of asphalt and gravel. She found herself having to rethink her perception of what the earth looked like.
Perpetually ice-capped mountain ranges and gray-green scribbles of river mark the closest thing to boundaries, intertwining and caressing one another to a point of barely discernible division. The whole of Alaska is one massive place with no end and no limits as far as the eye can see. Time seemed suspended as Hilde stared in awe at the magnificence of the scenery. Ahead of them, Mt. McKinley, a stocky white nub on the horizon when they took off, rose like a waking giant. Her breath caught in her chest at the sight. The late-morning sun cast its powerful beams against the blue-and-white surface of the great mass of rock until it glowed as bright as a terrestrial-bound sun.