Light Snow Falling, Dave Robinson [different ereaders .txt] 📗

encouragement and an offer of any of the resources from the church.
Bess picked up the phone on its second ring. “This is Lieutenant Scott from the Troopers’ Barracks,” he announced himself. “The weather report says that there will be improving weather day after tomorrow. This storm system will have blown itself out and then there’ll be a clearing period. We’ll resume searching then.”
She thanked him. True to his word, he had kept her posted from time to time on the search and the weather report.
Lieutenant Scott called his dispatcher and asked her to start making phone calls. The search would resume when the weather cleared.


Chapter 11

“The ELT”

The next morning, Alex rose and stoked the fire. Two of the MREs were breakfast entrees. Since they both read “Scrambled eggs and ham,” she opened both packets and mixed them together in the skillet.
Cappy remarked that he could see much better. “Things are still a little fuzzy, but I can see much better than yesterday. Maybe in a day or two I’ll take up needlepoint,” he hadn’t lost his sense of humor. Or maybe he was getting it back.
After breakfast Alex gathered up the fishing gear. There was a collapsible rod and reel that had been in the emergency box. There was also a selection of artificial lures in the fishing gear. “Which one of these lures should I use?” she asked Cappy.
“Probably doesn’t matter,” Cappy said thoughtfully. “Those fish have never seen an artificial lure; they’d probably bite on a bare hook. But try one, if it doesn’t work, change to something else.”
Alex nodded her understanding and started out the door. Cappy stopped her. “Hand me that ELT would you please? Also slide the tool kit over here. And oh, by the way, don’t catch more fish than we can eat in one meal. We’ve got no place to store the leftovers,” he said with a smile.
She passed him the things he requested and stepped outside.
Alex made her way down to the lake. She chose to follow the creek and then walked out on a small point of land. She clipped a spinner to the snap swivel and flipped the bail out of the way. With a snap of the wrist she cast the spinner out in the lake. Cranking the reel, she kept the spinner moving through the water. Nothing. She tried it again. Bam! No sooner had the spinner hit the water and a fish hit the hook. Hard! The tip of the pole bent way over as Alex set the hook and began playing the fish. The fish jumped clear out of the water. Alex kept cranking and pulling. Within a few minutes the fish was lying on the sandy lake shore. Alex worked the hook loose, laid the fish up on the bank and turned back to the lake. She flipped the spinner out in the water and it was like the fish had been waiting for it. Minutes later the second fish lay on the beach.
Alex decided that two would be plenty for a meal. She broke off a small stick, slipped it through the gills of both fish and carried them up to the cabin. Laying the fish on the front step, Alex stepped inside.
“Back already?” Cappy asked.
“Limited out.” Alex replied. “I guess I need to clean ‘em, don’t I?”
“Knife’s on the table.”
She picked up the knife and stepped outside. She had watched her Daddy clean fish dozens of times, but she never had done it herself.
In a few moments she had off cut their heads, “Eeeew!” she exclaimed. Then she slit the underbellies and cleared out the innards. Rinsing the fish in the creek, she carried them inside.
“I have no idea what kind of fish these are,” Alex reported, “But they should make a pretty good meal.”
“Probably char or grayling,” Cappy said. “Either one is pretty good eatin’.”
Alex took the aluminum foil from the cupboard and pulled off two strips. She wrapped each fish tightly and laid them in the windowsill to keep cool until dinner time.
“Alex, come over here,” Cappy asked. “I need you to take a look at this ELT.”
Alex moved to the table. Cappy had taken the back off the ELT and exposed the battery.
“This is supposed to have a battery backup,” Cappy said. “I think something’s wrong here. Can you see anything in there?”
Alex took the ELT in her hand and squinted in the battery compartment. “Does the battery come out?” she asked.
“It should, but I couldn’t see it well enough to release it,” Cappy said.
Alex slid the battery to one side and it came loose in her hand. “There it is.” She announced.
“Here,” Cappy handed her the flashlight, “Look in there to see if you can see anything wrong.”
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
“Anything out of order. Like a broken wire or a burnt wire, or something else broken.”
“Hmm,” Alex said, “Looks like maybe a burned spot in this wire.” She paused a moment then, “Oops! That’s not right.”
“What is it? What do you see?” Cappy said curiously.
“Well, the burned wire just fell out,” Alex reported. “Do you suppose that’s a problem?”
Cappy shrugged, “I do suppose that’s a problem. Here, let me see it.”
Alex handed it over, “Here’s the broken wire.” She handed it to him.
“No wonder it wasn’t working,” Cappy said. “The wire must have burned when the electronics caught fire.” Cappy changed the subject, “While you were fishing I turned on the weather radio.”
“So what’s the forecast?”
“We’re in for one more day of overcast, then several days of clear weather.” Cappy said. “It’s my guess that they’re going to re-start the search when it clears up. If they’re going to find us, that’s when it’ll happen.”
“So it clears up sometime day after tomorrow,” Alex replied thoughtfully. “I need to get that bonfire ready to light. I’ll do that right after we eat lunch.”
Alex used the hatchet to split a fair-sized stack of kindling. Then she shoveled out a hole in the snow down to bare ground that was big enough to build a good sized bonfire. Using two of Cappy’s fire starter pellets, she laid a stack of kindling, then some bigger wood, and finally she covered the whole pile with a big mound of evergreen boughs. Like Cappy said, that would generate the smoke the searchers needed to pinpoint their location. She made sure that the kindling wouldn’t get wet by covering it with plastic from the MREs. When she was done, she stepped back and admired her handiwork. “Hope that does it,” she said aloud.
Back inside the cabin, Cappy was rummaging through his tool kit.
“Whatcha looking for?” Alex called out.
“Piece of wire that I can use to fix the ELT,” Cappy answered.
“Here, let me look,” she offered. After a quick look, “Nope, no wire in here.”
“Hmm, we’ve got to have a piece of wire,” Cappy said. “It has to be pretty light, can’t be too heavy because it’s got to fit into a pretty tight space.” Suddenly Cappy’s face brightened as he picked up Alex’ iPod. He pulled the ear bud plug out of the player and held up the wire. “Perfect,” he declared.
“Not my iPod!” Alex protested.
“I’ll buy you a new one.” Cappy promised. “This is the perfect wire. It’s lightweight and very flexible. We need it to repair the ELT, make the battery connection so that it’ll transmit again. It could save our lives, Alex,” he argued his case very convincingly.
“But I can’t hear the music without the ear buds,” she knew she was on the losing end of this argument.
“Thanks, I knew you’d understand,” Cappy declared victory.
Alex retrieved the fish from the window sill. They were nearly frozen. Alex opened the foil and salted and peppered the fish, then rewrapped them again. Using the shovel, she pushed the fire to one side in the stove and laid the fish against the opposite side of the stove. In a few minutes she flipped the packages over to broil the other side. In the meantime she found some rice in the MREs and heated it on top of the stove.
“Dinner’s ready,” she announced. Hot water made coffee for Cappy. Alex dipped some cold water out of the creek and mixed in some sports drink powder.
Together they unwrapped their dinner. Steam poured out. The skin had fallen off and the firm white meat was fully cooked and flaky. The pair ate in silence. Alex still hadn’t fully forgiven Cappy for murdering her iPod. She really did understand, but she enjoyed making him pay. She’d forgive him later.
The fish was excellent. It was a good thing that Alex liked fish. It could get a little tiresome if that’s all they had, but this was really good.
After dinner, Cappy worked on the ELT. He painstakingly stripped back a tiny bit of insulation from each end of the wire. Using the tweezers from the first aid kit, he struggled to get the wire inserted properly. “My eyes just won’t focus here,” Cappy said.
“Want me to try?” Alex offered. “Show me what needs to be done.”
“See that little bit of solder right there?” Cappy pointed with the tweezers. “That end of the wire needs to go right there. The other end connects to that wire. I’m having trouble making them stay in one place. I don’t have a soldering iron.”
“There’s still a little bit of Super Glue left in the first aid kit,” Alex suggested.
“Great idea!” Cappy exclaimed. “That should work.”
Alex put a drop of glue on the end of the wire and pressed it into place. The glue worked. The wire held. “How’s that?” she asked.
“Looks good,” he said. “Now we still need to get the other end connected to that loose wire, but I think we should wait until morning for that. We can let this connection set up over night. That way we’ll be sure that it’s solid.”
Alex nodded her understanding.
“We want to make sure that we do this right,” Cappy explained. “This may be our only chance for them to find us and we want to make the best of it.”
“I agree,” Alex said.
Before long it was time to turn in. Alex packed some wood in the stove, turned down the damper and readied for bed.
“I’ve been thinking about that Ranger Station,” Alex brought up the issue. “I’m willing to give it a try if we can’t get the ELT to work.”
“That’s a long ways to walk in the cold.” Cappy cautioned.
“It’s a long time until next spring too,” Alex rationalized.
“We don’t even know if anyone’s there.” Cappy wanted to make sure that Alex knew what she could be getting into. “Besides, you probably can’t make it in one day. You might have to spend the night in the wild. Think you can handle that?”
“Hmm, that