Charon's Crossing

And if, in the process, there was a certain pleasure in watching the imperious Miss Russell brought to heel, well, so be it.

Childish squeals interrupted Amos's thoughts. He looked around and saw a rag-tag band of children racing towards him in hot pursuit of a pair of wild-eyed goats.

Amos danced back sharply but not quickly enough to keep one of the goats from brushing his leg as it bounded past. He glared at the fleeing animal and at the shrieking children, who looked almost as untamed and unkempt as their prey.

Angrily, he whisked his hand across the impeccable crease in his white trousers, brushing away goat hair and something he hoped was only dust.

"Miserable little creatures," he muttered. And, just at that moment, he heard the approaching drone of an airplane.

Amos looked up. Finally, there it was, the ancient red and white Cessna 402 that was Elizabeth Island's solitary acceptance of the fast pace of the modern world.

The plane dipped woozily towards the pink airstrip, the wings waggling as it zoomed over the heads of the children and the goats.

The children laughed and Amos could only assume the pilot was laughing, too. As far as he could tell after ten years here, only crazies flew this run.

Amos looked at the plane as it wobbled to a stop.

Welcome to Elizabeth Island, Miss Russell, he thought.

For the first time all day, he smiled.

* * *

Kathryn peered out the window, saw the ground whooshing towards her, saw a blur of waving children and frantic animals coming closer, and decided her life was about to end.

She shrank back in her seat, shut her eyes, and did what she'd done most of the trip from Grenada.

She prayed.

The flight had been a horror from the minute she'd transferred planes, leaving behind the air-conditioned terminal to search for something called the Out-Island Shuttle.

She had expected to find something like the efficient commuter craft that flew between New York and Boston. What she'd found instead was a plane that looked as if it should have flown by rubber-band power.

The pilot, in oil-stained khakis, had taken her luggage and tossed it into the rear of the tiny aircraft. Then he'd told her to find a seat and put on her seat belt.

After an hour of roasting in the sun, the plane had lurched into the sky, carrying Kathryn, three passengers who chattered to each other in something that was not quite Spanish, and a piglet and a crate of live chickens.

The flight had been terrifying. The plane had dipped low over the water, lurching upwards unsteadily whenever an island loomed ahead. The piglet had squealed, the chickens had squawked, and the passengers had muttered under their breaths while they'd crossed themselves.

That they'd survived the trip was almost impossible to believe. That they were to land on what looked like a pale pink ribbon stretched between scrub-covered hills that began at the edge of a cliff was even harder to accept, especially since it seemed they were going to make mincemeat out bf a bunch of children and a couple of goats in the process.

Kathryn could see the children laughing as the plane skimmed past. The animals' eyes rolled with fear.

I'm with you, she thought grimly.

But somehow, the plane's wheels touched down safely. The engines made a slow, groaning sound and then, mercifully, the Cessna shuddered to a stop.

"That's it, folks," the pilot said as he turned towards them. "Welcome to Elizabeth Island."

Kathryn's fellow passengers were already rushing for the exit. She'd have rushed, too, if her knees hadn't felt like rubber.

The pilot was just tossing her suitcase out onto the runway when she got to the door. She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. What was the sense? It was too late to do anything but grit her teeth and get on with what she'd come here to do.

Stepping out of the plane was like stepping into a furnace.

The heat seemed to lick up from her toes and coil its way around her like a living thing. The air was flame, searing her lungs as she breathed it in. The crisp linen of her pale yellow suit was surely wilting.

She glanced at her suitcase, still lying on the runway, then shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around her. There was nothing out there but blue sky and green grass. If the taxi she'd requested was anywhere within hailing distance, she certainly couldn't see it.