She mechanically obeyed the terse commands this Cooper Landry issued in a voice without feeling or inflection. He must be a robot, she decided. He revealed no emotion whatsoever as he dragged the bodies to the common grave that he’d been able to dig using his knife and the small hatchet he found in a toolbox beneath the pilot’s seat. He piled stones over the shallow grave when he was finished.
“Shouldn’t we say something?” Rusty stared down at the barbaric pile of colorless stones, put there to protect the bodies of the five men from scavenging animals.
“Say something? Like what?”
“Like a scripture. A prayer.”
He shrugged negligently as he cleaned the blade of his knife. “I don’t know any scriptures. And my prayers ran out a long time ago.” Turning his back on the grave, he stamped back toward the airplane.
Rusty mouthed a hasty prayer before turning to follow him. More than anything, she feared being left alone again. If she let the man out of her sight, he might desert her.
That was unlikely, however. At least not right away. He was reeling with fatigue and on the verge of fainting. “Why don’t you lie down and rest?” she suggested. Her strength had deserted her long ago. She was running only on adrenaline now.
“Because night’s coming on fast,” he said. “We’ve got to remove the seats of the plane so we’ll have room to stretch out in there. Otherwise you might have to spend a night in the great outdoors for the first time in your life.” He sarcastically added the last as an afterthought before reentering the airplane. Moments later, Rusty heard him cursing viciously. He came out, his brows drawn together in a fierce scowl.
“What’s the matter?”
He held his hand up in front of her face. It was wet. “Fuel.”
“Fuel?”
“Flammable fuel,” he said, impatient with her ignorance. “We can’t stay in there. One spark and we’ll be blown to China.”
“Then don’t build a fire.”
He glared at her. “Once it gets dark, you’ll want a fire,” he said scornfully. “Besides, all it would take is a spark from anything. One piece of metal could scrape against another and we’d be history.”
“What do we do?”
“We take what we can and move.”
“I thought it was always best to stay with the airplane. I heard or read that once. Search parties will be looking for a downed plane. How will they find us if we leave the crash site?”
He cocked his head arrogantly. “You want to stay? Fine, stay. I’m going. But I’d better warn you that I don’t think there’s any water near here. The first thing I’m going to do in the morning is look for water.”
His know-it-all attitude was insufferable. “How do you know there’s no water?”
“No animal tracks around. I suppose you could exist on rainwater for as long as it held out, but who knows how long that will be.”
When and how had he noticed that there were no animal tracks around? She hadn’t even thought to look. In fact, having no water was almost as frightening as having to cope with wild animals to get it. Search for water? How did one go about that? Wild animals? How would she defend herself if one attacked?
She’d die without him. After several moments of deliberation, that was the grim conclusion she reached. She had no choice but to go along with whatever survival tactics he knew and be grateful that he was there to implement them.
Swallowing her pride, she said, “All right, I’ll go with you.” He didn’t even glance up or otherwise acknowledge her. She had no way of knowing whether he was glad or sorry over her decision. By all appearances, he was indifferent. He was already making a pile of things he’d salvaged from the wreckage. Determined not to be ignored, Rusty knelt down beside him. “What can I do to help?”
He nodded toward the luggage compartment of the aircraft. “Go through the luggage. Everybody’s. Take whatever might come in handy later.” He handed her several tiny suitcase keys, which he had obviously taken off the bodies before he buried them.
She glanced warily at the suitcases. Some had already popped open as a result of the crash. The victims’ personal belongings lay strewn on the damp ground. “Isn’t that...violating their privacy? Their families might resent—”
He spun around so suddenly that she nearly toppled over backward. “Will you grow up and face facts?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Look around. Do you know what our chances are of coming out of this alive? I’ll tell you: Nil. But before I go down, I’m going to fight like hell to stay alive. It’s a habit I have.”
His face moved closer to hers. “This isn’t a Girl Scout outing gone awry; this is survival, lady. Etiquette and propriety be damned. If you tag along with me, you’ll do what I tell you to, when I tell you to. Got that? And there won’t be any time to spend on sentiment. Don’t waste tears on those who didn’t make it. They’re gone and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Now, move your butt and get busy doing what I told you to do.”
He shoved her away from him and began collecting pelts that the hunters had been taking home as trophies. There was mostly caribou, but also white wolf, beaver, and one small mink.
Holding back bitter tears of mortification and accumulated distress, Rusty bent over the suitcases and began sorting through their contents as she’d been instructed. She wanted to strike out at him. She wanted to collapse in a heap and bawl her eyes out. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her do either. Nor would she provide him with an excuse to leave her behind; he would probably grab at the flimsiest.
A half-hour later she carried her findings and added them to the pile of articles he had gathered. Apparently he approved of her selection, which included two flasks of liquor. She couldn’t identify it by the smell, but Cooper wasn’t particular. He seemed to enjoy the healthy drink he took from one of the flasks. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. He had a strong neck, and a solid, square jaw. Typical, she thought peevishly, of all stubborn mules.