Chapter 20

Betsy awoke as a result of a hand shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes to find Sharon kneeling over her. The light was just barely bright enough from outside to see Sharon. The woman put her forefinger on her lips in the universal gesture not to say a word. She then beckoned Betsy with a finger to follow her out of the plane.

Curious, Betsy followed the woman. False dawn was rapidly approaching. It brought with it enough light to see her surroundings fairly well. She could leave for town anytime now.

Sharon said, “I’m spotting.”

Betsy looked blankly at Sharon. She had no clue what that meant.

Sharon repeated herself, “I’m spotting.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Betsy said.

“I’m bleeding from my ... uh ... vagina,” Sharon said.

“Oh, my. That’s not good.”

“I know.”

Kneeling by the remains of the fire, Betsy said, “We’re going to have to get you to a hospital.”

“I know.”

Betsy blew on a couple of embers. A small flame suddenly popped up and she dropped a little wood on it. She had no idea what time it was, but she did know that it was light enough for her to get underway. She glanced at the plane.

“I’ll be right back,” Betsy said.

She ran into the plane and woke up Millie and Melvin. She gestured for them to go outside. They followed her out of the plane curious as to why she had woken them.

Betsy said, “Sharon is in trouble. I’ve got to get her to the hospital.”

“So you’re leaving, now?” Melvin asked.

“We’re leaving now,” Betsy said gesturing over at Sharon.

“We are?” Sharon asked.

“Let Jimmy know that his mother has gone with me,” Betsy said.

Sharon said, “I can’t go. I’ll slow you down.”

Sharon was still using the crutch Betsy had made for her. Her hip and leg still hurt. There was no way that she was going to be able to walk thirty-five miles in two days, much less one day.

Jimmy stepped out out of the plane. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re bleeding,” Jimmy said looking at his mother.

“I know,” Sharon said.

“I’m taking her to a hospital,” Betsy said.

“Then get going,” Jimmy said thinking that the sooner she left the sooner she would return with help for his mother.

“I’ve got to take care of the fire before I go,” Betsy said.

He glanced over at the fire and said, “I’ll take care of it.”

“I’ve got to check on the men who’ve been injured,” Betsy said.

Melvin said, “We’ll take care of the men in the plane.”

Millie said, “We aren’t exactly helpless.”

“Okay,” Betsy said. She turned around and said, “Sharon, get on my back.”

“What?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital. Get on my back,” Betsy said.

“You are going to carry me thirty five miles,” Sharon asked incredulously.

Betsy said, “Yes. Let’s go.”

Thinking she would show Betsy how hopeless it was, Sharon climbed onto Betsy’s back such that she was riding piggyback. She figured Betsy would stagger forward a couple of feet and then change her mind.

“I’ll be back late tonight, or early tomorrow,” Betsy said shifting a little so that she had a good hold of Sharon.

“Sure,” Melvin said not believing her.

“Hold on.”

“Okay,” Sharon said rolling her eyes.

She almost fell off when Betsy took off at a run. She tightened her hold. Melvin, Millie, and Jimmy watched her run off, unable to believe their eyes.

Jimmy asked, “Is she superwoman or something?”

“I don’t know. I’d never’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it,” Melvin said.

“Your mother is going to be okay,” Millie said putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“I know.”

Melvin said, “We didn’t even have a chance to give her the meat we set aside for her last night.”

“I don’t think she would have taken it,” Jimmy said.

“You’re probably right,” Melvin said.

Cal came out of the airplane chewing on some meat. When everyone looked at him, he said, “I found it in the plane.”

Millie muttered, “Asshole.”

Betsy settled down to a nice steady mile eating pace. The ground wasn’t too rough, the trees were spaced far enough apart that she didn’t have to maneuver much to avoid them, and the branches were pretty high. Sharon had adjusted her hold so that Betsy could breathe. Betsy was supporting Sharon’s legs with her hands.

Betsy asked, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” Sharon said.

She didn’t feel that bad. She was still having occasional cramps. She was more worried about the baby than herself. She prayed that it wasn’t too late.

“Don’t worry. She’s still doing okay. She’s a little weak, but she’s okay,” Betsy said.

“How can you carry me, run, and talk?”

“When I was training for my first Olympics, I used to carry my little brother Eddie on my back like this. He was a little lighter than you are; but I’m a lot stronger now, than I was then,” Betsy said.

“You were in the Olympics?”

“Three of them so far,” Betsy said. “I competed in mostly track and field, although I did do a little swimming and martial arts.”

“Did you get any gold medals?”

“Lots of them.”

“Wow.”

“I just realized something. They are all still in the safe back in Arizona. I ought to have them sent to my home in Hawaii so that I can hang them on the wall or something,” Betsy said.

“I’ve never met anyone who’s won a gold medal before.”

“There are probably a lot more people running around with a gold medal than you realize. It’s not exactly common, but it isn’t really rare, either,” Betsy said.

Sharon said, “You are a very unusual person. You talk about the most extraordinary things in such a factual manner. It’s really surprising.”

“I’m only stating the facts,” Betsy said.

“That’s what makes it so amazing.”

In an apartment in West Virginia, Annette was rocking back and forth, searching for any sign of Betsy’s downed plane. Her far-sight gave her an advantage over any searcher. She could look over a square mile in the blink of an eye. However, there were a lot of square miles to cover in the search.

She had been looking for several hours before she finally found the plane. It was in a really bad spot. There wasn’t an open place anywhere near it where a helicopter could set down. The rescuers were going to have to go in on ATVs and they wouldn’t be able to take a direct route because of the terrain.

She didn’t see Betsy anywhere near the plane. She found the rear section with the bodies inside, but Betsy wasn’t among them. In fact, judging by the way the metal had been bent to seal the rear of the plane, it was likely that Betsy had done it.

Frustrated, she broadened her search. She finally spotted Betsy running through the woods with a woman on her back. That kind of puzzled her. She had seen three men in the wreck who were more seriously injured than the woman. It didn’t make sense that Betsy would take her and not one of the men. She looked closer at the woman. Her eyes widened.

“Oh, my!”

She picked up her phone and called Ed Biggers.

When he answered, she said, “I found her.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s running to the town nearest the crash site.”

“That’s good.”

“She’s carrying a woman,” Annette said.

“I’ll call a helicopter to pick them up,” Ed said.

“The woman is pregnant,” Annette said.

“Okay. I’m sure the doctors can handle it.”

Annette said, “Get Kelly there. The fetus is in distress.”

“I’ll see if Kelly can come with me,” Ed said.

“Ed, you don’t understand. The child is special. We can’t allow her to die.”

“Special?”

“Yes. Get! Kelly! There! There are three other people who are injured at the crash site. She can deal with them after helping the woman.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ed said.

Annette gave Ed the details of where the town was located. After hanging up the phone, she sat back to watch the drama unfold. She watched Betsy scramble over a section of loose boulders while carrying the woman on her back.

Annette said, “Go, girl, go!”

Pacing around the living room of her little one bedroom apartment, Sally looked like hell. It was the middle of the night and she couldn’t sleep. Her friend, the first friend she ever had, had disappeared in a plane crash in the middle of nowhere. She was so worried that she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep since learning the news.

The ringing of her cell phone startled her so much, she nearly hit her head on the ceiling. She raced over to where her phone was lying, answering it before it could ring a second time. She saw that the caller was Ed Biggers.

“Ed! Did they find her?”

“Yes. She’s running through the woods on her way to the nearest town. I’m heading there now with Kelly and Ling to meet her.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, God!”

The local office of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was full of activity. They had been told about a plane crash within their jurisdiction. No one had reported seeing the plane go down, which wasn’t unusual considering the sparsity of people in the area. There wasn’t much they could about it, but a bulletin had gone out to be alert for any sign of a plane crash.

The telephones ringing off the hook accounted for the majority of the activity. There were too many phones and not enough people. None of the calls were from someone reporting anything new. The calls were from members of the press wanting updates on the progress of the search. With so many calls, they just let the phone ring until someone was free to answer it.

A telephone that had been ringing for what seemed like forever was finally answered by a Mountie who had already dealt with a dozen calls in the past hour. He answered it with a bored ‘hello’, and then suddenly sat up straight. He wrote down everything the caller told him, promising to send someone to a certain town, to meet Betsy Carter, when she made it there.

If the office had been full of activity before, it was nothing like after the call. Word quickly spread that two Druids were coming. The telephones really started to ring, but only half of the people remained there to answer them.

Betsy was surprised to come across a dirt road in the woods. It was headed in the right general direction. She got on it and started running faster, much to Sharon’s amazement. Betsy had been running for five hours without a single break. Parts of the trip were through some very rough terrain that required her to slow down almost to a walk. Alone, she would have jumped from boulder to boulder, but she didn’t trust herself to leap some of the distances with a person on her back.

“You must be exhausted,” Sharon said unable to believe that Betsy hadn’t collapse by now.

Betsy said, “I’m getting hungry.”

“I’m so sorry to be such a burden.”

“You aren’t a burden. I kind of appreciate the company,” Betsy said.

“You can’t tell me that after carrying me for so many hours that you aren’t tired,” Sharon said.

“Okay, I won’t tell you that,” Betsy said as she snickered and added, “but it’s the truth.”

The slap slap of Betsy’s feet on the dirt road scared off a buck. Sharon watched it run off.

“Did you see that buck?”

“It would have been good if it had wandered past camp, last night,” Betsy said.

Sharon was about to make a comment about a deer being a lot more difficult to catch than a possum, but then thought better of it. She wasn’t about to put limits on what Betsy was physically capable of achieving. For all she knew, Betsy would chase it down.