The Gift by Ed Zaruk (best book reader TXT) 📖

The Gift

Chapter One

A howling north wind filtered through old wood-framed windows in the house Pat and Sharon Wolinski rented half a block up Melick Avenue from the town paper mill. Snuggled under a heavy feather tick Sharon’s mother had given them as a wedding present, Pat rolled over and snuck a hand up Sharon’s baby-doll pajamas while nuzzling his nose in her ear. “Love you.”
Sharon opened one sleepy eye to look at her man. “You did that last night,” she said, sliding an arm over his shoulder. They were french kissing when the baby, laying in a bassinette beside the bed, started crying for attention.
“Breakfast time.” Sharon rolled away, throwing back the covers. Pat watched her pick up their son, and cuddling his cheek, carried him into the living room to breast feed him.
Pat lay on his back under the warm comforter. Life was good. When the flying season had ended at English River Air, his boss, Ken Watson, had asked him to stay on for the winter, assuring him he’d make enough to pay the bills. He looked forward to spending the winter with Sharon and the kids. Last year he’d gone back to Manitoba Airways and been sent up north with a new Beaver airplane. Nice to fly, but living out of hotels and any other accommodations available while Sharon stayed with her parents, wore on them both. He vowed it would never happen again.
Sharon’s voice came through the open bedroom door. Time to get up, Pat thought, rolling out and planting his feet on the cold linoleum floor. Scampering over to a throw rug, he dressed in jeans and a tee shirt before stepping through the doorway adjoining the living room.
He was halfway through making pancakes when the phone rang. “Hello.”
Ken was on the other end. "Morning, Pat. Got a flight to Eastern Mining and Smelting at Lynx Lake.”
Pat looked at the thermometer outside their kitchen window, thirty below Fahrenheit. “What time?”
“If you’re here by nine-thirty, we should have you away by ten.”
“Will it be a quick turn around, Ken?” Pat lowered his voice. “I’m behind on my Christmas shopping.”
“You’re flying some of the office staff out for the holidays. You’ll be back in plenty of time to go shopping.”
“Okay.” Pat hung up.
Breakfast over, he dressed in winter clothes, put on his parka, and stood in winter boots at the front door as Sharon came over with the baby. Pat touched his nose, then kissed Sharon. Looking over her shoulder at their three-year old daughter, he said, “Bye Katie.”
“Bye.” She never looked up from dressing her doll.
Pat kissed Sharon again, then stepped into the cold. After nursing his old ‘38 Ford to life, he drove to the winter base at Lakeside to find the engine of his plane shrouded in canvas and two men working over the Herman-Nelson heater. Pat walked into the office. “Good morning, Ken.”
“Morning, Pat. Might as well take your coat off. You’ll be bit late getting away. Coffee’s fresh.”
Half an hour passed before the engine was warm enough to start. Ten minutes later, Pat was in the air. By early afternoon, as skies clouded in the west, he’d returned, unloaded his passengers, and was standing in the office with a cup of hot coffee in his hand, its aroma teasing his cold nose. Arriving back only minutes after a call for a mercy flight came in, he listened as Ken repeated the weather forecast.
“It’s already snowing in Winnipeg. Supposed to blow in here by late afternoon.”
“And Red Lake?” Pat asked, holding the warm cup in both hands.
“The front should move through there after dark.”
“Okay.” Pat drank down the last of his coffee.
Ken handed him a brown envelope. “Bunch of paperwork for Shirley.”
“Okay.” Pat tucked it under one arm while pulling on his gloves.
“Straight there and back. No waiting. They’ll have the patient ready to load. Should give you a couple hours shopping.”
“Thanks, Ken.”
Taxiing from the base, Pat turned south, opened the throttle, and held on as his empty Norseman, filled with the din of the big radial engine, rattled across the ice. Twenty seconds later he eased back the controls and rose into the changing winter sky.
Banking right, he flew over the golf course, Laurenson Lake, the CPR roundhouse with a steam locomotive on the turntable, then, under clear skies, set a course for Red Lake.

Chapter Two

Shirley, Red Lake’s receptionist, bundled in a heavy parka with a fur-lined hood, stood on the ice waiting for him to taxi up. Shutting off the engine, Pat opened his door, “What’s up?”
“It’s Alex from the hotel. He’s got a ruptured appendix.”
Two ambulance attendants loaded the sick man into the air plane. Pat handed her the envelope.
“Gotta go, Shirley,” he said, closing the door.
Shirley waved. “Have a good flight.”
Pat started the engine, let it idle briefly, then, advancing the throttle, turned and headed down the ice. If all went well, he’d be back home with time to spare, which was a good thing, because the man beside him was doubled over with pain. Flying southwest, he ran into the front moving faster than expected. Off to his left, a thin sliver of deepening blue signalled the end of daylight as gray cloud spread across the horizon in front of him. Creeping lower, the overcast blocked his way home and when a few flakes of snow settled from the sky, he felt the urge to turn around and race the storm to Red Lake. Skirting the weather, he decided that by drifting south, he’d be able to pick up the railroad or highway and follow either into Kenora.
Visibility was still acceptable, a couple hundred feet and a mile ahead. Beneath him, trees gave way to white ice blending into gray cloud on the opposite shore. The thought to follow the darker shoreline around the lake vanished when it was replaced with his desire to get Sharon’s present.
Well out into the lake, the far shore shrank to a thin line of dark in a colourless world. His faithful engine, thundering in both ears, provided a feeling of security, even if the heat it dumped into the cabin wasn’t enough to keep his nose from getting cold. Taking off a glove, he cupped his warm hand over it at the same time realizing that falling snow had engulfed them in a world of white.

Chapter Three

Sharon turned the electric stove down a little as potatoes she’d peeled earlier began boiling. Looking through the frosted kitchen window into the darkness, she was thankful that Pat didn’t have to spend this winter up in the Arctic. It wasn’t the being alone that bothered her, she did enjoy living with her parents. Goodness knows they delighted in spoiling their grandchildren. It was the constant worry of not knowing. She could live with Pat’s absence, but not with the uncertainty. Ordinarily he would have been home by now, but with only five days to Christmas, she knew he’d be out shopping.
They didn’t have any extra money, so she’d shown him an imitation angora sweater in Woolworths and broadly hinted that it would look good on her. A new wrist watch she’d bought with money saved from cleaning their landlord’s mother’s house twice a month, lay in silver wrapping paper under the tree. Stirring the potatoes, she replaced the lid as the phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Sharon, Ken, here.”
“Hi, Pat’s not home yet.”
“I know.”
A bitter winter chill settled in Sharon’s spine. “What’s happened?”
“We don’t know. Pat’s overdue from Red Lake. Shirley said he left with plenty of time to get here before dark.”
Sharon looked outside to see snow falling. Odd how she never noticed that before. From stories that pilots told, she knew darkness was one thing, snow quite another. “Oh God!”
Ken spoke with reassurance. “He’s probably sitting on some lake with a broken engine. In the morning we’ll fly up and find him.”
The potatoes again began to boil, spilling over. Sharon picked up the lid. “You think he’s okay? Oh, Ken, what if..?”
“Hold on there, gal. He’s got an Arctic sleeping bag and emergency rations for three weeks in the plane. He’s probably making supper right now.” At a loss for words, Sharon stood with the pot cover in one hand and the phone to her ear with the other. Ken spoke again. “He’ll be fine. I’ll have him call you as soon as he gets back tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Sharon said weakly, setting down the phone. Still holding the pot lid, she stared into the darkness, unaffected by her crying baby.

Chapter Four

Vivian Ball wiped both hands on her apron while walking into the front hall to answer the telephone. She recognized the voice of Ken Watson.
“Is Jake there?”
“He’s having a shower, Ken. Want me to call him?”
“No, but have him call me immediately he gets out.”
Vivian hung up the phone trying to interpret the tension in Ken’s voice. As the wife of English River Air’s owner, she had long ago learned to read the emotions of the men her husband employed. Climbing the stairs, she banged on the bathroom door, got Jake’s attention and after he shut the water off, told him of Ken’s call.
“He say what he wanted?”
“No, but I think you should call him back right away.”
Wrapping a towel around his waist, he hurried down the stairs, Vivian right behind him. Jake lifted the handset and spun the dial four times, connecting to ERA’s offices. Ken answered.
“You called.”
“Yeah,” Ken said. “Pat’s missing on a mercy flight from Red Lake.”