The steady slalom that resulted from Lewis’s attempts at flying straight was becoming too predictable for the shooters. He was starting to develop a better feel for the controls but needed to work at being a tougher target. Lewis jerked the stick from side to side while stomping on the pedals to steer. This “drunken hummingbird” approach to flying actually seemed to work fairly well for evading bullets, but it did little for keeping the passengers calm.
Gonzalez was nearly thrown from the cabin multiple times as she bounced around, struggling to return to her seat next to Samantha. She finally managed to get a firm grip on a handle next to the seat, holding herself down long enough to fasten the lap belt. “I feel like this is a race to see who can kill us first!” she yelled up to Lewis.
Newly-minted Captain Lewis was still swinging the helicopter around somewhat randomly, his primary focus was on getting closer to the ground. They had actually doubled back and were about to cross over the Snake River Canyon once again. Hoping that a watery crash was more survivable than a rocky one, Lewis dropped into the canyon, working to get as close to the river as possible.
He managed to get down to within 20 feet of the water, and had gotten the helicopter turned so that he was able to follow the river’s course as it flowed downstream. Sweat poured down his face as he concentrated on the controls, the helicopter still swerving back and forth as he tried to stay away from the canyon walls and above the water. At least the bullets had stopped. Maybe their pursuers were happy to just sit back and watch Lewis crash. “Any sign of our guests?” Lewis asked through gritted teeth as he jockeyed the cyclic from side to side.
“We’re looking,” Samantha responded as she and Gonzalez leaned towards their doors to look for the other helicopter, neither wanting to unbuckle their seatbelt ever again. “I see them! They’re right behind us!”
He hadn’t really expected to lose the other helicopter, but it was still a little disconcerting for Lewis to hear that the opposition seemed to be having such an easy time of keeping up, all while he was struggling just to survive. The canyon was fairly narrow, at least making it difficult for the other pilot to pull alongside to give his gunmen easy shots. Lewis began to think that maybe his ploy to dive into the canyon was a good move.
As they rounded the next bend, Lewis looked ahead to a terrifying sight: the canyon ahead narrowed to perhaps 40 feet, with soaring cliffs lining each side. He knew the gap was wide enough for the helicopter itself, but the added swerving was going to make it a tight fit. They were too close and moving too fast for Lewis to do anything but fly straight into the chasm ahead, the light quickly fading as the walls blocked out the sun.
Lewis threw the helicopter from one side to the other as he tried to stay away from the walls. He knew that a smoother approach would be much better than constantly overcorrecting back and forth, but the adrenaline had completely taken over and there was no stopping it now. It was a miracle that the rotors had not hit the walls already. Squinting ahead, he tried to make out the turns in the dim light of the gorge.
The river made a slow left hand turn followed by a short straight section. Lewis prepared for the gentle right hand turn that followed. At nearly the last second, he realized the right turn went nowhere. The river actually made a nearly 90 degree turn to the left, leaving the helicopter rocketing towards a sheer wall. Samantha let out a loud scream as they hurled towards impending doom.
“Watch out!” Gonzalez shouted, involuntarily leaning to the left as if she could help steer the helicopter away from the approaching wall.
Lewis nearly threw the helicopter completely on its side as he banked, hoping to somehow make the turn. An alarm began to sound as they narrowly missed the wall. Multiple alarms actually, and the instrument panel lit up with little red lights. Lewis had managed to set off every warning system the chopper had. There was one particular gauge that caught his eye: fuel. “We’re out of gas!” Lewis yelled to the back. “Unbuckle and get ready to jump!”
Gonzalez and Samantha were both clearly terrified but quickly unbuckled and crawled to the door, trying to steady themselves as Lewis continued his bumper car approach to flying. “Jump!” Lewis yelled from the front as they entered another short straight stretch of the river. All the girls really did was let go, allowing Lewis’s driving to fling them out the door into the river below.
Lewis had unbuckled as well and was preparing to jump. He turned to the dead pilot and said, “She’s all yours,” before pushing him forward, using the deceased man’s body to pin the cyclic in position to keep the doomed chopper moving down the river. Lewis also pulled the collective all the way up as he leapt out the door, hoping that maybe he had given the helicopter enough lift to act as a decoy for a while.
Lewis bicycled his legs for the entire 50-foot fall, fighting to maintain his upright position. He was thankful for the forward momentum from the flight, as it carried him past a section of jagged rocks, allowing him to splash down in the center of a large pool. He pushed off the bottom, resurfacing in time to see his abandoned helicopter as it nearly cleared the canyon wall.
It was an impressive show really. The pilotless aircraft was climbing upward at a reasonable rate, flying much smoother than when Lewis was at the controls, slowly turning to the left. Had the turn been to the right, the chopper would have made it. Instead, the bent left skid caught on the rock wall, sending the helicopter cart wheeling onto the small plateau above as the rotor blades shattered, sending fragments flying in all directions. A loud explosion followed by a rising plume of black smoke confirmed the final demise of the Bell 206.
The helicopter carrying Pierre’s men had pulled up before entering the extremely narrow part of the canyon, and was slowly circling the wreckage above as Lewis back paddled in the current, waiting for the girls to catch up. The gunmen were on their fourth circle when Lewis spotted one of the men hanging from the doorway, pointing frantically as Samantha and Gonzalez swam across the far side of the pool. The two other gunmen who shared the doorway raised their rifles, but were unable to fire as the helicopter’s continued circle took them back out of view for a moment.
“Other side!” Lewis shouted, waving his friends towards a grassy bench ahead, bordering the river where the narrow gorge widened out into the more typical canyon topography. They would be sitting ducks in the river. While the bench itself wouldn’t provide much protection, there was a small log cabin not far from the bank. The thick grayed walls of the dilapidated cabin were far from ideal, but they represented the only available shelter in the area. “Get to the cabin!” Lewis added as he put his face in the water and began powering across the growing current.
Samantha and Gonzalez had also spotted the gunmen and neither needed any further encouragement to seek shelter. The helicopter had reappeared over the rim of the canyon as the girls reversed course and swam away from Lewis towards shore.
Bullets splashed all around the final three members of Stonewood’s original team as they neared the gravel bank of the river. Lewis caught the others, allowing all three to exit the water together, ducking and sprinting to the abandoned homestead they hoped housed some sort of miracle. Otherwise, it would become their crypt.
Chapter 13 — LAST STAND
A bullet grazed Lewis’s left shoulder as he dove for the open doorway to the log cabin, shoving Gonzalez and Samantha through ahead of him. Additional bullets tore into the old logs around the doorway, but none were able to penetrate the hand-cut behemoths that must have been floated down the river to build the cabin over a hundred years ago. The roof too, though partially collapsed, was made of the same giant logs, providing temporary protection from the gunmen.