“Not at all. I just want to be clear about what I’m doing. It seemed better to tell you the most ridiculous version now, so there won’t be any confusion later. But I’m serious. I’ve spoken to other eyewitnesses, and I have good reason to believe that Willoughby did see something in the sky. Even if it’s only an optical phenomenon, it’s worth investigating.” Russell glanced at his watch. “But I should come to the point. I’m interested in doing research on Willoughby Island, and I’m willing to pay cash up front. I’ve been told that the flight shouldn’t take more than forty minutes, which means I’ll be back in time to buy you dinner.”
Lawson remembered that Russell had mentioned arriving from Seattle the night before. “You came a long way for a day trip.”
“There may be a second stop. Or even a third. I’ll tell you once I know more.”
Lawson paused again. Two dueling impulses were at war in his mind, and he finally yielded to caution. “Sorry. I can’t fly you into Glacier Bay. Nobody can. Maybe no one explained it to you, but it’s a national park. I could cut you a deal on a sightseeing trip. But we can’t land.”
Russell absorbed the news without any visible reaction. “It has to be on the ground.”
“Then you can take a boat up there. There are plenty of fisherman on the docks who might agree to it.”
“That won’t work. It took longer for me to get here than I hoped, and I’m at the end of my available window. I can’t waste any time. If you won’t take me, I’ll find someone who will.”
Lawson heard the unspoken implication. There were several other pilots in town who would welcome the charter, legal or not, and the plain fact, which was written on his face, was that he needed the money. He wondered if Russell could sense his desperation, and he found that he didn’t want to give the other man the satisfaction, even if they never met again. “You expect to see a city in the sky?”
“Not really,” Russell said. “But I want the chance. It would mean a great deal to me. And to my wife.”
Lawson was about to respond when he saw a figure outlined against the window that faced the street. A moment later, the door opened, and a woman entered the office. As the two men rose, Russell introduced her. “This is my wife, Cora. She’ll be coming, too. If we can reach an agreement.”
The woman did not sit down. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she had red hair, green eyes, and a face that would be hard to forget. Lawson saw that she was much younger than her husband, probably no more than thirty, and as he looked at her, he found that he had come to a decision.
Taking a seat again, Lawson began to play with the cord of the window shade behind his desk. “If we’re doing this, it has to be done right. There can’t be any record. I won’t put it down on the flight plan.”
A satisfied look began to spread across Russell’s face. “What do you have in mind?”
Lawson let go of the cord. Opening a drawer, he fished out a stained topographical map, which he unrolled across the desk. Willoughby Island was an oval the size of the palm of his hand, nestled like a turtle in the blue ribbon of Glacier Bay. “Where were you hoping to land?”
Russell pointed. “The southern tip. It’s where the most credible sighting took place.”
“We can’t. The shore is too bold. There’s nowhere to tie up the plane.” Lawson indicated an area to the northeast. “There’s a cove here. Maybe even a floating dock. A fox farm used to be there. It might even be worth my while to check it out.” He glanced down at Russell’s shoes, which turned out to be a pair of good boots. “You’ll have to hike four miles along the beach. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. We can still get you home by dinnertime.”
Russell glanced at his wife, who gave him a short nod. “When can we leave?”
“Ten minutes after I get paid.” Lawson rolled up the map. “Normally, the charter would come to seventy dollars apiece. Let’s call it eighty, given the risk of trouble on my end.”
Before he had even finished speaking, Russell pulled out his wallet, counting eight twenties onto the desktop. Lawson pocketed the money. “You know where the lower city float is?”
“I can find it. Let’s call it half an hour. I need to make a phone call from the hotel.”
“Fine with me. You’re each allowed twenty pounds of baggage.” Lawson stuck out a hand. “Glad to do business with you.”
“Same here.” Russell’s grip was firm. He retrieved his coat from the peg and left with his wife, whose eyes lit briefly on Lawson’s on the way out. She had not spoken a word since her arrival.
Half an hour later, they were in the plane, heading out into the channel for takeoff. On his way to the docks, Lawson had made a stop at the grocer. It had been a lean couple of months, and he had been tempted to stock up on treats, restricting himself to a bag of sandwiches, a Horlick’s rum fudge bar, and a few squares of mintcake, one of which he devoured in front of the store.
His plane, a yellow and blue Stinson on Fairchild floats, occupied a rented hangar at the southern end of town, past the docks on high pilings where boats and fishing vessels were tied up at the pier. As he descended the wooden steps to the shoreline, he had been pleasantly conscious of the bills in his pocket, as well as the expectation that there might be more to come.
Somewhat to his surprise, Sam Russell and his wife had turned out to be familiar with the rituals of departure. Without being instructed, they kept their bags on their laps, placing the weight toward the front of the plane, and as he opened up the engine and rocked the stick back and forth, his passengers swayed along with it, helping him to jockey the floats up onto their steps for takeoff.
They broke loose from the surface, the water rising in a fine spray around them, and then they were airborne. As the plane climbed, Lawson looked back at the others. “We’ll fly over Douglas Island to the channel, then head across the Chilkat Range. Should be on our way down in half an hour.”
Russell nodded and returned his gaze to the window. Cora kept her eyes fixed on the landscape below.
Lawson turned to the windshield again. He decided to take a scenic route, bending up and around the Beartrack Mountains before heading down into the bay. He suspected that the Russells would be gone before long, but there was still the outside chance that they might decide to stay. A pilot could survive on just one regular charter, and if he failed to land this one, it might be his last chance for a while.
The flight passed without any conversation. Below them spread a spectacular vista, with the forests on the mountainsides giving way to the snowfields of the ridge top, which was white even in the middle of July. The glaciers descending to the sea, with their compressed layers of thousands of years of ice and snow, were a deep emerald. It was a sight that could reduce even the most jaded travelers to awed silence, but if the Russells were impressed, they kept it to themselves.
Before long, they neared their destination. Lawson zeroed in, checking the approach as he circled around toward the cove. The island was four miles from north to south, the thick spruce woods on its eastern edge ascending to low mountains, bounded on all sides by the waters of Glacier Bay. To the northeast were two smaller outlying islets, one of which was joined to the larger island by the gravel bar where he planned to bring them down.
As they descended, Lawson saw that the floating dock was still there. He made the landing upwind to reduce his forward speed. Once the floats were on the water, he cut the propeller as low as it would go and steered the plane like a boat to the pier, where he cut the engine and climbed out.
As Lawson secured the lines, Russell and his wife picked their way toward the shore. Gulls were pecking on the pebble beach, and a flock of murrelets circled overhead. The temperature was in the high forties, with just a few tufted clouds to the south, although he knew that the weather could change without warning.