Today’s excerpt is from Toboggan,
Book #4 of the Janitors Series. Nick and
Phyllis gather up items from their portion of the wrecked plane and plan to head
down the mountain…even as new snow starts to fall. Enjoy and have a fantastic day.
m.j.
He
then took the bag over to the galley section of the plane, where the liquor
locker had split open from the impact with the tree. Bottles of various types of alcohol were
strewn about. He asked, “Phyllis, how do
you feel about picking up all this booze and putting it in the bag?”
“Great,
if I can drink one first.”
“Good
idea, I’ll join you. Might warm us up a
bit.”
After
they both consumed the drink of their choice, Nick started looking around for
anything else they could use as Phyllis dutifully picked up all the bottles of
alcohol she could find. She also picked
up several loose bags of nuts.
Nick
spotted a piece of fuselage about sixteen inches wide and three feet long. It was curved so that both ends would be off
the snow if it were used as a sled. Deciding
that would be perfect for the bag rapidly filling up with small bottles, Nick
searched other pieces of wreckage and found coated wire cables. He was able to cut those to the length he
desired by using jagged edges of the torn fuselage lying about. When he had what he wanted, he used the heel
of the Western boots he wore to pound out any sharp edges on his “sled” to make
it safe in case it ran up on whoever was pulling it. Then he tied some of the wire on the “front”
of the sled, to be used as pull rope.
Next he repeated the process at the “rear” end of the sled.
When
Phyllis announced that she had packed all the liquor bottles she could find,
Nick stacked six of the seven still-folded blankets on the sled, then put the
“booze bag” (as he called it) on next.
Then he stood back and thought a minute.
After
that pause in activity he cut a few shorter pieces of the wire to sizes he
thought would work for what he had in mind.
With a smile on his face, he put a pair of his jockey shorts on Phyllis’
head, pulled them tight, and tied them off with a short piece of wire, forming
a hat.
She
giggled. “You really expect me to wear
your underpants on my head?”
As
he made a similar “hat” for himself, Nick answered. “Your head. Take it off if you want, but in case you
hadn’t noticed, we have some unfriendly looking clouds bearing down on us and I
predict snow before too awfully long…in fact, those little white things look
suspiciously like snowflakes already.”
Phyllis
turned and looked in the direction Nick had been looking when he said that and
announced, “My new hat stays. Thank you
very much for giving me the shirt off your back and now the pants off your
butt.”
“You’re
welcome.”
Nick
then picked up his last two pairs of socks from his pile of belongings and
handed one pair to Phyllis. “Enjoy your
new mittens.”
Next
he draped one of the two blankets not on the sled around her shoulders,
stopped, then stood back. “Just a
minute…I have an idea.”
He
then took the blanket off her, grabbed it by the middle and walked over to the
jagged edge he had used to cut the wire.
Using a sawing motion, he soon cut a hole about six inches in diameter
in the middle of the blanket. Now he
walked back to Phyllis and forced it over her head. Then he created folds that she could put her
arms into, but still have freedom of movement if she wanted or needed it. Next he tied a piece of his pre-cut wire
around her midsection.
She
grinned. “I love it, thanks. You’ll make somebody a good wife.”
He
just grunted as he looked at the blanket on the snow with the remainder of his
belongings, picked it up, dumping everything still there on the ground. Next he made himself a poncho similar to the
one he had made for Phyllis. Then he
said, “One last thing before we go.”
One
of the items being left behind from his bag was a book he had planned to
read. He found a page with no printing
on one side and tore it out. He then
picked up a pen he had decided to leave and wrote a fast note. He placed it in a prominent place, under the
tree, on a piece of wreckage. He then
walked to the “booze bag” and took out three random bottles and placed them
with the note. To Phyllis’ puzzled look
he grinned, “In case somebody comes looking for us, I want them to know what I
planned.”
“Which
is?”
“We
head down the mountain.”
“I
know that. Is that it? Just go down the hill?”
“Well,
not exactly. The weather down here at
this elevation is just warm enough that some of the snow is starting to
melt. Any little rivulets of water we
see, we’ll follow, hoping they might lead to a stream, and the stream to a
river, or something like that. Then we
follow the river on down. With luck,
somebody may have built something like a cabin along the river and we’ll be
saved.”
“Sounds
like a plan.”
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