[Dalyia]

en route to lunacy . December 28, 2004

Strapped into the quivering soup can laughingly called a plane, bouncing
his way on the pummeling air through the stingy window of light
that was winter, through the gaps and breaks in snow-sheathed mountains
toward a town called Lunacy, Ignatious Burke had an epiphany.
He wasn’t nearly as prepared to die as he’d believed.
It was a hell of a thing to realize when his fate hung precariously in
the hands of a stranger who was buried in a canary yellow parka and
whose face was nearly concealed by a battered leather bush hat perched
on top of a purple watch cap.
The stranger had seemed competent enough in Anchorage, and had
given Nate’s hand a hearty slap before wagging a thumb at the soup can
with propellers.
Then he’d told Nate to “just call me Jerk.” That’s when the initial unease
had set in.
What kind of an idiot got into a flying tin can piloted by a guy
named Jerk?
But flying was the only sure way to reach Lunacy this late in the year.
Or so Mayor Hopp had informed him when he’d conferred with her
over his travel arrangements.
The plane dipped hard to the right, and as Nate’s stomach followed,

he wondered just how Mayor Hopp defined

sure.


He’d thought he hadn’t given a good damn one way or the other.
Live or die, what did it matter in the big scheme? When he’d boarded
the big jet at Baltimore-Washington, he’d resigned himself that he was
heading to the end of his life in any case.
The department shrink had warned him about making major decisions
when he was suffering from depression, but he’d applied for the
position as chief of police in Lunacy for no reason other than that
the name seemed apt.
And he’d accepted the position with a who-gives-a-shit shrug.
Even now, reeling with nausea, shivering with his epiphany, Nate
realized it wasn’t so much death that worried him, but the method. He
just didn’t want to end the whole deal by smashing into a mountain in
the fucking gloom.
At least if he’d stayed in Baltimore, had danced more affably with the
shrink and his captain, he could’ve gone down in the line of duty. That
wouldn’t have been so bad.
But no, he’d tossed in his badge, hadn’t just burned his bridges but
had incinerated them. And now he was going to end up a bloody smear
somewhere in the Alaska Range.
“Gonna get a little rough through here,” Jerk said with a drawn-out
Texas drawl.
Nate swallowed bile. “And it’s been so smooth up to now.”
Jerk grinned, winked. “This ain’t nothing. Ought to try it fighting a
headwind.”
“No, thanks. How much longer?”
“Not much.”
The plane bucked and shuddered. Nate gave up and closed his eyes.
He prayed he wouldn’t add to the indignity of his death by puking on
his boots first.
He was never going up in a plane again. If he lived, he’d drive out
of Alaska. Or walk. Or crawl. But he was never going into the air
again.
The plane gave a kind of jerking leap that had Nate’s eyes popping
open.And he saw through the windscreen the triumphant victory of the
sun, a wondrous sort of lessening of gloom that turned the sky pearly so
that the world below was defined in long ripples of white and blue, sudden
rises, shimmering swarms of icy lakes and what had to be miles of
snow-draped trees.
Just east, the sky was all but blotted out by the mass the locals called
Denali, or just The Mountain. Even his sketchy research had told him
only Outsiders referred to it as McKinley.
His only coherent thought as they shuddered along was that nothing
real should be that massive. As the sun beamed God fingers through the
heavy sky around it, the shadows began to drip and spread, blue over
white, and its icy face glinted.
Something shifted inside him so that, for a moment, he forgot the
roiling of his belly, the constant buzzing roar of the engine, even the
chill that had hung in the plane like fog.
“Big bastard, ain’t he?”
“Yeah.” Nate let out a breath. “Big bastard.”
They eased west, but he never lost sight of the mountain. He could
see now that what he’d taken as an icy road was a winding, frozen river.
And near its bank, the spread of man with its houses and buildings and
cars and trucks.
It looked to him like the inside of a snow globe that had yet to be
shaken, with everything still and white and waiting.
Something clunked under the floor. “What was that?”
“Landing gear. That’s Lunacy.”
The plane roared into a descent that had Nate gripping his seat,
bracing his feet. “What? We’re landing? Where? Where?”
“On the river. Frozen solid this time of year. No worries.”
“But—”
“Going in on the skis.”
“Skis?” Nate abruptly remembered he hated winter sports. “Wouldn’t
skates make more sense?”
Jerk let out a wild laugh as the plane zeroed in on the ribbon of ice.
“Wouldn’t that be some shit? Skate plane. Hot damn.”
The plane bumped, skidded, slid along with Nate’s belly. Then glided
gracefully to a stop. Jerk cut the engines, and in the sudden silence Nate
could hear his own heart tattooing in his ears.
“They can’t pay you enough,” Nate managed. “They can’t possibly
pay you enough.”
“Hell.” He slapped Nate on the arm. “Ain’t about the pay.Welcome
to Lunacy, chief.”
“You’re damn right.”
He decided against kissing the ground. Not only would he look
ridiculous, but he’d probably freeze to it. Instead, he swung his weak
legs out into the unspeakable cold and prayed they’d hold him up until
he could get somewhere warm, still and sane.
His main problem was crossing the ice without breaking his leg, or
his neck.
“Don’t worry about your stuff, chief,” Jerk called out. “I’ll haul it for you.”
“Thanks.”