A Fountain Filled With Blood

“Are you praying up there?” Russ’s voice came up through the open doorway.

She got her feet under her and leaned over toward the cabin door. Its handle was battered and bent out of line. “Yes, I am,” she said.

“Lemme tell you: Admitting you can’t do something isn’t very reassuring.”

She gripped the handle and twisted. “Didn’t say that,” she said, yanking and tugging. “Said I can’t do it by myself. Ooof!” Something inside the handle mechanism gave way and the door shot back several feet before jamming.

“Good girl.”

She braced herself on hands and knees and examined the situation. The sheared-off tail section looked even worse from this angle. “Can you hold on to the edge of the door?”

He turned his head awkwardly. “I think so.” He reached toward her and she took his hand, placing it near the upper edge of the frame, where he could stabilize himself.

“Great. This is what I want you to do. You’re going to push against the roof with your other hand and against the floor with your feet. I’m going to unbuckle your seat belt. At that point, I’ll pull this arm”—she touched the hand squeezing the door frame—“and you right yourself.”

“I can’t stand up. I’ll be stepping on Waxman.”

“See the seat below you? Put your feet on its side. Once you’re upright, we’ll see if we can slide you around this thing and pull you out. Ready?”

“Wait a minute!” She paused. He didn’t say anything. Finally, he pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose with his free hand and said, “Let’s do it.”

She watched as he stretched out as best he could and lodged himself between the ceiling and floor. She snaked her hand around the corner of his seat and found the buckle of the seat belt by touch. With a click, she freed him.

His knuckles went white. He lifted one leg and let it dangle down toward the second passenger seat. She couldn’t see if his foot had connected with it yet, but she could see his arms and his other leg trembling with the effort of keeping himself from falling onto the ragged steel edge of the broken tail.

“Got it,” he said.

“Careful.”

“Oh yeah.”

She moved so that she was straddling the frame of the cabin door, one sneakered foot on either side. She squatted deeply so that she could hold him with the strength of her thighs. “Give me your hand. I’ll keep you upright.”

He laughed hoarsely.

“Shut up and give me your hand,” she said, irrationally cheered that he could still see a double entendre in what she said. He let go of the door frame and she caught him around the wrist, pulling slowly and steadily upward. She heard a smack as his other foot landed on the seat, and then his head and shoulders moved, coming upright, rotating in line.

“I feel,” he said, almost whispering, “like a chicken on a rotisserie.” Then his other arm was free, thrusting through the doorway, his hand feeling for something to hold on to.

“Are you all set?” she said.

“Yeah. I’m on my feet. You can let me go.”

She released his wrist. The top of his head was level with the doorway, and the raw end of the tail section was now in front of his stomach. He thrust both arms out and banged his hands against the fuselage. Then he curled them over the edge behind his head. “If this thing wasn’t in my way, I could probably get myself up with a backward flip,” he said. “I have pretty good upper-body strength.”

“If that thing wasn’t in your way, you could get out a lot easier than that,” she said. “As it is, you aren’t going to be able to lever yourself up. I want you to lock your hands around my neck; then I’ll pull you up.”

“What, deadlifting? Forget it, darlin’. I must outweigh you by sixty or seventy pounds.”

“I’ll get you up, Russ.” A thread of fear that he might be right made her voice sharp. “Trust me.”

“I trusted you before I got into the damned chopper, and look where it got me.” He squinted up at her and attempted a smile, which made his glasses slip farther down his nose. “Damn. Fix that, will you?” She set his glasses more firmly on his nose while swallowing back the softball-sized lump in her throat.

When she could speak without her voice cracking, she said, “I told you no incoming fire and no lightning. If you wanted no mechanical failures, you should have specified.” She bent her head very close to his. “Put your arms around my neck.”

To her surprise, he didn’t argue further, just released one hand at a time and clasped them together behind her neck. She reached behind her head and flipped her braid out of the way. “Hold on.”

“I will.”