CHAPTER 6


   It had been something of an old question. Kent slipped out of the chopper door and into the wet grass which was about the closest that Valley Point Air came to having it’s own heliport. He looked up into the sky but, all he really saw were clouds and distant mountains. The airport’s main terminal was down past the runway but, there was little else here. Kent looked back at the chopper and as Barbara and Shannon were climbing out, he put the question to them, “where is Mister Tippet?”
Shannon seemed a little less irate than when the journey first began. Kent had expected as much since he doubted anyone’s capacity for holding a grudge across the better part of an exhausting day long helicopter ride. By the time that they were half way here, nobody had the energy to hold a conversation. Still, Shannon showed that she had not forgotten anything. Her very first act from the time that her feet hit the ground was to pull out her phone and see if she had any reception. Predictably she did not and it was something that Kent could have told the girl if she had just asked. For that matter, Shannon should have known anyway.
The girl only grunted in frustration. She sneered at her phone and then at her mother. She then snapped, “my life is over!” Then she stomped off.
As Barbara finished pulling off her gloves she stopped next to Kent and then took her own good look at the sky. As she did, Barbara seriously had to ask, “what has gotten in to her?”
Kent had to think that matter through and carefully. He finally just decided to say, “you know how that is Barbara. She’s just reaching that age.”
Why was it that this perfectly obvious revelation did not make Barbara feel any better. She also knew a doge when she heard one but, it was not an issue she wished to take up with Kent. She looked back over to where Shannon had stomped off too. There was a wire fence that ran along this part of the airfield and, just to the other side was a grazing pasture for a small heard of horses. Shannon had climbed up on the fence and was trying to coax one to come to her. She’d been doing that since the first time Barbara and Ian had brought her up here. As Barbara watched the child do it now, she felt almost like nothing had ever changed. Instead of being comforting though, it only seemed to highlight how much really had.
Barbara decided to change the subject and then checked the time on her phone before saying, “Tony said he had picked something up on the emergency band. He said he would be a little late.”
“Ah,” Kent nodded, “is that what it was.”
The look that Barbara saw in the man’s face told her, “what do you think it is Kent?” He merely smiled and shrugged so Barbara got down to cases with him, “what was I supposed to do? I can’t put you two in the same chopper for an extended flight. As I recall, you almost got in a knock down drag out with him not long ago.”
“I said nothing,” Kent replied feigning innocence, “and as long as you are clear on the fact that Mister Tippet and I, quite often disagree. On this matter I happened to think he was right. It would have been a lot better if you had left the duty roster alone.”
Barbara gave the man an evil eye and put her hands on her hips, “you really think it would have been any better if I had shoved Amy in that chopper instead of Danni?” Barbara just shook her head and went back to looking for her missing helicopter. She did happen to mention, “come on Kent, I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Oh I’m not disagreeing with that part of it Barbara,” he told her. Then he added, “I just think that I should point out that there are other considerations to this matter that, quite possibly, you may have over looked.”
“Yeah?” She was obviously unconvinced, “like what?”
“Well,” Kent thought about the matter and was doing his best to juggle around the subject till Barbara called him on his indecision. He finally just said, “this is a medical mission after all. Wouldn’t it be prudent if we had both of our…”
Barbara rolled her eyes at him, “don’t bullshit me Kent. Just spit it out.”
“All right fine,” Kent tried another branch to offer, “splitting up Tippet and Hiller was probably a good idea. I just think that replacing her with Nguyen might not have made the situation any better. That’s all.”
Barbara thought about that for a second and became a bit more cautious, “What’s wrong with Danni? I think she’s learned her lesson and…”
“No,” Kent waived a hand. He tried to be tactful now, “don’t get me wrong Barbara. I really do believe you were a more than worthy successor to your father. You just sometimes don’t quite see what’s right in front of you.”
“English Kent,” Barbara demanded.
“Really?” Kent just looked in her eyes and wondered if there was even a spark of recognition. He did not see any, “you haven’t noticed the way that our little miss Daniealla looks at Agent Tippet?”
Barbara nearly slapped her forehead and she moaned in pain, “you have got to be kidding me.”
“Believe me Barbara,” Kent told her, “I wish I were. I probably would have never even brought this up, it’s really none of my business. It just finally occurred to me that you really don’t know.”
Barbara growled, “what is it with Tony?”
“I’m not sure I would blame him,” Kent replied.
“Yeah,” Barbara made it plain she was not convinced of that, “well I am.”
“And,” Kent told her, “that is your motherly instincts kicking in. You have to look past that Barbara, at least here. Mister Tippet is a reasonably attractive male with at least some redeeming qualities.”
“Give me a break Kent,” Barbara blew the suggestion off, “he’s a big kid. He’s got that whole bad boy thing going for him and…”
“You mean like Ian,” Kent told her.
Barbara almost bit his head off but, at the last second she pulled back. Then she looked back towards the sky and said, “I’m sure they’ll be here any minute.”
It was actually more than a few minutes. Killian Rayne and his little crew had already driven up, loaded the vaccines from Barbara’s chopper into the beds of their picks up trucks, and were sitting around on the tailgates when they first heard the blades of Tony’s chopper. Barbara found that she did not mind as much as she might have. Killian was the local law here at the Valley Point settlement and was probably one of the more unusual sheriff’s here on the continent.  He was younger than most, relatively fit, and had dark hair with a beard to match. Barbara also found that he could be quite entertaining when he wanted to be.
They all sat around and listened to his stories and he even made Shannon forget all about whatever she had been sulking over. When Rayne heard the distant chopper he slapped one of the crates behind him and quickly finished his latest story. He told Shannon directly, “actually we call this Maxine because of your Mom.”
Shannon giggled and looked too Barbara as she exclaimed, “no way!”
Barbara put her hand over her face that had turned a light shade of red, “don’t you dare, Killian.”
Kent egged things on, “I’ve heard several versions of this story already. It might be quite entertaining to hear the sheriff’s version of events.”
It was clear that Killian was going to go on no matter what. He was always quite animated as he told the stories, “your mother was up there, at about fifty thousand feet…”
Barbara had a smile as she angrily protested, “I never fly that high.”
Killian kept right on, “terrible bloody cross wind. She was flying right through this storm. If you don’t believe me, ask Lucy, she was in the tower that night.”
Barbara protested, “Lucy was in high school when that happened!”
Killian shrugged it off, “she worked after school. Anyway..”
Once again Barbara injected, “after school huh? You were just telling us it was at night, Killian.”
“Which is,” he gracefully replied, “after school. Anyway, without further interruptions, the pattern is full and your mother is low on gas. Well she had so much cargo, and she is so short after all,” Killian then looked Barbara in the eye and said, “which does not diminish your beauty in any way my dear. She was actually sitting on a crate of medicine. She tries to stress the urgency of her situation and the importance of her mission. So she tells the tower what she is carrying and where.”
Shannon looked so excited but she really didn’t get it and she said as much. Then Killian tells her, “which is why poor Lucy was so confused about your mother who was riding in Maxine.”
Shannon winced, “eww, why did she say that?”
Kent snickered, “she didn’t dear. That’s what the word vaccine sounds like on the radio.”
Barbara rolled her eyes, “and that story isn’t even close to being true.” She saw her other chopper approaching the field and was actually relieved. She was also actually surprised that they had plenty of daylight left to do the unloading. There was not enough time to fly up to their station but, Barbara was also not in much of a hurry to do so. She waited a safe distance till the rotors stopped spinning and was a bit curious when she saw Danni get out of the chopper and run right up to her. The girl seemed pretty happy and that normally would have made Barbara feel better. This time it did not.
Fortunately, what Danni began to blabber on about had little to do with Tony, who joined them a few moments later. Unfortunately, just because Barbara knew what everything was not about, did not mean that she knew what it was. Barbara looked to Tony, who seemed a bit more rational, and surprisingly even tempered at the moment, and then asked him, “what is she talking about?”
Now it was Tony’s turn to be confused, “you’re not mad at me for being late?” When Barbara did not respond he gave her an “oh well” kind of look and then translated Danni’s excitement, “when we were making the hump….”
Barbara put her hands up, “lets skip to the chase.”
Killian and his crew wandered by, right then, so that they could start unloading the chopper. Naturally, Killian heard what was said. Surprisingly, the only comment he made was when he grabbed Tony’s hand and shook, giving the boy a most eager, “congratulations on your execution of a most difficult maneuver, Mister Tippet.” He then gave Danni a sly look and even winked as he said, “lovely Danniealla.”
Danni winked back and said, “hey Kill.” When he walked off to join his crew Danni became confused, “what was that all about?”
Shannon and Kent came walking up and, at that point, it was the teenager who pointed out, “I think it had something to do with the hump.”
Barbara was starting to feel her blood pressure going up again, “Tony! Just tell me what happened. Why were you even crossing the mountains that far north?”
Danni became excited and jumpy, “I wanted to see the waterfalls at Westridge.”
Before Barbara could blow up at them, Tony quickly got to business, “we had to pick up some altitude coming off the slope and, when I got high enough, we kept getting these intermittent pings off some transponder.”
Barbara knew a distraction when she heard one but, in this case, Tony pulled it off. She became very curious and did not jump on them for being stupid enough to alter their flight plan like that. Barbara thought about it for a minute and then she looked to Kent, “what’s that far out from the river?”
After thinking about it for a minute Kent replied, “nothing that I’m really aware of. I think Benthic used to have some mining camps out there but, they haven’t been used in years. Certainly not since the war.”
Danni was still excited, “we thought it might be a downed plane or something, you know, like a small civilian aircraft.”
“Always possible,” Kent noted. “there are a lot of bush pilots out here. Hardly any of them ever file flight plans.”
That made Barbara think harder and she looked back to Tony, “what did it sound like to you?”
Tony shoved a stick of gum in his mouth and found himself nudged by Danni until he had to hand over his pack. Then he told Barbara, “I don’t know. It was pretty weak. We tried to get a fix on it, that’s what took so long. Couldn’t manage it though.”
At that moment, Barbara decided that they had enough on their hands. She also decided not to put herself in any more stressful situations at the moment. She snapped her fingers until she had every ones attention, “it’s for later. It’s too late to fly on up to the station. We’re going to stay here for the night. In the morning, I’ll get a list of any recently missing aircraft. Then, maybe we can pull out some gear that can help us track it down. I’m sure the Rayne’s have something. Tony, you did mark the location on your charts, right?”
“Course,” Tony replied as if he were offended.
“Good,” Barbara replied with a half relieved look. Then she took a good look at Danni. The girl barely even noticed the fact that she was being studied. It made Barbara feel frustrated all over again.
This fact was not lost on Kent. He noticed that Barbara was looking at Danni, who was in turn looking at Tony, who seemed to be completely oblivious to all of it. At least the last part was a small blessing. Kent spoke up and tried to offer a solution to Barbara’s distress, “I was thinking that I might stay on in Valley Point. I need to discuss some matters with Doctor Dykstra, before we have to deal with that little added difficulty. I do not believe that should be done alone. I was thinking Miss Nguyen could assist me in the matter.”
Danni quickly became irate, “no way in hell Kent. I just got out of detention. I’m not going to sit in the corner now, not when we got a possible crash site out there.”
Barbara raised her hands, “lets just go get some rooms. We’ll talk about this in the morning. I know everybody needs some sleep.” Barbara took one more good look at Danni and Tony. Then she put her hand on Danni and said, “come on. I know Lucy has got an extra bunk over at her place.”
Tony wanted to protest, “you know, we did have some…”
As Barbra was walking off, with Shannon and Danni in tow, she did not even bother looking back when she commanded, “rack time.”