I throttled back, pushed the yoke in and turned to the left. The plane banked into a big downward spiral. We went around several times, caught between the advancing cloud bank and the mountains we’d just flown over. Alicia looked sick, but I had to lose altitude fast. Below us was darkness and I couldn’t see the ground. I knew the Lone Pine valley in front of the Sierra was around 4,000 feet of elevation. If the bottom of the clouds was higher than that and we could get underneath without hitting mountains, we could still make it. But if there was fog, we were out of luck.
I had my face to the window trying to see the ground. The altimeter showed us down to 5,000 feet and still dropping. The clouds were now a thick blanket that went up into the night as far as we could see. Our little plane was like a gnat in front of a wall of cotton. I glanced at the altimeter. 4,500 feet. I eased back on the yoke, slowing our descent. Suddenly, a different kind of white lashed the plane.
Snow.
Alicia turned her head sideways as if she were unable to look at the blizzard. I concentrated on seeing through the white, searching for the ground. Our altitude kept dropping, the rotation of the altimeter needle telling me that we were soon to hit the ground whether we saw it first or not.
I eased back farther on the yoke. There was zero visibility out front. Wary of vertigo, that condition where pilots cannot tell if they are flying up or down, I watched the attitude indicator, the airspeed, the altimeter, the compass. We were flying on instruments now without benefit of a radio signal to follow. I didn’t dare to continue west or we would hit the mountains. Our only hope was to keep the plane in a circle and gradually reduce our altitude. Dead or alive, we would reach the ground eventually.
Alicia looked around the cockpit as if she were noticing it for the first time. She fingered the fabric of the shop coat. “What is this I’m wearing? Where did I get this?” Her voice had a curious cheeriness, apparently a defensive posture against impending disaster.
In halting sentences, interrupted by my concentration on looking through the snow, I explained what had happened.
“So you saw me.”
“I nearly got you killed. I knew I had to get your wet clothes off if you were to live.”
“Did you think I...” She stopped and stared ahead.
A hundred feet below us came a light. We flew over it. Then another. I eased back on the throttle. We dropped closer to the ground. More lights appeared. Suddenly, we flew over a road. There were headlights. A big yellow semi went by, fifty feet below us.
Highway 395.
I eased the yoke to the right and we turned to the north. We came back over the road and followed it to the north, barely going faster than the vehicles below us. I kept our lights off. I didn’t want to scare any drivers. Without illumination, I was sure we were invisible in the snow squall.
THIRTY-TWO