Belly of the Beast Read Free Page B

We’re on a schedule. Everyone else has boarded.” The agent held out his gloved hand.
    Niki handed over her pack, her thoughts staying on Rob. She climbed the airplane steps and ducked through the doorway of the thirteen-seat commuter.
    “You’re in the back,” said the flight attendant.
    There were only six rows, one seat on each side of the narrow aisle. The little airplane suddenly wrapped about Niki like a burlap sack, draw-string pulled tight. She struggled for breath.
    “Move back and take your seat.”
    Niki shook her head and looked into the flight attendant’s eyes—the Grim Reaper with purple eye shadow.
    “Please sit down. We have a schedule you know.”
    “I can’t do this.”
    “On or off,” said the reaper.
    Niki looked back outside. Snow swirled in the runway lights like a Christmas paperweight turned upside down.
    I have to go , Niki remembered saying to Rob a week ago.
    “You can’t just stand there,” said the reaper.
    Niki felt for the baggie.
    “I’ll have to call security if you don’t move.”
    Her brain racing, Niki forced herself down the narrow aisle and slid into seat 5B.
    “Lucky you’re a tiny thing,” said a big man across the aisle in 5A. “I had to use a shoehorn to get in here. Why, if this plane was any smaller . . .”
    Niki grabbed the envelope from her pocket and yanked out the baggie. Twenty-dollar bills fluttered to her lap. She took another pill, then noticed a photograph of Alex skiing with her. Tears welled in Niki’s eyes— I need to call Rob, she thought as she counted one hundred and eighty dollars in twenties and forced them into her tiny purse .
    A truck pulled alongside, spotlights flashing. The driver climbed to a platform and sprayed fluid on the wing.
    “De- icer ,” explained the man across the aisle without being asked. He bent to look out Niki’s window, then reached to the aisle. “Well lookie there,” he said as he plucked a twenty from the floor and handed it to Niki. “You better be more careful, money doesn’t grow on trees,” he said smugly, as if he had just invented the phrase.
    Niki nodded her thanks and tucked the twenty into her pocket.
    “You can call me Tex.” He tapped a gray Stetson hat crowded into his lap.
    Niki smiled politely, then turned away.
    The de- icer truck moved to the other wing, then returned and sprayed the first wing again.
    “I knew I should have taken a later flight,” said Tex.
    Niki stared at the terminal through her tiny window. The de- icer glistened in the lights. Someone inside waved. Niki put her hand to the window and shivered.
    “The cabin is always cold the first flight of the morning,” the reaper announced coolly, “but we’ll warm up once we’re airborne.”
    I should have apologized, Niki thought as the plane rolled away from the terminal.
     “I tell you,” said Tex, “I’ve done a lot of flying, and I never get used to . . .”
    Valium began to cloud Niki thoughts.
     “. . .and in the unlikely event of a water landing. . .” came from somewhere.
    The hayfields sparkled momentarily as the plane turned onto the runway. Tex kept talking. The engines roared for takeoff.
    Niki looked about, wondering why no one else was concerned.
    “There’s turbulence ahead,” the captain announced a few minutes later, “so hold on to your hats and keep your belts buckled.”
    Niki looked toward Tex. “Is the plane supposed to shake like this? This is my first flight.”
    While Tex rambled about his first flight, Niki turned and peered at the ground. Headlights traced a dashed line across the mesa, then dipped into Bayfield. A few cars followed the Pine River north toward Vallecito Reservoir where Rob had wrecked the snowmobile.
    Niki knew the landscape well, she had skied most of it. She couldn’t actually see her cabin, but moonlight lit a bend in the creek where Alex had caught his first fish.
    The plane banked right, then leveled. The dark outline of Rough Rider Ridge filled Niki’s