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The cabin was dark, the temperature dropping. Fraser didn’t care.
He sat on the edge of his bed and stared into space, his head hanging down, his hands fingering one of his shirts.
Ray had worn it a few days back, donned by accident as he hurried to get dressed after a quick act of love, the sweetest dessert they had ever shared. He imagined he could still feel the warmth of his body, sense a hint of his scent in it. He knew it was unlikely, but he didn’t care. The man who wore it was gone. All that was left was his memory.
It was two days since he had left - left with the intention of setting him free - a thing Fraser never wanted in the first place. They should have talked, but they had messed it up as they often did. They were not good at communicating, verbally that is. Their eyes, their bodies talked to each other at ease, but whenever words were concerned things got complicated and tended to run in erratic ways.
They had shared an unforgettable night of passion. Ray had been fiery, almost fierce and desperate, surprising Fraser with his insatiable hunger, but he didn’t question it. He took on the challenge and enjoyed it, losing himself in the raging thunderstorm of Ray’s lovemaking.
He only got the meaning in the morning, when he returned from his early morning chores and found the cabin empty. Ray had been gone along with his scant possessions. A note was the only reminder of his former presence.
Not good at good-byes, partner. Seems I messed it up again. Been overdue taking my leave and failed to see the signs.
I’m sorry.
Ray.
Fraser’s finger had clenched around the innocent paper as an icy cold spread inside his chest. He hadn’t seen it coming, wasn’t even sure what gave Ray the impression he wasn’t welcome anymore. All he knew was that he didn’t know what to do, how to go on. He stood, then sat down again, just to stand up again a moment later. He took two steps towards the door, but turned around abruptly before he reached it. Eventually he settled for the one thing that always worked for him: clear his mind with simple duties.
He shrugged into his coat and went outside where a pile of wood sat, waiting to be split. One by one he chopped the logs and set the finished firewood aside in neat, rapidly growing piles. After a while he found his rhythm, continuing the work mechanically, his mind drifting into an almost meditative state which sedated the searing pain inside.
A few hours later Fraser stopped his work. The sky was growing darker by the minute. Heavy clouds were towering above the ridge, rolling in with incredible speed. The first snowstorm was early this year, way earlier than expected. Probably one of these unpredictable phenomena occurring now and then. Why did it happen today of all days?
He turned around, his eyes and mind wandering south. The sky was still clear there, but it wouldn’t be for long. He hurried inside to prepare the cabin for the powerful force of nature. Many people would get into trouble today, lose their home, their possessions or their life. These unexpected blizzards were killers by nature for anyone who was caught by surprise. And this one turned out to be the worst in years.
The traffic came to an abrupt halt. Streets and villages got snowed in, trains were stopped. The few flights affected were either redirected or landed much later than scheduled. All except one. One plane was missing. The one plane carrying the most valuable cargo – Fraser’s heart.
The flight control had lost contact with the pilot after receiving a couple of emergency messages which came in quick succession:
- The storm had caught up with them, there was no airport anywhere near.
- Something had struck the plane, causing a short-circuit; the control panel had been damaged. Navigation by eyesight was nearly impossible.
- They lost fuel, probably caused by damaged to the fuselage.
- The plane was losing height, making it impossible to stabilize it. A breech in the hull was inevitable.
After the last message all the tower received was static. The flight was lost. As soon as the storm calmed down the rescue squad was released. They were still searching, without success yet...
The cabin was dark, now. Fraser wasn’t sure whether it was night or day. It didn’t matter. It matched the darkness inside his mind perfectly.
“Fraser...”
He turned his head, unsure where the voice was coming from.
“Fraser.”
The voice was getting stronger now, more urgent, but no source was to be seen.
“Frase.”
It was Ray’s voice - he would recognize it anywhere - so he answered the call, “Ray?”
“Frase! You’ve gotta listen to me, Frase. You’ve gotta come get me.”
“Ray, where are you?” Fraser looked around again, his chest constricting, half hoping, half fearing to see his friend. His father’s regular visits were proof enough that seeing someone didn’t necessarily mean that the said someone was alive.
“You know damn well where I am! I’m stuck in the fucking plane that didn’t make it.”
“And where is that plane?”
“How should I know? It’s fucking Canada, all covered with snow.”
“They’re already out there, searching for you.”
“You know if you can’t find me, nobody will. I need you, Frase...”
“How can I come for you, if I don’t know where to start?”
“You know where to start...”
“Where, Ray?” With a start he straightened up and tore his eyes open. He sat on the edge of his bed. The cabin was dark and deserted.
“Ray? Ray. Ray!” he called out, but only silence answered him. “Oh, dear...”
Wherever he had been, he was gone now.
Fraser rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. Had he been sleeping, haunted by a bad dream? A hallucination caused by the strange mood he was in?
He listened inside himself and tilted his head. It felt real to him. Fraser had witnessed more than one occasion proving the truth of the Bard’s words, “There are more things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” His instinct, his heart, told him the message, the contact, had been real. Immediately, he got to his feet, scooped up his most needed necessities and left to find his missing friend.
It took him one day to reach the last confirmed position of the missing plane, which was pretty impressive considering the distance he had to cover. The help of his many acquaintances had made it possible. The rescue squad had searched here, too, without any result. There was still a party of them present, but only a small basecamp now, enlarged by Fraser and his team of huskies. There was not much chance in finding the right tracks anymore. The place had been thoroughly searched and was now contaminated by the tracks of the rescue team.
Fraser’s thoughts backtracked. He was too close anyway, too close to see. Sometimes you had to step back to see the entire picture. He left the ground of the valley and ascended a rise. The snow was less deep here, carried away by the ongoing wind. Fraser squinted his eyes and took a look around. Nothing caught his attention. Nothing.
“You look, but you don’t see. Tracks are not always visible for the eye. You’ve got more senses, than one. You told me so. Use them!”
His eyes popped wide open again. Diefenbaker was a few steps away, eagerly sniffing, his long nose completely covered with snow. Fraser watched him and frowned. Then he closed the gap with a few long strides and hunkered down beside his four-legged friend.
“What is it, Dief?”
The wolf looked up at him, expectantly, and whined.
Fraser bent down a little further. Still he couldn’t see what had drawn Diefenbaker’s attention. He closed his eyes and ... suddenly there was a noise. He heard the voice again, Ray’s voice, singing: “So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me - S. O. S.; the love you gave me, nothing else can save me - S. O. S.....”
A brief smile cracked up Fraser’s face. “Ray! Ray, you hear me?” he called, but the voice just kept singing. He forced himself to focus on his surroundings again and - there! There it was! A stinging smell, faint but very distinctive. Kerosene! The leak in the tank! The start of a trail of chemical droplets telling the route of the lost plane. Breadcrumbs to follow, not strong enough for his own senses, but for his trusted friend’s!
“Well done, Dief! Show me the way! I know I can trust you.” And calling out to an unknown place he added, “hold on, Ray. I’m on my way!”
For several days Fraser and his team of huskies followed the invisible trail through savage landscape: up and down rises, over crackling icefields and frozen streams, passing through dark, narrow woods. They only rested when Dief got too tired to take the lead anymore, and resumed as soon as he was recovered again. Everything depended on him and his sharp senses now.
Whenever Fraser closed his eyes, he heard the voice again, the voice of his friend, still singing, but slowing down over time, interrupted by longer pauses. Instinctively, he knew what it meant and forced his team forward even harder.
Late in the afternoon of the third day Dief stopped suddenly and refused to go on. Nothing announced any reason why.
“What is it, Dief?”
The wolf just looked at him and whined. The animal turned around, then turned to look at his master again.
Fraser, insensitive to the icy wind, felt his blood running cold. “Did you lose the track?”
Dief stared at him and woofed. He turned around again, staring towards a substantial wall of snow in front of them.
“What is it? Have the tracks been buried by an avalanche?”
“You look, but you don’t see,” a voice ghosted through his mind. Fraser tilted his head and squinted his eyes. Something seemed wrong with the wall in front of him. Its shape looked odd, the edges too straight to be natural. Suddenly his eyes widened. “You mean...?”
Dief woofed again, jumped a few paces further and started digging. In an instant the Mountie was beside him, aiding his attempts. After only a few feet of digging they hit resistance: the hull of a plane; the crashed plane as the registration number told him. Fraser laid his hand against it and closed his eyes, called the name of his friend: “Ray! Ray, you hear me?”
But only silence answered him, nothing but the rush of the wind and the sizzling of shifting snow. With fear creeping into his heart Fraser started singing in his soft tenor voice: “Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage...” Fraser paused and listened. Several beats later another voice responded, weak and muted, “...to find the hand of Franklin ... reaching ... for the ... Beaufort Sea...”
Ray! He was alive and close by, close enough to hear him and to be heard!
With a quick glance, Fraser assessed the situation. The small plane stuck deep into a snowbank, tons of snow piling up several feet high around it. Probably the crash site was impossible to spot from above, if one wouldn’t know where to look for it. Help of any kind wasn’t to be expected. Considering the low temperature and the elapsed time, the search squad would probably arrive too late anyway. It was a miracle that anyone was still alive.
Fraser resumed his singing as he doubled his attempt to clear enough room for the hatchway to open. Ray’s voice accompanied him, but grew softer by the minute as his strength faded away.
The Mountie wasn’t aware of his surroundings anymore or the passage of time. His entire existence focused in this moment and place and one single goal - and finally Fraser succeeded.
After what felt like eternity, enough snow was moved to open the flap. Stale, icy air emerged from the dark interior of the plane only broken by the faint light seeping in from the outside. Fraser took a moment to catch his breath. Then he entered the crashed aircraft. It was almost unnaturally silent inside as the sound of wind and snow ceased, as if creation was holding its breath. His footfall seemed way too loud as it disturbed the reigning silence, absolute and sacred like in a church or a grave.
“Ray,” he whispered softly. “Ray, where are you?”
He made his way along the small aisle, through a tangle of crates and barrels and whatever cargo was thrown around as the aircraft dropped from the sky and met the ground with more force than it was built to withstand.
Close to the cockpit a faint ray of light traced its path through a crack in the hull up above in the ceiling. It illuminated a pile of rags and blankets and the remainders of a small fire. The heap had an almost human form and a closer look revealed a well-known face barely visible within the cloths.
Fraser’s heart raced as he recognized his partner. He dropped to his knees beside him. “Ray, Ray, Ray. Ray, you hear me?”
But his friend just lay there, pale and motionless, his hair covered with ice crystals, a blueish tint to his lips.
“Oh dear...” Quickly, Fraser pulled off his gloves and dug his way into the blankets covering his friend. He reached the lowest layer and laid his hand on the cold chest.
“Ray, don’t die on me. Come back, Ray, please ... “
Seconds seemed to stretch into hours. His hope faded away. Late. He was too late. Merely minutes might have made a difference... Fraser’s breath caught in his throat, his head dropped down, his eyes burning. Then he sensed it: a beat inside the fragile ribcage, slow and insubstantial, a rising of the chest, faint and shallow, but undeniably there.
“Yes, Ray, yes, that’s great. C’mon. I’m here.” Quickly, he rubbed his hands over the cold body, trying to create frictional heat and restart the circulation again.
The echo of their last conversation whispered through his mind. Ray’s look, the question in his eyes Fraser had failed to answer. The unspoken word, that might have changed everything.
“Stay,” Fraser whispered softly. “Stay with me, Ray. I’m here to bring you home.”
A hint of color returned to Ray Kowalski’s face. His eyelids fluttered open. “Frase ...” he breathed barely audible.
“Ray! Are you alright?”
“Damaged but alright.”
“What about the pilot?”
“Broke his neck. Couldn’t do much for him,” Ray replied and coughed as he tried to prop himself up. “No way to get out. This here thing is a damn trap ... but I knew you would come for me.”
“How could you know, I’d find you?” Fraser asked who assisted him, and once he sat upright, offered him a cup of hot tea from his Thermos bottle.
The ghost of a mischievous smile lit up Ray’s pale face. “You’re a Mountie, Frase. You always get your man.”
The Canadian returned the smile, warm and comforting. “Yes, I do. And I’ll never let him slip away again.” Gently he ran his fingers through the short blond spikes of Ray’s hair.
“I bet you won’t. You summoned a bloody snowstorm to keep me from leaving,” Ray mumbled hoarsely. “Always thought you were a secret shaman or something...”
Fraser just shook his head and kept on smiling. Maybe he would never stop smiling again.
“Could have just asked me to stay,” Ray added. Their eyes met. “You want me to stay, don’t you?”
Fraser nodded. “It would be my pleasure.”
“For a longer visit?”
Fraser shook his head.
“For ... longer?”
Fraser nodded again, his eyes sparkling. “Way longer.”
“How long?”
“Forever - if you don’t mind...”
Ray leaned back again and relaxed. “Guess we can figure something out...”
“Yes,” Fraser said, a happy smile lighting up his face, “we will! We’re good at figuring out things together.”
“That we are. Real partners.”
“Yes, Ray, real partners, for better, for worse.”