May Day Mayday
MAY DAY MAYDAY
by Dave White
Story Editor - Melody Rondeau
Music by - James Newton Howard
Executive Producer - Ponsonby Britt, O.B.E.
Aerial flight is not inherently dangerous. But, to an even greater degree than
the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any incompetence, incapacity or neglect.
An early aviation manual.
Southern Colorado was not the usual place to find the Rescue Rangers; it was
simply where their latest successful case had ended up. And though the Alamosa
airport saw its share of odd aircraft at the animal aviation center, the presence
of both the birdlike RangerPlane and the speedy tiltrotor RangerWing kept a
constant flow of airplane admirers stopping by. Chip greeted the visitors and
ran interference for Gadget, who would never get her repairs completed if she
had to answer all the questions. Dale even helped out, although most of his
answers were wildly fanciful, both children and their parents delighted in sharing
his imaginative outlook.
As evening approached, the visits ceased. The chipmunks went to check on Gadget’s progress and found her working on the RangerWing’s instrument panel. The Wing had suffered heavily in their final encounter, and Gadget worked with an expression of grim determination. Chip knew from experience such emotion couldn’t be the result of aircraft damage.
“Looks like you’re almost finished. Is there anything else you’re going to work on?”
“No, Chip,” she responded. “I’ve got a few hours more work to do -- It’s just that I’m going to hate flying tonight.”
This was a comment Chip and Dale had never expected to hear from Gadget. They would have thought she would be eager to fly at any time, and especially when headed home.
”I know it’s been a tough case,” Chip said. “Well, several tough cases as it turned out. But I figured you’d be glad to get out of here.”
“It’s the First of May. It’s the anniversary of the day I lost my father. I never like flying on this date.”
She busied herself in the cockpit to stave off any more discussion. Chip could tell she was nervous about the flight and trying to hide it. He climbed up into the RangerWing and rested his hand on Gadget’s shoulder.
“Fly back with Dale and the others in the RangerPlane. I can fly the RangerWing home. You look like you could use the rest.”
Gadget knew this was a considerable concession for Chip. Suggesting she ride home with Dale made her realize how deeply concerned he was for her safety.
“Thanks, Chip. I’m okay. I’m going to have to fly the RangerWing home. Half the instruments got fried by that artificial thunderstorm, and I’m a bit concerned about the flight controls. It’ll be safest with as little weight aboard as possible, and that means me - alone.”
“We’ll fly back alongside you, then,” Dale suggested. “We can help you if you get in trouble.”
“I have to finish repairing these instruments before I can take off. The RangerWing can stay ahead of that storm coming in from the east. The RangerPlane can’t. So you go on ahead and I’ll see you in Pagosa Springs.”
“No sense arguing with ‘er, mates,” Monterey said, as he returned from the snack bar with their in-flight meals. “’Specially when she’s right. Fast as the RangerWing flies, she may beat us there.”
“Okay,” Chip said reluctantly. “Just be careful.”
“Like always,” she said cheerily.
“No, not like always. This time, be careful!”
“I will, worrywart.” She delivered a tight, heartfelt hug, then stepped back to show him a smiling, confident face she didn’t quite feel. “You be careful, too.”
Shortly after, the RangerPlane took off with the rest of the Rangers, and Gadget distracted herself with the repairs to the instruments. She finished three hours later, just after nightfall, and readied the Wing for take off. One of the things that had been trashed in their confrontation was the preflight checklist, but Gadget ran it from memory. With the engines running smoothly and everything checked, she hesitated and drew a deep breath.
So it’s May First. It’s just my personal superstition. It’s no different than flying on any other evening, she told herself. Why can’t I ever believe that.
She lifted off and turned to the west. Behind her towering thunderheads closed in and glimmered with lightning.
Gadget climbed sharply to gain the altitude needed to clear the Rockies. Here, the mountains peaked at twelve thousand feet and she planned to cruise well above them and descend when she was near her destination.
A three-quarter moon lit the clouds below her and the craggy mountains reaching up through the clouds. She leveled off precisely at her cruise altitude and wiggled herself comfortably into her seat, intending to enjoy the flight.
Then she noticed a buzzing sound. At first she thought she might have engine trouble. The instruments gave no indication of a problem, even as the sound grew louder. Then she saw the source of the sound. A whirlwind was descending from the clear sky ahead of her. She watched it in amazement.
A tornado couldn’t drop from a clear sky, she thought, and certainly not at thirteen thousand feet.
Nonetheless, it closed the distance and the buzz became a roar. The RangerWing was caught by the spinning wind and twisted violently to the left. She fought for control as her altimeter rapidly spun downward.
Gadget pushed down hard on the rudder pedals and the Wing straightened out suddenly. She looked around for the twister, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Golly, that was wild. Must have been clear air turbulence. Never heard of it showing a funnel before.
She finally chalked it up to the mountain flying conditions and pulled the nose up to regain the lost altitude. Ahead she could now see the white crested barrier of the Rockies, below she saw fog close in on terrain most inhospitable for aircraft. What wasn’t tall, spire-like trees was sharp-edged rocks.
Gadget set herself back on course and pushed the throttles forward. The thunderstorm behind her had begun to catch up. It towered into the night sky, fifty thousand feet or more. Lightning rippled through it and the thunder now reached her, grumbling like the warning growl of a gigantic, hungry cat.
Something trembled through the RangerWing, a gentle shaking she felt through her seat and the control wheel. Again, her instruments gave no clue as to the source of the trouble, yet the shaking became insistent, like someone trying to awaken her from a deep sleep. She looked around her craft for the source of the vibration. A streak of sheet lightning from the storm coursed across the sky above her and she saw the trouble. Her right engine was bouncing alarmingly on its mounts. If that continued, it would break free within seconds.
Gadget slapped the engine cut-off switch and kicked the rudder over, anticipating another sharp leftward twist from the loss of thrust. As she steadied the nose back on course there came an awful, crunching noise. The right wing buckled in the middle and folded upward like an aviator giving a final gallant salute to the enemy who had just shot him down.
She cranked the wheel over hard, hoping to keep the wings level. It was possible, barely, to make a successful crash landing on one wing. If she could stave off a fatal spin, she would at least have a chance to try it. She dropped rapidly and then, as the RangerWing began to roll over, she knew she had lost her last chance. She released the wheel and began to unfasten her seat belt. If I can just find something in here to use as a parachute. Something to break my fall... A cloth... A piece of paper.... Anything!
Just then, the RangerWing pulled out of the dive. It steadied with wings level in a gentle descent. Gadget grabbed the controls again. She looked right and gasped in disbelief. The right wing was straight and normal, the engine rock-steady with the propeller unmoving. Cautiously, she started the engine. It ran smoothly and without a single flutter.
Am I losing my mind? She tried to shake off the queasy feeling the thought gave her. Maybe the lightning flash made it look like the wing failed. Somehow, the thought that she could be so wrong instead of crazy didn’t make her feel better.
Now she was becoming pressed for time. The storm was closing with the relentless pace of a Roman legion. The peaks of the mountains were closer and clearly above her. She put on more power and climbed again.
She had no sooner leveled off than an eerie feeling crept over her. For no cause she could discern, her fur began to stand on end. She began to get the unmistakable sensation she was being watched. There’s something up here with me. No! Stop it! You’re scaring yourself. But the feeling wouldn’t leave her.
It might not have been so bad if she could have seen it. But when you are alone at high altitude and something grabs you, seeing it coming might not help. It was warm to the touch, like a fevered hand, and slick as an aircraft skin coated in engine oil. It wrapped around her left ankle and sharply pulled her foot off the control pedal, forcing her to twist in the seat. She was so startled and frightened she couldn’t make a sound.
She saw it then. It was sinuous and snakelike, sickly blue and veined in bright red like turquoise mined in Hades. It had reached over the side of the RangerWing to find her. She clawed for a wrench to bash it, and a second tentacle seized her right wrist and pulled it down toward the floor.
It must be underneath! she thought, as she tried to peel the tentacle off her wrist with her left hand. Another slithering appendage grabbed her left arm as yet another wrapped around her other leg. She struggled for all she was worth, but the bizarre, writhing things inexorably dragged her limbs away from each other, leaving her body defenseless. One more slippery thread slowly grasped her slender throat and tightened. It wasn’t strangling her, yet. It was trying to intimidate her, to frighten her into surrendering. She fought all the more, to no effect, as the tentacles tightened further, dragging her down across the seats and rendering her painfully motionless, her arms and legs stretched to the compass points. Then she saw a dozen or more wriggling pseudopods rise up over the side of the Wing like a family of cobras. They paused with their tips curved down at her, as if they could see her, reveling in her helplessness. Triumphant. Then they began to descend on her, blotting out the sky, and she screamed.
Instantly, she could move again. She swung and kicked with all her strength and only opened her eyes when she realized her blows weren’t connecting. She panted with desperate fear. There was nothing there. Nothing at all.
She pulled herself back into the pilot’s seat. She had descended more than a mile, but the well-mannered RangerWing had kept itself level even with no hand on the controls. The horror was indeed gone. Or was it? Ahead the mountain tops gleamed in the moonlight. Behind the storm closed in. Below jagged rocks awaited her fall like a fielder’s mitt for the Devil’s outfield. Above, nightmares lurked.
Gadget knew what it meant. “I can’t go up. I can’t go down. I can’t goback. Is this what happened to you Daddy?” she whispered desperately.
She looked around in every direction, trying to find an alternative to her fate. There was nothing. Not a chance.
“I’m not going to make it,” she said aloud.
“Yes, you are.” came a voice beside her.
She caught her breath. Slowly she looked to the right seat. The figure there wore an old flight jacket and helmet. Goggles of the Royal Air Force type rested above his brow. The stars shone through him faintly and his smile was as familiar to Gadget as her own name.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, sweetie.” Even if she couldn’t have seen him, she could never mistake his voice. “I thought you might need a hand.”
She turned away from him. She was more ashamed at her failure than frightened of the apparition.
“I can’t get out of this!” she cried “I can’t be the pilot you were!”
“You’re right,” Geegaw said. “You’re better. You have the one thing I never managed to have. Trust. I never trusted an instrument, a map, or another living soul, not completely. You have that kind of trust. You trust your own handiwork. You trust your friends. Tonight, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Set your chart here, and get your pencil.” He set his hand upon hers and guided it across the aeronautical map. It wasn’t like the touch of a hand, but a warmth that guided her pencil over the paper, tracing out a pathway.
“There you are,” her father said. “That’s the route through the Cancellation Pass. It’s how the old mail pilots used to get through here when planes couldn’t fly over the mountains. It hasn’t been flown since before you were born, but that’s your way home. You’ll have to make the last part of the Pass by the seat of your pants. The wind is howling fast and it comes in behind you, trying to kill your lift and splash you. You’ll have to get under the fog line, and that means into the trees. The best pilots always came through with evergreen on their undercarriage, so don’t be afraid of cutting it close. Once you’re through, it’s clear flying to Pagosa Springs. Watch for the beacon.”
“Oh, Daddy. I miss you. And I still love you so much.”
“I have to go, sweetie,” he said, starting to fade. Suddenly, he took something and tossed it to her. “Keep this. Use it when you need it. And always remember, I love you, and I’ll be close on your wing. Always.”
Then he was gone.
She tried to catch the object he’d thrown with her right hand and she was sure she’d missed it. I’ll find it later, she thought. But she didn’t notice where, as if by magic, it had gone.
Gadget cinched her seat belt and put the RangerWing in a steep descent. Under the fog line and into the trees, she repeated. Whatever happens, at least I’ll do it to myself.
Chart, compass, courage: these were all that remained to Gadget. There was nothing else she could trust, not even her own eyes. She resolved to follow the route no matter what she saw or felt.
Gadget descended through the fog layer and broke through alarmingly close to the ground. Only dim moonlight filtered through to light the way and she aimed from least dark to less dark to avoid the trees. The sharply narrow valleys were a maze, with dead ends and unseeable dangers which would claim her in an instant if she strayed off course. She forced herself to ignore the crosswinds, rocks, trees and darkness. She steered strictly by the chart into the deep canyons and rifts of the Rockies.
Soon, the wind rose behind her, and she added more speed to keep lift under her wings. The chart showed her entering the Cancellation Pass itself and she pressed on without consulting the chart again. Now the wind rose to gale force and Gadget pushed the throttles to the stops. Treetops loomed above her and the rocks thrust up like eager, blunt claws. She skirted the base of the fog line even as the ground began to climb toward her, the two forming the jaws of the enormous nutcracker that she had to fly through. She dodged the trees and craggy cliffsides as she closed rapidly on the end of the Pass. Trees appeared suddenly ahead and she pulled up sharply. She felt branches strike the RangerWing and she cried out in alarm, but the ship continued to fly. Another brush with a tree limb thumped the hull and in an instant, it was over.
As if a switch had been thrown, the trees fell away. The fog abruptly vanished, pinned behind her by the shift in atmospheric pressure. Ahead, stars twinkled in a clear sky. She was through the Pass, and she turned toward the southwest where the airfield should be.
* * *
The animal side of Pagosa Springs Airfield had been the haven and homecoming for rodent flyers for more than eighty years. One of the oldest of old hands there was Sam, a true hanger rat with forty-five years experience in all types of aviation. He watched the assembled Rescue Rangers nervously gazing at the sky to the east, growing more concerned by the minute as the thunderstorm began to rise over the mountains.
“Better light the beacon,” he told a mechanic. The ground squirrel trotted over to an antique apparatus, ignited the carbon arc and gave the housing a push. It began to rotate end-over-end, sweeping a brilliant white light from the horizon, across the expanse of the sky, over the opposite horizon, and across the ground to sweep again.
“She’ll see that, fellas,” he advised the Rangers. “That’s the brightest navigation light in the state. It’ll bring her home.”
“I hope so,” Monty whispered.
“Pleeease be all right, Gadget,” Dale keened. Behind them, Chip said nothing aloud, his only thoughts beseeching the powers of heaven for her safe return.
Across the field at the human end of the aviation spectrum, a young air traffic controller in the tower spotted the flash of the beacon and checked through his binoculars.
“What’s that light, Eddie?” he asked his senior controller. “That’s not authorized is it?”
The older man looked out and nodded at the flashing light. “That’s the ghost beacon, Billy. Its been lighting up on it’s own like that as long as anyone here can remember.”
“Isn’t it a hazard? Shouldn’t we shut it down?”
“It’s been disconnected four times. It always starts up again. Everyone hereabouts knows about it, so it’s not a hazard. The story goes that it lights up when one of the old mail pilots who was lost crossing the Rockies through the Cancellation Pass is trying to finally get home. Sometimes you can even hear them coming in.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Billy scoffed. “That’s crazy.” He stepped to the door and out onto the catwalk to sweep the horizon with his binoculars again. He returned a few moments later, ashen faced.
“Eddie, I DID hear it! A real soft engine noise. And there’s nothing there! Nothing from horizon to horizon.”
“Well, whadaya know.” Eddie said, pouring a fresh cup of coffee. “I guess someone finally did make it home.”
* * *
Across the field, Dale was first to hear the faint raspberry engine noise. He searched frantically to the northeast until the arc light’s flash briefly illuminated the incoming aircraft.
“THERE SHE IS!” Dale shouted.
The RangerWing sailed out of the sky toward the airfield, hardly slowing as it approached. Gadget, hungry for the ground, lowered the landing skids and made a straight in landing, not waiting to transit to a helicopter touchdown. The skids threw sparks wildly the moment they made contact with the runway, and Sam slapped the emergency alarm. TwoTonka-built crash trucks sped onto the field after the RangerWing as it bounced to a stop, nearly nosing over as it did. The Rangers dashed to board the fire engines and rode out in pursuit. The crash trucks stopped at a prudent distance from the aircraft, but the four Rangers rushed up to find Gadget slumped over the controls, unmoving.
Zipper reached her first, squeakily calling her name and gently lifting her muzzle. Chip clambered up the side of the Wing and slipped his arm around her shoulders, easing her back from the controls. Dale bounded up the right side of the Wing and into the cockpit to help Chip. Monty piled into the back seat and became a living pillow for Gadget’s head.
“Gadget, luv?” Monty coaxed. “Can ya hear me? Are ya all right?”
Gadget’s words came choked and broken, halfway between sobs and laughter. “I... made it, guys. I made it!”
Along the mountain ridge, thunder crackled across the sky. It was not the grumble of a beast that had missed it’s prey, but a booming salute to a worthy and victorious opponent.
* * *
The tow buggy had parked the RangerWing next to the RangerPlane in the safety of the hanger before the storm broke. Gadget had quickly related the tale of her brush with the unexplainable. She and Dale stood near the wide hanger doors as Sam and the others looked over the aircraft. Still unnerved by her experience, she was willing to let others try to figure out what went wrong.
“So you really saw your Dad in the RangerWing?” Dale asked. “Wow. We’ve got a haunted airplane!”
“I saw all of it,” she answered. “I know it all sounds crazy, but I saw it. I felt it. It was as real as you and me standing here. Do you think I could have fallen asleep three times and dreamed it all?”
Chip called out from under the RangerWing. “There’s no sign that anything attached itself to the underside, except this.” He held up a sprig of pine that he had pulled loose from the landing skid. “You really got lucky, Gadget. Trying to do a little gardening on the way in?”
“I know where I got that,” she answered, smiling weakly. “Do you suppose I should give it back?”
“Here’s one part of the puzzle,” Sam called out. They all gathered around the RangerWing, Dale boosting Gadget up to the cockpit. “You’re altimeter’s way off. It’s reading three thousand feet too low. Did you reset the barometric pressure before you took off?”
Gadget gasped softly. “I set it while I was working on the instruments, but I didn’t recheck it before I took off.”
“Small error,” Sam said grimly. “Big consequences. The incoming storm would have changed the atmospheric pressure at Alamosa. Considering how sneaky the effects of hypoxia are, you’re lucky to be alive.”
“Isn’t hypoxia around Belgium?” Dale puzzled.
“No, Dale,” Chip answered. “Hypoxia means her brain was starved for oxygen. Gadget accidentally flew too high. You have to have oxygen above fifteen thousand feet. That’s why she was seeing things.”
“Chip, I couldn’t have imagined the things I saw.”
“No, it makes sense, luv,” Monty said, “Lack of oxygen can do really strange things to your mind. Once we was flying over the Himalayas when I saw the biggest...”
“Monty,” Gadget insisted, “something grabbed me up there! It had me pinned! I could see and feel it!”
Chip began assembling the facts as if solving a mystery. “If you were losing control of yourself, your brain might have been trying to account for it. The tornado accounted for the buzzing in your ears and your sudden turn. The wing folding up was a reason for the RangerWing going into a roll. Even fighting off the monster. Once you couldn’t stay upright, you perceived something holding you down. It all adds up if your altimeter sent you up where you should have been on bottled oxygen.”
“And the RangerWing will start a gentle descent on its own if you release the controls,” Monty added. “You know that, Gadget luv. You built it to do that. Once you were down below fifteen thousand feet, you recovered.”
“The chart, then!” Gadget demanded. “How did that get there if my Dad wasn’t there!?”
Sam took the flight chart from the cockpit with a look of amazement on his face. “I’ll be danged! This chart has the route through the Cancellation Pass! No one’s flown this route in forty years. Maybe Geegaw was there!”
Gadget swallowed hard remembering the moment. “Dad helped me draw it. He was showing me the way to safety. There isn’t any other explanation.”
Monty took the chart and looked it over. “That’s the Pass, all right. But remember, Gadget luv, you grew up with one of the greatest flyers who ever lived and you probably saw any number of old charts and air routes. When you reached back into your mind for a way out, you just remembered this old map. In a way, your Dad did save your life tonight.”
Gadget bowed her head in sorrow as the logic of the explanations became apparent. “I really hoped I hadn’t imagined that part...”
Dale gently took her hand to comfort her, but stopped and looked at her in surprise. “Where did you get this ring?”
She looked at her hand in amazement. She pulled off the golden circlet, much too large for her small ring finger. She hesitated a moment, then handed the ring to Dale.
“I can’t do this. Dale, look inside the ring and tell me what you see.”
Dale held up the ring. “There’s an inscription.”
Gadget clutched her hands to her lips. “What’s it say?” she whispered.
Dale read, “Together Forever.”
“Oh my gosh! It’s true! It’s ALL true!” she cried. “That’s my Dad’s wedding ring!”
Her tears flowed even as she gasped in delight. He had been with her in the RangerWing. Perhaps, he was with her even now.
Everyone quickly gathered around. Monty gingerly took the ring from Dale. “To-ra-loo!” he said softly. “This is it, all righty. I handed it to him at the ceremony. It isn’t gold, either. It’s titanium. Geegaw didn’t figure anything less could keep up with him.”
“Gadget,” Chip said quietly, “wasn’t he wearing that ring when...?”
“Of course he was,” she replied. “He always wore it. He was wearing it when he went down, on May Day.”
“It’s not possible,” Chip said. “The ring went into the sea with him.”
Gadget turned to him with a smile. A smile born of trust that could never be betrayed. “Don’t tell me what’s not possible. Whatever you may want to believe, the ring is right here. That’s all the proof I need.”
Later, after Chip and Dale had settled their squabble over who got the bottom bunk in the pilot’s bunk room, Monty sought out Gadget. He found her where he expected she would be, at the open hanger doors gazing out toward the Rockies, now shrouded in the storm clouds.
“Going to get some sleep, luv?”
“In a little bit, Monty. I just wanted to... You know.”
“You want to feel close to him a little longer. I understand, luv.”
They stood and watched the rain pour down on the airfield, distant lightning occasionally illuminating the mountains. Monty could feel the unspoken words between himself and the one closest to a daughter he would ever have.
“What else did Geegaw say, luv? He wouldn’t have come all that way just to give directions, then give you that ring without a word.”
Gadget still wore the ring on her right hand, until she could get it safely home. She cradled one hand in the other and regarded the precious thing as she spoke.
“He told me he loved me. And he told me to use this when I needed it.”
“And will you use it, Lil’ Gadget?” he asked gently, “when you decide who you love?”
“You’re the one I love now, Monterey Jack,” she smiled. “But... well, maybe not soon, but someday. Yes, I’ll use it. I can’t guess when, or where, or who. But I will.”
Distantly, the thunder gave a deep, delighted laugh.
THE END
COPYRIGHTS AND DISCLAIMERS: Gadget, Chip, Dale, Monterey Jack, Zipper, and
the Rescue Rangers are © and T.M. The Walt Disney Company and were employed
without permission. They are currently vacationing in Hypoxia, which is actually
just south of France.
All other characters, locations, equipment and situations are © 2001 by David D. White. Permission to copy and redistribute without charge is granted, provided the work is not altered, edited, haunted, grasped by tentacles, or otherwise fiddled with.