Voodoo Ridge Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sierra Nevada beckoned as though dipped in powdered sugar. I was tempted to wake Savannah, to share the postcard view, but she looked so peaceful that I thought the better of it. She was, after all, sleeping for two. There’d be plenty of opportunities for sightseeing when we were a family. From perpetual foster child to the head of my own real clan. It had taken only more than four decades. I smiled inside.
    A family. So this is what serenity must feel like.
    After more than two hours in the air, I hooked a right northeast of Sacramento, then followed the highway that wended up from the little Gold Rush-era burg of Placerville, to the airport at South Lake Tahoe. That way, even if visibility deteriorated, which it showed no indication of doing, I could reasonably minimize the chances of becoming personally acquainted with any of the area’s 10,000-foot peaks. The Sierra was a veritable graveyard of airplanes whose pilots disrespected Mama Nature and paid the price. The Duck and I didn’t intend to join them.
    We were twelve minutes from landing, according to the Garmin GPS mounted on my steering yoke. Oakland Center had just instructed me to squawk VFR and change to the advisory frequency for traffic pattern entry at South Lake Tahoe, when something on the ground a mile or so ahead of us and slightly to the north glinted brightly, almost blindingly. It looked to me like a signaling mirror, like somebody trying to get our attention. Whatever it was seemed to be coming from deep in the pines between two jagged, granite crests.
    “Where are we?” Savannah said, stretching her arms and yawning.
    “About ten miles out of Tahoe. Nice nap?”
    “Wonderful nap. Very restful. What are you looking at?”
    “I’m not exactly sure.”
    I banked left to get a better look, hugging mountainsides as close as prudence would allow.
    Had we taken off from Rancho Bonita one minute earlier that morning, or a minute later, the angle of the sun would’ve been lower or higher, and I might not have seen what I saw. I wouldn’t have seen it had there been more clouds, as the weather gurus initially predicted, or had I been focused on my prelanding checklist, as I probably should’ve been. The Buddha believes that what happens in life happens for a reason. I still don’t know the reason I saw what I saw that morning. But looking down through the pines as I flew over them, I glimpsed a large piece of polished aluminum protruding from the snow.
    It looked like the twisted, skeletal remains of an airplane wing.

    “S OUTH L AKE Tahoe area traffic, Cessna Four Charlie Lima is five miles southwest of the field, descending through 8,000 feet. Crosswind entry, runway One-Eight, full-stop, South Lake Tahoe.”
    I radioed our intentions and instinctively leaned forward in my seat, scanning the sky. If there were any other aircraft landing or departing the field, I couldn’t see them. The radio was silent. A good sign.
    We turned base at pattern altitude. The view of Lake Tahoe off the Duck’s passenger side was spectacular. Whitecaps danced on water the color of gunmetal. Savannah gazed serenely out the window, smiling to herself. That was always one thing I loved about her, her willingness to let beautiful moments speak for themselves, rather than diluting them with the obvious, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
    “South Lake Tahoe area traffic, Cessna Four Charlie Lima is turning final,” I radioed, “runway One-Eight, South Lake Tahoe.”
    The Duck sniffed out the runway and settled onto the asphalt as gentle as a sigh. One of our better landings, if I do say so myself.
    “You should think about being a pilot,” Savannah said, teasing me. “You’re not half bad at it.”
    “Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll definitely give it some thought.”
    I broadcast that we were “down and clear” of the runway, and taxied toward an arrow and a sign that said, “Transient parking.” A tall, gangly ramp attendant in his mid-twenties, wearing