Free The End of The Road by Sue Henry Page B

when Harriet left, with the admonition not to let the telephone make me crazy.
    “Thanks for coming,” I told her as I hugged her good-bye. “I feel much better now. I’m sorry I won’t be able to come to the quilting circle, but I’ll make it next time.”
    “So you’re still thinking of escaping to Anchorage?” she asked, shrugging on her coat and fishing the car keys out of a pocket.
    “Yes, as a matter of fact I think I will do just that—first flight out in the morning. I’ll call Grant Aviation, fly up, rent a car at the airport, and spend a few days shopping. That’s always good therapy, yes? Maybe I’ll drive out and see Alex Jensen and Jessie Arnold. Joe will want to invite them to the wedding, so I’ll give them a heads-up to expect it in the spring.”
    “All good ideas,” Harriet agreed. “Call me when you get back.”
    “I’ll do that.”

NINE
    AT NINE O’CLOCK WEDNESDAY MORNING I was aboard the plane in which Grant Aviation would fly me to Anchorage, feeling like the runaway that I, of course, was. There was, however, little guilt involved in my escape, but rather a distinct sense of relief.
    Stretch went along, snug in his carrier behind the rear seat I had taken to keep an eye on him. Used to the carrier, he would be content to take a nap for most of the just-under-an-hour flight.
    As we taxied down the runway for takeoff I glanced around at my fellow passengers.
    There were six, half filling the plane.
    Three were obviously businessmen, dressed in suits and ties and carrying briefcases.
    A young couple sat together holding hands in seats just behind the pilot. I recognized the girl, as I knew her mother from quilting club and remembered that I had seen her wedding picture in a local newspaper several months earlier.
    There was one other woman sitting halfway up the small plane on the opposite side. I had guessed that, probably, she was not a Homer resident, for I had seen her in the waiting room before boarding looking through the brochures that filled a rack on the wall with information on Homer and the surrounding area. As I watched she had collected a few that she tucked into the large shoulder bag she carried and, now aboard the plane, she was studying one I recognized as containing a map of the spit and its various offices and businesses. We have few tourist visitors to Homer so late in the year and I wondered briefly what had brought her there, but people do come and go for all kinds of reasons.
    As we had approached the plane, with a hand motion she had offered to let me board in front of her, but knowing I wanted a rear seat I had thanked her and waited until last.
    Though there were a few clouds, it was mostly clear and sunny as we flew northeast over the Kenai Peninsula. I was able to see the lakes, large and small, as they passed beneath us. Knee-deep in one of the small ones a moose and her half-grown calf were browsing on the reeds and pondweed that were still scantily available at its thinly frozen edge. During the winter when the ponds freeze solid and the snow is deep, the huge ungulates rely on the needlelike leaves of conifers for the up to forty pounds of food they need each day.
    Though much of the peninsula is a national wildlife refuge and is full of moose, I saw no more from the air that morning and we were soon passing over Cook Inlet headed for the Anchorage airport.
    Where the inlet divides, Anchorage occupies a projection of land between it and the Chugach Mountains to the east. The northern waters become the smaller Knik Arm and the southern, Turnagain Arm, so named in different languages by at least three captains of sailing ships, including Captain Cook, who was searching for a northwest passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. All, however, were disappointed in their quests and had to turn back into the Pacific, thus the name.
    On sunny days I always love flying between Anchorage and Homer because, besides the inlet and its arms, several mountain ranges are