Free The River of Bones v5 by Tom Hron

later, shivering without his shirt, he waited while Simon daubed on antiseptic salve and taped gauze over the wounds.  Finally, he pulled his clothes back on and said, “Let’s fix my airplane with some duct tape, get out of here, and find someplace to camp.  My back hurts like hell and I don’t want to stand guard for the rest of the day.  I should’ve known every polar bear within miles smelled our fish when I opened the package.  That stuff stinks like the rear end of a camel.”
    Simon laughed.  “Sorry that I think everything’s so funny, but I can’t help it.  I’ll give you penicillin to kill any infection and you’ll be fine in a few days.  It’s my fault as much as yours, and we knew this country doesn’t take any prisoners when we started this trip.”
    They patched the Super Cub, then reloaded their baggage and started their engines.  After takeoff, they climbed over the headland just ahead but still stayed low as they flew across the barren ground running west.  The land was empty and trackless.  A flat stretch came into view and they landed once again and stopped behind a windswept hill.
    They began the long task of repairing the damage done by the bear, using acetone to strip off the old paint and butyrate dope to fasten new fabric over the rips and broken back window.  Simon carefully shrank the new covering as tight as a drum with propane heat and painted it, leaving the airplane almost as good as new again.  He covered the U.S. registration numbers on both ships with spray paint and added black alphabetic letters copied from pictures of Russian aircraft they’d found on the internet.   Then they pitched a tent, made soup, and drank the steaming liquid as darkness fell over them.  Hunting wolves howled far back in the wintertime, and they heard the sky whispering again.
    “Get some sleep,” said Simon quietly, “and I’ll watch the heaters until everything dries.  Tomorrow will be a better day.”
    Exhausted, Jake nodded and crawled inside his sleeping bag, wearing his clothing and a stocking cap to stop the loss of heat off the top of his head.  The settling dark would soon drop the temperature dangerously low . . . though Simon would watch over him, and they were too far inland for any marauding bears.  He fell asleep and dreamed about Sasha.
    The next morning they preflighted their airplanes and flew off again, using GPS latitude and longitude to guide them as they buzzed across the snowy barrens toward Lake Baikal.
    An unbelievable piece of equipment, Jake told himself.  Click, click, and the nautical miles were accurate within four feet.  Click, click, and there was the correct course, as compared to what the airplane’s magnetic compass said.  Click, click, and there was the time en route.  How on earth had pilots flown long cross-countries before?  He then remembered the maps, measurements, and flight planning pilots had gone through in the past.  Not long ago their crazy odyssey would have been nearly impossible, lacking all the right maps.  Now everything was in a microchip.
    He led Simon up and down low mountains, then higher ones.  Not good, he thought.  Keep flying this way and you’ll run out of gas sooner, rather than later, and someone would surely see them flying down the long valleys as well.
    But what other choice was there?  They must hold their course.  Cold fear gripped him, although he told himself stay calm.  He had faced tough flying before—in dark, rolling thunderstorms, icing, and severe turbulence.  Hold your course, his secret voice whispered, and everything will work out.  But . . . he swung his eyes back and forth searching for Russian fighters.
    Hour after hour he flew, buzzing up one mountain and down another, zigzaging through canyons, hugging hillsides, and diving down along lowlands that ran the right way.  Throttle up, throttle back, bank left, then right, climb and dive until you were sick of it, all to stay low and off