Word: arnolds
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Twice a week in the warm months, twice a month in the cold, a pilot named Ray Arnold ferries mail and sundries to people who live so far back in the mountains of Idaho that it sometimes seems the sun sets between them and the nearest town. To many of the people along this route, that nearest town is Cascade, where Arnold Aviation is based. There, in a cheerful office off to one side of a hangar, Arnold's wife Carol receives shopping lists from the backwoodsmen on her short-wave radio; then she does all their marketing. These goods...
...with chummy signs: DO YOU WANT TO TALK TO THE ONE IN CHARGE OR THE ONE WHO KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON? The people of Cascade (pop. 1,000) hang around here as the people in small towns in warmer climes do around certain gas pumps. They waved Ray Arnold off as he taxied away on skis...
...like diamond dust. Off the starboard wing the Sawtooth Mountain Range made a ragged platinum horizon. Down canyons, through passes, over peaks, the Cessna with the skis affixed to its wheels threw a shadow that caused elk, long-horned sheep and mountain goats to bolt. On the control panel Arnold has tacked a sign: IF YOU WISH TO SMOKE, PLEASE STEP OUTSIDE...
...Idaho, skis and risk have always been a part of mail delivery. In the 1880s, carriers used 11-ft. skis to get over the high passes to reach the miners' camps. Three carriers died in avalanches. A fourth froze to death, his . bag jammed with Christmas mail. Arnold has crashed twice, once when the wind shifted wildly over a jury-rigged runway and put him into the trees. The second time, a crack developed in the exhaust system, carbon monoxide leaked into the cabin, and the pilot passed out. The plane's premature landing, fortunately, was again cushioned...
When it is not possible to land, Arnold drops the mail, employing passengers, if he has any, as bombardiers. He orders them to open a window, makes a pass at the lowest FAA-permitted altitude of 500 ft., yells, "Get ready . . ." and then explodes with "Now!" When the drop is dead on the money, as it often is, the involuntary first-time mail bomber gets a rush not unlike the sensation one associates with having just saved the Republic...