11 3 Rosie had no idea if they were on the ice runway near McMurdo Station or if they’d crash-landed miles away. The loadmaster kept shouting for everyone to stay in a group, but that was nearly impossible in these conditions. A blinding snow angled down and she saw only the jacket in front of her. A couple of steps in the wrong direction and she’d never find the group again. Rosie put her hand on the shoulder of the nearest jacket. The bearded man who’d been sitting next to her turned and smiled. He actually smiled, as if this were exactly why he’d taken a job in Antarctica, to relish a threat to his life. Rosie reached for another shoulder, but that person moved away and her arm fell through the icy air and back to her side. When the group came to a standstill, Rosie walked right into someone’s back. The loadmaster worked to corral everyone, encouraging them to huddle for warmth like penguins. Moments later, a couple of other crew members began distributing survival duffels they had pulled from a stash on the plane. “Groups of three!” the loadmaster shouted. A man wearing a red jacket grabbed the arm of Rosie’s tan Carhartt parka, and then he reached out and snagged another red-jacketed person. The three stood in a circle, their arms going around one another as if by instinct, bracing themselves against the hard wind and horizontally blowing snow. They paused for a long moment, like a team doing a chant before taking to the playing field. When one of the crew dropped a duffel against Rosie’s legs, she and the man stooped to unzip it. They pulled out a tent and wrestled it from its sleeve. Rosie thought he had it and he thought she had it, and the taffeta flapped away from their hands and billowed into the air. Rosie dove for the tent, just barely snatching it from the arms of the storm. The third member of their team stood hugging herself, her legs buckling. She looked very frightened, so Rosie had the idea of putting her inside the limp tent to keep it from blowing away while she and the man erected it. Once they got the woman slipped between the sheets of fabric, they dug deadman anchors, deep holes in which they buried snow stakes so that the tent would hold up in this wind. They inserted the poles into the tent sleeves and popped up the shelter. Then they shoved the duffel with the rest of their survival gear into the vestibule and crawled over the duffel and into the tent. Rosie put an arm around the woman’s shoulders while the man extracted three sleeping bags from the duffel and unfurled them. After they got into the bags, Rosie and the man inflated the Therm-a-Rest pads. “Get on this,” she told the woman. “The insulation will keep you warmer.” Rosie was glad for the safety of the tent but sorry there was nothing left to do. Taking action calmed her. Now they could only wait to see if they would be rescued. Each time the wind buffeted the side of the tent, the woman flinched. The man lay motionless. Rosie began humming a hymn she’d learned from a minister she’d had an affair with in White Salmon, Washington, when she’d had the tree-planting gig. It shouldn’t have been an “affair.” The man wasn’t married or even involved with anyone else. He just didn’t think Rosie was an “appropriate ” date for a minister. He said she was too wild. He didn’t want his congregation to know about her. Rosie had laughed when he’d told her that. Story of her life, inappropriate lovers. At least she’d learned this lovely melody. “I’d prefer silence,” the man lying next to her said. Rosie stopped humming. 12 [3.85.215.164] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:09 GMT) The woman on the other side of her said, “What happened?” That seemed kind of obvious to Rosie, but the woman was probably in shock. Hell, Rosie was probably in shock. Conversation seemed like a good development. “Is this your first season?” she asked. “Yes.” “I don’t really know what happened except that the crew had to land the plane blind because the storm came up after we passed the point...