Mr. Ditch goes to Washington: Chapter 2

Having secured a ride back to town for myself and the remains of my car, I began to look for ways to get to Edmonton in 16 hours on no notice. It was looking like hitchhiking when a friend called and told me there would be an airvac to Edmonton the following morning. Since the plane would be empty on the way down, I could hop on for the ride. This was even better than my original plan. I went to sleep happy.
At shift change, I called dispatch to confirm the plan. “No, we ended up doing that flight from Fort St. John.” In a panic, I phoned every company at the airport, even the fuel depot. No flights until the afternoon, not by anyone. I started exercising my thumb. My flight that day was toast, but I could still hang out at the commercial scale shack and wait for a trucker headed south. After two hours, I was comfortably acquainted with the scale operator and a good part of Fort Nelson’s local shipping, but I wasn’t any closer to Edmonton. Then the operator had to close early, and my latest plan had gone the way of all its forebears.