Just stick close to the coastline, and you’ll be fine, Jacob’s memory reminded her again.
“Okay, you landlubber,” Emily said, playing along with her own best pirate voice. “Let’s untie that knotty rope thing over there and see what we can do, shall we?”
Rhiannon pulled at the knot of the rope tied to the mooring bollard, tossing it onto the deck of the boat, narrowly missing Thor, who had already made himself comfortable next to the supplies. Emily took Rhiannon’s hand and helped her leap into the boat, which was already beginning to bob away from the concrete dock.
She made her way back into the wheelhouse and sat in the captain’s chair. “Best sit down,” she said to Rhiannon. She turned the key to the “on” position and pressed the big red button next to it.
There was a sound like metal rubbed against metal, then each of the two engines coughed once, billowed a gray puff of smoke, and sparked into life, kicking a fountain of water into the air. The boat immediately began to move forward, heading straight for the tugboat on the opposite side of the dock.
“Oh, shit,” said Rhiannon, instantly throwing her hand over her mouth, her eyes betraying her surprise at letting slip a cussword in front of Emily. If Emily had noticed, she didn’t let on; she was too busy turning the wheel frantically to the right, trying to avoid the slowly but inexorably approaching bigger vessel.
The boat began to turn…sharply. It missed the other boat, but now it was heading toward the metal wall of the shed separating the sea from the inside of the dock. She spun the wheel in the opposite direction, this time not so hard. The pointy end of the boat began to gradually drift away from the wall as it leveled out. When the sides of the boat were parallel with the dock and the opposite wall, Emily moved the wheel back to the center position and, after a couple more minor corrections, managed to get the boat moving in a straight line.
She aimed the front of the boat for the gap that led out to the ocean beyond, her hand hovering over the throttle lever but still too unsure to touch it.
They coasted through the opening and into the open water, bouncing on the rougher waves beyond the dock building. The front of the boat dipped suddenly and rose dramatically before dropping down onto the surface with a splash that rocked the inside of the vessel. Emily dropped her hand to the throttle and pushed slowly, listening to the throb of the engines increase as the boat began to pick up speed. The pointy bit—wasn’t it called the prow?—began to cut through the waves, which, contrary to her beachside observation, were a hell of a lot bigger than they had looked from the safety of the Sno-Cat’s cabin.
The incoming tide pushed back against the engines, and Emily had the distinct impression that they weren’t actually moving. Although how she was supposed to judge whether she was making any kind of headway was kind of beyond her. Everything out there seemed to be moving, and any object that she could use to judge her speed by was either too far away or shrouded by the clouds and falling snow.
“Screw it,” she said and pushed the throttle lever forward. This time the engines roared, and there was no doubt that they were moving as the prow lifted slightly off the ocean’s surface and pushed Emily and Rhiannon back into their seats.
“Wow!” said Rhiannon as the boat bounced and tilted over the waves, the coast a couple of hundred feet off the right of the boat now as Emily swung parallel to it and followed Jacob’s instructions, heading north along its rocky edge.
They were moving fast, water spraying across the glass of the wheelhouse. Emily almost pulled back on the throttle; her hand hovered over it as she considered what she should do next. It would be the safest thing to do, but she was so tired of all this. Tired of the constant stress and worry and driving and eating shitty meals and more driving. Tired of always being afraid and, dear God almighty, she was so very, very tired of traveling. She just wanted to lie in a bed and know that she was going to be sleeping in it the next night and the night after that. To eat a hot meal and have someone who wasn’t a teenager to talk to.
She wanted for all of this to finally be over.
That reality was now just forty miles or so away. They were almost there.
Her hand dropped to her side as she let the boat speed on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Emily was convinced the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees since they’d left the harbor. There was a heater in the cabin, but it was struggling, working overtime just to keep the temperature above freezing. Rhiannon had situated herself next to it, blocking the flow of warm air into the cabin, which didn’t really help.
They had left the confines of Prudhoe Bay and entered the open sea beyond. As Emily had banked the boat around the outcrop that marked the entrance to the bay, a stronger crosscurrent caught the boat and slammed them sideways, pushing them rapidly toward the coast. The boat pitched and tossed like a roller coaster as Emily fought the wheel to keep from beaching.
“Oh my God. I’m going to throw up,” burped Rhiannon, her face turning green.
Emily ignored her and kept turning the wheel until the boat was facing out to sea again, then she powered up the engines and fought back against the waves that grabbed at the keel of the craft.
She pushed the throttle all the way to 75 percent and felt the propellers push the boat forward, cutting through the waves as they sped back out to sea. Judging they were far enough from the shore to not risk becoming grounded, Emily turned the boat back onto its new eastern heading and looked over at Rhiannon, who was still looking a little green but had managed to keep her food down. Thor was curled up in the corner, fast asleep and apparently oblivious to how close they had come to becoming a shipwreck.
They saw the first iceberg fifteen minutes later; it wasn’t very big, not much more than a ten-foot-by-fifteen-foot sheet of ice floating on the surface of the sea. But Emily gave it a wide birth, memories of the movie Titanic rising once again to the surface.
An iceberg! It was all a little too surreal.
An hour later they spotted the family of polar bears. There were three of them—a mother and two cubs—sauntering along the shoreline, their white coats stained brown with mud as they dipped their heads to examine rock-pools or lifted their noses to the wind, sniffing inquisitively.
Emily slowed the boat and joined Rhiannon in gawking at the sight. Even Thor seemed excited, watching from the back of the boat, his paws resting on a shelf so he could get a better look. It would have been a beautiful sight even before the devastation of the red rain. Seeing this first hint that there was still hope that some life had escaped the rain’s effects, well, it was just magical.
“Look how big they are,” said Rhiannon. “I never thought they would be so big.” The kid was right; the adult had to weigh at least four hundred pounds.
When momma bear stopped and turned to face the boat, taking a couple of tentative steps out into the ocean toward them, Emily decided they might be hungrier than they looked and eased the throttle forward, quickly putting some distance between the bears and the boat as she accelerated east.
Jacob had told them to look for maps when they were on board the boat, and they had found a bunch of them stowed in a drawer. Emily had reassigned Rhiannon her old job as navigator and set her to work finding a map that showed their destination. Rhiannon had quickly found one labeled “McClure and Stockton Islands and Vicinity” and laid it out on the floor where she could get a good look at it.