Down the way construction at the oyster farm was obvious. A large gable loomed against the sky.
Now they could see the copter’s spotlight working along the beach a half mile distant. It was coming at them.
“You’re not going to the oyster farm, are you?” she said.
“They’d find us in minutes.”
“Then where do we hide?”
“We don’t. We’re going to swim Mosquito Pass and get to Chatham Island and then make a nice warm place to sleep. In the morning we’ll find people.”
“Swim? Again? Oh, God.”
“Come on.”
Ahead, the beach became a cliff, and the water was edging ever closer as they approached the steep ground.
It was a hundred feet across Mosquito Passage to Insect Island, and then only half that far to Chatham Island, where, after a long overland hike, they could find a wilderness resort that would have a radio and air service. But the water through Mosquito Pass flowed like a river when the tide was running. From the sound of the faint roar, they were walking up-current and away from the overfalls.
“You do hear that roar in the distance?”
“There is always a roar in the distance. You’re just listening to this one. We’re going to swim fast.”
“No way. I’m not going,” Anna said, the terror of the sailboat ride fresh in her memory.
“This isn’t nearly as big or bad as the overfall at Devil’s Gate,” he said. “And the tide isn’t running as hard.”
“Will it kill us just as dead?”
“We aren’t going through it. We’re going to the kelp beds on the other side, hang on, and pull our way to shore.”
“But if we don’t make it?”
“We’ll make it. This way they’ll waste hours, maybe days, crawling over this island. They won’t suspect we swam.”
“You’re damn right. They know at least one of us isn’t crazy.”
Now the helicopter was moving fast in their direction. Sam tugged her hand, starting to run. He was headed for the base of the cliffs.
The stench grew as potent as an old-style outhouse with an added sulfur odor. At the base of the cliff were black holes. They ducked into a rock chamber exposed to the channel where flowing water had undercut the cliff. The eelgrass on the rocks made her feet slide crazily.
Then they heard it. Snarls and yelps from dogs in pursuit.
“They’re killers,” Anna said.
Sam grabbed something from the ground.
Out of nowhere there was a roaring bark, then another. It startled her.
“Sea lions!” Sam said. “We woke ’em.”
Then two huge growling shadows came through the cave entrance. Sam put her squarely behind him up on a rock. There were splashes all around as the sea lions hit the water.
The rotweillers were ignoring the sea lions. Barely visible, Sam was moving. He held something large over his head. There was a hollow thud and growling. Sam had struck a dog. Then Sam screamed and charged. It was primal. He was more animal than the dog. Into the water they went, dog and man. Instantly she knew to follow. She ran down into the splashing, growling melee. Then came silence, but for the barking of the dog on the beach. Sam had pulled the dog under. The chopper flew low overhead, just outside the rocky hollow, then turned out over the water heading back down the beach.
Now she was in water to her chest and nearly out from under the lip of the rock. There was a slight current. Everything was black. There was a sound like a billion bursting tiny bubbles that was life in the rocks. The thought of crabs and bugs shivered her spine.
Sam burst from the water. The dog was growling but swimming for the beach.
“Bastard bit me,” Sam said.
The first dog was now barking, but without enthusiasm.
It was plain the dogs would stay on the beach.
“I don’t think I can do it. That damn wave.”
He whirled and held her close. “You’ve gotta do it. Period.”
“You could kill them.”
“Right behind them will be guys with guns.”
She was trying to concentrate. To summon her will against the fear.
He put his face close to hers. “You can do this. I won’t leave you, but you gotta swim. Get your shoes off. Tie them.”
She struggled, but got them on her belt.
He did a surface dive. She hesitated, then followed, and raised her head when she got beside him. The current wasn’t strong.
Go, she told herself. When they were near the middle they were considerably downstream, and the current was rushing toward the jaws of the wave. Doing the crawl, she swam vigorously until her arms ached, breathing maybe every other stroke. Suddenly she once again heard the faint roar and it was growing closer, maybe a couple of city blocks away. And she was being pulled by a whirlpool. Her clothes felt as if they were lead-lined. Sam was strong and was leaving her behind. She swam harder. Then he was behind her-she felt his hand pulling on her fanny pack.
“Go!” he half shouted. “Go!”
Her arms and legs were losing strength. She seemed to be flailing. A gulp of water had her choking. The roar was now clearly audible.
“Swim!”
Then she felt slime everywhere, heavy and horrible, miring her down. It was like swimming through wet towels.
“Grab the kelp, you’re drifting.”
Reaching out, she grabbed a handful of slime. Then she could feel the water pulling on her. It was fast! Looking over her shoulder in the distance, she saw the white of the foam. It was the wave. Once locked in the current, she would go there. The thought of the black water and its secrets put her on the verge of panic. Pulling with all the strength her near-dead arms could muster, she tried to make headway. She couldn’t. In truth she was sliding slowly backward through the kelp, headed for open water and the wave.
Sam lowered himself backward through the matted vegetation, reached around her, grabbed her belt, and used one arm to pull her to him and the other to hang on to the kelp. He knew how her body would respond to the cold of immersion. Water lowered body temperature approximately twenty-five times faster than air. In water temperatures of fifty to fifty-five degrees, given her prior exposure to cold, it would take only five to ten minutes for her body to experience cold shock. Struggling would become a reflex as her brain, befuddled by cold-induced neurological impairment, told her body that she needed air and her respirations escalated into harmful hyperventilation.
All her instincts would be telling her to thrash. Movement would push the blood to her extremities cooling it, in the fashion of a radiator. Her motor control would go and her limbs would feel detached and spastic. As her blood cooled, it would lower her vital core temperature bringing on a loss of consciousness. She would begin to take in water and die.
He clung to the kelp for both of them. “Put your hands on my shoulders, your legs around my body,” he screamed. She did it. “Lie back.” She did that. Her arms were straight; her hands gripped his shoulders like talons, communicating her fear. Now he used both his hands to pull them through the kelp, pushing her body as if he were a tug moving a barge. As he methodically grabbed kelp, some of it gave way and some of it held. Even as they inched toward shore, they were pulled downstream. Over his shoulder the roar in the blackness created a palpable vibration in the air. The ocean wanted to feed its young.
Sam could feel himself start to gasp, and forced a rhythm to his breathing. Desperate, he reached down with a foot and felt for the bottom. Nothing. It cost him mentally, and he slipped a few feet downstream in the attempt. It was hard to concentrate. He had to get them out of the water. Pulling and kicking like a man possessed, he sensed the shore but couldn’t see it. “More, more, more,” he grunted as he pulled. His body had nothing left to give and he moved it by sheer strength of mind.