by Alex Gilly
He got to the deepest part of the hull and started counting, “one Mississippi, two Mississippi,” determined to wait ninety seconds underwater, in the cold and dark, long enough to convince Serpil he’d drowned. He got to ninety and made his way back to the surface, his lungs burning. He was shivering, almost out of control. He was on the verge of blacking out. Moving at all demanded great effort. When he could take it no more, he found his way back to the surface and broke through for the second time. He tried to breathe quietly, but his lungs gulped loudly for air, like after intense exercise. It took everything he had to quiet his breathing. He kept scanning for signs of movement from the deck high above his head. He couldn’t see any spotlight, and he couldn’t hear any voices.
A moment later, he heard the growl of the cigarette boat’s engine and saw her bow appear around the Belle’s stern, the spotlight shining from the console. Serpil was circling the Belle, looking for him. Finn dived deep. He held on to the Belle’s keel with numb hands and started counting. When he got to thirty, he heard the muffled sound of the Belle’s diesel engine starting up. He broke his count and made his way back to the surface. He heard the windlass grinding and saw the anchor chain going up. The hull started moving forward. They were leaving, he thought. He had to move now—if the hull didn’t crush him, the Belle’s blades would slice him to pieces. Climbing back aboard wasn’t possible—the Belle’s sides were sheer. He couldn’t see the cigarette boat. The hull kept moving forward, bringing her propeller ever closer to his legs. He knew that once the anchor was off the bottom, Linda would kick the boat into gear and the blades would start turning. He kicked hard against the hull and swam into the darkness.
He took ten strokes, stopped, and turned, utterly exhausted. He was shocked to see how far the Belle had traveled away from him in such a short time—he’d never make it back to her. The propofol had muddled his mind. He had no idea in which direction the island lay. He swallowed water. His body started to shake uncontrollably.
Then he saw the lone figure of a girl on the stern deck, silhouetted against the light spilling out of the wheelhouse. Lucy or Navidad, he couldn’t tell. He shouted feebly. He used all his strength to wave an arm. He didn’t know whether the kid could see or hear him across the night-covered sea. She didn’t wave back. But a moment later, he saw her step forward, out of the light. Then he saw something fly off the Belle’s stern and into her wake.
Finn swam toward it. His body was at the very edge of failure. He’d fought for his life, fought the propofol for several long minutes, fought the cold, but he felt himself succumbing now. He didn’t think he was going to make it. He imagined the very worst. He imagined himself drowning, then being found floating in the channel, two stumps where his legs had been. He reached the spot where he thought he’d seen the object splash into the sea and found nothing but more water. He stopped swimming. Water washed over his head. He had barely enough strength left to keep his mouth above the waterline.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a flash of orange behind a wave. His heart leaped. With one last effort, he splashed on, swallowing water, until he reached the life preserver that he had shown Navidad how to throw to someone in the water. He clambered on, hung his arms over the sides, and wedged himself in so that he’d remain afloat when he passed out, which he knew he was about to do. He watched the Pacific Belle’s navigation lights dim and then go out completely. He resisted wave after wave of drowsiness until he had no resistance left.
* * *
He woke with his teeth chattering and could not stop them no matter how willfully he tried to clench his jaw. The effort it took to move his arms shocked him. Movements he would normally make unconsciously demanded his complete attention. After what he perceived as hours but could only have been seconds, he finally managed to lift his hands, which he could no longer feel, out of the water. His fingertips were blue, which surprised him, since he no longer actually felt the cold. When he felt compelled to peel off his clothes, he remembered learning during his navy training of a symptom of hypothermia called “paradoxical undressing”—his brain was trying to convince him that his body was overheating.
He was grateful, at least, to still be in the life preserver. He stared at his blue fingertips. He knew the color meant he was hypothermic. Soon he’d lose his motor skills, then his memory; his pulse and breathing would slow down, his organs would begin to fail, and then he would die. His navy training had been meticulous about the details.
He kept staring at his fingertips until it registered on him that he could actually see his fingertips. It was dawn, which meant he’d been in the water for six and a half hours. He looked up and saw the slate-dark sea stretching away before him, and a curtain of darkness dropping to the horizon. But the sky directly above him was purple-gray. He realized he was facing southwest. He turned around, his movements clumsy, until he was facing east and saw first light spilling over the hilltops and brown-gray cliffs of Santa Catalina Island. He didn’t recognize the stretch of coast, but he knew it could only be Catalina. The current had obviously carried him south from Two Harbors. He was no more than half a mile from land. He wanted to scream with joy, but his throat was too swollen from the salt. He began paddling toward the island. His progress was excruciatingly slow. His arms felt as though they had sandbags lashed to them, and his legs dangling underwater below the ring made him the least seaworthy vessel he could imagine. He stopped paddling and, with great effort, shifted his position so that his torso lay atop the ring, as though he were on a boogie board. That way, his legs were free to kick behind him.
Through salt-dried eyes, Finn noted the spot where the cliffs fell away into a little bay. He’d never seen it before, but he was willing to gamble that there was a beach within it, or someplace shallow where he could get out of the water. He looked at the coast south of his position (he could only go with the current) and saw no other option. It had to be the little bay. He started kicking and paddling toward it. If the exercise was insufficient to reverse the hypothermia, at least he felt that it was impeding its progress. The effort got his circulation going. The sun was rising and the world was getting warmer.
He’d been paddling for ten minutes when he felt his leg brush against something. His heart skipped a beat. He peered into the water immediately around him until his eyes adjusted to see through its surface. He saw giant, dark leaves swaying in the dark green water a few feet below and realized he’d swum into a kelp forest.
He started to paddle again, putting everything he could into it, trying to stay focused on the little bay between the cliffs ahead and not what lay beneath him. A few feet in front of him, a school of inch-long silverside fish leaped as one from the water and stippled its surface. Then he heard another splash to his left. He turned to look, but whatever had broken through was already gone, leaving behind a little patch of foam. He redoubled his efforts.
The island was closer now, its crumbling palisades looming high. He was almost at the edge of the long shadows they cast as the sun rose beyond them. He fluttered his legs hard and kept paddling.
When he was no more than a hundred feet from the mouth of the little bay, a large gray fin broke through the surface some twenty feet to his right. Finn felt a rush of nausea. His vision tunneled and he felt the urge to urinate. The fin slowly cruised around him. Then he heard another splash to his right. He turned his head and saw another fin. Sharks corralling him. His heart beat like a kettledrum.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again and looked for the closest access to shore. He was just outside the mouth of the bay, but the rocks at either side were too sheer to scale. His only real hope was the little beach he saw at the far end of the bay. He had trouble gauging how far it was. Was it two hundred feet or less than that? He kicked and paddled and ignored his thumping heart. He started humming “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Something dense collided into his legs.
“God help me,” he said for the first time in
his life. He urinated involuntarily. When he tried to look back, he upset his balance and fell off the life preserver. His head sank underwater. Too frightened to shut his eyes, he saw prowling through the shifting bluish green light a shark the size of a car. He had no idea how big the one he couldn’t see was. He scrambled back onto the ring and gasped for air. Keep going, he told himself. He was in the bay now. The beach was right there. He could hear little waves lapping at its shore.
The water felt warmer, which meant it was getting shallower. He was so close. He looked left and right to see where the fins were. The one on the left was still there, but the one on the right, the bigger one, had disappeared.
Instinctively, he turned and saw the fin directly behind him. The shark was tracking him directly now. Coming in to strike.
Nick Finn stopped swimming and praying. There was nothing more he could do. He understood that now. Somewhere deep in the stillest part of his brain, beneath its roiling surface of emotion and beneath the complicated machinery of language that occupied its middle depths, Finn realized that he was powerless over whatever happened next. He knew it to be an irrefutable truth, and accepting it gave him a focus he had never before known. He felt sharp, calm, and alert. He saw the approaching fin, the mouth of the bay, the rock faces framing it, and the lightening sky doming it all with acute clarity. He floated in the water, facing out to sea, and waited for the mouth of the shark.
The thick, gray-black fin drew near, water streaming off its broad dorsal surface. Finn noticed that the tip of the tail fin was several feet beyond the dorsal, and from sheer curiosity he tried to calculate the overall length of the shark. He figured it was no less than twelve feet long. He saw its long, gray snout. The shark came within touching distance, then changed course a point, tilted slightly, and glided slowly past to Finn’s left, just below the surface of the water. The predator seemed as large as his Tacoma. Finn saw the jagged teeth the size of keys in its giant, slightly open mouth, its white underside, its black, fathomless eye watching him. He saw its fluttering gills, its pectoral fin, the slow, lazy undulations of its tail fin. He reached out and ran his fingertips over the shark’s sandpaperlike skin. With a quiet splash, the shark turned and dived into deeper water, and its fins disappeared from the surface. He looked to his left—the other fin had also gone. The last ripples petered out and the water’s surface was smooth again. Finn climbed back onto his life preserver.
The first time his foot hit the sand, he thought it was the other shark. Then his other foot hit the ground and he knew he was in the shallows. He half walked, half swam the rest of the way. He crawled over the cold, wet sand until he reached the dry stuff beyond the reach of the tide. He collapsed onto his back, shivering uncontrollably, not from fear but from exhaustion and cold. He heard the sounds of water lapping at the shore and of his teeth chattering. Soon after, the sun rose clear of the hilltops and blanketed the bay in its warmth. He breathed deeply and long and, before letting himself pass out, resolved never to forget the truth he had grasped in that moment when he had stopped struggling and had turned to face the shark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Finn opened his eyes. The sky had turned purple and red, and the sun was setting over the sea. He tried to sit up but a severe cramp in his gut made him collapse back onto the sand. The wounds in his arm and cheek smarted. His tongue had swollen so much, it felt like he had a rag stuffed in his mouth, and he had to breathe with his jaw wide open. He felt dizzy to the point of fainting. He closed his eyes and saw a kind of static on the back of his eyelids. His heartbeat was fast and shallow.
He heard a voice say “Drink.”
It took him a moment to regain his focus, but when he did he saw a face with a long gray beard, blue eyes, and long gray hair. He tried to speak, but his throat was bone-dry.
“Drink,” the man said again. He tilted a tattered plastic water bottle to Finn’s lips.
Finn felt cool, fresh water on his tongue. It was the most exquisite thing he had ever tasted. He drank like a newborn calf at its mother’s teat.
The man brushed away Finn’s hand. “Drink slowly,” he said.
Then he carefully put the empty bottle away in a small, threadbare backpack sitting on the sand next to Finn. He wore dirty yellow board shorts and an old frayed T-shirt. He slung the pack over his shoulder, then sat back on his heels, waiting.
Finn started to feel marginally better. The man put his hands under his arms and helped him to his feet. His legs felt wobbly. His body felt anemic. The man helped him up the beach. The sun-warmed sand beneath Finn’s bare feet gave way to cooler earth, and soon they were walking through scrub. Sweat pearled on Finn’s forehead. He felt like he was burning up, yet his teeth were chattering. Soon the soil underfoot gave way to rock, and Finn found himself being led up a precipitous goat track along the side of the cliff, the man still at his side, guiding him, one strong, thick-veined hand clasped to Finn’s arm, standing between him and the void.
At the top of the track was a cave in the cliff face. By the entrance, Finn saw three fish that had been run through their gills hanging from a branch over a firepit, the rock wall behind it smoke-blackened. A grill was leaning up against the wall, a couple of pots sitting on the dirt next to it, a plastic deck chair next to that. Inside the cave was an old, filthy sleeping bag spread on the ground. Next to it was a pile of wood and a cluster of plastic bottles that looked like they’d washed up on the shore. All were full. The man grabbed one and handed it to Finn.
“Drink, but drink slowly,” he said.
Finn lifted his trembling arm and drank. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. The old man walked back into the deepest part of the cave, where he pulled back a tarpaulin and revealed hundreds of books piled high, as well as all kinds of flotsam—Finn saw an old paraffin lamp, various clothes, a boat barbecue, a kayak paddle, piles of rope, a windsurfing wishbone, flip-flops, and an old boogie board with its plastic bottom peeling off. The man rummaged around until he found another sleeping bag.
He laid it down near the fireplace. “Rest,” he said.
Finn didn’t need to be asked twice. He collapsed onto the sleeping bag. It had the acrid smell of stale sweat, but he didn’t care.
* * *
It was dark when he woke. The first thing he noticed was the smell of burning wood. He saw the man standing over the firepit, placing a pot on its hot coals. Finn lay back and watched the shadows play on the cave walls. He still felt weak and feverish.
After a few minutes, the man took the pot off the fire and set it on the ground. He dipped a mug into the pot and filled it with what turned out to be boiling water. Then he rummaged through his old backpack and pulled out a bunch of leaves. He broke these up in his hands, rolled them together, then put them in the mug.
He walked over and handed it to Finn. “Tree mallow,” he said, “It’ll help with the fever.”
Finn propped himself up on an elbow and drank. It tasted bitter.
Then the old man handed Finn a handful of huckleberries. “You should eat,” he said.
Finn put a berry into his mouth. It tasted sweet and delicious—the nicest huckleberry he’d ever eaten—and it must’ve shown on his face.
“Never had a wild huckleberry before?” said the man, but not in a way that expected an answer. He unhooked a whole, desiccated fish from the pole and handed it to Finn. “Here, try this.”
Finn tore strips off with his fingers. It tasted of woodsmoke and brine. The more of it he ate, the hungrier he realized he was. Soon there was nothing left but fish bones.
The man took the carcass from him. “I use the bones for fishhooks,” he said, putting it away in an old plastic bag.
Finn wiped his hands on his salt-stiffened trousers. He felt stronger now. His mind was clearing. He looked at the old man by the firelight, taking stock of him. His weathered skin was covered in wrinkles so deep, it reminded Finn of a relief map of the ocean floor. He was barefoot, his feet covered in calluses, the nails as t
hick as oyster shells.
“You live here?” said Finn.
The man nodded.
“How long have you been here?” said Finn.
The man thought for a moment. “Since 1985,” he said.
“Thirty years,” said Finn. The old man gazed into the fire. A long silence ensued. Finally, to break it, Finn said, “My name’s Finn.”
The guy kept staring at the fire. He seemed not to care what Finn’s name was. He didn’t offer his own in return.
“You haven’t asked how I got here to your beach,” said Finn.
The man pointed at Finn’s orange life ring leaning against the wall. “I watched you paddle in,” he said. “You finished with it?”
Finn almost laughed. “Yes,” he said.
“Something like that would be mighty useful out over the reef,” said the old man.
“You can have it. It’s yours.” said Finn.
The man nodded.
More silence.
“You fish the reef?” said Finn eventually.
The man nodded.
“What about the sharks?” said Finn.
“I leave them alone.”
Finn absorbed that. Then: “You ever go to the mainland?”
“Nope.”
“Anyone ever visit you out here?”
The man shrugged. “Hikers and campers sometimes. Yachts anchor in the bay in summer. Rangers know me, let me be, mostly.”
“You don’t get lonely?” said Finn.
The man took his time before answering, giving the question some thought. “I miss my wife sometimes,” he said finally.
“What’s her name?”
“Dovie Mae. I called her Mae. She died.”
“When?” said Finn.
“Nineteen eighty-five.”
Finn looked down. “I have a wife. Her name’s Ximena. I call her Mona.”
The man nodded. “You miss her?”
“Yes,” said Finn.
The old man was quiet for a while. Finally he said, “Then I’ll help you return to her.” He got up, fetched a pair of old, worn-thin flip-flops from his pile of things that looked as though he’d found them washed up on the beach, and dropped them next to Finn. “When the fever dies down and you feel better, I’ll show you the trail to Two Harbors. It’s about seven miles, so you’ll need those. From there you can take the ferry back to the mainland. That’s where you’re from, I assume?”