Dead Reckoning

by Tom Wright

  . . .

  Two days later, she awoke screaming. Jeff and I raced below to see if she was all right. We had placed her in the forward berth, and by the time we entered, she had backed well up into the cubby hole of the bow. She looked like a frightened animal. She ripped the IV needle from her arm and pointed it at us. “What do you want?” she asked frantically. “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “Jill, it’s ok,” I said. “You’re aboard the RY, and you’ve been here for two days. We rescued you from your yacht, the Hawaii 5 oh.”

  Her eyes flitted back and forth between Jeff and me.

  “It’s ok. We are not going to hurt you. We know what you’ve been through.”

  “Just let me out of here,” she said.

  Jeff and I backed up. “Ok, you can get out, but we’re in the middle of the Pacific,” Jeff told her. “There is nowhere to go.”

  She began to shake and cry. “Where is my boat? Where is my…” She lowered her head and sobbed in her hands. The memories were starting to come back. I felt terrible for her.

  We weren’t sure what to do for her, so we told her we’d be topside if she needed anything and left her alone.

  It was at least an hour before she came up. She emerged tentatively at first. Her head poked through the deck and she looked around. She reminded me of a wary cat on the first day in its new home. She didn’t say anything and we went about our tasks without speaking.

  After a few minutes she came all the way up and stood on the deck. She began to cry and said: “Can somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

  She sobbed through my entire explanation. Without saying a word, she went below again.

  Several hours later, she came topside again. She sat next to me as I wound some rope. The cool breeze flowed through her hair.

  “Thank you for all that you did,” she said.

  I nodded.

  She looked at Jeff and Sonny and said: “Thank you all.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, looked at her hands, and then felt her hair again. She shook her head back and forth allowing her hair to whip around as she might have after releasing it from a pony tail.

  “Who washed my hair?” she asked.

  “I did,” I said.

  “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  “Yes I do,” I said. “That’s why I did it.”

  She looked at me, puzzled.

  “Fifteen years of marriage,” I said smiling. “I’ve learned that women only really want three things in this world: someone to talk to, massages, and clean hair.”

  “I don’t know if that’s all, but those are high on the list,” she said.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Seattle,” I said. “If it’s still there, that is. Is that ok?”

  “Good as any other place, I guess,” she said, staring straight ahead.

  She pulled down on the sweatshirt we had put her in and looked at the stitches on her chest.

  “Who did these stitches?” she asked.

  I looked away embarrassed. “It’s a disaster, isn’t it?”

  “Technically speaking, yes. But the wound is closed and not infected which is what really matters,” Jill replied.

  She put her hand on my arm. “I really appreciate that you tried. Some time I’ll show you how to do it properly.”

  I looked at her questioningly.

  “I am a doctor,” she said.

  13

  DAY 31 AT SEA, APPROXIMATELY 500 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF KODIAK ISLAND, ALASKA (DEAD RECKONED POSITION: 49.9°N, 150.9°W)

  “Die religion ist das opium des volkes.” - Karl Marx

  It took us two weeks to make the next nineteen-hundred miles. We finally picked up the Kona Low, but, despite favorable wind direction nearly the entire time, we averaged less than six knots, barely seventy-five percent of the maximum hull speed. We were slowed down considerably by rough seas and having to deploy the sea anchor a half-dozen times in severe storms. A sea anchor is a big parachute that goes into the water to which the bow of the boat is tethered. It keeps the boat headed into the wind and seas, limits backward drift, and allows the sailor to take down the sails. Throw out the sea anchor, put up your feet, and ride out the storm. You do not gain ground, but neither do you lose much ground, and, most importantly, you don’t find yourself on the rocks, or upside down, or upside down on the rocks. It felt like we spent more time with the sea anchor out than sailing.

  Really, by any honest measure, we were making great time though. Jeff told us about a guy who sailed from the Marshalls to California, and it took him sixty days. Here we were, only thirty-one days in, and we were already within striking range of North America.

  Now a part of the crew of the RY for two weeks, Jill began to help out more and more. But we could tell she was just going through the motions. She remained distant and cried a lot. Of course we understood, but we worried about her.

  After a while she told us about herself and what happened on French Frigate Shoals. She had been a doctor at a family practice in Honolulu. When things began to go downhill in Honolulu, she and her husband Mark had set sail on their yacht to escape the danger. Along with their son Zach, they cruised to FFS to weather the storm there. Mark was friends with one of the biologists at the fish and wildlife station on FFS, and it seemed like as safe a place as any. All went well until Spike and his men showed up. They killed the three biologists at the station and took Jill and her family hostage. Zach had been killed by sharks while trying to escape the day before we arrived. What we had witnessed was Mark being fed to the sharks by Spike.

  As we compared stories, it turned out that Sundance had been on our side all along. Jill told us how Sundance was also a hostage of Spike and the gang. Sundance had worked as a deckhand on a much bigger yacht owned by some Hollywood big shot. When Spike and his men overwhelmed that boat, Sundance was the only one that made it out alive. Jill credited Sundance with her still being alive when we got there. He brought her food and water in between the drunken escapades of the captors. He tended to her when he could—all at the risk of his own life. It saddened us that we didn’t know that ahead of time—we might have been able to save him too. Of course, in hindsight we all owed our lives to him.

  We were now in the southern Gulf of Alaska, and the weather was frightful for summer. You can never count on nice weather in the Gulf, or anywhere in the Pacific for that matter, but we did not expect such bitterly cold weather. Temperatures dropped steadily as we moved north, which was normal in the northern hemisphere, but with water temperatures in the fifties and air temperatures closer to forty, something was wrong—very wrong. The constant battering by storms began to take a toll on us, one right after the other, which was more reminiscent of late fall or winter than summer. Clearly, the climate was changing, and we were quite certain it was because the worst had happened.

  I pulled the hood over my head in defense against the advancing rain and the bite of the southwest wind. I looked at the barometer, and it had not changed since I reset it an hour earlier. Just to be sure, I tapped the glass and the needle freed itself and lurched down a couple of millibars. Another storm. And with that kind of pressure fall, it was likely to be a big one.

  As we drew nearer to the coast, I worried more about what I would find. A sense of foreboding gnawed at me, much like a death row inmate must feel as the clock nears twelve.

  “God! What have they been doing all this time?” I wondered out loud. Were they even still alive? Did they stay put, or panic and leave? For where?

  Kate’s dad, Frank, had been in the military. Even in his sixties he still sported the high and tight haircut and spoke phonetically as a matter of habit. He never said no, always negative; never yes, always affirmative; never dinner at six o’clock, always chow at “eighteen hunnerd.”

  He was a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army’s third infantry division, stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. He frequently recited h
is favorite part of his division’s fighting song: “I’m just a dog-faced soldier with a rifle on my shoulder,” he received SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) at level C (then the highest level available) due to his rank and, apparently, because he was frequently in harm’s way. He never talked about exactly what he did in the Army, but given that he was Level C, it was likely something dangerous. He fought in Vietnam, and while he was not an elite fighter on the order of a Navy Seal or Army Ranger, he knew how to get by.

  . . .

  Unable to sleep, Jill came topside and sat down next to me. She lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and held it for some time, then released the toxic cloud in a long drawn out fashion as if finishing a huge sigh.

  “Where did you get those?”

  “Sonny.”

  “As a doctor, you of all people should know better,” I said.

  I tried joking with her from time to time, but it hadn’t work. I had never seen her even crack a smile. I came to wonder if she would ever recover from what she’d been through. How could she? Hell, I didn’t even know if I would recover from what I’d seen her go through.

  “I know better,” she said. “But I don’t really care.”

  As we sat there, I noticed for the first time that Jill was a very beautiful woman. I thought that she was pretty before, but it was more than that—she had a deep down, no makeup kind of beauty. Her sandy, blond, shoulder-length hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her bangs were just long enough to be tucked behind her left ear, and on bad hair days they hung down over half of her face. Other than a few blemishes from Spike and his crew’s handiwork, the skin on her face was flawless. She had the slender and tall physique of a long distance runner, but with a little more meat.

  In a way, I was curious how Jill managed to carry on at all. I imagined myself in the same situation—a situation I could actually have yet to face—and didn’t think I could manage. She was obviously strong just from the fact that she didn’t slip over the side when we weren’t looking. In fact, we watched her for any sign of just such a thing. I wondered if she had been sent there to set an example for us. What an awful thought.

  “Are you religious?” Jill blurted out. “Never mind, you wouldn’t be,” she continued before I could answer. “I used to be very religious,” she continued nervously.

  I took this as a good sign but treaded lightly.

  “You’re not anymore?” I asked.

  “I don’t know how I could be…now.”

  “Me neither,” I said honestly. Then I suddenly regretted my sincerity.

  “Do you ever wonder about it? God, I mean?” she asked.

  I thought about it all the time. Next to weather, the idea of a higher power was, perhaps, the topic that interested me most.

  “All the time. But if you are looking for someone to restore your faith in religion, I’m not him.”

  “So you are an atheist?” she asked.

  “No, I just don’t believe in religion is all.”

  Jill took another drag of her cigarette, held it, and stared out over the ocean. I desperately wanted to help her out of her nightmare. I think in some weird way she was an emotional stand-in for Kate until I could get back to her. There was absolutely nothing sexual about it, but I would have done nearly anything to help Jill—even lie to her about my religious beliefs—if I thought that would help. I knew she’d see through it though. She slowly exhaled a streamer of smoke that whipped off toward the stern.

  I watched the barometer nervously. I tapped at it, but it didn’t move. The wind shifted slightly more toward the west. I untied the wheel and adjusted our course to make optimum use of the new wind direction and then retied it. I wanted to get every knot possible out of the wind.

  “How do you think a preacher would explain all this…what I’ve been through?” she asked.

  “I think he’d probably say something like it’s all part of God’s master plan. God is so much greater than us that we can’t understand how this is all for our own good.”

  “What do you think about that?” she asked.

  “My grandfather once used the analogy of how we do things to our pets—give them shots or whatever—things that are definitely for their own good, but that they can’t possibly understand. To them it seems like we’re just being assholes. My Grandpa said it’s the same with God and us. I guess that’s at least plausible—assuming there is a God.”

  “But you believe in some sort of God?”

  “Yes. But not like the one religions believe in.”

  I told Jill about the first experience I’d had that I was certain was an encounter with God. My mother died when I was twelve years old. It was my first experience with death, and given that it was my parent, and I was just a child, it was exceedingly difficult. Of course, I was a tough guy and had to put up a front for my friends, but I was crushed.

  At the urging of my friends, I agreed to play in the city all-star baseball game just two days after her death. I was part of the team solely for my fielding ability. I was a terrible hitter. My dad said I was afraid of the ball. He was right.

  My second turn to bat came in the sixth inning with two men on, and we trailed by two runs. As always, I took strike one—a dreaded curve ball that backed me off the plate. The curve ball starts out as if it’s coming right for your head, which causes a hesitation as you consider bailing out. But the ball breaks over the plate at the end. By the time you realize it’s a curve ball, it’s too late to recover. I stepped back up to the plate, tapped it twice like always, and took my half-hearted preparation swings.

  Then someone spoke to me as plain as day: “This will be a fastball, right down the middle.” Startled, I stepped out of the batter’s box, which prompted the umpire to call time out. I didn’t feel as if I had imagined it. I knew the pitcher but had never faced him before, so what would make me think that he would throw a fastball? I felt a sudden twinge of fear.

  “Matt?” The catcher asked, giving me a start.

  I popped back to reality. I looked around, and everyone was staring silently at me. I wondered how long I’d been standing there.

  I stepped back into the box and took a couple of swings.

  “Are you ready, son?” the umpire asked.

  I nodded.

  “Play ball!” he yelled.

  I stared at the pitcher’s eyes. He nodded in agreement with whatever sign he’d just received from the catcher. I didn’t bother to speculate as to what the sign had been – I already knew.

  The pitcher kicked his leg and delivered the pitch. Suddenly time seemed to slow. I watched as the ball spun backward off his index and middle finger – a four-seam fastball. I knew there would be no break. It was right down the middle and that’s where it would stay.

  I stepped into it and swung with everything I had. I hardly felt the ball hit the bat as it jumped off the sweet spot. I stood and watched as the ball flew high and far. Time sped back up to normal as I heard my teammates explode in the dugout. I began to run, but although I had never experienced a homerun from quite that vantage point, I knew the ball wasn’t coming back.

  The outfielders barely moved, they just turned and watched it go. When the ball finally landed, some four hundred and fifteen feet from home plate, it bounced across the running track and dribbled out into the football field. It was the longest homerun anyone could remember on that field.

  Knowing full well what I had been through, every member of the opposing team gave me a high-five or a pat on the back on my way around the bases. Even the outfielders ran in to pay tribute. My entire team greeted me at the plate. It was exactly the thing I needed at exactly the moment I needed it. It was one of only two times in my life that I am certain something like God spoke directly to me.

  When I finished my story, I looked up and Jill was crying.

  “Now, I didn’t mean to do that,” I said.

  “That is beautiful,” Jill squeaked between tears.

  “Anyway, so that’s my b
elief about God,” I said quickly in order to distract myself from the emotion I suddenly felt. “I think it generally leaves us alone except in those circumstances where we really need something. And even then, it doesn’t directly intervene in the world. It just gives a hint that we still have act on.”

  “So you’ve never been religious?” she asked, composing herself.

  I had grown up religious. My mother took me to a Baptist church as a child. I never liked the fire and brimstone nor the idea that I was born a horrible sinner in need of salvation. I took issue with that early on. As I got older and learned how to look at things critically, I only got more suspicious. Finally, I realized that the whole of religion was a silly fairy tale. My objections to religion were too numerous to count—from the supposed divine origin of the demonstrably fallible Bible to the immoral idea of someone else paying the price for my sins to the exclusivity of all religions to the depictions of such a bloodthirsty, vengeful, evil God in many faiths. I just didn’t buy any of it. But I didn’t feel safe telling Jill those things at that moment.

  “I was as a kid. I grew out of it.”

  “When you became a scientist?” Jill asked.

  “Before that. Science has actually gotten me closer to God than religion ever did. I think nature is amazing enough all by itself. From the vastness of the universe all the way down to what goes on inside our cells, it is just astonishing. We don’t need to make up things about a God to amaze ourselves—we just need to look around.”

  Jill slumped further into the seat and sat quietly. The look on her face was painful as she fought back tears.

  “Jill,” I said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  She let out an audible sob, more like a gasp, and then swallowed the emotion. “You’re doing it now,” she said.

  I sat and watched her struggle for some time. Normally, it would be uncomfortable to just stare at someone, but it seemed as if she just wanted someone to acknowledge, to observe, what she was going through. I wondered if that was how women comforted one another. Maybe I had finally discovered how to deal with women. Finally, she spoke: “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t have anyone any more. I’ve lost everything.”