Undercurrents

by Pamela Beason

  Nicole raised her face toward Chase. “We can make that, can’t we, sugar?”

  He turned to Dread. “Never been there, but we’ll find it. Should we bring anything?”

  “Everything you got.” He held Chase’s gaze for a minute to be sure his message got across.

  * * * * *

  A male blue-footed booby marched in place on the basalt shelf of Isabela’s shoreline, oblivious to Sam kneeling less than a yard away. The bird raised one webbed foot and displayed it, toes outstretched, for a long moment before lowering it to the ground. He presented the other in a similar fashion, as if to show that they were a perfectly matched pair, the brightest blue feet on the island.

  The observing female booby wore a weary expression. She’d probably seen this performance a thousand times. She’d probably seen brighter cerulean toes. In fact, her own webbed feet were every bit as blue as his. Sensing her waning attention, the male thrust a tiny twig toward her with his beak. No response. He discarded the twig and picked up a water-rounded stone and goose-stepped with renewed fervor, then wrapped up his performance with a loud honk and skypoint, raising his black-tipped beak and wingtips in rigid salute to the blazing sun overhead.

  The female shook out her wings and fluttered off into the waves a few yards beyond the shoreline. The male’s military bearing collapsed in a ruffle of feathers. A tiny squeak of exasperation escaped his sharp beak.

  “What can I say, buddy?” Sam lowered the video camera. “You gave it your all. But it looks like a buyer’s market.” Scattered over a wide area, hundreds of blue-footed birds danced for prospective mates, guarded eggs ringed with guano, or fed huge fluffy white chicks. Sharing the boobies’ nesting range were magnificent frigates. The black birds were not nearly as majestic on land as they were in flight, except when the males inflated their scarlet chest pouches into valentine balloons during mating displays.

  Sam had been on Isabela now for nearly three hours. She’d beached her kayak in the cove and examined the centuries-old graffiti carved into the cliffs by whalers and pirates. Then she climbed the steps from Tagus Cove to Lake Darwin, an almost perfectly round pond that was obviously an extinct volcanic crater. From there she climbed to another promontory, from which she could see five of the island’s volcanoes, as well as the bay from which she’d come and Fernandina to the west. She enjoyed exploring the trails alone, snapping photos of the views at leisure.

  The island’s animals were so unafraid of her that they didn’t even scuttle away. She’d spotted two flightless cormorants along the shore, and startled several herons closer to the lake. She had to watch where she placed her feet so as not to step on a nesting booby or the tail of an iguana sunning itself on the rocks. For years she’d been accustomed to deducing the presence of wildlife from scat and paw prints. Here, she was in constant danger of tripping over the actual beasts.

  Strictly speaking, tourists were not allowed to explore without a naturalist guide in Galápagos National Park, but Eduardo had told the tourists that Sam had special permission to kayak over and conduct a scientific wildlife census. The first part was true; Key Corporation had made a huge donation to the park in exchange for permission for her to wander on her own, but she couldn’t tell anyone that.

  She pushed herself to her feet. The bird activity was remarkable, but there was nothing going on that hadn’t already aired dozens of times on PBS nature programs. Too bad Out There had chosen February for their Galápagos adventure: the avian giants of the islands—the waved albatrosses—wouldn’t return from their yearly travels for at least another month. According to Eduardo, only a few of them remained here in the islands during the winter. She hadn’t spotted one yet.

  Wilderness Westin would do a humorous post tonight. Her video clips of dancing boobies, head-bobbing iguanas, and male frigatebirds puffing up their scarlet chest balloons certainly lent themselves to comedy. That would strike a good balance after Zing’s downer report of mutilated sharks.

  She headed for the bay along one of the paths lined with white rocks. The guides and tourists were snorkeling farther south. Now and then she could hear a shout or the hum of an outboard amid the barks of the local sea lion colony. She had left Dan with her satellite phone on the upper deck, preparing to upload his data to NPF. She’d also shared her videos and photos from this morning, in case NPF could make use of those, too. The world needed to know that although the Galápagos might still appear pristine from the surface, violent crimes were taking place here in the marine reserve.

  Juvenile sea lions basked in the sun on the white sand. One had curled up on the back hatch of her kayak, another snoozed in the cockpit, and a third had draped itself across the kayak bow. She took a photo. The closest pup opened one eye at her approach, but it didn’t move until she nudged its tail with her sandal. The three bundles of brown fur grudgingly abandoned her boat and flippered off into the surf.

  Sam felt a twinge of guilt. It was against the rules to molest any creature in the park, and tourists were not supposed to even touch them.

  She still had a bit of time before sundown, so after stowing her cameras in the kayak’s watertight compartments, she pulled out her snorkel gear and waded into the cool water. The bite of the vinyl mask skirt on her temples told her that she should have applied more sunscreen hours ago.

  The temperature dipped as she finned farther out, floating over stark hills and valleys of lava. Schools of jacks angled in and out of the black canyons below, flashing silver in the shafts of sunlight that striped the water. A wave bounced her sideways, and she tasted brackish water in her snorkel. Too close to the rocks. Pay attention, WildWest, she chided herself, or you’ll have lava rash on top of that sunburn.

  She watched seaweed undulate through streams of bubbles as the waves lapped against the chain of boulders. A dark shape materialized below her, against the undersea lava cliff. A long scaly tail wagged in time with the surf. A marine iguana, mottled black and red. Long claws held it in place as the creature cropped algae from the rock. A miniature dragon. The Galápagos waters were a cornucopia of marine life, filled not just with fish and the usual squishy things one would expect, but also with lizards and turtles and birds. A little world within itself, Charles Darwin had written.

  A torpedo whizzed by her head. She instinctively flinched, then turned her head to look. She wanted the projectile to be black and white, a Galápagos penguin, but the silhouette was dark brown. A sea lion pup. The youngster made a neat pirouette and set a new trajectory, zooming toward her. Letting her body sink until only the top of her head and the tip of her snorkel protruded from the water, she held her ground, slowly paddling in place. With his black eyes locked on hers, the pup rocketed toward her, bubbles streaming from his pointed snout, aiming directly for her mask. What in the hell—Sam thrashed, nearly swallowing her snorkel. At the last second, the pup veered off and vanished into the darker blue beyond. Sam surfaced to spit out salt water.

  Eduardo was right—the sea lions were the rulers of the Galápagos. They were everywhere. The beachmasters patrolled their areas, barking constantly, on high alert for intruders trying to make time with their harems. According to Maxim, a big bull ripped a ham-size chunk out of a snorkeler’s thigh only last year. Sounded like these sharp-toothed mammals were greater threats than the local sharks. But she’d also learned from her online research that the bull seals here were prey as often as predators, because a beachmaster penis was considered a valuable aphrodisiac in Asian markets. Could she use the word penis in a post on Out There?

  Finally cool again, she swam back to the beach, peeled another sea lion pup off her kayak, and paddled to Papagayo. After dinner, she made plans with Dan and Eduardo. Tonight, the boat was moving south to anchor near Fernandina Island. Eduardo would be tied up with the tour group the next morning; he wouldn’t be able to take them diving until late afternoon. Dan seemed disappointed, but Sam looked forward to spending hours climbing Alcedo, one of Isabela’s volcanoes.

  *
* * * *

  In her cabin after dinner, she edited her film, stringing video clips together, and wrote a short text accompaniment for Wilderness Westin’s post.

  Imagine wandering among animals that have no fear of humans. In the Galápagos, people are the oddball species, and at times it seems like the birds and lizards and sea lions are making fun of me. On Isabela, the animals didn’t even move out of my way. It’s almost insulting. I get no respect!

  She sent a note to the editors, suggesting they add a rap music background to the video. She hoped Out There readers would appreciate the variety.

  Finishing her first posts felt good. She was getting into the rhythm of her tropical assignment: dive and write as Zing, then kayak and hike and write as Wilderness Westin. Zing’s posts would be all exciting!! drama that should please NPF; Wilderness’s would be pretty travel stories that would please the tourists.

  Entertainment for everyone. Piece of cake. This week was going to be a blast.

  After she sent her files and received the notice of receipt, her laptop chimed to signal arriving email. As well as several business reminders from Key Corporation, there was a message from Chase, sent at 3 A.M. this morning.

  The subject line was, “Hi Babe!” Babe? Adam used to call her that, and the word had always irritated her. How like Chase to start off with a salutation he knew would rankle her. She could picture his sly grin now.

  Happy Valentine’s Day, mi salsa picante! We’re hitting the trail again in the wee hours this morning—wish us luck. I’m ready for the Arizona desert: the sleet is rattling the windows in my condo. Have your colleagues take a picture of you in a bikini: all I’ve got is you with that damn cougar. Can’t wait till we meet again. Feb 22, no matter what.

  P.S. I translated the attached for you. Be careful.

  Attached to Chase’s email were two newspaper stories, one an editorial from a Quito daily; the other a factual article from Lima, Peru, about the Asian market for seafood delicacies. After a quick skim, she closed them. She already knew about the fishing problems here; she was in a good mood at the moment and she didn’t want any bad news to muck up her day.

  There was another friendly note, from her housemate Blake. It started off with, Are you getting this?

  She read on to learn the small news of her household back in Bellingham. Simon stashed a dead mouse in one of Blake’s running shoes. Since she had left town, it had snowed and melted. The rain gutter over the back deck was plugged again. And Blake hoped to find romance with a Canadian from British Columbia named Jacques, whom he’d just met in person after they found each other on the Internet. You might be okay with a long-distance relationship, he wrote, but I’m ready for an everyday companion.

  Would Blake move out? Would she get a second housemate? That could be a little weird. Nothing like being the third wheel in your own home.

  Was she okay with having a lover who was so rarely present? She couldn’t even reach Chase 90 percent of the time. Would their week together bring them closer? He’d find out that she truly didn’t cook and wasn’t interested in learning how to. Would she find out that he never read books or was addicted to television sports? Their conversation usually revolved around what each of them had done since they’d last seen each other. What the heck would they talk about when they woke up with each other day after day?

  How could he have asked her to move in with him?

  A knock sounded at her door. “Wine, top deck, five minutes,” said Dan.

  “Or beer,” added one of the grad students. “Be there.”

  “Or be sorry,” chimed the other.

  Sam shut down her computer and climbed to the top deck behind them. She lounged on a deck chair in the warm night air and marveled at the unfamiliar scatter chart of southern stars overhead. Her damp home near the Canadian border seemed delightfully far away.

  8

  Before breakfast the next morning, Sam checked her posts at Out There. The editors had done a good job with Wilderness Westin’s videos, using a bouncy instrumental background that made the prancing birds and nodding iguanas and annoyed seal pups seem like they were participants in a dance competition. There were less than a dozen comments, mainly a few fans saying hi and hoping she wouldn’t get attacked by wild beasts or whackos on this assignment.

  I’ll bet, she thought. Through no fault of her own, events had given her a daredevil reputation. Now she fretted that if something horrendous didn’t happen, her bosses would think she wasn’t sufficiently entertaining.

  SanDman wrote, I can tell you’re going to get into trouble again. Who the hell was he? Two readers asked what it was like to work with Zing. She wrote a general reply saying that it was awesome to wake up to dawn in the tropics and she couldn’t wait to see more of the islands. Then she added, Zing is a real pro.

  She switched to Zing’s post. The editors had set the shark video to appropriately ominous-sounding music. The page background was an underwater shot blown up from one of her photos.

  There were more than fifty comments. Most expressed horror about the shark finning, and a few asked if she had been terrified while filming those scenes. But three were downright hostile.

  It is not ur country! Go back to ur fucking country!—Payor155

  Our fish, our business. You watch us, we watch you. You hurt us, maybe . . .—DomiMan

  Puta americana! No sabes nada de eso! Imbecil!—MarB9844

  Yikes. She was surprised the monitor let the first two through. She could use her dictionary or an online translator to decipher the last one, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The exclamation points made the message pretty clear and the word imbecil was readable even in Spanish. Key Corporation had inadvertently done her a favor by making her write under a secret pseudonym. She typed a short reply to everyone: Thanks for all your comments. Diving in the Galápagos is exciting. I’m proud to help NPF do their vital research here.

  She switched to her personal email. Only one message, from Tad Wyatt.

  Zing—fantastic post! Obviously controversial. Excellent job.

  Westin—cute, but try for something more exciting next time.

  Exasperated, she chose not to answer him. There was nothing more from Chase, but she knew that he could not communicate often when he was “on assignment.” She turned off the computer.

  After breakfast, Dan retired to his cabin to work. Sam launched her kayak at the same time the tour group departed in the two pangas for Fernandina, the newest island of the Galápagos, still shiny with black lava that had erupted only a few years ago. Instead of following the group, Sam paddled north and east and landed a few miles up the shoreline on Isabela. After hauling her kayak up the rocky shore out of the reach of waves, she headed for a rough path Eduardo had shown her on a map. The trail climbed steeply up the slopes of the cone-shaped Alcedo volcano. Alcedo was home to the largest colony of galápagos, the giant tortoises for which the islands were named. She wouldn’t have time to reach the summit and descend into the crater where most of the tortoises lived, but with luck, she’d encounter at least one of the giants before she had to turn back.

  Near the shoreline, vegetation was almost nonexistent, consisting only of a few prickly pears and scrubby, nearly leafless bushes. Heat radiated up from the swirling patterns of black lava underfoot: pahoehoe and ropy aa forms that looked as if they had been free-flowing only yesterday. The barren lava was a stark reminder of how young these islands were: geologically speaking, the Galápagos were still forming. She took several photos of the lava field, although she suspected that the dark rock would look even less interesting on a computer screen than it did through her camera lens.

  It felt good to be in motion and on foot again. The slope she was climbing belonged to one of the five active volcanoes on the island. The two volcanoes on southwest Isabela—Cerro Azul and Sierra Negra—had erupted several times in the last decade. She had been surprised to learn that such a volcanically active island hosted a small town: Puerto Villamil. Accordi
ng to Dan, the community was mostly made up of local fishermen and their families, who had a history of building in forbidden areas, among other illegal activities. A string of environmental crimes had been documented in Villamil but never prosecuted.

  After learning that, she was glad the town was not on Papagayo’s itinerary. Maybe one day Villamil would disappear under an avalanche of lava and nature would take back the whole island.

  It was possible. Less than five years ago, on Fernandina, the La Cumbre volcano had erupted, spilling lava into the sea and parboiling sea lions and fish.

  As she trotted up the steep path, she started to feel parboiled herself. Sweat soaked her T-shirt and hiking shorts and the swimsuit she wore underneath. The density of vegetation increased with the altitude. She stopped periodically to take photos of the tall bushes and small trees, hoping to identify them later. A few birds that might have been some of Darwin’s famous finches twittered among the branches, but only a hawk stayed in position long enough for her to snap a shot. Alongside the trail she spotted only a few small, black, uninteresting lizards.

  At noon she paused to rest on a rock and consume the sandwich and fruit juice the galley staff had packed for her. There was more breeze at the higher elevation, but it couldn’t dry the volume of sweat pouring from her skin.

  This arid, volcanic landscape was not how she’d visualized the Galápagos. When she dreamed of Pacific Islands, she imagined palm trees and white sand beaches. The view of the ocean was nice, but the lava reminded her of Craters of the Moon monument in Idaho, and the cactus and scrub bushes reminded her of the high desert in Arizona.

  The thought of Arizona brought Chase to mind. She could not envision him with a shaved head. It gave her the willies to think about running her fingers over a shiny bald head, and that realization bothered her. Was she really so superficial? No, she decided. Her previous lover, Adam Steele, had been movie star handsome and she had ditched him. He’d moved to San Diego to take a television anchor position, but they remained friends from a distance. She checked in on Adam occasionally on the Internet. He called once in a while to find out what she was up to. He’d even sent her a Christmas gift. She knew that annoyed Chase, but she didn’t have so many friends that she was ready to give any of them up. Besides, it was kind of nice to think Chase could be jealous of another male.