The Raft

by S.A. Bodeen

  Feeling gingerly with my fingers, I discovered my left eye was swollen. So swollen.

  My mouth was all gritty and I spit, tried to work up some saliva, then spit again.

  How had I gotten to shore?

  A rough wave lifted me slightly, started to pull me back out, but my body stopped abruptly as I felt a pulling on my hair.

  Turning a bit, I realized my hair had gotten entwined in the succulent green naupaka bushes lining the beach. I tried not to think about what would have happened if a wave had taken me back out when I was still unconscious on my belly.

  I owed the naupaka a big thank-you.

  Clack! Clack! Clack!

  Without pulling on my hair, I turned my head so my right eye was aimed up the bank.

  Several young gooneys stood there, black-and-white adult feathers peeking through their silvery baby down in spots. They glared at me, the clacking of their beaks the only way they had to let me know they were pissed off at my sudden intrusion on their beach.

  Ignoring them, I got to work on freeing myself.

  My fingers were wrinkled and wet and had cuts on them. I tried to untangle my hair. I must have been lying there for a while, because several of my cornrows were completely twisted in the plant. I tried to unbraid them, to no avail.

  The raft.

  Max.

  I called for him, but as I tried to stand, the bushes held firm. So, grimacing at the pain, I started yanking until I was free. Feeling with my fingers, I found one decent-sized bald spot. It was just hair. A small price to pay for being alive and on an island.

  On an island!

  I needed to find Max.

  My legs threatened to buckle beneath me. Weaving a bit, I staggered through the naupaka and up the bank, scattering the albatross, which retreated but continued their constant clacking.

  Being blind on the left required me to move slowly, gain my balance. Having been on the raft for so long didn’t help either.

  Reaching the top of the bank, I stood above the beach, scanning for any sign of Max. “Max?” I called for him, and then noticed something yellow down the beach, about a hundred yards. The raft. “Max!”

  Jumping back down to the beach, my legs gave out and I landed on my belly, knocking my breath into the sand. I lay there for a second and summoned any strength I had left.

  Getting slowly back up on my feet, I moved unsteadily. The raft was there, shredded by the coral reef, but still in one piece, more or less. There was no chance it would ever hold air again, that was for sure. The left side had been ripped away and the Coastal Commander was gone. The ditty bag was nowhere to be seen either. I struggled to pull the raft up off the beach.

  Shading my one good eye, I looked out in the water. Nothing.

  My legs buckled and I fell to the sand. It didn’t mean anything. Max could still be okay. I made it. He could too. Crawling onto what was left of the raft, I lay down and slept.

  When I woke, I felt better, although my left eye was still swollen shut and my head throbbed. I sat up slowly, and felt on my way to getting used to being on solid land again. My body still felt like it was swaying though, as if I was still on the water.

  I looked around.

  The island was small, that’s for sure, and if I had to guess, I’d say it was probably Lisianski. Which meant at least I had gone from being in the middle of nowhere to a place that was actually on the map. Definitely an improvement.

  Some of the smaller islands in the area didn’t have scientists on them during the summer, but they did get checked on periodically by research ships as they passed. So there was a pretty good chance someone would pass by this island. And I intended to be ready when they did.

  My stomach growled. I had to find something to eat.

  Sooty terns flew overhead, their cries raucous and their bellies green from the reflection of the sun off the water. More Internet trivia popped into my head: The soundtrack of the birds from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds was actually sooty terns recorded on Eastern Island at Midway. It was nice to hear life around me after all those days and nights of quiet.

  My stomach growled again.

  With all the birds, there had to be eggs on the island. But even if I did get the nerve up to eat one, there was no way to cook them.

  I stubbed my toe and reached down to pick up the blue culprit. A plastic cigarette lighter. I opened my hand and let it drop back to the sand. There were thousands of them on the beaches at Midway, and looking around, I saw them everywhere. Useless.

  Although hungry and thirsty, I needed to prioritize. In case a plane flew over or a ship went by, I needed to be able to signal them. And I didn’t have any flares. I headed unsteadily toward the center of the island where two dunes rose in a V-shape about thirty feet high.

  I climbed to the top and plopped down, breathing hard. Water as far as I could see around the island. The breeze lifted my hair a bit as the sun stung my sunburned face. Green sea turtles dozed on the beach and an involuntary smile crept upon my face as I wiped the sand off my ankle. The tattoo was still visible. The fact that it looked so good, the henna so dark, the drawing so pristine, made it seem completely out of place on my wreck of a body. I sighed and looked down the beach. Another sea turtle had joined the rest.

  Sea turtles spent a lot of time on Midway, but they didn’t lay eggs there. I wondered if this island was one where they did. The turtles looked huge, even from as far away as I was. They were a species that had my respect, to even be able to survive. The females sometimes went to sea for twenty-five years before laying eggs.

  I slid down the sand to the bottom, landing near a small pile of driftwood. A signal fire made the most sense, except there was no way for me to light it.

  I pushed a small log over and it rolled down the small incline.

  Another cigarette lighter, orange this time, lay there. I picked it up. How easy would that be, to have a cigarette lighter to light my signal fire?

  With my thumb, I flicked the wheel. Nothing. The mechanism was so rusty, it didn’t budge even a tad. I shook the lighter, and the liquid inside sloshed.

  Lighter fluid? Or seawater?

  Another lighter, blue, lay within reach, and I picked it up. Again there was liquid inside. If I found enough of them with lighter fluid, I could break them open and pour all the fluid on a pile of wood. Then I would only need to find one that actually worked. It was like buying a lottery ticket. Eventually I had to win something, right?

  At least it was something to do.

  Picking up the wood from the small pile, I carried it to the top of the dune, the best place for a signal fire. For about an hour, I hunted for wood, chose only the driest pieces, and ended up with a pretty good-size pile on top of the dune. A faded green plastic fishing float broken in two served well as a bucket as I went around collecting lighters. The float didn’t take long to fill, and I carried it back to the raft.

  Max was there, sitting on what was left of it.

  forty-one

  My mouth fell open. “How are you here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “How are you here?”

  I glanced out at the reef, where waves crashed into the outside. The same waves that had slammed the raft.

  “Good question.”

  The odds of someone making it to the beach after such a beating were probably pretty low. I touched my left eye. Maybe I was lucky to come through as unscathed as I had. I sat down beside him.

  Max didn’t look that bad. I was glad not to be alone and I told him my plan.

  I picked up a lighter and flicked the wheel, hoping for a flame. A spark. Some sign that it still worked. One by one, I went through my bucketful.

  Disappointed every time, I tossed the rejects into a pile to be broken later, any fluid left in them to be poured on my signal fire. When I got to the bottom of the pile, I kicked the empty fishing float away.

  “There are a lot more lighters,” said Max. “You only need one to get lucky.”

  I nodded
. “I’m not giving up. Just taking a break.” Off to the west, clouds gathered. “Maybe rain.” I picked up the fishing float to check for holes. To get rain, I’d have to set out some containers. I set off to see what I could find that would hold water.

  I walked the beach around the bend, until I couldn’t see Max or the raft. Only after about ten minutes did I realize how tired I was. I found a warm, clean patch of sand and sat down, just for a moment’s rest. The sun was so warm, I lay back and shut my good eye.

  A raucous croaking sound woke me.

  I sat up. Too quickly, because I felt light-headed for a moment.

  The sound continued, sounding like a massive, low-toned frog.

  As I neared a dune, the sound was louder and I dropped to my knees and lay on top, so I could peek without being seen. Roughly thirty yards down the beach, a Hawaiian monk seal about six feet long with a dark coat lay with its back to me. The seal, more slender than most I’d seen, faced the water, calling and calling.

  By the size of it, I figured the seal was female.

  I glanced out where her gaze was focused, but didn’t notice anything.

  There were Hawaiian monk seals at Midway, which was critical habitat for them, a place they needed in order to survive. Because with only about 1,300 monk seals left in the world, extinction was a very real possibility. So most of the beaches at Midway were off-limits to humans. If we did stumble upon a seal, we were supposed to stay a hundred yards away, and you risked getting sent packing if you disobeyed the rules.

  Most of the time they just lay there on the beach, snoozing away, oblivious to any humans peering at them through a lens. I didn’t see how hiding behind napaka watching them was any more harmful than the stupid seal researchers catching them and taking blood samples. To me, that seemed way more traumatizing.

  The seal cried out again. But the cry held something else this time. It was hard to tell, but the sound that came out of her mouth sounded like pain. And then she rolled onto her back.

  I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth. I whispered, “Sick.”

  Her belly was slashed open, bleeding, with innards exposed and tumbling out.

  The only thing that could do that kind of damage was a shark.

  forty-two

  Immediately, I looked out into the lagoon, but saw nothing in the water. The seal could have been fishing outside of the lagoon when it happened. That made more sense. Although with all the young albatross on the island leaving, or getting ready to leave, there probably were tiger sharks around. A lot of them.

  My arms broke out in goose bumps.

  The seal cried again. She tried to roll back the other way, but she got stuck. Then I saw one of her flippers had been bitten completely off. I don’t know how she even managed to make it ashore. Or why the shark didn’t finish her off.

  Tears filled my right eye as I watched her suffer.

  There was nothing I could do. Even if we’d been closer to civilization, closer to a marine mammal facility with specialized vets and equipment, I don’t know what they could do to help her.

  We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing. And she was not going to heal on her own. She couldn’t grow another flipper.

  Her cries dimmed, until they were raspy whimpers. She was in so much pain.

  Tears spilled down my cheeks, even eking out from my bad eye.

  Think. Figure it out.

  I thought about what would have happened if this had been Midway. The biologist would have had to call the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, because they were in charge of the monk seals and their habitat.

  And then?

  The NMFS would have told them what to do.

  Which was what?

  Midway had no vet, no one qualified to operate. Even the medical person there for humans wasn’t qualified for that. Glancing again at her injuries, I doubted anyone anywhere knew how to fix her. Factor in the NMFS not being able to reach Midway for at least half a day, and there wasn’t much anyone on Midway could have done to help her.

  With the back of my hand, I wiped off my tears and stood up.

  It wasn’t in me to sit and watch her die.

  Retreating down the dune, I began looking for something. Something hard and heavy.

  A few pieces of driftwood lay strewn about on the beach, but they looked too light. In a bigger pile of marine debris, I found a broken board. As I hefted it, I knew that the board, combined with my current level of adrenaline and emotion, would work.

  Still sniffling, I climbed back to the top of the dune and knelt.

  The seal was moaning now, or what seemed like moaning. As close to human as an animal sound could get.

  It was cruel, so cruel, to make her suffer when I could do something about it.

  I couldn’t wait anymore.

  She no longer faced me, so I walked quickly but softly until I was a few feet away. A slight breeze brushed my face.

  I breathed in and got her smell.

  A little fishy.

  Salty.

  She was the ocean.

  Gripping the board in both hands, I lifted both arms over my head and steeled myself, gathering all my energy. I wanted to have to hit her only once because I didn’t know whether I could make myself do it a second time.

  Just as I was ready to bring the board down, her head fell my way, both of her eyes looking up at mine. There was no surprise in her gaze. Like she expected me to be there. To help her.

  As she looked at me, I swear she was crying.

  “I’m so sorry…”

  Then I cried out as I brought the board down as hard as I could.

  forty-three

  Tossing the board away, I sunk to my knees beside her, not even caring that she could rip into me if she was still alive.

  But she wasn’t, that was clear. Nothing about her whispered life. Brushing past her whiskers, I held a hand in front of the slits that were her nostrils.

  She wasn’t suffering anymore. But she had been one of only a few of her kind.

  Endangered.

  Harming an endangered animal resulted in fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Jail. I’d done way worse than harm. But I’d had no choice.

  I set a hand on her head. Her eyes were still open.

  Still full of tears.

  Still so sad.

  Still so … human.

  With gentle hands, I closed them for her.

  As I sat there beside her, my legs crossed, I reached out and lightly stroked her side.

  I’d never touched a seal before.

  Her dark skin was slick, smooth. I stroked her face, ran my fingers across her whiskers. “It’s okay now. You’re okay.”

  Shaking my head, I wiped my eyes and looked out at the water.

  Something moved in the waves.

  Or it could have been my imagination.

  Yet there it was again.

  Something round.

  A head.

  A black shiny head.

  Coming right toward me. No. Not toward me. Toward the seal.

  “Oh, no. No. No, no, no.”

  It couldn’t be.

  Getting to my feet, I scrambled for the dune, diving out of sight. Then I crawled on my stomach to watch as the baby seal reached the shore and headed right for its dead mother.

  I rolled onto my back, hands over my face.

  I might as well have hit the baby over the head, because in killing the mother, I’d killed the baby too. And I wept.

  forty-four

  Lying on my stomach at the top of the dune, I watched through tears as the baby poked its nose against the dead mother, which was scarcely larger than the baby. That explained why the seal was so skinny. Mother monk seals don’t feed at all for the five or six weeks when they nurse their baby, surviving only on their existing blubber. They sometimes lose hundreds of pounds.

  I propped up on my elbows.

  The baby was beginning to molt, lose black fur in places. So taking into account th
e baby’s size and the state of its fur, it must have been just about ready to be weaned.

  Maybe the baby had a chance to survive.

  It made a guttural braaaaap!

  The mother didn’t answer.

  The baby wanted milk. It nosed around, poking its face into the gash in the mother’s side. Then it found one remaining nipple and, with its mother’s blood dripping from its whiskers, the baby nursed.

  Unable to watch, I trudged back to the raft. Max was asleep or passed out; I couldn’t tell anymore. Would he want to eat…? I gagged. No. I couldn’t.

  Later, I went back to check. The mother’s body was still there, but the baby was gone. I couldn’t bear the thought of the baby coming back to the dead body, again and again, as it lay there decomposing.

  And I wanted the body gone so I wouldn’t have to look at it and be reminded of what I’d done.

  I found my broken board and propped that under the dead seal as a lever, then pushed down on it. The body budged, but barely. So I sat with my back to it, dug my feet into the sand, and pushed.

  Nothing.

  I was already out of breath, but I knew the mechanics of my lever idea were sound and should work. So I tried again, heaving against the board with all my might. And the body rolled. Slowly but, still, it worked. After another roll, I bent over and leaned my hands on my knees, until I stopped panting.

  The mother seal was on a slight incline and after a few more rolls, it went much more easily. Finally, it was at the water’s edge.

  I was worn-out and couldn’t do anymore, so I sat about five feet up the beach and waited for the tide to take over. I watched the oncoming clouds and crossed my fingers they held rain. I was thirsty.

  I lay back for just a moment and closed my eye.

  Water lapped at my feet and woke me up. It took me a minute to realize where I was. I sat up.

  The seal’s body was gone.

  It was done. Just like that.

  The baby would slowly forget its mother ever existed.

  Then I heard it.

  Bloop!

  The body popped up about fifteen feet offshore, bobbing there.