The Sea is a Thief

by David Parmelee

  The creek wound its way through a low marshy stretch of land towards the Assateague Channel. It ran half a mile or more in the course of its many turns. Sam and Anna had crossed it often in both directions. They knew the creek to be slow and narrow. Swollen with water, it had taken on another appearance entirely. The wind was strong at their backs, gusting and whirling about, carrying them towards the channel, but the surging water tossed them like a cork. The slop that found its way over the coaming sloshed about inside the hull. Sam saw that the skies had darkened; the green hue that he had seen on Assateague had given way to an iron-grey, thick and menacing. The odd warmth that preceded the storm had yielded to a raw chill. Anna’s eyes were closed and she seemed to have sunk within herself. The pelting rain continued. His oars pounded out a slow, heavy rhythm.

  They navigated the final turn of the angry creek and entered the channel itself. Their usual course was to run half a mile directly up the channel until they reached the wide mouth of a creek that emptied into it. They would follow it as it cut its way through the shallows towards the tip of Piney Island. When the tide was low, broad expanses of mud flats and rock were exposed on their right and left. The course of the creek led them safely through all of it for a mile or so. When they spotted the tip of Piney Island, they would head due north, finding their direction easily by sight. After another mile in open water they would reach the tiny stream that led them to the Daisey house. A huge overhanging willow tree marked the spot.

  Sam hovered on the water for long minutes, planning his course. Anna had made the trip countless times over many years, with her father and then alone. Sam had learned the route from her. They could scarcely know the way better, but the landscape had changed. The wind that drove relentlessly in from the sea was swelling the tide, preventing the water in the channel from flowing back to the open ocean. All land was hidden from sight. No landmark stood out; the inky sky darkened the landscape, and sheets of rain obscured it. Directionless and unable to navigate, they were about to descend into a maelstrom. Only an unseen hand could guide them.

  Sam leaned forward, taking Anna in his arms and holding her close. Her face was cold to his touch, but their eyes met with perfect resolve. It was difficult to speak even when his lips almost touched her ears; the wind was a banshee, enveloping them.

  “It may be deep enough to go directly to Piney Island,” he shouted. “It will cut down the distance.” She shook her head wildly.

  “Don’t take the risk, Sam. So many obstacles are just beneath the surface. If we go aground or damage the hull we are lost. Go by the usual way!” He moved back and took to the oars, setting the skiff on a course up the channel, the tree-lined shore of Assateague to his port side, shrouded in rain. He did not want his face to show his concern, but he was sure that it did. So many things could go wrong in the next two hours.

  In the channel, the boat was entirely exposed. The wind buffeted them from the side, driving them to starboard and slowing their progress to a crawl. The heavy rain beat the surface into a dimpled foam. Beneath it, the water was murky and brown. The chop was heavier than before, and he began to wonder how far they could go before the skiff would founder. They had nothing they could use to bail, and there was so little freeboard. He and Anna had become used to paddling the boat together in good weather; now, as slight as she was, the burden of two passengers threatened to overwhelm it. Sam’s thoughts were no friend to him. He could quiet his mind only by rowing, the pain building in his arms distracting him from his fears. He fought his way across the marsh against the storm. The rain stung his face like bits of glass. Anna cradled her head in her arms, bent against the deluge. Sam looked into her eyes. Bring us home, they said. Just bring us home.

  He could only guess where to turn west towards Piney Island. Had he gone the half-mile that was needed? If he fell short, they might be entering a maze of shoals. At any moment they might run aground, stranded on the flooded marsh. Wading was an impossibility; swimming a sure sentence of death in the cold water. If the skiff did not endure the passage, they would not survive it either. As he muscled the boat forward, stroke by stroke, he braced himself at each moment for the grinding lurch that would tell him he was off course and aground. If they made it only to the tip of the island, he could surely land them near home, somewhere on the shore of Chincoteague.

  He had to get there quickly. Each minute they remained on open water, the rain ran deeper into the hull. It was up to his ankles now, a dead weight that he could feel with each sweep of the oars. The skiff settled low in the water, uncomfortable and slow.

  The brush and grasses were beaten down by the gale, low against the ground. The familiar markers of the channel were lost. Unsure as he was of the place where the turn should be, he made his move when he thought it was right, swinging hard against the surging current. He fought his way across the rolling bedlam that once was the course of a quiet creek, the skiff lifting up with his effort and slapping down as the waves retreated beneath it.

  How long had it been since they had left Elizabeth? His senses deceived him. The unrelenting effort that tore at his shoulders numbed his mind. He could feel that he was becoming very cold. His hands wrapped the oars like the talons of a hawk. He did not try to move them lest he lose his grip and be unable to regain it. How must Anna feel? He did not dare to think of it. The skiff heaved forward, rolling into the troughs of the swells, the wind tearing at him from one side and then the other, the rain driven madly before it. Between them and Chincoteague stretched a vast grey kettle of boiling sea.

  Foreboding had kept his thoughts from prayer. When at last he turned his face to God, prayer escaped him. He reached out to heaven with his heart alone. Slow the wind. Calm the waves. Let us only see the sun once again.

  Over his shoulder, he thought he saw the shoreline of Piney Island, indistinct in the rain and darkness. His heart leapt. Yes—he could see it! By some miracle, they had covered the distance across the flooded tidal flat, still afloat. There was hope. He hollered to Anna as loudly as he could, afraid to take his hands from the oars. She heard him and lifted her face just a little, her eyes fixed far past him. He looked over his shoulder to the shoreline, hoping that her gaze would follow, but it did not. Her head dropped back onto her arms. He angled the skiff as closely as he could to the island.

  As he came closer he could see that only the highest part of it stood above the water; the trunks of trees were washed by the waves. The tide ran freely almost from one side of the island to the other. He knew that when he passed the final tree he could swing the boat up into Chincoteague Channel. He would run diagonally across it to landfall, and safety. The pines and cedars crawled past, even the tallest of them bent by the relentless wind. His back was on fire and his shoulders screamed with each stroke. He struggled mightily to make progress over the water—only to make progress, everything else be damned. The worst was behind them.

  The line of trees ended. They were in the channel. Half an hour would carry them home in good weather; today there was no telling. He gathered his strength and pushed the skiff out into the deep channel, setting a course strongly northwards as best he could judge, finding the quickest path to Chincoteague. The channel waves rolled upon each other, hammering at the hull of the skiff. Gusts of wind pounded his back like a fist. He braced himself against the oars.

  Then the starboard oar snapped.

  He might have struck a bed of rocks, or a sunken log. The oar might simply have given way with the force of his effort. He would never know. The effect on the skiff was instant. She was half-full of water and deep in the trough of a wave, this tiny boat built to carry a single hunter silently along a quiet marsh. When one oar broke and came free in mid-stroke, the other continued its powerful sweep, bringing her hard around, heeling her over to starboard, and thrusting her bow into the oncoming swell. The swell enveloped the forward deck like the jaws a hungry beast, flipping the skiff over and sending Sam Dreher into the channel. His remaining oar fell free of its o
arlock. He pulled it close to his chest as he hit the foaming, frigid water. His head sank below the surface only once. He knew that he could not go under again. Shaking the shock of the water from his body, he kicked his legs upwards, his numb hands reaching for the upended skiff, grasping at the hull.

  He could not see Anna. Was she holding on from the other side?

  He heaved himself onto the narrow hull, the cold water already slowing and weakening his arms and legs. Still he could not see her. He screamed her name above the roar of the wind. Two times. Three times.

  He filled his lungs with air and dove beneath the skiff. Blackness met him. He felt his way along the deck, then the coaming, to the opening in the deck. The skiff was not completely submerged; a bubble of air lay trapped in the hull. He swept his hands across the deck from edge to edge.

  His hands touched her face. She lay beneath the upturned boat, altogether covered by it, floating in the rough water beneath. She did not move. He pulled her head against his chest with one arm. His breath searing his lungs, he pushed the skiff away as he kicked mightily down and forward, bringing her out from under the imprisoning boat. When he pulled her above the surface he lifted her still body onto the hull of the skiff with all the strength that remained in him. She was out of the water.

  He hauled himself onto the hull beside her and lay there, shaking with cold, his exhausted body spent. The water was deep. He had not touched bottom when he swam beneath the boat. To swim to the shore of either island was beyond his fading strength. He would not leave her. He would stay with the boat, and with Anna; here they would die, together. He held her tightly to him. He pressed his face against the wet planks of the skiff, as closely as he could to hers. Mercy, Lord Jesus, he prayed, Mercy.

  He did not know how long they had lain there when he saw the boat. It was shaped like a quarter moon, its bow and stern sweeping sharply upwards. Its gunwales rose high above the water. It was a drift boat, far larger than the skiff, meant for fast, rough water. It bobbed over the angry channel with a resolve that its maker had built into its very bones. Above its heavy twin oars stood Beau Daisey.

  It was all that Sam Dreher could do to raise his head from the hull of the skiff and extend a stiffened hand to Beau. Kneeling down and leaning far over the gunwale, Beau gripped Sam's arm and brought the drift boat close beside. He fished the painter out of the water and secured it to an oarlock with a twist of the line. Reaching down, he wrapped both arms about his sister's waist. He locked his fingers around her and raised her in one motion over the side and into the boat. She came awake suddenly, a spasm of coughing racking her body, and vomited water over the side. Her head lolled backward and she sank down over the seat in the stern, arms clasping it to keep herself from collapsing. To Beau's horror, the side of her face was streaked with blood.

  He leaned over the gunwale once more, reaching out to Sam this time, who rose to meet his grip. Beau lifted him to the side by both arms. With the last of his strength, Sam kicked a leg upwards, hooking his heel over the gunwale. The drift boat dipped towards the rolling channel. Beau locked one arm over Sam's body and clamped a hand behind his bent knee. He threw himself backwards, heaving Sam towards him and righting the boat.

  They were aboard. But they were not ashore.

  Beau settled back heavily between the oars, pulling a tightly-wrapped bundle from beneath his seat. He drew his knife and slit the two ropes that held it together.

  “Cover her!” he shouted, tossing Sam a thick woolen blanket and the oilcloth sheet that had protected it. Sam's numb hands struggled clumsily with the blanket, finally managing to wrap it tightly across Anna's still body. He covered her with the oilcloth, throwing his arms around it to hold it against the fierce wind. As Beau dug deep with the oars he felt the drift boat lurch sideways. The skiff was still tied to it; it lay like an anchor. Beau leaned forward and sliced away the line with a sweep of his arm, freeing the boat. He took two strokes of the oars and checked his course, head bent over his shoulder. Water ran in streams from his curly hair down the shoulders of his coat. He braced his tall rubber boots against the stout ribs of the hull and bent his back to his task again. They leapt forward on the crests of the swells, smashing explosively into the troughs, sending white sheets of foam to both sides. Beau rowed like a man possessed.

  Often, days would go by without Beau and Anna speaking. Even at those distant times, the children of Sweet William and Mary Daisey were brother and sister, the thoughts of one rarely straying far from the other. When the rain and wind began and Anna had not returned, Beau feared that she might not find her way back. He was certain that he knew where to search for her. He took a drift boat from the dock—the best kind for foul weather—and set out to bring his sister home.

  They were on their way.

  When the trees of the Chincoteague shoreline loomed in Beau's sight, he searched for still water. A tiny inlet led to a newly formed pool in a grove of cedars. Beau leapt from the boat, dragging it in two massive lunges into a narrow gap between a pair of trees and securing it with a heavy line. The water rose halfway to his knees. He slogged forward, shouting to Sam. The shrieking of the wind was dulled over land, but the highest branches of the trees were still driven forward like flags.

  “I'll carry her!” he called out. Sam clambered out of the boat, dropping to the flooded ground. He fell backwards momentarily against the hull, then righted himself and turned to Anna. He lifted Anna's body against his shoulder, but could move her no further. Beau pushed him aside, raising her up out of the boat and into his arms. He shifted his grip, drawing her tightly to his chest, and swung around to face Sam. Anna's face lay against her brother's shoulder.

  “Get to the house,” he called out. “Follow me.” With that he was off, boots pushing a channel through the flood. Sam struggled to stay with him, his feet wooden against the hidden ground, stumbling against rocks and roots. He fought for each step, his breath heavy and his lungs burning. He leaned into the heavy rain and forced himself forward.

  The Daisey home came into view as though in a dream, rising above the familiar road, now running with water. Beau ran the last few yards, leaping up the steps and putting his shoulder to the door. It burst open and he disappeared inside. Sam followed, stopped short in the doorway by Mary's scream from the kitchen, then Beau shouting words he could not understand. He stumbled forward and retreated again as he saw Mary beginning to strip off Anna's clothing, rivulets of water running from her fingers onto the plank floor. Blankets and a checked wool nightgown lay on a bench. Beau had flung open the door of the iron stove and was stacking wood into it as rapidly as he could, the orange flames crackling upward. Sam turned towards the front room and leaned against the far wall. He took up the blanket that Beau had discarded on his way to the kitchen. It was wet through, but it would suffice. He tried to stay standing, but in seconds he felt a strange warmth come over him. His legs turned weak and a metallic taste formed in his mouth as the candles in their sconces began to sway before his eyes. Tiny silver starbursts clouded his vision. He reached for a table to stop his fall. His open hand clawed blindly at a walnut merganser, its glass eyes surveying his collapse. As his body folded onto itself, he swept the wooden bird from the table. Its delicate carved feathers splintered as it struck the floor, skittering silently across the room and coming to rest at the foot of the stairs.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dawn Breaks

  For two days the storm held the islands of the Eastern Shore in its powerful grip. No one on Chincoteague—not Edmund Bagwell in his packing house, nor Elizabeth Reynolds in her lighthouse, nor any of the wily old salts who made their living sailing the channels—had seen it coming. Even if they had, they could have done little. It arrived at the very worst time, in the most destructive possible way. Even the highest spots on the islands rose no more than a few feet above the surrounding sea. The wind howled in from the ocean at high tide, driving the rain before it and trapping the swelling waters of the tide onshore. When the
gale blew unabated for nearly forty-eight hours, tide was trapped upon tide until the creeks and inlets overflowed. The streets of the little town became canals. Mary Daisey gave thanks to God that her William had taken the advice of Chincoteague’s oldest living resident when he built their home. His name was Bloxom; when he saw Sweet William laying the foundation he made it his business to warn him. Take her up a few feet, he said; I’ve seen water in the roadway in my time, and you’ll see more in yours. Those few extra feet kept the Daisey home firmly on its foundation above the flood. Many on the island did not fare as well.

  Mary remained in her kitchen at Anna’s side. Beau carried his sister’s bed downstairs and set it up by the stove. He never let the fire dwindle. As the wind lashed furiously at the clapboards of the house, Anna slept, then descended into something deeper than sleep. Since the hour Beau took her from the water she had not opened her eyes. She was pale as the linen sheet on which she lay. Her breathing changed by turns from quick and deep to barely noticeable. Her pulse quickened and faded along with it. She would burn with fever and then the fever would fall away. Mary could not tell what battles raged inside her. The gash on her head was deep and ragged, but Mary bound it well, and the bleeding stopped quickly. Anna had suffered for hours in the cold. She had come close to drowning and struck her head violently on the hull of the boat. Which of those injuries still threatened her was a mystery. Mary stayed with her daughter, cooling her face with wet cloths when she was hot and wrapping her with quilts when her limbs trembled with cold. She slept when Anna was still, rousing at the slightest movement. Elizabeth Reynolds would surely have had a treatment for her, but she was far beyond their reach now. Anna’s fate lay in her mother’s hands.