Refuge Cove

by Lesley Choyce

  “I won’t tell, I won’t tell,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about.

  The guy eased up a little, but he looked like a firecracker about to go off. Just then the boom of my sail came whipping around in the wind. I yelled, “Duck,” and I pulled him down. He got the wrong idea and lunged at me with the knife, slicing into my arm.

  I let out a wail at the pain and fell back onto the tiller. I think I scared him because he suddenly dropped the knife. He scrambled for it in the bottom of the boat. He was about to lunge at me again when I heard another voice.

  A girl had come out from under the tarp in the other boat. She was yelling something at the man. I don’t know what. I was ready to jump overboard to get out of the way of the knife. I kept thinking about how cold that water was.

  The man and the girl started arguing. I kept one hand on my arm and kept my eyes on the maniac with the knife. Another head popped up from the lifeboat. It was a woman.

  The girl looked at me now and spoke in clear English, “Can we trust you?”

  I took one look at the man with the knife and a long hard look at the coastline a couple of miles away. “You can trust me. Honest.”

  She spoke to the man and he seemed to be satisfied. He backed off and kept his hand on the boom so it couldn’t smack him in the head. The sail was making an awful noise in the wind with the slack lines. I was afraid it might rip again.

  “What’s going on?” I asked the girl. She looked like one of the Pakistani kids from my old school. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Tamara,” she said. “This is my mother and father.” The mother nodded. The father looked like he was waiting for a bomb to drop out of the sky.

  “I’m Greg.”

  “And you are bleeding. I am sorry. My father saw your uniform.”

  “What uniform?” Then I looked down at the colors on the floater jacket. Somebody really out of touch might have considered it a uniform. “I’m not a cop or anything,” I said.

  “What are you?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I looked around at the empty ocean, the distant icebergs and the receding coastline. My arm was burning. “I’m someone who wants to help,” I said.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Let’s get ashore before we end up in Greenland.”

  I tied a rope onto the lifeboat. Tamara persuaded her father to change places with her. I didn’t trust that knife near all my vital organs. It would be a slow, difficult trip towing that much weight. We would need to tack a bunch of times to get near Deep Cove. But what else was there to do?

  It wasn’t until we were under sail going a really mean half a mile an hour that I realized I was sharing my Laser with one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever met.

  Chapter Four

  “We used all of our money to come here on a big ship,” Tamara said. “When we came into Canadian waters, the man said we were only a few miles from shore. We got in the lifeboat and they lowered us into the water. But there were no oars.”

  “How long have you been out here?”

  “Two days.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “No,” she said, looking far off toward the horizon.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Maybe,” she said, and smiled.

  “You’re refugees, aren’t you?”

  Suddenly she looked nervous. “Will you turn us in?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Will you turn us in and have us put in jail?”

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “My father says we must avoid getting caught. He has been told there are very few people living on your coast. He says we can just go ashore and live there. In peace.”

  I wanted to try to explain a lot of things just then. I wanted to paint a picture for her of the rugged coast of Newfoundland and tell her that you couldn’t just live in total isolation, even here.

  “In our country there is much fighting and killing. My father was in prison. He would have been executed. He escaped. We found a ship. First to Amsterdam. Now to here. If we can avoid the authorities, we will live again as a family.”

  “The immigration people will help,” I said. “I’ve heard about stuff like this in the news.”

  Slowly but surely we were nearing the coastline. But even once we got near shore, it would be another slow four miles along the coast before we would get to Deep Cove. There was nothing but high cliffs and narrow gullies along here. Nowhere to go ashore. And if the wind changed direction we might as well be ten miles back out to sea.

  Tamara was looking back at her mother and father. Her mother looked pretty nervous, but her father looked like a volcano about to erupt. I rubbed my arm where I had been cut with the knife. It had stopped bleeding. It stung from getting wet with salt spray, but I knew it wasn’t very deep. I’d be okay.

  Tamara gave me a soft sad look. “I’m sorry,” she said. “My father thought you were going to arrest us.”

  “Oh yeah, my uniform.” I had been so caught up in trying to keep us on course that I hadn’t noticed that Tamara was shivering. With one hand still on the rope and a foot on the tiller, I undid my floater jacket and handed it to her.

  She shook her head no.

  “Take it. If you fall in, it will float you. Can you swim?”

  “A little.”

  “Yeah, but can you swim in water that just came down from the North Pole?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just put on the jacket. Please.”

  The magic word. She put it on. I showed her how to snap it up. My hand brushed against her long black hair and I found myself looking into her eyes. I guess I forgot I was trying to steer a sailboat just then because I was holding the sail too stiff and we tipped up very high on my side. I had to grab onto Tamara to keep her from sliding out of the boat and giving the floater jacket a real tryout.

  When I regained control I apologized. I looked back at her old man and gave him the thumbs-up. I don’t think he understood.

  That’s when I saw the Coast Guard ship headed our way. “Look,” I told Tamara. “We’re in luck. If I can signal them somehow, you guys will be safe and sound in no time. They can see my sail, I’m sure, but they’re too far out to see much else. They have no reason to think we need help.”

  I was thinking that maybe I could flap the sail in some erratic manner and then they’d notice and come check us out.

  Tamara was looking back at her father. He saw the boat too and was shaking his head sideways. The knife was back in his hand. “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “Do not signal them. They will send us back.”

  “No, they won’t. I promise. It’s not like that.”

  “You don’t know. They have guns, right?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe. But look, it’s just the Coast Guard. They’re out here to help.”

  “No!” her old man shouted at me from behind. He said something to his daughter in a rapid rattle of language.

  “We must hide,” she told me. “My mother and father are very afraid. We need your help. We must trust you.”

  “Where are we going to hide out here?” I asked her. This all seemed crazy. I looked at the steep cliffs along the shore. We were already in much closer than I liked to be. With the wrong gust of wind we’d be chewed up by granite. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “There,” Tamara said, pointing to a narrow gully that cut from the sea into the sheer rock face. It was about twelve feet wide.

  “You can’t just pull into a little inlet like that with a sailboat. There are a lot of factors to consider here.” I suddenly sounded like somebody else. I realized that I sounded like my father. He was always the one who would tell me to look at a problem logically. Logic told me that I couldn’t slip my Laser between those two big rocks like it was a quarter dropping into a video game.

  “I can’t get in there,” I repeated. I saw the Coast Guard cutter was headed our way now. I
t was getting closer. I wanted to tell Tamara that they’d never come in this close to shore anyway, so don’t worry.

  But she was already pulling on the rope that tied us to the lifeboat. She was about to get back in with her parents. Her old man would cut the rope and they’d take their chances without me.

  “Tamara,” I shouted to her, pulling her back. I realized that, this time, the logical thing to do might not be the right thing to do. “Stay put. Tell your father we’re going in. They’ll never find us in there.”

  Tamara gave me a puzzled look but ducked beneath the sail and sat back down. “You said you can’t get in there.”

  I checked the wind. Light onshore. I tried to get a good look at what was beyond the narrow channel, but I couldn’t see a thing from this angle.

  Tamara’s father now was shouting something at me. He was pointing his finger towards the narrow passage.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. I shoved hard on the tiller and lined us up perfectly. The wind was directly behind me now and it would be a fast downwind run straight in. The rope towing the lifeboat pulled taut. The weight of the other boat acted as an anchor brake at first, but then, as the sail filled out, we started to pick up speed. I lay down low to see under the sail.

  Then walls of dark rock swallowed us up. The aluminum boom banged hard against a rock and sent off an eerie sound like a Sunday morning church bell. I jammed the tiller hard left to avoid a submerged rock and then back to get us on course. On course to where? I kept wondering.

  And as suddenly as we had entered the gully, we were beyond it and back in the sunshine. We were in a small protected harbor. Up ahead was a tiny beach of stones. High, barren hills surrounded us on all sides, and a long thin waterfall splashed down right into the seawater.

  I aimed straight for the beach of black pebbles, raised the centerboard and drove us right up onto dry land. I hopped out and pulled the lifeboat in behind me.

  Tamara and her parents looked around in wonder.

  “Welcome to Newfoundland,” I said.

  Chapter Five

  Tamara’s mother jumped onto the beach and fell to her knees. She bowed her head. Maybe she was praying. Tamara went over to her. I guess the woman thought she was never going to set foot on solid ground again. Meanwhile, Tamara’s father was gathering a couple of sacks from the boat. He seemed anxious to get out of here. The knife was still in his hand as he lifted his wife up off Lesley Choyce the stones and began to bully her towards a small trail that led inland.

  I ran to Tamara as they started to hurry off. “Where are you going? You can’t just go wandering off into the wilderness. You don’t know anything about this place. You could die out there.”

  Tamara didn’t look at me. “We could have died out on the sea, but we didn’t. Now we have safely arrived and we are free. I thank you. Now you must leave us alone and tell no one we are here.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I stood there trying to figure these people out. What could I do? Just let them wander off, maybe to starve or fall off a cliff or something? Or what if I went home and phoned the police to come find them? Then what? Tamara’s father would go at them with a knife and he would get thrown in jail. They might all get sent back. There were no happy endings.

  I heard my father’s voice. Just be reasonable. Think through all the options. As far as I figured I had just one option: trust.

  “Tamara,” I shouted. She turned around. “You have to trust me. If you don’t come with me, your whole family will be in big trouble. I’ll take you to my house. It will be warm. There will be food. We’ll take care of you.”

  But it wasn’t enough. They were having a hard time scrambling up the steep path, but these were stubborn, desperate people. They’d make it out of here, but where would they be then?

  “You can hide at my house,” I said finally. “My mom and I will hide you and tell no one until you have a safe place to go to. Trust me.”

  They stopped. Tamara was speaking to her father and mother. They were arguing. I didn’t take a step towards them. Her father was glaring at me with mistrust. I rubbed my arm. Silently, I let go a little prayer of my own. All my life I had been doing everything for me. The sailing, the competitions, the glory. But nothing ever felt quite like this. These people needed me. I could help them and no one else could. And I guess I needed them too.

  The parents were still arguing. As far as I could tell, the mother wanted to trust me but the father didn’t trust anyone anywhere. He would get his way, I was certain. He was the boss. Tamara was talking too, but they were ignoring her. She was getting mad.

  Then Tamara stopped arguing. She looked back at me. I hadn’t moved. Trust me, I said silently over and over in my head. Please let me help.

  Tamara walked away from her parents and back down the slope towards me. Her eyes were fixed on mine. Her father started to yell something at her, but she didn’t turn around. She walked straight up to me and took my hand, then turned around and looked at her parents.

  It was pretty rough going to get back to Deep Cove. We hiked over some of the wildest country I had ever seen. I managed to keep my bearings as long as I knew where the sea was. Tamara and I talked the whole way. I didn’t let go of her hand, not even once. Her parents remained silent and followed closely behind us.

  I took the back way through the berry fields to get to my house. That way we could walk pretty well right up to the door without anyone seeing us. It was near dark when we got there. Boy, was I hungry, but Tamara and her family must have been much worse off.

  When I got to the door, I was pretty nervous. How was I going to explain this to my mom? I decided to knock.

  She opened the door and blinked.

  “I invited some people over for supper,” I said matter-of-factly. “They’re new in town.”

  “Hello. Pleased to meet you,” Tamara said.

  My mother saw the blood on my sleeve. It looked worse than it actually was. “What happened to you?”

  “I cut it on a sharp rock. It’s nothing. Can we come in?”

  My mother said nothing but stepped aside. We entered in a silent parade. Before we all settled down in the living room, Tamara’s father whispered something to her. In a low voice she said to me, “Do not tell her who we are. Just say we are friends.”

  Do you know how hard it is to keep secrets from my mother? I wanted to say. Besides, they didn’t look like anyone from Newfoundland.

  Dinner was haddock and potatoes and a huge salad. After the food was set on the table, my mother grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the kitchen. She was furious with me for not explaining what was going on.

  “Who are these people?” she demanded. “I don’t trust that man. I don’t like any of this. What are they, drug smugglers?”

  “Just relax, Mom. I had to promise them I wouldn’t tell you who they are.”

  My mom folded her arms. “That’s a promise you’re going to have to break, buster. Those people are sitting at our table. They’re eating our food. I want to know who they are.”

  I tried to think what my father would do. I didn’t think he’d ever been in a situation like this.

  Chapter Six

  “They’re refugees. They won’t say where they’re from. They want to live in Canada. They want to live here. I found them drifting around off the coast in a boat. We need to help them, but Tamara’s father doesn’t trust anybody.”

  “Who is Tamara?” my mother demanded.

  “Tamara’s the girl,” I said. “She’s really something. I like her a lot.”

  My mother looked at the way I was smiling. Then she threw up her hands and talked to the ceiling. “My son has a crush on a girl he just found in a lifeboat. What next?”

  “Quiet,” I whispered. “They might hear. Besides, I just met her. I don’t have a crush on her.”

  “We need to sort this out rationally,” my mother said, talking like my father now. “We need to call the immigration people in St. John’s right away. They’ll
know what we should do.” She picked up the phone and dialed 411 for information.

  “No, we can’t!” I told her in a loud whisper. I took the phone from her and hung it up.

  “Why?” my mom wanted to know. She didn’t like the way I was acting.

  “Because Tamara’s father is afraid of cops, of anybody in authority. I promised we wouldn’t turn them in.”

  “Promised? Are you crazy? If we don’t turn them over, we’ll be breaking the law.”

  I shrugged. “They need our help. Now let’s eat supper like everything is normal.”

  “Normal?” she repeated, as if she’d never heard the word before. But before we could return to the dining room, we heard the front door open.

  My mom looked at me. “Oh, no. There’s more of them.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  We rushed out of the kitchen. It was Harold.

  “Oh, boy,” I gasped. Tamara’s father had jumped up and pulled out his knife. He had Harold pinned up against the wall with the knife poised near the old guy’s stomach.

  Harold’s eyes were bugging out of his head and he had his hands thrown back. Mom screamed. Tamara’s mother was jumping up and down.

  “Just everybody relax,” I said, sucking in my breath. “Tamara, tell your father this man is my friend. He’s not from the police. He’s just a friend.”

  She translated.

  Tamara’s father was slow to be convinced.

  “His name is Harold,” I told her father. “He’s a nice guy. Don’t kill him.”

  Although the tension didn’t drain from his face, Tamara’s father lowered the knife.

  Harold spoke gently to the man who had been about to slice his belly. “That looks like a good knife. Had one like it once that I used to gut mackerel with. Lost it in a squall. Always liked that knife.”

  “That does it,” my mother said, regaining her courage. “I want all these people out of my house,” she told me. “No ifs, ands or buts.”