Dead in the Water

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Then, she let go of her branch, dug deep with her paddle, and shot forward toward Mike’s kayak.

  The struggle to flip it was brief. It would have been harder if he’d still been in the cockpit, but he wasn’t. She swiveled frantically in place. He had to have lived long enough to release himself from the spray skirt that kept water out of the cockpit. A spot of yellow caught her eye. His PFD—

  It floated alone. He had somehow shed that, too. A dying man thinking he was freeing himself from restraint?

  And—dear God—he always kept a small day bag tucked in one of the mesh gear pockets on his deck where it would be accessible. The bag was missing, along with Mike himself.

  His body.

  She heard a splash, then another one. The man who’d been shot and fallen overboard was trying to swim, mostly with one arm. He was alive.

  It might have been smart to hesitate, but she didn’t. She snatched the PFD out of the water and laid it across her front deck, hanging it over the compass right in front of her, and then started paddling her kayak toward the only man she could save.

  His already futile effort to swim had slowed to almost nothingness by the time she reached him. Somehow, he lifted his head and saw her. She had the impression of a bone-white face and seal-dark hair. Hypothermia would kill him in no time.

  Bracing to hold her kayak a safe distance from him, she tossed the vest toward him. “Can you put this on?”

  He grabbed it with one hand, but nothing else happened.

  Rescuing him would be the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. A drowning man’s instinct would be to lunge toward her kayak. He could sink her. Flip her.

  He lifted a glassy-eyed look at her, and tried to dog-paddle toward her.

  “Listen to me. Can you follow instructions? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.” His voice wasn’t strong, but it sounded certain enough to make her think he was still aware.

  “I’ll back up to you. Climb up if you can and pull yourself to lie flat on my boat. Grab a hold of my cockpit. If you dump us over, neither of us will survive. Do you understand?”

  She thought he nodded. This was worth a try. If he couldn’t make it, she could go back for Mike’s kayak, try to pour the water out, somehow help this guy get in...but he was fading fast. She thought he’d be past rescuing if this failed.

  She used her paddle deftly, rotating the kayak in the water, backing up until his hand grasped the rear grab loop. Then she did her best to stay steady in the water as he somehow found the strength to heave himself upward and grip with one hand the rigging that crisscrossed the deck. The kayak rolled to the right; she dug in her paddle to brace it. Left, ditto. Then she heard a groan and dared to turn her head.

  Somehow, he’d made it and lay sprawled the length of her stern, sinking it deeper than she’d like. The fingers of his one usable hand dug into the cockpit coaming behind her. Claire had practiced rescues like this a few times, but this man was bigger, heavier than anyone she’d tried it with.

  The PFD... She looked around. Bumping against her hull. She grabbed it, knowing he might need it—if he survived the next hour or two.

  The speed and liveliness Claire relied on from her kayak had turned into reluctance. It barely moved until she dug in to paddle as if she was crossing an open strait midstorm with whitecaps topping rolling waves, a powerful wind at her head.

  She’d been thinking only one step at a time, but hadn’t moved twenty feet before her mind cleared enough for her to realize she had no idea where she was going. Was there anything closer than last night’s campsite? Besides, it didn’t seem smart to go the same way the freighter had.

  She and Mike had intended to reach Spider Island for the night, but they had notes about a couple of picnic stops where they could beach a kayak that were a lot closer. A chart formed in her mind, although with her current stress and desperation it wasn’t easy to see the one-dimensional features in the cluster of rocky islands and unnamed islets in front of her.

  I should take Mike’s kayak with us, she thought with sudden clarity. Try to dump enough water out of it to allow her to tow it.

  Her mind was working sluggishly now. Wait. She could call for help on the VHF radio, and rescue would come to them.

  “No,” a voice mumbled behind her. “They...could be monitoring for calls for help.”

  They? Fresh horror was answer enough. Them.

  And...today, Mike had carried the VHF radio.

  Thanks to her panic and clumsiness, the SPOT was gone...and seemingly the VHF, too.

  Wait. He often stuck the radio in the pocket of his flotation vest. She paused with the paddle resting across the cockpit and reached forward to the PFD. One look told her the breast pocket was empty. She tried to remember seeing him shove the radio inside and snap the buckle closed this morning. Had he not bothered securing the pocket? Or somehow grabbed for both it and the day bag that held his SPOT?

  With no answers, her mind clicked to the next problem as if she were watching a slide show. She’d have no dry clothes for her passenger without what Mike carried. Hers wouldn’t do a large man any good. She had to reclaim Mike’s kayak.

  She explained what she was doing to the man behind her, hoping even inane chatter would prevent him from sinking into unconsciousness. He grunted a couple of times.

  She wouldn’t have had any choice but to abandon the plan if Mike’s Tsunami had been carried very far away. Thank heavens the tide hadn’t yet turned. Maneuvering her own already sluggish kayak the fifty or so yards to Mike’s, she took out her towline and clipped it to the carrying toggle at the bow of his orange-and-red boat, fussed about where to attach the other end and finally chose rigging right in front of her.

  With a struggle, she managed to roll it enough to dump out most of the water, but quickly found that towing another kayak, along with the deadweight behind her, shifted her normal sprightly skim over the surface of the water to a painful slog. If the waves had been any higher, they’d have been washing over the deck of her kayak, and over the wounded man clinging to life.

  She focused grimly. If she were in the habit of giving up, she wouldn’t have chosen a sport where the suffering often outweighed the triumphs.

  She passed a rocky island on her starboard. But when she neared the slightly larger one ahead and to her port side, she spotted a hint of an opening. Really a crack in the steep rock. If there was nothing resembling a beach within it... Claire didn’t let herself finish the thought. She’d go on, that’s what she’d do. Her muscles burned.

  “You still with me?” she called over her shoulder.

  The fact that her passenger made a noise was a positive. If he was unconscious by the time they got out of the water...

  Stop. One step at a time.

  Chapter Two

  Cold, so cold. With convulsive shivers rattling his body, Adam knew vaguely that he was alive. A woman was talking to him. Occasionally, something in the voice suggested she wanted an answer, so with a supreme effort he summoned a hoarse sound. He’d been shot before, so that part was familiar. Turning into an iceberg, he was sure that was new.

  Who was she?

  He tried to ponder that, but had no idea. The next bout of deep shudders wiped him clean of any curiosity.

  He had to hold on. He knew that. Of course, he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, so he wasn’t sure what they were doing, even if they were still attached to his body.

  She breathed something in a prayerful voice. He tried to lift his head but failed.

  Hold on.

  Eventually, a scraping sound penetrated his consciousness. The angle he lay at tipped upward slightly. The surface beneath him—boat?—shifted side to side, him sliding with it.

  Suddenly a face appeared before his hazy vision. “Can you move at all on your own?”

  Move. Something else
to think about.

  “Don’t know.” He tried to form the words.

  “All right. Um... I’m going to help you roll off the kayak. Okay?”

  Not really, but he sensed she meant well, whoever she was.

  This time, he tried to nod.

  Next thing he knew, arms came around him and pulled him sideways. Either she’d uncurled his fingers, or he hadn’t been holding on to anything after all.

  He collapsed on his back, but she kept him rolling until he was on his face, cheek and nose pressed onto a cobblestone street. No, that wasn’t right; these stones were smooth but loose.

  “Let’s get you up on your hands and knees.”

  Through all his confusion, Adam knew this was life-and-death. He dedicated what feeble remnants of strength he retained to doing what she asked of him. Once he was that far, swaying, he managed to get up to his feet, with her firmly wedged under his arm. On his good side.

  “Too heavy,” he mumbled.

  Whatever she said, he couldn’t parse. Not a good sign.

  He put one foot in front of another, not easy with loose rocks as his footing. She swayed with him now, caught him a few times when he would have gone down.

  He’d have thought this massive effort would have warmed him, but it didn’t. They had to stop twice so that he could shiver until his teeth chattered.

  At last, she said, “Here,” and supported him until his knees touched the ground. When she let go, he toppled sideways and curled up in a tight ball, aware she was rushing away.

  Either she’d come back, or she wouldn’t.

  * * *

  CLAIRE HAD READ about the symptoms of hypothermia many times before, but always related them to herself. Shivering, subtle loss of coordination, confusion...those meant she had to get off the water, into warm, dry clothes and a sleeping bag.

  But this man had passed way beyond the early warning signs. His face was ashen, his lips blue. What little he’d tried to say had been difficult to understand because of the slurred speech. That he’d been able to walk at all had to be from sheer willpower, because his muscles weren’t very responsive.

  Exhaustion—check. That he was still shivering was a good sign, she encouraged herself. Because that would be followed by muscle rigidity, unconsciousness and death.

  And damned if she’d let him die after all this.

  This beach was more of a nook than anyplace she would normally have considered for a campsite, but there was just room enough among the tree line to set up her tent, even if that meant flattening the undergrowth. First, though, she had to haul up all her gear, then root through Mike’s dry bags for anything useful, then pull both kayaks above the high-water line and probably tie them to trees.

  Maybe, she thought uneasily, she could get them under cover somehow. She wouldn’t be that paranoid, no matter the deadly events of the day, except for what the man had mumbled.

  No. They...monitoring...calls.

  They likely had a motorized skiff or inflatable boat on board. Gotten nervous enough to anchor and send someone back to make sure both men really were dead.

  The merest thought of Mike was inexpressibly painful. The delight on his face this morning as he stretched...

  Grief had to wait.

  She needed to concentrate on treating the stranger’s hypothermia before she did anything else, and for that she needed stuff from both kayaks. She yanked open a hatch and carried several bags up to where he lay, holding himself tight but otherwise frighteningly still.

  Thank heavens she’d dried her towel in the morning sunshine. She sank down, cross-legged, beside a man she’d already realized was formidably large. How she’d held him up, she didn’t know.

  She dried his hair briskly, then pulled a fleece hat over his head, low on his forehead and covering his ears.

  He didn’t react.

  “We have to get you out of those wet clothes,” she told him.

  Back to yank dry bags out of Mike’s kayak and search them, tossing aside what she didn’t want, finding wool socks, a sweatshirt and fleece vest, and fleece-lined running pants. Then she stumbled back up the beach.

  She discovered as she started to peel off the man’s clothes that he’d moved on to the next stage of hypothermia—rigid muscles—and, while he tried to help her, was only semiconscious.

  The hardest part might have been getting his shirt and sweater off over his head. Only then did she see a ghastly, openmouthed wound on his back. Dear God, he’d been shot, and she’d forgotten.

  This had to be the exit wound. Thanks to the bitterly cold water, it wasn’t bleeding, but it would as she warmed him up. She draped Mike’s sweatshirt over the stranger’s bare back and then ran to her kayak for the first-aid kit.

  She layered gauze pads over the exit wound, unwound the sticky vet wrap she always carried and pressed the end over the pads before she pulled it around his side. As stiff as he was, getting it under his arm was a trial. There was the chest wound, a smaller hole, blue against his marble-white flesh. No, he’d taken the bullet more in his shoulder than chest. Lucky for a lot of reasons, but she was glad his brown chest hair wouldn’t get stuck in the wound. More pads. Cover them with wrap, then figure out how to roll him.

  He wasn’t quite unconscious. With her help, he almost reached his hands—well, hand—and knees again, swaying as she wrapped the sticky stuff around twice and called it good. Hypothermia was a greater danger right now than a bullet wound.

  The Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt had been oversize on Mike, but seemed about right on this guy. After helping him lie down again, Claire tucked a pile of her extra clothes under his head, so his cheek didn’t rest on the ground.

  She tried very hard not to look too closely after pulling off his boots and socks followed by soggy, icily cold cargo pants and underwear. She used a flannel shirt of hers this time to dry more of him before getting the stretchy pants over his long feet—had to be a size twelve, at least—and rolling them up his legs. He managed to lift his hips a fraction of an inch so she could tug the pants up. They were too short, but once thick socks covered those fishy-white feet any gap was covered.

  Exhausted, she bowed her head. What next?

  Tent. Get him inside it and in the sleeping bag, laid out on top of the pad. Somewhere, she had one of those space blankets, too.

  Once she was up, she found that and wrapped him in it before she decided to set up her tent as close to him as possible, while keeping it above the high-tide line. She had that part down to a fine art, and within minutes was able to lay out the pad and unzip the sleeping bag.

  The tide gradually receded, stranding the kayaks. Before the last exertion of somehow getting him into that sleeping bag, she carried both kayaks up as far as the tree line and pushed them almost out of sight among the undergrowth.

  That was the moment when it occurred to her that she hadn’t checked for signs of bear presence. They weren’t likely to appear on a tiny island like this, were they? She was almost too tired to care, but set out her bear spray.

  Her stranger roused himself to crawl awkwardly, reminding her of a three-legged race—the few feet into the tent. Turning him around would have been harder than turning the sleeping bag so the head was at the back of the tent, so that’s what she did. He collapsed onto the bag and she zipped him in, then used the space blanket again as a final layer.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, her hand against his cheek. He wasn’t warming up at all, as far as she could tell. He got his eyes open, but she doubted anyone was home. She wasn’t even sure what color they were. Hazel, maybe?

  As if it made the slightest difference whether he had brown eyes or blue.

  Focus, she ordered herself.

  Get out her cookstove and heat water? Would he be able to swallow if she made tea or coffee? Except, she had a vague memory that caffeine might not be good for hi
m, and maybe not even hot liquid too soon. Warm might help...but she’d see whether she could warm him up using her own body heat first.

  Belatedly, it occurred to her that she could have used Mike’s camping pad, too. Damn. She could get Mike’s sleeping bag to spread on top of them, and then she’d crawl in with the stranger who was no threat to her as long as he was so debilitated.

  After unrolling the second sleeping bag, Claire stripped off the top layer she wore on the water, then the neoprene booties, skullcap and wet suit. Even in the near warmth of midafternoon, she shivered until she tugged on her own pair of fleece-lined running tights, a T-shirt, fleece top and socks.

  Exhausted, she sat at the tent opening trying to decide if there was anything else she absolutely had to do before she could lie down.

  Call for help came to mind, but she hadn’t had cell phone coverage for days. She’d dig through Mike’s kayak in hopes he’d stowed his SPOT or the radio somewhere besides his day bag or pocket, but she didn’t believe it.

  The jab of pain was fierce.

  Worry later.

  When she did squirm in beside the big man and wrap her arms around him, he moaned and burrowed his head against her neck. It was like cuddling a snowman.

  Claire pulled the unzipped sleeping bag over their heads to warm the air they breathed, endured his cold face against her neck and shuddered when she lifted her shirt and placed the icicles that were his hands on her bare flesh.

  That was not a good moment for her to flash back to the gunshots and him falling overboard. If the freighter had been off-loading illegal drugs, that made him a criminal, didn’t it?

  How safe would she be if he recovered?

  Closing her eyes, Claire made the practical decision to push back this worry, too. If she couldn’t get him warm, he wouldn’t be any threat, would he?

  All she’d have to do was figure out where to stash his body so the wildlife couldn’t get at it until she could bring authorities back to retrieve him, and to search for Mike’s body, too.