by JoAnn Ross
“What?”
He winked. “That the girls like them.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Meghann laughed.
11
For a time it would have been easy to forget that the whale was in a perilous situation. He swam around the bay, diving, and popping out of the water, spyhopping, squeaking and clicking in an obvious attempt to communicate.
Every so often he’d breach, flying out of the water with a gigantic rush, drenching everyone nearby, twisting to show off his white belly, then crashing back down again, disappearing beneath the water, only to pop up somewhere else and enjoying himself, seeming to laugh. Once he even dove down and returned with a fish, which he showed off before swallowing it.
It didn’t take long until people were feeling moved to interact. When one woman, standing on the edge of the dock reached out her hand, causing the whale to come over and nuzzle her, others wanted to get into the act.
Which forced Adam, who’d told Meghann this had been one of his worries, to get on a loudspeaker to explain to everyone that although yes, it was obvious that the Orca was trying to socialize, the best thing they could do was not to get physically involved. So please, no touching. Not just for their own safety, but for the whale’s well-being. Because he wasn’t a pet to play with but a wild mammal who was going to be reunited with his family.
“Just like Willy,” Emma, basking in her whale knowledge, explained to those around her.
The whale’s behavior continued into the night. Most people, deciding nothing was going to happen anytime soon, left for home to get some sleep before Christmas morning. Others headed to midnight mass at St. Andrews, appropriately named for the patron saint of fishermen.
Adam, of course, stayed with the Orca. And even though she was still feeling a bit of jetlag, no one on the planet could have convinced Meghann to leave him.
* * *
Although you couldn’t see it due to the heavy fog draping the harbor, according to Adam’s sea chart, the sun rose at seven fifty-three on Christmas morning. Seven minutes later, the bells at the town’s four churches began to ring.
Shortly before dawn, what had been the Orca’s conversational rising and falling riff of sounds began to turn more strident, more growing more and more urgent. Like an human newborn who couldn’t be soothed no matter how many miles of pacing, lullabies sung, and hours of back-stroking.
By ten o’clock, as people began returning to the docks to check on their visitor, the cries were nearly nonstop.
“He’s telling us he needs our help,” Meghann said when Adam returned from talking with Dee and some of the tribal elders who’d also spent the night, eschewing Adam’s offer of bunks in the boat to camp on the dock to be nearer the captain.
The cries were breaking her heart. Meghann could actually feel the pain. Only the most cold-hearted person wouldn’t be moved by his desperation.
“I know. And we’re trying,” Adam said, an edge of frustration sharpening his voice. “Hell.” He yanked off his ball cap and dragged a hand through his bedhead. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Although she’d drifted off a few hours after midnight, he’d been up all night, talking on the radio with anyone he could find who might have a suggestion.
“We did have a stroke of luck. A volunteer watcher up in Washington was doing a count of our little guy’s family unit and noticed that Moclips, one of the females, is missing a child. Since Orcas are the predators of the sea, and it’s unlikely anything would attack a pod, we’re assuming that it’s him.”
“How did he get separated?”
“There’s no telling. But this is a really helpful thing because now we know his language.”
“His language?”
“Whales are intensely social animals, probably even more social than those of us who study them.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge,” Meghann said. “You were certainly social enough the other night.”
That earned a smile, as she’d hoped. “I’m sounding too pedantic again, aren’t I?” he asked. “Like the night of the star lecture.”
“I enjoyed that night,” she hedged. “At least the kiss… Tell me more about the plan.”
“Well, like I said, they’re super social, which is the reason for their huge brains that allow them to manage their various social groups, differentiate between other whales, and respond according to their situation. Also like people, they have their own languages. Northern whales can’t speak to southern, and even within groups they have the equivalent of our regional accents.
“A volunteer watcher sent me a recording of this particular pod group. So, I’m hoping that if our guy hears his family, he’ll want to leave to go to them.”
“That sounds logical. But how do you make it happen?”
“I’m going to go out in the Sea Wolf and play the recordings beneath the water as I head out toward the ocean…
“Meanwhile, Cole Douchett’s taking his fishing boat to where the satellite tracking says the pod should be. He’s going to play hydrophone recordings we took yesterday and this morning of our whale. Since pods are multi-generational matrilineal, and Emma was right about even adult males following the females, hopefully the mom will head in toward shore to reclaim her child.
“Then they can all have a happily-ever-after reunion having themselves a fresh salmon Christmas dinner. While we get on with ours.”
“You’re not talking about dinner.”
“No.” He kissed her, a slow kiss with enough tongue to promise more. “I was thinking more about our reunion.”
The idea, on top of that kiss, had her toes curling in her boots. “Do you think the plan will work?” She wished he’d looked more optimistic when he’d been describing it.
“I’ve no idea,” he answered honestly. “Fortunately, killer whales are the loudest creatures in the sea, so they shouldn’t have any trouble hearing each other’s calls. So I’m damn well going to try.”
As word circulated throughout the area, more and more people arrived. Kara Douchett, who had her deputies out directing traffic on Harborview, reported that people were also illegally standing on the bridge that separated the harbor from the coastal cliff side of the town. Having decided she didn’t have the manpower or jail space to arrest everyone and understanding how this could hopefully be a once-in-a-lifetime event, she made the decision to close the bridge to car traffic.
Less than two hours after Adam had told Meghann about the plan, she heard drumming and everyone turned as a group of Native Americans danced toward the harbor, clad in hawk feather headdresses and colorful ceremonial robes adorned with beads, fur, bones, and porcupine quills. Some of the men were wearing what looked like fancy feather dusters tied to their backs while women had small cone-shaped tins that jingled as they moved.
“Wow!” Emma said, starting to dance herself.
“Wow, indeed,” Meghann agreed, moved by the sight. Following the dancers were men carrying three canoes. Adam had explained that given their belief that the Orca was a senior member of the tribe returned in spirit, they’d been given the honor of leading the hopefully successful procession out to sea.
There’d been a bit of argument earlier about naming the Orca, who, it turned out, hadn’t yet been given an official name, just an identification number. Dee, who was wearing a hand-knitted sweater with a stylized whale design, had pushed for Captain. When Adam carefully explained that while in the old days names had been assigned by appearance or whim, they were now related to where a whale had been seen swimming, Emma loudly insisted it should be named Castaway, because it had come to her home before moving on to the harbor.
The consensus name ended up Captain Castaway, or C.C. for short, which seemed to satisfy everyone. No one thought to ask the Orca for its opinion.
The minute the first canoe hit the water, the killer whale now known as C.C. stopped wailing and swam over to it, swung his tail beneath the water and rested hi
s chin on the side of the canoe, his big pink tongue lolling out.
One of the men in the canoe leaned down and spoke in his native language to the Orca, who seemed to be listening.
Suddenly, C.C. dove beneath the water again, a dark shadow swimming around the boat. Then he popped back up and with his blowhole closed, exhaled out a long, slow breath that sounded exactly like someone had just sat on a joke whoopie cushion.
“I told you that’s the captain!” Dee called out. “That man was always giving people raspberries.”
Even as everyone laughed, from the looks many exchanged, some were wondering. As impossible as it sounded, Meghann was one of them.
12
Because Adam had recruited some of his students who served as interns in his research to help out, Meghan opted to emotionally support him from back at the harbor.
Despite an Orcas’ ability to swim a hundred nautical miles in a day, the procession did not move speedily. After they’d disappeared beyond the bridge and headed through the channel leading to the sea, her only contact was reports over the Sea Wolf’s radio that the Orca was still with them.
From time to time, as they grew closer to the ocean, the killer whale would spook and turn back, giving the impression that something must have happened to have him run away from his pod and escape to the safer environs of Shelter Bay.
Then, as everyone held a united breath, echoing the radio’s silence, Adam’s voice would return, announcing that they were on the move again.
As time crawled by, Meghann suspected that the towering snow-clad Mt. Hood could erupt, spewing lava and ash into the air all over Oregon and not a single person in Shelter Bay would notice.
“His mommy will find him,” Emma insisted for the umpteenth time, her voice beginning to waver. As Annie lifted the girl into her arms and hugged her tightly, Meghann remembered what Adam had told her about Emma’s mother having deserted her and leaving her with Mac, who’d left the military to take care of her.
She’d obviously established a strong bond with Annie, but Meghann knew, more than most, how childhood memories could unexpectedly come creeping out of dark mental closets. Fortunately, Emma Culhane had strong family support to care for her. As, she hoped, the little whale did, as well.
She tried to be patient. She really did. But after a while, waiting for radio contact wasn’t enough. She loved Adam. He hadn’t been her summer crush, her teenage first love. He’d been “The One.”
He still was. And would always be.
She ran over to a group of teenage boys, who were wearing Shelter Bay High School Dolphins letterman jackets. “I need to borrow a bike,” she said.
They exchanged looks.
Biting back her impatience, Meghann said, “I promise I’ll bring it back.” She dug into the pocket of her yellow rain slicker, pulling out her billfold. She’d buy the damn bike if she had to.
“You don’t have to do that,” one boy said. He climbed off the red Superfly racer he’d been straddling. “Would you do me one favor?”
“Of course.” She’d give him anything but her first born. Because Adam may not know it, but he already had dibs.
“Would you let me take a selfie with you, me, and the bike? My girlfriend’s a huge fangirl and she’ll freak out when I post it on my Facebook page.”
“No problem.” Meghann smiled for the phone camera, thanked him, then took off peddling.
She hadn’t ridden a bike in longer than she’d driven, but this one was much more lightweight than she was used to, and really, really fast. Fortunately it also had good braking, because after racing down Harborview and around the car barricade Kara had put up onto the pedestrian-packed bridge, living up to its name, the Superfly seemed to fly back down the other side. She was afraid for a moment she’d go flying over the handlebars and break every bone in her body. And wouldn’t that be a fun way to spend Christmas?
Meanwhile, she realized the one flaw in this spur-of-the-moment decision: she’d temporarily lost contact with the radio.
But she made it over the bridge, then maneuvered around the twisting, fir tree lined road to the edge of the cliff where the channel flowed into the water. In her hurry, she accidently let the bike fall, cringing as it crashed into some dead tree limbs that must have been blown down in an old storm. But paying for a new paint job was a small price for being with Adam when he hopefully reunited C.C. with his family.
The fog had lifted enough to let some sun shine through. Raising her hand above her eyes to shield the filtered glare, Meghann looked out over the sea just as a pod of pelicans flew by in formation in front of her.
The first thing she saw was the Kelli, Cole Douchett’s fishing boat, which had gone out earlier. And there, trailing behind him, were several bullet-shaped black forms that were definitely not cormorants. He’d found them!
The Orcas were followed by the ever-present gulls, hoping for seconds if the migrating whales decided to stop to feed. Which they didn’t appear to have any intention of doing.
The sound of drumming filtered through the misty fingers of fog over the screech of the gulls. Looking back down the channel, Meghann could see the canoes. And behind that, the sleek white lines of the Sea Wolf. And—yay!—the solitary, misplaced C.C.
She raced down the wooden steps to the beach, waving wildly as the boat passed. Her heart lifted as if attached to a bunch of helium balloons as the Orca sped past the boat and canoes, straight toward the pod just as another whale broke away and swam toward him. When they met, they both paused.
Meghann held her breath.
What if Adam’s information had been mistaken? What if this wasn’t the lost C.C.’s family after all? What if they couldn’t communicate? What if the pod continued south without him?
They slowly turned on their sides, C.C.’s head resting against the fluke of the larger whale.
The canoes stopped. Adam cut the Sea Wolf’s engine.
The only sounds were the low roar of the surf rushing in to hit against the cliff, the sea breeze whistling in the trees, the screech of the gulls.
And then the click and clack coming from the two Orcas. Obviously they were having a conversation. But could they understand each other?
Apparently they could. Because slowly, amazingly, they raised their pectoral fins in unison and froze, as if posing for a photo.
Meghann didn’t know how long they held that salute. It seemed like forever. Then they rolled, diving below the water as if they were performing in a water ballet. Just as she thought it couldn’t get any better, they burst up, creating a towering spray of white water, breaching in that same perfect synchrony, then went racing back to the waiting pod, which began what could only be a breaching dance of pure reunion joy.
Tears were pouring down Meghann’s cheeks as Adam, who’d anchored the research boat, came wading ashore.
“You did it!” She flung herself into his arms and was lifted off the sand. “I knew you could.”
He laughed at that, kissed her, and sent her heart soaring even higher.
“I’m glad one of us did.”
He put her back on the ground, his hands on the waist of her yellow jacket as he looked down at her, his expression serious.
“I have something I need to say.”
“Is this where you ask me to the Snow Ball?”
“What?” He shook his head. “No. I mean, damn, yes, of course I want to take you to the Snow Ball.”
“Good. Because I brought a dress that’s going to knock your socks off. And other pieces of clothing as well.”
“I’m looking forward to it. But this is serious.”
“You obviously don’t know what that dress cost,” she said with a toss of her fog and sea mist crazy curled head. “I spent serious money.”
“I promise to appreciate it… But here’s the thing. You know how I once told you that long-distance relationships were illogical?”
“Since it was the worst night of my life, even worse than my divorce, of course I d
o.”
“I was wrong.”
“I thought we’d already agreed on that.”
“I understand that your work is in New York.”
“Now see, that’s where you’re wrong.” She reached up a hand to his roughened cheek. “I can write anywhere. Which is why I’ve already decided to stay here in Shelter Bay.”
“With me?”
Meghann loved Adam. With her entire heart and soul. But she wasn’t prepared to make it that easy. He had the words. She knew he did. This time she was going to make him say them.
“Are you asking?”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah. I don’t know where this is going, Meggie—”
“Fortunately, for us, one of us knows how to plot a story.” Okay, maybe she didn’t usually plot ahead, but she’d had years to think about this one. “You’re going to ask me to marry you and I’m going to say yes, and then we’ll kiss, and get married on the beach with all our friends and live in…”
She paused, realizing that she didn’t know where they’d live.
“Do you have a house? Or do you live on the Sea Wolf?” She could manage that. Of course, those bunks in one of the cabins would have to be turned into a proper bed. But if Adam’s home was on his boat, hers would be as well. At least until the children arrived.
“Remember Whaleshead?”
“That dilapidated old whaling captain’s place?” She also remembered how kids would break in, especially on Halloween because the shuttered old wooden Victorian had been rumored to be haunted.
“That’s it. But it’s not dilapidated anymore. I had Lucas Chaffee completely renovate it.” He pointed up to a blue-and-white clapboard house perched on the cliff right above them, not far from Sax and Kara’s home. “I like the irony of living in the home of a guy who used to hunt whales. Although, giving him a break, times were different back then.”
