Even still, Edgar did not let go. He clamped down on the man’s stony hand and yanked and pulled and heaved with everything he had, and after a few moments, he could feel the weight of the weary man budge. As he strained and pulled, caught in this strange tug of war, that’s when the man hit him in the back of his head, his boulder-like fist rocking Edgar like a car crash, and for a moment, Edgar could only see stars.
“What the hell are you doing?” screamed Edgar. “Stop that, dude! I’m trying to save your danged life!”
Wrestling the man to the hole’s edge, Edgar discovered that with each hard-fought step, the man was finding strength. He’d stiffened and planted his feet in the wet sand like an oak, screaming wildly in Edgar’s ear, lifting his strong back in order to obtain balance and not be dragged down into the hole.
But Edgar, like a ball of super glue, refused to let go of him.
That’s when the man heaved and screamed and, nearing the hole’s edge, lifted Edgar out over the surface to toss him in.
“Yeah!” shouted Edgar, “just like that!”
Once the realization that Edgar was not afraid to be thrown into the hole struck the man, a look of abject horror came across his face. Edgar knew he was probably thinking, what kind of crazy kid am I dealing with?
“Just let yourself fall!” shouted Edgar. “You can’t stay here, man! If you do, you’ll be blown back to the sea! You’ll drown or starve, man!”
The man continued slapping at the dangling Edgar with his free hand, kneeing him in the ribs as well. Edgar yelped as the blows crashed against him, but still, he did not let go.
Finally, when there seemed to be nothing remaining in the man’s tank, with one massive, wounded howl, he glared into Edgar’s face and roared like a lion.
“YOU ARE COMING WITH ME!” shouted Edgar, kicking his feet wildly over the hole to topple the man. Just then, a furious wave came sweeping across the sea and the man was plummeted over the edge. Instantly Edgar felt himself dropping with the man into the Earth, and thought to himself, finally. Thank God.
“AAAAAAHHHHH!” screamed the man. Loudly.
The screams did not subside for several minutes. Together they fell in the darkness until the man went hoarse. Then, falling in the sweet silence Edgar floated nearby and rubbed his aching ribs. The man had done some damage, kneeing him several times, hard.
When Edgar rubbed the pain away, he floated to the man. “Sir?” he said, shining the flashlight on him.
The man was unconscious. Edgar hoped he wasn’t dead. He reached out and took the man’s limp hand, then felt for his pulse.
“You’re still alive,” said Edgar, relieved. Then, for good measure, he reached into the man’s pockets and felt for any more weapons.
He just couldn’t bring an armed man up to Mount Lanier.
“You can’t go to Mount Lanier with weapons on you,” he explained to the sleeping man, patting him down further. The search rendered nothing but a silver coin and a crumpled-up picture, all blurry from the salty sea.
“Hey!” shouted Edgar, slapping the man’s face. “Man! Can you hear me? You’ve got to wake up, sir!”
But it was useless. He was out like a light.
“Please!” begged Edgar, quickly becoming frantic, considering the consequences of what might loom ahead. He began to slap the man even harder. “You’ve got to wake up, man! I can’t lift you out of the hole alone!”
But the man continued to sleep all the way through the Earth, that was, until about five minutes out from the cabin. Using a last ditch effort to wake the man, Edgar grabbed a fistful of his camo shirt and slapped him across the face as hard as he could.
The man erupted into consciousness. He gaped at Edgar with wide, wild eyes, both full of fear and bloodshot in the glow of Edgar’s bright flashlight.
“Hey!” said Edgar, the man beginning to look around in horror at the speeding walls. He thrust his hands outward for balance, but Edgar patted him on the shoulder to reassure him.
“I know,” he explained. “You’re still falling. But it will be OK, see?” He floated a bit from the man and shrugged to demonstrated how calm and unafraid he was. He could see the muscles on the man’s body began to soften as he studied Edgar—as he seemed to understand that maybe they weren’t going to hit the ground.
Was the man beginning to trust him?
The man stared at Edgar deeply. Then, he seemed to give a slight nod.
“Mahadsanid,” said the man.
Edgar pointed the flashlight up the hole to demonstrate with his right hand a clawing gesture.
“You’ll have to grab to the side wall when it comes, alright?” he said. Edgar took the man’s arm and drifted them both to the side wall, then placed the man’s hands flat against the speeding, glassy bricks. “See?” he yelled. “You just grab the side wall when you get to the top. Got it?”
The man stared at Edgar, the puzzled look returning.
But when the cabin came, Edgar continued to hold the man’s wrists to the wall until suddenly, they landed on the edge of the hole. Instinctively, the man grabbed the bricks and held tight.
“Yes!” cried Edgar, snatching the ledge as well. Together they dangled at the cabin floor, grunting.
“Good!” said Edgar. “You’re gonna make it!”
It was a calm afternoon outside the cabin, and an incredibly wild transformation from the rocky, stormy trip that had preceded it. Edgar climbed out and stood before the man.
“You’ve got to help me pull you out now,” he explained. Edgar took one of his hands and together they heaved until the man climbed entirely out of the hole, then, slumping wearily beside it, safe on solid ground, he wept terribly into his hands.
There were cuts on his face and heavy burns on his skin and a tongue so heavily swelled from thirst Edgar thought it might burst. Instantly Edgar stepped to the ice cooler to snatch a bottle of water, and the man looked up and saw what Edgar was offering and snatched it from his hands. Frantically, he uncapped it and greedily slurped the whole bottle down, finishing it in one continuous pull. As he did, Edgar walked to the cooler and got another, then two more.
“Wow,” said Edgar. Six empty bottles lay scattered at his feet. “You’re in bad shape.” The man, finishing his seventh bottle of water, crushed it and smiled, then nearly tossed it into the hole.
“No, man!” shouted Edgar, throwing up both hands to stop him. “You can’t throw it down there!”
This startled the man, who had begun to finally appear comfortable with his surroundings. Wounded, the man slowly pulled the bottle back toward his chest and stared up at Edgar, with a dose of hurt in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” explained Edgar, “but if you throw that bottle down, it’ll eventually end up hanging in midair in the center of the Earth. So, the next time I jump down, I might hit it going a million miles an hour, which could hurt me pretty good. I go so fast, you know. If I hit a bottle at a speed like that, who knows what it could do.”
Edgar peeled the bottle from the man’s hands and walked it over to a wastebasket. Then, he visited a small pantry by the freezer and withdrew a bag of potato chips, tossing it to the man, who ripped it open in one frantic yank and stuffed mounds of the chips into his mouth, crunching with audible moans.
“Hungry?” marveled Edgar.
The man ate and ate, staring around the room, then back at Edgar.
“Mahadsanid,” crunched the man, nodding at Edgar.
“Mahad . . . na . . . sand? Oh, wait, I see what you’re trying to say. You’re welcome.”
Eventually the man’s gaze returned to the ominous hole in the floor beside him. He looked over the edge and stared down intently, chewing thoughtfully, tracing his fingers over the designs in the bricks.
“Yeah,” agreed Edgar. “It’s quite incredible.”
Edgar rose and returned to his s
tash at the pantry, returning to the man and dumping everything he had onto the floor: Twinkies, beef jerky, pizza flavored Combos, Doritos, and even a half-eaten burrito from Taco Bell.
The man ripped into the food and stuffed every morsel into his mouth. With each swallow and each audible smack, he groaned with intense pleasure. Finally, once the snacks were gone and the packages licked clean of crumbs, the man wiped his hands on his holy green shirt and burped loudly, chuckling.
“I hope that fills you up,” said Edgar. “Because all I have left is frozen lobster.”
Edgar studied the man and tried to come up with a plan, but there was nothing more he could do. If he took the man to town, the people there would ask questions like “where did he come from?” Then they would surely trace his steps back to the hole, and that would be it. No more fishing, no more falling, and no more island. Just plain old Mount Lanier with his unremarkable, bland old life.
The man was so strong, considered Edgar, and seemed resourceful. He was a soldier! He’d do fine. At least he wasn’t still lost at sea.
He watched the man pick the last crumbs off his shirt and put them into his mouth.
“You’re a good guy, aren’t you?” he asked, fretting about turning an unknown man loose on the unsuspecting nearby towns.
The newly-full and happy man nodded at Edgar as if he understood.
“You can’t hurt people, OK? You’re not a soldier here.”
The man stared intently back.
Standing, Edgar walked to the man and reached out his hand, helping him stand. Then, he led him outside the cabin and across the brook, and together they stood looking down the trail.
Edgar pointed through the trees toward the town of Ellensburg—the opposite direction of Mount Lanier.
“Indian Ocean,” said Edgar, tapping a finger into the man’s chest. “You tell them you came from the Indian Ocean, OK? They’ll help you get back home.” He tapped the man on the chest and looked him in the face so that he would understand. “You tell them you’re from the Indian Ocean.”
“Imdiam Otshean,” repeated the man.
“Yeah! That’s right.”
Edgar then yanked out his wallet and paused for a moment, looking up into the man’s bloodshot eyes, then gave him everything he had. It was about eight hundred dollars.
Of all the places in the world, his mother had never thought to check his wallet.
“Mahadsanid,” said the man, nodding. Apparently he understood American money. He took it from Edgar and nodded respectfully.
“Cool, yes, Mahatma Sand,” said Edgar.
Edgar then extended a hand to him. The man looked down at it.
“It’s to shake,” said Edgar. “You do it in America when you want to say goodbye to someone. You shake.”
Instead, the man dug into his pockets. He retrieved the old coin that Edgar had found earlier, and placed it into Edgar’s hand. Edgar looked down at it: a silver disk, reading: REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA, 10 SHILLINGS.
The man also presented Edgar with the sea-washed photograph, and Edgar studied this, too, in the sunlight. The photo seemed to reveal a much younger version of the man—a more rested and a better fed one, who wrestled with a young boy in a grove, presumably his son. A beautiful woman looked on and laughed. Probably the man’s wife, deduced Edgar. They all seemed to be very happy.
It made Edgar instantly miss his father.
“Cool, man,” said Edgar, pocketing the picture. “Thank you very much.”
Then the man turned and staggered away, eastward toward the town where Edgar was pointing, down the trail a piece. Then he turned to wave, his face awash in contemplation, as if processing the strange events that had just occurred over the past hour or so: one moment lost at sea, the next fighting a young boy who wouldn’t let go, who dragged him down through the center of the earth and clear to the other side.
Saving him from the tempestuous sea.
Edgar gave the man a short salute, and the man, with a grave look of thankfulness on his face, nodded at Edgar, then turned into the thick brush and disappeared.
With the man on his way, Edgar glanced down at his watch. Oh no! He was late! His mother would be home soon!
He shot up the trail like a rocket. If he wasn’t there when she got home, he was dead.
Eighteen
Edgar rode frantically, praying his mother had not beaten him home, and was relieved to find the Jeep still missing from the driveway when he finally got there.
Thank you god, he thought. She was still in Yakima.
Stashing the bike in the shed, he dashed into the house for dry clothes. Then, for good measure, he ran to the kitchen to splay across the table all his homework, just to give the impression he’d been studying all afternoon. All was well.
__________
It was four hours later, at ten o’clock that evening, when his worry turned to outright dread.
He had not heard from either of them. Not even so much as a text.
It was certainly not like them, especially his mom. He’d called her multiple times but all he got was voicemail. Same with his father. Pacing the house, fretting, he knew she would never be this late without calling to let him know.
Another message was left on her voicemail. “Mom? Where are you? Call me back!” His heart sank deeper by the minute. As it neared eleven o’clock, his dread gave way to panic.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Taking the remote in his clammy hands, he flipped the living room TV to the local news, and immediately the screen was awash in wildfire, the newscasters from Yakima speaking with electric intensity, indicating behind them a wall of raging fire so prolific it seemed like a flaming waterfall. Firemen and service people scurried to and fro in a swarm, the broadcasters displaying footage of houses in flames and countless fortunes going up with them, and pet owners weeping for abandoned pets.
It was terrible.
But worse than anything, they reported that the winds had pushed the fire northerly now. Which meant it was pointed directly at Mount Lanier. Apparently, wildfires could turn on a dime, just like hurricanes.
Great, he thought. Wonderful. Was Edgar cursed? He wondered what other catastrophes could possibly chase him down.
He stepped forward and traced a finger across the screen, scanning the onlookers in search of his mother’s face, but he did not see her.
A frozen pizza burned to ashes in the next room. Breathlessly, he pulled out his cell phone and hit redial. Still no answer—only her voicemail for the millionth time. He glanced nervously at the clock. It was nearing midnight now. She was five hours late. His nervous heart thudded in his throat.
Suddenly, his cell phone buzzed. Snatching it to his ear, he nearly shouted, “Mom?”
He waited breathlessly for an answer, but there was none—not at first. It was only her tragic, muted whimpers. It made him so weak with fear, he was dizzy.
“Mom!” he asked, grasping for breath. “What’s wrong? Are you OK? Is Dad OK?” He was feeling déjà vu again, like the day she called about the Deepwater Horizon. Trembling with fear, he slumped to a stool at the kitchen counter and prodded her again.
“Mom, please. Talk to me.” He ran a hand through his hair and swallowed hard, placing his elbows on the cold granite counter. “What happened?”
“Your dad,” she whimpered softly. “Your dad is gone. He’s missing.”
“What,” said Edgar, “do you mean, ‘missing?’” He gulped. “What do you mean?’”
“Your father is out on a hillside, and he’s trapped,” she said, breaking like a levee into waves of bitter weeping.
“Mom,” he said, straining to understand. “Tell me what happened.”
“He got trapped on all sides by the fire. No way to communicate with him now. Cell phones are down. They didn’t have their walkie-talkies wit
h them. He’s helpless right now. Until they can get in and save him.”
Then she broke into even louder sobs, and as Edgar took in the news along with her abject desperation, sitting numbly at the counter, he looked up with searching eyes. They landed directly on his father’s yellow raincoat hanging neatly on the back door, like a floppy, rubber ghost.
“They are doing all they can,” she continued, trying to get it together. “He has seven team members with him. They are all trapped together, when they fell behind the fire wall trying to save a little boy.”
“Well,” asked Edgar, “did they save him?”
“Nobody knows,” she said, bursting into fresh waves of tearful agony. Edgar put his forehead down on the hard counter and closed his eyes.
“The fire, the smoke, the winds are so out of control,” she whimpered, “they tell me they can’t get a helicopter in there to save any of them—not right now. It will only be until things clear up. If they clear up.”
“A hill?” probed Edgar. “How big is this hill?”
“It’s huge,” she said. “Looks like a mountain to me. You can see it from the road, even. You know the people out here—what they call ‘hills’ are obnoxiously huge. That’s where they’ve set up the blockade, in front of the hill. I’ve been watching the hill all night, looking for him. It’s covered in tall trees and that’s one of the reasons it’s hard to get a helicopter in there.”
The Secret Island of Edgar Dewitt Page 15
