“Raymond, did you happen to see if everyone else is awake?” she asked. “We’re a few minutes past sunrise. It’s time to leave.”
“I saw a whole bunch of sleepy people moving around the big room like zombies,” he said. “They’re coming.”
Indeed, she heard them now, footsteps moving down the hall. Malin was chatting with Norman, but he sounded half-asleep. Sniffy gave a few sleepy barks. Finally, they appeared in the tasting room. Joe and Rita Dulles hung back. They were clearly unhappy with this whole situation, but Elna had no interest in debating the matter with them. They would just have to make do.
Malin, Norman, and Selene kept coming, joining them on the back porch. Malin stretched his arms high over his head.
“Nice weather today,” he said, stifling a yawn. “What a good day to start a week-long sail. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll stay here,” Norman said.
Malin gave him a friendly elbow in the ribs, and Norman laughed. Elna wasn’t feeling it. She beckoned everyone and jabbed her thumb in the direction of the lighthouse.
“Let’s get going.” As she started to turn away, Joe and Rita both waved at her. It was like a sad farewell from grandparents, their gnarled little hands moving from side to side. Elna waved back.
“See you in a week,” she said.
And with that, she turned and walked away from the guesthouse, willing herself—like Lot’s wife—not to look back.
You’ll see this place again, she told herself. Don’t let dumb ideas take hold of you.
The little sloop looked so peaceful bobbing in the gentle waves under a sunny sky. It had been a few years since Elna had sailed, and even then, it had been on an old boat owned by Rod Smith. He’d always found a way to make even the most pleasant outings insufferable, so she didn’t know what to expect this time. The mainsail looked sturdy. She was proud of her work and relatively confident that it would hold even if they encountered strong winds.
The islanders and castaways gathered at the edge of the rock ledge. The sloop sat a few yards from the rock wall, just far enough that they couldn’t readily hop over, but Elna had retrieved a few long boards and lashed them together to form a makeshift boat ramp. Malin picked it up and tucked it under his arm.
“Well, this is it, friends,” he said. “I’ll place the ramp.”
As he headed down, Raymond gave Daniel a fierce hug. His son loudly whimpered against his chest.
“Get plenty of rest,” Raymond said. “Eat your meals. I’ll be back before you know it with your medicine.”
“Go fast, Dad,” Daniel replied. “Please.”
“Oh, I will. Don’t cause any trouble for these nice people. Be a good boy.”
Selene moved up to stand beside the boy, giving him an encouraging smile. He returned it feebly as Raymond followed Malin down to the boat. Elna hesitated. There was still so much she wanted to tell the others before she left, so many problems she wanted to prepare them for. Instead, she shook Norman’s hand and hugged her father. Then she gestured at Selene.
“Remember what I taught you the other day,” she said. “You won’t have any trouble from mainlanders, but if you do, be tough, okay? Protect yourself. Do whatever you have to do. Got it?”
Selene patted the holster, which protruded slightly from the front pocket of her dress. “Just, please, hurry back, Elna. Don’t linger, and don’t mess with anyone.”
“We will.”
Her father started to say something else—no doubt, one final attempt to talk her out of going—but she waved him off.
“It’s fine, Pop. See you soon.”
And with that, she turned and climbed down to the boat ramp, which Malin had balanced rather precariously on a narrow, flat rock near the water’s edge. Her sailing trip almost began with an unceremonious bath as the boat ramp wobbled under her feet. To keep from falling into the water, she dropped to one knee and grabbed the edge. Then she scooted the rest of the way across and pulled the ramp in after her.
“Sorry, I tried to put it on a flat surface,” Malin said.
As Elna stepped onto the deck, Raymond came out of the cabin, where he’d just stashed the last of their food.
“How familiar are you both with sailing?” he asked.
“Vaguely,” Malin said. “I’ve been on a friend’s boat a few times, but he did most of the work.”
“Same here,” Elna said. “I know most of the terminology, but I have little practical experience. What can you tell us, Raymond?”
He gestured to a nearby stack of raincoats, hats, and other gear they’d gathered from the island. “First, put on your rain gear. We want to be waterproof, right?”
From the stack, Elna grabbed one of the old waterproof jackets. It crackled as she put it on, and little bits of sun-hardened plastic flaked off. Then she pulled on a rain hat with a wide, floppy brim. Malin did the same.
“Okay, Skipper, what’s next?” Elna asked.
Raymond gave her a funny smile. Maybe he didn’t particularly care to be the skipper, but she saw no other choice. Even though he’d failed to navigate the stormy waters on his previous trip, he still had the most practical experience with sailing. He was simply going to have to accept responsibility for coordinating the crew.
“Okay, let’s see,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “Gear is stored. Bilge has been pumped. Elna, I will ask a big favor of you, but can you handle the rudder? Sit back by the tiller and steer. Malin and I will have our hands full operating the sails.”
Elna found a seat for herself beside the tiller, as Raymond brought in the anchor. She glanced up toward the lighthouse, where Norman, Selene, Daniel, and her father were huddled like refugee children being abandoned. The sad sight caused a twinge of guilt, and suddenly she doubted this whole endeavor.
But if my father dies from a treatable medical condition, the guilt will never leave me, she reminded herself. I’m sure Raymond feels the same about his son.
Her father raised a hand and gave her a sad little wave. She returned it, then gave him a thumbs-up.
“Hurry back,” Norman shouted, cupping his hands to either side of his mouth. “Don’t you worry about us.”
I’ll worry plenty, Elna thought.
The boat moving under her was already disconcerting. Elna wasn’t prone to seasickness, but she always found the adjustment uncomfortable. The constant rocking and swaying made the world seem unstable, and she gripped the tiller in both hands, latching on tightly.
Malin and Raymond hoisted the mainsail, where her repair work stood out like a thick, knotted blue scar. Ugly but, hopefully, functional. As she steered, Raymond eased the line to the mainsheet as wind sweeping down out of the northwest caught the sail. Elna instinctively ducked as the boom swung past, though it would not have hit her.
“Okay, friends,” Raymond shouted. “Cast off! Elna, we steer with sails until we’re underway and build up some speed. Got it? For now, just sit there and look pretty.”
“Got it,” she replied. She had to choose not be annoyed by the comment. Raymond was clearly in a very good mood and she couldn’t fault him.
They trimmed the jib to starboard—Raymond explained the proper terminology as they worked—and the sloop began backing away from the rocky promontory. Once they were a little farther out, they trimmed it in the other direction, while also trimming the mainsail. Wind caught both sails, and Elna felt them lurch forward. Initially, Raymond had them moving at an angle toward the shore, and Elna was tempted to turn the rudder.
You made him skipper, she reminded herself. Let him lead.
As Raymond continually barked orders at Malin, they changed tacks. The wind blew in off the port side.
“Ready about,” Raymond barked. When Malin didn’t respond, he added, “You’re supposed to say, ‘Hard alee.’”
“Oh,” Malin replied. “Hard alee, then.”
“Elna, shove the tiller now,” Raymond said, waving a hand at her.
She pushed the
tiller, trying to move fluidly, and the sloop turned out to sea. They were already moving quite fast, the islanders quickly disappearing into the distance, little smears of color against the off-white side of the lighthouse. Suddenly, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She’d kept her mind busy with a thousand details in order to avoid dealing with the emotions of the situation, but now that they were underway, her defenses were down. Beneath all of those practical thoughts, she sensed a great well of grief that threatened to rise up and crush her.
Why am I doing this? she thought. I’m abandoning my father and my friends on the island. What will they do if the aqueduct fails? Will they remember all of the steps to desalinate water? What if Dominic comes back for Selene? She’s too nice. She won’t fight hard. Go back. Go back.
“Stand by to jibe!”
Raymond’s barked order pulled her out of the death spiral. Elna quickly brushed away the tears and fixed her attention on her immediate surroundings.
“Malin, you’re supposed to say, ‘Jibe ho,’” Raymond said with a smile.
“Jibe ho!” Malin shouted.
Elna ducked as the boom swung over her head again. As the sloop turned to the south, she felt the deck tipping, and suddenly she was on the lower side. She rose and stepped over the tiller, putting herself on the windward side. Looking to the horizon, she was relieved to see clear skies this morning.
Let’s hope it stays that way, she thought.
Though she’d wanted to leave at first light, it had taken time to get everything in order and everyone on board. The sun was well on its way to noon. Elna couldn’t help turning to watch the island shrink in the distance behind them.
“This thing moves fast,” she said.
“Yes, as long as we have a good wind and no choppy seas,” Raymond replied. “Just stay focused, señora. The wind can change directions very quickly, and then you get into trouble. When it was just me and Danny, I couldn’t handle it. Too many changes, too many waves, and you saw what happened. Maybe with a crew now we will be okay.”
“Have you plotted our course?” Elna asked.
Raymond pointed off the portside. Elna saw nothing in that direction, but she knew the mainland was there somewhere.
“We need to get in sight of land,” he said, “and then we want to stay there. We’ll follow the coast down. I’ve got all the coastal towns written down on a piece of paper. We can count them off as we go. Rockport, Westport, Cleone, Fort Bragg, Caspar, and so on. The prevailing winds will mostly be from the west, so what we will be doing is called beam reach.”
“Got it,” she replied. “Won’t following the shore slow us down?”
“Yes, a little,” he said, “but we—”
He stopped midsentence as a fierce gust of wind hit them.
“Take some of the line back in,” he said to Malin, making the motion with his hand.
“Got it,” Malin said, with a shrug. “I guess.”
“This is where it gets fun.”
9
It didn’t take long for the cold October wind to sink through her clothes and bite deeply. Elna almost lost her hat a few times due to the sudden change in the wind, but the change also signaled rougher seas. She saw choppy water ahead, and as the sloop began to sway more violently, the first stirring of nausea settled in her belly.
“Did our valiant skipper say this is fun?” she said bitterly.
She felt the tiller pulling against her hand as the wind and waves tried to take control of the sloop. She had to tighten her grip and lean into it to keep it from moving against her will. Raymond and Malin were constantly moving back and forth as Raymond gave instruction, though Elna wasn’t always sure what they were doing or why.
When she asked, Raymond said, “The wind keeps shifting from the west to northwest, so we have to keep adjusting. Just keep us on course, if you can.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Elna replied. “The wind is fighting me.”
“You have to turn with us. Otherwise, we’re working against each other.”
“Got it.”
But as noon came and went, the waves only got worse. The wind shifted direction again, and the waves came in more strongly from the starboard side. The sloop began to roll from side to side, and now Elna had to hold on just to keep from being tossed about.
“We are maybe too close to shore,” Raymond said. “There would be less wave action if we were farther out, but we need to keep in sight of the land to track the towns, so we will have to endure for now.”
As a rather large wave caused the boat to roll, Malin was thrown off his feet. He fell against the boom, which shifted, and then he toppled onto the deck. Raymond grabbed the mainsheet as he lost his own footing, but then he dropped into the cockpit. The sloop turned hard to starboard, aiming them directly into the waves as Elna tried to course correct. A massive wave crashed over the bow and fell on Elna like a thunderstorm. She ducked her head, her stomach flip-flopping.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Raymond said, climbing out of the cockpit. “Don’t panic. We’re fine. Come on, Malin, my friend. We can do it, amigo.”
Malin picked himself up, rubbed his hands on his wet raincoat, and reached for the grabrail. The wind and water were bitterly cold, and the salt air stung Elna’s eyes. Finally, though she wanted to study their every movement, she had to bow her head and fix her eyes on the tiller, listening to Raymond for instructions.
She was ill-prepared for the sheer exhausting tedium of manning the tiller in rough waters. By the time the sun slipped into the west, her arms ached like she’d been lifting weights. Poor Malin was out of breath, grimacing as he tried to keep up with Raymond’s instructions, but the wind was relentless. Even with an almost cloudless sky, the sun barely seemed to produce heat. The cold and damp ruled everything.
The boom swung over Elna’s head again as the wind shifted again.
“What are we doing wrong here?” Malin cried, smacking himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand.
“Not responding fast enough to changes,” Raymond said. “Come on. We can do it. Hang in there.”
By midafternoon, Elna’s shoulders were crying out for rest, but the wind seemed to have finally made up its mind, blowing in almost directly from the west.
Raymond beamed at her, water streaming down his face. “You have done an excellent job, amigos. Keep it up. We’re right on track.”
Looking shoreward, Elna spotted the Pacific Coast Highway tracing its curving path through forested hills. A few cars littered the shoulder like relics of another age. Finally, Raymond let out a monstrous groan and sat down on the deck.
“We’re good now, I think,” he said. “Winds kept shifting for a while there, but we can take it easy now.”
Malin joined him on the deck, alternately gasping for breath and shivering from the cold.
“That’s brutal, Raymond. Just brutal. I’m sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore,” Malin said, rubbing his right shoulder.
“It’s not always so bad,” Raymond replied. “The wind was indecisive today. Take a short rest. I was hoping we might see a town so I could reorient us, but I guess not.”
“I’m famished,” Malin said. “I could eat a whole herd of wild hogs.”
Raymond rose and came toward Elna. “I will take the tiller if you two want to head into the cabin and get a bite to eat. If I encounter problems, I will call you.”
“What about you, Raymond?” Elna asked.
“We’ll take turns. I’ll eat later. Go on.”
He brushed his hands at her. Elna rose and stepped down into the cockpit, headed for the cabin. It was a small, cramped space. A low table and a thinly padded white couch took up most of the space, with a long counter on the left.
Most of the food was stacked in a cabinet beneath the counter, and she stooped down to open it. Their drinking water had been transferred to a large plastic barrel, which she’d wedged into a space beside the couch. She heard the water sloshing around insi
de. She opened the lid and dipped an empty water bottle inside, letting it fill. Then she took a long drink, trying not to overdo it. Malin had entered the cabin behind her, so she handed him the water bottle when she was done.
“Being on the ocean sure makes you thirsty,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s ironic,” he said, taking a swig from the bottle.
Elna rooted around in the cabinet until she found the box of MREs. As she did, she noted water pooling around the soles of her shoes.
Of course, the bilge pump wouldn’t be working, she thought. We’ll have to pump manually at some point.
“If my stomach hadn’t flipped upside down, I might have an appetite.” Elna pulled out two MREs and handed one to Malin.
“Ooh, veggie omelet,” he said, reading the label. “That sounds pretty good right about now.”
As she ripped into her MRE, she dared another sip of water. Suddenly, the smell of veggie omelet wafted out of the torn bag. It smelled a bit like vomit. She gave Malin a sour look, and he shrugged.
“Every MRE can’t be a winner,” he said, squeezing the damp, formed omelet patty out of its packet. He took a big bite.
“How does it taste?” she asked.
“A little better than it smells,” he replied, through a mouthful of food, “but not much.”
“Dominic and his damned MRE choices,” she muttered. “Whatever happened to good old-fashioned trail mix?”
After eating as much of the MRE as she could stomach, Elna stashed the wrappers in a trash bag and stepped back on deck. Raymond was humming a song, guiding the rudder like an old pro, and gazing off at the green hills. He’d kept them close to shore. The wind was gentle now, and Elna thought the experience might almost be pleasant if it stayed like this.
“Hey there, Raymond,” she said. “I think it’s your turn to eat? I’ll take over.”
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 31
