Chapter 2—Part 1
Chapter 1 Part 1 | Part 2 |  Chapter 2 Part 2 |

Hurrying but purposeful, Anna Wade slipped on her tennis shoes, took nothing but the computer  CD-ROM entrusted to her by her brother, her considerable wallet, and her satellite phone, all of which she stuffed in a waterproof bag that went into her fanny pack. The seaplane would meet her on the backside of the island in an hour and a quarter but there might be a long wade to reach the plane as there was no dock. 

When she walked up the trail away from the lodge she felt as if someone was watching. She knew she was rattled and perhaps imagining things. Normally she felt freed, calmed, by this wild place, even the shivers of isolation and the creatures casting wary stares. Today instead of wonder she felt fear. 

She tried to tell herself that a major company would not be committing murder, but at this point, alone on this island, she couldn’t come to any conclusions. As she jogged past their pen the rotweillers' ugly snarls caused her to pick up her pace.

Soon she found herself running on the forest trail just above the steep shoreline headed toward the large cliffs—the long route to Langley Bay on the opposite side of the island. It would be less obvious if she didn’t take the direct route. The dry leaves of October made the forest noisy and her passage through it anything but a secret. After several minutes, she stopped. She thought she heard a snap above the wind sound a little distance back, perhaps a footfall breaking a stick. More sounds came -- maybe something moving behind her along the brushy trail.

It stopped and she could feel it listening. Or was it just the wind? She bolted and ran. If they discovered that she was sneaking off to a seaplane the fear now crouching in her mind might become reality—an outright confrontation with Roberto or worse. They might let the dogs loose.

She was in good shape and thought she had a good chance of outrunning them. Unless they brought the dogs. As if summoned by the thought she heard the snuffling and yelping of hounds eager for blood. Anna’s stomach knotted and her throat tightened. Ahead ran a nearly invisible path that eventually cut across the middle of the cliff. Although she had never taken it she had seen where it emerged from the tree line. The cliffs were one place where she might face an attack dog and win.

Quickly she jumped off the main trail and scrambled down the hill toward the water. It was much steeper than she imagined but the dense brush made her feel safer. The forest, shades of green above her and choked with huckleberry, salal, and salmon berry, grew like a wall. Adrenaline made her gut hollow and her body light. Suddenly it occurred to her that it would be easy for someone to force an accident on these cliffs.

Uncertain, she stopped. Maybe she should fool with the satellite phone. But what could anyone do? First she would get distance between herself and any pursuer. Her heart was pounding and her breaths deep and hard. She tried to listen but heard only herself and the wind. She supposed that a person on the cliff trail would make an easy target.

Again she ran. She could not go back and going upslope would be impossible without slowing greatly and releasing a cascade of stones and creating the crackles and snaps of walking in a dry forest. After what seemed a few desperate strides around a corner the trees gave way to the vertical drop. It was a couple hundred yards to more forest. She paused and wiped the sweat from her eyes.

Then Anna saw the sailboat throwing spray in the whitecaps, its sails looming and its sleek body, and the man at the helm. She glanced down at the whirling of the bending water green like moss on marble headstones, strong enough to move a train, sufficient to drown an army. The boat shined at her like mock salvation, a world away below her. 

As Sam watched her try to sprint on weary legs, the trail collapsed. Dirt, rocks, and the woman plummeted into the water. Glancing at his chart, then at the GPS, he knew that she might have fallen into the current.

Sam took a deep slow breath, and flipped off his hat, angry that this was happening to him. Harry barked in earnest now. Meaning to take a better look, Sam once again came about, heading back down into Devil’s Gate. On a broad reach the boat shot ahead, requiring that he completely luff the main. He had seconds to decide. The wind was still increasing and driving the black clouds overhead.

Always things went wrong in multiples. 

With the mainsail flapping he knew he was about to attempt a nearly hopeless rescue. It would be a regression into his old life—a life he had forsaken.

He punched a button to furl the main inside the mast. Incredibly, the sail bound and it stuck. Never in a whole year had the mainsail furling jammed and now when he needed it to work--it didn’t. He cursed gadgets and reversed the process. Fortunately the bind came free and it unfurled. Not wanting to waste precious seconds, he released the halyard, ran forward, and yanked with all his weight to pull the big sail down. It piled on the boom in a sloppy mess.

Out of habit his mind calculated the odds of survival -- his own and hers. This area was a wilderness with an occasional passing yacht or commercial boat. The instant she hit the fifty-five-degree water she would be swept away, probably dragged under by a whirlpool, and if by some miracle she did not drown in that fashion, she would be dead in three or four minutes when she was pulled into the overfall and then buried by the huge whirlpool underlying it, down thirty or forty feet under the sea with little hope of making it to the surface in time to breathe. And if somehow she did struggle to the surface, she’d probably die from cold shock before she could swim to shore. Her only real chance was climbing onto a dry rock or making it to a tiny pocket of beach.

While he started the motor and ran down the channel he looked for some sign of her. Normally he’d have left himself a spot of mainsail to steady the boat. With the main down the boat set up a roll.

He waited for the next piece of bad luck.

His eye caught the white of her shirt against a rock. Glancing at the GPS, he realized he was being drawn toward the pass, but there was still time to escape the current. Quickly he looked with binoculars. Even with the boat’s motion he could tell that she clung to seaweed-covered granite. She was well away from the cliffs and the point from which she had fallen. From her location it was too far to swim to shore in this current.  

            For just a second his eyes left the figure in the water to look for another boat—any boat. Nothing.

            The wind was increasing fast, blowing right at the overfall. He knew the result: It would push the wave up, perhaps making it half again as high. He pondered whether he could save her. He loved his yacht as much as a man could love a material thing and still possess a soul. He loved Harry. If he went much closer he would risk losing Harry and the boat, maybe dying, and for a stranger who would probably drown anyway.

            Then he saw the solitary figure on the trail from which the woman had fallen. He breathed a sigh of hope. There were two dogs running, noses down, barking their frustration at the cliff and the vanished track. Through the binoculars he managed to get a shaky view of a man standing, looking down into the water, and then turning to walk away.

She was waving frantically, but at Sam, not the man on the cliff. The man didn’t run or even look agitated. Assuming that he saw her, he plainly didn’t care if she died. Perhaps he even wanted her to die.  A moment later he had disappeared.

 “Unbelievable,” Sam said aloud.

With the wind the sea was building fast and the waves were washing over her. She would be swept away in minutes. Glancing at the wind indicator he saw the wind at thirty-five knots and building. It was going to be a williwaw.

He brought the boat around into the wind and furled the jib, then ran to the wheel and concentrated on positioning the boat. Because he was upstream from the woman, the current, the wind, and the breaking sea were sweeping him toward her. With the sails down the boat rolled even worse in the building chop. He added power.

            According to the GPS, the current was pushing him at seven knots over the bottom. Sam was accustomed to risking his life but there was still an adrenaline surge.

In the distance the roar of the overfall filled his ears. Even from his location he couldn’t escape the white wave that sat just ahead of the largest saltwater whirlpool and undertow in the world. The boat would be drawn into it and the treacherous rocks all around as surely as the moon pulls the oceans. He wondered if his boat could survive the water that might fill it or bash it against the green-tinged jaws of rock that guarded the Paradise Channels.

The wind was rising fast under a black sky. Forty-one knots the incandescent numbers blinked.

“Harry, go to your bed.”

The little dog jumped up on the bulkhead, then dived down the hole of the companionway hatch into the pilothouse. Sam pulled the hatch shut. There would be water everywhere once they hit the overfall. He could see the woman, still clinging to the rock, thrashing with her legs obviously trying to get a better purchase. She couldn’t climb out of the water and with everything but her shoulders and head immersed she would develop hypothermia in minutes. She was still looking in his direction, waving one arm.

Continued in Chapter 2 Part 2

Chapter 1 Part 1 | Part 2

Copyright 2002 David Dun, All Rights Reserved.
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