Heartbroke Bay (16 page)
Authors: Lynn D'urso
True to Michael’s prediction, by midafternoon the wind rises and tears at the fog, bending it into long shapes that rise and fall around the cutter. A patch of sky appears overhead, and in a blink the fogbank is torn and blown completely away, expanding their world from purblind and limited to unboundaried blue skies and the sparkle of light on tumbling seas.
Before them, Mount Fairweather rises, beckoning, shining with such dazzling brilliance and purity that it becomes a color beyond white. For a heartbeat of time, the sight of it takes away all of their self-absorption, allowing happiness to break free in their hearts.
From offshore, the scope and mass of the geology before them is such that they seem in immediate danger of being swept by the waves and the wind into the stony grasp of the coast. In the pure, cold air the details of the land come to them with such clarity that it is only by measuring on the chart the distance from their position to the mountain that they can believe they still have far to go.
Michael measures and calculates, scribbling at a piece of paper, estimating the state of the tide. As he works, the tip of his tongue probes unconsciously at the corner of his mouth, and he occasionally raises his gaze to ponder and figure before rendering a final verdict: It is too late to make landfall today. They must tack back and forth under shortened sail until dawn, cruising slowly on station until morning.
The swell, which has grown slowly from the west all day, continues to rise, and
Tara
rolls uncomfortably through the night. Dutch staggers to the rail with increasing frequency, clutching at his stomach and moaning. By first light, he no longer bothers to return to his bunk but curls into a fetal shape in the cockpit.
Tara
rolls uncomfortably through the night. Dutch staggers to the rail with increasing frequency, clutching at his stomach and moaning. By first light, he no longer bothers to return to his bunk but curls into a fetal shape in the cockpit.
As they stand in toward the coast, the glow of the advancing morning begins to spread pink across the sky, growing until the first burning thumbnail of sun springs abruptly into view and immediately becomes too bright to look at directly. A long shadow springs from the mast and falls across the deck, dividing Hannah’s face into light and darkness. Reveling in the simultaneous feel of the warmth of the sun and the cool of the shade spilling at an angle across her skin, she shivers not from cold, but from the delicious sensation of being divided.
Michael’s navigation has been impeccable; just ahead, converging rivers of ice come together behind a high ridgeline that is gapped to the water line just at the place where they imagine Lituya Bay must be.
Tara
sails closer, all hands scanning the foaming coast for a break in the line of white surf, and then pounds ashore with a baritone rumble. The beach appears to be burning; salt mist flung from the backs of the breakers hangs like smoke in the morning light, drifting and rising in amber-colored clouds of spray. Beyond lies a strand of beach studded with black boulders; behind that lies a bench of dark forest, a tangle of black and green trees that spreads to the crown of steep hills guarding the feet of the mountains, which in turn shelter rivers and plains of blue ice. The scene is a palette of cold colors; blues and greens lie in great swaths below the stone and snow of the mountains, underscored by a band of pale sand along the shore. The curve and decline of dragon-scaled ridges implies the hidden shape of a fjord.
Tara
sails closer, all hands scanning the foaming coast for a break in the line of white surf, and then pounds ashore with a baritone rumble. The beach appears to be burning; salt mist flung from the backs of the breakers hangs like smoke in the morning light, drifting and rising in amber-colored clouds of spray. Beyond lies a strand of beach studded with black boulders; behind that lies a bench of dark forest, a tangle of black and green trees that spreads to the crown of steep hills guarding the feet of the mountains, which in turn shelter rivers and plains of blue ice. The scene is a palette of cold colors; blues and greens lie in great swaths below the stone and snow of the mountains, underscored by a band of pale sand along the shore. The curve and decline of dragon-scaled ridges implies the hidden shape of a fjord.
It is Harky who spots the entrance, pointing at a cloud of seabirds that rises and hovers over a point where the line of the sand dips out of sight behind the arching breakers.
“There!” he shouts, waving a forefinger. The gulls, plum-aged in various combinations of gray, black, and white, appear to be taking turns folding their wings and dropping headfirst out of sight behind the wall of green surf, wheeling and plunging into the water in pursuit of small fish being flushed from the bay by the tide.
Michael and Hans leap to the rail, shading their eyes against the sun. Beneath the birds, a spreading plume of sediment forms an undulating, milky green fan.
“He’s right,” says Michael. “The birds are feeding in a current. That light color is silt flowing out of the bay.”
“Damn,” mutters Hans. The mouth is narrow, pitched at an oblique angle to the sea. No more than a stone’s throw across, it is anchored on the south by a jumble of bedrock that rises into a steep wall; a shoulder of cobblestones and boulders bullied by storms of unimaginable ferocity guards the north. Across the width of the channel, wild, tumbling surf staggers against the outflowing current, exploding into spray.
Hans yells above the surf, “We can’t make it through that.” Everyone looks to Michael, who shakes his head in agreement, pulls at the tiller, and rounds
Tara
up to tack away offshore. Looking away to the west, toward the horizon from which powerful gray humps of water advance with increasing speed, he says, “Tide’s still ebbing. And this swell is growing. I’m afraid we’re in for another blow soon, worse than the last.
Tara
up to tack away offshore. Looking away to the west, toward the horizon from which powerful gray humps of water advance with increasing speed, he says, “Tide’s still ebbing. And this swell is growing. I’m afraid we’re in for another blow soon, worse than the last.
“When the tide turns, maybe this entrance will open up. The surf might lie down a bit when the current reverses and starts running back in. If it doesn’t, and the weather gets rough, we’ll be caught on a lee shore.” His tone implies it is every sailor’s nightmare to be trapped between the hammer of the wind and a surf-pummeled shore, struggling to claw off under sail. If driven into the surf and broken on the rocks, their bones will litter the sand.
Hans yells at the Dutchman, who sits yellow and wretched in the cockpit. “Is that what’s going to happen? Will the surf ease on the flood?”
Dutch’s wild eye roams between Hans and the sky, the other stares hopelessly at nothing. As he struggles for an answer, his mouth opens and closes, slack as a dying carp’s. His shoulders lift and squeeze, contracting in a motion Hannah recognizes as a full-bodied shrug born of fear and ignorance.
Hannah grasps the implications of Dutch’s confused silence immediately. Dutch does not know. He knows nothing of Lituya Bay or the dangers they face. The instigator of the expedition has no knowledge at all of this place.
Tara
pitches to an oncoming sea, and Hans’s roar is matched by a detonation of spray being flung across the deck into the cockpit. Hannah tastes salt in her mouth and wipes her eyes. When she opens them again, she sees Hans grabbing Dutch by the arm, angry alarm rising in his voice.
pitches to an oncoming sea, and Hans’s roar is matched by a detonation of spray being flung across the deck into the cockpit. Hannah tastes salt in her mouth and wipes her eyes. When she opens them again, she sees Hans grabbing Dutch by the arm, angry alarm rising in his voice.
“You’ve never been here before, have you, you bastard?” Hans is livid. A purple vein writhes beneath his forehead. “You’ve led us here with lies!”
A wail breaks from the Dutchman’s mouth, a weak sobbing whine cut short by the slap of Hans’s palm. Harky rises from his perch atop the cabin and pulls himself aft.
Michael stands openmouthed, staring at Dutch. The bow of the cutter swings in the wind. “What’s this?”
Hans grips the sagging Dutchman by the collar and glares at Severts. “He’s never been here before, never at all. He doesn’t know shit about this entrance, he can’t tell us . . . shit . . . anything about this place.” His words stumble over his outrage. Dutch claws weakly at his hands.
Hans spits. “All lies, isn’t it? The gold, everything.”
Dutch finds his voice and whines, “No. The gold, it’s here. I swear it.”
Harky pushes aft, breaks Nelson’s grip with an easy twist, and shoves Dutch to a sitting position. His voice is low and steady as he holds Hans back with one hand.
“You never was here, Dutch? Is that true?”
Dutch shakes his head once, then again.
“How come?” asks Harky. “Ain’t there no gold here?”
Hans snorts, “Of course there’s no gold here,” then screams, “Lying bastard!” and lunges.
Harky shoulders Hans away again, looking stunned. Dutch begins to babble, frightened by the murder in Nelson’s face.
“I never did say I was here. I just say there’s gold to be had here. And there is.”
Harky, looking puzzled, cocks his head in question.
“The gold in my pocket, it’s from Lituya Bay, I swear. I know it for a fact.”
Michael steers
Tara
back to her course, shakes his head, and asks, “What the hell, Dutch? You mean you’ve really never been here? Never run placer anywhere around here? Where’s the gold from, then? And why are we here?” He looks in unbelieving wonder at the surf barricading them from the shelter of the bay.
Tara
back to her course, shakes his head, and asks, “What the hell, Dutch? You mean you’ve really never been here? Never run placer anywhere around here? Where’s the gold from, then? And why are we here?” He looks in unbelieving wonder at the surf barricading them from the shelter of the bay.
Hannah, like everyone, is stunned. All of the work, the voyage, the money spent on supplies and tools. All for a lie? For a fantasy?
“I’m tellin’ ya. There’s gold here, alright. I got that poke from the miner that dug it, a fellow that prospected up here last year and tol’ me of it.” Dutch hunches into his coat, his head sagging toward his knees.
A look of repugnance breaks across Michael’s face as he understands what Dutch is saying. “Mother of God, idiot, you think the man would tell you where he found gold? He could have found it anywhere! He could have won it in a card game, or stolen it, like you did, you bastard.”
“I didn’t steal it!” shouts Dutch, indignant. “He left it there, he was that drunk. I just took it so’s it wouldn’t be stole by someone else. I was gonna give it back, but never seen ’im again.”
“Sweet mother of God.” Michael leans to the rail and stares at the oncoming seas, eyes growing dark, as if in dire contemplation of a message written on the heaving gray faces.
When he looks again to the shoddy Dutchman, the transformation of his countenance is frightening. Anger contorts the muscles of his face, straining the cords of his neck, and his lips are drawn tight and bloodless. When he glances at Hannah, she has the sickening impression it is someone else behind his eyes, someone she has never seen before and who does not know her.
Looking wildly around the cockpit as if seeking a weapon with which to brain Dutch, Michael turns aft to stare openmouthed at the shore, then ahead again at the seas that continue to grow steeper and grayer with every passing minute.
“It’s a pretty goddamn mess you’ve put us in, you lying shit.” There is flint in Michael’s voice. He stares at Dutch without blinking.
“If we don’t get into that harbor, I promise you this,” he says, pointing. “I’ll wrap you in chain before we’re driven ashore. I’ll make damn sure you drown, cause there won’t be any way we’ll ever get off when that weather hits.”
Hannah feels her stomach coil into a knot at the horrible image of such an execution. Dutch breaks into a sobbing moan, tears stream from his eyes, and he begins to snot and blubber.
Harky sits down beside him, lays a hand on his neck, and sighs, “I ought to break your damn neck, Dutch. Just pitch you over.” There is no real threat in the words. His grip on the miserable Dutchman’s neck is somehow both protective and punishing, his hulking proximity a shield against attack.
The Texan looks around at Hans and Michael and makes a sound like a groaning bull. He glances at Hannah, who has neither spoken nor moved.
Harky wipes a meaty hand across his mouth and blows out his lips. “Ain’t nothing else for it. We’re here now. Might as well get on with it.”
He squeezes the back of Dutch’s neck until the miscreant gasps in pain.
“I reckon gold’s as liable to be in this place as anywhere, and we’re already here.”
Hannah hears her own voice concurring with Harky’s fatalism, but it sounds far away. “We’ve nowhere else to go. And perhaps Dutch—or rather the miner whose gold he took—was not lying.” She looks from Michael to Hans, then for a moment at the gravity of the mountains.
“If we return, we will still be denied entry to Canada. All of us will. But we are victualed and ready to prospect.”
Nodding to Harky, she continues. “As you say, we are here. Let us get on with it. If it happens that there is no gold here, we will be no worse for having sought it than if we return to Sitka before having even begun to search.”
There is a long silence, broken only by the sound of the surf and birds, as each member of the party inventories the options and comes to the only available conclusion: The oncoming weather has decided for them.
Michael trims a sail and scans the horizon. Hans glares in turn at each of his companions, chews at his cheek, and shakes his head. Harky slouches into place beside Dutch as if sharing a bench with a friend.
The silence is broken when Michael speaks softly, as if to himself. “It’s all we can do anyway. There’s a gale coming. We have to get inside that bay. We can’t ride it out. There’s no time to get sea room for that.” He nods to the west, where the conjunction of sea and sky has grown dark. “Couple of hours, no more. Then it’s going to blow like hell.”
Asking Hans to take the helm, he starts below to coax the engine to life. “We’ll need it for this. Slack water won’t last long, and going in under sail would be too chancy.”
As Hans steps to the tiller, he lashes out with a booted foot. Dutch screams in pain and grabs at his shin. Harky scowls, squirming in his seat, but says nothing. Hannah closes her eyes, appalled by her husband’s violence.
The engine hisses and
pok-pok-pok
s to life. The thrust of the propeller changes the rhythm of the hull through the waves to an unkindly wallow, a surge and spiral that sets Dutch moaning. His lips are caked in dried, gummy flakes, his eyes rheumy in a countenance of utter dejection and misery. Hannah sees his hand steal into the pocket of his coat, the cloth squirming as he fondles the shotgun shell of gold. Eyes closed, his lips move as if mouthing a litany of excuses for his fabrications.
pok-pok-pok
s to life. The thrust of the propeller changes the rhythm of the hull through the waves to an unkindly wallow, a surge and spiral that sets Dutch moaning. His lips are caked in dried, gummy flakes, his eyes rheumy in a countenance of utter dejection and misery. Hannah sees his hand steal into the pocket of his coat, the cloth squirming as he fondles the shotgun shell of gold. Eyes closed, his lips move as if mouthing a litany of excuses for his fabrications.
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