Heartbroke Bay (17 page)

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Authors: Lynn D'urso

BOOK: Heartbroke Bay
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For an hour
Tara Keane
jogs back and forth within sight of the entrance. The wind begins to tear at the waves. The surf across the narrow mouth seems at first to be the same, until Michael points and says, “It’s dropping,” waving at the plume of silt, which appears to be diminishing perceptibly as the tide approaches its lowest point. The seas rolling in from the west no longer break with such ardent ferocity across the small section of the mouth, but surge forward, crumbling into sloughs of foam as they go, rippling into the channel as bands of smaller waves that pulse helter-skelter into the bay. The wind bites at the back of Hannah’s neck and worms its cold fingers beneath her collar.
When Michael spots a seagull sitting placidly among the tumbling water of the channel, he watches carefully. The gull’s head jerks and bobs with the effort of paddling forward, but it is being pulled backward into the bay; the tide has turned, the current is flowing inland. If they are going, it is now or never.
He pushes the tiller hard over, and
Tara
comes round in a surge, idling slowly ahead as he aligns the bow with the narrow entrance, counting the seconds between the crests of the successive swells.
“It’s dead low tide,” he calls out. “I have no idea how much water we’ll have under our keel in the channel. We may strike bottom between surges, so keep a firm grip. If we broach in that surf, we may be swept over.”
Dutch crawls forward, intent on sheltering inside the cabin. Michael shoves him roughly back into his seat. Hans puts his hand on Hannah’s shoulder and says, “Go below. Get into a bunk and brace yourself.”
“No,” says Michael, “stay topside, Mrs. Nelson. If
Tara
is swept and rolled, better to be washed clear than trapped below.”
Hans looks as if he intends to argue, then nods for Hannah to keep her seat.
Michael instructs Hans and Harky to loosen the lines that hold the skiff in its chocks and place floats close at hand. Should
Tara
be capsized, these will serve as life supports on which some of them might survive the surf and be washed ashore. He orders all loose lines coiled and tied to avoid entangling unwilling swimmers.
Harky moves slowly and carefully, focusing with great deliberation on each task. Hans rushes about, securing lines and lashing loose objects on the rolling deck.
When Hannah looks at Michael, his long curly hair covers and uncovers his face in the wind, and a small smile tugs at his lips. His rage now evaporated and his grip firm upon the haft of the tiller, it is as if the murderous, reptilian spirit that had so vehemently expressed itself in his promise to drown Dutch has been swept away. In its place is character Hannah finds enticing but even more mysterious: That of a man exultant in danger. Wondering to herself at his fierce intensity, she takes a firmer grip on her seat.
As the vessel closes with the entrance, the color of the waves seems to darken and the spray becomes colder. Hannah gazes around at the absolute, shining beauty of the mountains, the sharp, clear light that heaves in gray and green patches on the water, the utter white of the surf that runs away as far as she can see in both directions, and she is struck by how strange, unpredictable, and wonderful life is, that she could find herself so far from home, on the edge of death, surrounded by such beauty. She has never felt so intensely alive, and she understands in a flash why Michael is smiling. Laughing out loud, she draws a worried look from Hans and shakes her head to reassure him she is not hysterical.
A series of higher and longer swells rolls beneath the cutter. First one, then another and another, until a final giant wave runs roaring ahead, blocking all sight of the beach with its broad, smooth back. Behind the mountain of water runs a sweeping hollow that seems to suck the boat backward. Michael throws a quick look astern; the coming swells are small, as if the rush of the passing giant has absorbed all energy from the train of waves. The engine stalls, pops, and roars as he leans on the throttle;
Tara
seems to shudder, vibrating as the spinning propeller chews its way through the water and surges ahead.
Gradually the cutter builds speed, climbing onto the back of a small swell and clinging there, riding forward in the grip of the tide. The stern slews, Michael strains at the tiller, yelling, “Hang on!” and there is a moment of weightlessness as
Tara
drops. There is a dreadful noise, like the sound of a large bone being crushed as the keel strikes bottom.
The shock drops Harky to his knees. Dutch shrieks and claws at the air. Hannah is thrown to the side, Hans stumbles, grabbing at the rail. Before she can right herself, a wall of water breaks over Hannah from astern, and she is submerged in a welter of foam so cold she gasps and breathes in, swallowing a mouthful of salty grit.
The world dissolves in an icy green roar. Pummeled and tumbled, she coughs, gagging at the saltwater in her lungs, and realizes she is once again in the air. As
Tara
rolls and swings, Hannah sees Harky grab on to Dutch, who was swept out of the cockpit by the wave, then feels a hand twisted into the collar of her coat drag her upright to a sitting position. Michael has saved her from being swept away.
Hans alone remains on his feet, standing upright with both arms twined about the mast. Michael staggers to his feet, still gripping the tiller and Hannah’s coat, and lets out a wordless yell of triumph as the stern lifts into the next breaking wave.
Tara
heaves forward on the swell and begins moving, the inrushing tide shoving them urgently forward.
There is a choking
pop
like a gunshot followed by a sizzling sound from below. A gout of steam rises from the companionway. The onslaught of water has driven away the hatch and poured below onto the engine, which now revolts against the frigid flood by quitting. As the engine dies, the cutter swerves, drives, and twists in the current, and the lack of its roar inserts a quietness into the mad rumble of the water.
Michael shoves the tiller into Hannah’s hands with a single command—“Steer!”—and leaps forward, whipping a knife from his belt and slicing at the lines that bind the jib into a bundle. As the shore rushes toward them, Hannah jerks the helm hard over, and
Tara
swerves broadside to the current, which grabs the cutter and shoves it toward the boiling center of the channel.
Michael clears the jib halyard from its pin and throws it to Harky. “Pull! Haul for all you’re worth!” he shouts, and yells to Hans to lend a hand as he leaps back across the cabin to the cockpit.
The jib rattles aloft, cracking like gunfire, snapping in the wind. Before Harky and Hans finish raising the sail, Michael is snatching in the sheet hand over hand. Together they imprison the wind in the canvas, and Hannah feels the rudder come alive. The sail billows, lifts, and hauls;
Tara
follows, swinging from imminent collision with the shore.
With an almost casual grace, the ship emerges from the boiling inrush of current and is thrust smoothly into the placid shelter of the bay, where the emancipation from danger and noise is as complete and stunning as if a battling host had suddenly laid down its arms.
Tara
glides into the calm. The surf murmurs at their escape.
EIGHT
Tara
’s passengers—bedraggled, sodden, and bruised—stand and sit in various limp poses, dizzy with rebirth, torn between an impulse to celebrate their survival and mourn the prospect of isolation before them.
Lituya Bay lies broad and flat as a meadow. Gusts of wind embroider the gray green water with dark twisting lines. To port and starboard, the land rises steadily eastward until folding abruptly into steep hills.
Ahead, the hump of a single small island sits squarely in the middle of the fjord, which reaches inland several miles before splitting into north and south arms. The top of the
T
is a massive back wall of scaled granite, veined with vertical, debris-choked ravines that lead down to fans of dirty snow.
The grip of winter still clings to this place, with snow lying hip-deep to the edge of the water except along the beach immediately behind them; the mountains towering above the back wall are laced with frozen waterfalls, their summits strung with cornices of windblown snow. To Hannah, it seems a world impossibly removed from the temperate light and blooming spring forests of Sitka, and she places one slender hand wordlessly across the other atop her belly as if protecting herself from a blow.
“Jesus,” whispers Hans. The sibilant exclamation speaks for each of the prospectors, who face a scene of such grand isolation that their death or survival is rendered inconsequential. For a moment, the power of the prospect strips the group of all worldly concerns: Dutch’s perfidy, the hunger for gold, all ego and alliance—each and every impulse or appetite is forgotten as they stare at the future before them.
Tara
chortles through the water, without course and under only the most tenuous control. Slowly Hannah becomes aware of an ache knotting itself into her body; her muscles are shivering, and her skin is growing numb. Wind knifes through her sodden clothes. Hans and Michael, too, are shivering. Dutch, hunched into a dripping ball, quakes so badly he appears to be convulsing. Only Harky seems unfazed. Miraculously, his greasy felt hat still sits on his head, limp and shapeless from its recent soaking. The cold wakes each in turn from the dreamscape around them.
Michael speaks first, his voice low and even. “Hans, would you take the helm? I’ve got to inspect below for damage. That blow when we struck bottom may have sprung something.
“Mrs. Nelson, as soon as I’ve looked things over, you’d best get into some dry clothes. We all need to do the same, but ladies first, hey?”
Hannah marvels at the swing in his mood. An hour past, he was threatening Dutch with murder. Now he is all charm and concern.
A quick inspection proves the integrity of
Tara
’s construction. The blow from the grounding has started a few small leaks weeping along her keel, and several frames beneath the engine are cracked, but she remains sound and is in no danger of sinking. The condition of the propeller and shaft cannot be ascertained until the engine is repaired and started. Michael builds a roaring fire in the stove, and soon all hands are warming themselves in dry clothes, waiting for a pot of tea to boil.
All of the men except Dutch, who remains flaccid with defeat and shame, show the resilience of soldiers pressed into action. There are vital tasks to take in hand, a situation to control. There is seawater to pump from the bilges, tangled sails and lines to sort out, gear thrown from lockers to secure. The engine must be doctored, the source of its seizure diagnosed and repaired. A hammer and saw must be found to repair the stove-in hatch. Hannah finds herself relegated to mopping and drying, auditing the foodstuffs for water damage.
Michael steers for a bight along the southern shore as the others work to clear the chaos. When satisfied with their position, he rounds into the wind, luffing the jib to take all way off the cutter. Harky wrestles the anchor on deck and lowers away. The fjord is deep, and the entire length of the anchor line slips through his hands before he signals to Michael that it has reached bottom.
There is no rejoicing among the gold seekers, no enthusiasm or excited making of plans to establish a base camp or begin exploration. Hannah cannot bring herself to address Dutch directly. Michael ignores his presence, a contortionist’s task within the confines of the cutter. Hans shoulders Dutch roughly aside whenever they pass. When Dutch attempts to help with the engine, Hans raises a backhand as if to slap him away, and Dutch retreats to the deck. Only Harky acts as before, asking Dutch to lend a hand as he makes repairs to the hatch.
The strain aboard
Tara
is matched by the atmosphere outside the cabin, where wrinkled gray clouds move across the sky, devouring the blue in great bites. By the time order has been restored to the ship, dark weather slicing in from the western horizon has soured the heavens to the color of a corpse, permeating everything with a flat yellow light that leaves no shadows.
The voice of the wind rises from a whisper to a dirge, then an octave higher to a grieving wail.
Tara
tugs at her anchor, shrouds moaning. The stays hum a lament. On shore, trees bend in the gale.
The first rain rattles in with a sound like a handful of gravel being slung across the deck. Within moments, the full force of the front has moved in as a downpour that hisses as it falls, reducing the world to a cacophony of wind and darkness.
Hannah places an open pan on the deck, gathering enough rain in a few minutes to wash the dishes. After the lamps are extinguished, she tries to curl against Hans beneath their damp blankets, but he tosses wildly in his sleep. She tries to pray, but words of supplication will not form in her exhausted mind. Her pillow grows wet with silent tears.
Despair, dear diary, despair.
The hunt for gold has placed us in dreadful circumstances. Lituya Bay presents a stern and awful appearance. It is rugged, dark, and fearsome. Harky’s description of the madman on the voyage from Skagway to Sitka seems applicable, as it does seem a most “heartbroke” bay. Harky also calls this “hungry country,” and I fear he is correct. This place may consume us.
I try to forgive Dutch for the lies which have brought us to this place. He maintains desperately that he did not lie, that he never said straight out that he had found the gold in his possession. I replied that he avoids being a liar by only the most slender of definitions, that he is, nonetheless, a deceiver. Damn him, damn him, damn him, and I do not regret my cursing!
I have, however, begun to regret what error of my own has taken me so far from my home in Bristol. I feel so low and frightened. Hans is distant, and much depressed by our misfortune. We have not been as husband and wife for some time, as there is no privacy in such close quarters. He takes less notice than I.
How I miss my dear friend Victoria and the comfort of our “girl talks,” and Mr. Witt and his music.
It has rained without cease since our arrival two days past. A brief glimpse of the fjord on our arrival has been our only chance to survey the stark terrain, as the downpour obscures the scene at all times. The men row ashore at intervals through the day, but return quickly, soaked to the bone and freezing. Sodden clothing hangs in every space aboard the boat and wets everything about it. If the storm does not abate soon, I am afraid the confinement will infect us all with the malady the miners call “cabin fever.” Mr. Severts says the rain is in our favor, as it will melt a great deal of the snow that covers everything and allow prospecting to begin sooner—an observation which seems most optimistic.

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