Pathways (9780307822208) (29 page)

I gleaned a lot of my information—and a couple of scenarios I
used in my own novel—from books written by Alaskan authors: Larry Kaniut’s
Cheating Death
, Joe Rychetnik’s
Alaska’s Sky Follies
, and Sam Keith’s
One Man’s Wilderness
among them. I was thankful to discover these excellent and fun resources on Alaska life and adventure, past and present.

Cheryl Crawford prayed me through the process and read the manuscript, as did Nancy Leitch and Rebecca Price. Traci DePree, beloved friend and editor, sacrificed much to get this book done on time. I am grateful to them all.

J
ULY
1627

T
HE
G
ULF
C
OAST

A
bove the high-pitched scream of the wind, Captain Esteban Ontario Alvarez heard the wails of his passengers below, but he had too much on his mind to worry about a contingent of overindulged Castilian merchants. He squinted his eyes against the constant spray of the sea and struggled to maintain hold of the helm with the help of his first mate and a soldier.

The wind was relentless in its drive back toward the coast. Soaked to the skin after battling the storm on deck for four hours, the professional sailors were losing the war. “
Jesucristo
,” the captain grunted through clenched teeth. “
Sálvanos, por favor
.” Jesus, please save us.

“
¡Capitán! ¡Capitán!
” Screaming over the wind, Alvarez’s cabin boy struggled valiantly to make his way across the deck to his superior. He fell, was swept against the ship’s starboard railing, then picked himself up and pushed forward once again. Esteban watched
out of the corner of his eye, his heart in his throat, but was unable to leave the wheel. They barely had control of
La Canción
.

“¡Capitán!” The boy pointed frantically, unable to say anything else as terror overwhelmed him.

“
¡Sí! ¡Sí! Qué …
”

But he saw what struck fear in the boy’s eyes.
Tierra
. Land. They would break apart on the reef if he didn’t slow them down quickly. “
¡La ancla! ¡La ancla!
” he yelled at the boy, wanting with everything in him to release the wheel and run for the anchors himself.

The boy clung, monkeylike, to the torn sails, railing, masts … anything he could grab as he made his way forward to the one thing that might save them. The ship, a giant that weighed over three tons, rocked chaotically. So steep was the incline from starboard to port, the boy feared that they might capsize even if they did manage to slow their rapid advance.

He heaved against a door in the floorboards and scowled at a frightened sailor clinging for his life belowdecks. “¡La ancla!” the boy screamed. The grimy man nodded, climbed the steep stairs, and helped the boy release the huge iron hook.

The six-hundred-pound weight sank quickly, pulling with it yards and yards of chain. It struck the ocean floor in under a minute, dragged across sand and loose rocks for a moment, then sank its teeth into a massive coral reef.

The ship lurched at the force of the anchor’s braking power, throwing every loose object and body aboard. Captain Alvarez and his men gave the ship’s wildly spinning wheel room and searched for rope with which to tie it off.

Belowdecks,
La Canción
’s hasty building schedule was telling.
Mahogany ribs, weaker than oak, strained under the burden of heavy seas and a taut anchor chain. Planking popped as boards requiring ten nails each broke free of their scanty two. Waves gnawed at the interior clamp that held the anchor to the ship. It took only one more watery monster to yank the teeth from their sockets.

“We’re moving again!” Alvarez yelled in the Castilian accent of aristocratic Spaniards. “Sound the warning: Abandon ship!”

Seeing that they were drifting, his man on the fo’c’s’le deck swiftly threw a second anchor, unaware that the interior clamp was gone, that there was nothing below to keep the anchors from merely sinking beyond the wounded ship. He threw a third. A fourth. Holding the last one, he gazed frantically from the quickly approaching rocks to the chain in his hand, knowing that all was lost.

J
ULY
1986

T
HE
G
ULF
C
OAST OF
T
EXAS

Mitch had rarely scuba-dived with visibility as great as this: eighty feet in any direction. He looked left to his friend Hans, provoking a moray eel with a stick, then right to Chet, meticulously studying the coral reef and its inhabitants. He smiled around the regulator in his mouth. As far as he was concerned, this was heaven.

Catching sight of a lavender-and-gold striped Spanish grunt fish, Mitch stroked through the water with powerful legs, coasting after the beauty with ease. Over the rise of coral he discovered a huge pile of rocks and moved to investigate. Such exploration had lately become the focus of Mitch’s dreams. On each dive he imagined finding vases, ballast piles, anchors: the beginning clues of valuable and ancient wreck sites. Ever since his introduction to Nautical Archaeology 101, he’d had nothing else on his mind, much to his
parents’ chagrin. Mitch knew that they were just biding their time before bringing up law school again.

He tried to dismiss the thought of actually finding a wreck on a casual dive off Galveston, but as much as he tried to banish the idea, he found himself returning to it again and again. It would only take one wreck to convince his dad. Mom might have to have an emerald necklace that once belonged to Queen Estuvia or a Celtic cross that once hung from a devout monk’s neck to convince her there might be a way to make a living in such a business.

He smiled. Then. Then they would not keep hounding him about the cost of a “perfectly good education squandered away on a schoolboy’s dreams.”
Just one. Come on, God. Think of the ministry potential! Such success could open all kinds of doors!
He laughed at himself, recognizing that one could not bargain with God. Yet he felt that a life of searching the underwater world was a personal calling and that the Lord would reward his following the call.

Mitch fully realized that his chosen course might leave him poor, chasing the siren call of one ship after another for the rest of his life. Yet it was not wealth that enticed him to this life path. It was the anticipated thrill of a find. The spark that lit each successful treasure hunter’s eyes when telling of that special dig.
Just one, God
.

The Spanish grunt darted away, and Mitch turned his attention to several multicolored queen angels, their heavenly wings waving to him as they ate from the pile of ballast stones on the ocean floor.
Ballast stones
. Mitch caught his breath and held it. He closed his eyes slowly and then opened them, expecting the pile to disappear.

It did not. He rose fifteen feet—to a depth of about forty-five feet—eager to catch the attention of his buddies. Hans spotted his wave first and dragged Chet away from his studies and toward
Mitch. Seeing his Texas A&M pals en route, Mitch moved back to the pile, carefully examining each rock—without moving them—as Professor Sanders had advised.

Sometimes the kind of rock could help a diver narrow down the ship’s port of origin.
If this really is a ship
, he chastised himself silently, willing his excitement back down. He dusted off the rocks but could not tell what kind they were. Chet, better at such things than he, was already studying the color and texture. Mitch moved on.

Thirty feet away, in the direct line of the current, he found another large, lichen-covered pile. After investigation, Mitch discovered that the pile was made up of hundreds of earthen jars, such as the kind crews once carried, filled with fresh water or delicacies, like olives. Many were intact, even covered with marine life.

Mitch abandoned the vases to see what else might be nearby. As he swam over the next rise, his breathing became labored, and he wondered if what he was seeing could really be true. There, scattered between what was clearly the rotting remains of a ship’s timbers, lay thousands of sparkling gold coins.

His friends soon joined him, and the trio excitedly filled the “goody bags” at their waists with as many coins as possible, then swam to their raft thirty feet above. Clinging to the sides, they laughed and shouted while throwing their bounty on board.

“Well, boys,” Mitch said, grinning broadly, “I think I finally know what I want to do when I grow up.”

A
UGUST
1994

O
FF THE COAST OF
M
ASSACHUSETTS

Trevor leaned toward Julia and kissed her gently. “I love looking over at you and saying, ‘There she is. My
wife
.’ ”

“I love looking over at
you
and thinking,
my husband
. Husband, husband, husband. It will take awhile before that word rolls off my tongue.”

“We’ve got years to get used to it. I didn’t expect it to become second nature in the first month.”

Julia lay back, soaking in the sun and the sights of Martha’s Vineyard. It was the perfect honeymoon destination. Quiet if a couple wanted it to be so, social if they wished it to be otherwise. She and Trevor had been drawn to the solitude and stayed close to the small cottage they had rented for the week.

Trevor looked lovingly at Julia, then gazed down the beach. She followed his line of vision and nudged him indignantly. “Hey, no looking at other women on your honeymoon … or ever.”

Trevor smiled, but his eyes remained on the attractive woman walking toward them on the beach. “It’s just … she looks like someone I should know …”

“Who? A swimsuit model from
Sports Illustrated
?”

“No. You know I never read those.”

“Yeah, right.”

He kissed her soundly. “I think it was Paul Newman who said, ‘Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?’ ”

“I always liked that guy,” Julia said, smiling at her new husband.

The figure drew closer.

Trevor looked up again and scrambled to his feet, leaving a bewildered Julia sitting alone. “It
is
her,” he mumbled in explanation as he walked toward the other woman. “Christina! Christina!”

The woman came to a stop, turning at the sound of her name, and when Trevor drew near, took his hands and gave him a quick,
friendly kiss. Trevor pointed toward his new bride, and Julia grimaced as they made their way up the sandy hill.

She suddenly wished that her swimsuit could magically turn into a turtleneck and sweats. She was in good shape, but women like the one next to her husband always made her feel hopelessly inadequate.

Trevor smiled. “Honey, this is an old friend, Christina Alvarez. Christina, meet my new wife, Julia Rierdon-Kenbridge.”

Christina gave her a broad grin and shook her hand warmly. “I always wondered who would finally get a ring on this guy’s finger.” She turned and playfully punched Trevor’s muscular arm.