Mar 13, 2018 6 min read

Warning: getimagesize(): Filename cannot be empty in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/includes/single/strategically_placed_photos_article.php on line 139

Warning: Division by zero in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/includes/single/strategically_placed_photos_article.php on line 142

Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/includes/single/strategically_placed_photos_article.php on line 412

Notice: Trying to get property 'term_id' of non-object in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/includes/single/strategically_placed_photos_article.php on line 412

The story so far: Hearing the hum of a nearby motorboat, Aaron, Cassidy, and Lisa lift the flap of Cassidy’s tent. A powerful spotlight sweeps the beach. The silhouette of a boat – the Sea Wolf – can be seen.

• Chapter 9

The Sea Wolf

The Sea Wolf moved slowly against the low stars. How did they know we were here?

The smoke from our fire. They must have seen it from miles away.

Fortunately the fire had now been drowned by the tide, and our kayaks were drawn up into the forest, hidden from the sea.

We held still. The boat rose and fell with the swells and motored slowly down the beach.

I was about to relax when the boat turned around, just beyond the surf, and the spotlight slid across the sand, like an octopus’s tentacle.

But even if they wanted to, how could they land their fishing boat in this surf?

The answer soon came. They dropped anchor-maybe two hundred yards down the beach-and lowered a dory from their stern deck. Three men climbed into it, and one manned the oars and pointed the small boat toward shore.

It bobbed through the surf, and for a moment I thought it would capsize. But whoever handled it knew what he was doing. They all managed to scramble out of it and splash ashore. Above them, a bone-white moon floated toward the west.

I gasped. Each man held a weapon: one a rifle; the other two, spearguns at the ready. Moonlight glinted off the metal.

They stopped halfway up the beach, then split up. One man with a speargun headed down the beach; the other two came toward us.

All three flicked on flashlights at the same time.

My body tensed. Cassidy swore. Lisa grabbed my arm. I wondered where my dad was. I thought of the Swiss Army knife in my pants pocket. I thought of Lisa’s pepper spray. My heart raced, but time stood still.

“Dude,” Cassidy said. “We don’t want to be in this tent if they find it.” He snatched his fishing knife and crawled out. He’d been sent to Juvie for smashing a man’s leg with a baseball bat after he was hit with a soda can, so I wasn’t sure what he would do against spearguns and a rifle.

I followed Lisa and Cassidy into the woods. Twigs snapped underfoot like the bones of small animals.

I wondered what I was doing following Cassidy. Maybe, I thought, I should get away from him, go off on my own. But no-I didn’t want to leave Lisa alone with him.

“Over here!” Willie hissed. He was crouched behind a wind-dwarfed spruce. “Follow me.”

We stepped like deer through the windfall branches, carefully, carefully. Two light beams bounced down along the beach, not fifty yards away. They rippled through the trees, and we froze in our tracks. In my mind, I froze in the shape of a spruce.

My heart pounded like the sea. My stomach twisted into knots. I held my breath.

Then the beams advanced along the beach, and we all let out our breath. We linked up with Roger and my dad (I was embarrassed at how glad I was to see him), and together we continued on toward the interior.

“Dude,” Cassidy said. “If they got too close, I woulda split their bellies open like watermelons.”

Yeah, right, I thought. Then my dad patted his back again, and my heart clenched like a fist.

When we crept back out onto the beach, several hours later, the Sea Wolf was gone.

“‘A vast radiant beach, and a cool jeweled moon,'” Dad said.

“Shakespeare?” Willie looked at the moon.

“Jim Morrison. The Doors.”

We were exhausted from lack of sleep, but Willie wanted to start at dawn. We had to get out of here, he said; their coming after us with weapons was proof that they were smugglers. “They’ll be back,” he added. His plan was to head south along the coast of Goose Island and to round the southern tip before the wind picked up.

We drank hot coffee and waited for the sun to rise. Soon it was time to break camp and get under way.

Just before we set off, Roger found a green glass ball. He said it had come from a Japanese fishing boat that had lost its net or capsized in a treacherous sea. It struck me as a bad omen.

We set off through small breakers and paddled out-in the direction of Japan-then turned south. Dad and I were perfectly synchronized. I’d learned to twist my whole torso with each stroke, putting my whole body into it, rather than putting all the strain on my arms and shoulders.

At first the sea was relatively calm, but the wind picked up early, and soon we were riding the deep swells of the open Pacific Ocean.

Within the hour we were hit by offshore boomers-waves breaking unexpectedly far out at sea. With the waves towering over us, we almost lost each other in the valleys between swells. We’d rise to the crest, shout and get our bearings, then sleigh back down to the bottom.

WHAM! We were slammed by a gray wall of water. Then we careened down the face of a big roller, rose up again, and slid back down another white-maned mountain of thunder. My stomach rose to my mouth as we plummeted down yet another wave. At the top of the next peak, Roger pointed toward shore.

“Head further in!” he cried. His words were snatched away by the next crashing wave-and within seconds we were capsizing.

NEXT WEEK: The Root People