The Sea is a Thief (23 page)

As he came closer he could see that only the highest part of it stood above the water; the trunks of trees were washed by the waves.  The tide ran freely almost from one side of the island to the other.  He knew that when he passed the final tree he could swing the boat up into Chincoteague Channel.  He would run diagonally across it to landfall, and safety.  The pines and cedars crawled past, even the tallest of them bent by the relentless wind.  His back was on fire and his shoulders screamed with each stroke.  He struggled mightily to make progress over the water—only to make progress, everything else be damned.  The worst was behind them.  

The line of trees ended.  They were in the channel.  Half an hour would carry them home in good weather; today there was no telling.  He gathered his strength and pushed the skiff out into the deep channel, setting a course strongly northwards as best he could judge, finding the quickest path to Chincoteague. The channel waves rolled upon each other, hammering at the hull of the skiff.  Gusts of wind pounded his back like a fist.  He braced himself against the oars.

Then the starboard oar snapped.  

He might have struck a bed of rocks, or a sunken log.  The oar might simply have given way with the force of his effort.  He would never know.  The effect on the skiff was instant.  She was half-full of water and deep in the trough of a wave, this tiny boat built to carry a single hunter silently along a quiet marsh.  When one oar broke and came free in mid-stroke, the other continued its powerful sweep, bringing her hard around, heeling her over to starboard, and thrusting her bow into the oncoming swell.  The swell enveloped the forward deck like the jaws a hungry beast, flipping the skiff over and sending Sam Dreher into the channel.  His remaining oar fell free of its oarlock.  He pulled it close to his chest as he hit the foaming, frigid water.  His head sank below the surface only once.  He knew that he could not go under again.  Shaking the shock of the water from his body, he kicked his legs upwards, his numb hands reaching for the upended skiff, grasping at the hull.  

He could not see Anna. Was she holding on from the other side?

He heaved himself onto the narrow hull, the cold water already slowing and weakening his arms and legs.  Still he could not see her.  He screamed her name above the roar of the wind.  Two times.  Three times.  

He filled his lungs with air and dove beneath the skiff.  Blackness met him.  He felt his way along the deck, then the coaming, to the opening in the deck.  The skiff was not completely submerged; a bubble of air lay trapped in the hull.  He swept his hands across the deck from edge to edge.  

His hands touched her face.  She lay beneath the upturned boat, altogether covered by it, floating in the rough water beneath.  She did not move.  He pulled her head against his chest with one arm.  His breath searing his lungs, he pushed the skiff away as he kicked mightily down and forward, bringing her out from under the imprisoning boat.  When he pulled her above the surface he lifted her still body onto the hull of the skiff with all the strength that remained in him.  She was out of the water.  

He hauled himself onto the hull beside her and lay there, shaking with cold, his exhausted body spent.  The water was deep.  He had not touched bottom when he swam beneath the boat.  To swim to the shore of either island was beyond his fading strength.  He would not leave her.  He would stay with the boat, and with Anna; here they would die, together.  He held her tightly to him.  He pressed his face against the wet planks of the skiff, as closely as he could to hers
.  Mercy, Lord Jesus,
he prayed,
Mercy.
 

 

He did not know how long they had lain there when he saw the boat. It was shaped like a quarter moon, its bow and stern sweeping sharply upwards. Its gunwales rose high above the water.  It was a drift boat, far larger than the skiff, meant for fast, rough water.  It bobbed over the angry channel with a resolve that its maker had built into its very bones. Above its heavy twin oars stood Beau Daisey.  

It was all that Sam Dreher could do to raise his head from the hull of the skiff and extend a stiffened hand to Beau.  Kneeling down and leaning far over the gunwale, Beau gripped Sam's arm and brought the drift boat close beside.  He fished the painter out of the water and secured it to an oarlock with a twist of the line.  Reaching down, he wrapped both arms about his sister's waist.  He locked his fingers around her and raised her in one motion over the side and into the boat.  She came awake suddenly, a spasm of coughing racking her body, and vomited water over the side.  Her head lolled backward and she sank down over the seat in the stern, arms clasping it to keep herself from collapsing.  To Beau's horror, the side of her face was streaked with blood.

He leaned over the gunwale once more, reaching out to Sam this time, who rose to meet his grip.  Beau lifted him to the side by both arms.  With the last of his strength, Sam kicked a leg upwards, hooking his heel over the gunwale. The drift boat dipped towards the rolling channel.  Beau locked one arm over Sam's body and clamped a hand behind his bent knee.  He threw himself backwards, heaving Sam towards him and righting the boat.  

They were aboard.  But they were not ashore.  

Beau settled back heavily between the oars, pulling a tightly-wrapped bundle from beneath his seat. He drew his knife and slit the two ropes that held it together.  

“Cover her!” he shouted, tossing Sam a thick woolen blanket and the oilcloth sheet that had protected it.  Sam's numb hands struggled clumsily with the blanket, finally managing to wrap it tightly across Anna's still body.  He covered her with the oilcloth, throwing his arms around it to hold it against the fierce wind.  As Beau dug deep with the oars he felt the drift boat lurch sideways.  The skiff was still tied to it; it lay like an anchor.  Beau leaned forward and sliced away the line with a sweep of his arm, freeing the boat.  He took two strokes of the oars and checked his course, head bent over his shoulder.  Water ran in streams from his curly hair down the shoulders of his coat.  He braced his tall rubber boots against the stout ribs of the hull and bent his back to his task again.  They leapt forward on the crests of the swells, smashing explosively into the troughs, sending white sheets of foam to both sides.  Beau rowed like a man possessed.

Often, days would go by without Beau and Anna speaking.  Even at those distant times, the children of Sweet William and Mary Daisey were brother and sister, the thoughts of one rarely straying far from the other.  When the rain and wind began and Anna had not returned, Beau feared that she might not find her way back.  He was certain that he knew where to search for her.  He took a drift boat from the dock—the best kind for foul weather—and set out to bring his sister home.

They were on their way.

 

When the trees of the Chincoteague shoreline loomed in Beau's sight, he searched for still water.  A tiny inlet led to a newly formed pool in a grove of cedars.  Beau leapt from the boat, dragging it in two massive lunges into a narrow gap between a pair of trees and securing it with a heavy line.  The water rose halfway to his knees.  He slogged forward, shouting to Sam.  The shrieking of the wind was dulled over land, but the highest branches of the trees were still driven forward like flags.  

“I'll carry her!” he called out.  Sam clambered out of the boat, dropping to the flooded ground.  He fell backwards momentarily against the hull, then righted himself and turned to Anna.  He lifted Anna's body against his shoulder, but could move her no further. Beau pushed him aside, raising her up out of the boat and into his arms. He shifted his grip, drawing her tightly to his chest, and swung around to face Sam.  Anna's face lay against her brother's shoulder.

“Get to the house,” he called out.  “Follow me.”  With that he was off, boots pushing a channel through the flood.  Sam struggled to stay with him, his feet wooden against the hidden ground, stumbling against rocks and roots.  He fought for each step, his breath heavy and his lungs burning.  He leaned into the heavy rain and forced himself forward.  

The Daisey home came into view as though in a dream, rising above the familiar road, now running with water.  Beau ran the last few yards, leaping up the steps and putting his shoulder to the door.  It burst open and he disappeared inside.  Sam followed, stopped short in the doorway by Mary's scream from the kitchen, then Beau shouting words he could not understand.  He stumbled forward and retreated again as he saw Mary beginning to strip off Anna's clothing, rivulets of water running from her fingers onto the plank floor.  Blankets and a checked wool nightgown lay on a bench. Beau had flung open the door of the iron stove and was stacking wood into it as rapidly as he could, the orange flames crackling upward.  Sam turned towards the front room and leaned against the far wall.  He took up the blanket that Beau had discarded on his way to the kitchen.  It was wet through, but it would suffice.  He tried to stay standing, but in seconds he felt a strange warmth come over him.  His legs turned weak and a metallic taste formed in his mouth as the candles in their sconces began to sway before his eyes.  Tiny silver starbursts clouded his vision.  He reached for a table to stop his fall.  His open hand clawed blindly at a walnut merganser, its glass eyes surveying his collapse.  As his body folded onto itself, he swept the wooden bird from the table.  Its delicate carved feathers splintered as it struck the floor, skittering silently across the room and coming to rest at the foot of the stairs.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dawn Breaks

 

For two days the storm held the islands of the Eastern Shore in its powerful grip.  No one on Chincoteague—not Edmund Bagwell in his packing house, nor Elizabeth Reynolds in her lighthouse, nor any of the wily old salts who made their living sailing the channels—had seen it coming.  Even if they had, they could have done little.  It arrived at the very worst time, in the most destructive possible way.  Even the highest spots on the islands rose no more than a few feet above the surrounding sea.  The wind howled in from the ocean at high tide, driving the rain before it and trapping the swelling waters of the tide onshore.  When the gale blew unabated for nearly forty-eight hours, tide was trapped upon tide until the creeks and inlets overflowed.  The streets of the little town became canals.  Mary Daisey gave thanks to God that her William had taken the advice of Chincoteague's oldest living resident when he built their home.  His name was Bloxom; when he saw Sweet William laying the foundation he made it his business to warn him.  
Take her up a few feet,
he said;
I've seen water in the roadway in my time, and you'll see more in yours.  
Those few extra feet kept the Daisey home firmly on its foundation above the flood.  Many on the island did not fare as well.

Mary remained in her kitchen at Anna's side.  Beau carried his sister's bed downstairs and set it up by the stove.  He never let the fire dwindle.  As the wind lashed furiously at the clapboards of the house, Anna slept, then descended into something deeper than sleep.  Since the hour Beau took her from the water she had not opened her eyes.  She was pale as the linen sheet on which she lay.  Her breathing changed by turns from quick and deep to barely noticeable.  Her pulse quickened and faded along with it.  She would burn with fever and then the fever would fall away.  Mary could not tell what battles raged inside her.  The gash on her head was deep and ragged, but Mary bound it well, and the bleeding stopped quickly.  Anna had suffered for hours in the cold.  She had come close to drowning and struck her head violently on the hull of the boat.  Which of those injuries still threatened her was a mystery.  Mary stayed with her daughter, cooling her face with wet cloths when she was hot and wrapping her with quilts when her limbs trembled with cold.  She slept when Anna was still, rousing at the slightest movement.  Elizabeth Reynolds would surely have had a treatment for her, but she was far beyond their reach now.  Anna's fate lay in her mother's hands.  

The storm had gathered suddenly in the late afternoon.  It raged all that night, and another day and night.  Just before sundown on the third day, the wind died all at once, as though someone had pulled on a string.  The sunset over the channel was a magnificent blood-red, shot through with streaks of lavender that turned indigo just before nightfall.  At the ebb tide the water drained from Chincoteague and Assateague as if from a bathtub, leaving big pools in the low spots that would take weeks to disappear into the marshy ground.  The next morning, a cold, clear fall morning graced by a cloudless blue dome of sky, children emerged with spears and nets to take stranded fish.  The largest, brought home on a cart by two boys, ran nearly twenty pounds.  Life returned to normal quickly for those whose homes and boats survived.  Time on the water had been lost, and with it income that the oystermen and fishermen could ill afford.  Warily, they put their boats out to sea again and found that the sea was the same as before.  

Edmund Bagwell's buildings withstood the onslaught well.  At sunrise the next day workmen covered them like a swarm of ants, nailing down what had torn loose.  Bagwell was back in business by noon. At the end of the day oysters covered his shucking tables and fish filled his barrels. His cash was just as good as before, too; watermen went home with full pockets after delivering their catches.  The gale was the sole topic of the day's conversation, but it would fast recede into memory.  

The
Louisiana
rode out the storm with surprising ease.  Her stout hull was never in danger.  Her crew suffered through two restless nights, and some of the newer sailors were dreadfully sick, but it was nothing the senior men hadn't seen before.  All her gear was sound.  No ships sailed in the teeth of the gale, but when it faded, a Navy vessel arrived at Chincoteague with a load of supplies for the gunboat.  Dreher and Platt were on it when it departed, bound for Navy headquarters at Hampton Roads, and from there to another ship, yet unknown.  A detail of three sailors, Ethan Platt among them, visited the Daisey household to retrieve Sam Dreher as soon as it was practical.  Both men were transferred without a word from Captain Sharpe.  Once Platt had revealed the missing sailor's location, further discussion was unnecessary.  The case was closed.  The Captain had no stomach for re-opening it.