Brace!” Dad yelled. We dug our paddle blades into the breaking wave and held them flat, parallel to the water, leaning into them, pressing down. Sliding sideways, hanging at a precarious angle, I held my breath and concentrated on staying afloat.
And alive.
We were almost swamped—water having leaked in through our spray skirts—but didn’t give in, and finally managed to push ourselves upright.
A little here and a little there, Roger had trained us well.
We caught sight of the other kayaks, then paddled hard and fast, back toward Goose Island.
We were west of the beach now; rock cliffs met the ocean here. And that created a new problem: waves that boomed against the cliffs, then rolled back through the ocean waves that were coming in, causing enormous standing waves to erupt. Just like the “haystacks” we ran into in the river rapids in Desolation Canyon last year. And the closer we got to the cliffs, the more the sea surged outward between the swells.
“Go with the surge!” Roger shouted. “Don’t fight it! The next incoming wave might crash you on the rocks!”
Suddenly a haystack wave erupted beneath us and tossed us in the air—like a killer whale tossing a sea lion. We smacked down on our side and I thought, This is it!
But a frantic low brace pushed us back upright again, and Dad and I paddled on.
We slid back out with each surge, but battled on, until we were in a safer zone of rolling swells.
Lisa flashed a smile and waved from the next crest, while Cassidy hollered, “Rock ’n’ ROLL!”
At last, we rested in the lee of Goose Island, out of the wind. We sloshed around, slumped in our kayaks, exhausted and hungry. We dug our hands into bags of gorp, and glanced up at circling, squawking seagulls and shrieking bald eagles.
Since the ferry wouldn’t be back to Bella Bella to pick us up for four more days, we needed a plan for avoiding the Sea Wolf.
We closed in and formed a sea huddle. After Roger and Willie pored over the charts, it was decided to hide out among the islets and lagoons for the next few days, then shoot up Hunter Channel to Bella Bella in time to catch the ferry.
“Number one,” Willie said, “is not to let the Sea Wolf find us. That means smokeless fires, hugging the shore as much as possible, and no broad daylight paddles across wide-open passages.”
Geez, it was one bummer after another, but nobody said anything. We were too busy focusing our energy on surviving.
We’d have to start across Queens Sound at dusk. It was a long ocean passage, and we were afraid of getting caught by a tidal rip in the dark.
We paddled into shore and broke up into two groups.
Roger and Dad—keeping watch for the Sea Wolf—went back out together and trawled for salmon not far offshore. The rest of us pulled our kayaks in among the boulders below the cliffs, and tied them off. Then we hunted the tide pools for sea bounty.
No matter what, we needed food. Long hours of paddling took super amounts of energy. And there were no supermarkets out here.
Willie gathered purple sea urchins, bristling with needles. Lisa and I plucked mussels from the rock walls. And Cassidy—after changing into a wet suit, with snorkel, mask, and fins—free dived for huge purple hen scallops.
And on his last dive, he came up dangling a long, ugly salami with warts: a sea cucumber.
“A delicacy, dude,” Cassidy said, dangling it over his mouth. As long as it wasn’t raw, he’d eat anything.
And I knew, if we got hungry enough, so would Lisa and I.
Our stomachs were growling but there was no time to make a fire and cook our bounty.
With our stash—and the one medium-sized salmon Dad and Roger had caught—we started across Queens Sound as the sun and wind stirred the clouds into a broth of gold, pink, and gray.
To cut wind resistance, we feathered our paddles against the wind, spinning the forward blade horizontal, slicing into the wind with each stroke.
And we kept our eyes peeled for the Sea Wolf.
By dark we’d crossed the sound and found a hidden cove on the lee of a tiny island. We pulled our kayaks well out of view among the trees and pitched our tents at the foot of cedars. Then we scavenged the beach for driftwood, and Willie built a small, almost smokeless fire.
The black sky folded its raven wings around us.
Willie cooked yet another seafood feast, which we ate in silence. Lisa got up and came back with a book. All I could make out in the firelight was the cover. Something about totem poles, with a picture of one. She started to read, but I think it was too dark. She put it down.
I was going to ask her about it—and tell her about the one I was reading, about Mt. Everest—but the sudden image of Chinese immigrants stowed in the hull of the Sea Wolf haunted my mind.
“Dad?” I said, leaning back against a log. “You told me once that the migrant workers send most of their money to their families back in Mexico, or wherever. Is that what the Chinese do?”
Dad rubbed his fuzzy jaw. “I think so, Aaron. But all I know for sure is they’re desperate to flee China—desperate enough to risk their lives.”
I chewed on that for a bit. It’s like what Lisa had said, about them wanting “a better life.” The sea breeze stirred the trees.
“You’re young,” Dad said after awhile, “looking out at a big world through little eyes. Trying to make sense of it.”
“Really, Dad? I’m thirteen, you know.” This really gets to me. He talks to Cassidy like he’s a man, but to me, it’s like I’m still a kid.
“I didn’t mean it that way, but you are, well. . . .”
“What? A little boy? Is that what you’re saying, Dad?”
He threw a chunk of wood into the fire, and for a moment it flared up, throwing sparks against the sky.
Lisa stood up and walked off alone toward her tent. Cassidy got up and followed her. Jealousy tugged my string again, pulled it tight, like a bow.
“You left your book, Lisa,” I said, but I don’t think she heard me. I started to get up, to follow them. Then sat back down. I didn’t want to go uninvited. To act like a stalker. Dad got up and dished himself more food, then came back and sat down beside me again, perching his metal plate on a bony knee.
I shrugged.
“Food’s good, right?” he said.
I gave him a thumbs-up.
“Miss Mom? Your brother?”
I shrugged again.
A little whisper told me: he’s trying. But I was trying, too. I just didn’t know what to say. Thoughts of the Sea Wolf, smuggled immigrants, Lisa and Cassidy hanging out together, scrambled around in my mind like crabs, snapping their nasty little claws.
Finally, Dad got up, stretched his back, and strolled off to clean his plate.
Ten minutes later, Lisa stumbled back toward the fire and dropped down, clutching herself. She looked angry.
I knew it, I thought. Cassidy must’ve said something or done something to make her mad.
“Where’s Cassidy?” Willie asked.
“Like I care,” Lisa snapped. She picked up her book on totems, then immediately dropped it back down.
The tree branches creaked, and the sea boomed and sizzled.
“It’s time for a story!” Roger said, trying to sound jolly.
“And I know one,” said Dad. In fact, he knew lots of stories. He sat by the fire, a steaming cup of tea balanced on his knee. “It’s a Tlingit story. The Tlingit people live just north of here, up on the Alaskan panhandle.”
“Just tell the story, Dad.” Sometimes I loved his stories. Other times I wished he’d just shut the heck up.
“Well,” Dad said, taking a sip of hot tea, “long ago, river otters were called Kuschtas, meaning ‘Root People,’ because they lived among the roots of trees. The Root People could change into humans and back into otters at will. And though they weren’t big and ferocious like bears, they were feared even more than bears or wolves.”
He let the silence seep into our bones. The flames flung their dancing shadows against the trunks of the trees.
“The Root People were tricksters,” he continued. “They’d approach near-drowning victims in their capsized canoes, disguised as humans, and lend a helping hand. But then they’d kidnap them and drag them, kicking and screaming, back to their villages, where their captives, too, would turn into Root People. Lost forever to their families back home.”
This reminded me of the Water Babies, another scary story Dad told last year in Desolation Canyon.
“Is that it? Is that the end of the story?” Lisa asked.
“What I remember of it,” Dad said, grinning.
“Well, according to this book I’m reading,” she said, “the stories of the First Nations usually have a little more point to them,” she said, smiling. “The tribes up here carved totems of otters and ravens and killer whales and other animals to represent their clans and family histories. One story I read was about how humans who drown in the sea become killer whales and that’s why they never hurt people, even though they’re hunters. They might even try to help them, like dolphins do.”
“Thanks for that, Lisa,” Roger said. “I’d like to take a look at that book of yours sometime. But I’m bushed; now it’s time for some shut-eye.” He flung what was left of the tea in his cup into the sand, said goodnight, and headed for their tent.
“I think tomorrow we rest,” Willie said. “Then take off at sunset and paddle across the channel under the cover of darkness.”
“What about we go look for one of these burial islands?” Lisa said, picking up her book.
She flipped through some pages, then showed us a photo of a burial island with some totem poles on it. “Mortuary totems,” she said. “This island is supposed to be around here somewhere. We could probably get there and back in just a couple of hours, with time to check it out. That would be so awesome!”
She flipped to another page. It was a map, showing a tiny burial island east of us, over toward Hunter Island. I couldn’t make out its name in the firelight.
Willie grinned but shook his head. “No can do, Lisa. Sorry. We need the rest. We’re gonna need all the energy we can muster tomorrow evening. And remember, we’re supposed to be lying low, with the Sea Wolf out there somewhere.”
“But this is our last chance!” Lisa said.
Willie just shrugged and shook his head again.
Lisa slapped her book against her thigh, looked at me like maybe she was hoping I’d say something, then got up and went to her tent.
I felt like I let her down, but maybe Willie was right. With smugglers out there and all.
The fire was slowly shutting down, and with it, the night.
Dad and I stood up at the same time. “After you, Aaron,” he said. I skipped brushing my teeth and ducked right into our tent. I was too exhausted to even get out of my clothes.
I crawled into my sleeping bag, and listened to the sea slapping the sand silly. I tried not to think about the Root People, or even killer whales. I tried not to listen to my dad snoring, moments after his head hit the pillow. I tried to fall into the oblivion of sleep.
And when I finally did, I dreamt about Chinese immigrants huddled in the bowels of a ship with their ankles shackled like slaves. They moaned in pain. A hatch opened and light poured down on a girl’s face.
But she wasn’t Chinese. It was Lisa, her eyes wide with terror.
In the morning, Dad was up already when I opened my eyes. Something was wrong. I could feel it.
I shimmied out of my sleeping bag and waddled out into the mist barefooted, my mind groggy with sleep. And followed the sound of voices.
There they were, staring out into the cove.
“What’s going on?” I asked nobody in particular.
“We can’t find Lisa,” Willie said. “She’s gone. Missing. She took off in their kayak and hasn’t come back.”
Lisa’s missing? Lisa’s missing!
My first irrational thought was of the Root People. She was kidnapped by the Root People.
Then my mind came awake.
My next thought was of the Sea Wolf and the smugglers—traffickers in human cargo.
And Lisa was out there, alone, at their mercy.