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Late Summer

HURRICANE POINT, CALIFORNIA, MONDAY, 6:00 A.M.

The wave came silently, like a killer in the pellucid light of dawn. Huge and beautiful and murderous. Come and get me. C’mon, let’s see if you can. She could see the swell, bigger than those that had gone before. Maybe a twelve- to fourteen-footer, with a likely twenty-five-foot face. Massive. At the outer limits of a wave that she could surf without a Jet Ski tow-in. Her heart began to race as she lay down on her board, reached out long, powerful arms, and paddled hard She could see the wave in front explode in a frenzy of white water. She could no longer see the monster behind her, gaining on her, rising up behind her, opening its maw, but she could feel it. It raised her up, terrifyingly high. No backing out now. Paddle for your life, harder, faster.

She grabbed the board, snapped to her feet as the wave took her, propelled her down its gnarly face. She balanced, knees bent low, arms outstretched, warrior pose, riding it, wild with glee, high on adrenaline. She skimmed down the face, muscling the board against the yank of hundreds of tons of water. She rode into the barrel, into the unearthly blue, into the moment when time stopped and the universe was just you and the barrel and the roaring in your ears. And then time started again and the barrel was closing, just one split second of escape remaining. She ducked right down, shot out of the barrel, flipped up over the back of the wave. Feet still planted on her board, she flew through air, over water, riding the two elements. Conquering them. This time. Her spirit sang and she yelled out loud. No one to hear her. She surfed alone, breaking the surfer’s code. Just the woman and the sea with the gulls screaming and soaring and bearing their wild witness.

*   *   *

The gulls watched her paddle round to the quiet water, where the waves did not form up to do battle. They watched her paddle in, walk from the water, sun-bleached hair falling down her back: golden skin, freckle-flecked over the patrician nose, which was a shade too long, saving her from mere prettiness. They watched her glance back at the sea, a look of reckoning, part gratitude, part triumph, part relief.

Always the fear, underneath it all. Only the fool did not feel it. Gwen felt it dissipate as she ran up the beach, board under her arm. Death swam alongside the huge waves, every surfer knew that. It was part of the kick, risking your life. The euphoria of survival was her reward. She felt it sweep through her, filling up the empty parts, washing away the doubts. Now she was ready to take them on, to play the games of man. And win again.