David Dun: Overfall

Sam’s ultimate destination of the moment was Sydney, BC, just across from Vancouver. He’d have dry dock repairs made while he wintered in the mountains of California, where he would feed his soul. After that perhaps he would come back to this watery evergreen wilderness or maybe head to the South Seas. Sam no longer made plans more than a few months ahead.

Looking along the rock faces that bordered the entrance to Devil’s Gate, he focused on the sharp tide line where the salt water had killed the small evergreens, as if some giant made a regular trimming. Farther along toward the pass itself the rocks were gray black, steep, and treeless, although every little ledge seemed to harbor a scruffy green bush or two. Maybe he would get a good look at the overfalls. A camera with a 300mm lens sat on the seat next to him but the light had faded too much for a photo. Using binoculars, he studied the wave. It was awesome. By itself it would never sink a blue-water boat, but by deflecting them into the whirlpools and finally the rocks, it broke and sank even oceangoing yachts with ease. He came about, knowing it was time to escape the current, bringing the nose into the wind, then settled into another broad reach back in the direction he had come.

As he reveled in the wildness of this place, his eye caught movement. It appeared to be a woman, running on a narrow trail that traversed the face of the treeless portion of so-called Eagle Bluffs of South Windham Island near the island’s sharp point.

“Go figure,” he said to the terrier.

There weren’t many tourists in this part of BC in October. South Windham Island, as far as he knew, had no residents, no government parks, and no resorts. At least none showed on the chart.

Harry barked in response to Sam’s concern.

Hurrying but purposeful, Anna Wade slipped on her tennis shoes, took nothing but the computer CD-ROM entrusted to her by her brother, her considerable wallet, and her satellite phone, all of which she stuffed in a waterproof bag that went into her fanny pack. The seaplane would meet her on the backside of the island in an hour and a quarter, but there might be a long wade to reach the plane as there was no dock.

When she walked up the trail away from the lodge she felt as if someone was watching. She knew she was rattled and perhaps imagining things. Normally she felt freed, calmed, by this wild place, even the shivers of isolation and the creatures casting wary stares. Today instead of wonder she felt fear.

She tried to tell herself that a major company would not be committing murder, but at this point, alone on this island, she couldn’t come to any conclusions. As she jogged past their pen the rotweillers’ ugly snarls caused her to pick up her pace.

Soon she found herself running on the forest trail just above the steep shoreline headed toward the large cliffs-the long route to Langley Bay on the opposite side of the island. It would be less obvious if she didn’t take the direct route. The dry leaves of October made the forest noisy and her passage through it anything but a secret. After several minutes, she stopped. She thought she heard a snap above the wind sound a little distance back, perhaps a footfall breaking a stick. More sounds came-maybe something moving behind her along the brushy trail.

It stopped and she could feel it listening. Or was it just the wind? She bolted and ran. If they discovered that she was sneaking off to a seaplane, the fear now crouching in her mind might become reality-an outright confrontation with Roberto or worse. They might let the dogs loose.

She was in good shape and thought she had a good chance of outrunning them. Unless they brought the dogs.

As if summoned by the thought, she heard the snuffling and yelping of hounds eager for blood. Anna’s stomach knotted and her throat tightened. Ahead ran a nearly invisible path that eventually cut across the middle of the cliff. Although she had never taken it, she had seen where it emerged from the tree line. The cliffs were one place where she might face an attack dog and win.

Quickly she jumped off the main trail and scrambled down the hill toward the water. It was much steeper than she imagined but the dense brush made her feel safer. The forest, shades of green above her and choked with huckleberry, salal, and salmon berry, grew like a wall. Adrenaline made her gut hollow and her body light. Suddenly it occurred to her that it would be easy for someone to force an accident on these cliffs.

Uncertain, she stopped. Maybe she should fool with the satellite phone. But what could anyone do? First she would get distance between herself and any pursuer.

Her heart was pounding and her breaths were deep and hard. She tried to listen, but heard only herself and the wind. She supposed that a person on the cliff trail would make an easy target.

Again she ran. She could not go back, and going upslope would be impossible without slowing greatly and releasing a cascade of stones and creating the crackles and snaps of walking in a dry forest.

After what seemed a few desperate strides around a corner the trees gave way to the vertical drop. It was a couple hundred yards to more forest. She paused and wiped the sweat from her eyes.

Then Anna saw the sailboat throwing spray in the whitecaps, its sails looming and its sleek body, and the man at the helm. She glanced down at the whirling of the bending water green like moss on marble headstones, strong enough to move a train, sufficient to drown an army. The boat shined at her like mock salvation, a world away below her.

As Sam watched her try to sprint on weary legs, the trail collapsed. Dirt, rocks, and the woman plummeted into the water. Glancing at his chart, then at the GPS, he knew that she might have fallen into the current.

Sam took a deep slow breath, and flipped off his hat, angry that this was happening to him. Harry barked in earnest now. Meaning to take a better look, Sam once again came about, heading back down into Devil’s Gate. On a broad reach the boat shot ahead, requiring that he completely luff the main. He had seconds to decide. The wind was still increasing and driving the black clouds overhead.

Always things went wrong in multiples.

With the mainsail flapping he knew he was about to attempt a nearly hopeless rescue. It would be a regression into his old life-a life he had forsaken.

He punched a button to furl the main inside the mast. Incredibly, the sail bound and it stuck. Never in a whole year had the mainsail furling jammed and now when he needed it to work-it didn’t. He cursed gadgets and reversed the process. Fortunately the bind came free and it unfurled. Not wanting to waste precious seconds, he released the halyard, ran forward, and yanked with all his weight to pull the big sail down. It piled on the boom in a sloppy mess.

Out of habit his mind calculated the odds of survival-his own and hers. This area was a wilderness with an occasional passing yacht or commercial boat. The instant she hit the fifty-five-degree water she would be swept away, probably dragged under by a whirlpool, and if by some miracle she did not drown in that fashion, she would be dead in three or four minutes when she was pulled into the overfall and then buried by the huge whirlpool underlying it, down thirty or forty feet under the sea with little hope of making it to the surface in time to breathe. And if somehow she did struggle to the surface, she’d probably die from cold shock before she could swim to shore. Her only real chance was climbing onto a dry rock or making it to a tiny pocket of beach.

While he started the motor and ran down the channel he looked for some sign of her. Normally he’d have left himself a spot of mainsail to steady the boat. With the main down the boat set up a roll.