Footprints of Thunder (14 page)

Ron could see nothing but gray. Then he realized he was looking too low. He tilted his head to see an edge. The tidal wave was nearly on them.

“This is it, everyone. Hang on to something.” The
Entrepreneur
started down into the trough, sliding into the smoother waters before the wave. The dip made their stomachs lurch, and Ron and Carmen gasped as the towering wave rose even higher with each foot of drop into the trough. Then their craft started up the wave. Once more their stomachs churned as they were carried up by combination of wave and engine. The
Entrepreneur
‘s bow tilted higher and higher, until Ron feared they would flip over backward. He fought to keep them headed directly into the wave, but the
Entrepreneur
, buffeted by wave and wind, wouldn’t stay nose on. For a minute he thought they might make it to the top but then he saw the curl. It wouldn’t even-be close.

The curl broke over them, twisting the
Entrepreneur
to port and pushing her under the wave. Ron was torn from his place at the helm and thrust deep into the sea, pitched and tossed, and then he heard the screaming. In his panic it took him seconds to realize it was the scream of metal.
Entrepreneur
was losing her mast.

Ron let the currents buffet him beneath the waves. He knew if he started swimming while still disoriented he could swim himself deeper, so instead he let the buoyancy of his life jacket carry him to the surface. As the buffeting died down, he regained a clear sense of up and down. He kicked his legs and pulled upward. His lungs soon screamed and he blew bubbles trying to fight off the urge to open his mouth and suck in the sea. He kicked harder and harder as lights flashed before his eyes. He had only seconds of consciousness left now, and he dreaded the moment when his breathing reflexes would take over, filling his lungs with water. Suddenly he broke through the surface, shooting out of the sea and breaching like a whale. He gasped for air, breathing in sea spray and oxygen all at the same time, when a wave hit him in the face and he inhaled a mouthful of saltwater. He kicked higher out of the water, coughing and sputtering up the brine, his lungs and nose burning.

Searching for the others, he bobbed in the waves which towered over him, but nothing like the tidal wave. He rode up one side and down the other. He knew his family could he only a short distance away and yet not be seen, but he still felt desperate. To his left he spotted something white in the water. He kicked up the next wave and popped up again for another look. The hull of the Entrepreneur was bobbing a few waves away. He stroked toward the hull, kicking up at the top of each wave to make sure of his heading, but he saw only the hull: no Chris, no Carmen, and no Rosa.

Ron finally swam down the last wave, riding it right to the hull—inverted, but it looked to be intact. Still he found no sign of his family—
they had to be somewhere, they had to be!
He’d lost one wife, and he couldn’t stand losing another, let alone a child. Ron pulled himself to the stem and used the rudder to clatter up on the hull. Then he heard pounding. The kids were still inside.

Ron slid back down into the water and tried to dive, but his life jacket pulled him back to the surface. He unsnapped the catches and shrugged it off. Now he could feel the weight of his shoes and clothes. He kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, and then he dipped below the surface, stroking down to the inverted deck. In the murky green he could see the cabin door was open. He swam to it and used the frame to propel himself through the opening. He could see legs ahead of him and he curved up, searching for the air pocket. He burst through the surface tension to find a foot of warm, foul air, but also light; someone had turned on a floating lantern. Ron turned to find Rosa staring at him, her eyes wide with fear. Even soaking wet he could tell she had been crying. “Thank God. Oh, Ron, Chris is hurt. I can’t wake him up and I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t get him out of here.” Ron looked past Rosa to Chris. He was unconscious, and Rosa was supporting his head, keeping it out of the water. Ron pushed through the water. There was a nasty gash high on Chris’s forehead and water dribbled from his hair through the wound, emerging pinkish on the other side. Ron gripped the boy’s wrist but couldn’t tell if the pounding he felt was Chris’s pulse or his own. Ron shook Chris, talking, urging him to wake up. He knew the longer Chris was unconscious the more serious the damage. To keep him alive they had to get him out of the hull and into the fresh air, even if that air was a storm. Tears in his eyes, Ron fully realized Rosa’s dilemma. She could have saved herself by swimming under the water and out to the surface, but she had to leave Chris behind to do that. If she tried to take him with her he would drown on the way.

The air was getting worse. Ron knew they still had oxygen, but he and Rosa were beginning to gasp. The only chance was pulling Chris under and letting him inhale the water. He knew from the baby swim class his wife had taken with Chris that newborns reflexively stop breathing when placed under water. Would that reflex still exist in some form? Would a lower part of Chris’s brain take over and protect him for the underwater trip? If only Chris could keep from breathing for even thirty seconds, Ron could, have him out by then. Then a solution occurred to him.

“Rosa, feel around in the water there. Find some tape, wide tape. It’s in the everything drawer.”

The “everything drawer” was the place where they put everything that had no other place. Ron kept two or three kinds of tape in the drawer, most of them useful even if wet. Rosa felt around briefly and then took off her life jacket and ducked under the water. While she swam, Ron pulled Chris to the rear of the cabin, where a rack for drying clothes was attached to the wall. He felt around until he found a clothespin, and then started back to Rosa. Rosa was still ducking under the water, occasionally coming up with something in her hand, holding it to the light, and then tossing it aside. She popped up again, this time with a big roll of silver tape in her hand.

“I got some,” she said and held it up for Ron to see. She was smiling, happy to be doing anything that might save Chris.

Ron supported Chris while Rosa unsnapped the catches on his life jacket, then they wrestled it off the limp boy. The inert weight of his son unnerved Ron, who struggled to support Chris’s head. When the life jacket was off, Ron peeled up a length of tape, then struggled to tear it. It finally tore but folded up against itself. At least, Ron reflected, it was still sticky when wet. Futilely, Ron tried again. The air was much worse and Ron realized they were running out of oxygen. He was about to tell Rosa to swim out when she ducked under the water. Disappointed, he still knew she made the right decision. Now the oxygen would last a little longer. Ron was struggling with still another length of tape when Rosa’s hand suddenly appeared out of the water holding an Exacto knife. Her face followed, smiling broadly.

Ron smiled back, grabbed the knife, and sliced off tape, pressing it down firmly over Chris’s mouth. Chris began to breathe deeply through his nose, with an alarming liquid sound to it.

“Okay, Rosa, time to go.”

Rosa hesitated, her eyes reflecting her concern. “I can help with Chris,” she offered.

“You wait on the other side for him and help pull him up.”

Rosa nodded, sucked in a deep breath, and disappeared into the liquid gloom. Ron gave her time to swim out, then moved Chris to the opening. He had to push him under a couple of feet of water, through the cabin door, and then out past the helm to the surface. A short swim, but it would be difficult with a dead weight. Ron determined to do it the first time, took several deep breaths, then clamped the clothespin on Chris’s nose. Chris immediately began puffing against the tape and Ron saw it wouldn’t hold long. He shoved his son down into the water and tried to follow him, but Chris kept bobbing upward. After a couple of attempts he grabbed a fistful of Chris’s shirt with one hand, the edge of the door with the other, and pulled Chris toward the opening, like propelling a slow-motion torpedo, Ron strained, trying to push Chris lower with one arm so he would clear the opening and not bang his injured head on the door frame. Chris moved toward the opening slowly at first, and then more quickly.

Now Ron let go of the frame and pushed Chris down with both hands. As the boy filled the opening Ron realized he had overcompensated. Chris was going to clear the top and right door frame easily, but not the left frame. Ron didn’t want to slow Chris’s momentum so he tried to change his course. He managed to keep the child’s head from hitting the side, but the frame scraped down his forehead and then along his nose. When the clothespin scraped off, the convulsions started.

Chris began twitching and jerking, and clawing frantically. Ron tried to steady the boy, but one flailing leg caught Ron in the solar plexus and the air exploded from his lungs. He tried to stay under, but the breathing reflex drove him to the surface. He broke into the air pocket again, filling his lungs with the oxygen-poor air as the water churned with Chris’s struggles. Although he needed more oxygen, he forced his mouth closed and his head back in the water; still, he wouldn’t be able to stay down long. To his horror, he saw Chris’s body still flailing violently, but slower.

Suddenly Chris shot forward through the opening. Surprised, Ron returned to the air pocket, gasping in the nearly spent air, and then dove, following Chris.

Ron came up gasping, the sea air quickly flushing his system of the excess carbon dioxide, and was surprised and relieved to see Carmen helping Rosa shove Chris up onto the hull of the
Entrepreneur.
Ron pushed the boy from below and then climbed up carefully. The boat was still pitching from the aftermath of the tidal wave, although the breeze had died down. Ron looked at the sky: black, not a star in sight.

On the hull Rosa was pulling Chris along behind her while Carmen pushed. It took Ron a minute to see that Chris was moving his legs, trying to help himself along. Relief spread through Ron; his son was conscious—not the same as okay, but in the right direction. He watched helplessly as Carmen took off her life jacket and helped Chris into it. The thought of diving back under the hull sent shivers through Ron, but they needed supplies if they were going to survive.

Ron relaxed, let gravity pull him into the wet blackness, and then dove under the hull. Once inside he didn’t bother trying to breathe the stale air; instead he held his breath and pulled open the bunk exposing the storage chest. Survival food and bottled water tumbled out. He grabbed two water jugs and headed back to the surface. He left one jug just inside the door and pulled the other to the surface. His lungs ached when he reached the surface again.

“Carmen! Reach this. I’m going back for more.”

Ron found the second jug easily and passed it up to Carmen.

“Ron, what about the life raft? Can you get that?”

The. inflatable life raft was strapped to the bow just in front of the cabin. It was packed with survival gear and a canopy. Ron hesitated. He couldn’t be sure it was still strapped to the deck.

The
Entrepreneur
had taken quite a beating. His family was temporarily safe on the hull, and he was retrieving food and water they would need. If he tried to unstrap the raft, he would have to do it upside down, underwater, and it might take several dives. He decided on another trip for the gear in the cabin first and was about to dive again when Carmen called down to him.

“Ron, is there a life jacket for Rosa?”

Suddenly, Ron was mortified. In his worry about Chris, he had forgotten about Carmen’s child. Ron dove again, and found a life jacket floating in the cabin and wrestled it down and through the opening. It snagged on something on the way out and he had to get another breath before he could free it. Carmen’s smile when he tossed her the life jacket meant he could forgive himself.

Nearly exhausted, Ron decided it was time to get the raft. Ron paddled forward to the bow, took several deep breaths, and then dove. He found the raft almost immediately and felt for the straps that held it to the deck. The strap catches were still holding but one of the straps was loose, its cleat torn away.

The raft had a length of cord with a loop on the end, for looping around the arm or leg. Then, when you tossed the raft overboard, you pulled the inflation ring, and the rope would keep the inflated raft from drifting out of reach.

Confident he could locate all the raft’s features, Ron returned to the surface to replenish his air supply. On the swim back, he ran into the railing. Now he was getting tired and making mistakes. He wouldn’t be able to do many more trips without resting. As soon as he broke the surface he heard Carmen’s warning.

“Ron! There’s something coming, another wave!”

Ron used most of his remaining energy to sprint to the stern and climb up the rudder. Chris was sitting with his head down, but Carmen and Rosa were staring into the night. Ron turned to their direction and spotted the wave. It was almost on them. Although much smaller than the first wave, it would be even more dangerous. Even in the dark the wave was a chocolate brown color, and full of debris—even whole trees—from the island. The
Entrepreneur
dipped into the trough before the wave, nearly rocking them off the hull, then started to rise as it climbed the wave. As it climbed it started to roll. Then something hit the
Entrepreneur
hard, shaking the hull and tilting it even farther. Chris slid off first, but Carmen and Rosa went with him, their hands gripping his life jacket. As Ron went over he heard pounding and tearing as the
Entrepreneur’s
hull took the beating of the debris. Some swept over the hull, pounding down mud, leaves, and limbs on Ron and his family. Something huge hit the
Entrepreneur,
and Ron felt himself being pulled under the hull by an undertow and fought to stay on top.

Suddenly the wave smashed a tree trunk into the hull of the Entrepreneur, nearly splitting it in two. Splinters from the hull showered the family, and everyone tried to kick away from it as the muddy wave finished halving the boat.