Far From The Sea We Know

CHAPTER 5

  Matthew slept that night in a cheap boarding house near the Point. He had an arrangement to use a small room three or four days a week. This saved him traveling back and forth for lectures and classes, but it never felt like home.

  Just before his alarm went off in the morning, something pulled him with a start from a troubled sleep. Already five o’clock, but felt more like the middle of night. The spring break had allowed him to make extra money fishing but had prevented him from catching up on his sleep. He had already received an extension on some of his school projects, and now he would be missing classes. Doctor Bell’s assurances the night before, that he would square things with his professors seemed vague in the early light of morning. No way to back out now, though, so he pulled himself up from bed and got ready.

  He drove out to meet the floatplane, munching on the leftover pie Margaret Bell had given him the night before. Doubts came drifting back and took their well-worn place at his side. How easily he had jumped on board, not taking even a moment to think it through. Even though he had been asked to go, if the quest proved a fruitless, it was hard to believe that there would be no costs.

  As he drove, his thoughts wandered to a trip he had made with his parents as a boy. They had gone on a short holiday and had taken him to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. He had stood for a long time, transfixed, in front of one particular exhibit. It demonstrated the predictability of what seemed at first to be random actions. A steady cascade of marbles tumbled down a peg-strewn board. Bouncing in all directions off the pegs, the marbles finally landed wherever they might. Collectively, however, they always filled up the same space in the end: a symmetrical shape painted on the board. From high in the middle, the curve tapered out to nothing at the sides. The inevitability of this outcome, repeated over and over, seemed to make a mockery of the freedom of the marbles’ fall.

  To break his mood, he scanned back and forth along the road and adjusted the rearview mirror. The memory lingered, however, of the pattern repeating itself endlessly, the outcome never exactly the same, yet in some depressing way, always the same.

  Matthew turned down a small hill, slowed the pickup and coasted to a stop. The inlet was before him, quiet in the lingering haze. As well as being close to the Bells’ house, it was convenient for the pilot who would be taking them north. Leaving from here would save them valuable time, and they should be standing on the deck of the Valentina before the end of the day. He looked at the cheap digital watch he had glued onto the dashboard of his old truck, then gazed up through his open window. He heard nothing, and saw but a few clouds that were already taking their leave. Sunlight, breaking though in the distance, briefly illuminated the headlands to the west.

  He slowly scanned the entire inlet, enjoying the moment of peace, comfortable to be alone until his mind wandered back to Penny. He looked again at the watch on the dashboard and hoped she won’t be late.

  Then an arm cut through the water’s surface from below, shimmering in the sun like liquid glass. It was Penny. He got out of his truck and watched as she sliced through the wavelets with long, well-paced strokes. There were no other cars in sight, so someone must have dropped her off earlier. Now he noticed her gear, lying in the tall grass near an outcropping of rock by the water’s edge. She was heading straight to it.

  Matthew walked over to wait for her, but she was there before he was.

  “Morning,” he said, stepping onto the small rock ledge. “Chilly in there?”

  She said nothing, seemingly oblivious to him. How could she stand the cold? He offered her a hand, but she ignored it and with her arms and a quick kick, sprang up out of the water onto the rock like a seal. Her black bathing suit clung to her body like a second skin, completing the effect. Gooseflesh prickled her arms and legs. She looked up at Matthew, squinting through water that ran down her forehead and face in gleaming rivulets. Suddenly, she shook her head and hair, sending sprays of water everywhere including into his eyes.

  “That woke me up,” she said. “How you doing?”

  “Fine, I guess,” he said, opening his eyes again. “Fine.”

  “Maybe you could hand me my towel.”

  He looked around, back and forth until she said, “You’re standing on it.”

  “Oh, sorry…here.”

  The low rumble of an engine came faintly to their ears at first, but continued to get louder until a floatplane appeared over the trees to the north. It circled around just once and made a lumbering, yet elegant, descent into the waiting water.

  “That thing looks as old as my grandmother,” Penny said, towel-drying her hair.

  “It’s a de Havilland. You still see them, especially north of here.”

  “Great. Will it get us there?”

  “Built like a bridge. It won’t be all that swift, but it should get us there all right.”

  The pilot taxied toward them, then let off the throttle, the propeller now moving so slowly that it was visible, and the canoe-sized twin pontoons sank deeper into the water.

  “I should wade out to help him,” Penny said. “I don’t think he’ll make it.”

  “Oh, he will. Anyway, he’s got a paddle strapped on, see there?”

  The engine cut out and the door opened to reveal a reedy character with a high altitude sunburn and a manic smile hiding in a beard. He leaned out and gave a wave, then scampered down to the nearest pontoon in one practiced movement. To Matthew, the pilot looked like Charles Manson in hip boots.

  When the plane had drifted close enough, the pilot leapt off into the shallow water and allowed the plane to beach itself on the gravel. Then he pushed the tail around so that the plane faced away from them.

  “See?” Matthew said. “We won’t even have to get our feet wet. Okay, let’s…”

  Penny began passing her gear to the pilot before the end of his sentence.

  His bags!

  They were still in his truck, and he raced off to get them.

  By the time he got back, they had loaded Penny’s things and were waiting only for him. Penny now stood on the pontoon near the passenger door. He passed her his big duffel first.

  “Got it?”

  With some effort, she heaved it half into the doorway and held it while the pilot got a grip on the other end.

  “Sorry,” Matthew said. “Too many books, I guess.” But she was listening to the pilot speaking and didn’t seem to hear him.

  A sun break opened in the clouds, sending a dazzle of light off the water into his eyes. Suddenly he had that familiar feeling. Why had he involved himself and why, again, was he risking all that he had worked so hard to attain?

  “Matthew?”

  “Yeah,” and he reached for the closest of his remaining bags.

  “No, the other one next,” the pilot said. “I got a ton of junk I’m taking up for someone else, but we’ll squeeze it all in, I guess. Going fishing? Where’s your boat? I could strap it on for a little extra. Drag, you know, uses more fuel, got to at least pretend I’m running a profit-making business. I’m Brian, but everyone calls me Skimmer. Not my idea, they just do ’cause I clip a few trees now and then, have to if you want to get into the short strips…”

  He kept up this stream of jabber, as they secured the last of the gear with chains.

  “That all of it, friends?”

  “Yeah,” Matthew said, “I guess. I’ll just do the idiot check.”

  He ran to his truck and, sure enough, found his hat and sunglasses. Penny probably hadn’t forgotten anything. He left the keys under the seat, hoping that Doctor Bell would remember to have his truck picked up, then raced back to the plane.

  “Watch your head as you get in,” the pilot said, as Matthew stepped on a pontoon. “My last passenger cracked his a good one.”

  Penny sat tying her sneakers and did not look up as he stuck his head in. Matthew looked toward the back, where their gear had joined a larger conglomeration of just about everything imaginable. Though piled on and wedged in be
tween the seats, it looked like the weight of the load was in balance. Only three seats, including the one next to the pilot, remained free.

  Matthew took the seat next to Penny, easing himself in behind the pilot, who was flipping switches and checking his gauges.

  Penny was still in her swimsuit and was already strapped in with her clothes on her lap. Though she must have been cold, Matthew could feel the heat from her body.

  “Somewhere back there, there’s a blanket if you need it,” Skimmer said. “Miss, you’re a tough one to take a plunge this early. It shouldn’t be cold upstairs, though. Won’t be flying much over a thousand. I got so used to staying low because of the weather around here, and I get nosebleeds if I go any higher. Joke, that last one. Looks good today, though, lucky for us, and yeah, wear the headset next to you, or you won’t be able to hear a thing over the engine.”

  Then he just sat there, grinning at them, as unmoving as a gargoyle. Finally, he said, “Just waiting for the word, mon Capitan.”

  “You have it.”

  “So, okay,” he said, hitting a few more switches. “We’ll set down briefly at Victoria to clear customs and—hey! What, this again?” He knocked his knuckles a few times on the instrument panel. “I guess we can live with it. Okay, here we go.”

  Skimmer gave the wobble pump a stroke to get the fuel moving, then hit the starter. The propeller kicked over slowly, then seemed to start firing one cylinder at a time, wheezing puffs of blue smoke for a few turns, until the engine settled into a slow, lazy idle. The motor sounded healthy, Matthew was glad enough to admit. He buckled his seat belts.

  Out the window, Matthew saw a wedge of geese coming up across the inlet. Their honking was not audible over the engine, but he could imagine the sound.

  “Okay, folks,” Skimmer said. “Here we go, off into the great and wild blue! Hang on and keep cool. Ah, warm’d be better, I guess, kind of cool up there…”

  Skimmer gave the engine full throttle and Matthew was glad to have the headset against the noise. Nevertheless, the sonorous thrum of the engine vibrating through his rib cage was some solace to his doubts about the pilot. The aircraft, at least, was well maintained.

  They started moving, slowly at first, then quickly came up to speed as the pontoons began to lift from the embrace of the water. The slight feeling of release of suction as they broke free was familiar to Matthew from the few other trips like this he had taken. Skimmer pulled up toward the sun as if it might be their true destination before finally leveling out to a northern heading.

  No one had said a word for the first twenty minutes of flight. Penny reached into a rucksack stashed near her seat and pulled out a thermos.

  “Like some coffee, Skimmer?” she said.

  “I usually suck on grapes to save wear and tear on the ol’ bladder. But I guess it won’t be too long before we set down at Victoria for customs.”

  “How about you, Matthew?” Penny said, as she suddenly broke into an impossibly wide grin. “A cup of java will set you right.”

  “Well…”

  “As long as we’re at it,” Skimmer said, “you’ll find some doughnuts back there on the left in that carrier bag. You folks look like you’ve been in small planes before. Help yourself, as long as you’re sure you can keep it down. A guy I ran up last week had to speak to God on the great white telephone, only remember, I don’t have one.”

  Skimmer noticed the puzzled look on Matthew’s face. “A toilet, catch? Well, he couldn’t manage the bag I gave him so, instead, he lost his lunch right where you’re sitting, all over that seat. And guess who does cleanup later? Used that pet stuff, but it still might be a bit fragrant, sorry. Much obliged if you’d pour me a coffee. Cups are in there.”

  Matthew fished mugs out of an old toolbox Skimmer was using as a larder.

  “No cream for me,” Skimmer said. “Black and bitter, like my life. Hah!”

  Penny scrutinized the pilot intently for a moment. Then, with the hint of a look toward Matthew, she retrieved the paper bag and placed a doughnut, or Spudnut as the label indicated, on a paper napkin within Skimmer’s reach. She tilted the open bag toward Matthew.

  “No thanks.”

  “They don’t look too greasy,” she said, peering into the bag in the bright morning light. She took one and held out her other hand to Matthew. “Yeah, pour me a black one, too.”

  He filled her mug, managing to not spill a drop in the swaying plane, and then another for himself, ignoring the cream and sugar.

  “Coffee, black, all around,” Skimmer said as he lifted his mug in their direction. “Here’s to ya. Even warmer than I reckoned it’d be up here, so I’m going to open the window a tad. Holler, if it gets too much.” He turned back to the controls.

  After she finished her coffee, Penny started leafing through some papers in a soft leather case.

  “I found this last night and downloaded it,” she said, handing a small sheaf of papers to Matthew. “It’s from a research site I have access to, paid memberships only, highly reputable. This woman has been doing a study on reports of animals showing up in odd places. Places where they don’t belong. She must have great credentials or they would never have listed something like this. I suppose you could consider it a branch of cryptozoology. From what I can see, she did a quality investigation, well documented.”

  “I believe I heard about this somewhere,” Matthew said.

  “I doubt it.”

  “I did.”

  “Okay, you did. In any case, she was able to eliminate most reports right away: zoo escapes, hoaxes, and so on. The instances she was left with all involved highly credible people, some truly fascinating cases that no one has ever been able to explain. Would you believe kangaroos in Nova Scotia, for instance?”

  “Not unless they escaped from a zoo or something,” he said. He felt a slight sneer take over his face and wished it had not. “It’s just that I’m not really interested in the paranormal.”

  “Well, who but an idiot could be? The important point here is that others have described incidents similar to what you reported.”

  “If you can believe them.”

  “As I said, if you were listening, she only included reports from highly reliable people. Forest rangers, state troopers. In other words, people with training in observation. That makes this at least worth considering. We’re taking your report seriously, after all…”

  “Okay. Yes, you’re right. I didn’t get much sleep last night, sorry if I’m a little dull,” he said. “Maybe this coffee will help.” He poured the rest down his throat, grateful for once that it was not hot.

  Penny poured a little more in her mug and took her first bite of the doughnut.

  “Mmm, not bad at all,” she said. “Sure you don’t want to try some? Here.” She thrust her doughnut under his nose.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She took another big bite and devoured the whole thing in two more mouthfuls.

  Matthew stared into his coffee for a moment, then looked up at her. She was watching his other hand, which had unconsciously rolled his napkin into a small tight ball.

  “Was there anything else of interest in this study?” he asked.

  “There were no cases of a witness to an animal’s appearance or disappearance, no case where someone saw that happen.”

  “Not surprising.”

  “What this researcher is documenting is only when an animal turns up someplace it shouldn’t. Not how it got there.”

  “Fine, but you don’t really believe they really teleport, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So, nothing new.”

  “No, but I’ve been thinking about how whales have the largest brains on the planet. And dolphins even larger compared to their body weight.”

  “It’s more complicated than brain to body weight.”

  “The old formulas for calculating intelligence capability are falling out of favor, and perhaps for goo
d reason. I sometimes think they were simply cooked up to keep humans at the head of the intelligence ranking.”

  “When I hear that, I remember an old fisherman who told me, ‘If those dolphins are so smart, how come they keep getting caught in our nets?’ He’s right.”

  “There may be other orders of intelligence.”

  “I’m sure there are, but though we might wish it otherwise, man is unique on this planet.”

  “Uniquely stupid more often than not.”

  The effort to talk over the engine noise left little energy for getting mad. Her attitude was annoying. So much like his own. “Okay,” he said, rubbing his eyes with his fingers, “brain size used to be one of the arguments that dolphins are an intelligent species, perhaps as intelligent as man. Or even more. The evidence suggests, however, that their brains haven’t changed that much over the last seventy million years compared to land animals and in some important areas are poorly developed. Sure, dolphins are smart, just not as smart as some might like to believe. And gray whales are even further down the scale, at least compared with dolphins and killer whales—”

  “You mean ‘orcas’?”

  “‘Killer whale’ is the more common name.”

  “Aren’t they really dolphins?”

  She was right, of course. He took an overdue deep breath.

  “Yes, but ‘killer’ certainly fits. In packs, they are known to attack a gray whale, eating the fins, then the lips and tongue, their favorite parts. All this while the whale is still alive, and the attack can go on for hours before it dies. They kill without mercy, and perhaps not despite their level of intelligence, but because of it.”

  “Thanks for the lesson,” she said after a while.

  “I’m sorry, but people are always romanticizing these animals because they’re beautiful.”

  “And they have rarely, if ever, attacked humans in the wild. If they did,” she said, smiling, “they would have been wiped out years ago. Perhaps another indication of their intelligence?”

  “Folks,” Skimmer suddenly yelled over his shoulder, “we’re about five minutes from splash down at Victoria. Clearing customs shouldn’t take long. Penny, I was expecting the usual battery acid, but your coffee went down like silk.”

  “That’s because my mother made it.”