The Raft (13 page)

At least it was something to do.

Picking up the wood from the small pile, I carried it to the top of the dune, the best place for a signal fire. For about an hour, I hunted for wood, chose only the driest pieces, and ended up with a pretty good-size pile on top of the dune. A faded green plastic fishing float broken in two served well as a bucket as I went around collecting lighters. The float didn’t take long to fill, and I carried it back to the raft.

Max was there, sitting on what was left of it.

forty-one

My mouth fell open. “How are you here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “How are
you
here?”

I glanced out at the reef, where waves crashed into the outside. The same waves that had slammed the raft.

“Good question.”

The odds of someone making it to the beach after such a beating were probably pretty low. I touched my left eye. Maybe I was lucky to come through as unscathed as I had. I sat down beside him.

Max didn’t look that bad. I was glad not to be alone and I told him my plan.

I picked up a lighter and flicked the wheel, hoping for a flame. A spark. Some sign that it still worked. One by one, I went through my bucketful.

Disappointed every time, I tossed the rejects into a pile to be broken later, any fluid left in them to be poured on my signal fire. When I got to the bottom of the pile, I kicked the empty fishing float away.

“There are a lot more lighters,” said Max. “You only need one to get lucky.”

I nodded. “I’m not giving up. Just taking a break.” Off to the west, clouds gathered. “Maybe rain.” I picked up the fishing float to check for holes. To get rain, I’d have to set out some containers. I set off to see what I could find that would hold water.

I walked the beach around the bend, until I couldn’t see Max or the raft. Only after about ten minutes did I realize how tired I was. I found a warm, clean patch of sand and sat down, just for a moment’s rest. The sun was so warm, I lay back and shut my good eye.

A raucous croaking sound woke me.

I sat up. Too quickly, because I felt light-headed for a moment.

The sound continued, sounding like a massive, low-toned frog.

As I neared a dune, the sound was louder and I dropped to my knees and lay on top, so I could peek without being seen. Roughly thirty yards down the beach, a Hawaiian monk seal about six feet long with a dark coat lay with its back to me. The seal, more slender than most I’d seen, faced the water, calling and calling.

By the size of it, I figured the seal was female.

I glanced out where her gaze was focused, but didn’t notice anything.

There were Hawaiian monk seals at Midway, which was critical habitat for them, a place they needed in order to survive. Because with only about 1,300 monk seals left in the world, extinction was a very real possibility. So most of the beaches at Midway were off-limits to humans. If we did stumble upon a seal, we were supposed to stay a hundred yards away, and you risked getting sent packing if you disobeyed the rules.

Most of the time they just lay there on the beach, snoozing away, oblivious to any humans peering at them through a lens. I didn’t see how hiding behind napaka watching them was any more harmful than the stupid seal researchers catching them and taking blood samples. To me, that seemed way more traumatizing.

The seal cried out again. But the cry held something else this time. It was hard to tell, but the sound that came out of her mouth sounded like pain. And then she rolled onto her back.

I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth. I whispered,
“Sick
.
”

Her belly was slashed open, bleeding, with innards exposed and tumbling out.

The only thing that could do that kind of damage was a shark.

forty-two

Immediately, I looked out into the lagoon, but saw nothing in the water. The seal could have been fishing outside of the lagoon when it happened. That made more sense. Although with all the young albatross on the island leaving, or getting ready to leave, there probably were tiger sharks around. A lot of them.

My arms broke out in goose bumps.

The seal cried again. She tried to roll back the other way, but she got stuck. Then I saw one of her flippers had been bitten completely off. I don’t know how she even managed to make it ashore. Or why the shark didn’t finish her off.

Tears filled my right eye as I watched her suffer.

There was nothing I could do. Even if we’d been closer to civilization, closer to a marine mammal facility with specialized vets and equipment, I don’t know what they could do to help her.

We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing. And she was not going to heal on her own. She couldn’t grow another flipper.

Her cries dimmed, until they were raspy whimpers. She was in so much pain.

Tears spilled down my cheeks, even eking out from my bad eye.

Think. Figure it out.

I thought about what would have happened if this had been Midway. The biologist would have had to call the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, because they were in charge of the monk seals and their habitat.

And then?

The NMFS would have told them what to do.

Which was what?

Midway had no vet, no one qualified to operate. Even the medical person there for humans wasn’t qualified for that. Glancing again at her injuries, I doubted anyone anywhere knew how to fix her. Factor in the NMFS not being able to reach Midway for at least half a day, and there wasn’t much anyone on Midway could have done to help her.

With the back of my hand, I wiped off my tears and stood up.

It wasn’t in me to sit and watch her die.

Retreating down the dune, I began looking for something. Something hard and heavy.

A few pieces of driftwood lay strewn about on the beach, but they looked too light. In a bigger pile of marine debris, I found a broken board. As I hefted it, I knew that the board, combined with my current level of adrenaline and emotion, would work.

Still sniffling, I climbed back to the top of the dune and knelt.

The seal was moaning now, or what seemed like moaning. As close to human as an animal sound could get.

It was cruel, so cruel, to make her suffer when I could do something about it.

I couldn’t wait anymore.

She no longer faced me, so I walked quickly but softly until I was a few feet away. A slight breeze brushed my face.

I breathed in and got her smell.

A little fishy.

Salty.

She
was
the ocean.

Gripping the board in both hands, I lifted both arms over my head and steeled myself, gathering all my energy. I wanted to have to hit her only once because I didn’t know whether I could make myself do it a second time.

Just as I was ready to bring the board down, her head fell my way, both of her eyes looking up at mine. There was no surprise in her gaze. Like she expected me to be there. To help her.

As she looked at me, I swear she was crying.

“I’m so sorry…”

Then I cried out as I brought the board down as hard as I could.

forty-three

Tossing the board away, I sunk to my knees beside her, not even caring that she could rip into me if she was still alive.

But she wasn’t, that was clear. Nothing about her whispered life. Brushing past her whiskers, I held a hand in front of the slits that were her nostrils.

She wasn’t suffering anymore. But she had been one of only a few of her kind.

Endangered.

Harming an endangered animal resulted in fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Jail. I’d done way worse than
harm
. But I’d had no choice.

I set a hand on her head. Her eyes were still open.

Still full of tears.

Still so sad.

Still so … human.

With gentle hands, I closed them for her.

As I sat there beside her, my legs crossed, I reached out and lightly stroked her side.

I’d never touched a seal before.

Her dark skin was slick, smooth. I stroked her face, ran my fingers across her whiskers. “It’s okay now. You’re okay.”

Shaking my head, I wiped my eyes and looked out at the water.

Something moved in the waves.

Or it could have been my imagination.

Yet there it was again.

Something round.

A head.

A black shiny head.

Coming right toward me. No. Not toward me. Toward the seal.

“Oh, no. No. No, no, no.”

It couldn’t be.

Getting to my feet, I scrambled for the dune, diving out of sight. Then I crawled on my stomach to watch as the baby seal reached the shore and headed right for its dead mother.

I rolled onto my back, hands over my face.

I might as well have hit the baby over the head, because in killing the mother, I’d killed the baby too. And I wept.

forty-four

Lying on my stomach at the top of the dune, I watched through tears as the baby poked its nose against the dead mother, which was scarcely larger than the baby. That explained why the seal was so skinny. Mother monk seals don’t feed at all for the five or six weeks when they nurse their baby, surviving only on their existing blubber. They sometimes lose hundreds of pounds.

I propped up on my elbows.

The baby was beginning to molt, lose black fur in places. So taking into account the baby’s size and the state of its fur, it must have been just about ready to be weaned.

Maybe the baby had a chance to survive.

It made a guttural
braaaaap
!

The mother didn’t answer.

The baby wanted milk. It nosed around, poking its face into the gash in the mother’s side. Then it found one remaining nipple and, with its mother’s blood dripping from its whiskers, the baby nursed.

Unable to watch, I trudged back to the raft. Max was asleep or passed out; I couldn’t tell anymore. Would he want to eat…? I gagged.
No
. I couldn’t.

Later, I went back to check. The mother’s body was still there, but the baby was gone. I couldn’t bear the thought of the baby coming back to the dead body, again and again, as it lay there decomposing.

And I wanted the body gone so I wouldn’t have to look at it and be reminded of what I’d done.

I found my broken board and propped that under the dead seal as a lever, then pushed down on it. The body budged, but barely. So I sat with my back to it, dug my feet into the sand, and pushed.

Nothing.

I was already out of breath, but I knew the mechanics of my lever idea were sound and should work. So I tried again, heaving against the board with all my might. And the body rolled. Slowly but, still, it worked. After another roll, I bent over and leaned my hands on my knees, until I stopped panting.

The mother seal was on a slight incline and after a few more rolls, it went much more easily. Finally, it was at the water’s edge.

I was worn-out and couldn’t do anymore, so I sat about five feet up the beach and waited for the tide to take over. I watched the oncoming clouds and crossed my fingers they held rain. I was thirsty.

I lay back for just a moment and closed my eye.

Water lapped at my feet and woke me up. It took me a minute to realize where I was. I sat up.

The seal’s body was gone.

It was done. Just like that.

The baby would slowly forget its mother ever existed.

Then I heard it.

Bloop!

The body popped up about fifteen feet offshore, bobbing there.

Until, with scarcely a splash, the enormous red-and-white open maw of a tiger shark came up out of the water and chomped down. The shark lifted the entire seal out of the water and shook it, like a dog does a toy, before tossing it back in the water. Both disappeared.

My mouth dropped open and my heart pounded. I couldn’t breathe.

The shark had to have been close to fifteen feet long, maybe longer.

Bloop!

The back half of the seal popped up.

I gasped, on my feet in a second.

And the shark was there again, all teeth and fury. With one bite, the rest of the seal was gone.

My hands clutched at my chest as I tried to catch my breath. One word went around and around in my head; I couldn’t even think anything else. Because it was the only word that applied to what I’d just seen.

Monster.

forty-five

Just in case of rain, I spent the next hour or so hunting for water vessels. I found another couple of broken fishing floats and rinsed them out as best as I could without stepping too far into the water. My plan was to never set foot in that water again.

The evening brought rain. At first Max and I sat there openmouthed, letting the fresh water fill our mouths. It tasted faintly of salt, but it was delicious. “Maybe the rain is my silver parachute.”

Max didn’t answer.

At least filling my belly with water made me less hungry for a bit. As the rain continued, I stuck some sticks in the sand and hefted the raft on top, creating a pathetic, but dry little shelter to lie under. Well, partly dry. Next time I would know to do it before the rain started, then it would definitely be dry.

I slept for a while and then woke up to darkness, stomach rumbling. Even if I could scrounge up fishing gear, I couldn’t fish for anything in the reef. I couldn’t risk getting ciguatera. Which didn’t leave many options.

In the morning, I was determined to find food.

The small flat field between the raft and the highest dune had obviously been where most of the gooney nests were.

“Ouch!” I’d stepped on something sharp and I looked down. An albatross chick, only a skeleton, still half feathered with silvery black down, most of the body eaten by crabs. I grabbed a stick and probed inside the ribs, what used to be the gullet, poking at a pile of red plastic. Caps from plastic bottles, fake plastic cherries, even a red toy soldier missing one arm.