Storm Tide (3 page)

“It's the man. He's moaning.” Ellen and I are up and looking over the gunwale of the boat in a second. My heart pounds fast. The man hasn't moved, but he is making noise.

“He's alive!” says Ellen. We smile at each other in relief.

We manage to pull the man out of the boat. He opens his eyes for a second and moans.

“Hey, are you okay?” I ask.

He doesn't answer. His body goes limp, and we have to put our arms around his waist and half carry, half drag him onto the trail. It's too narrow for the three of us, so we walk sideways in single file with me in front, then the man, then Ellen. Normally it takes ten minutes to walk from the far side of the bay to the boat shed. Today it takes ages. Every few seconds we have to stop to rest. I am panting and soaked through with sweat. I've never felt so hungry in my life. All I want is to reach home and hand this man over to Mom and Dad. I don't even have the energy to talk.

When we emerge from the bush and see the boat shed ahead of us, I say, “Oh no!” Mom and Dad aren't back. The shed is just as we left it. There's no motorboat.

“I thought they'd be back by now,” says Ellen, sounding like she is about to cry.

We lower the man onto the ground and stand there with our arms hanging loose. Neither of us moves.

“What should we do?” says Ellen. She looks exhausted. She must be, if she's asking for my advice. But I'm exhausted too, so I just shake my head.

The man moans again, and I take a deep breath and pull myself together. “We have to get him inside. He's soaked. He needs to get warm.” Ellen nods. We pick him up and start walking again, this time a little faster.

Inside, we head straight for the sofa. We bend down and let the man fall onto the seat. He slides down so that he is lying across the cushions. He lies there for a second, then turns over and throws up.

“Ohhhh…gross,” I say. The salty stink of it fills the air. I think I am going to be sick myself, so I run out of the room. I calm myself and head for the radio to call the coast guard.

“Discovery Lighthouse to coast guard, come in. Over.” I say.

No answer.

“Discovery Lighthouse to coast guard, come in. Over.”

“We read you, Discovery Lighthouse.

Simon, how's it going over there? Over.”

“Mark, is that you?” I ask. “We need you to send an ambulance.”

“Are you two okay?”

“We're okay, but we hauled some guy out of the water. He needs to get to the hospital. Can you send an ambulance?”

“No can do, kiddo. Can't send anyone out in weather like this. Where is he now?”

“We've got him here with us. In the living room.”

“Keep him warm. We'll send someone when it calms down.”

I slowly put down the handset.

I try Mom and Dad on the boat, but I don't really expect them to answer. There's no way they would be out in this weather. We don't have landlines or cell phones on the island. I keep bugging Mom about it, but so far she hasn't budged on the issue. Too expensive, she says. If only she knew what was happening now.

I walk back to the living room. Ellen is cleaning up the mess with one hand and pinching her nose with the other. She looks up at me. “When will they get here?” she asks.

I shrug. “Mark says they can't send someone in this weather.”

“Mom and Dad?”

“No answer.”

Ellen's whole body sags. We look at the man lying on the sofa. He's breathing, but he looks unconscious. Then Ellen looks at me. “What are we going to do?”

Chapter Six

Ellen drops the rag into the bucket and stands up. She runs the back of her hand across her eyes. I think she's about to lose it, but she takes a deep breath, puts her hands in prayer position and closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath. “It's okay,” she says. “We can deal with this. Look at you. You're shivering. Go upstairs and change out of those wet clothes. I'll do the same, and then we'll make some tea. We'll make some extra in case he wakes up. It will warm him up. But first, let's prop up his head in case he needs to throw up again.”

Wow. I'm impressed. Not that I'd ever tell Ellen, but what she just did was totally cool. Hearing her take control makes me feel calm. I nod and grab a pillow from the armchair while Ellen lifts the man's head. I place the pillow under him and throw a blanket over him. Then I run upstairs and change.

After we've had some hot tea, I feel better. I have stopped shivering, but now I'm starting to feel nervous again. I don't like the look of this man. His beard is ragged, and his shoes have holes in them. I can't help wondering what he was doing out on the water in such bad weather. Why did he pitch that tent without asking? And why did he take it down so suddenly? What is he doing here?

A branch of the tree growing next to the house hits the wall. That's some wind out there. I shiver. The lights flicker, then go out. It's only three o'clock, but the sky is very dark from the storm. With the power out, the house is dark.

“Oh no.” Ellen looks out the window.

I don't have to ask what she's thinking.

There's no way Mom and Dad are out in the boat in this wind.

“They're not going to get home soon, are they?” I ask. Ellen shakes her head. I close my eyes and take a ragged breath. This is
so
not the day I was hoping for.

Ellen and I take turns sitting with the man. He lies there, snoring sometimes. When it's my turn, I light as many candles as I can to brighten the room, and I pull the armchair close to the couch so that I can see if he's breathing. I try to read my book, but I'm so tired that I nod off sitting in the armchair. I wake with a start when I hear talking.

It's the man.

I sit upright and shake my head to clear my mind. Then I lean over so that I can hear what he's saying. The candles have almost all burned out, so I can just make out his face. His eyes are closed. He's talking in his sleep.

“Gerhe trtre trea sureofjuan fuca…”

“What?” I whisper.

“Trtre trea sureofjuan fuca,” he says again.

Am I hearing right? Fuca what? I almost giggle. Puka? Does he want to puke again? Or is he trying to say something else?

Ellen's asleep in the other chair. I poke her shin with my foot. “Wake up.”

She opens her eyes, then straightens up. “What?”

I point to the man. “Listen.”

We wait. In a few minutes, he says it again.

“Trtre trea sureofjuan fuca…”

“Huh?” The look on her face makes me laugh. She laughs too. Soon we are laughing so hard, we can't stop.

“Fuca, fuca, fuca,” he calls out.

That gets us laughing again, but our laughter is close to crying. Both of us are feeling tired and crazy.

Chapter Seven

Ellen takes a turn watching the man, so I go to bed for a while, even though it's only about six o'clock. I fall asleep so fast, I don't even have time to pull down the covers. But soon Ellen is waking me up.

“Hurry,” she says and runs out of the room. I am instantly awake, my heart pounding. I remember everything about the day. The tent, the boat ride, the man.

Oh no, what's happened now?

Ellen is standing behind the armchair in the living room, and the man is pacing between the chairs and sofa. With each step he flings his arms in the air.

“Calm down,” she says.

He ignores her. “I have to get it. Where's my bag? NOW!” he shouts.

“Get what?” I ask. He spins around to look at me.

“Oh good, you're here. I figured it out. The riddle, the map. It all makes sense now.”

Is he talking to me?

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“De Fuca's treasure. It all makes sense now.” He leans in close to me and whispers, “It's taken me a year to translate that riddle. I'm not missing this chance. De Fuca's treasure!” He lurches forward and grabs my collar. “WHERE IS MY BAG?” I pull back, wrenching my shirt free. He turns after me as I run around the chair to the other side of the room. “MY BAG,” he shouts again. I run over to Ellen, and we huddle behind the armchair.

“He's hallucinating. He thinks I'm someone else,” I whisper to Ellen.

“No kidding,” she whispers back.

He lunges toward us. I can feel Ellen trembling, so I push her behind me and step in front of the chair. “What kind of treasure is it? What riddle are you talking about?”

The man stops and peers down his nose at me. For a second he looks like he's going to get crazy again, but then he sways and reaches out to steady himself. Slowly, he sinks onto the sofa and lies back. His body shivers for a few seconds, but then he's still. I bend over and snap my fingers in his face, but he doesn't respond. Ellen lets out a loud breath behind me.

“That was scary,” she says.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Ellen's whole body is shaking as she lowers herself into the armchair. “You were cool, Simon. Standing up to him like that.”

I'd never admit it to her, but hearing those words makes me happy. “Thanks,” I say. I bend over the man again and snap my fingers just to make sure he's passed out. Nothing. Nothing at all. Is he even breathing? The last thing we need now is for him to stop breathing. I put my ear to his mouth. A puff of air hits my ear. He's breathing.

I look at Ellen. “Do you think he's in trouble?” I ask.

“I think we'd better find this tent of his and see if his bag is in it,” she says.

“So you believe me now, do you?” I ask.

Ellen begins to give me one of her looks, but then she says, “He might have some ID in there. He's not looking good, and I want to be able to tell the ambulance guys who he is.”

“When we get an ambulance,” I say glumly.

“Yeah.”

I stand up and look out the window. It's still really windy, and it's totally dark. Our options are to stay inside with a crazy man, who may or may not start hallucinating again, or to go outside and look for a tent. I look longingly at the radio, but I know that no one is coming any time soon. Not Mom and Dad, not the coast guard—no one.

I nod. “Let's go. The less time I have to spend with this man, the better.”

We put on warm coats and grab flashlights. When Ellen opens the door, it swings wide open and the wind hits us. We struggle up the path and over the short hill until we are facing the light tower. As soon as we see it, we both stop. Ellen turns to me.

“Uh-oh.”

I know exactly what she means. In all the excitement, neither of us remembered that we were supposed to check the barometer, make sure the rain meter was okay, take a look at the sunshine recorder and check that the light was working properly.

“We'd better go in and check things. Then we'll look for the tent,” I say. Ellen nods, and we head to the tower.

The wind is so strong that it takes both of us to open the door. We grab the handle and pull. At first it won't open at all, but once we get it open a crack, it swings wide. We tumble inside and pull the door closed behind us.

We race up the spiral staircase and look around. The tower light is fueled by diesel, so even when the power goes out, it still works. Things seem to be okay up here. It only takes us a few minutes to check the barometer and thermometer and write out a weather report for Dad to send in the morning.

We climb back down the stairs more slowly.

“Now we have to figure out where the tent is. How are we going to find it in the middle of a storm?” I have hardly said these words when I see something beside the stairs.

I swing my flashlight over to take a closer look. Gray fabric. I bend over and pull it out. The tent!

The man has left it in a heap. Ellen pulls one end and I pull the other until we find the door. The space at the bottom of the stairs is too small to spread the tent out, so I'm going to have to crawl inside it to take a look.

“What a mess,” says Ellen. “How could he leave his tent like this? What was he thinking?”

“Here goes,” I say as I shove my head in the door hole. Once I'm, in I stand up, using my arms to hold up the sides. Ellen shines her flashlight through the doorway so I can see. There's a pile of clothes and a sleeping bag in the center, so I shuffle my feet around them a bit, but there doesn't seem to be anything interesting there. Right beside the door is a small mesh pocket with a plastic bag in it. I bend over and pull the bag out.

“Shine your flashlight over here,” I call out. Ellen's head appears in the doorway, and she shines her flashlight on my hands. I open the bag. Inside is a small leather pouch, which I open too. Inside that are two pieces of paper. One is a handwritten letter.

The other is a map.

Chapter Eight