Cry for the Strangers

The net was still feeding swiftly over the side, the winch spinning free.

Shelling sank once more below the surface. The net was all around him now and he no longer had room to kick. He thrashed his arms, but with his legs bound and useless in the grip of the heavy mesh, his struggles did no good.

Pete Shelling knew he was going to die.

Fear rose up in his gorge. He forced it back. Slowly, methodically, he began letting air out of his bursting lungs. He felt himself losing his buoyancy, and for an instant his fear left him. As soon as he breathed air in, the buoyancy would return. Then he remembered that there was no air to breathe. Only water.

He steeled himself to suck the sea into his lungs, and was mildly surprised to find that he couldn’t do it. His muscles steadfastly refused to obey the messages he sent them. His throat closed. He began to feel himself dying.

When at last he relaxed and the sea found its way in, Pete Shelling changed his mind. He wouldn’t die. He would fight back. The sea would not defeat him.

He thrashed again, thrashed wildly against the entangling nets, his weakening arms struggling against the bonds.

Then suddenly, almost miraculously, he broke the surface. But it was too late. His eyes searched wildly for help, but there was no one. He tried to scream, but was too choked with salt water for any sound to emerge. He sank back below the surface.

As Pete Shelling died, he tried to analyze the strange vision that was his last glimpse of the world. A boat. There seemed to be a boat. Not his own Sea Spray, but a smaller one. And a face. A dark face, almost like an Indian. But it couldn’t have been, of course. He was alone on the sea, alone in a storm that had blown up from nowhere. He was dying alone. There was nothing — only the last desperate hope of a drowning man.

The sea drowned the hope, and the man.

When sunrise came, hours later, Sea Spray floated peacefully on a calm sea, her nets spread around her like the tired skirts of an exhausted woman who has stayed too late and danced too long.

Pete Shelling had long since disappeared. The Sea Spray, alone in the ocean, seemed to mourn him.

2

Brad Randall glanced at his watch and saw that his stomach and the instrument on his wrist were, as usual, perfectly synchronized.

“Lunchtime?” his wife asked, reading his mind.

“I can go another half hour, but then I’ll get grouchy,” Brad said. “Any place around here look promising?”

Elaine reached for the map that lay neatly folded on the dashboard. “Unfortunately, they don’t put anything on road maps except the names of the towns,” she said dryly. “No evaluations.” She glanced at the map briefly, then looked out the window. “God, Brad, it’s so beautiful out here.”

They were driving south on Route 101 along the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula. For the last hour, ever since they had passed Crescent Lake, the road had wound through lush green forests, choked with underbrush so dense that Elaine had several times wondered aloud how anyone could have cut through it to build the highway. Then the forest had given way to beach, and just as they had arrived at the coast the cloud cover had broken. To their right the Pacific Ocean lay sparkling in the late morning sun, a stiff breeze frosting it with whitecaps. To the left the dense forest rose steeply to the towering heights of the Olympic Range, standing as a proud barrier between the ocean to the west and Puget Sound to the east.

“Let’s stop,” Elaine said suddenly. “Please? Just for a few minutes?”

Brad paused, considering, then looked once more at his watch. “Okay, but remember: just a few minutes. And remember that there is no more room in the trunk for driftwood.”

He veered the car off the road and came to a stop, then turned his full attention to the beach. It was, indeed, beautiful. Between the road and the sand the ever-present tangle of driftwood formed a silvery barrier that promised hidden treasures for the persistent beachcomber. And Elaine Randall was persistent. Before Brad had even made his way around the car she was clambering over the driftwood, poking here and there, picking up pieces of flotsam, evaluating them against the memory of things she had already collected, then discarding them in the hope of finding something better in the next nook. Brad watched with amusement; During their two weeks on the peninsula Elaine had filled and emptied the trunk of their car at least three times — throwing away yesterday’s “perfect” piece of driftwood in favor of today’s, which would in turn be discarded tomorrow.

He began making his way toward her, knowing from experience that his help would be required to haul her finds back to the car. He was only a few yards from her when Elaine gave a whoop of victory.

“I found one!” she cried. “I finally found one!” She held a sparkling blue object aloft and Brad knew immediately that it was one of the Japanese fishing floats she had sworn to find before going home.

“Great,” he called. “Now can we have lunch?”

If she heard him she gave no sign — she was totally engrossed in examining the float, as if looking for the flaw that ought to be there; to find a perfect one was almost too much good luck. But it was perfect. Elaine looked happily up at her husband as he settled next to her on the log.

“It’s not even chipped,” she said softly. She held it up to the light and watched the dancing refraction of the sun through the blue glass. “It’s an omen,” she declared.

“An omen?”

She grinned impishly. “Of course. It means we’re going to find the right place today.”

“We’d better,” Brad said gloomily. “If we don’t, we’re in trouble. There aren’t many more places left to look.”

Elaine stood up decisively. “Come on,” she said. “Back to the car with you. I’m going to look at the map, and I’ll bet the first place I pick will be exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

In the car Elaine carefully packed the sparkling blue globe in her purse, then picked up the map.

“Clark’s Harbor,” she announced.

“Clark’s Harbor?” Brad repeated. “Where is it?”

“About twenty miles south.”

Brad shrugged. “It’ll do for lunch.” He started the engine, put the car in gear, then pressed the accelerator. Beside him, Elaine settled confidently in her seat.

“You seem awfully sure,” Brad said. “And you’re thinking about more than a place for lunch.”

“I am.”

“Mind telling me why?”

“I told you — the float is an omen. Besides, it sounds right. ‘I’m in Clark’s Harbor writing a book.’ It sounds very professional. And of course you’re going to write a very professional book.”

“I wonder,” Brad mused with a sudden sense of misgiving. “Am I making a big mistake? I mean, taking a whole year off just to write a book that might not even sell—”

“Of course it will sell,” Elaine declared. “Millions of people will gobble it up.”

“A book on bio-rhythms?”

“All right,” she said, unconcerned. “So it’ll only be hundreds of thousands.”

“Tens of tens, more likely,” Brad said darkly.

Elaine laughed and patted his knee. “Even if it doesn’t sell at all, who cares? We can afford the year off, and I can’t imagine a better place to spend the time than out here. So even if the book is only an excuse to spend a few months at the beach — which it isn’t, of course—” she added quickly, “it’s still worth it.”

“And what about my patients?”