“I’m the only authority figure on this island,” Jo replied, weakly.
Matt laughed. “Lady, look around, this is the island. There’s only a handful of us. Probably better if you did go across, then you could find help and send it our way.”
“He’s got a point,” Reese prodded. “And they might need someone with your medical knowledge on the shore.”
Jo scoffed. “I ain’t no medic, just know some basic first aid.” She frowned. “I don’t know…”
“If nothing else, you can see what it’s like on shore and come back for more help,” Ben suggested. “Beats waiting around here until the Coast Guard shows up.”
“What the hay,” Jo said, shrugging. “Not like I got anything to do at the moment, is it?”
“Who’s going to run the ranger station?” asked a woman in the small crowd.
Jo grinned. “You are, honey. I’m retired.” She removed the badge from her uniform and tossed the brass emblem at the woman who spoke. “By the power vested in me by the state of Maine and the National Parks Service, I hereby name you the park ranger of Cadillac Mountain.”
“What?” the woman asked. “I’m in charge?”
“You’re in charge,” Jo said. She tipped her hat and removed the first aid bag from her shoulder, then tossed it at Reese. “I’ll be back,” she said to the new ranger. “I’m going to find help, then I’ll come back.” She stopped, one leg in the boat, the other on shore. “Unless I don’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen, honestly.”
“You can’t just leave us!” someone said.
“Not like I was doing anything for anyone—and you lot weren’t listening to me anyway. Why should I stay?”
“I like her,” Ben said, grinning from the bow of the little dinghy.
Jo reached out a meaty forearm and took Reese’s hand in a strong grip. "Am I gonna regret this? Probably, but for now, it's a deal."
Reese took his position at the tiller as Matt prepared to push them out. He hesitated, hands still gripping the railing.
“There’s plenty of room,” Reese offered under his breath to Matt.
Matt looked over Reese’s shoulder at the miles of debris choking the water between Mount Desert Island and the mainland. “I can’t,” he muttered. “It’s too far, and I can’t swim.” He cleared his throat. “Good luck," he said, louder. Matt bent down and pushed, sending the little boat out into the choppy water. “You’re gonna need it.”
Reese yanked the ripcord, and the two horsepower engine on the transom sputtered to life. He waved once at Matt, Aiden, and the Nikayoshi family, but only Aiden waved back.
"Okay, let's do this." Reese opened up the throttle, and they pushed through floating tree branches and bits of Styrofoam insulation. Reese didn't say anything, but he knew very well where that insulation came from—it was used inside the inner hulls of sailboats and motor yachts. A lot of boats had been torn apart by the tsunami striking Bar Harbor. They cruised over a graveyard.
After 30 minutes, Reese estimated they were no more than a third of the way across. Every few minutes, he had to push the tiller hard over one way or the other to go around bits of flotsam or masts sticking up out of the water, indicative of boats floundering on unseen debris.
They were about halfway across, out in the middle of the swirling water between Mount Desert Island and Trenton, when Reese realized that the water was indeed receding. He had to open the throttle all the way up for them to make any progress at all, and more and more bits of trash and debris drifted past, granting them the illusion of speed.
"Hey—hey, we got a problem here," Ben said.
Reese couldn't take his eyes off of the debris field stretching to the far shore. "What is it?" he snapped, making another quick adjustment to avoid impaling their dinghy on the jagged end of a broken telephone pole.
"Dude, we’re leaking!" Ben warned.
“He’s not kidding around, there’s a lot of water up here!” Jo said, her eyes wide.
Reese looked at his feet. Sure enough, at least two inches of water swirled around the bottom of the dinghy. "It's probably fine—you always get water in little boats like this. Every time I turn, a wave comes over the side a little." He focused back on driving and lurched the little boat to starboard just in time to miss a floating blue barrel. If they capsized—or even worse, staved in the hull of their little boat—they’d be trapped out in the middle of the debris field with no chance of making it to shore.
Reese glanced at Ben and Jo. His friend, injured as he was, would almost certainly drown. Jo might make it, but she was older and not in the best of shape. Their only hope was that the current might take them close enough to Mount Desert Island to swim ashore. Reese clenched his jaws. He wasn’t going back in defeat.
Sweat rolled down Reese's neck as he doubled down on creating a path through the debris. The little engine behind him whined at full throttle. He muttered a curse, leaning forward as if to will the boat through the flotsam. There was just too much garbage, bits of tree branches, and floating debris piling up at the bow. The little motor simply couldn't power through.
“Reese, we got a leak, man,” Ben said from the bow. "Look! It's coming in right here!” Ben shifted to get a better look, throwing the boat off balance.
“We need to do something about this, captain,” Jo said.
Reese overcompensated, causing Ben to slam back against his original position. A small wave crested the gunwale, dumping another six inches of water into the bottom of the boat. Reese managed to keep them upright and avoid capsizing, but just barely. After
