All her instincts would be telling her to thrash. Movement would push the blood to her extremities cooling it, in the fashion of a radiator. Her motor control would go and her limbs would feel detached and spastic. As her blood cooled, it would lower her vital core temperature bringing on a loss of consciousness. She would begin to take in water and die.
He clung to the kelp for both of them. “Put your hands on my shoulders, your legs around my body,” he screamed. She did it. “Lie back.” She did that. Her arms were straight; her hands gripped his shoulders like talons, communicating her fear. Now he used both his hands to pull them through the kelp, pushing her body as if he were a tug moving a barge. As he methodically grabbed kelp, some of it gave way and some of it held. Even as they inched toward shore, they were pulled downstream. Over his shoulder the roar in the blackness created a palpable vibration in the air. The ocean wanted to feed its young.
Sam could feel himself start to gasp, and forced a rhythm to his breathing. Desperate, he reached down with a foot and felt for the bottom. Nothing. It cost him mentally, and he slipped a few feet downstream in the attempt. It was hard to concentrate. He had to get them out of the water. Pulling and kicking like a man possessed, he sensed the shore but couldn’t see it. “More, more, more,” he grunted as he pulled. His body had nothing left to give and he moved it by sheer strength of mind.
Then a toe hit a rock; he reached down and stood. Two more pulls and a stride and he was dragging her up the boulder-strewn beach toward some trees. As they neared the trees the helicopter neared them. Sam stumbled up the bank, carrying her, just as a brilliant wand of light encompassed them and they fell into the brush.
Through her chattering teeth she tried to talk. “Did they see us?”
“Don’t know.” The chopper was turning back. “They overshot us if they did.”
Sam urged her farther under a dense tree. There was no way they could now be seen from the air. When the chopper returned, it hovered, and its brilliant spotlight hit the uppermost portion of the tree and lit the area of the nearby beach.
She shivered uncontrollably. Sam knew this was going to be a bad night. “They may have seen us but there’s no place to land.”
Sam pulled her tight to his body for warmth, and she welcomed it. Her teeth chattered as if they might crack. In moments the helicopter moved off. They pulled on their shoes over bloody feet.
“They aren’t sure or they wouldn’t keep moving like that. Let’s go,” he said as they stumbled through the trees to another smaller expanse of fast-moving water.
“What’s th-th-tha-that?”
“It’s the last little stretch of water. We’re on Insect Island. It sits in Mosquito Channel and goes most of the way across.”
“No.” She shook her head, backing away.
Sam grabbed her and put his face close to hers. “Do you want to live?”
She nodded.
“You have enough left. If you want it bad enough you can do it. You can live. But if you give up, you’ll die. You’ve never given up.”
Sam wondered if he really believed she could make it. Her breathing had become more regular, there was less gasping. Maybe she could get most of the way before he had to push her. They needed to make it to the kelp on the far side. Once again they went through the frustrating task of using shaking fingers to tie their shoes to their belts.
Taking her by the hand, he hobbled in the moonlight down the beach and into the second channel.
Sam felt the cold go straight to his innards-worse than he thought. Once again they swam and to his relief, she did not lose her nerve or her will. On this side of the island the current was less and the overfalls smaller, but still lethal for Anna.
As they swam, he watched her constantly. They had covered about ninety feet, with only ten more to the kelp, when she began completely losing her strength. It was as if her coordination left her and her muscles spasmed crazily. Sam could begin to feel his own arms turning to butter. Grabbing her belt beneath her fanny pack, he sidestroked with the last of his energy and managed to get a hand in the kelp and to begin hauling her. The first giant strand pulled its anchor-rock from the bottom, but the second two plants held.
But he wasn’t strong enough. They couldn’t make headway. All he could do was hang on and prevent them from drifting with the current.
“You gotta kick,” he said.
She thrashed, but it wasn’t enough. The kelp snapped. Floundering, he grabbed again. The plant held, but he was getting weak fast. Before he realized it, he began gulping air.
“Damn it,” he screamed at himself.
There was splashing from Anna. She was trying to swim.
If he let go of her he might swim, but if he continued to hold on, they were both going down. He tried in vain to sidestroke and hang on to her, but was too weak.
“Swim,” she said.
So he let go and began moving ahead. Without the extra weight it was barely possible. He hit the rocks. Making his legs work, he moved through the water thigh-deep. She was drifting, struggling in the kelp’s edge, but moving down toward the wave. The white froth from her struggles was all he could see. He couldn’t let her go any farther.
“Hang on,” was all he said as he leaped and grabbed her. Now they were drifting fast, but she had moved closer to shore and his feet were banging rocks. Suddenly the bottom came up and he found purchase. Scrambling, he heaved them into shallow water, where he hung on to a large rock with one hand and held her with the other.
Black water swirled around them. Normally he could have yanked her ashore in an instant, without a second thought, but now nothing worked. She splashed uselessly. The water was an inch from his gasping mouth. He fought with his body, but couldn’t move up the beach.
His arms no longer felt attached. His legs seemed to move around on their own. In an instant he knew they were about to drown. Focusing all his concentration on his left arm, he tried to contract it. They moved a few inches. Somehow he managed to make it reach again and contract again. He got his upper shoulder out of the water. Still he clung to Anna.
“Roll,” he told her. Like an infant she managed to flop over, moving up toward the beach.
“Grab.”
She did. He let go and pulled himself up onto rocks in the shallows. Looking back, he saw that she was floundering but going nowhere. He tried to make the beach by crawling on his belly. Finally, his nose was on the dry pebbles that made the beach. He looked back. One of her arms was waving in the air. She was coughing and spluttering. She had swallowed water. It would take only a quart and a half to kill her.
“Hang on,” he groaned. By getting his shoulders in the air, he slowed the cooling process, but the shaking was so bad he was nearly convulsing. He had to get control of his body. Forcing his palms under him, he managed to worm up the beach.
He looked around and found a long stick. Crawling back to the water, he flopped in and held out the stick. She was able to grasp it, but was too weak to pull or even hang on. Her choking grew deep and agonized. He slithered toward her and managed to put his arms around her. He got his feet on a rock. With all his strength, he rose up and fell with her toward the beach. He hit the rocky ground with a bone-cracking thud.
The chopper was coming back up the island, the edge of its beam just nipping the shore on which they sat.
“Come on,” he said, trying to stand but unable. “You gotta crawl.”
Even as he said it, he felt a tiny spark of strength returning. He managed to get up, put his arm around her belly, and lift her trembling body to stand next to his. They struggled up the beach and stumbled barefoot off into the trees as the copter whizzed past.
Once in the trees, Sam knew that their lowered body temperature was critical.
He was still breathing hard from the cold.
“We have ten miles,” he gasped as if running. “Over rough ground. Got to get to the resort.” He doubled over, and it occurred to him that maybe age was affecting him. But he shoved the thought from his mind. He was only forty-two, still young. The hopeful message pulsed through the structures of his brain. But his ever-present self, the
