Page 16 of The Wild Beneath

“I’m Evan.” He puts his hand out to shake Walker’s.

Walker regards his outstretched palm.

“He’s a bit... unusual.” Ruth scrapes mud off her boots against a downed telephone pole.

Walker remains motionless. Evan withdraws his hand and shoves it in his pocket.

“He hasn’t said much yet,” Annie says. Walker watches her talk; his eyes do not leave her mouth. “His name is Walker.”

She does not say: I made up his name, or, can you hear the sound coming from him? She doesn’t say the dozen things she’d usually tell Evan, talking faster than she can organize the sentences. She does not say: You’re too far away. Why did you leave me alone in all this?

“I’ve never seen him before,” Evan says.

“We thought we should put a call out on the SSB,” Ruth says. “Mine’s dead.”

Evan nods and hollers up to Isaac.

“Give me a minute,” Isaac yells over the excavator’s grinding.

The absence of vessels in the water is disorienting; Henry’s gillnetter and a couple of dinghies are the only things stillafloat. A wrecked trawler is half submerged in low tide. Boat skeletons line the shore. The devastation is so complete Annie wonders if the landscape will simply overtake them. The forest will encroach from above, the sea from below, and they’ll all disappear before anyone comes to help.

For a split second, she thinks she might prefer that. Disappearing would be easier than carrying on.

Isaac finally climbs down from his podium.

“Ruth.” Sweat beads on Isaac’s face, as if he’s been clearing the ground himself. “Something you need?”

“This boy’s name is Walker. We don’t have a last name. Can you put a call out on your radio?”

Isaac glances at Walker. “It’s chaos on the radio. I’ve got it turned off.”

“Someone might be looking for him,” Annie says.

“Everyone’s looking for someone. People washed up, dragged out, boats capsized.” He finally lights the cigarette between his fingers, sucking air through its orange embers.

“More reason to make the call,” Ruth counters. The din of the excavator fills the space between them.

Isaac smokes and does not answer.

“Do you have a better sense yet,” Ruth fans the smoke away, “of how it is down the coast?”

“Forty-foot waves all the way to Oregon.”

“Vancouver?”

“Strait of Georgia was protective. Flooding in False Creek, Yaletown... they’ve still got aftershocks.”

“They’re evacuating Vancouver Island,” Evan says.

“No sense in leaving, in my opinion.” Isaac taps ash off his cigarette and gestures around his feet. “If we clear this area here, we can still ship.”

Evan closes his eyes and inhales slowly.

“Henry’s radio’s dead so he can’t make a call,” Ruth says.

But Isaac doesn’t seem to hear her. “Everyone will need torebuild.” He’s talking to himself, and has already started back toward the excavator, out of earshot.

Evan massages the back of his neck. He looks older to Annie. They’re not kids anymore. No more diving off the boat, playing checkers, climbing rocks on the beach. That was years ago.