Page 44 of The Wild Beneath

It’s evening by the time Ruth and Annie return to the cabin on their own. The absence of her parents and now Evan are like holes in Annie’s chest. She works up the bravery to face the sea and take a long look. The water is unfamiliar, like a dirty bathtub. It’s churning and sullen and full of things that shouldn’t be there.

She folds herself to the ground, her back slumped, her knees pink with the indentation of pine needles, and sobs. The air isn’t enough; she heaves in and out. Her throat closes. She digs her fingers into the dark earth, then pounds her fists into it.

Cold and wet, her toes clenched in her boots. One last glance at the horizon. She covers her eyes with her muddy hands and has to look away.

Slack

No back and forth exists in the slack tide. The tidal stream goes quiet in the middle. Currents cease before the decisive moment: Will the sea move toward or away from the shore?

Chapter 16

The coast guard arrives two weeks after the tsunami.

Ruth watches from her porch as they speed through the channel toward town: a red-and-white lifeboat, towers of antennae, a fluttering Canadian flag. They toss up a wake that crashes onto her beach.

Walker and Henry are out onGalene, again. Much like yesterday and the day before that, Annie has needed distracting. This morning, her eyes were puffy and her cheeks tear-stained. Ruth sent her on a mission to forage for mushrooms and berries. She’s too far away now to see the officers roll in.

Ruth walks to town on her own. Her heart races and her breathing is irregular. She makes it to the beach as three men come ashore on an inflatable skiff, wading through ankle-deep water with crates on their shoulders.

“Ma’am,” the first officer says, shaking Ruth’s hand. His grip seems dainty, given the circumstances. He wears a navy-blue uniform and tightly laced leather boots. “Officer Yetman.”

“I’m Harvey Dennison, from CTV,” says a willowy man in a charcoal cable-knit sweater. He holds a small notepad.

“Wish we weren’t so late reaching you folks,” Yetman says. “But what a mess.”

Others drift down toward the beach: Danika Sherneck, the owner of Lucky convenience, and the Canada Post mail carrier, Tom Hynes. He’s still in the shoulder sling Ruth gave himto stabilize his broken humerus. His teenaged daughter Sylvia’s gash on her left cheek is healing. Maggie Babcock’s three-year-old, Sam, is perched on her hip. The last time Ruth saw him for a checkup, his pockets were full of acorns.

Maggie puts Sam down next to a washed-up square of Astroturf. Sam pulls at the rubbery strands. “It’s not real grass, sweetie. You can’t pick it,” Maggie says, lifting him back up.

The logging crew is stationed at the opposite end of the beach. Ruth can make out Isaac, surrounded by his logs and trucks. Evan at his side, both wearing matching work coveralls. They don’t appear to be coming over.

A second officer, with a scruffy beard and hollows under his eyes, deposits a crate on the sand with a thump. “I’m Captain Harrison Reddick,” he says to everyone and no one in particular. “We’ll need a dry spot for these supplies.”

“You can use my building.” Danika points him toward the husk of her store.

“Can you describe what used to be in that spot?” Harvey says while he flips to a new page in his notebook. “Did you lose everything?”

“There’s a tarp over there we can put underneath the stuff,” Danika says to Reddick. “I’ll get it.”

“Let’s finish the interview first,” Dennison says, clicking his pen.

Danika stares at him blankly.

Ruth has the sense that these officers will be of very little help today. It’s useful to have some additional supplies, of course. But that lifeboat isn’t big enough for evacuations. They’ll probably be leaving shortly. Other families drift in: the Wrights, the Vanderleests, the Fowlers. The people who have always kept Hale’s afloat, because they’re the ones who know how to contend with the elements.

They’d been naive about nature’s true power, though, hadn’t they?

The officers give more marching orders about unloading the supplies, words about water purification, questions about food storage. Ruth is attentive, but what’s their endgame? Leave everyone here?

Now Reddick is going on about hand washing to a small collection of folks still listening.

None of that matters to Ruth.

All she cares about is what they can do for Annie.

Isaac isn’t willing to go over there yet.

He stands next to the carcass of the wharf with Evan and his head engineer, Ed Hollingsworth. They don’t need to be rescued. More pressing issues consume him: the lack of salvageable loading equipment and no barge. Logs bundled with dog wire lie on the truck beds, not going anywhere. He smokes an increasing number of cigarettes and doubts they brought any of those. His mind hammers on the problem of the dwindling company accounts, the looming inability to make payroll. And then what?