The Sea is a Thief (22 page)

“I trust that you will not.  Do not stay too long.  The sky is unsettled.”  

They walked out onto the beach, Anna calling for Willow.  Elizabeth raised her eyes to the sky, studying the sea and the horizon.  She furrowed he brow.  Hands on her hips, she kicked sand into the air with the toe of her boot.  It whirled about and blew away.  The wind was strong, but unsteady, and oddly warm. “Not too long,” she warned, and retreated into her cottage with a shiver.  

After some delay, Willow appeared.  No other horses were in sight.  Anna frowned. “We cannot ride with just one pony.  Let's walk him.”  She fitted Willow with his bridle and led him toward the surf, Sam by her side.  The waves were crashing noisily; before one could retreat, another had come upon it, and they collided with great violence.   The wind blew hard from the sea, then back outwards; then, as if losing an argument, it subsided briefly.  They saw that the tide would be up within the hour.  The occasional overeager wave rolled high onto the dry sand.  It was not the day they would choose as their last on Assateague, but it was the day Assateague had given them.

The beach was desolate.  Their pace was slow.  Only a few birds punctuated the sky.  They were accustomed to the freedom and speed of the horses, but it was denied them now.  From time to time they would pause to sit on the sand, Sam holding Anna in his arms.  Their hearts overflowed, but they said little.  He knew her unspoken questions.  She knew he could not answer them.  Their wishes counted for nothing; they were puppets on the ends of invisible strings, worked by men they did not know, whose designs reached far beyond their understanding.  

Nothing in Sam Dreher's life had prepared him to tell Anna Daisey what he wanted to tell her.          

“My time as a sailor will come to an end,” he said, “And I will come and find you.  I do not know when.  But I will come back.”

“Are they hopeful that it will end quickly?” she asked, staring out to sea.  

“The Captain is.  The naval campaign is very successful.”

She nodded.  “Where will you be?”

“It could be anywhere.  On a ship much like this one, I suppose.  It doesn't matter.”

They began to walk again.

“Perhaps I can return in the spring,” he said.  “I will write to you, but I am a poor writer.”

She shook her head.  “There is no mail to the island because of the blockade.  But it will comfort me to know you have written nonetheless.  Even if the writing is poor.”

Rain began to fall, the wind blowing small raindrops into their faces. “Toss it into the waves,” she told him, “and perhaps they may bring it here.”

They walked on, water beginning to roll down the shoulders of Anna's jacket.    

“What is the island like in the springtime?” he asked.

“It is the loveliest green.  You should see.  The willows first, then the trees with blossoms.  Big flowers bloom in the marshes.  The geese return early, and the yellow goslings follow them as they feed.”  

“I should like to be here by spring, then.”  She smiled.  She liked his bravery, however forced.  She needed it now and did not question it.

“Will Ethan remain here?” she asked.  

He drew in his breath.  He had not thought to tell her.  “Ethan must go with me.”

She stopped and turned to him, pain in her dark eyes. “What ruin I have caused!  He must go, too?”  She threw her arms about his neck, suddenly overcome with tears. “Ask his forgiveness, Sam, please ask his forgiveness!”

“He has forgiven me already, Anna, and forgiven you all the more.  The fault is mine.  He helped me out of friendship.  He is willing to pay the price.”  He held her close until she became quiet.  

“We have caused a terrible thing,” she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks.  

The rain was falling all about them now.  He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.  “How can that be,” he said, “When I love you?”

For a moment, the sea receded into silence.  “I love you.” she said.  “Will you come back to me?”

“I will come back to you, Anna Daisey.”

Willow pawed at the ground.  He was uncommonly nervous and reared up when Anna took his bridle.  A wave hit with a thunderous crash just offshore, and the salty foam raced sizzling onto the dry sand under their feet.  The tide had reached its peak.  The sky above the sea glowed with an odd greenish light.  

“We must go,” said Anna.

 

By the time they reached the lighthouse the rain was unrelenting.  They were wet to the skin.  Elizabeth stood in the door of her cabin, keeping watch for them.  She had built up her fire and the room was warm.  She ushered them in and sat them by the stove.  In minutes their clothes were steaming.  She cracked the door open so that she could gaze up to the heavens.  “I don't care for it,” she said.  “The wind is warm.  The sky is like a summer thunderstorm.” She slammed the door shut.  “It's no good,” she proclaimed.  “Both of you stay here with me and return tomorrow when this passes.”  

Sam protested.  It was not possible.  It would be bad enough that he was found missing; far worse if he were not aboard the
Louisiana
when the ship came to take him away.  He could not test the Captain's mercy farther.  He had to be there.  If he were not, both he and Ethan could face death.  Elizabeth grimaced and pulled on her pipe.  Two or three hours of daylight remained; enough time to get them safely back onto Chincoteague.  She did not like the situation.  Too much risk with the weather as it was.  The alternative, as Sam presented it, was worse.  

“Go now, then,” she said, rising up. They ran quickly to the skiff.  Anna held Elizabeth as she stepped into the little boat.  “Go with God,” said Elizabeth.  Sam took to the oars, and they were gone.  Elizabeth stood on the bank, oblivious to the rain, her feet set firmly on the sand and her eyes locked on her friend's face.  Anna watched her until she disappeared from sight.  

 

The skiff was beached on a little creek that joined a pond some yards behind the lighthouse.  The pond was ringed with grasses and cattails.  In good weather it was placid, and Sam would traverse it quickly.  Today it wore a different face; the rising wind and rain had whipped the surface into heavy chop.  The skiff struggled to surmount it, its hull lifted by each sudden swell, only to lurch noisily into the trough it left behind.  Sam labored at the oars.  Normally the wind coming off the ocean carried them swiftly across the pond.  Today it seemed to blow in all directions at once, and he fought against it.  He headed for the creek on the opposite side.  It was bordered by blueberry bushes, much favored by the ponies.  Often several would gather around them. The shoreline was far too long in coming.  When Sam finally spotted its outline he came about, paralleling the bank, watching for the blueberry bushes.  No ponies lingered there.  He brought the bow of the skiff around, one oar leveraged forward, the other aft, spinning the boat into the channel of the creek.  Perhaps the low shrubs on the banks would offer some protection from the wind.  Anna sheltered herself as best she could in the hatch of the tiny skiff.  She had buttoned the collar of her father's coat as tightly as she could about her neck, but the rain flowed unimpeded down her face.  

The creek wound its way through a low marshy stretch of land towards the Assateague Channel.  It ran half a mile or more in the course of its many turns.  Sam and Anna had crossed it often in both directions. They knew the creek to be slow and narrow.  Swollen with water, it had taken on another appearance entirely.  The wind was strong at their backs, gusting and whirling about, carrying them towards the channel, but the surging water tossed them like a cork.  The slop that found its way over the coaming sloshed about inside the hull.  Sam saw that the skies had darkened; the green hue that he had seen on Assateague had given way to an iron-grey, thick and menacing.  The odd warmth that preceded the storm had yielded to a raw chill.  Anna's eyes were closed and she seemed to have sunk within herself.  The pelting rain continued.  His oars pounded out a slow, heavy rhythm.

They navigated the final turn of the angry creek and entered the channel itself.  Their usual course was to run half a mile directly up the channel until they reached the wide mouth of a creek that emptied into it.  They would follow it as it cut its way through the shallows towards the tip of Piney Island.  When the tide was low, broad expanses of mud flats and rock were exposed on their right and left.  The course of the creek led them safely through all of it for a mile or so.  When they spotted the tip of Piney Island, they would head due north, finding their direction easily by sight.  After another mile in open water they would reach the tiny stream that led them to the Daisey house.  A huge overhanging willow tree marked the spot.  

Sam hovered on the water for long minutes, planning his course.  Anna had made the trip countless times over many years, with her father and then alone.  Sam had learned the route from her.  They could scarcely know the way better, but the landscape had changed.  The wind that drove relentlessly in from the sea was swelling the tide, preventing the water in the channel from flowing back to the open ocean.  All land was hidden from sight.  No landmark stood out; the inky sky darkened the landscape, and sheets of rain obscured it.  Directionless and unable to navigate, they were about to descend into a maelstrom.  Only an unseen hand could guide them.  

Sam leaned forward, taking Anna in his arms and holding her close.  Her face was cold to his touch, but their eyes met with perfect resolve.  It was difficult to speak even when his lips almost touched her ears; the wind was a banshee, enveloping them.  

“It may be deep enough to go directly to Piney Island,” he shouted. “It will cut down the distance.”  She shook her head wildly.

“Don't take the risk, Sam.  So many obstacles are just beneath the surface.  If we go aground or damage the hull we are lost.  Go by the usual way!”  He moved back and took to the oars, setting the skiff on a course up the channel, the tree-lined shore of Assateague to his port side, shrouded in rain.  He did not want his face to show his concern, but he was sure that it did.  So many things could go wrong in the next two hours.

In the channel, the boat was entirely exposed. The wind buffeted them from the side, driving them to starboard and slowing their progress to a crawl.  The heavy rain beat the surface into a dimpled foam.  Beneath it, the water was murky and brown.  The chop was heavier than before, and he began to wonder how far they could go before the skiff would founder.  They had nothing they could use to bail, and there was so little freeboard.  He and Anna had become used to paddling the boat together in good weather; now, as slight as she was, the burden of two passengers threatened to overwhelm it.  Sam's thoughts were no friend to him.  He could quiet his mind only by rowing, the pain building in his arms distracting him from his fears.  He fought his way across the marsh against the storm.  The rain stung his face like bits of glass.  Anna cradled her head in her arms, bent against the deluge.  Sam looked into her eyes.  
Bring us home,
they said.  
Just bring us home.
 

He could only guess where to turn west towards Piney Island.  Had he gone the half-mile that was needed?  If he fell short, they might be entering a maze of shoals.  At any moment they might run aground, stranded on the flooded marsh.  Wading was an impossibility; swimming a sure sentence of death in the cold water.  If the skiff did not endure the passage, they would not survive it either.  As he muscled the boat forward, stroke by stroke, he braced himself at each moment for the grinding lurch that would tell him he was off course and aground.  If they made it only to the tip of the island, he could surely land them near home, somewhere on the shore of Chincoteague.  

He had to get there quickly.  Each minute they remained on open water, the rain ran deeper into the hull.  It was up to his ankles now, a dead weight that he could feel with each sweep of the oars.  The skiff settled low in the water, uncomfortable and slow.

The brush and grasses were beaten down by the gale, low against the ground.  The familiar markers of the channel were lost.  Unsure as he was of the place where the turn should be, he made his move when he thought it was right, swinging hard against the surging current. He fought his way across the rolling bedlam that once was the course of a quiet creek, the skiff lifting up with his effort and slapping down as the waves retreated beneath it.

How long had it been since they had left Elizabeth?  His senses deceived him.  The unrelenting effort that tore at his shoulders numbed his mind.  He could feel that he was becoming very cold.  His hands wrapped the oars like the talons of a hawk.  He did not try to move them lest he lose his grip and be unable to regain it.  How must Anna feel?  He did not dare to think of it.  The skiff heaved forward, rolling into the troughs of the swells, the wind tearing at him from one side and then the other, the rain driven madly before it.  Between them and Chincoteague stretched a vast grey kettle of boiling sea.

Foreboding had kept his thoughts from prayer.  When at last he turned his face to God, prayer escaped him.  He reached out to heaven with his heart alone.  
Slow the wind.  Calm the waves.  Let us only see the sun once again.   
 

 

Over his shoulder, he thought he saw the shoreline of Piney Island, indistinct in the rain and darkness.  His heart leapt.  
Yes
—he could see it!  By some miracle, they had covered the distance across the flooded tidal flat, still afloat.  There was hope.  He hollered to Anna as loudly as he could, afraid to take his hands from the oars.  She heard him and lifted her face just a little, her eyes fixed far past him.  He looked over his shoulder to the shoreline, hoping that her gaze would follow, but it did not.  Her head dropped back onto her arms.  He angled the skiff as closely as he could to the island.