Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
S he quickly climbed the pile of boulders blocking the juvenile from view. Zephyr lay on a pile of them below, little gleaming tidepools caught in the shallows between them.
She’d draped a bedsheet over his back earlier, directly behind his little dorsal fin and across his saddle patch. He’d cut himself struggling on the barnacle-encrusted rocks. They and the tidepools were stained with his blood.
Blaine was silent next to her.
“I’ve been using the water from the tidepools, but that won’t last us much longer,” she said. “We’re going to need to set up a bucket brigade.”
“I’ll let Rafe know and get some more volunteers down here.” He whipped out his phone.
“Good.” She grabbed the bucket she’d left behind and scooped up some water to pour along the length of Zephyr’s spine. “Onyx is critical, but I’m just as worried about this little one. He’s already injured, and he’ll be the last one the tide reaches.”
He nodded, phone to his ear. He spoke to Rafe, quickly telling him what they needed. “Water’s about three hundred yards away. Figure three to five feet per person, so a hundred would be ideal, but just send anyone you can. This little guy’s in trouble.”
I won’t let you die , Xanthe vowed, refilling her bucket. Not happening on my watch.
“Rafe’s going to explain the mission to everyone he thinks is fit for duty and send them down as they arrive,” Blaine said to her. “We’ll just make do with whatever manpower we get.”
“Every bit will help, because the two of us are going to need a break at some point.”
To her surprise, Blaine stepped up next to her, his expensive leather shoes fully submerged in bloody seawater, pantlegs soaked up to his knees, and filled his bucket. “Want me to get his fluke?”
There was that lump in her throat again. “Yes, but stand clear. One flick, and you’ll go flying into the rocks.”
He moved quickly past her toward Zephyr’s fluke, stopping a couple of feet distal to the saddle patch to sluice water over the orca’s peduncle and fluke.
Zephyr let out a cry and moved his head and tail. Xanthe and Blaine immediately backed off.
“Shh,” Xanthe said to him, repressing the urge to run a soothing hand over his smooth skin.
He was stressed enough on top of them standing so close and the strange sensation of the sheet on his back.
“It’s gonna be okay, buddy. I know you’re scared, but we’re here to help.
You’ll be all right.” He’s going to be all right.
The two of them kept filling their buckets and pouring water in silence until the first volunteers arrived.
One of them was an off-duty firefighter.
Xanthe quickly put him in charge of organizing the bucket brigade and got back to work, taking care to keep Zephyr’s dorsal fin covered to keep it from getting sunburned.
Before long, her back, arms, and hamstrings were on fire.
“Take a break if you need it,” Blaine said.
“I’m good.” She wasn’t stopping if he didn’t.
But by the time the response team arrived on scene, her muscles were screaming in agony, and her numb fingers could barely keep her grip on the bucket. It was a relief to set it down. “I need to go coordinate with the others.”
Blaine nodded, didn’t look up as he sluiced another bucket of water across Zephyr’s back and peduncle. “I’ll stay here.”
She climbed to the top of the boulders and called out to one of the bucket brigade volunteers.
There were more than seventy of them now, with more arriving every few minutes.
It heartened her to see the public response, the number of people who cared enough to drop whatever they’d been doing and come down here to try and save the orcas.
Just one reason the way of life here on Skelly was worth preserving. The sense of community and its spirit was unbelievable.
A middle-aged man hurried over to take her place. Xanthe quickly climbed down the other side of the rocks and went to meet the response team. A steady stream of fresh volunteers flowed past them the entire time they talked, heading to help with the ever-expanding bucket brigade.
Xanthe provided an initial situation report, but ultimately had to hand over control and command to the senior member of the response team, who had more experience with strandings than she did.
One team was assigned to Triton, the stranded adult male.
Another to Onyx, who would dig the trench under her belly to reorient her.
A small marine vet team accompanied Xanthe back to the rocks to look after Zephyr.
The plan was to re-float the animals as soon as the tide reached them.
Each of them would then be assessed to determine what additional steps needed to be taken.
If necessary, they would use ropes and slings to pull the orcas into deeper water, and stabilize them until they were strong enough to swim away.
Lachlan and another skipper were on standby in case they needed to tow the animals out to sea.
By the time the meeting finished and all three teams broke up to handle their individual assignments, the tide had begun to creep back in. When Xanthe hurried back to Zephyr with the vet team, the bucket brigade stretched the full distance of the beach from the edge of the water to the rocks.
“Wow, will you look at that,” the young female vet said.
“I know. It’s partly why I love this place so much.”
“It’s amazing. Kind of restores your faith in humanity, doesn’t it?”
“Big time,” Xanthe said, reaching down for her endurance reserves. The smoothie she’d gulped down hurriedly before going to the station hadn’t filled her up, and that had been more than eight hours ago. She was cold and wet and tired and hungry, but she pushed it all aside.
There was no time to stop and eat. Zephyr needed her, and she would give him everything she had until she keeled over.
She cast a long look over at Onyx on the way by. Tripp, Willow, Lachlan, and Maddy were all still with her, along with a handful of other volunteers and the arriving members of the response team. The matriarch still hadn’t moved, looking broken there on the sand.
Xanthe looked away, the sight too distressing. Please hold on , she told Onyx silently, willing her to keep fighting.
There had been too much loss and grief already, and K Pod had pitifully few members as it was. Xanthe refused to lose another one.