Chapter 5
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Near Radioville Island, AK
Morning unfurled her wings, a symphony of hues cascading over the rugged tapestry of the Alaskan shoreline. A deep orange watercolor glow bled upward from the serrated horizon, saturating the charcoal sky.
Breaking waves ended their thousand-mile odyssey across the Gulf of Alaska, sacrificing themselves against the rocky shore with a ferocity that pulverized timber and kelp into fragments, whipping up a murky brown seafoam puree.
The eagle soared on currents of anticipation, high above the field of flotsam and jetsam.
She scoured the mosaic of debris, searching for the delicate nuances of life, the subtle rhythms that betrayed the presence of prey in distress.
In the dim light, sticks, leaves, and seaweed blurred together, but her keen eyes picked out the finest details from the clutter.
And then, fur.
Wings folded, she dove, her acceleration accompanied by a crescendo of roaring wind. The delicate feathers at her wingtips fluttered, a prelude to maximum speed.
She flared, skimming the surface with grace, locked on to her target, capitalizing on the element of surprise. Cold spindrift stung her eyes, but she blinked it away, undeterred.
Now.
With a thunderous slap, she struck the water, talons tearing into flesh as she seized her prize. The wet, furry mass dangled as she flapped furiously, battling to rise above the relentless surf.
Each stroke propelled her upward, a struggle against the awkward heft of her catch. She rode the rising air column, sensing the vortex’s edge with her tip feathers, maintaining a flawless position for optimal lift.
One last heave to the cliff’s summit, and she transferred the prey to her beak. Talons gripped a branch, and with a swift motion, she dropped the catch into the nest.
A chorus of hungry chirps welcomed her—tiny eaglets jostling for position.
She tore at the fur with her beak, attempting to rend the animal into bite-sized morsels, but it resisted. No yielding, no soft, meaty core.
This was not food.
Pushing the uncooperative prey aside, she took flight once more, resuming her hunt. The eaglets’ disapproving peals echoed behind her, their empty beaks tracking her departure like miniature radar dishes as she vanished into the distance.
Sand and grit stuck to Joe’s lips. His cheek rested in a small tide pool, and sour salty water seeped into his mouth. The pointed edge of a rock dug into his side, and his legs dangled off a boulder just below the crevasse where his upper body was wedged.
Sunlight broke over the horizon. Joe didn’t know how long he’d been out. His clothes hung heavy, wet and cold from his battle the night before. His temples throbbed, and he wondered if it was the cold or the hours without any bourbon.
Joe sat up, too fast. The smell of wet leather and low tide made him queasy.
He tugged a glove from his hand. The skin was shriveled and wrinkled.
Moving his body in place, gingerly, he surveyed his limbs.
A tentative relief washed over him—battered but whole.
He needed to get to his cabin to get dry and warm.
Struggling to his feet, Joe maneuvered his banged-up body from the unforgiving rocks to a small shallow cove strewn with kelp and driftwood.
His rowboat was surely gone—carried out to sea or smashed to bits against the rugged coastal rocks.
And his notebooks. Joe’s two small notebooks—radio station logs that he carried back and forth between Radioville and the mines—had been lost in the mayhem.
His chest tightened in panic. He always carried his two small moleskine journals in a sealskin pouch, which should have kept them from being ruined by the water.
But would it float? He wasn’t sure. The official radio logbook wasn’t a big deal.
He could return to the mining camps, talk to the same people as yesterday, and get their outbound messages again.
The private journal was trickier. Replacing that information would be difficult and dangerous.
Joe scoured the beach below, holding on to what he knew was a slim hope that the small sealskin pouch would have washed up onshore.
There were some pieces of fishing net, some glass floats—probably drifted all the way from Japan—an empty bourbon bottle, a chunk of driftwood that was obviously from a boat wreck.
Too old and worn to be from his rowboat, though.
Nothing else from his boat was here, so there was no reason the pouch with the journals would have drifted here either. He cursed himself for not having a second copy. He’d need to figure out what to do about that and do his best not to let anyone know he’d lost it.
Muscles aching, he climbed down the rocks to the water and waded around the point. Reaching the beach, Joe took a couple steps forward, dropped, and began crawling through the shallows, his arms wobbly as he picked his way between the familiar rocks, avoiding broken glass from his own bottles.
Once past the waterline, he rolled over and lay on his back, gathering a handful of sand and letting it run through his fingers.
Tiny grains of glass sparkled in the morning sun that broke through the clouds.
Home. But at what cost? Joe realized that, for once, he didn’t want a drink.
He needed a clear head to figure things out.