Chapter 10
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Near Chichagof Island, AK
Daylight arrived with a dull gray glow. The bitter film of ground coffee from the bottom of Marco’s mug coated his tongue with a chalky residue, and a mysterious scent, a blend of sweetness, mustiness, and the essence of spawning salmon, wafted through the pilothouse door carried by a gentle sea breeze.
He wiped the morning mist from his forehead.
The snow globe barely stirred as the vessel glided through the water.
He steered Radio Flyer out of the protection of Klag Bay and routed his autopilot to a spot east of the group of islands he’d already searched.
There were no logs or other debris ahead as far as he could see, and no other boat traffic showing up on radar or AIS.
Looked to him like he was the only soul for miles.
Let’s go find her, babe.
No sign of the curious flat-black RIB from the previous day.
Every island he passed, he carefully studied the shoreline with his binoculars.
Nothing.
The SSB radio hissed softly in the background. The static was making him crazy, constantly baiting him to pick tiny sounds out of the din. He needed a distraction.
Marco tuned his FM radio to KCAW out of Sitka.
The announcer was in the middle of the daily “Muskeg Messages.” “…dentified as Crystal Pyke of Juneau is missing and presumed fallen overboard off the coast of Chichagof. Any vessels in the area please be on the lookout and contact the Coast Guard with any information.”
The data block across the top of the map display predicted forty minutes to reach his destination.
The stabilized binoculars smoothed out the gentle rocking movement of Radio Flyer, giving Marco a sharp, steady view of the shoreline of the small island. It was rugged and heavily forested with offshore rocks and jagged terrain.
Something turquoise caught his eye on the rocks near shore. Something man-made.
Marco put the boat in neutral and focused his binoculars.
He held his breath.
It looked like fabric…could it…?
Nubby texture, splayed over a rock. Marco followed the fabric down into the…
Old gill net.
Damn.
Marco continued around the other side of the small island. He doubted it had ever been inhabited.
No sign of the missing girl. It had been almost two days since he heard the distress call. If he was right and she was onshore at Radioville, she’d still likely be alive.
Marco ran his hand across the smooth dome of the snow globe at the helm, tracing its curve with the edge of his thumb.
Inside, glittering flakes swirled gently around the little totem pole and the painted boardwalk.
Michelle’s voice rose in his memory, soft and steady: “We’re retired now, babe. There’s no rush.”
But there had been. They just hadn’t known it.
They’d bought Radio Flyer when life was busy and the future felt endless. Weekends turned into years spent chasing tides through the familiar waters of Puget Sound—lazy drifts through the San Juans, afternoon anchorages in the Gulf Islands, the occasional civilized pause in Victoria.
Those days had been full of plans. Alaska was always on the horizon—someday, they’d said. Someday when work slowed down. When time was finally their own.
Then the diagnosis came and everything sharpened. They retired early, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Someday turned into now. When the remission came, it felt like a second chance.
They’d made it as far as Alaska. Barely.
It was supposed to be glaciers and icebergs and rapids and sea lions barking under a full moon. Mornings wrapped in blankets with steaming coffee, watching eagles dive and whales breach and brown bears pluck salmons from streams.
It was supposed to be theirs.
Now, Marco sat alone at the helm, the snow globe cradled in his hands like something fragile and sacred. The glass was cool, but his chest burned. He could still hear her laugh echo across the deck, still picture her leaning on the railing, her watch glinting in the golden light.
There’s always a rush.
Sometimes you just don’t know it until the moment’s already gone.
Every hour he’d thought they had was already behind him. Every minute left was borrowed.
He needed to find her.
A whistle? A voice? The interminable waterfall of static hiss on the SSB was punctuated by something. Marco turned up the volume. A faint tone buried in the noise.
Was it his imagination? The static sounded normal now. Or almost normal, like the surface of a river with a rock below, just a small disturbance.
He wondered if his handheld radio might pick up something if he climbed to the top of the island. The antenna would be much higher, unobstructed. It was worth a shot.
The seafloor rose gently on the sonar display. Smooth—good place to drop the anchor for a bit. The water was calm, protected by the island’s steep terrain.
He lowered his anchor and set it carefully, making sure the plow was firmly secured in the muddy bottom. Solid enough.
He killed the engine.
The loaf of twenty-one-grain bread was almost out. Marco would need to reprovision soon—maybe when he went into Juneau to pick up his friend Bill from the airport.
Bill Worth, a longtime friend of Marco’s, had been planning for months to come join Marco on the boat for a week or so.
He’d about driven Marco crazy texting questions about what to pack.
Marco had to remind Bill that even though Alaska was remote, there were a number of people who lived here year-round.
Bill didn’t need to pack like he was crossing Antarctica on foot.
Marco spread olive oil mayo generously on the…
Four slices of bread.
He put his hand to his chest, trying to hold back the rising sob. Just a simple distraction, and he was automatically making two sandwiches.
I’ll save yours for later, honey.
He put two slices mayo-side together, wrapped them in plastic wrap, and stuck them in the refrigerator. He’d make another sandwich with them soon.
Marco opened the last can of his fancy line-caught tuna.
Michelle had always wanted the good stuff.
Now it was his fallback when he hadn’t been able to catch enough fresh seafood to feed himself.
He spread a little Dijon mustard on the bread, drained the oil from the tuna can, then dropped the entire contents onto the sandwich. He topped it with a slice of pickle.
A question was nagging at him about Radioville.
This was a truly remote place. Back in the 1930s, it had been even more isolated and hostile.
The only civilization—if you could call it that—was a handful of mining operations scattered along the coast. If you were going to set up a radio installation to communicate from those mining camps back to the rest of the world, wouldn’t the logical place be at one of the mining camps, where there were already buildings and regular supply deliveries and… other people?
Had this Joe Baxter guy found some great radio reception on a particular one of these rocks that made it worth setting up such a remote site? Or did Baxter have some other reason for keeping himself isolated?
Marco’s saliva glands gleeked painfully as he took the first bite of sandwich. He hadn’t been eating well lately, and he was starting to feel it. Being alone for long periods on the boat, it was easy to fall into bad habits of forgetting meals, just doing the minimum to keep himself going.
Outside the salon window, two humpback whales dove in tandem, their flukes slipping smoothly into the deep.
Marco never got tired of the stunning natural beauty of this place, and he welcomed the quiet solitude.
Maybe that was reason enough for Joe Baxter to build his radio shack out here all those years ago. Or somewhere out here at least.
Which one of these islands would I choose to set up shop and lie low?
He was antsy to get going. The woman was out here alive somewhere, he could feel it. He wrapped the last half of his sandwich in plastic to take with him to shore and dropped his plate into the sink.
His dinghy—a rigid inflatable boat half the size of the mysterious flat-black one Marco had seen—hung suspended from the two stainless-steel arms of the electric-lift davit attached to the back of Radio Flyer.
Most boaters preferred cranes that hoisted the dinghy onto the top deck of the big boat.
Marco liked the speed and convenience of the stern davit, particularly since he was almost always alone, single-handing.
Launching a dinghy with a crane took longer, was better with two people, and could get dangerous in heavier seas.
With the dinghy on the back of the boat, he could do the launch solo and be on his way in less than a minute—every time.
Marco put on his life vest. He was diligent about wearing his personal flotation device anytime he was outside, particularly since he was single-handing.
One rogue wave could easily send him overboard, and hypothermia could disable even the strongest swimmers.
He imagined the woman he was searching for slipping overboard, the shock of the cold water, trying to force her muscles to obey, to swim to some kind of safety.
But had she, or was the Coast Guard right? Had the radio transmission he heard been just a coincidence—a snippet of a distant conversation overheard and misunderstood? The Coast Guard sure didn’t seem to be giving it much weight.
She had to be on one of these islands. And finding Radioville was his best lead. He’d get to some high ground and try again to raise her on the radio.
He lowered the dinghy slowly into the water, stepped in, fired up the outboard motor, and gunned it.
The little boat rose up onto plane, skimming across the water at over twenty knots.
It smacked a small wave, sending cold saltwater spray across Marco’s exposed face and neck.
Within seconds he was approaching the shore.
He throttled back and tossed a small anchor over the stern, attached by a long bungee cord.
The bow of the boat slipped onto the beach. Marco balanced himself and climbed out, then walked up the beach and tied the end of the shore line to a tree.
He checked the tide table app on his phone. The tide would rise for another few minutes, then start falling—dropping almost fifteen feet over the next six hours. He set an alarm. Last thing he needed was to end up stranded on the beach by the outgoing tide.