Wild Man Island Read Free Page B

thought. Mom waiting at the airport in Grand Junction. Tell her I visited Hidden Falls. Give her the humpback whale T-shirt I’m going to buy at one of the tourist traps in Sitka or Juneau. Talk her into burgers and fries on the way to the casa. Check in with the grandparents and see if the peaches are ripe. Check my e-mail. Call Derek and find out when soccer starts. See if he wants to do a piece of the Kokopelli Trail on our mountain bikes. Call Darcy and see if she still remembers me. Ask her how she did at the horse show in Durango. Listen to the new CD I burned just before I left home. Then crash in my own bed back in good old Orchard Mesa.
    All I had to do was round the long string of granite boulders that stuck out in the strait. I had to clear the point before I could get back to hugging the seaweed beds along the shore.
    I pushed on my right foot pedal; the rudder at the stern responded instantly. The nose of the kayak moved right, and now I was pointed toward the farthest rock.
    Once I got around that rock and could dash back to the shore, I would feel a whole lot better. The thing is, it was taking much longer than it should have because Iwas fighting the tide. It was just like paddling upriver, but I was strong. I could do it.
    As I rounded the point, at my farthest from the shore, it struck.
    Nothing I had ever seen before, not even in the canyonlands of Utah, had prepared me for wind that came on this strong and this suddenly.
    One second I’d been paddling in that dead calm. Two heartbeats later I was fighting wind that was producing big swells right before my eyes.
    My left foot pressed hard on the rudder pedal and I pointed the kayak toward the land. Toward safety.
    Head down, I paddled hard. But now the wind was blowing violently, off Baranof Island and directly at me. Rollers were rising up right in front of me and the wind was blowing white water off their crests.
    The waves were all coming toward me, sweeping away from the land. Ocean waves weren’t supposed to do this. Ocean waves were supposed to come in to the shore.
    So they aren’t doing what you think they should, I told myself. Get over it.
    Somehow I had to get through them.
    I took a look and found the shore farther away than when I had rounded the point. I could fight the tide, but how was I going to fight this wind? No matter that I’d been paddling full bore, the land was slipping away, the wind was howling, and I was in a world of trouble.

4
    I KEPT THE BOW POINTED TOWARD LAND, kept paddling hard, but the wind was pushing more and more waves up between me and the shore. Big rollers with windblown crests were running right at me.
    I had to get through them, that’s all there was to it. If I could reach the kelp beds, the seaweed would hold me. Julia had described sea otters wrapping themselves in seaweed to ride out a storm.
    The wind was howling, just howling. Foam blew off the crests of the waves right into my eyes. The salt stung and I tried blinking my eyes clear. I kept the bow pointed into the waves and paddled as hard as I possibly could.
    With my head down to avoid the spray, I broke through the top of one roller and then a second and then a third.
    Was I getting anywhere? Or were the waves just passing under me? Was I any closer to shore?
    I took a quick look. I didn’t think so.
    Head down, I paddled even harder, but the waves were relentless.
    My eyes went to the shoreline again. It had to becloser by now, but it just wasn’t. I was shocked by what I saw. The shore was farther away, quite a bit farther.
    Every few seconds, farther yet.
    In no time at all, I’d been pushed back a hundred yards, maybe two hundred, from where I’d started. Panic nearly overwhelmed me. I pushed it back by concentrating on what I had to do.
    I wasn’t going to be able to keep this up. Nobody could get to shore against this wind. Nobody. How could it have struck so fast?
    Now the wind was pushing the tops of the