Bristol Bay Summer Read online

  “It would be good to have someone take a look at him. Thomas can take you all in the skiff.”

  Zoey looked from Thomas to his mother. Was he really old enough to take them all to this Naknek place by himself?

  Carolyn smiled. As if she’d read Zoey’s mind. “Don’t you worry about a thing, dear. Thomas is fifteen and he’s made that trip a hundred times. He knows how to drive a skiff just fine.”

  “Okay, Mom.” Thomas got up and grabbed a piece of scratch paper and pencil. “Anything else we need from town?”

  “Potatoes and….” Carolyn took the paper from him. “You go get ready, I’ll make a list.”

  “How soon do you want to go?” Thomas pulled a small booklet from his pocket and flipped through it.

  “How far is it?” Zoey felt like they should leave right now.

  “Not far. Only an hour or so if the water’s flat, but that’s not often,” said Carolyn. “Thomas, what’s the tide doing?”

  Thomas ran his finger down a page in the booklet.

  He seemed older to her now. So in control. His eyes weren’t just dark. More like the color of the coffee beans her dad used to grind in the morning. Today they looked kinder. He didn’t seem stuck up anymore. At least he hadn’t called her “city girl” again.

  “High tide is twelve forty-seven.”

  Zoey checked her watch. Eleven o’clock.

  “We should go soon,” Thomas said. “We have to dodge the sandbars going across, and we need to get into the Naknek River while the tide is still up.”

  Sandbars? Papa had talked about those in Juneau. He said they were like little underwater islands made of sand. When the tide was low, people could get their boats stuck on them and have to wait for hours for the water to come back in again. Zoey had never seen one.

  Mrs. Gamble rinsed her cup in the sink using water from a big jug that hung on the wall. “How about if Thomas picks you up at your camp in half an hour?”

  “Okay.” Zoey headed for the door. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the honey. “From my mom. She brought it from Colorado, where we used to live.”

  Carolyn held the golden syrup up to the light of the window. “Thank you, Zoey. This will be a real treat.”

  Zoey turned the doorknob and over her shoulder said, “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Gamble.”

  Carolyn laughed. “Just ‘Carolyn’, dear. Long as the weather holds, you’ll be fine. Tell your mom to try not to worry.”

  As the door closed behind Zoey, the wind hit her hard in the face. She and Lhasa hurried down the beach. What if Eliot had gotten worse? What if the weather didn’t hold? Could Thomas really get them to a doctor safely?

  9

  Thomas to the Rescue

  When Zoey got back to the tent, Eliot had a thermometer in his mouth.

  “I take it you didn’t find the inhaler.”

  “I’ve turned every box upside down. Nothing.”

  Zoey told her mother of the plan for Thomas to take them to the clinic.

  “Carolyn thinks we need to go right away.”

  “She’s right. I don’t want Eliot to spend the whole night like this. If his throat closes up he’ll be in big trouble.” She read the thermometer. “A hundred and two degrees!”

  Just then they heard the skiff in the distance. Thomas was coming already.

  “Go get a change of clothes for you and Eliot. Hurry!”

  Zoey rushed out to the sound of her mom muttering about Tylenol, vitamin C, and rain gear. A minute later she was back with her duffel. She helped get Eliot dressed. Her mom grabbed an armful of rain pants from the hooks, herded them outside, and closed the tent flap.

  “What if Patrick comes back while we’re gone?” asked Zoey.

  “I’ll leave him a note. Help Eliot down to the boat. I’ll be right there.”

  When they got to the shore, Thomas guided the skiff toward the beach. At the last second he tilted up the outboard engine. The boat drifted in to the beach, but the waves washed it sideways. Thomas leaped out wearing rubber boots and dragged the bow farther up on the sand. Then he pulled three bright orange life jackets from the skiff and threw them on the beach.

  “My mom said to wear these. They’ll keep you warm.”

  Zoey buckled Eliot’s life jacket. She found herself wanting him to caw like a raven, but he was silent as a rag doll. She put her life jacket on, and soon her mom was beside them doing the same.

  Thomas steadied the boat while Zoey’s mom climbed in. He passed Eliot to her and pointed to a small seat in the very front.

  “Face back toward the engine. That’ll give you a little protection from the wind and spray.”

  Lhasa ran along the edge of the water barking and whining. When no one paid attention to her, she dug furiously in the sand and barked some more.

  “Take the middle seat,” Thomas said to Zoey. “When you get there, grab that oar and help push us off.”

  She kicked her leg up high to get it over the side of the boat. Holding on and bending low, she made her way toward the back. The words “Johnson 40” were printed on the battered little motor in faded letters. Zoey wondered for a moment if the “40” was its age, then realized it must be the horsepower.

  At Thomas’s direction, Zoey put one end of the oar into the water and shoved it against the sandy bottom.

  Thomas pushed hard until the boat was completely off the beach, then he jumped in and climbed past everyone, putting his hand on Zoey’s shoulder for an instant when the boat lurched. Zoey pushed again with the oar as Thomas pulled the cord on the engine. After a couple of tries the rusty machinery whirred and caught. Zoey pulled the oar in and took her seat, just a few feet from Thomas.

  He backed the boat into deeper water and turned it around. “Not bad, City Girl.”

  There it was again.

  Lhasa barked and swam toward them.

  “Lhasa, go home!” yelled Zoey, but the dog kept coming.

  Thomas looked at the dog then back at Zoey. He shook his head, stood, and guided the boat through two-foot choppy waves out into the Bay, gradually turning the throttle up as they moved away from shore. Finally, Lhasa turned and swam back toward the beach.

  The skiff seemed to climb up the side of one wave only to be met by another. Zoey’s stomach grew queasy. She didn’t feel like a city girl. More like a rubber duck in a washing machine. They’d just started and already she couldn’t wait to get back to dry land.

  Then the engine picked up speed and the skiff leveled off. Pretty soon they were flying along with the wind hard on their faces. Zoey cinched her hood down, held on tight to her seat, and tried to look ahead.

  Eliot closed his eyes, and Zoey turned her head back toward Thomas.

  He kneeled and pulled out a pair of ski goggles, eased them on over his wool cap, and pulled gray wool gloves out of his pocket. He slid them on and faced into the wind, his green jacket flapping.

  They were on their way to Naknek, a strange boy was in charge, and Zoey was scared to death.

  “Keep an eye out for sandbars,” Thomas shouted at Zoey over the engine noise.

  The sky darkened. Zoey tried to be alert, but pelting rain stung her eyes. She shouted to Thomas. “What do I look for?”

  Thomas smiled. “Extra ripples. That means shallow water is breaking over rocks or sandbars.”

  Zoey nodded trying to hide the shivers that were creeping up her arms. She reached under her raincoat hood and rolled her wool hat down almost to her eyes, all the time scanning the line where the gray soggy air met the water for anything that might snag the little skiff.

  Thomas had to slow the engine so the boat wouldn’t bounce so hard, but Zoey still gripped the underside of the bench seat with one hand. Periodically, she caught sight of a fishing boat through the rain, but the boats didn’t pay any attention to them. She felt tiny and out of place surrounded by the angry, churning water.

  “Where’s Naknek?” Zoey shouted over the noise of the eng
ine.

  “Straight across this part of the Bay from where our camps are. When we get closer, you’ll see the mouth of the Naknek River.”

  All Zoey could see ahead of them was water and the distant mountains. If there was a town in that direction, she had no idea how to find it. What if a big wave capsized them? She knew it happened a lot in Alaskan waters. The Coast Guard visited her school last year, and the officer said more people drown in Alaska than in any other state, mostly because the water is so cold. After just a few minutes in it, your muscles cramp up and you’re gone! Stay with the boat, they said. Don’t try to swim for shore. Stay with the boat. They said that over and over.

  But how could she hold on to the boat and Eliot at the same time? And who would ever find them?

  A plume of spray appeared in the distance through the rain, as if someone were pointing a garden hose at the sky. Thomas saw it too and pointed.

  “Whale,” he mouthed. As they got closer, big black fins cut through the choppy water.

  “They’re not belugas!” she yelled. She had heard about the many belugas in Bristol Bay and couldn’t wait to see them.

  “Orcas,” shouted Thomas. “Sometimes they drive the belugas into the mouth of the river and try to trap them there against the shore. That’s why they’re called ‘killer whales.’ Good hunters.”

  Zoey had seen whales while visiting her grandparents in Juneau. But those were humpbacks. They rolled through the water sucking big mouthfuls of tiny shrimp. These killer whales swam like torpedoes.

  Six or seven huge dorsal fins barreled straight for the little skiff. They looked like they could cut right through it without even noticing. Zoey held her breath.

  In a flash of spray, the dorsal fins veered just behind the skiff, slicing through the wake of the outboard and vanishing into the gray mist. Zoey shuddered at the cold emptiness in their wake. Suddenly, she remembered her lookout assignment and jerked her head back around. No extra ripples. Everything looked okay.

  Zoey finally found a rhythm in the waves, and although she still held on, she relaxed her grip on the seat. She looked at Thomas. He concentrated intensely on the water ahead. Still, he seemed comfortable, as if … what? As if he belonged here. In this tiny metal shell on the surface of a huge nothingness, at the edge of a wet, wet nowhere. He actually looked happy.

  Thomas was at least as tall as her dad, and there was something no-nonsense about him. None of the fancy outdoor gear you saw on the streets of Anchorage. Just jeans and an old army jacket stained with who-knows-what and half soaked with rain and spray.

  Her dad had done all the rowing when they fished in Colorado. What would he think of her now? She tried hard to remember what her dad looked like but realized the only images she could recall were from photos. One with her mom in front of the old house. Another of him holding a big trout. His eyes, she was sure, were sky blue, but the face that held them had become a blur.

  She had to get back to Colorado.

  “He’s getting worse,” Zoey’s mom shouted. Zoey looked back at her brother. His eyes were barely open and his head bobbed heavily.

  Just then, the boat slowed and swerved sharply to the right. Eliot’s eyes opened. That same sky blue.

  “What’s happening?” Eliot could hardly talk.

  Zoey didn’t know. A wave slapped the bow and spray shot back at her. When she looked over the edge of the boat she could see the bottom.

  Thomas yanked the engine up. The prop whirred in the air. Metal scraped against gravel as they ground to a halt.

  Zoey felt sick inside. This was her fault. She was supposed to keep watch, but all she did was daydream.

  Thomas looked right into her eyes. How could she feel a look? And in the pit of her stomach.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You couldn’t have seen that coming. It happens a lot.” He turned and killed the motor. They were stuck. Immediately, waves sloshed into the boat.

  “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

  “We’ll be okay.” Thomas grabbed an oar and pushed off the bottom. They inched along.

  “Mom,” Eliot whimpered. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.” He gagged and heaved the breakfast pancakes all over himself and his mom.

  He tried to cry, but what came out were strangled whines and croaky gurgles.

  “Hush, Eliot. You have to stay calm.” Their mom tried to mop up the mess with her handkerchief.

  Meanwhile, the boat twisted back and forth in the rough water. A big wave pushed them several feet sideways and Zoey realized they were floating free again.

  Quickly, Thomas put the engine back down into the water and worked to get it started.

  “Don’t let us float back onto the bar. We don’t have an extra shear pin.”

  “A what?” said Zoey.

  “If the prop hits a rock or something else hard while the engine is running, this little metal pin breaks off, and you have to put on another one. Otherwise the prop won’t turn. But we don’t have an extra one, so if it breaks, we’re stuck.”

  “So then what?”

  “Then we row.”

  Zoey realized he was completely serious, but at the same time, he didn’t seem concerned. As if he would just do whatever it was he needed to do to get them all to Naknek.

  Finally, the engine caught. Thomas put it in gear, and the boat slipped quickly into deeper water.

  “Don’t worry, it’s pretty clear from here, until we get to the river.”

  It seemed to Zoey that the number of ways you could get into trouble in Bristol Bay was too big to even count, let alone prepare for. People who live here all their lives still get surprised. Zoey didn’t like surprises.

  A few minutes later, they were running smoothly. The rain dried up, the clouds cracked, and a slit of sunshine spiked the water ahead of them. Soon, a bright path glinted, all the way to the approaching shore.

  Thomas sat down but kept his eyes straight ahead.

  “See that cliff where the sun’s hitting, way up there?” he said. “That’s where the Naknek River comes out. It’ll get a little bouncy from the current, but things’ll calm down when we get around the point.”

  Zoey nodded and took a deep breath. Eliot and her mom were sort of cleaned up and Eliot’s head rested against her side. He looked like he was asleep.

  After what seemed like hours of waves and splashing, the water finally calmed. They were almost there. At last, Zoey let go of her seat bottom.

  10

  Naknek

  We’re heading into the river current. We might get pushed around a little,” Thomas announced.

  Zoey could see where the Naknek River poured into the Bay in a broad, brown streak. Huge muddy swirls tentacled out on each shore. Clumps of fishing boats clung to anchor lines along the riverbanks. The skiff rocked in the surging flows.

  After a minute or two, Thomas maneuvered them across the river flow and they were moving smoothly close to shore. Bluffs on both sides of the river cut the wind. At their base, looking like they drifted in on a high tide, stood a scattering of rough shacks, some with hand-painted names: “The Mansion,” “Pete’s Retreat,” “The Willsons.” Zoey wondered if people actually lived in them.

  “We’re headed up there.” Zoey followed Thomas’s finger to a high spot on the beach where a saggy pier stuck out from the bank.

  Zoey pointed and called to Eliot, but he didn’t even open his eyes.

  They approached the shore. A few children played by the nearest shack, while two adults nearby handled a long fishing net. All up and down the beach people in rubber pants and jackets chatted in groups, bent over boats, or worked on fishing nets. Eliot sat up and looked around half-heartedly, then closed his eyes and leaned back into his mother.

  Thomas pulled the engine up like before and the skiff drifted the last few feet to the beach. This time there were no big waves to push them around. Thomas leaped out, and Zoey’s mom lowered Eliot to him. He took the boy’s weight easily in his ar
ms. With one hand, Thomas held the bow steady, with the other, he reached out first to Zoey’s mom, who climbed out, then to Zoey. She put her hand on his arm near the elbow and was surprised at how solid it felt. She jumped to the ground and immediately sank to her ankles in mud.

  Then they all squished up the beach toward the cabins. It wasn’t until the mud under her boots gave way to sandy gravel that Zoey felt she was really back on land. Thomas set Eliot down while he tied the boat’s rope around a big rock.

  Zoey looked at Eliot leaning against their mom. “How do you feel?”

  Eliot did that barking cough again and shook his head. Their mom picked him up this time. The mud from his boots made thick black lines on her pants.

  As they approached the cabin, the children Zoey had seen earlier looked up. They were about Eliot’s age. Behind them a woman wearing a blue jacket and a scarf tied around her black hair stepped forward. She was joined by a man in rubber overalls, boots, and a wool hat.

  “Is that you, Thomas?” said the woman.

  “Hi, Clara. Lee Roy.”

  Zoey’s mom interrupted them. “Do you know where we can find a doctor? Eliot here is having trouble breathing. He needs medicine.”

  As if on cue, Eliot coughed.

  “Lee Roy,” the woman said, “go get the rig. I’ll stay here and work on the net while you take them to the clinic.”

  Lee Roy turned and walked quickly up the beach.

  “These guys are staying at Halfmoon with the pilot who hauls our fish,” said Thomas.

  “Sorry, I’m Alice Morley. This is my daughter, Zoey, and son, Eliot.”

  “Welcome to our fish camp,” Clara said pointing up the beach.

  The building she waved at wasn’t much bigger than a gardening shed. Various pieces of rain gear hung on hooks by the door, and a rusty stovepipe poked through the roof. The only window Zoey could see was covered with plastic sheeting.