Chapter 1
At first the
kayak paddle feels awkward in his hands. The twin blades
require a double twist for every stroke. He lifts one wrist
overhand to plane the right blade through the air and
plunges the opposite end under the water with a hard
downward sweep. Within ten minutes Paul Wakefield has
mastered the form well enough to paddle around the marina
bay—although he’s still doubtful about crossing the strait
to Discovery Island.
“You’re doin’ fine,” Brad calls from his kayak, a
narrow-hulled custom-built boat designed for speed and
maneuverability on the ocean waters.
“Yeah. Feels good,” Paul calls back, suspicious that Brad’s
encouragement is simply intended to keep his most nervous
kayaking students moving forward. But Brad Reedshaw’s
cheerleading appeals to the six adolescents in the class.
His appeal is further established by the Patagonia rowing
shirt which reveals his substantial biceps as he paddles
from kayak to kayak to prompt the group of novices about
their technique. His muscles expand and tighten with every
stroke and his straight, red hair flags behind his ears in
the light breeze. The waters cleave before him as he slices
across the bay to Reg and Fran Jensen, the only other
adults beside Paul in the class. Their fleet is composed of
seven boats including Brad’s: four single-seaters and three
doubles.
Paul
sets his paddle on the gunnel and lets his kayak drift
toward the open water. He likes the silence of the little
craft as it glides over the flat surface. A sense of
timelessness envelops him. If he points the boat toward the
southern tip of Discovery Island, the horizon opens into a
completely natural vista. No buildings, no towers, no
roads, no other watercraft are visible anywhere. It would
have been like this ten thousand years ago when the first
native explorers paddled out to sea to hunt the whales and
sea lions. The same silence. The same slate-coloured water,
the same fog leaning against the shoreline. The chalky snow
peaks on the Olympic Mountains would have looked just as
cold. And the raw stink of seaweed bulbs stacked against
the foreshore rocks on Jimmy Chicken Island would have
smelled as putrid. Yes, it would be just like this, the
past and present identical. Identical except for the
language in his mind—his voice assuring him, explaining the
world around him. To be human without a sense of language,
that would be truly primitive. The first people would have
had a vocabulary of sounds and grunts, possibly a few
hundred words that another person might understand. Perhaps
the words for whale and fog. But they would have no word
for panic, no phrase for death by drowning.
— Reprinted with permission of Turnstone Press —