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channel seemed to glow dimly along the rocks, but brightly around the black carcass in the white water, and around Billy and Sammy, as if they moved through swarms of bioluminescent creatures. Lester had fallen. Dolphins never wiped out. He heard Sven yelling in the distance. The tumbling corpse crashed over Sammy.
He heard, “Next one - when you see them, go.”
5:35 AM: North Jetty
Billy had gone to the bottom before the chaos rolled over him. He imagined being up in that hydraulic was worse than going down into the net. At least down there he could cut his way straight up, no knots coiled tight by the wave. His hands were numb; he was shaking violently. If he could find a grip and hold, until this wave passed, he could cut a path up and get Sammy. They were close now. He had seen Sven up there and Glass with rope. Eight feet above him he watched the shore break churn over his head and seconds later the surge tore him off the bottom. This wave carried the dolphin, which towed a mat of net, gathered in its rush from the lineup. It’s power drove Billy into the base of the jetty, dragged the gossamer mat over him and rolled on, wrapping him with a new sensation of density, and binding him silently onto the black basalt wall. The knife was gone. The only way up meant crawling - pulling himself and the net up, rock by rock, to the air. Half way to the surface, the third wave of the set hit. The turbulence slammed him against a boulder that he clung to. For a moment he thought the violence had freed him, but the net had simply shifted with him. The surge moved on, increasing his entanglement before anchoring him again.
He focused. Two-wave hold down – he could do that; he had done that. Not three. Drag this net five more feet. He felt like a beast harnessed to a deep furrow plow with an anchor chain. His face found air and time for one breath. He crabbed down into a void, holding for the next shock with numb hands and feet jammed into barnacled crevices.
5:37 AM: North Jetty
They watched the wave pass and no one came up. The dolphin bounced along the rocks below them and stopped - snagged and held by thousands of fine strands twisted into the jagged wall. A third wave crashed toward them. No one came up as the dolphin spun slowly in place. With the fourth approaching, Glass saw a glow covered with sparkling net rise momentarily from the water and sink back. Quinn had seen him too and yelled frantically, pointing at the spot as Glass, tethered to Sven, moved across the boulders. The third wave passed. Glass jumped.
Lester couldn’t understand, if they were gone or if he just couldn’t see. There was blood on his hands. He could taste it.
5:38 AM: North Jetty
Billy struggled to climb again, but thousands of threads resisted. His body shook uncontrollably and he needed air. Everything that wasn’t numb hurt. Suddenly the anchor was gone and something pushed him up into the air for the breath he thought he’d lost forever. Sven had his arm, pulling, and something pushed him up and he pushed against rocks with anesthetized flesh that couldn’t feel the dull barnacle knives. The fourth wave crushed them and rope pinned him to a boulder, sawing on his chest. Foam smothered him again, but when it passed, his face felt air and Sven pulled him up over the sharpness. Then, he was lying on his back looking at the sky.
Glass cut his way out of the horror that clung to him and signaled to Sven that he was safe and he could drop the rope. He crawled out before the fifth wall hit and helped Sven get Billy onto the road.
Sven called to Quinn, who stood starring at the ocean. “Anything? You see anything?”
Quinn’s voice came from another world where children lose their innocence in fragments of calm between breaking waves. “Nothing.”
Sven needed help and he heard that Quinn needed help. “Get in the camper Quinn. Get sleeping bags and get Billy covered up. Watch him.”
He turned to Lester. “Lester, you see anything? Lester! You see anything? Jesus, where is he?”
Glass scrambled back down to the water and Sven followed, picking up the rope on the way. They stopped above the dolphin. The set had passed and the huge carcass wilted between boulders, encased in a shroud of plastic vines.
Billy jerked upright and called out in strangled tones. “Sammy’s still down there. He’s down there.”
Without discussion, Glass dove and the rope paid out until Sven had to move down beside the water. He set his feet and wedged himself into the rocks preparing for the next small shore break. It came and went, washing over his legs and soaking him. The rope tugged and he began pulling. When he could see them, he stood and backed away to next big boulder. He saw Glass surface and get air. He held fast as the next small wave rolled by, tied the rope off to the boulder, and lowered himself down to lift Sammy out as Glass slashed at the net.
Glass held his knees up as Sven laid Sammy on the sleeping bag. Sven walked Quinn back to the Jeep, started the engine and turned the heater to high. Glass and Billy took turns doing mouth-to-mouth and cardiac pressure. After ten minutes they stopped to unzip his collar and remove his hood. One side of his skull had a deep dent above and behind his right ear. He was blue, white and cold.
Nobody talked and Lester continued staring at the shore break as it churned through the black boulders. He hadn’t moved.
6 AM: The Sandbar
The Pacific Coast Highway wound down into the Nehalem River valley from the slopes of Neahkahnie Mountain and crossed the river on a narrow two-lane bridge. Although it technically maintained its highway status through the village, it slowed traffic to the speed of a quiet city street. The town depended heavily on tourism from a stretch of shops that the highway divided into hillside and bay side locations. Negotiating the curves or the bridge provided passengers plenty of time to examine shop windows or signs offering directions down to the waterfront.
For years the town had two bars that also served meals, the Truck In and the Sandbar. Both offered standard menus typical of small town cafes, but the Sandbar also served seafood, caught fresh and subject to change on the specials menu. The Truck In also served unique fare, including venison, shot fresh, an item not listed on the menu. The walls of the Sandbar displayed trophy sized taxidermy – cutthroat, steelhead, salmon, a variety of cod, crabs and a thresher shark - composed and suspended in a decorative net. The Truck In also provided a natural history section – several mule deer heads with impressive antlers, a beaver, a coyote, a red tail hawk, some ducks and a snarling black bear’s head with yellow teeth. Scattered among the animal heads, a collection of photographs depicting men standing on huge stumps or gathered around antique steam driven engines developed a logging theme that stretched from the nineteenth century to the nineteen-eighties, represented by dramatic color photographs of customized logging trucks. Behind the bar several saws, axes and an exploded choker cable completed the décor. The extensive photographic section of the Sandbar included dozens of boats, both private and charter, proud tourists with their catch and seascapes in all seasons and varieties of weather. The Truck, squatted between the lumberyard and the garage, and faced the Coast Highway across a parking lot wide enough for a dozen pickups and a couple of log truck tractors without their trailers. The Sandbar perched above the little public marina on a parallel business street, a short walk from the boat launch and the slips. Unlike the Truck, which washed its floors weekly and relished the aroma of beer soaked wood, the Sandbar’s speckled linoleum received nightly mopping and weekly waxing.
The owners, Toby and Evelyn Babb, took pride in the fragrance of their home cooking, which drifted into the main seating area through a horizontal serving window behind the counter. Evelyn dressed the windows that opened onto the bay with fabric curtains that matched the tablecloths. Locally crafted glass panels depicting abstract sea life and exploding sunsets hung from the mullions with price tags attached. During summer months, potted plants bloomed under the windows on the street side and the bay side, where she maintained a cantilevered deck with chairs for smokers and a view of the harbor.
A crowd had gathered in the Sandbar and Billy sat at a corner table wrapped tight in an unzipped sleeping bag with half a mug of coffee in his hands and half the coffee on the floor. He was still shaking and occasional involuntary spasms in his arms and legs made drinking the coffee ridiculous, but it was warm.
Sven