Chapter 17

When Karl and Ely were almost back at the porch, Keri called out and broke the silence of their walk. “So, what did you find?”

“Oh, we found the place where someone had come up from down in the gorge, but there’s been a small landslide. I don’t think anyone or anything can come that way again, at least not for now,” Karl answered shortly.

“There’s no way to tell if anyone was on the path when it slid over,” Ely added. “If there was, they’d have fallen straight down onto the rocks just above the lower falls.”

“I never heard anything like a scream or a yelp this morning, not other than when you shot at the dog,” Keri offered.

“Everyone inside the cabin was yelling from surprise. We might not have been able to hear over that,” Karl answered. “Besides, it’s far enough away and there was enough storm noise that any scream or shout might have been masked anyway. Now, I’m going to stay out here for a bit and just think, so everyone can go inside and warm up for a while if you want. I’d love a cup of coffee though. Would someone please get me one?”

“Do you want to be alone or do you want company?” Ely asked as Keri passed him the rifle before opening the door to go inside.

“Um, I don’t mind if you stick around. I just want to think quietly for a bit.”

“I’ll bring you both a coffee,” Keri offered taking Karl’s little shotgun in hand.

Both Karl and Ely found deck chairs and sat in silence for a few moments. It wasn’t Keri who brought Karl his coffee, it was Trudy and she brought a cup for Ely as well. Along with his coffee, Trudy handed Karl a small vial of pills.

“I saw you walking with a limp out there,” she frowned at him. “I know you’ve got to do things today, but there’s no sense in being in pain. Take two of those. Now! While I can see that you do take them.”

“I need to think straight,” Karl argued.

“You’ll think straighter if you’re not in pain,” Trudy scowled.

“Okay, okay,” Karl gave in and swallowed two pills with his first sip of coffee.

Once Trudy had taken the pill bottle with her and gone back inside, he sighed softly then looked at Ely. “Look, would you mind if I thought out loud? Maybe you’ll notice something I’m missing.”

“No problem,” she smiled. “I actually expected that when I offered to stay out here with you.”

“Hmph,” he grunted, then sat back and took another sip of coffee while gathering his thoughts.

“Okay, what I can make out of this, there’s at least a man, his dog, a cow and a calf on the island now that weren’t here six weeks ago. Now the only way you can get all of those here at the same time is by boat and that means you have to come in through the outer gorge. What doesn’t make sense is that there’s no sign of a boat in the lagoon and there was no sign that anyone had been at the wharf or in the shed down there. On top of that, there’s no sign that anyone has been up around the houses. At least there wasn’t any old sign, so I don’t think there was anyone here until the last day or so, about the time I found the cow and the calf,” he paused and looked at Ely.

“Right so far, and I agree it makes no sense,” she nodded. “When you come in through the gorge, the first thing you notice after coming out from between the cliffs is the mooring buoy in the middle of the bay and then your eyes seem to be drawn to the dock. There’s no way you’d miss seeing the ‘Skolka’. Not unless whoever it is was here before we came back or else came in at night, but at night the tides are all wrong, well at least for the last while, since they’ve been moving outward at night.”

“Okay, but we haven’t been quiet. Since we came back here we’ve made lots of noise. Hell, I even ran the chain saw for a while when we first came back. Then last night we used the bloody outboard to move the ‘Skolka’ back to the dock. Anyone could have seen or heard us doing that. Why not approach us? Why not shout or do something to call attention to themselves? And why not use the regular trails? Why is the guy sneaking around?”

“What if it’s someone who is hiding out? Maybe someone with a mental problem or perhaps an escaped felon?”

“Oh great, now we have to try to out-think either a crazy nut or a crook.”

“Okay, let’s think about that question. Why would someone not want to be seen?” she frowned. “Maybe because he’d be recognised? I’m afraid that he’s leaving us no choice, but to work out some way to find him and get rid of him.”

“Well, if he were afraid of being recognised, then he must be awful damn notorious, especially since he might be in fairly dire straits like this guy seems to be,” Karl frowned just as deeply. “If he’s that damn infamous, he’d have had to do something horrendous. Are you suggesting that we should just hunt him down, shoot him, then throw him into the ocean?”

“If we knew he was going to harm one of our family, I’d say yes!” she said softly, but emphatically. “I’m afraid I’m rather vicious when it comes to protecting my family.”

“I can understand that,” Karl nodded. “I think there’s a bit of difference in our philosophy, I’d prefer to see a man tried in court before he was hung.”

“And if you saw a man about to commit a heinous crime, wouldn’t you try to stop him?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I could kill him in cold blood. Anyway, this discussion is getting off of the topic of what we have to worry about right now. I was trying to decide what we need to do today.”

“I’d like to make sure that all of the guns on the island are under our control.”

“Good point, and I agree. I think the first thing we need to do is get to the dock and make sure we hide the muzzle loader and the flare gun aboard the boat. While we’re there we should try to bring up as much as we can of the salvage you guys brought with you. Whatever else happens, we need to get all of that stuff out of the boatshed.”

“Why do you want to do that first?”

“Because, our prowler seems to have decided to stay in the lower end of the island, or at least down in the gorge. That means he can eventually work his way around the bay, so we need to worry about the guns down there first. Actually you know something? It might be that he hasn’t tried to cross the stream. What do you think, could he be afraid of doing that for some reason?”

“Oh come on, if he got here by boat, he sure as hell couldn’t be scared of the water, could he?”

“If he’s nuts, who knows? Maybe he can’t swim and the dog saved him from drowning? Maybe he’s never found a way across the stream, and is scared of the current? It is running quite strong right now and there’s really no way to go up the canyon if you’re stuck on this side of the stream, but below the falls. There’s a sheer bluff and a deep pool right below them on this side of the stream and below that, the stream is either fairly deep or very soft bottomed all the way down to tidewater. I think you’d have to swim across and if the water is running really fast, the idea of being carried off in the current would faze most people.”

“You mean he’s stuck down in the swamp with the pigs, or at least on the same side as them?”

“Unh huh, and that points out another problem. In order for him to have come up that path to the bottom end of the clearing, he had to break through that barrier I put up to hold back the pigs. That means it will have to be repaired before long or they’ll be up here tearing the place apart.”

“Even after that slide?”

“Mm, good point. That should mean it will be okay for a while, at least until the weather calms down and the soil dries up a bit. Look, what I think we should do is have breakfast, then leave Trudy and George here with the kids. We’ll leave them the shotgun and George’s pistol. The rest of us will go get the stuff from the shed by the dock and collect all the guns from the other house. I’ve even had second thoughts about the muzzle loader. I want that out of the boat too.”

“Okay, you know that Trudy and I were talking last night? In the old cabin over at Dad’s, there’s a toilet that won’t ever be used. How long would it take to tear it out? If it didn’t take long, it would sure help Dad. He’s having an awful rough time with the stairs. Since the roof is collapsed on the old cabin anyway, I imagine we’ll just have to get rid of the wreckage, so salvaging the toilet won’t hurt.”

“Well, I need to find some pipe too, but you’re right, if I can get at it, it wouldn’t take long to rip it out. Unfortunately, what I was thinking of doing was just to make a quick trip this morning to get those guns under our control. We can take care of less immediate things like the toilet this afternoon and I could work on things like that in the evening. While we’re out and on the other side of the gorge, I want to walk along the ridge and over to the point on the other side to look right down at the falls. Then I can see the area near that slide and at the same time I can get a look at the stream above the falls just to see how fast it is running. If there’s way too much water we may have a problem with the dam.”

“Are you thinking the dam may be leaking?”

“It’s possible, after all we’ve had several minor earthquakes and when we were on the cliff this morning, it sounded like there was a hell of a lot of water going over the lower falls.”

“Oh shit, that’s all we’d need. If we lost the dam, we’d be without power, running water and everything.”

“Yep, so we’d better get in there and grab some breakfast. We’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do today.”

“Did someone mention breakfast?” They heard Keri say from behind them. “I thought you two might enjoy a bacon and egg sandwich and a fresh cup of coffee.”

“Now that’s thinking ahead,” Karl smiled at her.

“Yeah, well we were all talking inside and we had a couple of ideas we’d like to run by you.”

“And?” Karl managed to mumble around a mouthful of sandwich.

“We were thinking that we should get a lot done in a hurry, so Dad thought he and the two kids could stay here with the little shotgun and one walkie talkie. He thought they could stay in the house and just keep an eye on things. If a prowler comes around, they could call on the walkie talkie and we could all come back.”

“Hmm, well, that does give us one more set of hands,” Karl admitted.

“As well as that, we figured that you could probably get the little garden tractor running and pull the trailer, It wouldn’t take much to clear the trail over to the other house wide enough for it to get through would it?”

“Another good idea,” he admitted. “The garden tractor should start fairly easily, that is if the battery isn’t dead. It just needs gas and there shouldn’t be anything major in the way of getting it to the other house.”

“Good, we were thinking you could run over to the other house while we get the stuff up to the upper shed from the shed at the dock.”

“No bloody way!” Karl said firmly. “I want to go aboard the ‘Skolka’ and disconnect the throttle and the burner controls, so she can’t be stolen. I want to be sure she’s okay to be left unguarded, so I’m going down to the dock.”

“But, Karl... “ Keri started to argue.

“No buts!” Karl said firmly. “I have four things I have to do today and there are lots of other things that need doing that will keep everyone else busy.”

“All right, just what do you have to do?” Ely asked patiently.

“I have to see down into the gorge from above the lower falls, just in case someone is trapped in that slide. On top of that, I want to see how much water is coming over the falls. If there’s way too much, I have to go back up the hill to the dam and see if there’s a problem there. I’d like to check it anyway, but it’s not an emergency unless it looks like the water coming down from above the falls is either excessive or running really dirty.”

“So is that one thing, or two?” Ely asked again.

“I guess it’s two,” he sighed. “The other two are to mothball the ‘Skolka’ even better than it is and to salvage the toilet, the tank and the floor mount out of the old cabin over at your Dad’s place.”

“Well, I can take a helper and check on both the falls and the dam,” Ely said firmly. “Just explain to me why we should be worried if the water is dirty.”

“Well, if the water’s all murky, the dam might have leaks that are washing mud into the stream. I really need to see both of them. It’s a judgement call and I know you’re good at that kind of thing, but it’s really a matter of making a comparison with what I’m used to seeing in the rainy season.”

“Damn it, I don’t think you should be hiking around so much,” she said patiently. “I saw you limping this morning and after you lost your breath so badly yesterday, I’m a little worried about your health.”

“Ely, I’m feeling fine right now and if we do get that tractor running, I can do a lot of the travelling while sitting on the tractor.”

In the long run Karl won out and while the women went inside to get ready, he went out to the back shed behind the goat shed and checked out the garden tractor. Although the battery was dead, it actually started easily on the third pull of the starting rope. Taking Ely along, with her riding in the little trailer, they started out. Karl wasn’t carrying a weapon, but Ely had the .22 rifle.

They’d agreed that Keri would carry the large rifle and Trudy, the pistol, along with Linda, who was unarmed, would be walking between them. In only moments Karl and Ely were at the bridge and Karl stopped the garden tractor on the far end from the cabin to look down at the amount of water flowing in the gorge.

“Damn, it sure looks like a lot,” he said above the sound of the rushing water.

“Yeah, but it seems to be fairly clear.”

“Yeah, and it’s not running all that high on the rocks by the generator house. I’ve actually seen it almost that high before, so maybe it’s not that bad. I think the dam might be okay, because this looks like heavy runoff from all the rain we’ve had,” Karl felt relieved. “Okay, let’s move on to the view point above the lower falls.”

He lead the way as they hiked along the edge of the larger trees on the far side of the gorge from his cabin. They hiked to an outcrop of rock that dropped almost a hundred feet vertically into the small canyon below and from there they could easily see the fresh slide on the other bank.

“Holy cripes,” Ely gasped at the sight as they came out of the trees.

Tons and tons of material had dropped downward, in fact it was damming up the water behind it even as it was being washed away by the raging stream pouring over the top of the freshly fallen clay.

“Damn!” Was the only word Karl spoke for a moment.

The cliff opposite them had been covered with small bright green shrubs and grass the last time he’d seen it from this angle, which was only two or three months before. Now it was stripped to bare glistening wet rock for the majority of its height. You could see a sheer slab of shale exposed to the falling rain and when he looked at it, Karl couldn’t understand how the clay could have held on those steep slopes before.

“Why didn’t that slide before now?” he whispered. “What was holding it up?”

“There is some rock mixed in with the clay down at the bottom,” Ely answered almost as quietly. “Maybe those last little quakes and then the weight of the water from the rain or...”

“Do you think it was triggered by the tiny bit of weight of a fucking dog?” Karl said in sheer astonishment. “All those tons of mud and rock, sliding because of one dog, or even a man and a dog?”

“I’d say more likely it was broken free by yesterday’s earth tremors, then it just took a while to fall. I imagine what happened was the clay shifted slightly on the grade, then what rock was holding it back at the bottom finally let loose this morning. There’s no sign of either a man or a dog, not that I can see.”

“No, but look at that crap, it’s just oozing into the stream, the whole pile is being washed away as we watch. It’s all moving, just like it was a thick soup.”

“I remember reading something about that somewhere, when the soil turns to muck in an earthquake. I think they called it liquefaction, or something like that.”

“I don’t think this is the same,” Karl frowned. “But all this doesn’t satisfy my curiosity even one little bit. Where the fuck is that guy and his dog?”

“I don’t know Karl, but I don’t see any sign of anything out of the normal other than the slide, do you?”

“No, and that’s what makes no sense either,” Karl sighed. “But then not much of what’s been going on makes sense to me. I suppose in a way I was hoping we’d see the guy pinned under the muck or something. We’re still left with the same mystery as before.”

“Yeah, by the way, look at the top of the slide area,” Ely pointed.

“Hmm?” Karl frowned slightly. “Oh, yeah, where we were standing doesn’t look too stable, does it?”

“Actually, it doesn’t look bad at all, look at where it changes colour. There where the slide came down, isn’t that rock?”

“I guess, but seeing what happened before, I’d rather not have too many people dancing around above it or anything,” Karl smiled wryly. “That bit of rock at the top looks damn steep and quite slippery. I think we’re safe from having visitors coming up that way again.”

“Yeah, but we can’t afford to stand here and make guesses, can we? We still need to get a lot done today, just in case that guy is still around, so maybe we should go help the others?”

“Okay,” Karl agreed off-handedly, still deep in thought.

They walked back to the trail in silence, but took a moment to stand on the end of the bridge and just look down at the rushing stream again. Neither of them spoke and it wasn’t long before they moved to the tractor and trailer. Once they were seated again, Karl started the engine and they headed off down the trail. At the wye in the trail, Karl pulled the tractor and trailer off to the side near the shed. The other three women were waiting there, having passed Karl and Ely as they were checking out the view of the lower falls.

“Well?” Keri demanded. “What did you see?”

“Not much, the slide was bigger than we expected though. A huge section of the hillside let go and wiped everything away clear down to sheer rock,” Karl said firmly. “Nothing is climbing that for a while.”

“So, no sign of either the man or the dog?” Linda asked.

“Nope,” Karl volunteered. “For now, we have to assume they’re still around,”

He looked down at the sloping trail down to the dock and shook his head.

“There’s no way this garden tractor will climb that hill while it’s this wet,” he pronounced. “I guess we walk down and carry stuff back up.”

“We will be the people who carry things. For a few days, you are taking it easy,” Ely said vehemently. “I don’t want to see a repeat of yesterday.”

“Oh, whatever!” Karl said exasperated with Ely’s caution, then not waiting for any other response, he set off down the path.

The others followed quietly. It seemed that no one was in the mood to talk since no one said much during the hike downhill, but it only took a few minutes before they were nearing the end of the trail and approaching the dock area. The wind that they’d heard and felt when they were on higher ground was negligible down near the water’s edge, but the rain still fell steadily and Karl paused at the edge of the tree line looking out at the scene before him.

The dock, the boat, and the shed all looked as if no one had visited them in weeks. Karl’s eye’s were drawn to the boat. A fairly large limb had been snapped from one of the trees onshore and was lying across the stern deck of the ‘Skolka, ‘ then draped down into the water. The rest of the boat’s deck was strewn with fallen leaves, needles and small branches, while her windows had that misty look of long disuse. When he looked at the water, it had a strange murky tone, but since he knew about the water pouring over the clay of the slide, he wasn’t really surprised.

“Cripes, she looks like no one has been on her in months,” Keri said quietly at his elbow.

“Well, that was the idea of mooring her under the cedar. I actually hate the idea of leaving her there for long. She’d get all covered in that tree-scum-crap you get from cedars, but a week or two won’t matter. I know it’ll be a job to clean that stuff off, but I think she’ll be safe there.”

“It’s too bad that we have to leave her like that. It bothers me,” Linda said sadly.

“Yeah, me too,” Karl snorted. “Look, I need one helper on board for a bit and someone should stay outside to keep an eye out for danger, just in case. Keri, do you want to do that? The other two can make up packs of the stuff in the shed.”

“What, stand guard? Like hell, I want to get my shotgun,” Keri said vehemently. “Why not have Ely or Linda take the rifle and stand on the foredeck of the boat. Trudy has the .22 pistol. She can come inside the shed with me while I get my shotgun out of the case and load it. Once I’ve got that in my hands I’ll feel a lot safer. After that we can pack everything else up to go.”

“I’d like to go below deck on the boat for a bit,” Linda said apologetically. “I think I left something there, but other than that, maybe I’d be best outside keeping an eye on things because everyone else knows their way around so much better.”

“All of you make up your minds. I really don’t care,” Karl sighed resolutely and then headed out onto the dock.

“Jeeze, watch your footing, out here,” he said almost instantly. “The dock is slippery as ice with all this crap laying on it.”

Once on the boat and inside the wheelhouse, his first action was to take the can of black powder from the cupboard where it had been stored, then set it and the muzzle loader near the door to be taken away. Meanwhile Ely was on the foredeck with the bigger of the rifles and Linda had scurried below decks. He was digging out the box of flares and the flare gun when she popped up from below again.

“That was fast,” he said shortly.

“Unh huh,” she held up a band-aid container. “I decided I need this. It was one of the things I made sure I had with me before.”

“What the hell is that?” he asked. “Bandages?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s also got the little case that holds my diaphragm in with the bandaids.” She giggled. “I think since Keri is pregnant, one woman at a time is enough. I’ve got an idea that you and I may still get together once in a while, so I want to have an option.”

“Woman, if we weren’t in such a hurry right now I think I’d kiss you,” Karl grinned. “One of the things that I’ve worried about was the fact that I’d had sex with you before, especially after Keri said she was having my baby. I’ve had my fingers crossed that you didn’t catch, but if you had that thing, why weren’t you using it then?”

“Well at first, because I didn’t even think of it. Then later I didn’t worry about it because you told me that for all practical purposes you were sterile,” she laughed. “Now can I get a hug and take a rain check on that kiss? In fact maybe we could include a cuddle another time?”

Karl swept her into his arms for a few seconds, then she pulled away and ran outside to talk animatedly with Ely as she took over guard duty. Karl went back to rounding up the things he wanted to take with them and Ely came inside soon. The two of them moved the flare gun and the boxes of flares below decks, actually putting them in one of the cupboards down in the galley. That meant they were still quite close to the wheelhouse if they were needed, but further out of sight than before.

“Now what?” Ely asked as Karl lead the way to the boiler room.

“Well, if anyone were to come here and try to run off with the boat, I’d like to make it difficult for them,” Karl answered thoughtfully. “I was thinking of actually pulling the burner jet out of the fire tube, then removing a section of the fuel supply pipe and perhaps hiding it in a drawer. Perhaps we could disconnect the priming pressure pump and disconnect the fuel filter unit too? What do you think?”

“They all go back easily, right?” Ely asked.

“Unh huh, ten or fifteen minutes will put them back if we need to use the boat,” Karl grinned. “That is if you know how. If you don’t know the tricks to installing them, they’re a bitch. Keri decided to help me by changing the filters out once and she struggled for four hours without telling me what she was trying to do. When she finally asked, and I showed her how to do it, she had them all back and working in minutes. That means I’m not the only one who can put them back, she knows the drill too.”

“Okay, you can show me the tricks of reinstalling them as they come out,” Ely smiled. “Why not lay them out over there on the work shelf as if you were trying to fix everything? That way we could have a good excuse for the boat not being able to move if the military does drop in on us.”

“Good thought,” Karl grinned at her. “Actually, I’ve got a worn impeller from the primer pump in the drawer, If I open up the pump and have it laying there with the old impeller beside it, it will look like I was trying to fix it and still needed a part.”

“Yeah, and if the military does come and they aren’t here at high tide, they can see the slide down in the cut, blocking our exit.”

“Oh, if they come here, I intend to ask for help to remove that, even if it is high tide,” Karl grinned at her. “They have diving and demolition experts and surely they’d like a friendly local who could help them out in emergencies.”

“Wouldn’t they want to confiscate the boat?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. I’ve been thinking about that. The Navy has probably got their hands full right now and if they see this thing looking like hell and not even working, as well as behind that damn slide in the gorge, I don’t think they will be overly interested. The investment of time and labour to get the boat into service would be too much trouble. On top of that, it’s not exactly the sort of thing they’d need.”

“Maybe, but let’s discourage anyone for now and make this thing hard to get going.”

So they worked on that for a while, stripping the actual steam making capabilities from the boiler. Then just to be certain no one could possibly steal it, Karl disconnected a link in the drive shaft. After that they went back topside and out on deck. Before leaving the boat, Karl wanted to clean the fallen needles that covered the solar cells mounted on the roof of the cabin. Ely climbed up, insisting she wanted to look around from that extra height while she was there.

Suddenly she gave a strangled cry and pointed out into the bay. Far out, near the opening into the cut, there was a black dot on the water and as they watched they could see it moving.

“Shit, it’s that damn dog I saw this morning,” Karl said loudly. “And with the tide sweeping out, he’s caught in the current. Can you tell if he’s swimming?”

“His head’s up, so I think so,” Ely answered. “Do we have a pair of binoculars handy?”

“I’ll grab them,” Karl said going into the cabin of the boat.

By the time he had the binoculars in his hands and was back on deck, he knew it was too late to do anything. As he lifted the glasses to his eyes, he saw the dog’s head clearly, then it disappeared as the dog was swept into the first of the tidal swirls at the entrance of the cut. There was obviously an undertow and the dog had apparently swum right into it.

“He’s gone,” Ely stated softly. “Do you think he’ll come back up?”

“Who fucking cares?” Linda said loudly from her guard position on the foredeck. “The damn thing was a pain in the ass and a thief.”

“That’s not the point,” Ely snapped back. “It wasn’t the dog’s fault. Obviously he was starving. Karl, is there anything we can do?”

“Not a damn thing,” Karl sighed. “Except I’d like you two to stop arguing. We can discuss this later.”

He was scanning the water surface with the binoculars, vainly hoping to see the dog’s head reappear. When a mass of greenery that had been floating in the water near the dog finally disappeared into the gorge’s maw and was whipped rapidly out of sight he finally pulled the glasses down and sighed deeply.

He glanced up at Ely who looked extremely sad, then turned slowly to Linda and shook his head.

“Linda, I know, a couple of hours ago I was trying to shoot that dog and I am relieved that he won’t be attacking us, but drowning in that maelstrom is a bloody rotten way for anything to die.” Having said that, he took the binoculars back into the boat’s cabin, picked up the muzzle loader and the black power, then carefully closed and locked the cabin. “Let’s go huh?” he said firmly.

Ely explained to Keri and Trudy why they appeared a bit sombre when they all moved to the shed. Everyone, except Karl, went inside to finish packing up what they wanted to move in order to make it all easy to carry. In only moments, they were donning improvised back packs and grasping parcels for the climb up the hill. It turned out that there wasn’t as much to carry as they had thought, so no one was overloaded.

The short trek up the steep path was made in silence. Even though he was only carrying about twenty pounds up the hill, Karl was glad to get to the top and the shed, just so he could sit and rest. He had been limping for the last couple of hundred feet, so Trudy made him sit down to relax for a bit while everyone else packed the trailer and drew a small tarp over the load. Karl hadn’t noticed it before, but Trudy and the others had brought along a large thermos, leaving it at the shed when they went down to the boat. She poured out several small cups of coffee, handing Karl one cup and a vial of pills that she’d had in her pocket.