Chapter 19

Ely and David were in the old cabin when Mary-Beth came bursting in the door.

“I thought you was in here,” she giggled in a high-pitched voice. “Mom and Daddy would like you to come to the house. I think it’s ‘portant.”

“Is Karl awake or is something wrong?” Ely asked instantly.

“Unh huh, he’s awake, but nothin’s wrong. Ever’body is okay. We don’t hafta run. I just did ‘cause I wanted to.”

“Okay then, let’s go then,” Ely smiled at her. “You too, David.”

As Ely stepped out of the old cabin and stood on the front porch with the children, she suddenly had a strange feeling that she was being watched. It was the sort of feeling she’d felt at other times in the past few days, just an uneasy feeling that someone was watching. Now though, after Trudy and Keri had been attacked, she knew the feeling might have some basis in truth, and that frightened her so she told the kids to stick close. When she locked up the door, instead of putting the key to the door back on the upper sill where she’d found it, she dropped it into her pocket. Then, since she had her hand in her pocket, she adjusted the revolver to enable her to get it out more easily. Turning slowly, she paused, letting her eyes wander all around her. She could see the questioning look in David’s eyes and she smiled slightly in a weak attempt to reassure him.

Leading the way, she stepped down from the porch and began to walk toward the newer cabin, but she walked carefully, not relaxing until both kids were inside and she could follow. Once inside, she sighed heavily, then found herself looking at Karl who looked back questioningly, as if to ask her what was wrong.

“Maybe I’m just paranoid,” she frowned slightly. “But when we came out of your old cabin, it felt as if someone was watching us.”

“You didn’t see anything?” Karl asked.

“No, nothing! I did look around carefully too.”

“I wonder?” Karl grabbed the rifle and stepped to the door. “I think I want to have a look. Besides, I want to see if Bruno is restless. He’d notice things we wouldn’t.”

“I never thought to check if he was acting...” Ely started to say, but Karl was already outside and closing the door behind him.

She stepped close to the door and looked out, but didn’t move to join Karl. Out on the front porch, Karl swung his eyes rapidly from one side to the other and then looked over at Bruno. The dog was resting easily, but looked up at him and thumped his tail in greeting. Karl moved over and knelt near him, then gently patted his head.

“What do you say Bruno? You’re not acting like there’s any danger and you’d warn us wouldn’t you?” he said quietly, more to be saying something than for any reason.

The big dog seemed completely relaxed, and Karl didn’t stay outside for long. When he went back inside, all the grownups, but Keri were gathered around the kitchen table.

“I didn’t see anything unusual,” he said firmly, setting the rifle down near the door.

“I didn’t see anything either,” Ely agreed. “It was just a weird feeling of being watched. Maybe it’s simply the tension we’re under.”

“We’ve all been through enough shit to be tense,” Linda barked. “I don’t blame you a bit for feeling uneasy. I feel like I’m ready to snap. Look at me, carrying this damn shotgun around like it was a necessity. I don’t like the idea of being under siege in any way.”

Karl looked at her and wondered how much of that emotion was fear and how much was the PMS she’d said she was suffering from, then decided it didn’t matter.

“Look, the reason we are all together is that we need to make a decision that will affect us all,” he said in a quiet tone. “George has heard short wave radio broadcasts by the military, that seem to be offering assistance to people who are having problems. He’s convinced that we should contact them and ask for help.”

“We’ve talked about it, when you were resting,” Ely spoke softly. “The only question is, exactly what do we tell them?”

“Since I’m the only one of you who’s new to the island, I’m not sure I should get a vote, but if I do have a say, I think I agree we should call for help if there’s any chance we can get it,” Linda said just as quietly. “The only thing is ... well, how do you explain me being here if you were here all along? Surely to goodness they could trace back that I was wrecked at home by the tidal wave and that means I had to get here later.”

“Didn’t you say you were out of port when the tidal wave hit?” Karl asked.

“Well, yeah, I’d been out on the hook for two days, but...”

“Who is to say that you didn’t sail somewhere, meet me and come back with me?” he replied.

“But I lived in the wreck for days,” Linda protested.

“And who knows that? There was no one else there to verify that,” Karl argued. “Look, no one is going to go by exact dates around that time, things were just too damn confusing. Things will be remembered as having happened either before the earthquake and the tidal wave, or after them, but there are going to be arguments and disagreements about times and places. It was a traumatic experience and very few people are going to have come through it without being slightly muddled. I was visiting my friends earlier that week, but I left them before the earthquake. I was at sea when it happened, but who’s to say that I didn’t pick you up and bring you here for a visit, then we were trapped here when that rockslide fell into the gorge? Maybe you’d sailed to meet me, and a friend agreed to sail your boat home, then was caught in the tidal wave that wrecked your boat? You wouldn’t even know that your boat was wrecked.”

“And we could have flown back to meet Karl when he arrived,” Ely added. “We knew approximately when he was coming home and we normally would have been here before the earthquake hit. We had a flight booked and everything. Instead Keri had to go see her doctor and he changed her appointment by a day. We were actually supposed to fly out an hour or so before the earthquake hit, so I’ll bet our anticipated flight was registered. If those records happened to be saved, we’d be expected to be here.”

“I believe I should be the person to actually contact the military,” George spoke. “So, let’s be sure we have our story straight. Trudy, Ely, Keri and the two children flew here along with me. I believe it best if we say that we saw Karl and Linda arriving at the island as we circled to land. The helicopter had lifted off and we were on our way to the dock to meet them when the first earthquake actually struck. We clambered aboard the ‘Skolka’ and were going to escape to sea, but found our way blocked by the rockslide in the gorge. Since we were trapped, we decided that we were probably safest moored to the buoy in the middle of the bay until the earth tremors settled down. If we did leave any signs of residence aboard the boat, that explains them.”

“Not bad, George,” Trudy smiled. “It does give us a bit of leeway.”

“Well, they’ll have a hard time believing the ‘Skolka’ sailed that recently,” Linda grinned.

“Especially since Karl and I pulled out the burner and the pressure pump as if they needed repairs,” Ely added soberly.

“A boiler can have pump problems at any time, Linda, and I might have limped home,” Karl snorted. “And I do like one or two of the points about George’s tale. It allows for any recent wear and tear that they might see, but as well, it explains Linda being here without going into details that might trip us up.”

“I think Keri would be quite willing to tell them Linda was her ‘close’ friend,” Trudy smiled. “You could have met up with her along the way and convinced her to come home with you, planning a pleasant surprise for Keri.”

“I suppose. Does anyone have a problem with any of that?” Karl asked. When no one spoke up, he headed for the den and began to hook up the transmitter.

In a few moments, he turned to George. “Well, it’s your show, do you want to call them now or later?”

George glanced at the clock, then shook his head. “They have been broadcasting quite regularly, every two hours, and I’d like to listen to them once more before I feel we should respond. However, I was wondering if we should try to reach anyone else in the interval. Normally I suppose, we would try to contact the RCMP, especially if we felt we were in dire straits and under duress. It would seem natural to attempt to contact them now.”

“George, assume that we had the receiver operating all along, we’d know enough to have heard them call us by our regular call signs. Why not respond to them now?”

“Because they may not be on the air and I do not wish to call attention to ourselves by broadcasting unduly,” George answered with a wry grin. “I considered what you said about broadcasting our position and realised that triangulation could be done by cretins and thugs just as easily as by the military. Since we will be explaining that we are presently under duress, I do not wish to add to that problem. I will keep my broadcasts short and I will not give out our physical location over the air, both the military and the RCMP will know the location of the island well enough.”

“Damn! Good point,” Karl grinned. “So, how long before you expect them to broadcast again?”

“Almost an hour. I was wondering if in that hour, you might work toward repairing that flush toilet on this floor? I do find the stairs to be rather difficult and I resent having to pee in a can, which necessitates someone else dispose of my smelly urine,” there was a pleading note to his voice that moved Karl.

He just smiled and said “I’ll get right on it, George.”

Leaving George with the radio, he went looking for the wood and the pipe he would need to make those repairs. When he moved toward the door though, Ely insisted on joining him. Finding all the bits took longer than he actually expected it to, but he did find everything he needed, although he was going to have to be innovative in his repairs. With Ely’s help he carried the bits and pieces back to the cabin.

The two of the walked into the cabin just in time to hear George speaking on the radio.

“ ... and yes we have seen a stranger, a very large man. In point of fact, we have actually suffered an attack instigated by that barbarian, which was when my wife was assaulted and my daughter was raped and sodomized. My son-in-law shot at the attacker, but is uncertain as to the accuracy of his fire due to shortness of breath. He suffers from severe arthritis, as well as the long term effects of chlorine gas inhalation. He feels that his accuracy may have suffered due to the exhaustion he was operating under at the time of his use of the weapon. There are only two men living here, my son-in-law, who as I explained is somewhat disabled, and myself. At the same time I might mention that I am wheelchair bound, so would be classed as fully disabled. Other than what Karl and I can do, our main defence must then fall upon two young women and two children. Over.”

“C M S Pacific here. Roger to modified call-sign George. Regarding our assistance, we can have a flight at your location inside of an hour, perhaps less, but guard yourself as well as possible until our contingent arrives. We will require a flat landing area for our chopper and a place to set up two large field tents and perhaps some smaller ones. Do you have medical supplies and personnel for the treatment of your injured? Over.”

“We have two trained nurses, but one is injured and the other is attempting to assist in our defence. Enough medical supplies, not really. We have a few non prescription drugs, but not enough and probably not those we will require for the present situation. The best landing area would be in the goat pasture, near this cabin. At the moment we are relatively safe and are holed up in my son-in-law’s cabin, north of the gorge, not the main residence. Over.”

“C M S Pacific here. We have an aerial photo of your area and with that description, we know your location. If you are in a safe place at the moment, remain there. This is important, I repeat, if you are in a safe position, do not move and do not expose yourself. I repeat - do not expose yourself to further attack! We will be there inside of the hour. Over and out”

“Thank you, C M S Pacific, George over and out.”

Karl stared at George.

“You didn’t call us,” he accused. “And why was he calling you George, not using your call-sign?”

George sighed deeply and sat back in his wheelchair staring at the radio, then he turned and stared at Karl. After a few seconds, he spoke slowly. “It happened so fast. I opened contact and the military came back instantly, telling me not to repeat my call-sign since they had my location marked and registered. They asked a couple of questions enabling me to prove my identity, then they proceeded to ask if we had seen any strange men and if we were in trouble. You came in at that moment and I imagine you heard the rest. As for hazarding a conjecture of the possibilities for their actions, I have no further information, so your supposition would be as viable as my own.”

“Damn, now I’m getting worried,” Karl said sharply, staring directly at George. “Why do they want to keep where we are secret? How did they know about the possibility that we’d see strange men?”

Then he almost leaped to his feet. “Ely, I think I’d better get out on the porch with a rifle. This is scaring the shit out of me and I’m going to be on guard until they get here.”

The rain had eased to a drizzle in the short time between them entering the cabin and a few minutes later as they stepped out on the porch. Looking to the west, they could actually see a clear blue spot in the sky.

“I don’t think they meant for us to be outside. They said we weren’t to expose ourselves,” Ely frowned slightly as she stood beside Karl, looking out over the clearing.

“I know,” Karl said firmly. “You shouldn’t be out here. Bruno and I will be just fine. Uh oh, I just thought, maybe we should take him inside. He might not like the idea of the soldiers or sailors or whoever it is that will be coming to help protect us.”

“Won’t he make an awful ruckus in the house? I don’t know if I want to have Keri woken up by his ruckus.”

“I think you might want to wake her anyway. When that helicopter gets here, the noise of it landing in the goat pasture will probably wake her anyway.”

“I guess I should be with her then,” she sighed. “I wish they’d let us know more. In all honesty, I think even Dad is worried about them being so secretive.”

“Well, I can tell you right now that the reason I’m out here is because of what that guy on the radio implied, but didn’t say outright. Now, if you’d hold this rifle for me and keep an eye out for a minute, I’ll get Bruno inside.”

Ely took the rifle and stood to one side of the door and back against the wall as Karl moved over to lean down next to the dog.

“Come on buddy,” Karl said firmly. “I think it would be better for you to be inside for a bit.”

The dog stood slowly and waited by the door for Karl to pick up his blanket, then seemed quite happy to follow Karl inside. Ely followed, even though Karl hadn’t asked her to. He raised his eyebrows and she shivered. Karl understood her unspoken sentiment that she felt unprotected and vulnerable. In a way he felt the same thing. David was coming downstairs and saw Bruno inside again.

“Daddy, why is Bruno in the house?”

“There are some men coming in a helicopter and Bruno might raise a fuss if he was outside. I thought maybe you could sit beside him and keep him quiet while he’s inside.”

“Sure,” David grinned. “He can be a noisy guy when he wants to be, but he’s awful good when he’s with me.”

“Thanks David. He’s good with you because he likes you, and because you treat him well. I like that a lot too. Now, I’m going back out on the porch until those men get here. If he starts to make a fuss before you hear the helicopter, you let me know, okay?”

“Sure Daddy, I will.”

“Do you think you need to be out there?” Ely asked as Karl took back the rifle.

“I don’t have to be out there. I want to be out there,” Karl answered firmly. “You said you thought you felt someone watching you before? Well, when we were out there just a moment ago, I felt the same way. If there is someone out there, I want him to know I’m damn well not scared of him, no matter who he is.”

“Karl, you don’t have to take chances now. It’s not like it was before, we have help coming,” she said softly. “You don’t have to punish yourself or feel guilty for doing what you had to do.”

“I know that now. George and Trudy did an excellent job of convincing me that I had no other choice, so I’m not blaming myself as much as I was before. I know that I was protecting my family and that you all forgive me,” Karl sighed and glanced over at David. “You have to understand though, before I was as old as David is now, I was taught about the sanctity of life. My family brought me up to respect the ten commandments and when I was taught to hunt, my teacher was an old native who used to pray for forgiveness to the spirits of the animals he killed. He only hunted when he had to, only taking enough game to survive. He always taught me to treat the animals I hunted with dignity and to let none suffer unnecessarily. I can’t help, but feel guilty in either one way or the other.”

With that he turned on his heel and walked out the door.

“Stupid macho idiot! Putting himself at risk,” Ely growled softly to herself, then marched across the floor to go upstairs and sit at Keri’s bedside.

When they talked about it later, Ely, George, Trudy, Linda, and Karl all agreed that the next half hour was the longest thirty minutes they could ever remember spending in their whole lives.

As Karl stood on his front porch, waiting for the helicopter that was coming with help for them, he was worrying even more than he had before. Just why had the military reacted the way they had? There was something about this situation that he didn’t understand and he was impatient to learn exactly just what was going on. He was still weighed down by the feeling of having shot the rapist, but somehow the feeling was less distressing than it had been. Now that he’d heard the military’s reaction to their situation, he was beginning to feel that he might well have been fully justified. Perhaps he hadn’t killed the bastard after all, but in his heart he was almost positive that he had. If he had walked away, and left the man wounded, that was almost worse than if he had killed him outright, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He knew that the military people who were coming would investigate the area when he told them about his actions. All he could do was wait.

While he was waiting, he scanned the area that he could see in front of him, paying particular attention to the places where a person could easily find cover to hide. He still felt that overbearing sense of being watched, as if he was being spied upon, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. Then he stared in surprise. The cow and her calf were in with the goats. He frowned, that was one thing he had meant to do, but hadn’t had time to get around to doing. He sighed, hoping that Ely had been responsible for moving them, but at the moment the cow and her calf were the least of his worries.

His gaze wandered outward, past the far side fence of the goat pen, to the line of thin scrub brush along the edge of the gully. He wondered if there was anywhere along the steep edge of this side of the gorge where someone could climb up. He knew that there probably was one or two places, if anyone was really determined to do it. Since it seemed that someone had been foolhardy enough to climb the narrow track that had been wiped out by the mudslide, then there were probably places this far upstream that would serve just as well. Then he realized that if he was worried about someone coming to attack them from the other side of the gorge, the bridge was the perfect access. Why worry about climbing up a steep slippery grade, when you could just walk along a totally clear pathway?

“Shit, where the hell is that damn helicopter?” he growled to himself, checking his wristwatch once more. He raised it closer to his face, staring at it, thinking it might have stopped, but no, the second hand was still moving.

He looked outward again, past the gorge, at the trees and shrubs on the other half of the island. How many times had he admired that view? Mostly untouched, the trees there were huge. No timber company had ever cut them. There really wasn’t enough timber there for a large company to bother with, and it would have been too much trouble for any small company to tackle, getting that timber to market would have been too difficult. The geography of the island had protected it, leaving that central grove as untouched virgin timber. There were common Douglas fir, grand fir, large leaf maple, even a few arbutus and the occasional dogwood, not to mention the low growing shrubs and vines. That area of the island had always been a place which he felt induced a quiet reverence for nature in almost anyone who saw it. Now the recent attacks on them by the unknown assailant and the fact that the military were coming so rapidly to their assistance tempted him to change his view. That stand of timber now seemed to have taken on a sinister quality. It could very easily hide an attacker and suddenly that made it seem dangerous.

For some reason, he shivered with a sudden chill, then glanced up at the scudding clouds, which prompted the errant thought that he was glad he wasn’t one of the men riding towards the island in a helicopter. He didn’t like riding in choppers at the best of times, and in weather like this there was no way he’d enjoy it, not in the least. At least the rain was down to only a light drizzle that seemed to come and go as the clouds whipped past overhead. He looked to the west and saw a brightening in the sky again, then realised that it looked strange, it looked like there was a reddish tint to the light. Glancing at his watch in disbelief, he knew that it couldn’t be sunset yet, it was too early. Sunset couldn’t be for another two or three hours. He was still staring at the strange glow in the sky when he heard the far off fwump, fwump, fwump of a large helicopter, realising that it was rapidly growing quite loud.

He stepped back to the door, opening it and glancing inside at David and the dog. “They’re coming, David,” he announced firmly.

“Okay Dad,” David answered, as Karl stepped back and closed the door again.

Karl traced the sound of the helicopter, it seemed to be circling the island, but he couldn’t see it. He lost the sound for a while as it passed behind the rock face that rose behind him, then caught it again as it travelled past the sound blocking obstruction. It seemed to be heading farther away, then it was coming back toward him once more. For some reason, the sound seemed to pause and he wondered what was going on. Then after a moment or two he realised it was getting louder, he reasoned that meant it was coming straight toward him. Then the beat changed again. It almost sounded as if there were two choppers, either that or a very loud echo. What was going on? The sound was coming from in front of him, but slightly to his left and grew quite loud. Then suddenly the chopper itself appeared, lifting from below the crest of the gorge where it had been travelling. Now he was doubly glad he wasn’t in that chopper, since it had to have flown upstream between the banks of the gorge, that manoeuver would have really bothered him.

He’d been expecting a military chopper, but this one was bright yellow with red trim, the markings of a Search and Rescue copter. Karl recognised it as one of the triple engine equipped Cormorants that he had heard a lot about, but seldom seen. It had scarcely lifted over the bushes and trees at the edge of the gully when Karl noticed a large, heavily laden net hung below its belly.

The pilot must have seen the goats and the cow scrambling away from the sudden noise and lifted enough to manoeuvre down the pasture away from them. The copter swung toward the house, then held altitude for a moment. Karl saw the huge load of supplies drop to the ground, not in the goat pasture, but just outside the fence and very near his little orchard. Somehow the net was released and the cable was reeled in. Then the copter slipped forward a hundred feet or so and landed back inside the clear area of the goat pen, near the gate. A huge door slid back, and to Karl, it looked almost like one side of the copter was suddenly wide open. No sooner had the landing skids hit the ground than several men dove from it, each of them armed with a military rifle, but Karl wasn’t familiar enough with military weapons to be certain what kind. He watched four men fan out and drop to the ground on one knee so they covered each point of the compass. By the time Karl realised that more people, several large packs and many supplies were being unloaded from the chopper, the huge door in the side was being slid closed. Then the helicopter was lifting up and flying away again. The chopper’s total time on the ground couldn’t have been more than two or three minutes.

There was a short period when Karl wondered what was going on as the figures milled around, then the whole group began to move as a unit toward the gate out of the goat pen. Two of the riflemen had shifted from their kneeling position and had moved out to take up positions that allowed them a commanding field of fire. Meanwhile all the others handled the actual shifting of the supplies that they had unloaded from inside the helicopter. Two figures, who were obviously officers, were less laden, but even they carried part of the load. The whole group’s move across the grass was surprisingly quick and efficient. Karl was happy to see that they actually used the gate of the pen, rather than trying to go over or through his fence.

He was tempted to go meet them, but decided against it. In fact, with the obvious display of readiness that he saw, he was quite happy that he didn’t have his rifle in his hands and instead had left it leaned against the wall. The two figures that he had assumed were officers separated from the others, then moved toward him. A the same time the other figures began to spread out. Two headed toward Karl’s outbuildings, one toward a thicket of berry bushes that might give a sniper cover, and the rest toward the large load of supplies that had been dropped by the chopper. He kept track of the pair coming his way, realising that there were a man and a woman. They approached until they were about ten feet in front of him, then stopped in a stiff military pose. The man seemed to be fighting a reflex to salute. Karl had the urge to let a smile sneak onto his lips, but fought it back.

“Hello Folks,” he nodded slightly. “I’m Karl Larson. I guess you could call me the caretaker here and I’ve got to say that I’m damn glad to see you. My boss’s wife got beat up by a thug today, his daughter got raped, and I ended up shooting at the bastard who did it with a rifle. I’m not sure if I hit him, but I did manage to scare him off.”

“Lieutenant-Commander Jason Greene here,” the guy in the fancier braided uniform said sharply. “And this is Lieutenant Frances Baker. She’s a doctor.”

“Well then, why doesn’t Lieutenant Baker go straight into the house?” Karl suggested. “I can fill you in on what I know about the situation, while she checks out the injured women, Keri and Trudy.”

“Excellent sir,” Lieutenant Commander Greene snapped. “Carry on, Lieutenant Baker.”

Karl stepped aside for the woman to pass him and couldn’t resist winking and tossing his head slightly at the L-C as she looked at him, catching the fleeting twitch of a tiny smile. He forgot to tell her just to walk in. Instead, she knocked on the door. That set off Bruno. Karl hid a slight grin at the speed of David’s reaction in quieting him, but was surprised at L-C Greene’s reaction, every muscle in his body seemed to instantly tense. Karl decided right then that the man was not a dog lover and for some reason Karls’ trust in the man diminished as well. He would have opened the door for Lieutenant Baker, but Ely beat him to it, so Karl turned his attention back to L-C Greene.

“Come on up on the porch out of the rain,” Karl invited him and was surprised to see the man hesitate. “The dog is more noisy than dangerous and he’s well trained, even if he is big. Right now he’s injured, so my son is caring for him and keeping him under control. That means you don’t have to worry about him barking again. The only reason he barked was the knock on the door, which would have surprised him.”

“Sir, before I spend any time talking, we need to know where you would prefer us to set up camp. We will have to set up two large tents as well as a few smaller ones. Then if possible we would appreciate having access to a water supply.”

“Oh, no problem,” Karl shrugged. “As long as you don’t drive stakes anywhere inside the orchard or the upper goat pasture, I really don’t care. The areas I mentioned are where the septic fields run. For water, just run a hose from the tap on the end of the cabin, and if you want electricity, each of the four outside plugs will handle at least twenty amps at 115 volts. If you need 230 volts, you’ll need to tap into the supply in the cabin, but it’s available too.”