Borealis(18)

9


Despite the pump of the generators and the grind of the diesel engine, it was freezing in the bowels of the trawler. Wagging his flashlight around the network of pipes, it didn’t take Charlie long to locate a suitcase-sized metal toolbox, already open on the floor. Charlie crouched over it and fished around for a handful of carpenter nails and a recoilless hammer.

He heard it—the steady plick-plick-plick of dripping water. Charlie cast the beam of light onto the floor and found he was crouching in a puddle of filthy gray water. Rings expanded in the puddle as drops of water fell from above. He followed the droplets up to the overhead to discover that the drops were actually sloughing off the tips of icicles clinging to the underside of the entire system of pipes.

It was ridiculous, he knew, but he stood and touched the pipes nonetheless. Cold as bone, powdered in frost. He traced the pipes with the flashlight back to the wall of generators. The pipes, he learned, led to the heating unit.

“Goddamn it…”

He approached the unit only to discover, with increasing horror, that it was dead. The dials all ran to zero; the archipelago of bulbs stood unlit. He pressed one hand against the heating unit to find it was still slightly warm but was quickly losing heat.

Frustrated, he administered a swift kick to the side of the unit. The clang played off the metal pipes for an eternity. He didn’t want to think about what it would mean to be caught out here for an extended period without heat. Silently he prayed that Mike Fenty knew what the hell he was doing—that, in fact, he would find their way back to Saint Paul Island without the use of the GPS and the navigational system.

Back on the quarterdeck, Charlie cracked open the door to Mike’s stateroom. The lamp on the nightstand was blinking sporadically. The girl was sitting up on the cot, staring at him through the crack in the door.

“You ready to start talkin’ sense?” he said to her.

That coy little smile…

Without another word, he shut the door and proceeded to nail the section of cupboard across the stateroom door and the frame. The sound of the hammering was nearly deafening in these close quarters; still, he drove every nail home until he was left, exhausted and breathless, panting like a lion, outside the door. When the hammer slipped from his hand and dropped on his foot, he was brought back to reality. Shaken, tired, he crept down the corridor to his own room. Careful not to wake Joe, who was snoring wetly beneath a heap of blankets, Charlie peeled off his sweat-smelling clothes and, in nothing but long johns and wool socks, settled down on his own cot. The trawler rocking, the struts creaking and sighing and moaning all around him, he knew right away, despite his fatigue, he would not find sleep.

Eventually Gabriel worked his way into his head—out in the yard, overburdened by a heavy winter coat and snowpants, scooping up handfuls of graying snow and throwing them over the fence at Dale Carver’s German shepherd. Johanna was there too, a wool cap on her head and a knit scarf around her neck. She looked fresh-faced and pure in the snow, her face barren of makeup. Calling to Gabriel as a gentle snow began falling in the yard. Dale Carver’s German shepherd yelped and bounded after the fistfuls of snow tossed over the fence, confounded by the fact that the mysterious white balls disappeared the second they touched the snowy ground.

Charlie was there too, of course. In his bright red ski parka, his reddish beard neatly trimmed, he came out of the trailer and proceeded to chase Gabe around the yard. Giggling and wailing, his small legs pushing hard through the deep snow, Gabriel tore around the yard as Charlie pursued him, the German shepherd bounding after them from behind its fence. Barking.

Charlie’s eyes flipped open. Not barking. Something struck the hull of the trawler. Maybe another iceberg.

“Joe?” His voice was empty, void of substance. “You awake?”

No answer. He could no longer hear Joe’s snoring, he realized.

Sitting up on one elbow, he peered through the absolute darkness but could not see a thing. Fumbling on the floor for the flashlight, he located it and clicked it on. The dim, cataract light opened up on Joe’s empty cot. The mound of blankets were strewn on the floor.

It wasn’t until he sat up and squeezed his feet into his boots did he realize he was still mumbling Joe’s name over and over.

Yeah, he thought. Losing my mind like a regular champ.

He dressed, the room bitter cold, and he could feel every muscle in his body wanting to cramp up. In the vague gloominess of the quarterdeck, he could see his breath, billowing out like tufts of cotton, nearly freezing to the bulkhead.



He all but collapsed in the doorway of the galley. Breathing hard, sweat freezing to his temples, he struggled to catch his breath. McEwan, seated alone at the table, glared up at him. Both his big hands were hugging the bottle of vodka, which was now mostly empty. Dead eyes lifted to examine Charlie, partially slumped in the galley doorway.

“Joe’s very sick,” he managed, realizing as he said it that it was probably the understatement of the year. “He’s not in his room. Have you seen him?”

“This,” McEwan grumbled, his rheumy eyes moving wetly in their sockets, “is all your fault, Mears.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re always trying to be the hero,” McEwan said. “Always trying to save the world. Funny thing is, you can’t even take care of your own domestic problems.”