My Last Continent: A Novel(79)

Keller would have been constantly stopping and backing up, turning around to try to find a good route. I can see him clearly in my mind—the weight of each passing moment on his tensing shoulders, the reluctance to let even one opportunity to find more survivors slip by. When one route dead-ended in a sheet of ice, he would try another, and then another.

At some point, Keller took off his life jacket and gave it to Richard.

This I know because Kate said when Richard got into the Zodiac, he wasn’t wearing a life jacket, but Keller was. Richard’s body was found only because he was buoyed by a life preserver, and the fact that Keller has not been found is likely because he wasn’t.

Keller, still determined, would aim their rubber boat into the narrow channels of ice, firing forward at full force, the ice tearing at the sides, scraping as it broke away beneath them. He would know that the Zodiac’s multiple compartments allowed for some damage, and that, at a time like this, saving lives was more important than salvaging a rubber boat. He would push ahead, and gradually the ice would begin to loosen its grip as the river widened. They would emerge into a broad lake of liquid that allowed them to turn back in the direction of the Australis.

Keller would have been too focused on the ice ahead to pay much attention to Richard. And Richard, unable to think clearly, would have been focused only on finding that survivor he thought he’d left behind. Was it possible he’d seen something that wasn’t there? I remember Keller’s words: It’s thanks to his delusion about someone else being out there that we found you.

Is it possible to hate Richard for finding me, and losing Keller?

During the course of the rescue, I heard crew members say they’d glimpse a body writhing on the ice and approach it through the fog and snow only to find, once they got closer, that it wasn’t a human but a seal. Or they’d see a jacket floating by, only to fish it out and discover it empty.

I don’t know what could have gotten Keller out of the safety of the Zodiac without a life jacket unless it was to help someone. Someone who was there, or someone who Richard thought was there.

Keller would kill the engine, bring the Zodiac up hard against the side of the ice—and this is where I’m at a loss.

I can only surmise that Richard believed he saw something, and that Keller believed him, too. I envision Keller on the ice, looking around.

Perhaps he did see someone. Or Richard insisted someone was there. Maybe he pointed, and Keller ventured forward, walking gingerly, peering into the water from a safe distance away.

But why had Richard left him behind?

As crazed as he was, I doubt Richard would deliberately leave Keller stranded on the ice—his intentions were good, and, according to Kate, his biggest enemy had always been himself. And maybe that was it—maybe he was still, at that moment, trying to prove himself a hero. To redeem himself for everything he thought he’d done wrong on this trip, to make up for every argument he’d had with his wife.

We know that two Australis passengers were found alone in a Zodiac—We were stranded on the ice; we would’ve been goners. But after he got us in the boat, he wouldn’t take us to shore. Said he had to keep looking for someone—and this is when I think things took a turn.

Richard had heard them somehow—two women, calling for help. At first he shook it off, knowing he had to wait for Keller, or thinking it was just the wind, the sounds of birds overhead—but soon he realized that they were human voices, and he turned to see their small figures through the fog, waving their arms, shouting at him.

Richard would yell out to Keller, who by then was too far away to hear—and, having heard the desperation in their voices, would decide to save the women, then return for Keller.

He would start up the Zodiac, but it would prove far more difficult to pilot than he’d anticipated. It changes direction easily, and he would have trouble keeping his arm steady. With each bump into a wedge of ice, he would lose his balance, each time taking another precious few seconds to regain it.

He would look up to see if he was making progress. He wasn’t. He was driving and driving, and yet these two women didn’t seem any closer. Turning around, he could still see Keller against the white of the ice. Be right back, he would promise. Richard would wish, suddenly, that he hadn’t left him there.

But the two women stranded on the ice would be closer now, closer to him than Keller, and he would see that their floe was teetering dangerously in the wind. He had no choice but to save them first, and then return to Keller.

This we learned from the women: Richard approached the ice floe, slamming into it and struggling to keep the boat adjacent to the edge of the floe. The women managed to scramble into the Zodiac just as the ice began to tumble and crack beneath them. They were cold, shivering uncontrollably. They’d been in a damaged lifeboat that had capsized amid the crushing ice, and they’d been fortunate to have clambered onto ice instead of falling into the water. They’d been separated from the other eight passengers with them. Two, they knew, had managed to climb onto another wedge of ice, but they’d been soaked through and had likely succumbed to hypothermia. The others, they suspected, had probably drowned.

Do you have any blankets? one of them asked.

Richard shook his head, turning the boat around and heading back to where he came from, back to Keller.

Thank God you saw us, the woman said. I don’t know how much more time we had on that ice. Where are you taking us?