The Raft (6 page)

“Max?”

He didn’t answer. Quickly I laid my fingers on his neck, found his pulse. Was it fainter than before?

I didn’t think he was supposed to sleep that long if he had a concussion. I needed to wake him up.

With both hands on his shoulders, I shook him. “Max!” He didn’t stir. “Wake up! Come on.”

I felt again for a pulse.

Faint. Oh so faint.

Curling myself up, I laid my head down in his lap, my eyes scrunched, and, even though I was parched and famished, tried to sleep.

The sun woke me up, bright and hot, with not a cloud in sight.

I licked my lips. They were so dry, they burned.

Only then did I realize our new enemy.

We were already thirsty, but the sun and heat would only make us more so. Hunger sucked too, but people lasted a lot longer without food than they did without water. I tried to remember the movie about the
Indianapolis
survivors, how long they had lasted without water.

I tried to tell myself they had it way worse than we did.

We had a raft.

They had been stuck in only life vests, floating defenseless in the ocean. I would not have lasted even a day like that. I would have lost my mind imagining what was there beneath me as I floated.

But then, they had also had each other.

I glanced over at Max. Even unconscious, he was still there. I could do this, as long as I wasn’t alone.

I reached forward to check his pulse again, but then my hand froze in midair, stopping before it reached his neck.

There was no reason to check his pulse.

Max was fine. Completely fine. He was just asleep.

He’d been through a lot and he’d been injured and he needed to sleep. And I was going to let him. Almost by itself, my hand reached out and rested on his neck. Was that a pulse? Yes. Yes, I felt it. A very faint drumming, but it was there.
It was.

He’d fallen over a little, and something poked out from behind him. I pulled on it. His ditty bag. I’d forgotten about it ever since he’d shoved it behind him. I held it in my lap for a moment, then squeezed, feeling the shapes inside. Beneath my touch plastic rustled, and something felt like a book. Almost involuntarily, my hands caressed the bag for a moment.

I glanced at Max, then back to the bag.

No, I wasn’t opening it.

The bag belonged to him. He’d have to open it. Besides, he would probably be pretty pissed when he woke up and saw I’d gone through it, so I pushed it back behind him, where I’d found it.

There was more water in the bottom of the raft again, and I bailed, trying to keep us dry. I wanted Max to wake up, to talk to me, to talk to me about anything. I didn’t care what. Even sharks would have been an acceptable topic at that point.

“Did you know sharks are the only fish that blink with both eyes?”

No response, as expected.

I sighed. Was it too much to want someone to talk to?

nineteen

After a few hours of intermittent bailing, I realized there was definitely a leak somewhere that was not going to stop letting water in. Something had to be done about it.

Without thinking, I checked Max’s neck again. My fingertips couldn’t find a heartbeat and my own speeded up. I set my head against his chest, listening. Was that a heartbeat?

Of course, of course it was.

I sat up.
Max is fine. He’s young and strong and he’s just resting.

“But there’s barely a heartbeat.” I said it aloud. Did that make it true, me saying it aloud? No. “No one dies from a bump on the head.” Do they?

Again, I checked for a pulse, then listened with my head on his chest. His chest was warm, not cold. He would be cold if he was dead, right?

My face turned up to the sky and the sun. The day was hot. Even a dead cold fish would be warm after sitting out on a day like that.

Stop it!

My head sunk into my hands.

What was I supposed to do? Someone needed to tell me what to do.

“Tell me what to do!” I screamed at the sky. “Tell me what to do!” I sobbed. “Tell me what to do.”

My dry throat hurt enough even without the yelling, so I stopped.

Meanwhile, the raft continued to leak water and I knew I was losing the strength to bail.

If we, me and Max, continued as we were, the raft would founder and we would end up in the ocean. Our combined weight, my 115, his probably 165, 170, was too much.

Would there be a difference with only my weight in the raft? Would it stop taking on water and stay afloat?

We had to stay afloat, stay in the raft. The alternative was not worth thinking about. No. Worse than that. The alternative was unbearable. I would not survive if I had to float in the water.

Once more, I laid my head on his chest. I held his hand, which was definitely not warm. I rubbed it, trying to help get the circulation back, telling myself that’s why it seemed stiff. “No.” I turned my face into his chest. He smelled salty, like the ocean, with just a hint of cologne of some sort. “You’re going to be fine. I can’t be alone.”

I stayed that way for so long that there was time for several inches of water to gather in the raft, making me so far behind in the bailing that catching up might not be possible. My options seemed to be steering toward one, the one I dreaded the most.

twenty

Holding Max’s hands, I leaned back, pulling him forward. He barely budged, and I knew that wouldn’t work. So I let go and he fell back where he’d been.

The life vest he’d worn off the plane still sat in the corner. Kneeling in front of him, I struggled to put the vest on him.

My voice was as calm and soothing as I could make it. “It will just be for a while, until I can get the raft bailed. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

Rolling him onto his side, I got close behind him and pushed. The bottom was slippery, so he slid easily over to edge. Using all my strength, I managed to get Max’s left arm and leg over the side.

He was half in, half out, sprawled like a bug on the side of the raft. My vision was blurry. Was I crying? “I’m sorry.”

My plan was to roll him the rest of the way over, so he would be faceup in the water. Just until I could empty the raft. A few minutes, at most. If I saw a shark, I’d get him back inside. Somehow.

There was a nylon line on the raft and I tied that to his life vest. “I won’t let you go. I promise.”

He didn’t wake up. And he didn’t hear my promise.

With less weight in the raft, and bailing like crazy, I managed to catch up. There didn’t seem to be any new water coming in, which brightened my mood.

Then I looked over at Max’s bag. Yellow and round, like a fat cylinder, it had a rolled top with a black plastic buckle.

What if there was something in it that could help us?

But if there was, he would have used it that first night.

Wouldn’t he?

But then, as I thought about it, what could have possibly been in there that could help us?

Maybe food. A cell phone. Something …

Reaching out, I held the bag for a moment, considering.

The bag was private property. It belonged to Max. Opening it without his permission would be wrong. I undid the buckle, and then told myself I should put it back.

Instead, I unrolled the top and pulled the zipper.

twenty-one

Slowly, I unfolded a sheaf of papers. Before I started reading, I smoothed the creases with my hand. The top page was the manifest for our flight. Larry was listed on top, then Max, then the cargo. I flipped through the pages, not sure what I was looking for. Something nagged at me as I scanned the pages, and then it hit me.

Where was my name?

My name might not have been typed, like the rest. There hadn’t been time, so it might be in handwriting. I flipped through the pages again, looking for handwritten items. Looking for the words
Robie Mitchell
.

But other than signatures, Larry’s and the guy in charge of loading’s, there wasn’t anything handwritten anywhere.

Again, I flipped. I scanned. I pored over every page until my eyes blurred. But I still couldn’t find my name.

I ran through that night of the flight, trying to recall every detail.

I’d fallen asleep in the lounge. Larry had come and gotten me. He’d asked me something.

What?

My breaths shallowed and quickened as I tried to remember. The papers shook in my hands.

He’d asked something about paperwork. Had he mentioned Max? I thought I remembered Larry saying his name.

Was Max supposed to do my paperwork and he forgot?

My breath caught in my throat.

There was one thing I knew for sure.

I had never stepped on a scale that evening. Which meant I had never gotten weighed and neither had my bags.

I let the papers fall into my lap as I covered my face with both hands.

My weight, plus the weight of my bags, were all pounds over what the G-1 could carry with one engine. I should have said something. I had never stepped foot on that plane before without getting weighed, even when we flew in a relatively empty plane from Midway to Honolulu.

But I had been groggy from sleeping … anxious to go home … worried about the flight …

I dropped my hands and stared out at the horizon.

Had my extra weight, and the weight of my bags, brought us down?

What did I know for sure?

Basically, that my 115 pounds never got recorded. And neither did my bags, and they were stuffed, probably close to 75 pounds in total. Which added up to almost 200 pounds too heavy for the one remaining engine.

Grabbing the papers again, I looked for my name. They could have estimated, right? Maybe they didn’t list my name; maybe they just added the estimated weight of me and my bags to cargo. Or maybe they had taken off something that weighed the same as me and my bags, but not written it down.

Larry had written my weight down for other flights, he might have known what to estimate, even added a few pounds for a cushion, just to be sure.

I nodded.

Absolutely
. That made much more sense. Larry was too smart to make a mistake like that.

Feeling better, I thought of another scenario. They could have weighed my bags when I was asleep, then brought them back, I wouldn’t have even known.

That had to be it.

They flew so much, they would never make a mistake like that.

Still, even if my weight was on there, even if it hadn’t been too much for the one engine, there was one other thing, one thing that might be the worst fact of all. And for all my rationalizing, I couldn’t explain it away.

My name was not on the manifest.

twenty-two

If my name was not on the list, then nobody knew I was on that flight. Except Larry and Max.

But Larry was gone.

And Max was with me.

The flight manager, the bald guy filling in that night, he knew,
right
?

I breathed out and set the papers on my lap.

But that night had been crazy, people running around. He didn’t know me, had only sent me to Larry, and had not actually given me the go-ahead. When I talked to him, I didn’t even have my bags with me. All I’d asked him was where Suzanne was. For all he knew, I was just there to see her, not to get on the plane.

And all the loaders had already left when I got on the plane. It was dark. No one saw me get on except for Larry and Max.

I folded the papers, unable to look at them anymore, and shoved them back in the bag.

Next I found a laminated card. Labeled “Survival at Sea,” it was a list of items, in addition to a bunch of small type.

On top of the list was the heading
REMEMBER!

I couldn’t help but picture some grandma lady admonishing me with a raised finger.
Robie, now remember:

1. Do not drink seawater.

Whoops. I imagine I’d had a few gallons that first night, when I fell in the water.

2. Do not drink urine.

Wasn’t planning to.

3. Do not drink alcohol.

4. Do not smoke.

Those two were just stupid and I breathed out a halfhearted “duh.”

5. Do not eat, unless water is available.

That didn’t make much sense. If food presented itself, believe me, I was going to eat it.

The next item on the card said the two biggest causes of death in shipwrecks were drowning—

Um, been there, almost done that.

And hypothermia.

I hoped it was a warm enough time of year to avoid that. I hadn’t been chilled since the first night and day. Plus, I figured that was a bigger danger if you didn’t have a raft and had to be in the water the whole time. Which, as I kept reading, it seemed being in an inflatable raft, as I was, was actually the best way to survive at sea.

Good to know that I was doing
something
right.

The other things on the card weren’t all applicable. One was about getting away from a sinking ship because it could suck you down. Another was about an oil slick from a plane or ship, because it could light up. There was a whole paragraph about swimming underwater to escape the fire.

Well, that was one problem I hadn’t had. Thank God for small favors. My plane crashed, but at least there wasn’t a fiery oil slick to deal with.

I kept reading, and the next section was about dehydration.

In order to reduce loss of water through sweat, soak your clothes in the sea and wring them out.

I groaned. All that time wasted trying to get my clothes dry.

But be aware that too much of this method of cooling can result in saltwater boils and rashes.

What was a saltwater boil? I didn’t really want to find out.

Be careful not to get the bottom of the raft wet.

The raft had never been dry.

In arctic waters, old sea ice may be used for water.

I sighed. There weren’t exactly any glaciers floating around me.