And the Sea Will Tell (14 page)

Jennifer, still not revealing where she was, wrote her mother.

Muff wrote the Jamiesons.

A
UGUST
1, 1974

L
ARSON AND
Stevens sailed away feeling sorry for both of the women they had met on Palmyra. In different ways, each seemed lost, even miserable.

The sailors had enjoyed Mac’s company. He was such a capable, friendly guy you couldn’t help liking and admiring him.

But neither of them had thought much of Jennifer’s old man—whatever his name was. Larson had challenged him once about the tattoo on his arm. “So is your name Roy or Buck?” When Jennifer’s lover just glared back hotly, Larson gathered it would be wise to drop the matter.

As Palmyra sank below the horizon, Larson told his shipmate, “I think that guy—Roy or Buck or whatever the hell his name is—is volatile.
Real
volatile.”

W
EDNESDAY
, A
UGUST
7, 1974

T
HE
SEA WIND
’S TWO-WAY
radio crackled with interference. Mac was on the 20-meter band at 14285 kilohertz. It was almost fifteen minutes past his scheduled 7:00
P.M.
contact with Curt Shoemaker, but all Mac could hear over the speaker was static heavy as artillery fire.

He kept fiddling with the frequency knob.

“It’s never been this bad before,” said Muff, standing next to him. “Are you sure this is the right day?”

“It’s Wednesday night.”

“Maybe something’s wrong with the radio.”

“I think it’s atmospheric.”

Then, as if someone in authority had declared a cease-fire in the heavens, the airwaves suddenly cleared and they heard a voice they recognized through the small metal speaker. “—VXV. Repeat, KH61HG calling W7VXV.”

“It’s
Curt
,” Muff said with relief, keenly aware of how cut off Palmyra was from the rest of the world.

Mac depressed the transmit button. “This is W7VXV,” he said evenly into the microphone. “We hear you loud and clear, Curt. Over.”

Mac was broadcasting illegally, using the call letters of an inactive ham operator Curt knew in Hawaii. Typically, Mac would have arranged to earn his own FCC license before leaving San Diego if he’d known they were going to be making regular radio contact with anyone. But for now, this would do. Curt had cautioned him not to mention the
Sea Wind
’s location. Federal communications authorities might overhear by chance, and broadcasting without a license is a crime.

“Aloha,” Shoemaker said. “We have some traffic for you.”

Letters from home!

“Momi will read them.”

The velvety voice of Curt’s wife came over the radio. “We do want to hear about what’s going on with you,” Momi said, “but Curt says I should read the traffic first.”

First was a card from Muff’s mother who said how happy she was to receive the letters Mac and Muff had sent out with the Wheelers and Leonards. She told her daughter not to worry about her. She was doing fine.

Next was a short note from Mac’s sister. Kit gave chatty news about their mother, herself, and her three sons.

“Thanks for the news from home,” Mac said. “It really means a lot to both of us.” He could see that Muff was holding back tears. “By the way, did you get any messages for the other couple here? You know, Roy and Jennifer. They’re still waiting to hear word about their resupply mission.”

When Mac learned that Jennifer and Buck were anxious to confirm the arrival date of their friends bringing supplies, he had instantly volunteered to relay messages to their friends through Shoemaker, prompting Buck and Jennifer to write to the Taylor brothers. The Leonards had taken the letter three weeks before.

“Negative,” Curt said. “No word on this end.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Mac and Muff took turns chatting about their life on the island. Curt promised to send postcards to their mothers with the news that they were doing okay. Finally, they all said good night. “Oh yes,” Shoemaker said before they signed off. He went on to say that President Nixon was reported to be on the verge of announcing his resignation.

That bit of news from home sent Mac and Muff to bed saddened for their President, and for their country.

M
UFF AND
Mac had been halfway down the path to the bathhouse when she realized they’d forgotten the shampoo. Mac volunteered to go back and get it, and Muff headed to the bath alone.

Not far along the path she came face to face with Buck’s glowering pit bull.

The dog growled from deep within its throat, then suddenly leaped toward her. Muff screamed, simultaneously jumping back. The dog landed stiff-legged in front of her, baring sharp yellowed teeth, tensed to spring again.

Maybe it was her imagination, she thought, but the dog seemed to be more than mindlessly angry. He seemed
hungry
.

The other big dog, the Lab, ran out of the bushes barking. And then the little one Jennifer called Puffer, who’d always been so friendly, appeared on the scene, yapping.

But it was the now silent pit bull that Muff watched warily. She remembered reading somewhere that an excited dog that made no sound was probably preparing to attack. Eyes darting, she spied a rusted length of pipe a few feet away. When the heavily breathing pit bull gave no signs of backing off, she inched her way toward the possible weapon.

She grasped the pipe and was ready to protect herself just as Buck and Jennifer started yelling from the bath area. They were speaking in a language she didn’t understand or recognize. But the pit bull stepped back a few feet.

When Muff took this opportunity to retreat backward, the pit bull charged with hackles raised.

Muff screamed, swinging the pipe in a wide arc in front of her.

“
Kapu!
” Buck yelled again.

The dog halted the charge and retreated.

By the time Jennifer and Buck came down the trail from the bathhouse, Mac had rejoined Muff. “You’ve got to do something about those dogs,” Mac spat angrily. “They’re a menace.”

“Tell them
kapu
,” Jennifer explained. “Roy trained them in Hawaiian. That means ‘no.’”

“You’re out of luck if you don’t know Hawaiian?” Muff shot back angrily, startling Jennifer.

Buck had not taken part in this conversation. He had casually walked past Mac and Muff and headed down the path, followed by his pets.

“If one of those damn dogs ever bites one of us,” Mac muttered between clenched teeth, “I’ll shoot it.”

“Suits me,” said a still-shaken Muff.

Jennifer ran to catch up with Buck as Mac and Muff headed toward the bathhouse.

“Tell them you’re sorry,” Jennifer said.

Buck acted as if he hadn’t heard her. He said he was on his way to cut down some more trees for coconuts. Mac had already let Buck know a couple of times he did not think it was right for him to down the trees with his chain saw.

“Are you
trying
to make them mad?”

“They don’t own this goddamn island!” Buck snapped.

Jennifer knew better than to try to make Buck see reason right now. She knew not to hassle him when he was like this. He was usually quiet and controlled, but if challenged, he could become furious in no time.

The previous day, for example, she’d innocently asked him why he’d started going around without his dental bridge. The gap where two top front teeth were missing made him look like some skid row wino. He had flared up: “I don’t have to impress anyone!” At times, he
liked
coming across mean. She figured he’d learned this tactic in prison, as a warning not to mess with him. “If you look bad, no one will fuck with you,” he had once told her.

Though Buck had never struck her, he’d admitted that he’d hit his ex-wife during their marriage. She would scream and throw things at him, he explained, so he’d slap her. Jennifer had made her reaction to his therapy clear, early on. “A man gets one chance to hit me. Then I’m gone. Hit me, lose me.” Buck had never hit her, but Jennifer had never thrown anything at him. She sensed that if someone fed his anger, Buck could become uncontrollably violent, a dynamo of rage.

Living on Palmyra—far out of reach of the authorities—had not served to relax Buck. On the contrary, his frustrations and pent-up hostilities had inexplicably been exacerbated, perhaps by the trying conditions of their daily life. She tried to remain tolerant and understanding, aware she was becoming increasingly taut herself.

But Jennifer wasn’t giving up.

Their food situation was a continuing cause for concern, yet it wasn’t as if they were going to starve to death. They still had some supplies left, and there was always fish, coconuts, and crabs. She had created a salad recipe using some leafy plants that grew in abundance on the runway. She thought her “Runway Salad” was delicious when served with a dressing of coconut milk, a kind of equatorial
nouvelle cuisine
. They were bored with the restricted diet, but they
were
eating. And if they didn’t hear from the Taylor brothers soon, they could sail to Fanning for more supplies.

Physically, Jennifer felt healthy and in good shape from all the manual work, and she could even allow herself some optimism about the future.

And after all, they
had
achieved their main goal in coming here: Buck was still a free man.

A
UGUST
13, 1974

M
UFF FELT
languid, as was often the case these days. The unremitting summer heat in the depths of the tropics was draining her limited store of stamina. A tree sloth would leave her in a cloud of dust.

She was trying to lose weight, hoping she would thereby gain more energy and be more attractive. Her latest dieting effort called for drinking a glass of cider vinegar each morning. Some slick women’s mag she had brought with her claimed this would curb the appetite and take inches off. Muff had packed four gallon jugs of vinegar for the trip and was religiously downing the recommended dosage every morning, but so far she hadn’t shed a pound. As a reminder of her goal, she kept a calorie chart on the wall in the galley. But, especially when she was feeling out of sorts, she sneaked food when Mac wasn’t around. These days, that happened more and more often.

She couldn’t stand looking at herself in a mirror anymore. When she was younger, she’d been justifiably proud of her figure. “I used to have cheesecake legs,” she had told Mac’s sister a few months earlier. “Now I have cottage-cheese thighs.”

She had been lying in the bunk around midday for almost an hour, exhausted, but unable to fall asleep. At first, the whine of a chain saw had kept her awake. Since the only one on the island belonged to Roy, she wasn’t surprised when she went up on deck and spotted him west of their anchorage, near an old seaplane ramp, hunched over, chopping down another big coconut tree.

Mac was ashore—as usual. Muff hoped he would avoid a confrontation with Roy. Let him cut the blasted trees down. Who cared? She sensed Roy was threatened by Mac, the man he could never be. Her husband was honest, capable, and energetic, while Roy had his own sly methods of getting what he wanted. As when he copped the chair she’d put aside…and now, destroying a tree to get coconuts rather than shinnying up. But Roy was always quick to seek Mac’s help, and Mac was always willing to give it.

When the sawing stopped, Muff made another attempt to sleep, but failed.

Honestly, she didn’t understand where Mac got all his energy. Since they’d come to Palmyra, he’d been getting up around sunrise, his favorite part of the day on the island. In all the years of their marriage, she’d never seen him so eager to start the day—usually, he slept late.

Now, she stayed in her bunk later than Mac, took a nap or two in the day when he was out working or exploring, and still she was the first in bed every night. The island life that invigorated him debilitated her. It wasn’t fair.

She shut her eyes to try again, but opened them as soon as she heard the sound of a boat engine that wasn’t the Zodiac. There were new voices, too. As she got up, it occurred to her that it must be Jennifer and Roy’s friends arriving with their supplies.

She went up on deck. There was an unfamiliar sailboat motoring into the lagoon, heading for the dolphins. She could see a bearded, long-haired young man standing on the bow.

Great
, Muff thought.
Just what we need on this island. More useless hippies preaching about self-reliance and begging us to feed them
.