The satellite phone is gone, and so are my guns.

  I still don’t know how I lost the phone when it should have been in my pocket. Had I been thrown that hard against the ice? I guess so.

  And how in the hell did I somehow forget to load my second rifle? For that matter, how is it even possible I don’t remember an engine fire or disconnecting the fuel line?

  I don’t know.

  But a very small part of me wonders...

  Am I going crazy?

  Chapter Ten

  I’m finding it difficult to care anymore—about anything.

  Kimko is still pulling my damned boat across the ocean, I’m still thirsty, and the sun is going down again. Worse, I’m bored. There is nothing else to do but sulk and brew over my situation. It’s all my fault. I got myself into this. But it wasn’t like I didn’t have a plan. What could I have done? Who could have suspected the whale would be so durable or clever?

  Or that I would have such lapses in memory?

  I’m flipping my knife over and over between my fingers. It’s closed, so I don’t have to worry about cutting myself. And no, I’m not thinking about doing that, either. It’s a promise I made to myself after my son’s death. I’m not taking my own life, ever, no matter how lost I feel. No, I’m just angry about the situation the orca forced me into, and I’m trying to think of a way out. Also, I’m hungry and wet. I also haven’t eaten anything substantial for a full day. It’s the trifecta of miserableness.

  I wipe sticky saliva from the corners of my mouth and notice how chapped my hands and lips are. My face and arms are sunburned. It doesn’t hurt a lot right now, but I know it’ll be bad later. I haven’t been this badly burned since I was a kid. I thought I had it all planned out, but I never expected this.

  A plan with massive holes in it. Good thing I never wanted to go into the supervillain business. I’d be doomed from the get go.

  The bruises on my back and shoulders aren’t bothering me so much anymore. Or maybe I’m just too damned tired to feel them. That’s got to be it. The seat feels hard on my head as I lay down. It’s got little ridges that run from end to end. I never realized how sharp they were until I pressed my skull against them.

  Shifting my weight around a little, I’m finally able to find a position that doesn’t hurt as much as any of the others I’ve tried. I can barely keep my eyes open, and decide if I end up falling asleep, that would be just fine. I think waking up to a dead orca at the end of a roped harpoon would be a great way to start my day. I could return to my life, disconnect the back seat, and start paddling home. So long as I head east, it doesn’t really matter where I end up. I’ll have some explaining to do to my lieutenant—and to my wife—but it’ll all work out in the end.

  I swallow and notice a small bump on the roof of my mouth. It’s painful and swollen. I’ve had one before, though I don’t know what it’s called. One summer early on as a newish sheriff’s deputy, I went out on a call in the rural backwoods. It started out as a domestic dispute, then ended up as a missing person search. I’d been drinking coffee all morning and didn’t bring any water. There were stores on the way in, but I’d neglected to stop. My mind must’ve been on something else.

  Unfortunately, no stores existed anywhere near where I needed to go, and I had no time to turn around to find one on the way. The call was for a middle-aged man who, according to dispatch, tried to hurt himself a dozen or more times in the past. He’d been drinking all night and fighting with his wife, then stormed off into the woods. We found him ten hours later, safe and sound, but I could barely walk, and swallowing was torture. It isn’t that bad right now, but I know it’s only a matter of time.

  There are still two bottles of water in the cooler, which is secured to the boat. They would be cool and delicious and I would want to drink them all in one fell swoop.

  I close my eyes and shiver a little. The water pooling in the bottom of the boat is cold, but not freezing. Whatever damage the skiff endured isn’t causing it to fill with too much water. Maybe it didn’t sustain damage. Maybe I made that part up.

  And with that thought, a sharp, excruciating pain passes across my temporal lobe.

  The night’s going to get chilly, colder than the previous night. I’d read the weather report. Also, I can feel it in the air. I don’t think it’ll hit fifty degrees tonight, but it might get that low. Cold enough to make me uncomfortable, but probably not enough to lead to hypothermia, even if parts of me do stay wet.

  Putting my feet up on the bench is a little more comfortable. At least my toes aren’t sitting in the water. I’d replaced the seat for now, though I’d only spun the wingnuts a couple of times. That way, I’ll be able to remove it again quickly if I need to use it as a shield from ice again. Or if the orca decides to turn... and aim at me.

  My socks and shoes are on the other bench near my head. With any luck, they’ll be dry by morning, though I don’t expect to put them on before making it back to shore. Then I can put them on, find out where I am, get my truck, pick up the boat, and head home. Once I’m there, I’ll kiss my wife and be glad I made it out of this alive. Hope hasn’t completely abandoned me. There’s still a chance, no matter how small, that I’ll make it out of this alive.

  The orca, not so much.

  Speaking of which, Kimko is moving slower, though his tail looks as powerful as ever. I absently wonder if an orca can die of exhaustion. Everything else can, I think, so why not a killer whale? The endless swimming, along with the massive blood loss, should finish him off soon enough. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking, and part of my brain is trying to keep the rest of me motivated. Still, it feels good to hope, and right now, I’m hoping I’m right.

  Sleep isn’t coming quickly, so I’m opening and closing the knife. It helps to pass the time, and something about having the small weapon in my hand is comforting. I’ve only used it on a few occasions, and it’s sharp as a razor blade. Once the whale dies, it’ll be easy to cut myself free, leaving the remains to be consumed by whatever lucky sea critter comes along.

  I finally replace my knife in my pocket and I try to fill my mind with the most pleasant thoughts I can think of. Within a half minute, I find myself wondering what I’ll do if Kimko is still alive in the morning. Could it possibly survive that long? Theoretically, sure, but it’s got to be utterly exhausted if nothing else. I’ll have to do something, though. There’s no telling how fast the fish is moving, but every stroke of its tail takes me further from where we started. Each additional foot is a small percentage of my odds of survival evaporating. Every stroke brings me a little closer to death.

  I could always cut the thing loose, I guess, but it feels like surrendering. Sure, it still might die from blood loss—or because it has a harpoon stuck in its back. The wound will probably ruin its ability to collect food or outrun a shark if it gets into a fight. The wound might get infected—if that kind of thing happens to sea creatures.

  If I let it go, I’d have no closure. I know that. I know me. I know how my brain works. I need evidence. Hard evidence. A harpoon did not automatically kill a killer whale. Hell, we’ve put a hundred miles behind us at this point. Not to mention, the bastard could damn well knock the harpoon out at the next ice shelf and be healed in months.

  I suppose I could return to the same spot next year and look for him. Then again, if I don’t see him, I can’t automatically assume he’s dead. After all, I could have just missed him. Pods, after all, are often spread out hundreds of yards across the ocean. It was pure luck I saw him this year. Hell, I could go the rest of my life and never see him again and still wonder if he lived. If so, none of this would have been worth it. I would have wasted my time and risked my life for nothing.

  The thought drops a heavy blanket of sadness on my shoulders. I just don’t think I can live with myself if I give up now. I close my eyes as another thought occurs to me. Maybe I could just reel the thing in—bring it close to my boat. If I can get alongside the whale and start hacking at it with my knife, maybe I could make the damned thing bleed out a little faster. If Kimko is as exhausted as I think he is, he shouldn’t put up much of a fight. And, he’s already proven he can’t sink the boat—not easily, anyway. It might work.

  The handle of my knife isn’t textured in any way, so if the whale starts bleeding a lot, it’ll probably get slippery. I’ll have to be careful not to drop it over the edge. Quick slashes might do the trick. They’ll bleed more than punctures, but I’ve never tried this before, so I just don’t know. However, death by a thousand cuts is still death.

  An unwelcome thought arrives to spoil the little bit of relief I’m feeling. What if the orca isn’t as tired as I think it is? Or what if it thrashes harder than I expect and capsizes the boat? I might be able to flip it back over without it sinking, but I’ve never needed to before. I imagine it will act just like a big spoon, scooping enough water inside to send it to the bottom of the ocean. If that happens, I’ll drown. But so will the whale. There’s just no way it will be able to swim for long, towing a half-sunken boat around.

  I listen to its flukes splashing and the ragged burst of spray from its blowhole. I’ve long since noted he takes a breath about every twenty seconds, but I know he can hold it longer. Sometimes whole minutes pass. Sometimes I hear him take three or four breaths at once. Orcas are weird creatures.

  I’d flown to California three months ago for a conference and found myself at SeaWorld. Although the Orca live shows had been canceled, they still had an educational presentation with a few of their killer whales present. Not sure why I went there. Maybe because I knew I’d intended to confront the one who killed Julien. Maybe I wanted to see what I was up against. Maybe I wanted to talk myself out of it. Guess that last part didn’t work, because here I am.

  Anyway, the lady giving the presentation was more than helpful, and I learned a lot. For instance, when the veterinarians wanted to check the health of a whale, they often take a blood draw. The veins are near the surface. When I asked her to point a few out to me, she gave me a quizzical look, which made it clear she didn’t know the answer... and that she’d thought I was a big weirdo. Little did she know she was talking to the father of the only known human killed by an orca. If she knew what I had been planning, would she still think me weird?

  Yeah, probably. Weird or crazy.

  Unable to sleep, I stare at the y-shaped cleat the harpoon is tied to. There is about forty feet of rope strung out, and I’ll need to reel most of it in to bring the orca in close to stab with my knife. But I’ll think about all that tomorrow morning. Do I have the strength to pull my boat to the killer whale? Maybe. We’ll see.

  We’ll call that Plan D for now. Guns had been Plan A. Didn’t work. Harpoon, Plan B, is still a work in progress.

  Plan C is still to wait him out. Maybe he’ll be dead when I awaken.

  When I try going back to sleep, I make the mistake of touching the roof of my mouth with my tongue again. I think the swelling is getting worse. My chapped lips feel like broken glass. Muscle cramps are setting in. There’s one in my hamstring now that’s just killing me. Okay, maybe just a little water, then. Something to tide me over until morning.

  The sip turns into an empty bottle in seconds. Shit! The water tastes great, and I can’t resist drinking it all. I decide not to regret it. Afterward, I hold the water bottle to my mouth, holding it nearly vertical. In the moonlight, I can still see a few drops clinging to the inside. But, they seem stuck. No matter how hard I tap the side or shake it, they aren’t going anywhere. The beautiful, tiny globules of life—so close, but so impossible to reach.

  Screwing the lid back on, I set the bottle down and try to get as comfortable as possible.

  Thoughts of what I’m going to do in the morning bring me some peace. I’ll open a few of the veins and speed up the bleeding. Or maybe I’ll just stab the thing in its eyes. Orcas have echolocation, but a blind killer whale can’t last long out in the wild. If I can get to the thing’s eyes, I think it’ll be safe to cut it loose and know it won’t survive.

  Then I don’t need to watch it die.

  I feel like a monster.

  Mostly, I feel hate.

  Now, time for sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  I wake entirely disoriented.

  My whole body is wet, and for one panicked moment, I wonder if the boat has sunk. Wait. Have I been floating around in the ocean on my back all night?

  Something is tapping my face, my eyelids, my nose. There’s a noise, too, accompanied by a rattling, a soft vibration that confuses me. It sounds like it happening everywhere.

  I sit up and groan against the pain in my neck and back. It feels like several of my vertebrae are out of alignment, and a dozen bruises have somehow appeared overnight. More tap-tapping, and now I feel it over my entire body. It’s raining hard, coming in torrents, slashing like silver daggers. The sky is brightening some, but still gray with clouds. Mean-looking clouds, too.

  I’m still in the middle of nowhere. The surface of the ocean is churning some, dimpled with the driving rain. I feel as if I’ve awakened on an alien planet made entirely of water.

  The back of my head hurts more than anything, and for a second, I wonder if maybe I fell. When I probe the sore spot with my fingers, I can feel the lines the pointy ridges on the seat left in my scalp. The bruise on my back where I crashed against the throttle handle of the motor feels like it’s fully formed. It hurts to breathe, but I don’t think anything is broken.

  I look over at the massive creature, still swimming, still undulating like a big fat black and white serpent over the surface of the ocean. Still bleeding, I see. “Feel like giving up yet? You can if you want to. Nobody’s going to say anything—least of all me. So, why not throw in the towel? Head toward the light.” I crack myself up, but laughing hurts enough to snap me out of my mirth. The whale’s response is to continue swimming. If it hears me, it does not show it.

  I stomp my foot, trying to get a reaction from the creature, splashing water up into the air. It’s only about five inches deep, but something marvelous occurs to me. I can’t drink seawater because of how salty it is. But this water—most of it, anyway—is rain. Especially the pockets of water pooling around the lid of the cooler. Surely that is rain water.

  Fresh water.

  My God!

  I can’t help but smack my lips in anticipation as I use one hand to carefully tilt the lid of the cooler, emptying the water into one of my empty bottles. Trying not to think about when the last time I gave the cooler a cleaning, I bring the water to my mouth.

  The taste makes me think of what the water pooled alongside a gas station pump might taste like. There’s a definite gasoline-like quality to it. Had I dropped some gas on the lid? Ugh. At least it’s not salty. I’ll die of dehydration long before I die from drinking a few chemicals. I think. So, I swallow all of it, and search for more pockets of water in the boat. I find some along the bench seats. I use my clothing to sop it up, then carefully wring my shirt into the bottle, beyond irritated when even a little bit of it dribbled down the outside. Twenty minutes later, I have another bottle full of water. I save this one, putting it in the ice chest.

  “Should have kept us out of the storm!” I shout to Kimko. “Your fault, really, but now I’ve got enough water to outlast you.”

  I chuckle and revel in just how wonderful the water feels in my belly. I consider how much of the water along the bottom of the boat is potable. After all, so much of it had been salt water at one point. But hadn’t a lot of it evaporated? Maybe, it probably left a salty residue. Still, most of this water might be fresh. If so, in a pinch, I could try drinking it and see if it works.

  If I have to. For now, I have a few bottles of water left, and belly full of it. And the more it rains, the more I’ll sop it up and wring the fresh water into the cooler itself. With that thought in mind, I open the cooler to the elements, collecting the fresh rain directly, or as much of it as I can.

  As long as I don’t tip the boat, or the orca doesn’t splash a ton of seawater into it, I should have enough to make it all the way back to shore, even if it’s fifty or a hundred miles. I don’t think we can be too much further out than that, but I’ve been wrong about a number of things already.

  Wrong or forgetful.

  With enough water, I can finish the task at hand and move on with my life. But will I? Maybe, maybe not. How could I know? Will I at least find some semblance of peace? I’m not sure anymore. Kimko hasn’t done anything directly to me—just my son. I mean, I’ve got the sucker harpooned, and still he hasn’t directly attacked me. Could I have the wrong orca? Doubtful. Kimko had the most striking saddle patch. All others were gray blobs. Only his had a black dagger silhouette in the middle. The same markings on the creature who pulled Julien down to his death.

  Why hadn’t Kimko fought back? Why not charge my boat?

  I didn’t know. How could I know? Was he so wounded that he didn’t have enough fight left in him? Yet he has enough strength to swim hundreds of miles out into the ocean?

  Surely, he saw me behind him, trailing him, connected to the very weapon fastened in his side. Surely he knows I harpooned him. That I am the source of his pain.

  Is it possible he feels... remorse? No way. He’s just a dumb animal. Granted, smarter than most other animals. But a killer at heart. Does the lion say a small prayer over the warthog? Or does the lion feast on it as fast as it can, oblivious to the warthog’s pain and death?