Blue Across the Sea

By Dave Cline

Disaster arrived and found a home, a pair of coronal mass ejections destroyed the world's electric grid. Two hundred years later, pockets of survivors scratch out a living. This morning, a storm threatens as Tillion sets out alone to fish the Bonneville Sea, a sea born anew due to climate change. He must leave his sister with their father, a broken, untrustworthy man. "Fill the barrels and return", Tillion tells himself. But the sea's waves and the winds of the storm have other plans--to wreck his boat and force him to drift, as he may, north into the hands of the Blues and their righteous sense of justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Cline
• Release date: Apr 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386873310

Dave Cline

Dave Cline writes software in the Pacific Northwest. He'd rather be canoeing with his dog, Katie down a lazy river, than sitting in his chair writing code. But, such is life. The dog's gone anyway. Look for other Bonneville Sea books soon...

Book preview

This is a work of fiction.

Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

BLUE ACROSS THE SEA

First edition. April 1, 2018.

Second edition. July 1, 2018.

Third edition. October 1, 2018.

ISBN: 9781386873310

Copyright © 2018 Dave Cline.

Written by Dave Cline.

Storm

Tillion donned his slicker and hustled down the path to the beach where their boat lay bellied above the surf. His father lay nearby, eyes glazed, stringy hair hiding his features; a clay jug sat half-buried in the sand.

The boy had woken with that familiar hunger, a knot in his belly like a knurl of sun-dried rope. His young body cried for more, more food, more nourishment. Today he would once again see to filling that constant hole. But more than packing his gut with baked fish and boiled grains, he ached to taste a righteous life. For the one he’d lived so far, among the struggling fishermen and ground scratchers of Swasey, allowed him to survive, yes. Yet, he hungered beyond his body’s needs, he hungered for a sense of belonging. An insatiable hunger that nagged forever at his belly, at his soul.

Stepping through the low dunes, Tillion soon stood over his father. We missed the leaving! And I find you like this? The boy’s sharp words left no mark upon the man’s addled mind. Now, I must fish alone.

You spent too long dozin’, the man slurred. Wasn’t my doin’, I been here since, since las’ night, fixin’ the net.

This? The boy reached into the boat and yanked out the snarled net. He shook it in the man’s face. You’ve been fixing this?

Don’t you raise your voice to me, boy! ‘Taint my fault you be lax. The old man sat up and watched his son now struggle to shoulder the boat into the water. He wagged a finger at the gray skies above the sea. Them clouds look to be draggin’ a storm. I doan... I don’t care how rough it treats you. You fill them barrels, boy.

Tillion spun and glared at his father. Leave the fishin’ to me. With a final shove, the boy freed the skiff, setting it afloat. "You! You treat Dallia kind while I’m out. He leapt into the craft and pulled the main line snug. The vessel’s canvas snapped taught, and he grabbed the tiller. The boat heeled in the rising wind, and crashed through the breakers. Tillion twisted about and yelled at the old man. You be kind, I say!"

His father’s last words were lost to the wind as the youth settled in to ride the waves out to the fishing grounds at the southern end of The Bonneville Sea.

~~~

Tillion searched for the fishing boats from the village, but they had either turned back in the rising seas or headed east toward the Watchers. He debated whether to take their lead or sail out to where he was certain he could fill the barrels. Damn these barrels, he spoke to the wind and kicked the nearest with his boot. He let his anger fester in the gale building swiftly around him. But thoughts of his sister soothed his angst. Her sad eyes and thankful ways would suffer if he surrendered to his temper. Dallia works too hard for me to complain.

The young sailor worked the tiller, tacking back and forth to seek the shoals of silver darters that provided their trade. A bright, erratic fish the size of his hand, darters could be caught by the hundreds, even in Tillion’s ancient tangle of a net. And where darters swam, stripers followed. These were big fish, as long as his arm, that chased the darters, often sending the frantic bait skipping over the surface running from the serrated teeth of the stripers.

He remembered when a whole school of darters jumped to nearly fill the boat. Dallia was along then. How she squealed to see them flying at her, like a fire’s sparks, dancing in the night. The lad’s attention wandered as he reminisced of better times. Times before their mother had vanished.

Where are you, Maddur? Dead, they say... The boy gazed into the sky. Or do you watch for us? Do you count our Dallia’s tears?

The line to the net he’d been dragging snapped to the side jolting him from his nostalgic dream. The ‘Our Boat’ tilted and the net’s sudden weight heeled the small boat over. Tillion leaned against the tilt, eyes wide with shock. He glanced at the rusty knife embedded in the bench beside him. To cut the net away would lose them precious weeks of fishing while they worked to make a new one. He let the knife be. The boat righted itself as the school of fish that had slammed into the net thinned and swam past.

Looking up, his chest tightened to see how close the storm had come. The waves around him now rose above his head. Tillion’s dedication had taken him farther north than usual and doubt teased at his mind. I must follow the fish, he said, justifying his decision to stay his course.

He wound the net’s line around the primitive wooden spool that served as a windlass and hauled up the snarled mess of net. He tumbled it over the side, spilling a bushel or more of spastic fish into the rain water that sloshed around his ankles. Trapped, the fish flailed about dashing themselves on the planking and ribs of the small craft.

Tillion shook the stragglers from the tangled net, straightened it as best he could, but flung it over the side with a curse. Bah! ‘Fixing the net’ he says. The man couldn’t fix a hole by falling in it. He grinned at the image.

He let the net’s line slip through his cold, numb hands until he judged it to be deep enough, and tied it off. Setting an open barrel between his legs he scooped the darters, filling it. When the dulled fish brimmed the top he took a lid from behind, centered it and gave it a twist. Two, two filled and four to go. He shook his head in defeat. Maybe I could catch a sturgo or a thief shark, cut it up and fill these barrels, fill ‘em in a single go. Large sturgo, deep-sea bottom feeders, lurked in the shallows during breeding season, sucking up fresh-water shrimp and clams. Thief sharks, Before-time Bull sharks, had been released into the waters of the inland sea ages ago and thrived on stripers and silver darters.

Having ignored the seas while he worked, the storm rose fully around him and the boat’s sail, now furled to a third, proved too much in the growing wind. Tillion leaned forward and scrambled to take down the rest of the ragged canvas. Swells, more than twice his height, heaved the small skiff up to tilt precariously in the gale. Once there, the boat slid down the face of the waves, burying her bow deep in the troughs. The motion drove panic into the boy and he held fast to the gunnels while she slid, his face stretched tight in fear.

At the crest of each swell Tillion searched to the east where he sought the familiar peaks of the Watchers. But storm clouds fouled the view. He scanned for any signs of land, but the heaving horizon showed only sea. To head home he would have to fight the storm’s southern winds. He shook his head in disbelief, how had he ignored the intensity of the storm for so long?

The waves stacked and quickened. Barrels, freed from their lashings, rolled and bumped in the boat’s hold, bashing Tillion’s knees. Just then a wave twice the size of any other, a looming green monster, sent the skiff high into the storm winds, the boy’s stomach lurched as it went. Poised at the top, the net’s draw line tugged again to his left and wrenched the ship, tilting her edge into the churning water. Dread and simultaneous clarity gripped him. Tillion reached frantically for the boat’s high side, grabbed the crude blade with his free hand and slashed the net away. But the boat’s edge sucked in deeper, and as she slid down the backside of the giant surge, her stern pierced the bottom of the bowl. Barrels pummeled the lad as the vessel shuddered and capsized, tipping him and all its contents into the sea.

Gasping for breath, Tillion could feel his clothing begin to drag him below the surface. He kicked off his rough hide boots and struggled from his slicker. Waves conspired to fill his mouth and choke him. He spat brackish water as his skills as a swimmer kept him afloat. Spying the upturned hull he swam near, but could not heave himself upon it. Hand under hand he rounded to the upturned bow where he embraced the wood planks and rested his head against the yellow painted name. He bobbed there, inconsolate. I’ve done it now.

A froth-capped wave fell upon him and nearly scraped him from his grasp. He shook the water from his face and noticed the empty fish barrels drifting away. Tillion recalled using one to play on as a toy in shallow bays near his village. Reluctantly, the lad released his grasp and swam out to retrieve one of the half-submerged barrels. He knew that staying with the capsized boat would not save him; yet, surrendering to the open water both scared and tempted him. If I just quit, gulp this cursed water, slip down and down, I wonder, would I see Maddur again? A bump from behind prodded him from his desperate thoughts. One of the paddles had remained near and like an old friend had tapped his shoulder.

With one barrel now secure, he had an idea. Retrieving a second from the tormented sea, he put the ends of the paddle into the separate barrels and found he could suspend himself by sitting on the middle of the shaft. To one side of the paddle, with one arm shouldering a wooden float, he decided he wouldn't yet drown. However, he soon realized he had no control over his drift. As the waves drove into his back and the swells rolled beneath him, he turned to look; with a sense of aching loss he watched as he drifted away from the lap-planked hull of his family’s precious Our Boat.

The storm, the first major of the season, drove Tillion and his barrels farther across the Bonneville Inland Sea. It drove him farther than he or any of the local villagers had dared to travel.

For generations, storms like this had raged across the Western half of North America. During the winter, the ice would form at the edges and the ever-rising levels of the sea would drive it thick into the shoreline where it ground stones to sand and shredded the trunks of inundated trees. The water of the sea rose and ancient buildings and artifacts from Before also succumbed to the grinding power of the ice. Generations ago, the ice collapsed walls and toppled homes and buildings. But more recently, the sea warmed and great shoals of fish could be caught.

Night came and went, and then twice again. As he drifted, Tillion imagined all the sunken towns and villages that lay submerged on the bottom of the sea. Unschooled, but keen to view maps and learn the names of places, he’d listened and watched as elders of his village displayed yellowed, decrepit charts in their primitive attempts to understand the inundated land. Nearly a thousand feet below him the ancient towns of Salt Lake and Wendover, Provo and Dugway rotted in their sodden graves.

On this, his fourth day at sea, the storm abated, but the relentless wind continued to drive him northward. The overcast dawn came, and with no heat from the sun to warm the nearly comatose youth, Tillion struggled to remain conscious. Fortunately, the sea, its water only slightly brackish, was drinkable, and he’d sipped and pissed it throughout his ordeal.

Great smooth waves undulated beneath him; the winds, a steady pressure, nudged the barrel-bound lad along the vast surface of the sea. In this lull, a spastic commotion started up around him. Hundreds of flashing darters leapt from the churning water, a few jumped so high as to slap at his head and chest. Even in his groggy state he knew that this meant large dark predators would be swimming underneath his unclad feet. The fear shocked him from his stupor. He thrashed about in confusion, seeking some nonexistent weapon. Then, as he flailed, his eyes focused on a spit of land before him. A low beach appeared to be connected to a set of rocky hills and they, in turn, to a few rounded mountains.

The sight pushed the threat of undersea creatures from his mind and he choked out a muted whoop of relief. Given the weather patterns and storms, he realized this must be the North land. He’d drifted all the way across the sea. He tried to picture the distance he’d traveled, but he blinked repeatedly, mystified.

A heavy thump against his leg startled him. He glanced about. The water was now filled with dozens of sleek, striped bodies lancing out of the sea in pursuit of the silver darters. He spun his head around in worry. There, damn. He could see two large fins cutting toward him. With the shore still some distance away he maintained a bare grip on the paddle, slipped down into the water and flipped into a pushup position. With all the energy left in him, he kicked toward the beach.

In hot weather thief sharks entered the shallows in search of food, often lazily weaving between swimmers and bathers. Tillion recalled that one older man had lost a leg below the knee to a large shark, a shark that had been nearly a third as long as one of their skiffs. He kicked in frenzied activity as bumps from below spurred him on.

A maniacal laugh burst from his raw throat. All this way, and now sharks.

But the fins headed off to follow the roiling bait and Tillion relaxed, exhausted and nearly spent. The wind continued to help his progress and soon his barrels ground onto a sandy beach. Crawling up to the highest surf line, he freed and dragged the paddle with him and once there, collapsed into unconsciousness.

~~~

As the afternoon sun broke through the tail of the storm and the heat of the season returned, the warmth penetrated Tillion’s thick wool sweater and his soaked canvas breeches. With his face pressed into the sand he opened his eyes and blinked, dazed. I live, Dallia. I made it. I... he said, emotion choking his declaration.

My barrels? His reliance on the barrels not forgotten, he glanced around for them. Abandoned at landing, he realized they must have drifted out of sight. He admitted feeling conflicted about the cursed things. Despite their part in his survival he held no attachment to them now that they were gone.

Weary, Tillion clutched his paddle as a staff and began to walk west along the beach. For now, he knew, his home was lost to him, although he could easily point out its direction, south across the sea.

The storm line along the beach was littered with colorful debris. Objects of a bygone era, randomly sucked by storms out of sunken homes and buildings, floated to the surface and collected on the beach like trash from a celebration. Colorful plastic containers, sealed foam, tattered toys and cooking utensils all combined to provide a cache of potential utility to the boy. Most of it, though, revealed itself as ancient, decayed or fouled debris. Big storms extracted the greatest variety from the drowned buildings. Even after these hundreds of years, things like shoes, bottles, dolls and seasonal ornaments, preserved in a watery burial, had escaped their rotting capture down below and floated to the surface, drifting with the wind.

Tillion searched as he walked, hoping he might find coverings for his feet. Sand covered the beach, but being freshly cut from the hills, contained sharp gravel which tore at his bare skin. Beneath a plank he found one lace-up shoe, green with algae and of a size that would fit his right foot; he shook it empty and wore it. As the afternoon stretched on, plans began to emerge from his foggy mind. He must find shelter from the night and from beasts. And, most importantly, kindle a fire.

Tangled in the low branches of a stunted tree, one having its roots relentlessly washed away, Tillion discovered a pair of slime covered, spongy-soled shoes, their laces entwined. These fit him closely and once scrubbed, their bright green color shown through. He’d seen their like before, but never as a pair. He smiled broadly at their feel and comfort and imagined how he could win foot races back in Swasey. Walking farther west, he came upon what had once been a small dry canyon, but with the sea’s rise had now become a protected cove. At the narrow end, an overhang of rock proved to be a place where he could light a fire and shelter from the night.

In his village, thoughts of fire were rarely cause for concern. One always kept a fire burning, not only for cooking, but to keep the huts and hovels in a continuous state of evaporation. The altered climate afforded only brief periods when the sun could be counted on to dry the mud paths and moss-covered roofs and walls.

As for the lighting of fire, each child of the village had endured the survival lessons, a different one taught every month, fire being the first one and often repeated. The idea was that when older, exploring out in the growing wild, the young students would be prepared.

Prepared, thought Tillion out loud. Prepared for this? Grinning at what he now considered a fortunate misfortune, he patted a buckled pocket of his canvas pants and smiled at the solid length he found there. He could recall Bannon, the Guide, speaking to him in his quiet but insistent way. A steel knife is not just a toy to play risk-a-toe. With it you can also skin a meal, gut a fish, or, with flint, strike a fire.

Dry tinder would be the challenge now. No doubt the storm had soaked almost everything he might find to burn. The Guide’s words continued to echo in his memory. Wood beneath will be dry, though the bark be soaked. Bannon had then shown how seasoned wood remained dry inside. Fortunately, the high water mark bristled with twigs, branches, and limbs of trees and gnarled pinion pine stumps that could be broken apart revealing a dry core. Within the cove he found a plentiful supply of these stumps, and, after lugging one up beneath the overhang, he broke it into pieces.

Now that he had a pile of damp, but combustible fuel, and having used his personal knife to shave curls of dry heartwood from the root of a pine, he patted his other buckled pocket to discover it flat and empty. He’d lost the flint chip he normally carried. No, not lost, he whispered to himself. Dallia has it. She had needed it that morning. No, not that morning, a morning three days ago now, he corrected.

Oh, Dallia, I’m sorry. Memories of his sister, oppressed by their father, her face never smiling, her tears near constant, clouded his mind. He had been her protector and champion. He realized that now her future would be dim with him assumed drowned, and their boat lost.

I need new flint, he said to himself, shaking the dreary visions from his mind.

The landscape surrounding his shelter had been arid and barren in the distant past, but was now filled with grass and shrubs that grew between rocky outcrops. Tall spruce and cedar and groves of cottonwood and oak grew in pockets all over the hills. But, Tillion knew that, despite the verdant landscape, flint, chert and obsidian could be found, evidence of past volcanic activity, as Bannon had informed them. He needed a new piece of glassrock he could use to strike his steel knife. Hundreds of rocks and boulders dotted the hills, mostly composed of slate or sandstone. He needed one both hard and sharp. He thought that he might find a collection just above the debris line that had tumbled down the hill and landed on the flatter parts of the beach.

He scanned the ground for a whistletune or three before a jagged shimmer caught his eye. Examining the swirling brown and red lines in the fist-sized rock, he figured it to be a lobe of chert from a larger chunk farther up the hill. He dashed the rock on another, splitting it into sharp fragments, proving its type. Retrieving the largest, he pulled his knife out and struck the fragment across the back of the blade. Satisfying sparks flew into the air.

Back at his makeshift camp he formed a bowl of dry wood shavings and repeated the chert-to-steel motion. A tiny sliver of iron peeled off, burst to dazzling light and landed smoldering in the tinder nest. With a light breath he had a flame to kindle his pyramid of branches.

Tillion’s spirit, waning until then, lifted with the flames. The evening had deepened and the light from the fire cast out a glow across the cove. The illumination allowed him to gather additional logs to keep the blaze going throughout the night.

His pyre now towering, Tillion stripped from his still damp sweater and pants and hung them on stakes to dry. Freed from the chafing and itching, he bathed in the intense heat, his bone-deep chill finally cured. He would welcome a warm night’s rest, even on hard ground, were it not for the empty knot in his stomach. He’d gone days now without food. Water sipped from the cove helped. But the smell of smoke and the absence of other hardship focused his mind on his vacant belly.

Some of those darters would be handy now, he said to his fire. I know where there are a couple of barrels full of tasty fish, he laughed. Way-out-there, he called loudly, pointing across the sea.

A faint echo returned to him. OUT THERE.

He yelled again. I’m HUNGRY!

Me, too, he replied to his own echo as it came back to him. Frustrated, he knew nothing could be done until morning. He donned his dry clothing, and spent the next hour gathering more wood and stacking a wall of sandstone rocks around the cove side of the fire to help reflect the heat and ward off the wind.

By morning, Tillion’s gnawing hunger had risen to torment. Yes, he did know the location of food. If he could find line and a hook he could fashion a fishing pole from a long branch or the paddle. During the prior day’s confused march along the beach he thought he recalled the sight of twisted fishing line.

With the fire stoked, he retraced his steps and did indeed find a ball of tangled line. Degraded by the sun, most of it was useless, but when he tipped over the board on which it lay, he found more line wound around a wooden spool. He determined this must have recently bubbled up from some ancient submerged vessel. He cut away the spool, being sure to scan for lures. Finding none, but with spool in hand, he returned to the cove, all the while searching the flotsam for material to use as a hook.

He found what he needed in the form of lumi-cans. Beachcombing as a child he had collected these shiny, colorless cans. The captured key at the top, when removed, split and attached to a line, would serve as a hook and take small fish. A series of them, strung from leaders, would be even better. Soon he’d collected four cans, filled two with water, and returned to camp. After prying off and splitting the top loops, he set both water-filled cans in shallow coals and tucked sprigs of pine needles into each. Needle tea, an early memory of his mother, was bitter, but comforting.

Toting his spool of line, makeshift hooks, and a short thick branch, he walked out along the right side of the cove to the point formed at the entrance. He cast the branch as far as he could—tied as a throwable float. With his four hooks spaced apart and strung up from the float, Tillion gave them slack letting them drift deeper. He tugged teasingly at the line to simulate the movement of wounded minnows.

After casting, retrieving, and moving farther along the beach, a quick tap, tap, tap and he knew he had a bite. Winding back the line he whooped aloud when he saw not one but three bright flashes in the shallows and jerked them onto the beach. Freeing the fish and recasting, he took five more hand-sized darters from the school before it moved out beyond his reach. Over his catch he murmured a quiet phrase of thanks. Then with his knife he cleaned and strung them along a supple branch and returned to his now glowing mound of coals and steaming tea.

Straight onto the fire went his catch. And the tangy drink, once cooled, served to quicken his appetite. The roasting aromas tortured his stomach and he burned his mouth nibbling at those most done. He devoured the crisped skin and flaky white meat until all eight of his stringer lay as skeletons charring in the embers. The evening came and Tillion lay down to snooze in a satisfying slumber.

~~~

The wind, now just a breeze, shifted from the south and carried the tantalizing odors from Tillion’s fire up through the canyon and north across the hills. Like an invitation to a feast, the scent called to any carnivores that lurked downwind. Miles distant, the smoky aroma streamed into the sensitive nostrils of a pack of African wild dogs, triggering their persistent hunger.

After the sunshock, conflicted Before-time zookeepers had freed their charges to fend for themselves in the chaos that followed the sun-storm, rather than abandon them to starve in their cages and enclosures. Released, African wild dogs had flourished in the North American wilds.

An alpha pair and their fifteen soldier dogs, having made their living on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, nosed into the wind and tracked down the scent of Tillion’s camp-roasted silver darters.

In thirty whistletunes of trotting they came to the top of the canyon below which Tillion slept. The lad, wary of animal threats, had banked the fire and gathered fuel to see him through until morning.

Using their skill at raiding human encampments, the alphas split up, each taking half of the troop with them. The two groups padded quietly down each side of the ravine. When they came even with the overhang, the alpha male crept down to the level ground on which Tillion slept.

Deducing only a single human within this camp, the male dog felt emboldened to strike.

~~~

An errant yip from an inexperienced pup shocked Tillion awake, but not before the male alpha darted in and grabbed the youth by his left foot. The dog’s fangs failed to sink deeply as the creature gagged on the rubbery sole of the shoe. The dog drew no blood, but canine teeth squeezed his foot and the lad cried out in pain and anger. Having kept the paddle within reach, Tillion snatched it up and whacked the male in the head, spinning him off and down the slope.

The female and a pair of cadets rushed in from the other side. Tillion backed farther under the overhang and fought with his wooden paddle, beating back the female. But now dogs appeared from both sides. There had been no packs of these painted dogs anywhere near Tillion’s village. Coyotes, yes, and some wolves, and a few packs of domestic dogs. But none behaved like this. Tillion could hardly believe the calculated tactics of these canine predators. He could see the cunning eyes of the leaders pacing outside the ring of firelight and near his low stone wall.

Ha! he yelled as one dog came in from his right, while another dove in from the left, biting at his canvas breeches, tearing them at the calf. As Tillion looked out, a dozen