Swordwhale Walking: Illustration, stories, photojourneys, videos

This is the intro to a trilogy, and yet under revision. It's inspired by some of my own experiences with the barrier islands of Chincoteague and Assateague, with sleddogs, wild horses, kayaks and privateering tall ships. For the uninitiated, "merrow" is another (Celtic) name for the male half of the mermaid species. The formatting did not translate well between the original tale (done on the Raven computer, a dinosaur) and this (done on the Swordwhale computer, new, but lacking in viable word processing).

  


 
 
 
Outrider





           
He fled, blasting through the grey seas with all the power his torn fins
could muster. Far behind, in the dim, predawn light, he could hear the shouted
orders and sharp clatter of a ship in crisis mode. Something was
wrong.


           
Something was missing; him.


           
Through the water, he could feel the distant cough and sputter of a
small, fast boat starting up, then the scream of the engines, like the rip of
shark teeth. Instinctively he dove, slicing down through clear, greygreen water,
darker, deeper. He was seventy feet down in the flick of a fin, in three
heartbeats; opening his mouth for the first breath of clean cold sea when he
remembered.


           
Remembered what they had taken from him. Remembered what he could no
longer do. He choked, spat out the mouthful of water, turned his face toward the
dim light of the surface, so far away. Did something he'd never done
before.


           
He held his breath. Not well and not long, for in uncounted turns of the
seasons he had never had to hold his breath; not in the sea, nor in the ocean of
air above it.


           
One heartbeat.


           
Two.


           
The surface was so far...so far!


           
Three heartbeats.


           
Impossible. He was not a whale. Darkness flickered before his eyes, the
water pressed on him as it had never done before, holding him down, caving in
his air-filled lungs. He bent his fins, shoved against the water that had always
held him like a mother, shot toward the alien world of air and light and color.
He erupted in a spray of silver, gasping, gulping in the cool clean air. He
raised a hand, brushed a seaweed tangle of sand colored hair out of his eyes,
staring back at the eastern horizon, all the glowing colors of the inside of a
whelk shell. His eyes were sea eyes, not made to see far in the air like a bird
so he couldn't see the ship, or the speedboat, but he could still feel the
distant thrum of the engines, sounds carried far and fast by the sea, and his
heart sank. He knew by the lay of the bottom, by the direction of the swells, by
the way the seabirds soared overhead, that shore was not far away.



           
Not far. His folk did not
often go that way, toward land. And then they did not go beyond the very edges
of the land, and even those edges were dangerous. But what lay to the east was
far more dangerous now, so he turned his face to the grey west and
swam.


           
Not far. Not far. He could
hear the distant hum of boat engines ahead; an inlet there, and beaches crowded
with humans. He veered southwest. There lay emptier shores. Wild shores yet
  untouched. An ancient name echoed in his memory, one his folk had learned from
  Land Folk long before the roar of engines filled the
sea.


           
Assateague.


           
Assateague. Outrider. The Place Across. A
  thin, lonely line of sand at the very edge of the great land to the
west.


           
Not far. Not far. The roar of
the engine behind him was louder, closing fast, faster than the chugging boats
that brought deep sea sport fishermen and wreck divers out here, where the water
was clear and the sand bottom rolled like a desert ninety feet below. He could
not outrun the small boat, or the larger one it came from, not even with the
good start he'd had. And he could no longer dive to the safety of the
bottom.


           
But maybe he could fool them.


           
He porpoised, flying just under the surface, using the waves' energy to
propel him forward, breathing in great ragged gasps as he hit air. Flick of the
tail, breathe...tail flick, breathe...tail flick, breathe. He glanced back. He
still couldn't see them, but he knew they must have some way of spotting him
from afar. They had been ready for him when he came to rescue the young minke
whale caught in their trap. He changed his course slightly, and wove an
illusion.


           
Now they would see a dolphin, no more.


           
If he could keep this up.


           
He was slowing. More heartbeats for each finbeat now. More time on the
surface trying to gulp in the air. He felt as if he'd been chewed up and spit
out by a sperm whale. He cut under the surface and sent out a distress call; it
bubbled oddly out of his air-filled lungs, but it would still be
heard.


           
If there were any to hear it..


           
It was not a call to his folk; his brothers and sister were too far, they
had not come on this long solo journey of his. But there were other seafolk, the
ones his folk had always guarded, cared for. He listened for a reply, but the
sea was silent, except for the whine of the small boat's engines, closing
in.


           
He dove, tried to hold his breath.


           
One finbeat, two, three.


           
His muscles screamed for oxygen, his chest and throat spasmed like a fish
out of water, blackness crept in around the edges of his world.



           
Impossible. In his entire life, there had never been a reason to hold his
breath, for he could breathe both air and
water.


           
Impossible. A Merrow could not drown.


           
He thrashed back to the light, to the air, gulped it in. He shifted
course again and heard the boat veer off. He forced himself on, and when he
thought he could not swim another finbeat, when he would simply be swallowed by
the sea, the dolphins came.


           
He was too exhausted to hang on to a dorsal fin, so they swam under him,
held him up, nosed him ahead, a bit roughly, but in the right direction.



           
To Assateague.


           
The boatwhine receded away to the north. Then he heard it shift, return
south. He lifted his head for another breath, and there was a long green line on
the horizon. The sound, the feel of the sandy bottom below him shifted. Then he
heard the roar of breakers.


           
The dolphins left him, just beyond the last breaker, where the water
changed from luminescent dawn-green to murky with silt. He surfed in, just the
way he'd seen humans playing in the surf do it. The water tasted of sand and the
air tasted of green, growing things, and the earthy smell of some large
herbivore. The low waves crashed on him, rolling him over, filling his ears and
nose with sand and grinding bits of shell into his wounds. He struggled,
floundered with the last of his energy, and managed to pull himself onto dry
sand. With his last bit of strength he wove one more
illusion.


“Legends be the only stories as is
  true.”


(Grandpa Beebe, Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite
Henry)


 


 


Sharkman and the Little Fish
Girl





           
Caitlin sat up hard in bed, Shania Twain hissing into tape-end static.
Same dream again. She pulled the headphones off sandy hair, cropped short as a
cowpony’s coat, and laid the tape player on the desk. Picked up the spongy Nerf
  basketball and chucked it into the basket on the back of the
door.


           
The covers moved on the bottom of the bunkbed. Bri's angelic blond halo
of curls appeared over the footboard. "What are you doing?' she
signed.


           
"Go back to sleep." Caitlin signed. She tossed the ball again, straight
  through the hoop without touching.


           
A disheveled mop of dark hair appeared over the edge of the top
bunk.


           
"Go to sleep, Aaron!" Cait's signs were sharp, the commands of the Oldest
Sister;                                                                 
She Who Must Be Obeyed.


           
"You're not." Bri signed.


           
Aaron climbed off the bunk, sat down at the desk and turned on the
computer.


           
"It's eleven o'clock, go back to bed!"


           
"You're not." he echoed Bri, signs fierce. He pulled up his favorite Star
Wars site.


           
Cait grabbed him around the waist and wrestled him back toward the bunk.
Bri leapt into the fray, walloping Cait with her favorite Chicago Bulls hat.
Cait dumped Aaron on the bed, grabbed her Bulls hat out of Bri's hands and
wrestled her way back to the computer. Bri grabbed at various arms and legs
whooping and warbling like a whole pod of whales. Cait turned the computer off,
Bri turned it on, Cait turned it off, grabbed Bri's Mermaid doll and held it
hostage overhead.


           
"No!" Bri yelled. It was her favorite English word, and seemed to get
people's attention better than the gentle Sign Language
'no'.


           
"Go back to bed." Cait signed with the other
hand.


           
"No!." Bri said, louder.


           
Cait glared.


           
Aaron reached down and nabbed the Bulls hat off Cait's head, held it to
the ceiling, grinning in silent triumph.


           
"Give it." Cait signed.


           
Aaron grinned, he had her, he knew it.


           
Cait turned and picked up Sea World. Aaron's triumphant grin faded, his
hazel eyes widened. "You wouldn't." He had spent all day building Sea World out
  of cardboard and the Styrofoam pieces that VCRs and TVs came in, and paper and
  tape and glue and toothpicks. There were six different aquariums filled with
  fish he'd researched off the Internet, a dolphin pool with two trainers, balls,
  rings and other toys, and a whole audience. The best part was the orca pool,
  with one of the whales leaping high into the air, a trainer who looked much
  like Aaron, diving off its nose.


           
"I would." Cait told him.


           
Aaron glared, dropped the Bulls hat upside down on her head. Cait put Sea
World back on the shelf. Aaron disappeared under the covers. Big sisters were a
pain.


           
"Give my Mermaid back." Bri signed. She didn’t fingerspell “mermaid”,
instead she made the signs for 'fish' and 'girl'; little fish
girl.


           
"Go to bed." Cait said, out loud, even though Bri's hearing aids were in
the box on the desk.


           
Bri could see her lips move, she wasn't very good at reading them, Sign
was better anyway. She knew, though, 
what Cait was saying now. "Why are you awake? Did you dream about the
Mermaid again?"


           
Cait's Big Sister face softened.
"Yeah."


           
"Did you dream more? Or just the same? Where I was in deep water and the
Mermaid came?"


           
"The same. A big ocean, deep water. I couldn't see the shore at all.
Anyway, it's just a dream."


           
"No, it's not." Bri signed. "But don't worry," she held her Mermaid
  close, "the Mermaid's there too."


           
"Well it doesn't matter. We're not anywhere near the
sea."





           
"Land whale!" Jimmy Flamini stands like a tank, football shoulders
bulging out of a ripped tank top. Thirty yards up the hall, the tweed coated
back of a teacher vanishes around the
corner.


           
Flamini leers.


           
Sharkman turns from his locker, "What did you say?" He glares down at
Flamini, grinning through six rows of shredding ivories. Massive muscles
threaten to rip his surfer shirt at the
seams.


           
Flamini backs up a step. "Oh...uh...I didn't...er..." He backpedals,
tripping over his backpack, sprawling into the path of the oncoming girls' field
hockey team, with their cleated shoes and really big
sticks.


           



           
"Land whale!"


           
Jason thought about hiding behind his locker door, but too much of him
would still be sticking out, waiting for the power slam that had become the
daily punchline to Jimmy Flamini's stupid
jokes.


           
"Hey bubbagut, ain't you related to Mrs. Freely? First initials I.P.?
Whudja' have fer breakfast, a whole walrus?" Whump! Right in the gut. Flamini
snorked through his nose, like some kind of mutant elephant seal. He looked
down, "Hey, nice pants."


           
His gang snickered along with him, "Yeah," one of them piped up, "old
fart's department at Walmart."


           
Snicker, snicker, snicker. "What's that on your shirt? Some kinda' barbie
  doll?"


           
It's an anime character, you
redneck peabrains. Japanese animation. And she would kick your collective butts
if she was here.


           
All
the teachers told you to just walk away from them. It was kind of hard when they
had you surrounded. And Jason's dad's advice was no better; just flatten 'em.
Kind of hard when they outnumbered you by four. Jason fidgeted, holding his
backpack up like a shield. His eyes fell to Flamini's ridiculously huge pants,
and the eight inches of boxers they weren't covering. Against his better
judgement, words fell out of his mouth. “Dude, you oughta try a staple gun, then
they'd stay up better."


           
The gang froze into startled silence.


           
"Hey you little freak," Flamini said, leaning closer. He caught up a
handful of the superheroine on Jason's shirt and crumpled
her.


           
"Gack!" Jason managed to say. He really really wished he could throw a
fireball or teleport or at least morph Flamini into a frog or something. Sadly,
the best he could do was get squashed up against his locker, like the world's
biggest geek.


           
Then Mr. McDonnell rounded the corner.


           
Flamini looked up, a jackal startled in the middle of a pounce. He traded
swift glances with his crew and they fled.


           
Jason let out a breath, stuffed the last two books into his pack and fled
the other direction.


           
Heather fell in beside him. "Hey, look at it this way; in three days you
won't have to deal with him all summer."


           
"Yeah. I'll have to deal with killer cows and horses who are plotting to
take over the world and my Dad The Ultimate Cowboy and then I've got three
months to look forward to a ninth grade Flamini.
Wonderful."


           
"Ahhhh, he'll probably flunk."


           
Jason smiled, almost. Three more days, three more days of mathpuke and
deadhistory and englishbore. At least he would pass, with enough As and Bs to
maybe get the new computer games he wanted.


           
"I'm getting straight As." Heather said, she was the only person who
could say it without sounding like she was
bragging.


           
Jason grinned. "Awwwwesome! Are they really gonna get you that graphics
  program?"


           
"Yep." Heather grinned back.


           
Jason held out a hand, Heather met his in the Secret Sharkman Shake.
"Sharkman lives!" they said together. A little loudly maybe, heads turned,
stared at them. A couple of blond girls with perfect hair, painted nails and the
latest fashion brainfart. A couple of overmuscled football players. A sensibly
dressed senior who'd never got anything below an A in her life, and never driven
  anything below a BMW. They frowned, rolled eyes, raised their noses a
notch.


           
Jason didn't care. He and Heather had been working on this since the
beginning of the school year, their own comic book. They had folders of
sketches, dialog, storyboards, They had run around in the woods recreating major
scenes, blasting each other with modified Supersoaker "lasers", haunting the
thrift shop for costume pieces, striking superhero poses and shooting reference
with Heather's digital camera. All they needed was a good computer program to
  organize it all, and Heather's printer.


           
They had all summer to work on it, three months of glorious
freedom.


           
Except when he had to feed the cows, muck stalls, haul water, clean tack,
chase horses, chase stupid cows, and ride stupider horses that tried to kill
you. And rope things.


           
He hated roping things. His dad had grown up in Montana, been on the
rodeo circuit, and had even once roped an emu. Jason had actually managed to
rope something once; a Rhode Island Red rooster with an attitude the size of
Mars. After he had lost the rooster and the rope, and got himself a couple of
nice scars from the rooster's spurs, his dad had caught the annoyed bird and
held it up laughing.


           
Jason did not think it was funny.


           
He did not want to be a cowboy, not here in Delaware, not anywhere. He
wanted to be Sharkman. He was, instead, a land whale. Nobody had believed him
when he first arrived, about the cowboy and ranch thing. A teacher had politely
  suggested 'cow farm', as in black and white spotted Holsteins and 'got milk?'.
  No, Jason had told them, cowboys; as in ranch, beef, roping, stock trailers,
  pickup trucks with five hundred pounds of Good Junk on the dash, boots and
  spurs and ropes and reins and chaps and blisters and sore butts. He brought
  pictures; the two hundred acres in Delaware, flat and grey-brown, scattered
  trees, barbed wire, just like north Texas, only the trees were loblollies, not
  mesquite, and there more foxes than coyotes. The kids were impressed for about
  a day and a half, until they realized that Jason wasn't anything like the
  cowboys they remembered from the movies and
TV.


           
Only Heather had noticed the doodles around the edges of his homework,
his school notes, his tests. Cartoon characters and aliens and superheroes; some
of it from comics and games she recognized, and some of it straight from the
warped right brain of Jason himself.


           
Especially she had noticed Sharkman. "We should produce a comic." she'd
said.


           
He sat now in the last class of the last day of the school year, Mr.
Miller droning on about something that happened to a bunch of guys who were all
dead now. Blah blah...Napoleonic Wars
blah blah blah British blockade Chesapeake Bay... blah blah
blah...privateers...blah blah...Clippers...blah Baltimore blah blah...Thomas
Boyle...blah blah...Chasseur... Jason yawned and Sharkman leapt across the
page blasting bad guys.


           
It was going to be a kick-butt summer.  






           
It was not a normal peas and potatoes kind of supper. It was a full blown
pizza and ice cream Fisher Family Conference, the kind they had for Important
  Discussions and Really Big Decisions. Bri and Aaron and Cait sat in a circle
  around the table while their dad spoke, his hands weaving excited circles in
  the air. Mom sat quietly, a patient smile on her face. She glanced at Cait,
  shook her head minutely, her eyes said here we go
again.


           
Cait watched in a kind of stunned daze as her dad told them how they'd be
living several months on a tiny island on the sea-edge of Virginia, while he did
some work with a nearby university, setting up a series of programs for Deaf
  students. She couldn't believe it. Not seeing her friends for three or four
months, being stuck far from people who spoke her language, knew her culture,
that was bad enough, but...


           
"What about my rodeo?" her signs were sharp,
demanding.


           
Her dad cocked one eyebrow, like a professor of astronomy who has had a
student tell him the earth is really flat.


           
"I've been practicing for two months now. Marc's going to let me use his
second best roping horse! I'm going to..." she cut herself off. She better not
tell them she was going to try bull riding as well. "I could stay at Marc and
  Judy's, I could study on the 'net."


           
Her father and mother exchanged glances. "I'm sorry, rodeo will have to
  wait." her mom signed. "You are living on Chincoteague this
  summer."


           
“You should like it.” Aaron signed, “It’s got wild
horses.”


           
Bri’s eyes widened with wonder, she jumped up, bouncing excitedly,
shouting with her hands, “And it’s where Misty lived! And Paul and Maureen and
Grandma and Grandpa Beebe!”


           
“That’s just a story in a book.” Cait
snorted.


           
“It’s true!” Bri asserted.


           
“Well, some of it is.” Aaron added. “Misty and Stormy and the Beebes were
real.”


           
“True.”Mom told Cait and Bri and Aaron, “Some of it was fact. But
remember what Grandpa Beebe said in the book; “Facts are fine, far as they go,
but they’re like water bugs skittering atop the water. Legends now, they go deep
down and bring up the heart of a story.”


           
Bri made a face at Cait.


           
Cait frowned, thinking how bad her roping was going to be by summer’s end
without practice.


           
Dad’s face had that animated, excited look he always got when he was
trying to convince them all that this would be an adventure, not an ordeal. “The
horses live on the outlying island, Assateague, along with lots of other
wildlife.”His hands described the shapes of the islands; “A long low stretch of
sand, rolling up out of the sea, rolling over and over itself in the wind and
the waves. Dunes and bayberry bush, loblolly woods and saltmarsh; with fox and
  deer, seabirds and ibis, egrets and eagles, endangered Fox Squirrels and wild
  ponies. And at the far end of it, tucked safely against Assateague's protective
  dragon curves lies a round egg of an island: Chincoteague. The people live on
  Chincoteague. They were once mostly fishermen and oystermen. There are some of
  those left, but now there are motels and gift shops and decoy carvers and
  artists too. And a National Seashore and Wildlife Refuge. And Pony Penning in
  July! And ranger-led programs where you can learn about the
sea...”


           
The wave shapes her father’s hands were making caught Cait’s attention;
the sea. The sea, and Bri lost in
it. Cait had nearly forgotten the dream, it surfaced now like a whale seen
through mist. She looked at Bri, frowned. It was a stupid dream, that's all. Not
solid and real like the feel of a fast horse under you, or a rope singing out
straight, or a ball sinking through a hoop.


           
Bri hugged her Mermaid doll tight, angel's smile on her face, eyes the
greens and greys and blues of the sea. To the sea...to the sea! She couldn't
wait. 






           
Jason eyed the deadhistory clock; tick...tick...tick...the hands crawled
across the face. It was the Thirteenth Law of Thermodynamics, he knew it; the
hands of the clock move in inverse proportion to how close you are to the end of
school. By the end of the day, time should be standing approximately still. He
would be trapped here, for eternity.


           
BRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNNG!


           
Jason shot up straight in his seat. Stared at the clock, the departing
students. He wrestled himself out of the cramped seat, grabbed his pack and ran
down the hall, ignoring a teacher's godlike command to JUST
WALK!


           
Flamini and his gang were nowhere to be seen, they'd hooked out, probably
since last week. Jason let out a sigh of relief. He squeezed into the front seat
of the bus, letting the talk, laughter, yelling, jabbing, music wash over him
like surf.


           
The bus stopped, spat him out, and rolled off in a cloud of dust. Jason
trudged down the long sandy lane between barbed wire and blank cow expressions.
He threw his pack on a kitchen chair, where his dad was sure to grump about it.
  There was, of course, a list on the table of jobs he needed to do. He sighed,
  Sharkman fumed.


           
A rectangle of pink on the table caught his eye. He only knew one person
who sent stuff in pink envelopes. Aunt Gracie.


           
It was addressed to all of them, him, Dad and Mom. He should
wait.


           
Nah. He shredded the envelope, pulled out the letter, smelling of vanilla
and coconut.


           
"...renting a cottage...Jason must come to spend the summer...lots to
do...park programs (just like Aunt
Gracie to push the educational aspect on Dad)...I know where he can get a
part-time job...Pony Penning in
July...beach..."


           
Beach. Cool. Sharkman in his natural environment. I'll
  pack my dive gear right now. No crazy cows, no roping
stuff.


           
Uncool. No Heather. No Sharkman. Jason groaned. The whole summer? There
went their whole project.
Arrghh!


           
Wait...he scanned the letter again. Maybe Aunt Gracie had a computer.
Nah. But he could take his. He and Heather could work online. Yes! He grinned a
wide Sharkman grin. So where was this place? He looked again.



           
Chincoteague Island, Virginia.


Mush





           
"Wooooo! Let's go, let's go, that's it Bets!" Holly leaned into the turn,
cold dawn wind blasting her hair back. Ahead, the pale world rolled away in
drifts washed amber and rose by the rising sun. The little grey lead dog, not
much bigger than an arctic fox, picked up the pace, flying feet seeming to tread
air. Behind her, six other huskies stretched their legs, backs like
longbows,  folding and unfolding in
matching rhythm, like music, like a winterdance, rolling like a great grey wave
across the drifts.


           
Holly felt that power sing through the gangline, through the driving bow
under her hands. She reached back, pedaling with one foot, then clinging, like a
kid on a rollercoaster, when the rig hit a mogul, bounced, rocked, levelled. The
only sound was the light drumming of dog feet, the jingle of dogtags, the
whisper of wheels on sand.


           
And the rhythmic breathing roar of breakers. Behind, to the north, lay
ten miles or so of empty beach, stretching all the way to the inlet, and on the
other side; the crowds and traffic and shops of Ocean City, Maryland. Ahead,
south, lay the rest of Assateague Island; twenty more miles of wild barrier
beach stretching down to the NASA base at Wallops Island, and to the small round
egg shape of Chincoteague, Virginia, the place Holly called home.



           
The team ran, like a pack of wolves on the trail of moose or deer,
running flat out now, for the sheer joy of it, as their ancestors had for
thousands of years. They ran fastest and longest when the wind had teeth of ice,
but here at the edge of the sea, before the warm May sun peered over the edge of
the world, the wind and the waves and the rolling drifts of sand were cool
enough for a short run of a few miles. It rarely snowed here, and if it did, it
was light sugar dusting; enough to make sandy snowballs on the beach. Here a
sled was of little use, a rig was better; a light metal framework rolling on
three fat oversand wheels. It had a platform to stand on, a foot brake to stop
the dogs when they ignored whoa!,
(which was often), the hoop of the driving bow like the one on a sled, and
enough room on the platform to put a tired or injured dog in the dogbag for the
ride home.


           
The wind was colder than normal for a morning in May, and the sun was
rising red out of a green glowing sea. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning,
Holly thought.


           
The dogs slowed to an energy saving trot. Bets, and the big swing dogs,
just behind her, raised their heads, stood up a little taller on their toes.
Holly stretched out of her crouch on the rig's platform and peered ahead. A dark
blit on the horizon. Ponies on the beach
again.


           
"Damn." she said. She liked the ponies. They were part of Assateague's
history, folklore, and the reason the whole island listed hard to port under the
weight of the tourists each summer at Pony Penning. But it was like running into
moose on the Iditarod Trail, or skunks anywhere else...it was a positive
nuisance when you were driving seven screaming Siberians who viewed everything
not canine or human as a potential prey item. "Ok, this is going to be a big On-by here." Holly called over the
  wind.


           
Bets was ignoring her. Selective deafness. The dark blit loomed larger.
Not just one pony. A whole herd.


           
Wonderful. The dogs picked up
the pace again. Holly squinted, the ponies came into focus. She couldn't turn
the dogs here, the van was on the other side of the pony herd, and the only road
was the beach itself. "Ok guys..." She would just slow them down, jump off, grab
the gangline behind the leader, and drag them on-by if necessary. One of the
ponies raised its head, eyed the oncoming dogs with something uncharacteristic
of Assateague ponies; alarm. They were used to predators no larger than
horseflies, but they carried the memories of their ancestors, who had run from
wolves. They wheeled and fled up into the dunes.



           
Bets and the two big dogs behind her dug in and swung hard starboard
after them.


           
“YOU BET! ON BY!”


           
 Bets wavered, then adjusted
course, hauling the two dogs behind her, each twice her size, back in a more or
less straight line down the beach.


           
They passed the ponies, a few of the less experienced dogs staring
longingly after the dune they'd vanished over. The team fell into a floating,
effortless trot, the pale dunes turned orange as the sun came up over the edge
of the world. The sea glowed turquoise and the gulls wheeled and wailed
overhead. From farther down the beach came the eerie wailing song of some other
seabird, one she couldn’t identify.


           
Holly saw Bets come up on her toes again, ears at attention, tuned into
something farther down the beach. They trotted toward it, the dogs picking up
the pace, then Holly saw it, at the edge of the swash zone, lay a long dark
shape.


           
For an awful second, Holly was sure she saw a body. Then she blinked.
What was there was even weirder, for this stretch of beach. She grinned, " Whoa!
  Whoa!” The dogs pattered to a halt. Holly leapt off, bare feet sinking into
  cool sand. She dumped the rig on its side, and set her snowhook into the sand
  for good measure. She ran up the gangline, one hand on that centerline
  connecting all the dogs. "Stay." she told her leader. She walked forward
squinting at the rare thing lying on the
beach.


           
A harbor seal reared its head, showing a long line of sharp doggy teeth.



           
"Well, well." Holly knelt, wondering why it didn't just flee back into
the sea. Then she noticed its tail, a sizable chunk was missing, and there were
slashes along its flanks, washed by the sea, and full of sand and bits of shell.
She eyed the dogrig, and the bag on the platform for transporting injured dogs.
She eyed the seal. It was way bigger than a dog, but it might fit. If she could
  wrestle it in there. Or she could call Park Service on the cell phone. She
  reached in her pocket and pulled out her phone, one thumb poised over the
  buttons. She hesitated, glanced back at the dogs. They were sitting, all of
  them, eyeing the thing on the sand not at all the way a team of Siberians, who
  had hunted their own supper for thousands of years, would eye a potential prey
  item.


           
More like...


           
Holly cocked her head, the seal barked at them, not a bark really, a long
musical warble, like the language the huskies themselves used. Holly edged
closer to the seal, the way she would approach a strange, and frightened dog;
casual, projecting an aura of calm, of friendliness. She reached out one slow
hand.


           
The seal flicked its head, jaws closed, ignoring the outstretched hand,
connecting with the one holding the cell
phone.


           
The cell phone flew into the surf.


           
"Damn!"


           
From behind Holly, YouBet aroooedsomething that sounded like
advice.


           
"Right Bets." Holly said softly. Holly narrowed her eyes, seeing with
what she thought of as wolf sight. She wasn't sure when she had discovered it,
if it was something she'd known all along, or if the dogs had taught it to her.
But she could tell, when she looked at someone, who they really were, whether
they were honest, sincere, or hiding
something.


           
The seal wavered like heat waves over summer asphalt. The big dark eyes
shifted to sea grey. A boy, maybe sixteen, with chiseled cheekbones framed by
sand-colored hair stared back at her. Holly's eyes went down the shoulders and
back, muscled like an Olympic swimmer; to a blue and purple tail that belonged
on some kind of swordfish, except that it was horizontal like a dolphin's tail.
She didn't blink. She stared at the chewed tail. Came back to his eyes, full of
  exhaustion, pain and fear...and defiance. She knew, before she touched him,
  that it was no costume, no special effects, no elaborate hoax to grace the
  front pages of supermarket tabloids. She reached for his shoulder, he flinched,
  hitched backwards, pushing himself with his hands, then collapsed into the
  sand.


           
"Easy." Holly said softly, as if trying to calm a frightened dog. She
reached again, felt cool skin under her hand, then the texture of the tail, like
wet snakeskin. She ran her hand down his body, noting the wounds, how the tail
  curved the way no human legs could. She found nothing broken, only sand caked
  wounds long washed by the sea and nearly bloodless. She considered that the
  first aid gear she hauled for herself and the dogs probably wouldn't work on a
  Merrow anyway. "What do you want me to do?" she said, meeting his deepsea eyes.
        



           
His eyebrows shifted, uncertain. He pulled himself up, sitting, leaning
on one arm, spoke.


           
To Holly it sounded like whalesong, like the calls of seabirds, like wind
and waves. It left a strange sad ache in her center. She shook her head, "I
  don't understand. Don't you speak any of our
tongues?"


           
He searched her eyes, and she got the feeling he had something like wolf
sight too.


           
"Do you want to go home?" she pointed out to sea. Although she couldn't
  imagine that he was stranded, like a dolphin, he could pull himself into the
  waves easily if he wanted. He was in some other kind of trouble. She glanced
  back at the dogs, all still, all eerily quiet, earth brown eyes and ice blue
  fixed on the Merrow. Somewhere beyond the low roar of the breakers came the
  faraway whine of a small boat's engine. She squinted into the rising sun but
  couldn't see the boat. Too far out, or hidden behind the sea
swells.


           
The Merrow looked past Holly to YouBet, sang something soft and low to
her. She yodeled back; "arroo-oo-rrooop." He looked up at Holly, pointed to the
rig, himself, the rig again. Glanced once, worriedly, out to sea.



           
Holly followed his gaze and saw sea rolling to the horizon, white wings
of gulls against blue-green water, the distant dark blits of fishing boats, and
a more distant ship of some sort. She nodded, righted the rig, unhooked the
snowhook. Without a word, the dogs walked forward till the rig was beside the
Merrow.


           
With his tail curled, he fit very nicely in the dog
bag.





           
The dogs lay sprawled on the porch, cold grey drizzle soaking yard,
kennel and one big loblolly pine. Virginia creeper and greenbriar covered the
six foot fence around the yard, hiding its contents from the quiet Chincoteague
backstreet. A collection of sparrows and one iridescent black boat-tailed
grackle squabbled over the bird feeder, despite the rain.



           
Over on Assateague, mosquitoes lived their lives as they always had,
being the base of the marsh’s entire food chain. Chincoteague Town, however,
controlled its mosquito population (to the delight of the tourists). Still, a
few mid-day mosquitoes who had survived Chincoteague's mosquito control, and the
drizzle, whined around everyone's ears. An enormous calico cat named Pirate
Jenny watched the proceedings from her "crow's nest": a construction of poles
and platforms looking a bit like the rigging of a tall ship, in one corner of
the screened in porch. Holly sat on one side of the hot tub's wall, protected
from the wet by a canopy on aluminum poles. She offered a second piece of cold
pizza to the Merrow in the tub. On the ground was the sort of feast debris any
teenager would leave; a pretzel bag, an empty box of fish fillets, leftover
Chinese stir fry, half a blueberry pie and an empty orange juice gallon.
Laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls and one big herring gull wheeled overhead,
hopeful of scraps. The Merrow's tail, lower ribs and one arm were wrapped in
various bright colors of Vetwrap, a shedding rake, usually used on Siberian
coats, lay perched on the edge of the hot tub, where the Merrow had left it,
after detangling his hair, and three nasty looking lead slugs were lined up
beside it. Holly had dug those out of his tail, using the dogs' emergency first
aid kit.


           
"Holly." she said again, pointing to herself. "YouBet" pointing to the
little wolf-grey dog with the ice-blue eyes. "Nikki, B'loo, Agliuk...that’s
Aleut for orca...” not that the Merrow would know or care...” Strider, Ace,
Passion, Isabo," pointing to each dog in turn. "Pirate Jenny." she said, waving
in the direction of the cat on the porch.


           
"Mrow." Jenny
proclaimed.


           
The Merrow broke into a smile and returned the greeting; "mrrrow!"


           
"Ok, what's your name?" Holly asked pointing to
him.


           
He stared at her, with that kind of reserved patience that Siberians and
cats use on Lesser Beings.


           
"Holly." she repeated, pointing to herself, then she pointed to him,
hoping pointing wasn't a rude gesture in Merrow
culture.


           
He whistled something that sounded like dolphinspeak. It was loud. Holly
flinched, three of the dogs sat up and warbled back, yodeling like a
wolfpack.


           
"So," Holly said to him, "where do I find someone who speaks
Merrow?"


           
He studied her with eyes like the sea, the rain hissed through the
loblolly like waves on sand, drummed on the canopy like surf. The gulls wailed
overhead. The Merrow looked skyward and wailed
back.


           
One of the laughing gulls peeled off and headed
north.