water.
He saw the girl from his dreams, floating just below him, her eyes open and resigned.
He shook his head and she vanished and he could see the keel ahead of him, a thick black stripe that undulated in the green water, and he swam to it and got his hands on it. He moved along it to the front and came around the other side, and forced himself to come up out of the water slowly, just his head. He felt the sun on his face as he exhaled and then sucked in oxygen and tried to ignore a vision of his legs dangling down there in the depths, some creature swimming along and seeing them, wondering what they were, coming close for a sniff...
The ladder was where he remembered it. Right in front of hirfi and he got a hand on the third rung and hung there. He could hear.,the men running back to the dock now, hear their heavy footsteps on the planks, and then he heard the warden:
"Search that boat."
"Sir, we were only gone - "
"You left your post, and now you wish to argue?"
"No, sir. Sorry, sir."
The ladder dipped in his hand as several men placed their weight on the ferry, and Teddy heard them going through the boat, heard doors opening and furniture shifting.
Something slid between his thighs like a hand, and Teddy gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the ladder and forced his mind to go completely blank because he did not want to imagine what it looked like. Whatever it was kept moving, and Teddy let out a breath. "My car. He blew up my fucking car." Cawley, sounding ragged and out of breath.
The warden said, "This has gone far enough, Doctor."
"We agreed that it's my decision to make."
"If this man gets off the island - "
"He's not going to get off the island."
"I'm sure you didn't think he was going to turn your buggy into an inferno, either. We have to break this operation down now and cut our losses."
"I've worked too hard to throw in the towel."
The warden's voice rose. "If that man gets off this island, we'll he destroyed."
Cawley's voice rose to match the warden's. "He's not going to get off the fucking island!"
Neither spoke for a full minute. Teddy could hear their weight shifting on the dock.
"Fine, Doctor. But that ferry stays. It does not leave this dock until that man is found."
Teddy hung there, the cold finding his feet and burning them.
Cawley said, "They'll want answers for that in Boston."
Teddy closed his mouth before his teeth could chatter.
"Then give them answers. But that ferry stays."
Something nudged the back of Teddy's left leg. "M1 right, Warden." Another nudge against his leg, and Teddy kicked back, heard the splash he made hit the air like a gunshot.
Footsteps on the stern.
"He's not in there, sir. We checked everywhere."
"So where did he go?" the warden said. "Anyone?"
"Shit I"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"He's headed for the lighthouse."
"That thought did occur to me."
i74
I'll handle it."
"Take some men."
"I said I'll handle it. We've got men there."
"Not enough."
I'll handle it, I said."
Teddy heard Cawley's shoes bang their way back up the dock and get softer as they hit the sand.
"Lighthouse or no lighthouse," the warden said to his men, "this boat goes nowhere. Get the engine keys from the pilot and bring them to me."
HE SWAM MOST of the way there.
Dropped away from the ferry and swam toward shore until he was close enough to the sandy bottom to use it, clawing along until 'he'd gone far enough to raise his head from the water and risk a glance back. He'd covered a few hundred yards and he could see the guakds forming a ring around the dock.
He slipped back under the water and continued clawing, unable to risk the splashing that freestyle or even doggie-paddling would cause, and after a while, he came to the bend in the shoreline and made his way around it and walked up onto the sand and sat in the sun and shook from the cold. He walked as much of the shore as he could before he ran into a set of outcroppings that pushed him back into the water and he tied his shoes together and hung them around his neck and went for another swim and envisioned his father's bones somewhere on this same ocean floor and envisioned sharks and their fins and their great snapping tails and barracuda with rows Of white teeth and he knew