My former life seems like a work of fiction anymore. It was such a nightmare when the FBI showed up at my office at the state capitol and arrested me. The trial followed with all of the horrible charges of corruption. The media were on me like wolves on an injured lamb. My ever-loyal wife of eight years left me and filed for divorce while I was in prison. I never saw her again. Just as well.
I wiped my tears away with the forty-five million dollars I had on deposit in the Cayman Islands.
What crime did I commit to warrant such a lavish bribe, you ask?
Ironically, it was the crime I really did commit. All the while I sat in that courtroom listening to the arguments by the prosecutors and by my own team of attorneys I was silently agonizing over the evidence that would exonerate me of the crimes I was accused of.
"Your Honor!"
I could hear myself saying.
"I did not commit these crimes and I can prove it!"
The judge would bang his gavel to quell the furor I would raise in his court.
"Explain yourself."
"I was five hundred miles away committing an even worse crime at the time I am accused of committing these crimes!"
Oh, sure. I can really picture myself saying this.
So I cut a deal with the Devil and silently accepted the sentence of two years instead of the thirty years I really deserved.
I spent the next two years being the model prisoner at the minimum security honor farm where I kept company with several of my former colleagues from the state legislature and many more of my former business associates. The tennis courts and the pitiful excuse for a golf course were an annoyance, of course, but it was nothing I wasn't man enough to bear. At least the Scotch was palatable. It ended up being an uneventful two years except for when the one burly fellow threatened to rape me. That particular afternoon my bank account decreased by a mere one hundred thousand dollars and the following day the poor man coincidentally suffered a tragic accident while he was on a roadside work crew.
With all of the amazing advances in medical technology these days and a little faith and perseverance on his part, he may someday walk again. I make a point of sending him flowers whenever he has to go in for another round of excruciating and prolonged surgical procedures.
I feel bad about what happened to him. Really.
After all, I had only paid for two broken legs. Paralysis was quoted to me at a quarter of a million bucks. I really feel bad that he got more than I had paid for.
After my two years were up I walked out of prison a free man, my debt to society barely even dented. The waiting limousine whisked me off to a chartered jet and from there to Canada. My attorney, following my detailed instructions, had a nice little place waiting there for me on a remote stretch of Vancouver Islands' northwest coast and I intended to get in a little fishing, catch up on my reading, and enjoy the fruits of my ill-gotten gains. The floatplane from Victoria gave me a wonderful view of the rugged and isolated coast that was to become, in a perverse way, my new prison. Granted, the five million dollars that had been invested in the place provided for a most comfortable and well-stocked prison, but I wanted it to be my prison never the less. It's not that I'm a masochist, and it's not that I'm repentant. Hardly. I simply needed to be away from everyone for a while to clear my thoughts and to plan my next move.
I needed some peace and quiet.
The pilot of the floatplane had followed the coast for almost three hours before he turned right and flew maybe ten miles into a narrow fjord before alighting on the glassy smooth waters. A deft and capable pilot, he killed the engine and stepped out on the float as the craft moved to my brand new pier. At the last second he nimbly danced onto the pier and made fast the moorings. All of my gear, clothing, and supplies had been shipped in long before so all I needed to do was to tip the good man for a comfortable flight and then wave goodbye to the last human being I wanted to see for a very long time.
I luxuriated in my solitude for the next ninety-six days. I found peace and clarity in my fishing, in my reading, in my cooking, and in my occasional target practice at the dead trees across the fjord. I felt myself becoming me again. The spring was back in my step and a song was in my blackened heart. It was the very last day before the first cold weather was to set in and I had decided to take the canoe out to where the fjord became the Pacific Ocean. I'll admit no noble intentions of becoming one with nature and my environment; I just wanted to see what the hell was there.
And that was my mistake.
The air was crisp and the ocean unusually calm as I paddled out beyond the safety of my little inlet. A light mist hung in the afternoon air as the gulls noisily descended on a school of fish nearby. I had set down my paddle to let the canoe just float with the tide back to shore when the gulls burst into the air with a visible and silent alarm. I feared a shark or perhaps a lurking killer whale could be stalking me when I felt a bizarre pressure in the air around me.
In a moment that stretched into a brief eternity I felt my own mortality rush up to greet me and spit in my eye. And then a blur of metal and color impacted the sea maybe twenty yards from my canoe. Like an ass, I sat there perplexed as the wave from the impact nearly capsized me into the lethally frigid waters.
I quickly regained my senses and, wondering what the hell had nearly turned me into crab feed, I paddled over to the impact site. Oddly enough, I found an airline seat cushion floating in the water that now had a sheen from what smelled like hydraulic fluid. I took it aboard for what seemed like a good reason at the time.
A bright spot of red popped up to the surface just a few yards away and I casually paddled over to see what other surprise could be waiting for me. I figured it had to be another seat cushion so my mind had a hard time grasping why a seat cushion would have brown hair? Without even thinking about my actions I hauled up on the red sweater and found myself looking at an ashen faced young lady. Unconsciously, I checked her pulse and, feeling a pathetic little thump under my finger, some lingering sense of my humanity compelled me to pull her aboard and wrap her in the throw I'd had on my lap. The cold water had somehow worked to prevent her from drowning, which was fortunate for her.
I took a cruise around the impact site to see if there were any more surprises and, finding none, I made for home with my catch of the day.
Her breathing was painfully shallow and fitful as I paddled homeward. Having taken charge of her well being I picked up the pace and soon had the canoe fairly slicing the calm waters of the fjord. I decided to skip the pier and ran the handcrafted wood hull onto the rocky beach close to the house. I surprised myself by leaping out and dragging the little boat ashore, cargo and all. It was then a minor detail to pick up my charge and carry her into the warmth of the house.
She was freezing and I was certain that if she wasn't in shock from the cold water, then she was surely in shock from the event that had landed her in the water. I remembered my basic first aid and laid her close to the hearth and elevated her legs on my coffee table. I faced a brief moral dilemma as I wondered what to do about the wet clothes and then settled that by pulling them off as gently as I could after briefly thinking about just cutting them off with my fishing knife. I no sooner had her relieved of the soaking wet fabrics than I had her dried off and bundled up. Tossing a few well-seasoned logs on the fire I soon had her ensconced in a radiant heat.
I simply watched her for the next twelve hours. The sun set and rose again before I moved from my chair. Her breathing was calmer and the color had returned to her face and I figured it was time to check for broken bones. I was being practical because I realized that setting a broken bone would be much easier with an unconscious patient than with a screaming, crying, and flailing patient. I was careful to check her arms and legs and I felt along her spine for any ruptured or slipped discs and, miraculously, I found not one visible fracture. I gingerly lifted my patient and took her to the extra bedroom and set her down on the rustic style bed and drew up the blankets and a quilted comforter over her. Then I went to call for help and remembered having spitefully made sure that there were no transmitters or satellite phones at the house. I had wanted to be isolated and I know realized that there was a flaw to my plan. I did have satellite television for the games and the stocks so I switched it on and shortly heard of a dramatic airline flight between Anchorage and Seattle where a door had blown out of the plane and several people were assumed to be dead. The crew had landed the plane safely despite numerous problems and was being hailed as heroes. Then followed the obligatory film of the anguished families of the dead. I pondered the fact that I was probably looking at the family of my little guest in this voyeuristic piece of reporting. The bad weather, which I had not observed just yet, was supposed to be preventing any search activities. A Royal Canadian Navy spokesman said there was no sense risking lives to go look for dead people and alluded to the fact that any search, if any, would be cursory and brief. His US Coast Guard counterpart said about the same thing, but not as directly.
I checked on my guest rather often as she slept all of the next day. About noon on the third day of her stay with me I was cooking some lunch and my bleary eyed visitor managed to find the kitchen and asked, almost as if she was embarrassed about her predicament,
"Hi, could you tell me where I am?"
Now I must say that my first impression was that she looked absolutely precious in the heavy robe and slippers I has set out for her. And that very thought surprised me as I had thought of myself as quite the bastard when it came to my sensitivities. Frankly, I had planned on telling the girl to get the hell out of my house after she got on her feet. But her tousled brown hair and her helpless and vulnerable appearance managed to bring forth that last shred of humanity I'd hidden away in some dark corner of my soul. I really gave a damn about this life I'd saved from an icy death. What do you know about that?
"Good morning!"
