Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [116]
123
Dave hears the breakers from about two hundred yards away.
He can’t see them in the dark, but the sound is unmistakable.
Rhythmic, steady.
Real bombs.
“Esteban!” he yells. “Tell these kids to hold on!”
What was it Boone always said, Dave thinks, that I could surf these waters blindfolded? Well, I hope he was right. You feel surfing more than you see it, but that’s on a board, not a glorified rubber raft overloaded with helpless kids.
Doesn’t matter, he tells himself.
That’s what you have to do.
Surf this boat in.
He guns the engine to get as much speed as he can and prays that it’s going to be enough. The last thing he wants to do is get into one of the mackers late, because he’d go over the top for sure and flip the boat. And he has to keep the boat straight, its bow perpendicular to the wave, because if he gets it even a little sideways, it will roll.
So he has to get into the wave right, angle the boat into the left break, and keep it moving when it crashes on the bottom or it will get swamped in the white water.
He feels the wave swelling under the boat, picking it up, and pushing it forward.
It’s just another fucking wave, he tells himself. Nothing to it.
“Esteban!”
“Yes?”
“Who’s that fucking saint you pray to?”
“San Andrés!”
“Well, hook us up!”
The wave lifts and takes them over the top.
The kids scream.
He’s in time. Now he tilts the rudder to break left and move diagonally down the face of the wave. He can feel the water rising behind him, then curling over him, and then they’re out of the tube and the boat crashes heavily into the white water.
It bounces hard, and for a second he’s afraid he’s going to lose it, let it slip out from under him and turn sideways and get rolled, but he manages to keep it straight and it settles into the wash and glides into the mouth of the lagoon.
Dave says a quick prayer of thanks.
To San George Freeth.
“Esteban, take the rudder,” Dave says. When the kid, visibly shaken but grinning like a fool, takes over, Dave digs in his pocket for his cell phone.
SOP.
Let the guys know the delivery is on the way.
124
Boone drives up the Pacific Coast Highway.
Through all the beach towns, past all the great breaks.
Thinks about all the waves, the rides, the wipeouts. The long leisurely hours in the lineups, or hanging out on the beach, talking story. The cookouts, grilling fish for tacos, watching the sun go down. The bonfires at night, sitting close to the flame to get warm, watching the stars come out, listening to someone play the guitar or the uke.
Doing things you love, in a place you love, with people you love … that’s what life is, what it should be anyway. If you spend your life that way—and I have, Boone thinks—then you should have no regrets when it’s over. Maybe just a little sorrow knowing that you’re riding your last wave.
If you even know it’s your last.
What I’ve seen.
What I’ve seen, Boone thinks. I’ve seen the world from the inside of a wave, the universe in a single drop of water.
There’s a world out there you know nothing about.
The sun will come up soon, The Dawn Patrol will be out, shooting for the big waves, Sunny will be taking her shot. He’d like to be out there with them, would like to be out there forever. But there are some sunrises you have to see alone.
Boone turns inland from the ocean and heads for the strawberry fields.
He’s on The Dawn Patrol.
125
Johnny Banzai and Steve Harrington sit in their car and wait.
Below them, an old van makes its way down the narrow dirt road to a clearing at the edge of Batiquitos Lagoon.
“You think that’s them?” Harrington asks.
Johnny shrugs.
Since Dave’s call, Johnny doesn’t know what is what. He doesn’t know anything about anything anymore. The call was surreal. “It’s Dave. I’m coming into Batiquitos Lagoon with a load of wetbacks. Johnny, they’re kids.”
But he bets it’s them. It’s four o’clock in the morning; there’s not a lot of reason to be driving a van down to the lagoon. Unless you’re picking up something you’re not supposed to