Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [126]
The board plunges down.
She leans right, just enough to catch the line, not enough to tip her into the wave and a horrible wipeout. She throws her arms out for balance, bends her knees for speed, and then she’s off, down the face of this giant wave, her hair flying behind her like a personal pennant as she turns her feet right a little and cuts up higher into the wave, then plunges back down with incredible speed.
Too much speed.
The board bucks and bounces off the water and she’s in the air for a second, the board a good foot beneath her. She lands on it, losing her balance, going sideways, headfirst toward the face of the wave.
The crowd on the beach groans.
It’s going to be a bad one.
Sunny feels herself going, her shot getting away from her, and she cranks to the left, squats low, and rights herself as the wave crests over, and then—
She’s in the green room, totally inside the wave. There is nothing else, just her and the wave, her in the wave, her wave, her life.
The watchers on the beach lose sight of her. They’re holding their collective breath because all they can see is wave, the incredibly brave chick is in there somewhere, and it’s an open question whether she’ll come out.
Then a blast of white water shoots sideways out of the tube and the woman shoots out, still on her feet, her left hand touching the back of the wave, and the crowd breaks into a cheer. They’re screaming for her, yelling for her as she cuts back up on the top of the wave again.
She’s flying now and she uses the momentum to crest the top of the wave.
She’s in the air, high over the wave, and as she jumps off the board, she does a full somersault before she hits the water on the far side of the wave. When she pops up, Dave is there on a Jet Ski. She grabs onto the sled, pulls herself on, pulls her board on, and lets him take her in.
The crowd on the beach is waiting for her.
She’s mobbed by photographers, writers, surf company execs.
It was the ride of the day, they tell her.
No, she thinks.
It was the ride of a lifetime.
149
It’s surreal.
What Johnny sees in the reeds.
Boone Daniels staggers toward him, a girl in his arms, his chest soaked with blood, more blood running down the side of his head.
“Boone!” Johnny yells.
Boone looks at Johnny with glassy-eyed, faint recognition and stumbles toward him, holding the girl out like a drowning man lifting a child up toward a lifeboat. Now Johnny can see Boone’s thumb pressed deep into a wound on the child’s neck.
Johnny takes the little girl from him, replacing his own thumb for Boone’s. Boone looks at him, says, “Thanks, Johnny,” and then crashes heavily, face-first, to the ground.
150
Waves.
Alpha waves, energy-transport phenomena, gentle vibrations run through Boone’s jacked-up brain as Rain Sweeny paddles out through a gentle beach break, ducks under an incoming wave, and pops out the other side.
She shakes the water from her blond hair and smiles.
It’s a beautiful day, the sky a cloudless blue, the water green as a spring meadow. Crystal Pier sparkles in the shimmering sunlight.
Rain looks up at the pier and waves.
Boone stands at the window of his cottage, smiles, and waves back, and then he’s in the water, swimming toward her in smooth, easy strokes, the cool water sliding along his skin, a caress that eases the pain, which is swiftly becoming mere memory, a dream of a past life that seemed real but was only a dream.
Rain reaches out her hand and pulls him to her and then he’s sitting on his own board next to her, rising and falling in the gentle swell. The Dawn Patrol sits off behind them, farther out on the shoulder. Sunny and Dave, Hang and Tide and Johnny. Even Cheerful is out this morning, and Pete, and Boone can hear them talking and laughing, and then a wave comes in.
It builds from far away, lifts and rises and rolls as it seems to take an eternity to crest, and then Rain smiles at him again, lies down, and starts to paddle,