Dawn Patrol (2 page)

“Hey, guys,” I said. Most of the guys looked at me as though they only just realized I was there. “We're looking for a friend of ours. Tall, with curly blond hair, rides a red Piranha board?” The three guys closest to us all tilted their heads slightly before unleashing a flurry of Spanish.

“Sorry,” I said. “I only speak English.”

“We be here today,” one guy said. He pointed at his friends. “No one. Just us.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said.

The guy shifted a little closer to me. “Girlfriend?” he said, nodding at Esme. He flicked his eyebrows at her.

“What?” Esme said.

“He wants to know if you're my girlfriend,” I said.

The guy winked at her. “Very beautiful. Like flower.”

Now it was Esme's turn to blush. “Come on,” she said. “Let's cut over.” There was another handful of surfers bobbing around on the other side of the swell.

“You don't want to stay here and chat with these nice gentlemen?”

I could feel another punch coming, so I lay down and started paddling. As we neared the other side of the break, the next set came roaring in. The waves seemed bigger, rising as they pushed inland.

“Faster. Move it!” Esme yelled from behind me.

It is no fun to be swept over by a big wave. I paddled as hard as I could, turned into the wave and duck-dived through it. A duck dive is a simple move to get from the front of a wave to the back without shooting to the crest and being flung backward. You simply push down on the front of your board and dive into the face of the wave.

I came out the other side, and Esme popped up a moment later. One surfer had grabbed the wave. Alana and another surfer watched as he cut back and forth, bellowing as he went.

“Hello again,” I said to Alana as we paddled up to them.

“Long time no see,” she said.

I noticed she had an American accent. The other surfer looked like a local. He squinted at us, propping a hand over his eyes to block out the sun.

“A friend of ours might be here. We're not sure.” I described Kevin to Alana.

“Can't say I've seen anyone like that,” she said. “But maybe give it a day, right? With those monster waves coming in, every surfer worth his salt will be here soon.”

“Sure,” I said. “What about him? Does he speak English?”

“I don't know.” She looked at the other surfer and spoke to him in Spanish. The local shook his head, never taking his eyes off Esme and me. He was in his mid-twenties and had dark-brown eyes. His hair was cut short on the sides, giving him a strange faux-hawk. He was sinewy, yet, like a lot of surfers, muscular.

“He says no,” Alana said.

“No to English, or no to seeing our friend?”

“Both,” Alana said.

“Our friend's name is Kevin. Kevin Taylor.”

“Kevin Taylor?” Alana said to the local.

He shook his head again and paddled into a small wave. He got up on his board but had to pump hard to move across the wave.

“Looks like you guys freaked him out,” Alana said. “Are you staying at Loco Delgado's?”

“Loco?” I said. “I hadn't heard the Loco part before.”

Alana laughed. “Yeah, well, that was his name back in the day. I don't think he's really crazy. Anyway, unless you want to sleep on the beach or grab a water taxi back to the mainland, Loco Delgado's is your only choice.”

“Back in what day?” I asked.

“Word is, Delgado used to wander the world looking for giant waves. I don't know how much of it is true. People seem to make up fascinating stories about themselves around here.”

“Well, our packs are there,” I said.

“Cool. If anyone knows about your friend, it will be old Loco. He's completely dialed into everything that happens here.” Another set was roaring in, and Alana quickly paddled toward where the wave would crest. “See you in there. Catch the right wave and you can ride all the way to the beach.” The wave boiled under her. She worked her arms around like pinwheels. Then she shot down the face of what must have been a nine-foot wave. It was the biggest I had seen yet.

“Nice,” Esme said.

“Alana or her riding?” I said, leaning away from her.

“Shut up and grab the next one,” Esme said. “Let's get in to shore and have a chat with old Loco Delgado.”

chapter three

Delgado's hotel was a cluster of huts. Some of the huts were on the beach or in the jungle. The rest were on stilts above the ocean, at the end of warped piers. Esme and I managed to ride almost all the way to shore. I cut to the right on the wave I took, and Esme cut to the left, which sent her toward the large black rocks. I watched her bail, well before she came in too close, and swim out of the maul of the next breaking wave.

“It's like the waves want to wreck you on those rocks,” she said as we dragged our boards onto the beach.

“Or they just want you to cut to the right,” I said. We walked along the beach until we came to a pier leading to the hotel's office. The office was a thatch-roof hut, only slightly larger than the surrounding huts. The only way we could tell it was the office was on account of a large OFFICE sign pegged near the entrance.

Reggae was playing inside. The music had a soft, light beat, and for the first time since we had arrived in Panama, it wasn't Bob Marley. We lay our boards beside our backpacks and went inside.

A big white guy was lying on a couch with a MacBook on his stomach. He swiveled his head toward the doorway.

“Hola,” he said.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you, um, Delgado?”

“Loco Delgado,” he said. He set the laptop on the ground and rolled off the couch. His T-shirt clung to him. Other than a small fan, which seemed to be doing little more than pulling the heat in from outside, there was no air circulation. It smelled musty, as if the room itself was sweating. Delgado was our parents' age, although his skin was wrinkled and leathery from too much time in the sun. I tried to imagine him touring the world searching out the best waves. But his rotund form didn't seem to fit the mold. “Are you the two Armadio brought over earlier?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We need a place to stay for a couple of days. Do you have any vacancies?”

Delgado nodded his head seriously and walked over to the counter. He ran a finger down a blank page, then looked up at us. “I think you can be accommodated,” he said, laughing.

“There's no one else here?” Esme asked.

“Sure, sure. I think there are about twenty people here right now. They'll let me know when they decide to check out. And pay as well.”

“That's very trusting of you,” I said.

Delgado rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, and a succession of cracks and pops sounded. “Surfing is a culture. You know how it is, man? What you give is what you get. Nice waves come in, and people feel good. The last thing they want to do is rip someone off and start feeling bad.” He leaned back to look out the window. “There's an empty hut right here. Has a double in it. I imagine one bed will suffice?”

“Actually, two would be better,” I said.

Delgado nodded. “That's all right. The double is actually just two singles jammed together with a big mattress on top. We can pull them apart.” Delgado came around the counter. “Come on, I'll show you your new digs.”

“Wait a second,” Esme said when we were outside. She opened the front pocket on her backpack and pulled out a photograph of Kevin. “Have you seen this guy?” She handed the picture to Delgado.

He glanced at it and handed it back. “No. Why?”

“He disappeared a couple of months back. We're trying to find him,” Esme said.

“What makes you think he would be here?” Delgado asked.

“In January his parents died in an airplane accident on one of the nearby islands.”

Delgado nodded. “I remember,” he said. “It was a stormy, foggy day. I remember because it was clear first thing in the morning, and then a fog set in and the waves got angry. They were mean that day. Out for blood, some of the locals said.”

Esme and I stared at a colorful school of fish in the water off the pier. Esme cast her eyes down, but I could see they were glazed. Kevin's parents were kind, giving people, and Esme was the daughter they never had. She spent more time at Kevin's house than anywhere else. It was still hard for us to believe his parents were gone. Kevin's family had always made me feel like family. A heaviness settled on my chest, and I gulped a couple of times to hold back tears.

Delgado reached down and grabbed my backpack. “Let me show you the hut. How many days do you think you'll be here?”

Esme's damp hair hung across her face. She was working hard at not crying.

“Until we find him,” I said.

The hut had two stories. The first was an open space with a barbecue and some chairs. The upper level had a bed, sink, compostable toilet and a giant window facing the water. The sun was starting to set, and a dim orange glow filled the upper level.

“Ahh, it's nice in here,” Delgado said. “I like this hut. It's one of my favorites.” He looked at me. “Oh, man, I almost forgot. The single mattresses are in another hut. Do you want to help me get them?”

“It's okay,” Esme said. She pulled her sleeping bag out of her backpack and tossed it on the bed. “This will work.”

“You sure?” I said.

“Sure.” She went and sat on the bed with her back to us.

“All right,” Delgado said. “Stay as long as you like, pay when you leave. Respect everyone and everything around here, that's all I ask. The jungle, the beach, the waves, one another. Be kind.” He reached out and shook my hand. “And if you need anything, I'll be next door.” He pointed out the window. From where we were, we could see right into his hut. “There are two restaurants along the beach. But, and I say this as an honorary local, I wouldn't go much beyond the Purple Parrot.”

“Why?” I asked.

“This island has its locals. When big waves come in, the island really fills up with surfers and, well, the locals get a little testy.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

“Fair enough, right? You wouldn't want a bunch of tourists invading your backyard either. So stick to this end of the island, and you'll be fine.”

The smell of barbecuing shrimp wafted in the window, and my stomach growled. “Is that smell coming from the Purple Parrot?” I said.

“Special on garlic shrimp tonight.” Delgado smiled again and shuffled out of the hut.

“He's not here, Luca,” Esme said without turning around. “We're never going to find him.”

I clasped her shoulders. I could feel her trembling. “He'll be here, Esme. He might not be here yet, but he will be.”

She shook her head. “How can you know that?”

I didn't. I didn't have a clue where Kevin was. He could be in Australia for all I knew. But I had to believe the lure of these big waves would be enough to deliver him to us. And I needed Esme to believe it too.

“I don't know. But we have to hope, right?” I said.

“I guess.”

“You know it.” I squeezed her shoulders. “Let's go get some dinner. I'm starved.”

chapter four

We slept soundly and awoke well rested. The tide rolled in and out beneath our hut. I turned over to find Esme staring at me.

“You snore,” she said.

“I do not.”

“You are the last person who would know it, Luca. So I'm here to tell you, as the only person who has ever shared your bed, you snore.”

“You're not the only person I've ever shared a bed with.”

She grinned. “I'm not, am I? Do tell.”

“I'll have you know my cousin Jeremy and I used to camp out all the time. And when I went to San Francisco with Kevin last year, we shared a bed.” At the mention of Kevin's name, we both fell silent. Esme rolled out of her sleeping bag and picked up a sweatshirt off the floor. She walked to the window and gazed at the ocean.

“I guess we missed dawn patrol,” she said.

The best waves of the day are often during the early morning tide. Any surfer who rises to catch them is part of what is called the dawn patrol. There's something mystical about being out in the ocean as the sun is rising. It's peaceful and different from any other time of day. It feels as though everything is starting over again.

I slipped out of my sleeping bag and pulled on a pair of shorts. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

“If Kevin's here, he would have already been out surfing.”

I opened my backpack and retrieved a breakfast bar. I had eaten a hundred of these since leaving LA. They weren't getting any better. “By now he'd be back in bed dreaming of giant waves. Speaking of which, what are the waves like?” I went and stood beside her.

“Still coming in pretty nice. There are people out on both breaks.”

I could smell fish cooking somewhere. Birds were calling to one another in the jungle, and the mist from the ocean was fresh and cool on my face.

“Want to get some breakfast or head straight out?”

“Let's go out. I'm not hungry.”

The waves were rolling in. Four or five waves would come in and break, and then there was an interval of calm. Fish swam beneath our boards, and during one lull I saw a turtle. The waves were a reasonable height, six or seven feet, and curled nicely when they broke. I took the first good wave, rode it out and then sat on my board to watch Esme. She dropped into a seven-foot wave and rode in the barrel, white foam lapping above her. She got ahead of the wave, shot out the end of the barrel and launched herself up and over the backside.

“Very nice,” I said when she paddled over to me.

“These are beautiful.” She grinned.

I was relieved to see her happy. As we paddled back toward the break, I saw the surfer from the day before who hadn't wanted to speak to us. He was bobbing in the middle of a pack of surfers.