by Digsmith staff writers

When the public got word, in late 1985, that Vassar Thatch's boat was returning to San Francisco Harbor at six o' clock in the morning from its last known port in Ketchikan, Alaska, a mild frenzy broke out. A famed adventurer and explorer, Thatch had built his peerless reputation by journeying to remote parts of the world and returning, in grand fashion, with stories, photographs and treasures from his sojourn into the unknown. Upon the completion of each quest, Thatch would hold press conferences, reveal his discoveries and introduce a new line of branded merchandise inspired by the culture into which he had just been immersed. It was with the profits from his VT NOT TV line of products that he funded his journeys, and as such, sales were generally brisk during the return celebrations.

Thus, the scene in November of 1985 was no different than the countless speeches Thatch had given during his career: Throughout the Moscone Center, against the walls and dividers, people were crushed, alternately crying out for security and jockeying for closer positions. But standing anxiously at the podium, as he quietly looked out over the crazed media, Thatch was discernibly different. When he finally addressed the crowd, his pace was uncharacteristically deliberate, lacking the unbridled enthusiasm of past conferences. His tone, for the first time lifeless, revealed disaffection:

"I would like to apologize at this point if I've mislead any of you into thinking that I would be revealing another discovery during this gathering. Much to the contrary, I'm here to report, regrettably, that my travels yielded nothing of the sort."

The shocked audience audibly gasped, falling slightly backward like a succession of shocked, gasping dominoes. Reporters with tape recorders held aloft struggled to blurt out questions about what did happen on the voyage, but no voice could be heard over the din. Thatch, aided by the microphone, continued in apparent obliviousness:

"Having failed to find anything of note on my latest voyage, save for sprawling tracts of desolate tundra, I thought it necessary to turn the reflecting glass upon myself. What, in my approach to, and preparation for, this trip, had caused failure? In thirty-seven years of exploring I have not once returned home so pathetically empty-handed. This I consider a testament to the ability I possessed, at the peak of my career, to look beyond the landscape presented before me and discover beneath the veneer whatever true character hidden within. And it is for that reason my most recent journey was so disheartening: when faced with the endless tundra, I was unable—or, I fear, unwilling—to unlock the mysteries therein. I would be a fool to look at this trip and not see it as a sign that I am now, in my advanced age, facing limitations that preclude me from adventuring as I once did."

"And so, I would like to use this opportunity to formally announce my retirement. I will be releasing a final shirt, reading simply 'Tundra,' as a memorial for this final quest and, by extension, my career. However, whereas the profits from past clothing sales have funded subsequent trips, the proceeds from the tundra shirt will allow me to remain active in the adventuring community as a mentor and consultant. I thank you all for coming, and for your continued support throughout my life and career. All along it has been the collective brightness of your eyes, looking so excitedly upon my journeys, that endowed me with the ability to see the true nature of the cultures I've visited. Godspeed, my friends. May your own lives continue to possess undiscovered secrets for years to come."

As soon as Thatch had concluded the address, his handlers scrambled to expedite the explorer's departure out of the convention center, leaving the reeling crowd a step behind as they all tried, as one, to grasp what had just been said. Media representatives were the first to break free from the trance, dashing madly about in an attempt to locate the traveler and extract even a single quote. The rest of the audience then shuffled out solemnly, emanating an air of palpable melancholy.

Once the auditorium was cleared and the room was but a sticky cement plain littered with pen caps and gum wrappers, two young San Francisco Chronicle photo assistants poked their heads out from behind the curtain stage left. Lacking the experience and awareness to join their fellow journalists in the pursuit of Thatch, the young photographers had instead remained in place, as per the instructions of their editor. This afforded the duo an exclusive vantage point of the now-vacant venue, a perch from which soft-spoken Ron Hall Cougar noticed, by the podium, a tattered piece of paper seemingly dropped by Thatch during his hasty escape. Reluctant to retrieve the document himself, Cougar instead told his companion, Tori Knightly, who, being far more headstrong, promptly snatched the paper, slipped it delicately into her backpack and whispered, somewhat unnecessarily considering the vacancy of the room, "Let's get back to the office."

Twelve minutes later, in a dimly lit cubicle at the Chronicle, Knightly and Cougar investigated the crumpled document they'd found and the curious drawing it housed: a map. The paper showed evidence of exposure to ocean water, with salt deposits along the edges, and clearly detailed the directions to a location in the westernmost Aleutian Islands. This confused the pair.

"I'm confused," began Knightly. "Why would Thatch chart such a specific location, yet come home and claim that his trip was fruitless?"

So began an evening of interpretation, with Knightly poring over the map while Cougar paced the room, working through his thoughts in muffled mutterings. Six hours of frustration passed before Cougar's eyes finally lit up, at which point he leapt to Knightly's side.

"Tori," he began, feeling the need to address her, "do you remember the shirts Thatch displayed today—the ones from his new line that said 'Tundra' with a beach image printed inside the letters?"

She nodded affirmatively.

"And do you remember in his speech, how he used the word 'tundra' a couple of times to describe the area he discovered?"

Again, a nod from Knightly.

"I think Vassar discovered something—something unbelievable. Something so amazing that he wanted to keep it for himself."

Though reserving her right to nod, Knightly expressed skepticism: "But why leave clues, then?"

"The man devoted his life to adventures and mysteries. I don't think he could pass up an opportunity to leave a mystery of his own behind."

"Little earthquakes, Ron!" exclaimed Knightly, nodding. "I think there's more to this."

"I do too, Tori. I do too. And I think it's time we found out just what Vassar Thatch is hiding."

"I bet it's an island, Ron."

"You know I don't gamble, Tori. But there's only one way to find out."

And so it was decided that, using the withered map and Tundra t-shirts, Tori Knightly and Ron Hall Cougar would retrace Vassar Thatch's steps to the unknown.

.:             :.

Preparations for their trip went far more smoothly than either of them had expected. The Chronicle was very accommodating and provided them with two weeks' unpaid leave, while Knightly's uncle, not entirely understanding the scope of their intended voyage, loaned them his small sailboat, the Merry Monitor. But despite their deft arranging skills, once out to sea the two amateur sailors quickly found themselves to be overmatched by the task at hand. Slowed initially by inexperience alone, the pair was beset by a dense fog just six hours into their journey, as they sailed off the coast of Oregon. The dim glow of their navigational instrumentation enabled Knightly to maintain a somewhat northward trajectory, but the confines of the haze nearly caused the boat to run ashore on a number of occasions.

"Should we go back?" yelled Cougar at one point to his unseen companion.

"Not a chance!" came a reply through the grayness. "Maintain our course, Ron!"

But that command would prove to be complicated, as the fog soon gave way to an impassioned storm. Brigades of two-meter ocean waves, apparently unable to agree on a single direction in which to travel, broke against each other and the boat's feeble hull, sending the sailors to the floor more times than they would have preferred. When slivers of lightning began streaking down around them Cougar called out, between claps of thunder and the pounding of water against the boat, "Should we go back?!"

"Not a chance!" replied Knightly, who had waited to respond until a bolt of lightning provided the dramatic lighting effect she desired. "Hold the line, Ron!"

But her order proved a difficult undertaking, for just seven stormy hours later a deafening bellow was heard off their port side, and a mighty wave appeared to crest. When the next shock of lightning shot down, a massive beast was seen emerging from the sea. Its hideous eyes ran blood red, and its body was slick and black. Atop the beast's head lay rows of antennae, and its open mouth revealed a legion of razor-sharp teeth. The stench of the beast was a singularly foul smell that no words outside of the Basque dialect can begin to characterize. After a quick discussion, Cougar and Knightly agreed that the beast seemed irate, and strapped themselves into life preservers in case a whipped tentacle cleaved their ship in half.

"If at all possible, should we go back?" Cougar cried. But Knightly, looking majestic in her life vest, remained steadfast.

"We've come too far, Ron. We've come too far," she yelled over the beast's shrieks. "If we go now, we'll be letting down everyone who has supported us: my uncle, who was kind enough to lend us his ship," she paused to duck the remnants of a grey whale the beast had consumed and cast aside, "and our editors, who believed enough to grant us two weeks time before giving our desks to interns," she looked over at Cougar and thought she saw, though his sobs and trembling lips, a small flame of inspiration ignite within him, "and most importantly, the memory of Vassar Thatch, who no doubt braved hazards ten times worse than what we have experienced. Our mission was to find out what he discovered," her voice resonated with such conviction that Cougar nearly forgot about the beast, which had left the water completely and taken flight, "and if we quit now, we will be failing in the eyes of all those people. We survived the fog, Ron, and we survived the lightning, and the waves," Knightly paused to watch Cougar's eyes, which were tracking the beast as it hunted condors in the sky, "and we will survive this monster."

Eight hours later, when the sun muscled the clouds aside and cast itself upon Knightly, standing triumphantly at the wheel, and Cougar, nestled in a fetal cocoon beneath a mound of life jackets and harpoons, they had, indeed, survived.

"Ron . . ." Knightly whispered, unsure if her partner had come out of shock, "we've done it." Realizing they had, Cougar crawled from beneath the seafaring equipment and, while trying to assess whether he was truly alive, held onto the sides of the boat as he walked up to Knightly, who stood proudly, regarding the jagged landscape they recognized to be the Aleutian archipelago in the distance.

"We did it, Tori," he gasped, and the happy couple embraced.

"How quickly the time passes when fighting off flying aquatic creatures!" said Knightly with a laugh, resting her head on Cougar's shoulder.

"Or when you cower and pass out," replied Cougar, who immediately questioned internally why he would admit such a thing, even in jest. His self-reflection was quickly replaced, however, with an awareness of the current intimate connection with Knightly, who had looked especially sexy while using an oar to swat back the beast's lashing tentacles. "And to think, I wanted to turn back."

At that they shared a quick laugh, then turned their heads skyward. Now well into the Gulf of Alaska they found the temperature to have dropped dramatically, and despite the warmth offered by their North Face fleece pullovers, the two pressed in closer. Near breathless by the ever-growing intimacy, Cougar determined that it was the best, if not only, chance he would have to accomplish his true goal for their trip: to kiss Tori Knightly—and then, assuming that was well-received, to see if things could go a bit further before they arrived at their destination. In one fluid motion, he spun in front of her and, in what was by great measures his boldest action of the trip, drew the bewildered Knightly's lips into his own. The kiss lasted but a second before Knightly pulled back; in her besmooched haze a great many things ran through the mind of Tori Knightly, and not one of them entailed a good reason not to kiss Ron Hall Cougar back. And so she did, punctuating the kiss with a smitten, "Oh, Ron," and they both thought, as they came together, that it was, in many ways, a kiss of destiny.

It was also a kiss that caused them, with their eyes shut, locked tight in love's hold, to overlook the monumentally large iceberg in their path. Just five minutes later, fighting in the cold water for a piece of Merry Monitor wreckage onto which to cling, Knightly cursed herself for not heeding the advice her uncle gave at the conclusion of every conversation: "Tori, learn from the Titanic."

Then, darkness had its way with her.

.:             :.

When Cougar awoke, he was acutely aware of four things:
  1. He and Knightly had been shipwrecked, and seemingly separated.
  2. He was very wet.
  3. He was very warm for having gotten so wet during a shipwreck in the generally very chilly Gulf of Alaska.
  4. He was surprisingly lucid for having passed out in the freezing water while clinging to assorted flotsam.
Then, he noticed the sand. And then he noticed the warmth of the water lapping against him as it crawled up the sand. And then the gently swaying palm trees, which were even more uncharacteristic of the western Aleutians than the sand, and then the lichen-covered rock formations, and then some adorable short-haired animal he couldn't identify. And then he noticed Knightly—lying on her side, facing away, unmoving.

"Tori!" he yelled, stumbling to rise from the wet sand. Knightly was just ten meters away in a dryer section of the sand, apparently having been placed there when the tide was higher. Cougar dashed over and dropped down beside her.

"Tori!" he tried again, this time eliciting a stir.

"It's so warm. Is this Heaven?" she asked, faintly moaning.

"No." Cougar helped her to her feet, then knelt down to touch the surf. "I'm not sure where we are. This makes no . . ."

"Sense?" rang out a familiar baritone.

The beleaguered pair whirled around to see Vassar Thatch approaching, wishing in his head all the while that he could've interjected with a more emphatic, or at least representative, word than "sense." But, he quickly realized that it was the word that best fit the sentence, and he couldn't count on subsequent sentences to provide any better of a dramatic opportunity. By the time he reached the weary travelers, Thatch had made peace with himself.

"Vassar!" Cougar and Knightly shouted as they watched the shirtless adventurer take a sip from the coconut in his hand. He, in turn, observed the young disciples, each wearing a dampened tundra shirt over their outerwear, with quiet reverence. Then, he spoke:

"You cracked the tundra code—I'm proud of you. I didn't expect my guests to be so young, but perhaps I should have. When most people reach a certain age, not too far past your own, they stop questioning the things they're told. They stop looking for mysteries within the world. They become complacent—trapped, even. But you two looked at that word, tundra and saw, quite literally, right through it. Then you embarked on your trip knowing full well that you might not find a remote island paradise, but that you would find an adventure: something to inspire you, and to keep you questioning the world around you. That was the discovery I made early in my career: never stop hoping, never stop expecting and never stop wondering, and you'll never lose your appreciation for life. Now, we can only hope that more people, of all ages, will see my tundra shirt and come to the same conclusion. If the shirt leads them here, great. But if the shirt leads them somewhere else, well, so much the better."

As he finished, Vassar Thatch smiled and took a sip from his coconut; then with the wave of his outstretched arm, ushered the young journeyers onto his tropical Aleutian Island hideaway. Tori Knightly and Ron Hall Cougar followed, their hands interlocked, each wondering independently whether Thatch had prepared his somewhat weighty speech ahead of time, or if he improvised it on the spot. The two young lovers were blissfully ignorant of the fact that, unless Thatch sailed them home, their desks would be lost to interns.