Chapter 37 Summary

It is late afternoon when Dick finally wakes. He checks the boat and finds that everything is apparently in good order considering what it had just been through. He finds his position as well as he can with no working electronic instruments, starts the engine, and begins the slow trip home, feeling that he is not yet safe. When he finally gets near the boat yard, a Coast Guard tug hails him and warns him not to go any further. Dick can just see a seventy-foot boat resting on the highway as the light begins to push away the darkness.

Dick has a cup of coffee and casts off from the tug and heads towards Sawtooth Pond. Four things strike Dick immediately. First, there is not a twig of living grass, bush, or tree remaining anywhere he can see. Next, the opening to...