Coyote Horizon (32 page)

I was leaning against the starboard rail, sipping my coffee and watching sea-swoops catching breakfast from the wake of the ship, when I heard someone come up behind me. Looking around, I saw Lynn. She didn’t say anything for a moment, and I braced myself for another round of recrimination, but after a second or two she came over to slip her hand within the crook of my elbow.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, giving me a brief hug. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Thanks for saying so . . . but you’re wrong. If I hadn’t . . .”

“I know, I know. But you’d told Jorge not to touch your gun, and he deliberately disobeyed you. That’s what everyone’s forgetting.” She paused. “They’ve also forgotten that, just a few minutes earlier, you’d used that same gun to save lives. I was there, remember?”

“Sure, but . . .” I shook my head. “Look, maybe you’re right about both those things, but it doesn’t matter, does it? I should’ve never left that gun in my cabin. Not after Jorge saw me loading it, and when he could see where I was hiding the ammo. He’s a two-year-old, for God’s sake . . .”

“Six in Earth-years. Which makes him old enough to know that when an adult tells him not to do something, he’d better pay attention.” Lynn released my arm to lean against the railing beside me. “Not that Susan is going to recognize that. Every mother believes her child to be the center of the universe and that everyone and everything must revolve around him.”

I gave her a sidelong glance. “Sounds like you have experience.”

Her face reddened, and for a second I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing. “Not personally, no,” she murmured, “but after watching my sister spoil her own children rotten . . .” Lynn shook her head. “No. Kids aren’t something I plan to have. At least not anytime soon.”

Lynn didn’t strike me as being the motherly type, but I let it pass. “Well, anyway . . .” I shrugged, took a sip of lukewarm coffee. “I imagine there’s going to be some changes. Carlos has my gun now, and unless Susan insists on throwing it overboard, it’ll probably stay in his cabin for the rest of the trip. I guess she’ll make sure Jorge is removed from my cabin, too, which means I’ll soon be getting a new roommate.” I smiled at her. “Interested? I don’t think I have any other friends on board just now.”

She didn’t return my smile. “I’d like to, but . . .” She hesitated, then stepped a little closer. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I don’t think you’re going to be here very much longer.”

I stared at her. “What are you saying?”

“After everyone went back to bed, I stayed awake awhile. Couldn’t sleep after what happened.” She peered at me. “From the circles under your eyes, I don’t think you did either . . .”

“Never mind that. What did you mean by . . . ?”

Hearing footsteps, we looked behind us. The sailors I’d seen earlier walked across the deck, apparently relieved from duty and heading below to get breakfast. She waited until they disappeared down the companionway, then went on, keeping her voice low. “So I went aft to see if I could steal a snack from the galley, and that’s when I heard Susan and Jon in their cabin.” She paused. “She wants you off the ship, Sawyer. I mean, right now . . . or at least as soon as the gyro arrives to pick up her father.”

I felt my face grow warm. “Oh, for the love of . . . She can’t be serious.”

“ ’Fraid so, love.” Her expression was grim. “If she had her way, she’d probably just as soon have you marooned on Cherokee. She’s that angry. As luck would have it, we’ve got that gyro coming in, so . . .” She shrugged. “I think they’re going to be taking on another passenger. And that’s you.”

I didn’t quite know what to say. What had happened was my fault, no matter how much Lynn might try to mitigate it . . . but, damn it, it had been an accident. I might have been guilty of carelessness, even stupidity, but certainly not reckless disregard for the safety of everyone aboard. Susan couldn’t honestly believe that I’d allow something like that to happen again; she was ousting me out of spite, plain and simple.

My coffee had gone cold. I poured the rest of it over the side, resisting the angry temptation to hurl the mug into the river. “Well, hell . . . and just when things were getting interesting.”

“Yeah. Sorry you won’t be along for . . .” Lynn stopped herself, and for a moment it appeared that she was gnawing her lower lip. “All right, I’ll let you in on another little secret. I’m thinking about leaving, too.”

I gave her a sharp look. “Not because of me, I hope.”

A wry smile. “Don’t flatter yourself. No, it’s because I think I’m covering the wrong story.” Another glance over her shoulder to make sure that we weren’t being overheard, then she went on. “Look, I managed to catch a bit of what you guys were talking about last night . . . on the bridge, I mean. Carlos didn’t come right out and say it, sure, but there has to be a reason for the government going to the trouble of sending a gyro all the way out here. Something that they need a former president . . . no, scratch that, this particular former president . . . to handle.”

The same thought had occurred to me as well, but I hadn’t had time to ask. Not that Carlos seemed willing to discuss it. “So you want to follow him back, see what’s going on?” She nodded. “Think they’ll let you do it?”

Lynn shrugged. “How can they stop me? I’m not an expedition member, just a reporter who happened to tag along. Besides”—a confidential wink—“I think these guys would be just as relieved to get rid of me as they are you.”

I was about to respond when we heard someone else walking around the bulwark railing. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Susan heading for the companionway, leading Jorge by the hand. When the boy saw me, his face became bright red, then his eyes turned shamefully toward his feet. Susan glared at me, and she pulled her son a little closer as they marched downstairs to the lounge.

“So much for breakfast,” I muttered after they’d disappeared.

“I’ll bring you a muffin.” Lynn gently patted my wrist as she backed away from the railing. “Try to act surprised when they break the news.”

 

 

 

As it turned out, none of the expedition leaders said anything to me until the
LeMare
reached Cherokee. I like to think that they were still mulling it over, weighing the benefits against the costs of losing their wilderness guide, but it’s more likely that no one wanted to tell me that I was being thrown off the ExEx until they were sure the gyro was on the way. Or maybe they were afraid I’d make a public stink if I found out too soon.

I was angry. No sense in denying it. By the time I returned to my cabin, I’d already decided to insist upon Morgan paying me the balance of my retainer once I was back in New Florida; I’d done my job as best as I could, and I couldn’t be held accountable for the rash decisions of the expedition’s lead scientist. I was also thinking about relocating my business from Leeport to Liberty while starting to offer camera safaris, just to give Susan and Jon the unfriendly competition I’d avoided up until then. Hell, I might even consult a lawyer about taking Susan to court if Goldstein refused to cough up.

I spent the rest of the morning in my cabin, lying on my bunk and staring at the walls, determined not to pack up my stuff until someone came by to give me the news. True to her word, Lynn brought me a muffin and some dried fruit; she seemed to see that I was nursing a rage, because she left again without saying much else. Not a long time after that, Jorge dropped by. Apparently he hadn’t expected to find me there, because he hesitated just outside the door, uncertain whether to enter. I told him that it was okay, I wasn’t mad at him, and the kid shuffled into the room, still unable to look at me. The fact that he stayed just long enough to retrieve his toothbrush, and not the rest of his belongings, confirmed my suspicions: one of us would soon get the cabin all to himself, and it wouldn’t be me.

Before he left, though, Jorge stopped at the edge of my bunk. “I’m . . . I’m sorry ’bout what I did last night,” he murmured. “That was bad of me.”

“Yes, it was. You should have listened to me. I . . .” Then I saw the tears welling in the corners of his eyes, and realized that the boy was carrying a man-sized burden of guilt. No point in loading on him even more. “But I forgive you,” I finished. “I’m in trouble, not you.”

Jorge nodded. He was probably aware of something he believed I didn’t know, but had been forbidden to tell me. For a second it seemed as if he wanted to say something else, then Susan called for him from the other end of the passageway. She obviously didn’t want him to spend time with that bad ol’ Mr. Lee.

“G’bye,” he said, then he hurried from the room, not bothering to close the door behind him.

Cherokee had just appeared off the starboard bow when a sailor came below to tell me that I was wanted on the bridge. When I got there, I found everyone who mattered waiting for me: Jon, Carlos, Barry . . . even Susan, who stood off to the side, arms folded across her chest.

As captain, it fell to Jon to break the news. I didn’t bother pretending to be surprised, but neither did I let my temper get the best of me. No sense in letting Susan have the satisfaction of seeing me make accusations I couldn’t defend. Besides, I didn’t want to say anything that might come back to haunt me in a courtroom. But the hypocrisy of the situation still irked me. No one made mention of the fact that Carlos had carried a rifle aboard as well . . . but then, Carlos was Susan’s father, wasn’t he?

So I took the news as best I could, and went below to pack up my stuff. And that was it. I was no longer a member of the Exploratory Expedition.

Cherokee’s northern coastline was a long expanse of white-sand beach littered with driftwood and the decaying remains of dead fish. Just beyond the beach lay tidal marshes leading to equatorial savanna; it could well have been New Florida, were it not for the low mountains farther inland. Here and there, we made out groves of tall, broad-branched trees that appeared to be second cousins to blackwoods. Sea-swoops circled overhead, protesting our intrusion upon land that they’d become used to calling their own.

The
LeMare
dropped anchor at the southernmost extent of the bay, about five hundred yards offshore, where Barry and Jon were fairly confident the ship would be able to ride out the storm. It appeared that we hadn’t arrived too soon. To the west, the sky above the Great Equatorial River was already darkened by an ominous wall of cumulus clouds, their purple masses tinted yellowish orange by the midday sun. The hurricane had entered the Meridian Sea and was lashing the archipelago; it wouldn’t be long before its leading edge touched the southern coast of Vulcan.

Once the sails were furled, Jon ordered one of the tenders to be lowered over the side to take Carlos, Lynn, and me ashore. A couple of naturalists wanted to come along, saying that their best chance to study the coastal wildlife would be before the storm hit, but the captain refused; he didn’t want anyone on the beach when the hurricane arrived. On the starboard poop deck, Susan and Jorge said good-bye to Carlos while Lynn and I stood quietly nearby, then Jon climbed down the accommodation ladder to the tender and helped his father-in-law disembark. The crew waved farewell as we headed for the beach, but I knew that it wasn’t me they were going to miss.

The gyro arrived less than a half hour after we made landfall; leave it to the Colonial Militia to have such good timing. The aircraft came in low over the bay, its twin rotors causing small curlicues of spindrift to rise from the water, and we shielded our eyes against windblown sand as it touched down a few dozen yards from where we’d beached the tender. The pilot was obviously in a hurry, because he kept the engines going while he opened the side passenger hatch. There was no time for long speeches, but I couldn’t help but notice the apologetic look in Jon’s eyes when he shook my hand. If he’d wanted to say anything to me, though, he’d already had his chance, so I gave him a polite smile before I shouldered my knapsack and rifle and followed the others to the waiting gyro.

Until then, I’d been tough about the whole situation, telling myself that it was probably just as well; I was no longer welcome on the ExEx and probably never had been. But when the gyro lifted off from the beach, and I gazed down from the portside passenger window to see the
LeMare
floating in the bay, I couldn’t help but feel something catch in my throat. Until only a day ago, I’d thought I’d be aboard her all the way around the world, helping to make history. Instead, I was destined to become little more than a footnote.

The gyro was a small, five-seat version meant for long-range sorties. The pilot was a young guy by the name of Charlie Banks; he assured us that his craft had more than enough hydrogen in its cells to get back to Hammerhead. Almost as soon as we left the bay and turned northeast to cross the river, though, he received a text message from Ft. Lopez over the wireless. The hurricane had just sideswiped the outpost, causing significant damage, and the commandant had grounded all air traffic in and out of Hammerhead for the next few hours. To make matters worse, the eye of the storm was presently above the Meridian Archipelago; if we attempted to fly straight to Ft. Lopez, there was no question that we’d run smack into the hurricane.

The gyro was already being buffeted by headwinds, its stubby wing-lets rocking back and forth as the engines at their ends growled menacingly. The aircraft hit an air pocket and dropped a dozen feet or so; Lynn grabbed my hand so hard that I nearly yelped, and when I looked at her, I saw that her jaw was clenched. Praying that she wasn’t about to become airsick, I put my arm around her and hoped our pilot wasn’t prone to displays of machismo.

Fortunately, he was smarter than that. A quick look at his nav screen, then he glanced over his shoulder at us. “Gonna take a little detour, folks,” Charlie said, raising his voice above the engines. “I’m going to fly north to Vulcan and fly around Mt. Pesek. If I’m right, that’ll get us around the bad weather, and the volcano should shield us from the worst of the wind.”