Just Different Devils (11 page)

After an awkward silence when Mac spilled the beans about us sharing some wine the night before, the conversation became stilted and the meal was quickly over. Mac returned to
Full Kilt Boogie
and Nacho decided to knock the saltwater off
his
boat, and also volunteered to mount the motor on my new dink,
Po Boy
.

"Awkward! Your Scot sure has a way of dumping cold water on polite conversation," Jan drawled as we washed the dishes. "But on the bright side, your casserole was a winner. Fresh tuna always makes the diff."

"You didn't help matters, putting him on the spot like that. Whether he has a significant other is none of our bidness."

"Maybe not, but he sidestepped the question and changed the subject in a hurry, didn't he? I'm just looking out for you."

"I told you, nothing happened!"

"I don't doubt it for a moment. I mean, you, alone with a handsome hunk who obviously has the hots for you? What on earth could possibly have happened?"

I whacked her with the dish towel. "We shared a bottle of wine and talked. Then Jenks called on Skype, so I sent Mac packing."

"Sounds like Jenks has excellent timing."

"Oh, come on. Give me a little credit."

"Surely you jest. I have known your ways for far too long. But, hey, anything you say." Then she giggled. "Did you see the look on Nacho's face when Mac brought up your little wine fest last night?"

"Nope."

"Bull. I think he's jealous."

"Well, maybe that'll teach him to invite people for lunch."

"Hello? He
is
the paying guest. I think that gives him some privileges."

"I guess, but first he tells people I know from the dock that he's Jenks, and then invites Mac for lunch. I may have to cut those privileges. This is
my
boat."

Jan snagged a piece of tuna from a plate and offered it to Po Thang. He took it, but not with his usual enthusiasm. "What's with him?"

"He's pouting. Bubbles showed up today and they played for awhile, but then she took off like a shot when she heard Mac's bagpipe."

"Interesting."

"What's interesting?"

"Out at the whale camp Chino and I have noticed that dolphins and whales are actually drawn to music, not scared off by it."

"Do you ever play bagpipe recordings? Maybe they don't like it for some reason."

"They love those best of all. Maybe Bubbles just doesn't like your new boyfriend."

"He's not…oh, never mind. Mac helped me save her life, how could she not like him?"

"You're asking me? She's your dolphin."

"
My
dolphin.
My
boyfriend. Cut it out."

"Okay, okay." Then she grinned. "I have gossip, by the way."

"Oooh, dish!"

"Word has it there was another giant squid attack."

"Crap, just when we thought it was safe to go back into the water. Where?"

"East of here. Out in the Sea, and…wait for it. Wait for it. Wait—"

I threatened her with my Grandma's iron skillet held high over my head.

"Close to where Nacho has been running his grid. Coincidence? You be the judge."

"Holy crap, that is way too close. No more swimming for you, Po Thang, that's for sure." Then a wash of dread made my stomach drop. "Do squid eat dolphins?"

"Chino told me only sharks and Orcas feed on dolphins as a rule, but a giant Humboldt, especially a huge one almost the size of this boat? Any danged thing it can catch and shred."

"Gee, thanks for that mental picture. I didn't need to sleep tonight anyhow. Who did the squid get this time?"

"That's not clear. It was all over the radio that another diver had died, but no info on whether it was a
gringo
or a Mexican."

"But it was near where Nacho goes almost every day? Could he possibly be looking for Humboldts? And if so, why? What did Nacho say about the attack?"

"He's skeptical, but that's about it. He really didn't want to discuss it. Did you figure out what was on that thumb drive you copied from his room?"

"Not really. Looks like an aerial shot. Not from a satellite, but maybe a small plane. With the coordinates, I know about where it was located, but all I can see is water,  so who knows? One thing for sure, though. Nacho is getting an outside assist from someone in his search for whatever it is."

She glanced out the hatch. "He's still washing his boat. Let's take a look at those photos."

Down in my cabin, I locked the door and brought up what Nacho had on the thumb drive: a series of still shots of water, water and more water. No land identifiers, nada.

Jan pointed to a spot of lighter blue. "Can you zoom in?"

I did, but the only obvious clue was that the water was shallower in that spot. "Could be a reef," I speculated, "or a
bajo
; we know there's more than one sea mount out there, so that's what it is."

"Are all the pictures like this?"

"Pretty much. The last five look a little different." I fast forwarded through the photos until I hit one that was not like the first ten.

"Those are underwater shots, so obviously not taken from a plane. I'll bet these were from Nacho's boat and he planned to use them as an overlay or something. Interesting, I guess, but—" I was rudely side-butted out of my chair by Jan.

She grabbed the mouse, enlarged the picture in one spot, and whispered, "Bingo."

"Bingo? What do you see?"

Pointing to the screen, she drew some imaginary lines with her finger.

I leaned in, and now that she said it, there did seem to be a brownish area with rectangular patterns not found in nature. "You're right. An anomaly. Just what Chino taught us to look for last summer when we were searching for that wreck site."

"Field trip?"

"For sure."

Nacho had mounted the fifteen horsepower outboard on
Po Boy
, so I hooked it up to a red five-gallon gas container I'd filled back in La Paz before we left for Partida. My new nine-foot pangita was made from a mold originally designed by Malcolm Schroyer, a
gringo
credited with making the first fiberglass pangas in the Baja. I'd heard talk of this small panga, which was no longer in production. Not one to be put off when I want something badly enough, I tracked down the mold in a warehouse in La Paz and had a local panga factory make one just for me. And I wonder why I'm always broke?

I took my new snazzy dink for a test run, then returned for Jan and a very annoyed dog who, like me, hates being left behind.

After stowing a heavy duty fishing pole, my tackle box, a handheld radio in case we ran into trouble, and our life jackets aboard, we slowly motored out of the anchorage and then I opened
Po Boy
up. We were up on a plane on the smooth sea and whizzing along at a good thirty in no time. My new rig performed seamlessly. We reached the
bajo
using my handheld GPS coordinates and slowed to look for those anomalies we'd spotted on the photos.

One thing for sure, we were not going into the water to look for them when there were reports of murderous Red Devils—not that a nine-foot panga was much protection against a thirty-foot monster—but I wanted to get a feel for the area. And Jan had a plan for snagging one of whatever those brown things were down there.

Jan dug a huge treble hook out of my tackle box, and lowered it until it touched bottom, then reeled in. It came up clean.

"Rats. Try again," I said, "but look at that wind line out there." I pointed out to sea at the white ripples that had suddenly raised on the surface. "We'd better not stay out here long."

She gave the treble hook two more tries as I kept an eye on the seas, but no luck.

A gust hit us. "We gotta make tracks, Chica, here comes the wind. Matter of fact, we're gonna have to take the shortcut from the east side of the island. Hang on, team!"

Heading south with the wind and building seas at our back, my new pangita rode the chop like a champ, but we passengers got plenty wet. In no time we rounded into the cut and were completely, thankfully, protected from both wind and spray. The afternoon sun beat down on us and we quickly warmed up.

I'd traveled through the shallow, winding channel that cut between the two islands several times, but only at high tide, and I was riding with someone in a rubber inflatable at the time. Even then, there was no more than three feet of water in the deep spots.

The tide was going out fast and even though my new pangita had only a foot and a half draft, that was when unloaded. We were forced to get out of the boat and push and pull
Po Boy
through the cut.

Po Thang, Parque Nacional rules notwithstanding, ran freely back and forth on the sand, splashing across the shallow, narrow pass in front and behind us as Jan and I, shuffling our feet in hopes of not stepping on a stingray, pulled the heavy dinghy with two lines. I cringed every time Po Thang splashed into the water, hoping he didn't get nailed with a barb. It had happened twice before, and the time it takes to get to the boat and heat a pot of very hot water for his paw—thereby stopping his pain—is nerve-wracking for both of us. I was going to have to write a letter to the Reef Runner manufacturers about maybe making doggie versions.

Jan and I loudly hummed "The Song of the Volga Boatmen" and interspersed the only words we knew—"Yo, heave ho! Yo, heave ho!"—like the Russian barge haulers of bygone days. We also broke out into a lively version of "Chain Gang."

With a bare six inches or so of water under her hull,
Po Boy
occasionally grounded on a lump of sand and we'd have to rock the gunwales to break her free.

"I need a break," Jan declared. That sun didn't feel so grand anymore, and we were both fairly winded from slogging in the soft, wet sand bottom, pulling a barely afloat hundred and twenty-five pound dingy with a sixty-five pound outboard motor and thirty-five pounds of gasoline. "Can't we hook the danged dawg up and make
him
drag the boat?"

"He's a retriever, not a huskie. Besides, we're almost there. Put yer back into it me matey! Heave ho!"

"Yeah, well heave—hey, where's Nacho going, and why's he towing
Full Kilt Boogie
?

We watched as Nacho's boat, with Mac's sailboat in tow, slowly motored out of the anchorage and turned northward.

"Gee, Hetta, was it something you said?"

"Very funny. Wonder where they're off to? Not that I care, but neither one of them mentioned leaving. This is weird." I reached into the dinghy, pulled out a waterproof pouch and removed my handheld VHF radio. "
Nacho, Nacho
,
Po Boy
."

We waited. No reply.

"
Full Kilt Boogie
,
Po Boy
."

Nada.

"Okay, let's get this puppy into deeper water and go after them,"

Jan had her hands on her hips and was staring back at my dinghy. "Not unless you've got a shovel, Vladimir."

Po Boy
was sitting in a pool of water, but her bow chine was wedged in the sand in less than six inches of water. And, the tide definitely outgoing.

"I'll remove the gas tank while you unload anything else that'll come out easily. We may have to dismount the outboard, as well. Gimme your earrings."

"What? These earrings?" She fingered one of the bangles. "Chino gave me these. What do you want them for?"

"Cuz I don't wear earrings?" I held out my hand and she reluctantly handed over the big shiny gold hoops. "Po Thang! Here boy!"

Po Thang loped up to us and skidded to a halt with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and a silly grin on his face. He shared his coating of seawater laden sand with us and sat panting, waiting to see what was in the works.

"Hold his collar, Auntie Jan."

"Got him."

I dangled the earrings in front of his nose, just out of lunge distance. He almost pulled Jan off her feet, but she recovered and dug her heels in while I scooped a hole in the sand barrier entrapping our pangita, then buried the shiny treasures in it. 

"Hey! I see what you're up to, and you better hope it works, or you're gonna be digging out here until you find 'em again."

"Never fear. Let the beast go."

Po Thang pounced on the earring burial ground and began an excavation surely to end up in China. He quickly unearthed one earring and tried to run with it, but Jan was ready for him. She snagged his collar and buried her heels again, commanding him to "Sit! And leave it." He gingerly deposited the earring on the sand, Jan jammed it into her pocket, and he went back for the other one. Several repeats of the retrieval game, and he'd cut a channel just deep enough so we could pull the boat forward.