Landfall: Islands in the Aftermath (The Pulse Series Book 4) (16 page)

As she lay there crying, with these thoughts running through her head, she could tell by the motion and the sounds that the boat was sailing at a steady speed, taking her far away from those who loved her and could help her. The light streaming in through the Lexan hatch and ports eventually changed to the reddish color that told her it was nearly sunset, and finally Russell stopped the boat, taking the sails down to let it drift. She knew he was eating because he’d offered her food, but she didn’t want anything from him. Darkness fell and he started the engine, even though she told him that Larry said it was broken.
 

It seemed to be running fine anyway, and the longer she heard its relentless throbbing, pushing the boat on and on into the night, the more desperate she became. How would anyone ever find her now? If the motor kept working, Russell could take her so far away they wouldn’t even know where to look. Rebecca decided right then and there that she had to do something to save herself. She couldn’t depend on Captain Larry to do it this time. She knew that what she had to do was take the boat back from this pirate who’d stolen it. She thought and thought as she lay there, coming up with all kinds of crazy schemes, but none of them seemed possible. As the hours passed, she finally had to go to the bathroom so bad that when Russell shut the engine off to sail for a while, she begged him to open the door so she could. After all her thinking and planning, the best idea that she could come up with was to simply trick him into thinking she would go along with him. It was the only way, as she was simply too small to fight him and overpower him, even if he didn’t have the gun he’d fired to make her mom and them turn back. She would play along, pretending to accept her fate, and when the time was right, she would do what she had to do.

Twenty

S
CULLY
HAD
KEPT
A
reef in
Intrepida’s
mainsail through the night, even long after the thunderstorms that had given them a thrashing had cleared out the wind dropped. The boat was slow even under full sail, but he wanted to sail slower still as they neared the dark coast of Andros Island in the dark. There were plenty of shoals and reefs close to the island to worry about, so he was content to sail at four knots until daybreak. Thomas was asleep on the leeward cockpit bench and Mindy was curled up down below. Both of them had been terrified during the storms, but after the weather passed their worries went away and getting no sleep the previous night when they were attacked, they both passed out in a deep slumber.
 

Scully watched the kayak trailing behind on the towline as he sat there at the helm, fighting his own drowsiness. Looking at it clipping along in the wake, he knew that if he were paddling he would be going even slower than this little 17-footer under reduced sail. He would not have been able to take a break of any length while crossing the Gulf Stream current and he would likely be completely exhausted by the time he made it to this side, if he ever did. It was a good decision to help the American couple, saving him from a major expedition he might not survive.
 

When dawn came and the coast of Andros was in sight, Scully’s next task was figuring out exactly what part of the huge island he was looking at. Andros stretched nearly a hundred miles from north to south, but the convoluted shoreline and its shallow bights that cut across it made for many more hundreds of miles of coastline. As he spread Thomas’ Bahamas chart book out in the cockpit and studied the area, Scully considered all the feasible routes. According to what Larry had said, it was even possible to cut across the big island by sailing the bights, if one had a shallow draft boat such as the
Casey Nicole
or
Intrepida
. But as tempting as such a short cut might be, Scully didn’t think it was worth the risk. The creeks and estuaries were mostly uninhabited, but there were small villages that such a route would take them quite close to. And he knew that many islanders by now might have relocated to isolated places like the bights to find better fishing and safety from the violence that now pervaded human settlements both large and small.
 

That left the other two options: going north, in the direction away from where they needed to go to sail around that end of Andros to reach the established routes that led down island, or following the coastline south until they were clear of it and then beating to weather to make the required southeasterly heading. Looking at the chart, Scully could see that either way would require extensive sailing to weather, it was just a matter of where they were starting from that would determine which made more sense.
 

He closed on the coast while comparing what saw before him to the charts, and then after finding a channel marker to confirm it, determined their position to be just south of Gold Cay, the westernmost point of the island. They had done well on the crossing and managed to avoid being swept farther north than necessary. Thomas woke as Scully sailed closer to land, the morning sun on his face becoming too bright and too warm to ignore any longer. Mindy soon came on deck as well, and both of them were visibly thrilled to be in the Bahamas and close to land.

“So that’s Andros?”
 

“Yes, mon. Biggest island in all de Bahamas.”

“There’s nothing there,” Mindy said.

“I’ve heard it’s mostly wild,” Thomas said, “just a few small settlements, but nothing like the more popular tourist islands over here.”
 

“It might be a safe place to stay for a while then. Look how clear the water is here! It’s amazing! Even clearer than it was at the Dry Tortugas. I’ll bet there’s plenty of fish to catch!”

“De fishin’ good all in de Bahamas.” Scully said.
 

“Then if we could find a good little hidden place to anchor, we
could
stay!”
 

“You know we can’t do that, Mindy. We promised Scully we’d give him a ride to the Jumentos Cays in exchange for helping us get to the islands.”

Scully studied Mindy’s face as she considered this. He didn’t know if she was having serious second thoughts or not. If so, he would gladly leave them here if that’s what they wanted and go on in the kayak. It was still a long way to the Jumentos, but he was closer now than he was before he met them. He could make it, he was sure, but he was glad it didn’t come to that.

“No, I know we can’t really stay. Of course we have to take Scully where we promised. It’s just wishful thinking, that’s all. It’s so beautiful here, and I was so scared out there in those storms yesterday. I just want to be somewhere quiet and peaceful like this.”

“It’s gonna be de same where we goin’, and maybe better. Dat Larry he know de best place in de island to go. Not to worry so much.”

“So how do we get there from here?” Thomas wanted to know.

Scully pointed out where they were on the chart and then showed him and Mindy the options. He said he thought it made sense to turn south and follow the coast as closely as they could. They would be sailing in mostly smooth waters in the lee of the island, but far enough out to avoid the shallows and to find a good breeze. They could roughly parallel the coast until they cleared the south end and then it would be an open water passage across the banks to the Jumentos.
 

* * *

Because of its shallow draft and small size, the Montgomery 17 was the perfect vessel in which to sail down west coast of Andros. Twice along the way, they entered into shallow tidal estuaries where there was nothing around them but sand and scrub forest. These remote anchorages made it possible to catch up on their sleep, and each evening they caught enough fish to have a filling meal on the beach. Although there was no sign of human presence, Scully slept in the cockpit with the AK-47 in easy reach.
 

During the daylight hours as they sailed the length of the island, they saw several small boats in the distance, most powered by sails or small outboards. Scully could tell they were local native craft, and according to Larry, the inhabitants of Andros had a reputation as skilled wooden boat builders. The people in the boats they saw were all occupied with fishing; none of them seemed threatening, but Scully steered well clear of them all so that they had no close encounters.
 

The last evening before they set sail from the southern tip of the island for the crossing to the Jumentos, Thomas told Scully he’d been thinking about the guns and that he wanted to learn how to shoot them. They were cooking fish on a barren little cay close to the boat, and Scully felt quite sure they were alone, so he agreed that it was a good idea. He took stock of what little ammo they had. He’d fired three rounds from the AK, so he knew he had 27 more in the single magazine that was the only one he’d been carrying when he got separated from the
Casey Nicole.
The two men who’d attacked Thomas and Mindy had even less between them, and their weapons were in rough condition. But since Thomas was genuinely interested in learning, Scully cleaned them as best he could. The pistol was a 9mm semi-automatic with the name Hi-Point etched on the slide. Scully had never heard of the make but it looked and felt cheap and was certainly no Glock or Colt. The magazine held only 10 rounds, but it was full, as he had killed the owner before he had a chance to use it on his intended victims. The other gun that had fallen into the water when he shot the second man was a lever-action hunting rifle made by Marlin. Unlike the pistol-caliber Winchester that Grant had used so effectively on Cat Island, this one used a rifle cartridge in the .30-.30 caliber. Scully knew it was an old and effective round, but because of the longer cartridges the built-in magazine’s capacity was only five rounds. Both of the weapons were rusty due to exposure to salt air. The complete dunking of the Marlin in seawater made it worse than the pistol, but they would both still function, at least for a while. Scully didn’t have much use for either of them as long as he had the AK, so he eventually planned to give them both to Thomas and Mindy anyway, especially if he found his friends. There were plenty of weapons and ammo aboard the
Casey Nicole
.
 

Scully first showed the young couple how to load all three weapons and how the safety mechanisms for each worked. Then he instructed them on how to hold and aim each of the rifles and the pistol. With so little ammunition available, they of course could not learn and practice shooting skills through the use of live fire. He compromised by allowing Thomas one shot with the 9mm pistol and then one round for each of them from the AK.

“That’s awesome!” Thomas exclaimed when he saw what the rifle round did to a chunk of driftwood that he was able to hit on his first try. “I wish we had two more of these,” he said, handing the AK back to Scully.

“Dat Thirty-thirty hit de same, mon. Just can’t waste de shot. Only five, but if you aim true, dat’s five bad guy givin’ you no mo’ problem!”
 

“Thank you for showing us,” Scully. “I hope we’ll never need to shoot anybody where we’re going. I hope we’ve seen the last of the bad guys,” Mindy said.
 

Scully said nothing. He would give them the guns when he left them, and that was all he could do. Maybe they would be of help in their survival, or maybe they would not. The guns might even get them killed sooner, but that was out of his hands.

They left early the next day, after Scully worked out a course and planned the passage so they could avoid bashing hard into the wind the whole way. His course took them far to the south in the direction of Cuba, and once they’d reached the latitude of the northern end of the Jumentos, they came about to the starboard tack and sailed that course directly to landfall. This route nearly doubled their total passage distance, but
Intrepida
was close-winded enough to make it possible. After 30 hours at sea, Scully heard the sound of breaking surf in the dark and knew they were near land once again. He sailed away to the north a bit and hove-to until dawn, then they returned to a long line of reefs through which he found a pass a few miles northeast of a tiny cay they could barely see in the distance.

“There’s
nothing
here, is there?” Thomas observed as they turned to the southwest to sail in the direction of the deserted cay.
 

From what he could tell on the chart, Scully figured they were looking at one of the many little cays in the Jumentos that were only a few feet above sea level. There were bigger ones that were more what Larry had in mind when he described them, but even more of these little ones spaced here and there in between. Most, like this first one they’d come to, would have nowhere that a normal-sized cruising boat could anchor, but even so might provide enough protection for them to drop
Intrepida’s
hook and get a few hours of rest. After they caught up on their sleep, they would explore more of the island chain, checking all of the possible hideouts where the
Sarah J.
and the
Casey Nicole
might be holed up. Scully was sure they would find them. It had only been a little over a week since he’d been stranded on Cape Sable, so he wasn’t really that long overdue and maybe not that far behind the
Casey Nicole
, if Artie and Grant and Jessica had managed to find their way all the way out here. And if they hadn’t, Larry would be waiting for them as well, and surely they would find him. Scully knew his friend had to be stressed because of the separation of the two boats. He was the one who’d made the decision to sail with the woman and her daughter on the monohull, so he had to feel that it was his fault. But things were going to be better soon. If Scully found Larry before Artie did, he could tell him what happened and they would at least know where to start looking if the
Casey Nicole
didn’t show up soon. But he was confident that wasn’t the case. As soon as he and Thomas and Mindy got a little rest, they would set sail again and soon find all of his friends. Scully was sure of it.

Twenty-one