Long Voyage Back (12 page)

`You can't come in this way,' the young man said.

Neil pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and held it out to the clerk. Ì'd like to go in and do a little shopping for my family,' he said casually. The boy squinted at the bill, grimaced and shook his head. Ì just can't do it,' he said. 'The manager would know.' Neil let the hundred flutter to the ground and pulled out his gun.

`Tell the manager I pulled a gun on you but that I promised to pay double for all my food.'

Neil pushed past him, restoring his gun to his pants, and entered the back of the supermarket.

Inside was frenzied order: it was a normal supermarket except that people were all moving twice as fast as usual and their trolleys were twice as full. The shelves were three-quarters empty. The room was noticeably unlit, the usual harsh glitter of a supermarket absent. Neil looked back at the aproned clerk - whom he noticed pocketing something, presumably the hundred - and patted his waist where the gun was. The boy smirked uneasily.

Neil took an empty metal trolley and, putting in the bag of fishing gear, entered the fray. He knew he'd have to take what he could get. Which wasn't much. He found six cans of pears in syrup and eight cans of mixed fruit: that was all that was left in the canned fruit section.

In the dried fruit section he was luckier. Since dried fruit was ridiculously expensive and not that necessary except to a starving man, there was a lot left. Neil took it all. There was still dried noodles and spaghetti and he threw a bunch of that in. A large bag of potatoes. Frozen and refrigerated foods he avoided and with that thought he became aware that Crisfield had no electricity. He wondered how much of the rest of the world also lacked it. There were dried crackers left and he grabbed some, but all the canned meats were gone.

Forty minutes later, his trolley overflowing, Neil headed again for the back door. There was now a man standing beside it with a rifle held awkwardly with its butt on the floor. Neil took out all of the rest of his money, a hundred and sixty dollars, and held it out. .

`To save time I'd like to leave this back way,' he said. `Here's what I owe plus a tip.'

`What's the trouble, Calvin?' a man asked, coming up behind Neil.

`He wants to leave the back way,' said Calvin.

`Here's more than enough money to cover my purchases,' said Neil.

`How much money you got?'

À hundred and sixty dollars,' Neil said, handing it to him.

`Shit, mister,' the manager said, taking the money. 'This don't cover much more than half what you've got there. Our prices are triple.'

`Then I'll go to my boat and bring back more money.' `You do that.'

Neil pulled out his gun and pointed it at the belly of the man with the rifle. Ì'll take my food with me now, though,' Neil said. `Won't I?' he asked the manager sharply.

`Let him go,' the manager said, backing away.

And Neil left.

As he pushed the trolley across the bumpy backlot of the supermarket he felt relief. The food situation had been his greatest worry. Now, although what he'd bought normally wouldn't last six people more than a week at the most, rationed it might go a month. He'd even brought a large container of dog food for the meat content for humans. He picked up speed when he hit the smoother sidewalk of the main street. It was almost five o'clock, and if Macklin had obtained the puller, he could start work on the propeller shaft before Frank got back. If Frank got back.

When he came around the corner to head to the dock Neil stopped. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Ahead of him was the fishing trawler Lucky Emerald, and in front of it was nothing. Vagabond was gone.

16

Abandoning the food cart in the parking lot Neil ran to the edge of the dock, his eyes searching the water for the trimaran. It wasn't in sight. Even while the dread in his stomach told him the boat had been pirated he tried to think of why else it might have been moved. Frank had returned and taken it to a boat yard . . . But they would have left someone to tell him, and as he let his eyes search up and down along the docks he saw no sign of either Vagabond or a member of its crew.

He needed a boat he could use to give chase. But chase where?

Àhoy, Lucky Emerald!' he shouted at the trawler. A big, red-faced man came to the door of the deckhouse and looked down.

`What happened to the trimaran?' he shouted up.

The man looked to where Vagabond had been, then out into the bay.

`Sailed out of here close to an hour ago,' he said. `Was there any trouble aboard?'

`Not that I saw.'

`Where'd she head?'

The man stroked his chin and scowled.

`Southwest,' he said. 'Out the main channel.'

`Have you got a small boat I can borrow to give chase? Neil asked. 'My boat's been stolen.'

The man shook his head.

Neil went back to his food trolley and wheeled it up to the dock next to the Lucky Emerald.

`Keep an eye on this for me,' he shouted up and went to

find a boat. Macklin had pirated Vagabond. Neil raged at his own stupidity. He'd assumed Macklin wasn't a sailor and wouldn't try anything with a motorless sailing boat, but if he found a puller he may have felt he should take Vagabond while the taking was good. Poor Jim.

Over the next forty minutes Neil went down the docks and to two marinas trying to buy, borrow or steal some craft with which he could pursue his trimaran. No one would help him. Twice he was turned away by someone with a gun. After he'd gone to the last dock in the village he turned back in fury. He stopped a young man walking along carrying a fuel tank and asked him for help but got another `Sorry, fellow.' On the street again, a police car came towards him with its siren wailing and Neil tried to wave it down. It whizzed past.

At the dock where Vagabond had been tied he saw Frank standing with his hands in his pockets staring dull-eyed out at the water.

`Frank!' he called.

`Where are you hiding Vagabond?' Frank asked with a puzzled frown as Neil came up to him.

`She's gone, Frank,' he answered. 'Stolen. Close to two hours ago.'

Frank's already tired face looked stunned.

`Wh ... what?'

`Two men, I think,' he went on. 'And as far as I know Jim and Jeanne Forester and her children are still aboard.'

`Stolen?' Frank repeated, looking bewildered. He walked past Neil to the edge of the dock to look out the channel towards the bay. Several gulls circled behind a small runabout but there was no sign of Vagabond.

`We've got to get a fast boat and catch Vagabond before she gets too far down the bay,'

Neil said to him.

Frank looked at Neil with glazed eyes and didn't reply. He hadn't shaved and looked haggard. He turned back to the water.

'If Vagabond gets too far away there's no hope for any of us,' Neil persisted. 'I can't get through to the Coast Guard by phone. We've probably got to get Vagabond ourselves. In another few hours everything will be lost.'

Neil saw that Frank was in shock and he felt a similar helplessness beginning to flood his own body. A small fishing smack putted slowly by along the channel and the little old man standing stiffly at the wheel looked at Neil and smiled and winked. Neil, engrossed, didn't register anything at first and then came alive.

`Hey, captain! Ahoy there!' he shouted, and ran to the edge of the dock. The old man was facing forward again and Neil thought he must not have heard. He felt his shoulders slump, but the fishing smack abruptly swung left away from them and kept circling until it was motoring back to. the dock. As Neil watched and Frank came up beside him, the boat, the Lucy Mae, angled into the dock.

`That boat's too slow,' Frank said.

`Not with this light wind and rising tide,' Neil answered and watched as the Lucy Mae coasted forward, banging first one piling and then the next, and being stopped inches short of the Lucky Emerald only by the old fisherman's wrapping a line around a piling.

`Pretty neat, huh?' the bald old man on the Lucy Mae said, smiting a big grin. 'Ain't got no reverse. Makes docking a challenge. Help you, Cap?'

`Yes,' Neil said quickly. 'Pirates stole our trimaran about two hours ago and kidnapped four of our people, including a woman, two children.'

`You own that big three engine spaceship?' the old man interrupted.

`Yes.'

`Saw her sailing out of here about four-thirty,' the old man said. 'Thought I'd got trapped in a Star Wars movie. Nice ship though, if you don't mind looking like you just got in from Mars. When I ....'

Òur ship was stolen,' Neil interjected. 'We'd like your help.'

`You mean chase the pirates?' the old man asked, scowling.

`Just help us locate them,' Neil said. 'That's all.' Ì'll pay you five thousand dollars,'

Frank said.

`These fellas got guns?' the old man asked, squinting up at Neil.

`Yes, but . .

Ànd you want me to take you in the Lucy Mae and go poking around after them?'

`Yes,' said Neil. Tut we . .

`Well, git aboard,' the man said. 'Sun's gonna be settin' pretty soon and I don't see so good at night.' With a flip of his wrist he released the line from the piling and went back to his engine controls. Frank stood doubtfully on the dock but Neil rushed away to get the groceries aboard.

When he was back at the edge of the dock he lifted the whole trolley and lowered it to Frank in Lucy Mae's cockpit. Frank couldn't quite handle all the weight and the trolley smashed down on to the deck and tipped over, the groceries spilling out like a load of dead fish. Neil leapt aboard.

`Let's go, Cap,' he said.

`Push out my bow there, sonny,' the old fisherman said to Frank, 'so my bowsprit don't go and goose Lucky Emerald. Cap'n Rivers is partic'lar who gooses her.'

Frank pushed out the bow, the old man shoved the gear into forward, and the old smack putted noisily forward, swinging round to head out towards the bay. Ì don't have the five thousand dollars, uh, easily at hand,' Frank said into the ear of the old man, Captain 01ly, almost having to shout over the noise of the engine. Ì don't want no money, Cap,' 01ly said. 'I ain't had a chance to get involved with pirates since . . . back in seventy-four I think it was . .

He turned the Lucy Mae a little to starboard to follow the channel to the open bay. 'And then the pirate was me.' Neil began picking up the rolling food cans and other groceries and righting the trolley.

`What you fellas think of this war?' Olly went on. to Frank, who stared back at him dumbly.

'I sort of like it,' the old man said. 'Hell, I was planning to die this year anyway what with depression and gall bladders and all, but this here war makes everything interesting again.'

`My wife may have been killed in this interesting war,' Frank shouted in angry reply.

`Well, I figure there were four or five million other wives killed today,' the old man countered. 'Probably two or three of mine. Still, nothing beats being alive now, does it?'

Frank looked at the grinning, grotesque face in stunned silence.

`You fellas got any idea where these pirates are headed?' he asked amiably.

`No,' Neil replied sharply. Tut we've got to assume they're heading south.' 01ly nodded.

`How fast will this thing go?' Neil shouted. Frank was standing off to the right scanning the horizon for a sight of Vagabond. There was a big motor yacht anchored off to port and several runabouts within sight, but no Vagabond.

`She'll do eight knots in the morning,' the old man shouted back, 'but in the late afternoon she gets a little pooped.'

`How much fuel?'

`Ten hours worth. With you big fellas aboard maybe only eight.'

As they churned out the channel from Crisfield, there was a large low island to their left which blocked their view to the south, and Neil strained impatiently for them to be past.

`Do you have binoculars aboard?' Neil asked.

"Fraid not,' the captain replied. 'Don't need glasses to see fish.'

Neil had been gauging the wind and tide and could feel hope rising. The tide was coming in and thus Vagabond would be bucking it if she headed south. The wind, still light, was out of the north so it wasn't much help to them either. Would they try to hide in a cove or inlet to repair the shaft? Would they sail between Tangier and Smith Islands to get into the main part of the bay? He thought of his own tactics if he were Macklin and decided he'd just head south as fast as possible. They could work on the shaft while sailing and if they were to be attacked by someone trying to re-take the boat the further out in the water they were the easier it would be to see any approaching enemy. He took out his pistol and examined it to see if it had been damaged by the salt water. He removed the clip, cleaned it and put it back in. There were five bullets. He hesitated, sighted on a drifting piece of styrofoam and pulled the trigger. The gun 'banged' and the styrofoam shattered.

`You have any weapons aboard?' Neil asked the old man.

`What?' Captain Olly said, cupping his ear.

`Weapons! You got weapons aboard?' Neil shouted. `Gaff. Boathook. Two knives. A harpoon. I mostly hunt fish.'

`Hey, there's water coming in over your cabin sole,'Frank shouted from the entrance to the little cabin forward. He looked back at the captain and Neil in alarm.

`Well, if it worries you,' the old man answered, 'you can exercise that pump there you got your right hand on. I don't generally pump until my bait box floats aft. You know how to pump?'

Frank saw that he had his hand on an old-fashioned manual bilge pump and without replying he began pulling it up and pushing it down.

`You spaceship pilots don't get much chance to pump bilges I 'spect,' the old man said to Neil with a grin. 'But it

keeps the body in trim, it does, 'specially in a gale when you figure you're two inches from havin' more water inside your boat than out.'

They had emerged past the island to port and Neil searched the sea horizon to the south. He estimated that Vagabond could be making only four or five knots through the water, and they were being headed by a knot and a half tide. In two hours they would thus have at the maximum a five or six mile lead. With binoculars he could see that far. With the naked eye . . .