Long Voyage Back (13 page)

He climbed up on the foredeck and then up on to the wheelhouse roof, balancing uncertainly as Lucy Mae rhythmically hobbyhorsed through the water. There were dozens of boats in sight. He knew they were pouring down the Potomac from Washington and probably from the northern parts of the Bay too. Patiently he focused in on one distant boat after another. He hoped some emotional vibration would permit him to-recognize Vagabond even if it were only a white speck on the horizon. He got no hit. He saw nothing which registered.

As Lucy Mae motored due south and left more and more of Cobble Island behind to port Neil began to sweep the horizon off to the east-southeast. It might make a certain sense to get out of the tidal flow in Tangier Sound and into the quieter waters of Pocomoke Sound. He saw what appeared to be a sloop three or four miles off but almost nothing else. The only advantage Macklin might find there was that any boat approaching him out of the main channel would be highly suspicious. He stared hard at the sloop again and suddenly he saw it was Vagabond sailing without her mizzen sail.

`Hard to port,' he yelled down at the old fisherman, and leapt back on to the foredeck and then into the cockpit. Òur boat's at about east-southeast,' he said. Captain 01ly squinted through his dirty wheelhouse window and scowled.

'I'll take your word for it,' he said.

`Get these groceries out of sight, Frank,' Neil said. As Frank began to manoeuvre the trolley down below, Neil could see to his right a spectacular wash of red spreading across the horizon, the great grey mass from the explosion now an incongruously glorious red. Only the undersides of a few cumulus clouds were still touched with light, and then they too turned to pink. Lucy Mae chugged forward at only about six knots.

'You fellas got a plan?' the old man asked.

Neil and Frank looked at each other and when 011y saw that they hadn't he shook his head.

'You ain't got a plan,' he said, frowning at them like a disappointed father.

'If they're becalmed, we can offer to give them a tow,' Neil mused aloud.

'I don't think they's gonna be too trustful when they sees the men whose boat they just stole.'

'The two of us will hide below,' Neil went on. 'Captain, you offer them a tow or to sell them some food and bring Lucy Mae alongside the trimaran. Make one of them come aboard your boat to make their tow line fast or to check your food supplies. It'll be fairly dark by the time we overtake them. When one comes aboard Lucy Mae, I'll go out the forward hatch and rush the man still on Vagabond. You and Frank jump the man who's here on Lucy Mae.'

'Sounds good, sonny.'

'Can we go any faster?' Neil asked.

'Maybe, but those fellas may have binoculars; you fellas better lie low.'

'Frank,' Neil said, 'fix a large bag ofgroceries and leave it in sight. Store the rest in the cabin.'

Neil looked forward. The sun had set, but in the early twilight there was still sufficient visibility to permit them to see almost a mile. Lucy Mae chugged steadily east-southeast. Neil could no longer see Vagabond.

Ì don't see it,' Frank said from beside him.

`Where?' Neil asked urgently, misunderstanding what he'd said. Ì said I don't see anything,' Frank shouted at Neil. Cobble Island was still to their left and some shoals to their right and dead ahead .. .

`There she is!' Neil said, pointing, and there, barely visible a mile away in the dusk, its three hulls indicating it was probably going directly away from them, was Vagabond. Captain 01ly slowed his boat slightly and squinted forward. All three of them were straining forward in the dusk as Lucy Mae chugged ahead loudly.

'GET BELOW!' 01ly shouted, and just then the bright white flash of a spotlight from Vagabond swept over Lucy Mae.

Frank and Neil lowered their heads and scrambled forward into the little cabin. The old man opened up the throttle some to increase speed back to eight knots. He switched on his running lights.

`What are you going to do?' Neil shouted over the hammering of the engine. He was peering up at the old man from the cabin entrance.

`Same plan, sonny,' the captain yelled back and then motioned with his free hand for them to be quiet. That hand was trembling, and Captain 01ly's face was now pale. His lips were drawn back exposing his gums and his few remaining teeth, giving his face a slightly mad expression. He kept his little craft motoring steadily forward, and the strange three-hulled, insect-like trimaran grew glacially out of the darkness towards him. For ten minutes they motored thus, Neil and Frank straightening up the grocery mess below, Captain 01ly eventually singing softly to himself.

Àin't gonna sink her 'til the sun sets low,' he began in a low, sometimes cracking voice. '

Don't care how much the wind does blow, I got a few fishies still to stow, so . . . ain't gonna sink her 'til the sun sets low . . . AHOY SPACESHIP' he suddenly shouted and Neil took out his pistol and crawled forward to undo the forward hatch.

The Lucy Mae was only fifty feet behind and slightly to port of the slowly moving Vagabond when the old man hailed her. He slowed his ship slightly as he waited for an answer. There were two men in the unlit wheelhouse of the trimaran and one of them moved into the port cockpit.

`What do you want?' Jerry shouted.

`You fellas want me to give you a tow?' 01ly shouted back. 'Do it pretty cheap.' He slowed Lucy Mae so she was going at the same speed as the slowly sailing trimaran, now only thirty feet away.

Jerry turned back to the man at the helm. 'No thanks,' he finally shouted back.

`You fellas stay on this course and in another two minutes you'll run aground,' 01ly said amiably. The two men looked at each other and Macklin went forward to the instrument panel.

Òur depthmeter shows twelve feet of water,' he said loudly.

`Well, then, I reckon I must be ten feet tall,' the old fisherman said. "Cause I get in my high boots and go clammin' right here every Saturday low tide and four feet of me sticks outa the water.'

Macklin stared again at Vagabond's instrument panel. `Get the boat hook,' he ordered Jerry.

01ly slipped Lucy Mae's throttle forward and eased the boat slowly ahead against the tide and towards the port side of the big trimaran. It was almost dark.

`Careful of the sharks,' Captain 01ly suggested quietly.

`What sharks?' the young man who'd got the boat hook asked nervously as he approached the side of the trimaran to test the depth.

`School of small sharks feedin' here in the shoals. Better not put your hand too near the water.'

Lucy Mae was moving slowly ahead only a foot or two

from Vagabond. Jerry stood uncertainly with the boat hook and looked back at Macklin.

`You fellas sure you don't want me to give you a tow out of here? Only cost you fifty bucks an hour.'

`Who the hell are you?' Macklin burst out and turned the spotlight on, sweeping the length of the Lucy Mae and then holding steady for a moment on the old man.

`Cap'n Oliver Mann,' the old man answered, smiling a toothless grin up into the light. `

Cap'n 01ly, they calls me. Just an old geezer tryin' to earn a crooked buck. You want some Colombian pot? Or I can sell you this here bag of groceries cheap, too. Cost only forty.'

`That's twice what it must have cost,' Macklin barked back, turning off the spotlight.

`Cost yesterday,' the old man replied, still smiling. 'Price tripled today. Be eight times tomorrow, I reckon.' Lucy Mae bumped the side of Vagabond. 'Hold this line, will ya, young fella?' Captain 01ly went on and tossed a mooring line to the man with the boat hook, who instinctively grabbed it and made it fast to a cleat on the forepart of Vagabond's port cockpit.

`Let's see your groceries,' Macklin said, coming over to stand beside Jerry, his big gun clenched in his right hand.

Ìt's right here, sonny,' the old man said amiably, turning on his flashlight and pointing it at the big bag of groceries.

`Hand it up here and let's have a look,' Macklin said.

Ì ain't got enough strength in my back to lift a tea cup off a saucer,' Captain 01ly said. '

One of you young fellas have to come aboard and haul it out.'

`Hand it up here,' Macklin repeated.

Ì tell you, sonny, my back won't take it.'

Ì'll get it,' said Jerry.

`No,' said Macklin, suddenly shoving Jerry away from where he had begun to board Lucy Mae. 'There's something wrong about all this. Get the .22.'

`Suit yourself, fella,' Captain 01ly said indifferently,

switching off the flashlight and leaving everyone only barely visible in the darkness and the dim red glow of Vagabond's portside running light. 'I've made a lot of money today towing sailing boats. If you . .

`Raise your hands and climb up here,' Macklin snapped, crouching with his gun aimed at 01ly, his eyes flicking nervously over the length of the Lucy Mae. Jerry returned with Jim's .22 and stood beside Macklin.

`Now what you want me . . 01ly began protesting when the forward hatch cover clattered on to the foredeck. Macklin swung his gun and fired past Jerry, and two shots exploded from Neil's gun. Macklin and Jerry disappeared behind the coaming of the cockpit. After the three sudden explosions in the darkness, a silence descended on the two boats, which rocked gently side by side in the small, swells. Vagabond, left untended, began swinging up into the wind, her sails fluttering as they luffed.

`Jerry?' Macklin called hoarsely from the other side of the trimaran. The only answer was the rough hum of Lucy Mae's idling engine and the gentle slapping of the sails. For twenty seconds, then thirty, no one spoke. 01ly was crouched in his cockpit peering up at the vacant space where Macklin and Jerry had been standing. Neil stood with his head and shoulders out of the forehatch, his gun aimed at the wheelhouse entrance, which he could just make out in the darkness. A small stream of blood crept down his left arm -pierced by splinters from Lucy Mae's shattered hatch opening.

`Your friend's dead, sonny,' Captain 01ly finally shouted. `Better come over here and give up.'

The silence resumed. Neil, feeling certain he had hit Jerry, pulled himself quietly out on to Lucy Mae's deck and crawled over on to the foredeck of the trimaran; he felt Macklin must be in the opposite cockpit. He crawled swiftly across Vagabond's entire width forward of the cabins and

crouched on the foredeck on the opposite side from Lucy Mae. Oily had felt his boat rock as Neil's weight shifted to Vagabond so he called out again to draw Macklin's attention.

`We got four men here with automatic rifles, sonny,' he shouted. 'Better get on over here with your hands held high.'

Macklin again didn't respond. Peering aft, Neil couldn't see any dim bulk crouched in the starboard cockpit as he had expected. Macklin must be close to Frank's cabin hatchway. He wondered where Jim and Jeanne were. If Macklin were to take them as hostages they were in trouble, but even so he didn't dare risk his life now by rushing him. He crouched and waited to see the effect of the old fisherman's propaganda campaign.

`Three to one, ain't good odds, sonny,' 01ly's high-pitched voice called out through the darkness. 'If you're not over here in the next minute we're going to come after you.'

Neil could still see no sign of Macklin and suddenly had the unnerving conviction that Macklin wasn't there, that he, Neil, had again miscalculated. He glanced down behind him into the water, then to the other cockpit, but nothing moved. He strained his vision again to see some sign of Macklin in the starboard cockpit, strained his ears to pick up the slightest movement.

'I surrender.'

The words, spoken quietly, reached Neil from the area he'd been so desperately searching. Ì'm throwing my gun across the top of the cabin,' Macklin continued. Something clattered across the cabin top.

`Come over here with your hands behind your head,' 01ly shouted. A flashlight suddenly lit the wheelhouse from Lucy Mae's cockpit. Macklin abruptly appeared in the light, his empty hands behind his head, moving slowly. He had to step over something before emerging into the centre of 01ly's light in the cockpit near the Lucy Mae. As Neil glided over the cabin tops Frank came up over Vagabond's coaming and picked up the .22.

`We've got him, Neil,' he called, holding the .22 on Macklin. When Neil arrived he saw Frank and Macklin staring down at Jerry, who lay in a pool of blood, his open eyes fixed.

Ì told him not to do it,' Macklin said quietly. Tut he said you were going to kick us off.'

Frank and Neil stared at him.

Ì got that puller tool you asked for,' he said to Neil. As Frank broke away to throw back the port hatch to search for Jeanne, Neil watched Macklin.

Àre any of our people hurt?' he asked coldly. `Your people are all a lot healthier than Jerry.' `They'd better be,' said Neil and, as he heard Jeanne's voice, he began to feel relief: Vagabond was again theirs.

17

An hour and a half later Vagabond lay at anchor, Lucy Mae still tied to her port side. After the initial exhilaration and relief of being reunited, those aboard were in various states of disorientation and exhaustion. Jeanne, Jim and Lisa had all been hurt resisting the taking of Vagabond, and Neil during its rescue. Jim had bruised ribs, a bloody nose and cut and sore wrists where they had bound him. Jeanne's left cheek had a swollen and bluish bruise where Macklin had hit her when she'd tried to help Jim. When Lisa had begun pounding on Macklin's back, Jerry had struck her on the side of the head with the butt of his gun. Neil had a two-inch long, half-inch wide wood sliver lodged in his left arm. Conrad Macklin had examined Lisa's head right after her injury and again when Vagabond had been sailing away and told Jeanne that Lisa probably had a minor concussion but no fracture. He offered now to pull the splinters from Neil's arm, but after first refusing, Neil soon concluded that Jeanne and Frank were being too gentle in their probes. He finally let Macklin coolly butcher the splinters out. Later, after tying Macklin's hands behind him and to the mizzen mast and placing Jim as guard, they buried Jerry at sea. Jeanne came up on deck and saw Neil, Frank and 01ly standing in the dim light of the wheelhouse with Neil reading in a low voice from the Bible. She stood momentarily mesmerized by the weird scene, continuing on when Neil stopped reading and he and 01ly lifted the body up and slid it overboard. The whole experience was so unreal, so disconnected from her previous life, that she staggered down the steps to the main cabin for the reassuring sight of pots, pans, a kitchen - anything to erase the horror of those three dim figures in the cockpit, like warlocks chanting some imprecation, and then throwing a body into the sea. She prepared coffee not because anyone had asked her to but to ground herself, to reestablish everyday reality. When Frank came down he looked concernedly at Jeanne and came over to take her in his arms again. His white sports shirt was sweat-stained and grimy, his grey hair wet with sweat. He had embraced her after the initial rescue and she had clung to him as a brother or father, a haven in the insane chaos that was raining upon her.