The Pandora Box (22 page)

“We all do, ever since this blowup about the journal. It’s turned the whole trip depressing.”

“Not like him. If you ask me, I think he’s got all the symptoms of a manic depressant. Bi-polar, I think they call it these days. And maybe he wasn’t on the Wyngate staff at all, Dee. Maybe he was a patient.”

“Marion! Oh, don’t say another word!” Dee pulled the collar of her jogging suit against her neck at the chilling thought.

“That’s the way they are, you know. They go to extremes. And I’m telling you, Dee, when I saw the way he grabbed you up that day and carried you off like some caveman...”

“He was just upset.”

“Upset,” she clarified, “is when you say, honey, I wrecked the car, and he maybe puts his fist through a door. But going after a person like that and then sulking about it for three weeks, making the rest of us miserable...that calls for psychiatric help. They get progressively violent, you know.”

“He didn’t hurt me, Marion.”

“He did something. I’ve never seen you so upset before.”

“I was just emotional, because he got to me somehow.” She looked her friend in the eye. “I love him.”

“Dee Parker! I can’t believe what I’m hearing! There’s thousands of wonderful, eligible men in the world without having to consider someone like Wayne Hawkins!”

“He reminds me of my brothers.”

“Oh, gads. Someone to fight with and go on adventures. That’s fine for kids, Dee, but there’s no place in the modern adult world for that kind of life. You wouldn’t want it if there was.”

“I’m not so sure I wouldn’t.”

“It’s like the movies.” She hung her damp clothing on a peg behind the door, to dry. “Great fun and excitement to watch from the safety of your seat, but hair-raising horror to live through in real life.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Dee ran a hand through her tangled hair. “I’ve never felt like this about anybody before. Not like this. It’s all so disturbing!”

“I know what to do. We pull this boat over, get off in Tokyo, and take the first plane back to the States. That’s what we do.”

“And leave the boat and diamonds all to them? Marion, you can’t be serious! If we stick it out we could be set for life. Just imagine the good we could do.”

“I’m deadly serious. And what good is set for life if you’re dead?”

“Dead?”

“Yes, dead. This infatuation is clouding your judgment, Dee. I’ve never known you to be so naive.”

“Whatever Wayne Hawkins is,” she declared, “he is not a murderer! He’s just been in a tailspin because he thinks I betrayed him. That I’m a rotten Christian even though I act like I’m not.

“A rotten Christian? I’ve never known anyone as dedicated as you, how could he say that?”

“It’s just like my father always said, Mare. People judge you more by what you do than what you say. And I’ve never made such a mess in my whole life.”

“You can’t save everyone. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“But he’s so miserable. Do you think he’ll get over it?”

“Oh, he’ll get over it. He’ll be all charm and sweetness getting over it. Next thing you know, he’ll sweep you right off your feet. But it’s a mood swing, Dee, and he’s only interested in you because you’re here and he’s…an over-sexed male! I hope you remember that. People with his kind of problem seem to need constant reinforcement from others. Whether it’s approval of their behavior or a warm companion to sleep with.”

“Marion, for heaven’s sake!”

“I’m just being frank. Because even after the despicable way he treated you, you seem to be too starry eyed to see it.”

“We can’t assume he has mental problems just because he…” Dee looked out the porthole and was startled at how turbulent the slate gray sea was beginning to look. At the same time, she could hear in her mind Starr’s hushed voice quoting, “When he’s good, he’s very very good, but when he’s bad...”

The thought was so disturbing it made her shudder.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Marion said. “But he was either on staff at Wyngate or a patient. There’s no other way to explain this blanket being here. That he would be so blatant as to come right out and give it to me is downright frightening!”

“Maybe he didn’t know it was a Wyngate blanket,” Dee suggested. “Maybe Nels brought it aboard. On a visit or something.”

“I thought Peterson told you he hadn’t been out of that hospital in almost five years.”

“He did.”

“Then I’d say that pretty much rules out Peterson. So I for one intend to be on my guard at all times. You’ve given him all the papers now, and he hasn’t said one word about it since. Not one word, Dee. That’s because we’re not needed anymore. Next thing you know...” She began to smooth cold cream over her face. “There’s going to be an accident.”

27

The Accident

“I went in very bravely and took my place on the captain’s left…”
~
Nellie Bly

It was not the same as the rough weather they had encountered off the Oregon coast. This was a surging, full-blown gale. It kicked waves up to thirty feet that sent
Pandora
crashing and pounding over seas that buried her under tons of water half the time and left her groaning and shuddering the rest.

No amount of reefing sails or adjusting the rigging could stabilize her. The self-steering gear could not function in such erratic weather, and watches had to be reduced to two hours on and two off, around the clock. Nobody stayed on deck alone. Each person kept their safety lines on above and below decks to avoid the danger of being swept overboard by some random wave while trying to clip one on in the tossing cockpit.

Any lingering disputes among
Pandora’s
crew, melted before the face of such grueling work and harrowing seas. The storm was unrelenting. For a day and a half they got little sleep, lived off damp sandwiches and coffee, and were hard pressed to stay dry.

Hawk was an unyielding taskmaster whose word went undisputed, even though he sometimes seemed to ask the impossible.

If anyone lay down to rest it was only on one of the settees in the main salon. They wedged themselves, fully clothed, between the table and the bulkhead to keep from being thrown to the floor with the violent motion.

Starr was as steady and comforting as a dependable giant, whose sheer strength pulled them through time and again. He seemed less unnerved than Dee and Marion and had great confidence that Hawk’s judgment would see them through.

Marion and Dee did their best at whatever tasks they were given and in spite of their fears, worked tirelessly right along with the men. They learned to make sandwiches and coffee in the pitching roller-coaster galley, and they could handle every chore on deck but steering, which they could only manage for brief intervals. Neither of them had enough strength or endurance, yet, to hold the wheel steady against the pounding seas for any length of time.

So it was that toward the end of the storm’s second day, Dee was roused out of a fitful sleep by Starr as he thundered past her through the salon and up the companionway ladder in two bounds. By the time she reached the decks herself, he was already hauling an unconscious Marion aboard by her safety line, hand over hand.

Hawk hadn’t moved from the wheel.

“What happened?” she cried against the wind. “Hawk—she’s bleeding!”

“One of the stays broke loose and I had to jibe.” he shouted back. “I yelled at her, but she didn’t move fast enough. The boom knocked her overboard.”

“Marion!” Dee helped Starr carry her down below, where they laid her out on the floor. “Marion!”

“Get a flashlight,” he said, “and the first aid kit from under the steps there. I think I saw a pretty bad gash in her forehead when I pulled her aboard.”

Dee reached for the flashlight that was always at the navigation table and used it to peer into the step-locker for the first aid kit. By the time she brought it back,

Starr already had Marion’s knit hat off and jacket unbuttoned.

Dee pointed the light beam at her.

“Holy fright!” he stared at the gaping wound that shown back from the middle of Marion’s forehead like an extra eye.

“I can’t put a bandage on that! That’s a hole the size of a blasted —”

“Apply pressure!” Dee rummaged through the box for a gauze pad with her free hand. “Here, hold this on there!”

“You hold it on there.” He got to his feet. “I’m gonna go take the wheel so Hawk can come down here. He’s the medic.”

The words chilled Dee to the bone.

A few minutes later, Hawk grabbed the hatch cover and swung himself down through the companionway, finding it easier to drop the seven feet than try to keep his foothold on the slippery ladder. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He took the flashlight from Dee and knelt down beside her. He lifted her hand away along with the gauze to look.

“It won’t stop bleeding!” The rising dread she could feel in the pit of her stomach nearly made her ill. “And she’s out cold!”

“Well… it can’t wait.” He replaced her hand even though the gauze was already soaked in blood. “It’s going to be a bear of a job under these conditions. Think you can help? Or are you going to be like Starr and crap out on me?”

“Of course I’ll help. She’s my dearest friend! I’ll do whatever I can.”

“OK. You just hold on there until I get some things.”

Hawk closed the main hatch so no light would spill out onto the decks to mar Starr’s vision when he turned them on. It was imperative that his capable friend be able to adjust their course to accommodate the dangerous swells, and to do so, he had to be able to see them before they were on top of
Pandora
. Then, a few moments after he disappeared down the aft companionway, the engine roared to life and the cabin lights came on to their full brightness. For weeks now, they had been letting the charge dwindle in an effort to conserve fuel they would need more along the coast and rarely used anything but the red navigation lights at night anymore.

“Marion…” Dee tried to coax a response from the ashen face, noticed that blood was beginning to trickle through her fingers and felt a sudden dismay. “Marion, please wake up!”

“Don’t try to bring her around.” Hawk returned with a green metal box with a red cross on it. He had taken off his jacket and pushed back the sleeves of his brown fisherman’s sweater. “Better if she isn’t awake for a while. She’s going to have one huge headache when she comes to.”

“Oh, Hawk, she needs a doctor! Can’t we radio for help or something?”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere in a howling gale, Dee. She’d bleed to death before we could get help out here. Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He filled a pan half with water at the sink.

Hawk had hardly picked it up when he felt the familiar surge of a giant roller beneath them and lost it as they crashed down. He swore under his breath and started over.

“Get her jacket off,” he said when he returned. He wedged the pan with a lid on it into the space between the table leg and the settee.

“But the bleeding! I don’t dare—”

“Don’t worry about the blood, it’s slowing down. Head wounds always look worse than they really are.” He opened the metal box, took out several wrapped packages of gauze and two small bottles―one of which he poured into the pan. Next came a thin rubber tube that he draped over his shoulder for a moment while he used both hands to roll up the sleeve of Marion’s sweatshirt. Every movement was smooth, practiced, and made with no hesitation. As if he had done it a hundred times.

At that moment, Dee could easily picture him in the gray scrubs of Wyngate, and the thought frightened her. She watched wide-eyed as he deftly tied off the rubber tube above Marion’s elbow and tore open a package to reveal the silvery, thread-like flash of a hypodermic needle.

“What are you going to do!” she cried.

He paused and looked up at her, surprised at the traces of sudden panic. “I’m going to make her as comfortable as possible before I start poking holes in her. You think you can relax a little?”

“What is that?”

“Morphine.” He turned the bottle upside down and eased the needle through the cap.

“That’s illegal!”

“Dee, it’s a common ingredient to any cruising medicine chest.” He flicked the side of the syringe with his finger and pushed up the stopper until a few drops of liquid appeared on the needle. He swabbed the inside of Marion’s arm with an alcohol pad and concentrated for a moment until he was sure he had found the vein. “So...either calm down and be a little more help...or back off.”

Dee looked away. There was a shuddering lurch as
Pandora
plowed her way through another wave.

Hawk withdrew the needle and blood spurted. “I didn’t even feel that one coming.”

Marion whimpered and began to stir.

“One more time, Mare,” he soothed. “Hold her head still, sugar. She starts thrashing around before this takes effect, and she’s going to come right up off the floor.”

There was another steep, unannounced roll and this time it was all they could do to keep Marion and themselves from sliding across the floor.

“If I don’t do it fast, she’s not going to get any at all. This keeps up, she’ll hate me for making a mess of her arm.”

Marion’s eyes fluttered open and she looked with frightened panic into Dee’s.

“Everything’s fine, Mare,” Dee assured, though her voice was shaking. “It’s all right now, everything’s…”

“Hawk!” Marion whispered. “I told you…I…” A visible wave of pain swept over her “Oh, I feel like I…”

“Try not to move,” Dee pleaded.

“Dee, I…feel like I’m dying! My kids…my…”

“Just the morphine,” Hawk replied to Dee’s sudden gasp. “It’s hitting her hard and all at once. Trade places with me now, so I can get busy.”

He knelt down with Marion’s head between his knees and motioned Dee closer. “Come on, get in here.” He put one of her hands on Marion’s chin and the other on top of her head. She had to rest her forearms against his knee to do it. “Don’t let her head move. If you start to feel sick, lay your head down, but don’t let go of hers. Got it?”

She nodded.