Gulf Coast Girl aka Scorpion Reef

Fourteen

The breeze held steady out of the northeast, day after day, and the miles ran behind us. I’d bought time for us, but I hadn’t bought much, and every day’s run was bringing us nearer the showdown. I knew what would happen when we got down there and couldn’t find any shoal. Something had to happen before then; we had to get a break. But days passed and we didn’t. I watched them. I studied the pattern of their movements, looking for the flaw in their complete mastery of the situation, but there was none. When one was asleep the other was watching me, never letting me get too near. And there was always Shannon Macaulay. They had me tied, and they knew it. It was unique, a masterpiece in its own way; we were at sea in a 36-foot sloop, so all four of us had to be sitting right on top of the explosion if it came. I couldn’t hide her or get her out of the way.

Shannon was silent for long periods when she sat in the cockpit with me on the night watches. The wall of reserve was still there between us. Perhaps it was because of the others there, never more than twenty feet away, or perhaps it was Macaulay, or both, but I could sense she wanted to be left alone.

When Barclay had the helm, from midnight to six, I slept in the cockpit—when I slept at all. Most of the time I lay awake looking up at the swing of the masthead against the sky while my thoughts went around in the same hopeless circle. There had to be a way to beat them. But how?

It was noon the fourth day out of Sanport. I had taken a sight and was working out our position at the chart table in the cabin. Barclay was at the helm, and Barfield lounged shirtless and whiskery on the other settee, eating an apple. Shannon stood near the curtain, watching me silently to see where I put us at noon. She realized what those little crosses meant, marching across the chart. They were steps, going to nowhere.

I was nearly finished with my figures when Barfield tossed the apple core out through the hatch and leaned forward. “How about it, Admiral Drake?” he asked. “When do we get there?”

I glanced at the chart, about to mark the position on it, and then paused. An idea was beginning to nudge me. We wouldn’t pass near enough to Scorpion Reef to sight it, so they had to take my word as to where we were. Barclay knew approximately, of course, because he checked the compass headings against each day’s position, but he had to accept my figures for the distance run.

I was thinking swiftly. It might work.

Twenty or twenty-five miles beyond the point where Macaulay was supposed to have crashed lay the beginnings of the Northern Shelves. If there was a shoal or reef in a hundred miles it would be out there. The chances were a thousand to one that it was somewhere in that vast shallow area that he had actually gone into the drink, even though they were about a hundred billion to one against our ever finding where. So if I put us out there when they thought we were on the location she had given me—We might find a shoal. And any shoal would do. “Oh,” I said to Barfield, as if I had just remembered his question. “Have it in a minute.”

I set the little cross down 15 miles to the westward and a little north of our actual position and tore up my work sheet. Subtract ten miles tomorrow noon and I’d have it made without exciting Barclay’s suspicions. We’d be twenty-five miles ahead of where Barclay thought we were, right in that shoal area of the Northern Shelves when he thought we were 50 miles north-northeast of Scorpion Reef, the position Macaulay had given her. We would also run through Macaulay’s position in getting there, so we’d have two chances instead of one of finding something. Taking up the dividers, I stepped off the distance. “Let’s see, this is Wednesday. Sometime Friday afternoon, if this breeze holds.”

He nodded and went on deck to tell Barclay. Shannon was watching me. “That means,” she said quietly, “that by Saturday night or Sunday, if we don’t find anything, the animals will be growing ugly.”

I started to tell her what I was doing. The words were almost out of my mouth when I stopped. I couldn’t. The object of the whole thing was to get her off the boat, and if she knew why I wanted her off she wouldn’t go. She’d have some foolish idea about not letting me face it alone, and I’d never convince her that alone was the only way I had a chance.

I looked down at the chart. “Maybe we’ll find the shoal,” I said.

“If we don’t, I’m going to jump. Don’t come after me.”

I had to say something. “No,” I said. “When they start it, climb on Barfield. Just hang on. Bite him. Anything. I’ll try to get to Barclay. He’ll have the guns.”

It was a stall, and I knew it. They’d slug me and tie me up before they started to work on her. But maybe she hadn’t figured that out and it might give her something to live with.

* * *

I worked star sights at dusk, and again just at dawn Thursday, checking our leeward drift and course made, trying to pinpoint our position as closely as possible. At noon I dropped our ostensible position back the other ten miles.

Barclay apparently suspected nothing. He merely nodded, seemingly satisfied with all the effort I was making to put us over the right spot.

Friday morning was clear again, and the breeze was dropping a little. I took a series of star sights just at dawn and worked them out while Barclay took the helm. Barfield smoked a cigarette and watched me, surly at having been awakened so I could come down into the cabin.

My sights checked out within a mile of each other. We were right on the nose, 45 miles northeast of Scorpion Reef. I marked the position on the chart as being 20 miles northeast, and went on deck.

“We’re far enough south,” I said, “but still setting too far to the westward. Have to come a little north of east.”

“I don’t think she’ll sail that close to it,” Barclay said. “Have to tack.”

I took the helm, relieving him, and we came about on the starboard tack. It was lucky, I thought; we’d cover that whole area pretty thoroughly beating up against the wind. The sun was coming up now. Barclay went below, and I heard him telling Barfield to start making some coffee.

It was a beautiful morning. A very light sea was running, not breaking now in the gentle breeze. The deck was wet with dew. I lit a cigarette and kept watching the horizon, looking for white water. It was the same unbroken blue as far as the eye could see, with not even a tinge of shoal-water green. But it was all right. We had two chances this way, instead of one, and I didn’t really expect to find anything around here. Macaulay had been completely haywire in his reckoning. By late afternoon, when they thought we were arriving on Macaulay’s position, we’d be on the edge of the Northern Shelves and in much shallower water. The chances should be reasonably good for seeing surf somewhere. And when we did, the odds might swing, ever so slightly, in our favor.

Shannon came up from the cabin and brought me a cup of coffee, carrying another for herself. Her face was pale, and she was very quiet. It would be even worse for her, I thought, if she realized that this empty blue expanse of water we were tacking across right now was the position Macaulay had given her.

We beat slowly to the eastward. At noon I worked out another sight. We were already beyond the area Macaulay had thought he’d gone down in. I put our position on the chart twenty miles to the westward.

“Sometime this afternoon,” I told Barclay. “Or early tonight. Depends on the wind.”

He merely nodded. He was growing quieter now, colder than ever, and unapproachable. You could feel the tenseness in the air. We had to sight something, and soon.

The breeze kept threatening to die altogether, but held on, dead ahead. We tacked, and kept on tacking. When I wasn’t being watched I experimented to see how close to the wind I could sail her, and she was a dream, but I didn’t hold her there. I wanted to cover as much water on each side of our course as possible.

The afternoon wore on and sunset flamed, and we saw nothing. Barfield’s face was ugly as he watched her now, and several times I saw him glance questioningly at Barclay. We were all in the cockpit. I had the tiller.

“Listen,” I said harshly. “Both of you. Try to get it through your heads. We’re not looking for the corner of Third and Main. There are no street signs out here. We’re in the general area. But Macaulay could have been out ten miles in his reckoning. My figures could be from two to five miles out in any direction. Error adds up.”

He was listening, his face expressionless.

I went on. I had to make them see. “When Macaulay crashed, there was a heavy sea running. There’s not much now but a light ground swell. There could have been surf piled up that day high enough to see it five miles away, and now you might think it was just a tide rip. We’ve got to crisscross the whole area, back and forth. It may take two days, or even longer.”

Barclay studied me thoughtfully. “Don’t take too long.”

It was dusk. We came about and headed due north. Three hours later we came up into the wind and beat our way eastward again for an hour, and then ran south. Nobody said anything. We listened constantly for surf and strained our eyes into the darkness. The hours went by.

I was growing desperate. Our only chance lay in making them think we had found the place. Their vigilance would slacken a little. If we actually found a reef, any reef, and started dragging and diving I could ask for help. We had two aqualungs. If Barfield went over with me I could come back on some pretext and I’d have only Barclay to contend with. If she went over, I’d have her out of the way, so I could make a bid for one of those guns. Anything to get the four of us split up.

We ran south until after midnight, beat our way east a few miles, and swung back to the northward again. It went on all night. There was no sound of surf, no white relieving the darkness of the horizon. Dawn came. The sea was empty and blue as far as the eye could see.

The breeze died completely and we lay becalmed, the sails slatting. We lowered them.

“Start the auxiliary,” Barclay said.

“We’ll need the gasoline to drag with,” I protested, “when we find the reef.”

“Might I point out that we don’t appear to have found any reef,” he said icily. “Start the engine.”

I started it. The sun came up. We went on. The strain was bad now. You could feel it there in the cockpit.

Barclay took the glasses and stood up, scanning the horizon all the way around. Then he said, “Perhaps you’d better make some coffee, George.”

Barfield grunted and went below. In a few minutes Barclay followed him. I could hear the low sound of their voices in the cabin. She sat across from me in the cockpit, her face stamped with weariness. When she saw me looking at her, she tried to. smile.

The voices in the cabin stopped. I slipped a lashing on the tiller and stood up, easing my way softly to the forward end of the cockpit. I could see them below me, inside the cabin. Time had run out on us at last.

Barfield had taken a coil of line from under one of the settees and was cutting a section from it with his pocket-knife. He cut off another, shorter piece. I saw Barclay hand him one of the guns.

Oddly, it wasn’t fear I felt now that it was actually here. It was rage—a strange, hopeless, terrible sort of anger I’d never felt before. I turned and looked at her, thinking how it could have been if they had just left us alone. She was all I’d wanted since the first time I’d seen her. I hadn’t asked for anything else, and she hadn’t asked for anything except a chance to live, and now they were going to take it all away from us. I was shaking.

I turned and hurried back to her. “Go forward,” I said. “Lie down on deck, against the forward side of the cabin. Stay there. If anything happens to me, you can raise the jib alone. Just the jib. Keep running before the wind in a straight line and you’ll hit the coast of Mexico or Texas—”

“No,” she whispered fiercely. “No—”

I peeled her arms loose and pushed her. “Hurry!” She started to say something more, looked at my face, and turned, running forward. She stepped up from the cockpit and went along the starboard side of the cabin, stumbling once and almost falling.

It was like a black wind blowing. I knew I didn’t have a chance, but all I wanted now was to get my hands on one of those guns for just two seconds. Maybe she could make it to land alone. They’d kill me, anyway, so I had nothing to lose. I was tired of being run over in traffic.

I had to hurry. They’d be coming up any minute. I slipped forward and stood on the deck, looking down the hatch.

“Surf!” I yelled. “Surf, ho!”

When they were both on the steps I’d dive down on top of them. All three of us would go down in one tangle in that narrow space between the settees, three of us with two guns in an area not quite as wide and a little longer than a casket. Then, in all the foaming craziness some detached part of my mind wondered quite calmly how a girl alone would ever get us out of there. She’d be a week reaching land, maybe ten days. She’d go mad. They were starting up. Barclay was coming first. I didn’t dive.

“Surf!” I yelled again. I pointed.

He came up on deck, his head starting to turn in the direction I was pointing. I swung. It kept on turning, and I felt his jaw break, and then his whole body pivoted and went off balance and the sloop rolled to starboard and he went over the side. I was falling, too, across the open hatch, across the head and shoulders of Barfield emerging from the hatch, like dropping across the arms of a rising grease rack or the top of an ascending freight elevator that didn’t stop or even slow down at the impact but just kept on coming up.

He was a bull. He came erect on the top step before he toppled at last and fell. We crashed to the deck and when the sloop rolled down to port we hung poised over the rail with blue water slipping by just under my face. For some reason we didn’t go overboard, but rolled in one straining tangle onto the cockpit seat and then down onto the grating. A big fist beat at my face. I tried to get my hands around his throat. He heaved upward and we rolled over in the space between the seats. The gun was in his hip pocket. He had it out and was swinging it at my face. I caught his wrist. The gun went off as I got my other hand on his wrist and twisted. It slid out of his hand and kicked along the grating.

He hit me on the temple and my head slammed back against the planks. He was coming to his knees, groping behind him for the gun. I tried to push myself up, and then beyond him I saw her. She ran along the deck and dropped into the cockpit. I opened my mouth to yell at her, but nothing came out. Or maybe I did yell and my eardrums were still paralyzed by the crashing of the gun. Everything was happening in an immense silence and slow motion, as if we were three bits of something caught and held suspended in cooling gelatin. She picked up the gun and was swinging it at his head. He should have fallen, but it had no more effect on him than a dropped chocolate Eclair. He heaved upward, lashing out behind him with one big arm. She fell, and her head struck the coaming at the forward end of the cockpit. I came to my feet and lunged at him and we fell over and beyond her onto the edge of the deck just as the sloop rolled again and we slid over the side into the water.

We went down through warm greenness, still struggling and almost completely oblivious to the fact of having moved our hatred from one element to another. The propeller rumbled past, scattering white bubbles like dust. One of his arms was still locked around my neck and he was trying to swing with the other, the blows softened and slowed down by the water. Neither of us made any attempt to break and swim to the surface. I could see the flat slab of a face inches from mine, and tried to get my hands back at his throat. We went on down, turning slowly like a big pinwheel. Then he jerked with sudden spasm and the arm around my neck clamped tighter, with something wild and frantic about it now. I brought my feet up and put them against him and pushed. It felt as if my head were being pulled off. My lungs hurt. I knew I was going to inhale in a minute, and that he already had. I kicked at him once more and my head came free and I shot toward the surface.

I came out into sunlight and sparkling blue, and sobbed for air. I shook water from my face and breathed in again, shuddering, feeling my lungs swell with it. He hadn’t come up yet. I turned, searching the water for him. A gentle ground swell lifted me and I came down into the trough as it passed. Seconds went by, and I knew he wasn’t coming up. He’d had the breath knocked out of him when we hit the deck, just before we slid overboard, and he’d drowned down there.

I could hear the boat’s engine behind me, fainter now, and I turned to see which way it was circling. I stared. It wasn’t turning. It was two hundred yards away, going straight ahead for Yucatan with nobody at the helm. I didn’t see her anywhere. She’d been knocked out when she fell. And I had lashed the tiller.

I started to cry out, but stopped. Even if she were conscious she couldn’t hear me above the noise of the engine. The boat was already too far away. I was utterly helpless; there was nothing I could do at all. If she didn’t regain consciousness and start back before she’d gone too far she’d never find me.

I reached down mechanically and started taking off my dungarees and slippers.

I was calm now, after the crazy, foaming rage had gone away, and I looked at it with complete objectivity. It just wasn’t intended to be. We’d been doomed from the start. There was something inexorable about it; it was what mathematicians called an infinite series with a limiting factor. Add .1 and .01 and .001 and .0001 and so on and on forever until you’d worn out all the adding machines on earth and you’d never reach 1.

My head jerked suddenly erect and I looked around, wondering if I had lost my mind. What I had heard was a gunshot, and ten feet off to my left something had gone chu-wuuug! into the side of a ground swell. It was insane. The stern of the Ballerina was receding in the distance and I was alone in a blue immensity of gently heaving, sunlit water and calm, empty sky, and somebody had spliced the sound track of a western movie onto it. I had forgotten all about Barclay.

He came to the surface of the sea forty yards away. He was drowning—drowning in a waterlogged tweed jacket with a gun in his hand as if he would no more have parted with either of them than he would have condescended to notice the existence of the Gulf of Mexico when he was busy trying to kill me. I forgot even to be afraid, watching him. It was fantastic.

He would go under. The gun would reappear first, held above his head, and then his face, the broken jaw agape and water running out of his mouth. He would calmly tilt the gun barrel down to let the water run out so it wouldn’t explode when he fired, and then he’d shoot. His aim was wild because of his exertions to keep himself afloat long enough to fire. The bullet would ricochet off a swell and go screaming into the blue emptiness behind me, and the ejected shell would whistle into the water on his right. He would go under. And then fight his way back to the surface to do it all over again. There was something utterly magnificent about it, and I didn’t even hate him any more. I forgot I was the one he was shooting at.

He shot three more times. The fourth time he didn’t quite make it. The gun came up out of the water and then sank back and there was an explosion just under the surface as he pulled the trigger while it was submerged. He never came up again.

I was alone now. I looked around. The Ballerina was far out on the horizon, still going away.