Dawn Patrol

116

The small boat pitches and rolls in the heavy swell.

Waves smashing over the bow, the boat slides into the trench and then climbs out again, threatening to tip over backward before it can crest the top of the next wave.

Out of control.

The crew has experienced rough seas before, but nothing like this. Juan Carlos and Esteban have seen The Perfect Storm, but they never thought they'd be in the fucking thing. They don't know what the hell to do, and there might be nothing they can do-the ocean just might decide to do them.

Esteban prays to San Andrйs, the patron saint of fishermen. A fisherman's son who found life in their small village too boring, Esteban went to the city in search of excitement. Now he fervently wishes that he'd listened to his father and stayed in Loreto. If he ever gets off this boat, he's going back, and never take his boat out of the sight of land.

“Radio in a distress call!” Esteban yells to Juan Carlos.

“With what we've got down below?” Juan Carlos replies. They have thirty-to-life in the hold. So they keep banging north against the tough southern current, trying to make the rendezvous point, where they can turn over their cargo.

The cargo is down below.

Terrified.

Crying, whimpering, vomiting.

Up on top, Juan Carlos says to Esteban, “This thing's going under!”

He might be right, Esteban thinks. The boat is a dog, a bottom-heavy tub built for calm seas and sunny days, not for sledding down the face of mountains. It's bound to capsize. They'd be better off in the lifeboat.

Which is what Juan Carlos is thinking. Esteban can see it in the older man's eyes. Juan Carlos is in his forties but looks older. His face is lined with more than the sea and the sun; his eyes show that he's seen some things in his life. Esteban is just a teenager-he's seen nothing-but he knows he doesn't want to carry this memory on the inside of his eyelids for the rest of his life.

“What about them?” Esteban yells, pointing below.

Juan Carlos shrugs. There isn't room in the life raft for them. It's a shame, but a lot of things in life are a shame.

“I'm not doing it,” Esteban says, shaking his head. “I'm not just leaving them out here.”

“You'll do what I tell you!”

Esteban plays the trump card. “What would Danny say? He'd kill us, man!”

“Fuck Danny! He's not out here, is he?” Juan Carlos replies. “You'd better worry about not dying out here; then you can worry what Danny's going to do!”

Esteban looks down at the children below.

It's wrong.

“I'm not doing it.”

“The fuck you're not,” Juan Carlos says. He whips the knife out from beneath his rain slicker and thrusts it toward Esteban's throat. Two will have a much better chance handling the lifeboat in these seas than one.

“Okay, okay,” Esteban says. He helps Juan Carlos unlash the lifeboat and swing it over the side. It takes a while because they have to wait several times as the boat slides and then crests, almost tipping over. He and Juan Carlos have to grip the rails with all their strength just to hang on and not be pitched into the sea.

They swing the boat out, but they can't climb into it because the boat rolls in that direction, almost lying flat on the water, the sea just inches from the gunwales. Juan Carlos slides toward the water but catches himself on the rail, his strong hands gripping for his life.

Esteban kicks at the older man's hands.

Holding on himself, he kicks again and again as Juan Carlos screams at him. But Esteban keeps kicking him. Juan Carlos never breaks his grip, but Esteban's feet break his fingers and the older man loses his hold and slips into the ocean. He tries to grab Esteban's leg and take the boy with him, but his hands are too smashed to hold on and the ocean takes him.

Juan Carlos can't swim.

Esteban watches him struggle for a moment and then go under.

When the boat rights itself again, Esteban hauls himself up, staggers to the wheel, and turns the boat back into the oncoming wave. With his other hand, he unties his rope belt, then uses it to fasten himself to the column of the wheel.

And prays.

San Andrйs, I have fallen so far into evil that I would sell children. But I would not kill them, so I beg you for mercy. Have mercy on us all.

The sea rises up in front of him.