Gone

TWENTY-FIVE

NOW THE LITTLE BOAT WAS CLOSE ENOUGH THAT I COULD hear fragments of what the men were saying. Eugene complaining to Ricky, “… damn light out of my eyes! How you expect me…” And Ricky slurring, “Son of a… you want me to bleed to death…!”

Then Eugene, his voice turning toward me as the boat turned, saying, “… shotgun off the deck, it’ll rust… awww, no more beer!” And Ricky answering, ”… drive the damn boat,” before raising his voice to warn, “To the right, the right! Missed the last marker…!”

From where I stood, having just climbed onto the cruiser’s bow-for the second time that night-I couldn’t see if the jon boat made the turn in time. I’d been squatting over the forward hatch, trying to open its corroded hinges, but now paused to listen. Obviously, Ricky felt confident he had reached his destination, because, after several seconds he switched off the spotlight and roared, “OLIVE OYL! SUGAR DADDY’S HOME!” The man sounded staggering drunk from beer-or loss of blood-his oily confidence gone.

Eugene’s mistake at the steering wheel, Ricky’s mistake with the spotlight, I had no way of knowing, but one of them had misjudged the channel because an instant later I heard the boat bang aground. An aluminum hull skipping across oysters makes a chalkboard screech, but it isn’t as loud as an outboard motor grinding through shells. By the time Eugene surrendered to the noise, killing the engine, the jon boat was somewhere off the stern of the Skipjack, which had just begun to respond to the smaller boat’s wake.

I hurried from the hatch, reluctant to believe our good fortune until I had seen it for myself. When I got a look, though, I knew what had happened was bad luck, not good. Eugene was inspecting the damage, standing in water not deep enough to cover the oysters they’d hit, while Ricky blistered the smaller man with insults and held the spotlight. The light told me the jon boat had missed a switchback so sharp, it would have taken the men several more minutes to wind their way to us. Instead, the aluminum hull had skated across a mudflat onto an oyster bar and had stopped only three or four boat lengths from deeper water and the Skipjack cruiser.

On a tide this low, even a wounded man could wade to the boat we were on. Thirty paces to the boarding platform that hung off the stern, then step over the transom. And they soon would, which Ricky confirmed by growling to Eugene, “Hurry up, get inside there, see if she’s got a visitor.” Then he called toward the cruiser, “Olive! I’m comin’ aboard, honey… your sugar’s hurt!”

I took a step back and pressed my face against a cabin window, trying to peek between the curtains. Then rapped my knuckles against the glass, demanding a response from Olivia, while my eyes monitored the men. Ricky was having balance problems, struggling to stand upright beside the jon boat. Eugene, a pump-action shotgun in his hands, was wading toward us-but then stopped to light a cigarette. Ricky wasn’t smoking, I had already noticed.

I sniffed the air. Remnants of outboard fumes, even the sulfur-dense mangroves, were masked by the bug repellent I had coated myself with. No propane smell that I noticed, though, so what had Olivia been doing? It had been three or four minutes since she’d gone to retrieve her bag but had yet to reappear. Now the reason seemed obvious: the forward hatch was corroded shut and she couldn’t exit the cabin’s main door without being seen. Eugene, shotgun ready, was waiting on Ricky, who was also wading toward the cruiser. He had a spotlight in one hand, the other using an oar as a crutch.

“Olive Oyl. I’ll take the hide off you, you don’t open that door!” Ricky swung the spotlight to probe the cabin while he confided to Eugene, “They might go out the front. You take this, go around the other side. I’ll take the gun.”

The men had similar accents, both Westerners, but Eugene’s voice had a rougher edge, which was evident when he replied, “Shut up! Pay what you owe me, then you can give orders.”

“You little runt! Can’t drive a damn boat and now you-”

“I’m sick of your mouth! Hell”-Eugene turned to look at Ricky, the shotgun turning, too-“you’re ’bout to fall down, you’re so weak. So what you gonna do about it?”

Ricky started to say, “Give me the shotgun, you’ll get your money,” but stumbled midway because of the rough footing. Which gave Eugene a reason to grin into the spotlight and dismiss the big man with a wave.

“Me, I’m thirsty. I’ll drink a beer and worry about witnesses later.” But then Eugene hesitated, as if undecided, while Ricky leaned on the oar to catch his breath, the two of them only fifteen yards of water away from the boarding platform.

One or both men would be on the cruiser within minutes, so I didn’t see what happened next. If Olivia wasn’t coming out, I’d have to pry open the forward hatch and make her. Or… risk timing the spotlight just right and sneak in through the cabin door. The door was faster but too dangerous, so there was only one smart choice.

After avoiding another swing of the light, I crawled fast as I could go to the front of the boat. In my mind, I was picturing Olivia standing on the hatch door and wondered if her weight-which wasn’t much-had somehow crimped the hinges. What I hoped was the girl hadn’t locked the hatch from inside. That would have been suicide, and she had already spoken about her beliefs on the matter.

No… Olivia didn’t want to die because, as I drew closer to the hatch, I could hear her thumping a wooden object against the thing, trying to force the lid open. My spirits brightened, but relief doesn’t solve problems. What could I use to help her? To let Olivia know she wasn’t alone, I tapped the hatch three times, then my brain went to work after hearing three eager taps in reply. Fisherman’s pliers wouldn’t offer much leverage, the little flashlight in my pocket even less. I had to find another way.

Ricky-or whoever was now holding the spotlight-was painting the cabin again, wading to get a look at the cruiser from a different angle. The change put me in danger but also helped me to scan the deck for a tool. As I watched, the beam touched the bowsprit… a coil of rope where the seat of my jeans had landed earlier… an anchor with wide flukes… a stainless steel windlass that was used to winch the anchor off the bottom.

The windlass! I could use the crank handle as a lever. If that didn’t work, I could clove-hitch a rope to the hatch and winch the stubborn thing out by the roots if needed.

A lever was a simpler solution, though. Quieter, too. First, though, I had to tell Olivia to stop making noise, which I did by conversing through a wind scoop:

“I’ll get you out, don’t make another sound. Olivia…?”

“The damn thing’s stuck!”

I hadn’t put my face to a vent to test the air, but what I smelled was unmistakable. “The propane!” I hissed. “Turn off the gas, you’re no killer!”

In reply, I heard, “He’ll never stop looking for me!”

Knowing what I knew about Ricky Meeks, it was the sad, scary truth, and I was in no position to judge. My main worry was that the girl would kill herself, too, but there was no time for discussion. So I went after the winch handle, crawling on hands and knees toward the bowsprit. As I reached the coil of anchor line, though, the spotlight forced me to my belly by panning across the bow. Then Eugene’s voice froze me, saying, “There’s something ain’t right about this. You sure that Smith girl fried her cooling system?”

The plodding rhythm of men walking in shallow water stopped abruptly. It seemed a long time before Ricky answered, “What’d you see?”

“I think your damn boat’s empty, that’s what I see so far! Did she kill her engine or not?”

I sensed the light pivoting toward me, one of the men curious about what he’d seen on the bow. I stopped breathing, alert to any nuance in the conversation that might signal I’d been spotted.

Ricky’s voice: “You forget I took her boat keys? Just do what you’re told to do before I pass out.”

Eugene: “Smart-ass answer for everything, don’t you? Die anytime you want-long as it’s after I’ve got cash in my hand.”

A white tube of light illuminated the deck around me, then hovered like a flare. I tried to melt my body into the fiberglass, my face in the doughnut of coiled rope. The light lingered for so long that the odor of salted nylon stayed in my nose for seconds after the light had pivoted away in search of a new interest. Nor did I immediately move. It was because of what my eyes had found inside the coil where I’d plopped down after the rotten branch had hit water. Even in darkness, beneath a nest of leaves and broken twigs, Uncle Jake’s custom pistol glowed with silver residual light.

Behind me, there was another thump of wood hitting fiberglass, then the squeak of a corroded hinge. I looked and saw Olivia’s hand feeling around for the lip of the hatch door. She’d broken the thing free! But the men were so close, they’d heard it, too.

Ricky: “Boat’s empty, huh? Dumbass-get moving!” Then in a louder voice: “Hannah Smith! You’ll get your head blown off, you try tricking me again! Olive? Help that bitch instead of helping your husband, I’ll take me a new bride and make you watch!”

In fact, I was the one helping Olivia, after scampering to the broken hatch, the weight of a nine-millimeter pistol in my hand. I tried to lift the door, then put my shoulder against it while the girl pushed from below. Corroded aluminum becomes pliant as leather just before it snaps if you jimmy it back and forth enough. The hinges were gradually bending while the men continued to talk, their footsteps muted by deepening water where the cruiser floated.

Eugene: “Somebody’s in there, the boat’s rocking. Why you think she has all the lights on?”

Ricky: “Damn it all… mud just took my shoe. Don’t wait on me!”

“Like bait, so I’m the first one she shoots. There better be some cold beer or- Hey!… You smell something?”

“Keep your paws outta that refrigerator! Olive’s just happy her boyfriends are home, that’s all. Goddamn mud… lose a shoe after everything else.”

“Propane. Ricky, you don’t smell that? Somebody left the… it’s propane gas! Don’t light a cigarette.”

“Then get rid of the one in your mouth, buddy rough. I’ve had twelve-year-old girls weren’t as nervous… OLIVE OYL! THIS THE LAST TIME I’M GONNA SAY IT!”

“You don’t got to scream at a woman.”

“The midget expert offering Big Ricky Meeks advice.”

Which is when Eugene’s voice called, “Olivia? It’s me. We’re coming aboard, Olivia darlin’, so be sweet. Hear?”

I had both hands on the hatch when I felt the cruiser shift beneath a man’s weight, then list again to port beneath more weight. It scared me so badly, a charge of adrenaline provided extra strength, and the hinges snapped free with a gunshot WHAP! Instantly, Olivia’s beach bag appeared on the deck, the girl right behind it, whispering, “Run! They’re coming through the door!”

Not both men, though. Olivia had dropped over the safety railing to the ground first, and I had one leg over the rail when the spotlight flashed on, blinding me from twenty yards away. It was a man the size of Ricky Meeks behind the light, a shotgun in his hand-and probably wearing the shoe he’d lied about losing just to trick us.

“I warned you women!” Ricky screamed. “Freeze right there!”

Too late. The light knocked me backward off the boat, but I wouldn’t have obeyed him anyway. When I landed hard on my shoulder at the water’s edge, Olivia was there. She helped me to my feet, then tried to push me into the mangroves. I balked, though, because flashbulbs were going off behind my eyes, plus I had to make sure I hadn’t lost the pistol again. I hadn’t, but it gave Ricky the second he needed to find us with the spotlight and yell, “I’ll shoot!”

Olivia hesitated, her face as pale as a flower in the harsh light, but then sprinted for the shadows. I tried to follow, even blind as I was, but smacked chest first into a tree and fell again.

Ricky pulled the trigger.