Tears of Abraham

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Into the Storm

Cool wind whipped her face as Suzanne piloted the boat toward angry clouds ahead, flying across glass-calm water. Dark clouds loomed ahead with orange flashes within and chain lightning. The temperature had dropped more than ten degrees in the last thirty minutes, and cold air swept down ahead of the violent thunderstorm. White, jagged strikes, forked and terrible in their beauty, lanced the sky. There was the deeper rumble of thunder, distant and menacing over the whine of the Mercury and the slap of the hull on the water.

Earlier in the afternoon, she’d tried to refuel near Islamorada. Bud ‘N’ Mary’s marina on Upper Matecumbe Key was burned. Deserted cars clogged the Overseas Highway.

There were boats stuck on the flats, but other scavengers had already come by, and every tank was bone-dry. They might be able to make it with the extra fuel tanks already aboard.

She piloted the boat north and east. The route was circuitous by design. The hull of the craft was not a deep “V,” which would have allowed them to cross the open Gulf of Mexico from Key West. The boat was made to skim over shallow water, not withstand waves. Anything more than a light chop would be uncomfortable. If they ran into six-foot waves, they’d get swamped.

She’d cut past Lignumvitae Key, then past the Dump Keys, and now the clear, light-blue welcoming water of Florida Bay was a memory.

They were in the backcountry now, winding through a maze of endless mangrove islands and channels, sandbars and turtle grass that poked through the surface of the water. At low tide, many of the channels themselves would be impassable to most boats. Under normal circumstances, she loved the wild beauty of it.

In the winter months, these waters and estuarine areas were home to thousands of migrating birds, and great flocks exploded into the air at the sound of the engine, a flurry of color and flapping wings. Suzanne saw great blue herons, egrets, cranes, and roseate spoonbills stalking prey in the shallows.

Flamingos, pink and awkward while they fed in the shallows, took flight and were graceful and admirable, swooping into the air with beauty and economy of motion.

An osprey raked the water with talons and hurtled into the sky with a fish in its grasp.

The air was rich with the scent of salt and death and rebirth emanating from the tidal marshes and snaking creeks. It was a smell Suzanne loved most of the time, the aroma of a relaxing day on the water and the promise of fresh fish and warm sunshine.

The boat jumped and bucked as she ran over another shark that couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. The water was less than a foot deep for much of this run, and marked only by pathetic sticks. She could see the sharks, dusky shadows just below the surface, trying to swim away as the boat cut ahead. Usually the sharks made it, but sometimes they didn’t. She’d hit three so far, and seen many more swish away in clouds of sediment and flashing tails, dorsal fins cutting the water in a lunge to escape.

There were many species of sharks inhabiting this area. The bay and shallows were a nursery for fish, and a buffet for larger predators. Bull sharks, tigers, black tips, and lemons cruising these channels hunting and feeding.

Pythons, alien invaders to these wilds, thrived and reproduced with astounding efficiency, along with saltwater crocs. It was, in every sense, wild.

There was something eternal about it, a reassuring sense of continuity in the cycle of life and death and rebirth being played out thousands of times over every day all around her. She breathed it in, she saw the evidence of it in the creeping and changing mangroves as they built islands from nothing.

A curtain of rain obscured the horizon less than a mile ahead. She pulled back on the throttle and came to full stop. The bow turned with the wind shear and downbursts, cool and threatening.

“We’re gonna get wet again, okay?” she said.

Bobby didn’t budge, curled up near the bow. Ginnie nodded, shivering. Beowulf raised his head from his paws and then sank down. Taylor, from the cooler in front of the center console, saluted and tried to smile.

Suzanne reasoned this was likely a cold front moving through. This time of year was generally dry, but when a front hit, the weather could be nasty for days. In the summer, thunderstorms popped up every day, and were violent for an hour, then gone as if they’d never happened. There was no way to know what they were in for.

“Bobby! Get up and help out. We need to secure our gear. This wind is gonna pick up.”

“All right now,” Bobby said. He scampered around the boat, tying down bags of supplies while Suzanne made sure their weapons were clear. They did not need a chambered gun slamming into something and going off on its own.

“Look here,” she said. Bobby joined her at the console. “The last marker was about a quarter mile back. I can’t see it now. But it was this one.” She pointed at the laminated map they’d brought from the Mistress. “Where’s the next marker? Can you see it?”

Ginnie and Taylor joined them, scanning the trackless wilds, looking for a pinpoint against the water. She couldn’t see anything.

Small mangroves had a way of tricking her, appearing to be a marker, luring her off course. It had happened more than once already.

“Nothing,” Bobby said. “We oughta be able to see it. That storm shouldn’t be over it yet. Not unless you missed the last marker.”

“I might have,” Suzanne admitted. “I don’t think so.”

Whitecaps frothed the water. Not big waves by any means, but curling with the force of strong wind behind them, and building, even in this shallow water. The churning water made it harder to spot the markers.

“Well, we know the direction, anyhow.” He pointed at the compass mounted onto the fiberglass console above the wheel. “Keep your bearing.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay, everybody get back behind me toward the stern, and hang on tight.”

“I’ve got Taylor,” Ginnie said.

“Bobby, keep looking for that marker.” “I am.”

Suzanne pulled the throttle down, and the boat surged ahead. She gave it more gas until it was wide open, the bow up in the air. She adjusted the trim again.

The rain assaulted Suzanne, stinging her cheeks. Visibility dropped to less than thirty yards, and the air was cold.

Thunder boomed and crashed, as though a final war in heaven was raging right over their heads. Suzanne could feel the vibrations, and the hair on her arms stood up from the electricity in the air. The rain obscured the chain lighting, and the strobe-like flashes seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“Hard to starboard!” Bobby shouted in her ear, pointing at a mangrove island materializing through the sheets of rain.

Suzanne turned as hard as she dared. Boats do not turn on a dime, and if she cut it too sharply, there would be dire consequences. She swung the boat into an arc.

The boat shook with abrupt violence, banging against the sand flat spreading out ahead of the mangroves. The engine bucked in its mounting.

“Son of a bitch,” Bobby said.

Suzanne pushed a tangle of hair from her eyes. She’d kept her hair pulled back behind her head for the last couple of months. The wind had set it free.

“You get up on the bow,” Bobby said. “I’ll put her in reverse.”

Suzanne and the others moved forward to try to even out the weight on the boat. Although they were up on a plane, most of the weight and contact with the water belonged toward the stern. Now, they had a problem. Momentum had carried them well into the sand flats, and the boat was mired in the mud.

The engine grumbled and the prop tore into the muck.

“Ayaugh,” Bobby grunted. “She’s digging like a pig. I don’t want to bust the prop.”

“Ginnie,” Suzanne said, “time to get your feet wet.”

Suzanne stepped off the stern and into the water. Her feet sank into the rich mud. The water was less than a foot deep here, but the mud was almost as deep.

“Oh, this is disgusting,” Ginnie said.

“Shut up and push.” Suzanne was acutely aware of the sharks. They were juveniles, mostly. A bite from a five-foot shark could be fatal out here, though.

They struggled at the bow, putting their backs into it. The boat turned, inches at first, then gaining momentum as the wind helped them to turn it.

Suzanne felt crustaceans and shells against her bare legs, scraping amidst the primeval slime. She pushed so hard, her left foot got stuck, deep down in the muck. She fell facedown when the boat slipped away.

The unrelenting storm poured down thunder and lighting and sideways rain.

Suzanne pushed herself up with both hands and strained to pull her foot free. She managed to do it, but lost her sandal in the process.

“Eek!” Ginnie squealed. “Something just rubbed against me.”

“Well, go!”

The water was up to Suzanne’s knees now, and the boat was drifting away. She could hear Bobby cursing and then the engine caught, and the sound shifted when he put it into gear. Suzanne hustled, letting Ginnie climb aboard at the stern with a hand from Bobby.

She climbed aboard, breathing hard, and minus one shoe. “Damn,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll take the helm for a bit,” Bobby said, a wry smile wrinkling his sun-battered face. “You did good. I’ve been resting. Your turn.”

“No way I can sleep now,” she said. “But you can take the helm. I’ll help navigate.”

“We’re within a few miles of the channel to Flamingo,” Suzanne said. “That’s Snake Bight off to starboard.”

“Yup,” Bobby said. “We find our way there, then it’s easy sailing for a little bit. Then, course, we got Whitewater Bay to cross. And Hells Bay. Ugh. I got no idea why that crazy old fool decided to hole up north of Hells Bay. Coyote’s crazier than I ever thought about being.”

“Let’s hope we can find it,” Suzanne said. “By that, I mean you.”

“Oh, I’ll find it,” Bobby said. He tapped his head with a bony finger. “I know where it’s at. I just don’t like getting there much. Especially not in this mess. All right, hang on. I’m gonna take it slow until I can find the next marker for sure. We don’t want to have to walk out of here.”

The next few hours were maddening. They made little progress, continually running aground, then having to nurse the boat ahead. It was dusk when they spotted a red channel marker. They’d gone a mile off course. The rain tapered off to a drizzle and finally ceased.

By the time they made it to the entrance of the deep channel heading into Flamingo, the stars were strung out across the sky, brilliant and majestic.

“Momma,” Taylor said. “Have you ever seen the sky like that?”

“Not with you, hon. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I wish I could take a picture. So I could show it to Daddy when he comes home.”

Suzanne laughed and hugged her girl. Bobby pulled the boat beneath a canopy of mangroves, and they spent the night under the open air, curled up in the boat.