“Learning how to shoot probably has a lot to do with it too. He’s bound to feel a little better about himself now. I reckon it took seeing his wife get hit to make him realize he can’t sit out the next fight.”
Daniel and Andrew couldn’t sit out the work that had to be done next either. As soon as the anchor was set, Eric went below to wake them. It would take all hands to remove the sails and running rigging and stow everything away in preparation for dropping the spars. Eric wanted to get it done today so they could get an early start the next morning as soon as it was light enough to safely navigate.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you guys,” Shauna said, when Eric headed back up the ladder.
“You’ve got a good excuse Shauna, so you get a pass. How are you feeling?” Eric didn’t really have to ask, because he knew she was still in a lot of pain, made bearable only by medication. Her right hand was completely unusable and would be for no telling how long. For now, it was immobilized in a bandage and splint combination to keep her from bumping it and making it worse, something that was hard to avoid when the boat was offshore, the motion sometimes slamming her into the sides of her bunk. Eric had changed the bandages on the hand and upper arm often, adjusting for the swelling and checking for infection. So far, the wounds looked as good as could be expected, and she wasn’t complaining, but healing was going to take time.
“I’m looking forward to a calm night. It’ll be nice to sleep without having to hold on for a change.”
“Yes it will. If you need something to knock you out, just let me know. I’ve got the good stuff in my kit. We’ll get started early tomorrow. The rest of the way to Keith’s should be smooth going, at least as far as the sailing is concerned.”
“I hope you’re right, Eric.”
Eric didn’t want Shauna to worry, but after all they’d been though, they both knew they could run into almost anything upriver. She would no more turn back than he would though, no matter what they were facing, because getting to Keith’s was the necessary next step in the main objective, which was to find Megan and get her out of danger. If Keith and Lynn were not there for some reason, then they would formulate a plan B, but that wasn’t something to worry about now.
Before they lowered the mainmast, which was the one upon which the marine radio antenna was mounted, Bart said he wanted to see if they could possibly raise Keith on the VHF band. “I know it’s a long shot he’ll be listening, but if he happens to be out patrolling the river in his boat, there’s a chance he may be monitoring Channel 16.”
“Can you really reach out that far on VHF?” Eric knew that Bart had added a power output booster to Dreamtime’s radio that was supposed to greatly increase the normal 25-watt transmitter signal. He’d taken it off of another vessel in the boatyard, saying it wasn’t normally legal anywhere but in international waters, but that it might come in handy now.
“I’ve never tried it, but they say you can. With that extra-tall antenna at the top of the mast and nothing much in the way, it ought to reach him. We won’t know for sure, of course, because he won’t be able to call us back, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Just as long as it doesn’t get picked up by somebody we’d rather not give our location to.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to be too specific, but I’ll make sure Keith knows it’s me calling, even if he doesn’t recognize my voice.” Bart keyed the mic and began speaking:
“St Martin Parish S.O., St. Martin Parish S.O…. This is the sailing vessel Dreamtime, Captain Bart Branson, inbound from the Caloosahatchee River, over….”
Eric smiled. Keith would be shocked if he indeed heard that. To anyone else, it would be utterly confusing. The Caloosahatchee was so far from here that it would never come up in normal vessel chatter over the radio. Most locals may not have even heard of it. Anyone picking up the message might assume it was some kind of weird, long distance skip, except that he was asking for a specific sheriff’s department in the region. Regardless of what they thought, no one would know where the call came from. Bart waited several minutes and when there was no answer, repeated his transmission three more times, specifically asking for Deputy Branson in those last attempts.
“I reckon that’ll do it. Like I said, he may or may not be monitoring the channel. Either way, it’s time to shut it down and drop those masts. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can get up there and talk to him in person.”
It took the bulk of the afternoon, but before sunset Dreamtime had been converted from an ocean sailor to a power river cruiser. With both masts down and in the horizontal position, moving about on deck was going to be a bit awkward, as they had to duck under them to cross from port to starboard and vice versa, but that was an inconvenience they would have to put up with. Aside from effortlessly slipping under low bridges, there were other advantages to dropping the spars.
“We’ll have a much lower profile now,” Bart said, “and that’s a good thing, especially out here in the marsh. But it’ll be good for rounding those blind river bends once we reach the woods too.”
Eric agreed that Bart had a good point. The two masts, the main standing over forty feet tall, would be visible for a long way. With them down, the highest part of the vessel was maybe eight feet above the waterline—a significant difference indeed when they might need to slip into a side channel or bayou to stay out of sight of river traffic. The only downside to the arrangement was that they were relying solely on the engine now, with no alternative propulsion, but Eric wasn’t overly concerned about it, and neither was Bart. The Perkins had performed flawlessly in the Gulf and there was no reason to doubt that it would push Dreamtime upriver and back again when it was time to return to sea. They still had more than enough fuel to motor all the way to Keith’s place and back to the coast again with plenty of reserve to spare, thanks to all the plastic Jerry cans lashed to the rails both port and starboard, but Eric and Bart both preferred to have as much of that as possible in the internal tanks. Eric handed Jonathan the fuel funnel and assigned him the task of topping them off from the cans.
“Get Andrew to hold this for you while you pour. Now that we’re anchored, it ought to be easier to do without spilling any, so take your time.” They topped up once midway through the passage, when it was a lot trickier due to the motion. There was more than enough left for a second refill and it was better to do it now while nothing was happening than later when it might be critical to have full tanks.
Nighttime in the river delta was eerily quiet, with only the sound of the southerly breeze rustling through the marsh grass surrounding them and no water rushing past the hull for the first time in days. It was as dark here as it had been on the open Gulf, with no manmade lights in sight; the oil rigs that were visible in the daylight all abandoned now and unlit. Bart figured it was unlikely there’d be any boat traffic passing through the lower river at night, and maybe not even in the daytime. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway intersected the Atchafalaya just upriver at Morgan City, and he felt that would be the route the barges would use if they were still moving fuel from Texas to the north.
They were to find out that was not necessarily the case though after they got underway to head upriver the next morning. Eric was at the helm with his father and Daniel in the cockpit next to him, while Jonathan and Andrew kept lookout from the bow. They had rounded a slight bend to the northeast and were now following a straight section where the river channel turned back due north when a tow pushing a dozen barges suddenly appeared around the bend from astern. With the engines of the tow so far back behind all those barges and the noise of the old Perkins rumbling below their own decks, no one on board had heard a thing. Daniel noticed the huge vessel first, when he glanced back over their stern rail.
“They’re coming up on us really fast,” he said. “What can we do?”
“Stay out of the way, is the main thing,” Eric said. “He’s got plenty of room to pass us as long as we’re not in the middle of the channel.”
“Are you sure he even wants to pass? What if they’re planning to attack us like the men on those two fishing boats?”
“They’re not out to attack anybody,” Bart said. “They’re probably moving fuel or something like that. I guess I was wrong to assume they wouldn’t enter the river from the Gulf though.”
Eric began angling off to port from the center of the channel, where he’d been running for the best chance of avoiding submerged debris. With the Perkins at nearly full throttle, Dreamtime was making hull speed at just over eight knots as the tide was nearly at peak high and there was little current working for or against them. The tow was probably making twelve knots though, and rapidly gaining on them. Eric was sure the captain could see the schooner clearly by now, even with the masts down, but the blunt prows of the barges, rafted three across and four deep, were still coming right at them, despite Eric’s evasive maneuver.
“What the hell is he doing?” Bart asked. “He’s got more than enough room to get by without running us clear out of the damned channel!”
“I think he’s trying to run over us on purpose!” Daniel said, before shouting to Andrew to get back to the cockpit.
“I don’t think he wants to actually hit us,” Eric said, “but he damned sure wants us out of the way, and a lot more than necessary if you ask me.”
“There’s a couple of fellows moving forward on those barges,” Bart said, as he studied the approaching vessel through the binoculars. “It looks like they’re armed, too.”
“Probably security, like Keith said. Just watch them closely. I’m going to ease over a bit more.”
Eric didn’t like edging out of the channel at full speed, but if he backed down on the throttle the schooner might not get out of the way in time. Jonathan was still at the bow looking for obstructions, but the muddy brown waters of the river obscured from view anything more than a few inches below the surface. Eric had moved just outside one of the remaining green channel markers as the steel topsides of the barges slid by, the two men at the bows studying them closely but not making any threatening gestures with their rifles. Eric was already reaching for the throttle to reduce speed when suddenly there was a crashing impact that shook the entire vessel from bow to stern. Dreamtime’s hull seemed to climb partially out of the water, while at the same time listing sharply to port before slamming to a stop. The sudden impact threw everyone but Eric off their feet, and he only managed to avoid it because he was hanging onto the wheel. He heard Shauna scream from down below and looking forward saw that Jonathan had apparently gone over the bow rail and into the river.
The line of barges sliced past the suddenly grounded schooner from just yards away and when the tow pushing them was adjacent, a long, obnoxious blast sounded from the horn to add to the insult. Whoever that bastard at the helm was, he didn’t care that he’d forced them aground, and Eric realized that Daniel was right—he would have just as soon run them down if they hadn’t gotten out of the way in time, and they barely had.
Nine
KEITH BRANSON WAS ABOUT to resume his hammering when the VHF radio once again broke silence on Channel 16. He’d been in the middle of nailing down another section of roof decking when the first call came, and had missed nearly every word of it before he realized what it was and stopped to listen. The transmission could have been anything and was probably just normal navigation-related chatter between a couple of passing towboat captains on the nearby river, but Keith wanted to be sure. He had waited a minute or two in silence, but it was already late afternoon and he had work to do. Those nails weren’t going to drive themselves, and he was ready to get back at it when he heard that second call suddenly come through. This time it was loud and clear.
Listening carefully to every word, Keith stared across the yard to his patrol boat tied up at the dock there, and then he dropped the hammer into the loop of his tool belt and quickly descended the ladder to the ground. He had just reached the dock when the voice sounded through the radio speaker again, repeating the previous call word-for-word. Keith hopped into the boat and grabbed the microphone from its clip on the panel of the center console, his own voice trembling a bit as he answered.
“Vessel calling St. Martin Parish S.O., this is Deputy Branson, St. Martin Parish S.O….”
Keith turned the volume on the receiver to wide open and waited. When there was no answer, he tried again.
“Vessel calling St. Martin Parish S.O. on VHF Channel 16, this is Deputy Keith Branson, St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Department. Do you read me? Is that really you, Dad?”
No reply. Keith waited quietly for a moment before trying again, but still there was nothing…. His attempts to answer the unexpected call apparently weren’t getting through, but it didn’t matter; this was still huge! Keith took a few deep breaths to calm down a little as he switched on the ignition and pushed the power tilt controls to lower the twin 150-hp Mercury outboards into the water. His thoughts raced as he started the engines to let them warm up while he went to grab what he needed out of the house.
When he was back aboard the boat, he secured his department-issued M4 in its rack on the side of the center console and put his small go-bag in the locker under one of the seats. His duty pistol never left his side of course, even while he was working on the house, but heading out anywhere in the boat or on the roads these days, he always took the rifle and plenty of spare mags for it. With the dock lines cast off, Keith pushed the twenty-one foot aluminum vessel away from the pilings with his boathook and shifted the engines into gear.
He didn’t know how it was possible, but the call he’d just received on the radio was real. He might have dismissed it as his imagination if it hadn’t been repeated twice more after it got his attention. How many weeks had it been since he’d last heard that voice… seven… probably closer to eight? It seemed surreal that it could have been that long, but Keith knew it had. His memories of those past weeks were as jumbled and disarrayed as the destruction left behind by the hurricane. He’d spent most of them in a daze, struggling with the disbelief and pain of his loss. It would have been easier if he had died there that day as well, but he’d been too late on the scene. He forced himself to go on each day since, even though so little remained of what he’d lived for that it seemed there was hardly any point.
He still had the patrol boat and his weapons though, and there were others who needed his help that suffered as much or more. The secluded bayou hideaway where he and Lynn had built their home was still there, and although the house was badly damaged and would take lots more work to repair, it wasn’t a total loss. Keith still had his tools, and materials were available to salvage or barter for. There was enough fuel in his own secure storage tank to run the outboards and his vehicles for several more weeks, and his stockpiles of food had survived intact. Keith had been relatively well prepared considering the circumstances. The events that unfolded before the beginning of summer had prompted him to think about his options, and he and Lynn had agreed it was better to be safe than sorry. Being ready for a hurricane was a given when living this close to the Gulf of Mexico, and they were already set up to weather such a storm and the resulting power outages and disruptions. No one expected to get hit by one of this magnitude with so little warning though, especially after everything else that happened recently, already putting them in a state of emergency and isolation. Because of all that, most folks in the hurricane’s path were caught at a time when they were most exposed and vulnerable.
There were lots of tough and self-sufficient folks out here in the Atchafalaya River Basin that could get through about anything, but there were also many in Keith’s jurisdiction that needed far more help than they were likely to get. And there were the outsiders too, with no business here at all, some of them simply desperate refugees trying to survive, and others that were part of the problem to begin with. Keith had the means to make a difference in the lives of both sorts, and he intended to carry out his sworn duties to the best of his ability, d
espite the crushing loss that weighed heavily upon him through every waking moment.
That call coming over the radio, as improbable as it seemed, suddenly gave Keith a renewed sense of purpose and hope. The prospect of seeing family was exactly what he needed right now, especially the prospect of seeing his father, who had never failed to provide sound guidance and advice. The last time Keith had spoken with him had been via ham radio, their conversation focused on the unnamed hurricane that at the time was approaching south Florida from the West Indies. They’d each picked up bits and pieces of info on the storm track as reports of it spread through the Caribbean amateur radio nets. With the federal government practically shut down and public television and radio broadcasts limited or inaccessible, few people in the path of the massive storm even knew it was coming. But having lived in south Florida for more than 30 years while operating a boatyard there, Bart Branson was well prepared for hurricanes too. The last time Keith had made contact with him, he’d said he was going to North Palm Beach to evacuate his granddaughter and former daughter-in-law, if they were still at home there. It was far safer to ride out the storm at his riverfront bungalow on the Caloosahatchee than near that exposed Atlantic coast, as the winds would likely weaken somewhat by the time it crossed the peninsula to the Gulf.
But Keith hadn’t heard a word from Bart since and had no way of knowing whether or not they’d made it through safely. They had been unable to reconnect by radio due to damage to the repeater towers throughout the affected region. Cell phone networks, the Internet and other communications options were already blacked out or intermittent well before the storm arrived. The sustained winds of a major hurricane no doubt dealt a heavy blow to the infrastructure in south Florida, just as they had in this part of Louisiana. Keith didn’t know for sure, but he had to assume the power grid was completely down in practically all of the southern part of his state and probably clear across south Mississippi and Alabama as well. The anarchists and disrupters had gotten what they wanted in the end, and likely far more than they actually bargained for. Keith hoped they were suffering as much as the untold number of innocents affected by their senseless acts of violence, but whether they were or not, it was too late to undo what had been done. The hurricane was a regional event. Those larger problems were nationwide, and Keith was sure the burning, looting and killing was still going on in most places. There was little chance of getting much news of it now though, especially out here on the Atchafalaya.
Feral Nation Series: Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series Boxed Set Page 25