Dangerous Shores: Book Two; Hell or High Water

by Christine Conaway

  “Do you think we can get through it? I have to admit when I made the decision I never thought about the actual going through it, just that it’s the shortest route.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess it would depend on if there’s power, who’s running it, if anyone. Hell if there’s anyone left to run it. If they didn’t get hit by the effects of the E.M.P.(Electromagnetic Pulse) they would have the power to run the gates. What they will charge, I wouldn’t make a guess, but knowing they hold the key to people being able to get to the west coast could be costly.”

  “But thanks to Hannah’s Mom we have it. In fact, we have enough to buy the things we need, don’t we?”

  Frank chuckled. “Maybe we do, but let’s not get our hopes up until we actually get started through the canal.”

  The Journal; Somewhere around Jamaica

  Frank reminded me we are already on week eight. It doesn’t seem possible. Since we left the Tortugas, it has felt more like we were on a vacation cruise. It’s a little crowded, but we are making do. We have had several note-worthy things happen.

  The crew has grown to five now. We had to rescue a six-year-old girl from a Cuban chug when her father tossed her overboard. He wasn’t trying to drown her, just trying to save her life. The others on board were either sick or dead and if Alan’s translation was correct they all had the plague. Her father was the last adult we saw moving and he was very sick. Olivia was the only person on board who did not appear ill. Frank said the little girl could have a natural immunity but Hannah has started her on a course of fish antibiotics just in case.

  Hannah’s Mom may have handed us our lifesaver. I had given some thought to what if the power in Panama was not down. However, I thought they would probably turn everyone away and refuse entry into the canal. I mean who would want a bunch of starving refugees swarming in and taking over? Isn’t that exactly what happened to America? The day they said we couldn’t have prayer in school, we started down the wrong path. Anyway, this is a conversation for when we get home.

  She left Hannah gold, lots of it. Frank says while it is basically worthless right now, it could pay for our passage. He thinks people will be more willing to trade for food and bullets. Which thanks to Joe, the guy that held Hannah prisoner, we have quite a few shells. Frank says you can never have enough, but we have lots that we don’t have guns for. Hopefully whoever we can trade with will have a gun they fit.

  Another good thing is we will be getting around Jamaica soon and haven’t seen another boat. Alan thought he saw a smoke haze on the horizon, but it could have been clouds.

  If anyone ever reads this, and using these words to judge us, I bet they will think we are being too complacent. Personally we are more worried than I let on. We know that some or all of us may not make it. We are as prepared as we can be given the circumstances. I mean, how prepared can you be when you have no idea what lies ahead?

  Chapter Nine

  Ellen woke with a hand on her shoulder gently shaking her. “Ellen, it’s time to get up.”

  Ellen stretched and yawned, “Are you sure? I feel like I just went to sleep.” She sat up and took the coffee that Frank held out to her. “I can’t imagine life without coffee.”

  “Well maybe you won’t have to. Who knows. It looks like we may get some good wind today. Holler if it kicks up.”

  They had agreed that they would sleep on the cockpit settee, to save waking the kids when they changed shifts. Alan took his turn during the daytime allowing Frank and Ellen to catch a nap if they needed to. This arrangement had worked so far.

  It wasn’t long before Ellen heard Frank snoring softly. She knew he had to be tired. For some reason he always felt the need to do more than his share of the steering. She had mentioned it to him more than once, but he always blew her off with, “Just pulling my weight!”

  Frank had been right about the wind. While it wasn’t much, they were still moving along about three to four knots. The water turned choppy as the wind grew. There was no seeing clearly with the clouds obscuring the moon and stars and Ellen felt grateful to finally see the rising sun trying to poke through the clouds. The wind freshened and she and the Annie-C were running before the wind. She found herself lost in the rhythm of the ocean and the knots flew by un-noticed. She had sailed the Annie-C enough to know she was being pushed at her hull speed, but with following seas the ride was amazing. She felt that even had she had her own sails back, the boat could not have performed any better.

  Her knees were just starting to ache from moving with the boat when Alan stuck his head out of the hatch.

  “Hey Ellen, it feels like you’re smoking it out here. Want some relief?” He had slept passed their usual swap time and he felt great. He had taken a minute to appreciate watching Ellen in command of her own ship. She had had her eyes closed making changes with the helm only by the sound of the wind in the sails. Simply watching her made him want to learn to sail. Up until this point he had only steered it in the direction they wanted to go. He hadn’t understood Frank telling him to feel the wind or to be one with the boat. After watching Ellen, he finally understood.

  Each of his helm shifts for the next three days Alan practiced developing his own technique. He had tried closing his eyes but the motion made him nauseas. He watched the sails, but then he spent too much time correcting and over-steering finally exasperated, he gave up and resigned himself to the fact he wasn’t going to get it. He decided he was always going to be just a relief helmsman. He stopped worrying about his technique and put his attention more on where they were headed. Fascinated, by the precision rise and fall of the bow, he stared at the horizon off the starboard bow. When he quit trying Alan finally found the rhythm. His posture relaxed and he swayed with the motion. He was even able to close his eyes without feeling sick; he felt at one with the Annie-C.

  “I thought eventually you would get it.” Frank clamped a hand on Alan’s shoulder. “I’ve watched you struggle the past couple days and thought of giving you advice, but Ellen said to let you find it on your own. She was right, now it’s something you will never forget. It will come as natural as breathing.”

  “I didn’t understand. When I gave up and stopped worrying about it, the heartbeat of the ocean found me. It’s like the ocean has a life of its own.”

  Frank laughed, “Now you see why we sail. I think it’s like a calling and not everyone gets it. But those that do, have it forever.”

  They sat for several minutes while Alan contemplated what Frank had said. The wind had begun to fade, so Frank tightened up on the winch, hoping to make the most of the wind they did have. They had already had to pull down the spinnaker for some needed repairs. Dragging it around in place of their jenny was putting a strain on it that it was not designed for. They were trying to make the best of a bad sail situation and Frank hoped they could find some replacements in Panama.

  “There are a couple things we need to take care of today. It’s time we put together some kind of “escape bag” for each of us. If, for some reason we had to leave the boat right now we would be finished. With no advance warning of an emergency, we would be scrambling to grab whatever we thought we needed and we’d most likely end up with a whole bunch of useless junk. Look what happened when I abandoned the Aurora. I’m still kicking my ass for leaving my bag behind. I have nothing to help in my own survival. If it wasn’t for you guys, I would have to punch my own ticket or turn into a thief to survive and that isn’t an option for me.”

  “You mean if it wasn’t for Ellen we could all kiss ourselves goodbye. She literally gave me my life back when she took me from the marina that first day and then if we hadn’t of anchored in Pelican Bay, no one would have rescued Hannah. I don’t know how much Ellen told you but some guys had locked her up and another boater killed the guys who did it in self-defense. If I hadn’t heard her crying she would have died or taken her own life.” Alan still found himself moved by Hannah’s story, with a choked voice he added, “I thought someone had l
ocked a dog inside.”

  “Ellen told me some of it. She has this think about not telling someone else’s story, but I know the basics. She’s quite the woman,” Frank admitted, “we’re all alive because of her.”

  Alan was intrigued by the look on Frank’s face whenever he mentioned Ellen’s name, not that he did often, but Alan had taken to watching the way his two now best friends interacted with each other. He was pretty sure that Ellen found Frank attractive but how Frank felt was still a mystery. “So, you find her…appealing?”

  “How I feel about Ellen is not any of your business and has no relativity to the subject. Now, back to the subject. We need to find backpacks or bags we can turn into backpacks but whatever we use we need to fill them and have them accessible.”

  “So you do like her!” Alan ducked when Frank took a swat at him. “Actually I’m pretty sure there are two hanging in the aft cabin and Hannah has the one we brought her stuff from the trawler in. We do have the duffle the main sail was stored in, it’s not a backpack but we might be able to use it.”

  “Okay, we’ll make a list of everything we could possibly need and break it down from there. We’re going to divide stuff up into each of the bags so everyone has a little bit of everything. That way if we lose one, we still have some of everything that was in it.”

  Ellen was watching from the companionway door and heard them talking. She must have heard Alan’s question because her eyes carefully avoided Frank. “So do you want to make a list of things to take or should Hannah and I just put out what we think and you can yay it or nay it?”

  “I’d say you’ve done a pretty good lob up until now, just use your head. You know what you would want if you had to walk home so just make four of them. When you get two filled with as much as you are comfortable carrying, add the rest of the ammo and anything that didn’t fit in yours into the last two for Alan and I.”

  Hannah and Ellen spent the whole afternoon packing the bags. They divided up the remaining bottles of antibiotics, keeping out just enough for Olivia’s last three days. They had two water straws and two water bottles with filters. One set of stacking pots, two metal cups, and various other camping supplies for two.

  “All this stuff doesn’t look like you used it much. Is there a reason you have two of everything?” Hannah wasn’t trying to be nosey, she was curious. The backpacks and contents looked brand new. Some items, she had to remove from the plastic wrappers.

  Ellen laughed and answered, “I thought I had found mister right and I was going to go on a hike with him. We were going to spend the summer on the Appalachian trail. Of course I purchased everything, but when it came time to actually go, he went. Instead of mister right he turned out to be an asshole with no personal integrity. I was too embarrassed after doing all the bragging on him when we bought the gear, and I didn’t have to eat my own words when I took the stuff back, so I kept it. It now turns out that I was the smart one in the end.”

  “Wow, some guys can be real jerks, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. But, at least we have all this stuff if we need it. Through your women’s intuition or whatever you want to call it; it’s a good thing you did keep it.”

  Ellen had stopped sorting and looked at Hannah. She thought she detected something in Hannah’s tone. “Okay, that sounded like a question. What’s up?”

  With one hand Hannah pushed a spot on the settee clear and sat. “I am really confused right now. You know there is a “thing” between Alan and myself. Well, I find myself closing down and actually cringing as soon as he does more than kiss me. All I can think about is what Joe and his friend did to me. I really thought it would be different with him, but it’s not.”

  Ellen had been afraid this would happen. What Hannah had been through usually took hours of counseling and time to work through. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what advice she could give other than, “Honey, I think you just need to give yourself some time to put it behind you. What those men did to you was wrong. They robbed you of an experience that should have been extraordinary and beautiful. However, they took it, you didn’t give it willingly. If Alan is the right guy, someday you’ll feel differently. Just don’t do the “deed” just because he wants to. You’ll know when and if it’s the right time. If you want, I can have a talk with him.”

  Hannah stood and hugged Ellen. “Thanks, sometimes it’s good to hear another voice saying what I’ve been telling myself. Alan would never force himself on me. In fact, he has been nothing less than proper. He doesn’t even know I feel the way I do. I just know that someday he might want to progress farther into a real relationship and I’m not sure I will ever be ready.”

  “Give it time Hannah. If you’re not, he will just have to move on. Don’t underestimate Alan’s ability to adjust. We need to keep out focus on surviving until we get home. Trust me, a relationship right now would screw everything up.”

  “So does that go for you and Frank too?”

  “Holy crap. Where did you get that idea? There is no me and Frank.”

  Hannah laughed, “Really? You need to stand back and look at yourself then. You watch each other when you think the other isn’t looking. We can feel the vibes when you guys are in the cockpit together. Heck even Olivia thought you two were a couple.”

  Ellen was busy stuffing the backpacks trying to ignore Hannah’s words. She was pretty sure she had not been watching Frank. Her mind briefly toyed with the idea that Frank had been watching her.

  “Miss Ellen are you making one for me too?” Olivia asked. She had gotten herself down from the v-berth and was standing watching them pack.

  She was such a non-intrusive child that most of the time Ellen forgot she was onboard. She didn’t cry or make a fuss at all at least not judging her by her friend’s kids. She always avoided the friends with kids unless she visited after their bedtime. Loud kids made her nervous. In the future, not judging them by Olivia’s behavior was going to be hard if not impossible.

  “Honey, we don’t have a bag for you, but maybe you could carry Mr. Thumper in your arms. We wouldn’t want for anything to happen to him, would we?” Hannah said.

  “Wait! Hannah pull up the big cushion behind you. Under the board is a black garbage bag. Bring it out. There are presents in there for a friend of mines children. Oh man how could I have forgotten.” Ellen always did her Christmas shopping all year long. When she heard a friend’s child wish for something, she ran out, bought it and put it away until Christmas or birthday. She was sure the bag not only held some clothes that would fit Olivia, but a small “Hello Kitty” backpack too. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten.”

  “Well holy cow…Olivia look what we have here.” She pulled a wad of clothing from the bag.

  Olivia came close, but looked like she was ready to flee at the drop of a hat. Her eyes grew round and her cheeks puffed out and she appeared to be holding her breath.

  Ellen laughed when Hannah shoved the clothing into Olivia’s arm’s but didn’t look to see if she’d closed her arms around them. Her head was back in the garbage bag. She was acting like there might be surprises in the bag for her too. Olivia just stood there holding the clothes as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “Olivia,” Ellen said, coming to her rescue. “Bring them here and we’ll see if any of it fits you.”

  Olivia turned to Ellen, “Are these for me Miss Ellen?”

  “If they fit they are. Bring them here honey.”

  “My name is Olivia, not honey Miss Ellen. Did you forget?”

  Ellen remembered buying most of it on sale and she had purposely bought them larger than her friend Lucy’s kids were the last time she’d seen them. Unfortunately, Lucy had two boys and one girl, so the majority of the clothes would be boy’s clothes. Sister, as the five-year-old was called was a little bigger than Olivia so Ellen thought her clothes would fit Olivia fine. However, Jesse and Joe were older and much bigger in size. She had gotten them T-shirts and board-shorts from the Margaretville Store but w
ith the string in the waistbands and a pair of scissors, they could make adjustments where they needed.

  Being reminded of Ben, Lucy and the kids, Ellen sent a silent prayer that they were safe. They were one of the couples who she hoped would remember to head to the farm if they ever needed a safe place.

  “Nope, I didn’t forget your name; I call all sweet little girls honey. Now let’s see about trying on some clothes.”

  Olivia stood in silence with her arms in the air. She had obviously been used to having someone help her dress, while Ellen slipped a tee short over her up-raised arms.”

  Hannah held out the pink backpack for them to see, “Look at this. This looks like just the right size to carry Mr. Thumper in.”

  Ellen pulled the t-shirt down over Olivia’s head so she could see the little backpack.

  Eyes wide she could only say, “Oh!”

  “Do you like it? Hannah asked. She handed the bag to Olivia. “We can put all of your things in it and you can carry it just like we carry ours.”

  “Ellen, can you come up when you have a minute?” Frank called from the cockpit.

  “Well I guess that is the end of my playtime for today. Can you finish packing these? Make sure to put the extra ammo in the brown Columbia bag. That’s going to be Franks pack.”

  “Okay, go ahead. Oh wait, which one is going to be Alan’s?”

  “Seeing as the guys will have the heaviest loads, give him the other Columbia. I’ll rig up something to carry the duffle. Chances are we are never going to have to use them anyhow. Make sure to stuff every bit of empty space with the ready to eats. Give some to little britches to carry too. If the time ever comes we’ll rig up a front carrier for her bunny.”

  She left Hannah to finish up and went on deck. Frank and Alan were both facing the stern. Frank had the binoculars up to his eyes. The wind had died and if not for the current they would be sitting still. The spinnaker hung lifeless and Ellen thought about grabbing the sewing kit and putting some stitches in a sail-tape repair the guys had put on that morning.