Landfall: Islands in the Aftermath (The Pulse Series Book 4)

by Scott B. Williams

  “She’s a good boat, mon! I told you she a good boat. Not to worry ‘bout de wind mon. Storm soon pass!”

  And pass it did, first the strong wind, then the rain, and finally even the clouds in time for them to witness the sunset. Scully estimated their approximate position and said that they might have gone a bit farther north in the current than he would have liked, but that Andros was such a big target, it would be hard to miss. The problem was that they would reach the banks sometime during the night, rather than in daylight hours. They would have to stay alert and watch and listen for any signs of shoals or reefs when they did, so it was going to be another long and sleepless night.

  Thomas didn’t care. He was just relieved to be out of that storm. It was the same feeling he had when the man pointing the gun at him had suddenly dropped dead—the feeling of knowing he was alive again when he was certain it had all been over. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the fear of being shot or the terror of a storm at sea. But he’d survived both because of a man named Scully. Was it sheer luck he’d come along, or some kind of divine providence? Thomas wasn’t sure, but wasn’t about to question it. Come morning they would be sailing Intrepida through Bahamian waters. He had to squeeze Mindy tight to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

  Fourteen

  ARTIE STOOD ON THE beach feeling totally helpless as he and the girls watched his brother and Grant and Tara set out in the dinghy in pursuit of the Sarah J. He didn’t particularly like Russell, especially after seeing what a pest he’d become shortly after meeting their group, but the thought that he would do something this outrageous hadn’t occurred to him. It was obvious from the beginning that he was a loud-mouthed know-it-all a bit of a bum and a con, but he hadn’t come off as this irrational. Artie had been worried about how they were going to get rid of him but he’d assumed Russell would give in and accept Larry’s offer of a ride to Florida, despite his strong objections to going there. He realized now that maybe it was because of Larry’s continued refusal to take him anywhere else that he’d decided to take matters into his own hands and leave without warning. Whatever the case, they had all seriously misjudged him and now Tara’s boat and her daughter were gone with him. It was a nightmare for them all, but Artie was afraid it would absolutely destroy Tara if they didn’t stop him before he got away.

  “I don’t think Grant or anyone else could row fast enough to catch him,” Casey said. The Sarah J. may not be as fast as the Casey Nicole, but she still sails well and the wind is good.”

  “God! I can’t believe that bastard did this!” Jessica said. “What a low-life creep! I wish he had gotten back up when Grant pushed him now, so Grant would have beaten the crap out of him. I wish I had beaten the crap out of him!”

  “Tara will, if she ever catches up. She’ll probably half kill him. But I don’t think they’re going to. Look!”

  Russell had gotten the jib under control and now with both working sails set and trimmed, the Sarah J. was bearing away quickly to the southeast on a beam reach. And if that were not bad enough, they heard rifle shots echo across the water.

  “He’s shooting at them!”

  “Oh my God! GRANT!” Jessica screamed.

  The sailboat was too far away to make out any details in the cockpit, but Artie knew the girls were right. It had to be Russell doing the shooting because he could clearly see that it wasn’t Tara or Larry. Grant instantly slowed his rowing pace and Artie knew that it was because they were under fire. He could hardly watch, expecting any minute to see his brother and the others collapse into the dinghy or fall overboard.

  “They’ve got to turn back! They’re going to get shot!”

  “They will!” Casey said. “Uncle Larry won’t shoot back because Rebecca is still on the boat. All they can do is come back. Russell must have found the rifle Larry left on board.”

  “They’ve stopped,” Artie said, confirming what Casey said would happen. The shooting had stopped as well. Maybe Russell wasn’t trying to kill anyone, though he might make an exception for Grant after their altercation last night. The devious thief had what he wanted—a ride off the island and now so much more—a boat that would take him anywhere, along with loads of supplies and other goods. But he also had a captive 14-year-old girl. What he might do with her, Artie didn’t want to think about. But maybe he would simply drop her off at his first stop, wherever that might be. Artie doubted taking Rebecca was part of his plan, but then again, he didn’t know that. Whatever the intention, he feared that if she fought back, Russell might do anything, including throwing her over the side. And after what Casey told him about the incident in the Gulf, Artie knew Rebecca might jump overboard voluntarily if she thought she had no other option. It was a terrible situation no matter how anyone looked at it.

  “What are we going to do?” Jessica asked. “We’ve got to get Rebecca back! Tara’s boat too! But our boat is on the beach!”

  “Yeah, and that bastard knew that too,” Casey said, utterly disgusted. “He probably figured that with the catamaran grounded for repairs, and especially with both the masts down, we’d never be able to catch him.”

  “And he would be right, but I think he’s underestimated what lengths Larry will go to.” Artie said, as he stood looking out there at the tragic scene. The dinghy was simply drifting now, as the wind bore the Sarah J. steadily away from Green Cay, her sails growing smaller on the horizon with each passing minute. Artie could see that Tara had fallen to a kneeling position in the floorboards of the dinghy and that Grant and Larry were trying to comfort her, but how could they ever?

  “I feel so awful for Tara,” Casey said. “You cannot imagine what she was going through that night out there in the rain and dark when we discovered Rebecca was missing. And now this!”

  Artie could imagine, because he was a parent too, and he knew the hell he’d gone through to get back to his child after all that had happened. Casey was a grown young woman, but he didn’t think of her that way all the time, especially during those long weeks when he wasn’t sure he’d ever see her again. Like Casey was to him, Rebecca was Tara’s only child. And it was worse that she was just a teenager, helpless at the mercy of a man they now knew was capable of anything.

  “Larry’s going to be so torn,” Jessica said. “He was dead set on sailing back to Florida to look for Scully. We were just talking about it when we heard Tara scream. I told him I would go with him if he wanted me too.”

  “He wants to find Scully, of course,” Artie said, “but he’s not going to be torn. There is no contest. It’s an easy choice. Scully is a grown man and a survivor who can take care of himself. Rebecca is still a child. And besides, we need Tara’s boat. I’d say we better get ready, because as soon as Larry gets back to the beach, we’re going to be working our butts off to get the Casey Nicole ready to sail.”

  * * *

  Russell whooped and hollered as he stood at the helm of the beautiful Tartan 37, the main and jib curved into perfect airfoils as they pulled him away from that wretched little cay where he’d spent so many weeks hungry and alone. He stared back at its desolate shores, receding in the distance, and at the pathetic little rowing dinghy he could barely see by now, making its way back to the beach. The SKS rifle he’d used to drive away his pursuers was lying on one of the cockpit seats beside him, and Russell was almost as thrilled to come into possession of it, as he was the yacht itself. He’d been instantly transformed from a starving, desperate beachcomber to an armed mariner with a ship of his own command. Life was about to be good again—really good!

  He laughed to himself as he reflected on how easy it had actually turned out. He had seized the opportunity when it presented itself and pulled it off without a hitch. What an idiot that know-it-all Captain-Larry-whatever-his-name-was, had turned out to be! A light bulb had flashed on in Russell’s mind as soon as Larry started talking about taking down the rig of the catamaran. With the boat not only aground, but dismasted as well, Russell would have plenty of time to sail so far
they’d never have a hope in hell of finding him. It was an opportunity he recognized in an instant—a one-time opportunity that would only last a day or two—and Russell was determined not to miss it. When he noted that the wind was right that very afternoon for what he had in mind, he knew he couldn’t afford to hesitate.

  It wasn’t ideal that the teenaged girl was on board, but that couldn’t be helped and he considered too that her presence might be an advantage later. He could order her off the boat before he left, giving her the option of swimming ashore, but if Larry and the others came after him, it could be handy to have a hostage to keep them at bay. And besides, he was tired of being alone. He would rather be taking Jessica instead, but that just wasn’t going to happen.

  Russell knew teenagers well enough to know that the girl was probably shut up in her cabin and would not come out until her mother insisted, when it was time for dinner. As long as he could get on board without her knowing it, she wouldn’t be a problem. He’d been correct in thinking he could do just that. When he swam out to the boat, he approached it from the side opposite the island, just in case one of the others ventured away from their work on the catamaran and glanced that way.

  The Tartan 37, with its relatively low freeboard, was easy enough to board from the water. Russell pulled himself up and crawled under the lifelines, keeping low as he peered inside through one of the port lights. The girl wasn’t in the main salon, so that confirmed his hunch she would be in her cabin, probably reading or sleeping. He eased down the open companionway, dripping water onto the teak steps as he went, until he could see that the door to the forepeak was indeed shut. Russell glanced around the salon until he found a small coil of spare line hanging on a bulkhead hook, then he crept forward to the door. It was a simple matter to lash it shut from the outside, as there were convenient tie-down hooks on the adjacent bulkhead. The girl didn’t even know it was happening, and when she figured it out, it would be too late. A strong man could probably kick the teak door apart, but Russell doubted this skinny 14-year-old could.

  With the door secured, he went back on deck and quickly made his way forward to the ventilation hatch over the V-berth. It was easily big enough for even a full-sized adult to exit through, so he had to secure it too before she discovered what was going on. When he reached it, he could see her lying on the bunk with a book obscuring her face. He quickly reached into the opening and loosened the lock-down knobs on the hatch supports. The hatch was design to be dogged-down from the inside, not locked from outside, but he would figure something out. Rebecca either heard his movement or sensed his presence this time though.

  “Hey! What are you doing? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Just getting ready to go for a sail, that’s all.”

  “What? A sail? Where’s my mom?” Rebecca put her book aside now and was climbing out of her bunk, reaching for the hatch. Russell slammed it shut just before she put her fingers onto the coaming.

  “Hey! That’s not funny! Open it back up!”

  Russell stood on it instead. She wasn’t going to budge it while he scanned the immediate decks around him for something with which to secure it. A long piece of quarter-inch Dacron that had been used to lash the dinghy in its deck chocks would do the trick. Russell kept a foot on the hatch while he reached for the coiled line. One end was already tied off to one of the chocks. It was a simple matter to pull it across the hatch and pass it around the nearest lifeline stanchion. From there he crisscrossed the hatch cover several times, pulling the slack out of the line with each pass until it was good enough. If she had access to a knife, she might be able to push it up enough to get at the rope, but he doubted she did, and he would keep an eye on it until they were out to sea.

  Russell’s next step was to haul in the anchor. It was slow work with the manual windlass on the foredeck, and he was afraid someone on the island would see him before he was done, but at last he had it up in the roller and then he rushed to the mast to haul up the mainsail. He had just cleated the halyard and jumped back into the cockpit to haul in the sheet when he heard the first scream from the beach. It was Tara, the girl’s mother, and he knew he didn’t have long before they would do their best to reach him in the dinghy. Russell cleated the mainsheet and worked to get the jib up. By the time he had it set, the dinghy was coming his way with Grant at the oars and Tara and the captain on board with weapons. Russell had noticed the SKS secured in a rack on the main bulkhead when he’d gone below before. He climbed down quickly to retrieve it and was delighted to find it loaded. He wouldn’t shoot to kill, unless they fired back and he had to. All he needed was to buy a little time by slowing them down, and a few rounds fired in their general direction did exactly that.

  Fifteen

  GRANT PUT HIS BACK into the oars and made for the beach, glad he was facing aft so he didn’t have to see Tara falling to pieces in the bow while Larry tried to comfort her. Seeing her boat sailing away with her daughter aboard in the hands of a lunatic like Russell had to be devastating. But as soon as they all realized that they could accomplish nothing by sitting there adrift in the dinghy, watching the sailboat grow smaller on the horizon, Grant set to work to get them ashore. Larry was determined to catch this guy, and Tara would pull herself together as well. She would have to because it would take all of them. They would get the Casey Nicole into the water as fast as humanly possible and they would find the Sarah J.

  Grant grew more and more furious as he rowed. What he would give to have another face-to-face encounter with this Russell character! He would have beaten him to a pulp last night if he’d had the slightest inclination to believe he would pull something like this. What a lying, worthless, sack of shit! And after they’d shared food and drink with him, and even offered him a way off the island! He was going to pay for this. Grant was as determined as he knew Larry and Tara were.

  He ran the dinghy onto the sand and they all leapt out. Artie and Casey and Jessica were all there waiting, and without hesitation helped pick up the dinghy and carry it across to the other side of the island where the Casey Nicole was beached. It would be needed to carry out the anchors they would use when the time came to pull the catamaran back into the water, and they would take it with them of course, when they sailed. When they put it down next to their other gear and supplies, everyone looked to Larry for orders on what to do first and how to do it most efficiently.

  “The tide won’t be in for another five or six hours, but we don’t have to wait for the peak going in. We’ll have gravity working for us this time. We need to get the rig up first while we still have daylight to see. All I’ve got to do is finish the new splices on the upper ends of the shrouds. The other stuff I wanted to do can wait until next time.”

  “What about the hull repairs?” Artie asked. “Don’t we need to finish the fiberglass over the new patches?”

  “No time. The cracks are filled, and the plywood patches glued in place are solid. The epoxy will be fully cured before the water reaches them again. There’s no time to glass over them. We’ll just have to haul out again somewhere else and finish it then.”

  “It’s going to be tricky getting back out over the reef in the dark though, isn’t it?” Jessica asked.

  “A little. But it’s doable. I know where the cuts are now after swimming out there yesterday. And we won’t have the squalls like the night you guys came in. I think this breeze will calm down quite a bit after midnight. We can’t afford to wait. The tide will be highest around 1:00 a.m. Even though it’ll be harder to see, that will give us a better chance of getting out to deep water without touching the reefs again.”

  “I just hope we can find him,” Casey said. “He’s getting a heck of a head start. And we have no idea where he’s going.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good hunch though, Casey. He kept talking about the Exumas. That’s where he wanted to go, and he left here sailing east after he tacked. Of course he could have changed course after he was out of sight, bu
t there aren’t a lot of options. I don’t think he’s a good enough sailor to beat to weather any length of time singlehanded. He’ll fall off to the east or northeast because that will take him directly to the middle of the Exumas on a beam reach. I know that’s what I would do if I were him.”

  “He must know we’ll be coming after him though,” Artie said.

  “Yeah, but he probably figures it’ll be hard to find him with so many possible anchorages over there. He’ll think he’s got time to go somewhere else before we can come after him. He knew it was his chance to pull this after he helped us take the masts down, the sneaky son of a bitch! It may not be easy to find him, but we will. And he’s going to pay dearly when we do! That bastard is keeping me from going back for Scully.”

  Grant felt sorry for Scully, but finding the Sarah J. and Rebecca had to take top priority. Hearing Larry talk, he didn’t doubt that they could do it. Before this experience, Grant had no idea how much of a role the prevailing winds played in determining routes through these islands. He’d always assumed boats could go most anywhere at a whim, but now he knew it wasn’t so. Even under power it would be uncomfortable bashing a long distance against the wind and accompanying waves. The good thing about this revelation though was that it narrowed down the list of possible escape routes and destinations, leading Grant to believe that they really did have a chance of finding the Sarah J., in this trackless expanse of water and far-flung cays.

  Tara Hancock didn’t have a lot to contribute to the discussion. She was clearly experiencing a range of emotions, but as they worked her face was set in grim determination. She just wanted to get going a fast as possible, and to that end she was working to help Larry finish sorting out the standing and running rigging. When it was time to step the two masts again, the entire crew was needed. The girls were stationed on the beach on either side of the boat holding the halyards as steadying lines while Grant and Tara took turns at the winch and Larry and Artie manhandled each mast high enough off the deck to get them in position to hoist to vertical. The process worked in reverse the same way it had during the unstepping. First they raised the foremast and then used it as a crane for hauling up the mainmast aft. It took a good hour for Larry to adjust and inspect the tension on all the shrouds and stays, but once everything was tightened up, the two masts were in column, properly raked and looking good.