“Good,” she growled. If her face was the last thing some of Cisco’s men saw, all the better.
She steadied herself and focused on the trees as she marched forward. The trees, once a welcoming, sheltering sight at the edge of her yard, now looked dark and menacing. A chill in the air swept over the group as they moved out of the sun into the shadows of the forest canopy.
Cami took a knee just inside the treeline and put her hand on a footprint. It was one of about six individual tracks. They led in a straight-line due west.
John stepped around Flynt and squatted next to Cami. “Got broken twigs…little blood here.” He looked at Cami. “Marty’s dog took a piece outta someone…this might not be…”
“It’s fine—it’s a trail.” She pulled the .308 from her shoulder and loaded the chamber, then shoved the bolt home. Cami stood and stepped into the underbrush. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 17
Sailing Vessel Intrepid
Cape Henlopen, Delaware
Several hours later, as the sun began its way toward the horizon, Reese pointed off the starboard bow. "What's that?"
Jo grunted and sat up on the starboard bench. "Looks like a lighthouse. You woke me up from my nap for that?"
"If that's a lighthouse," Reese replied, "then we must be getting close to the Delaware shore. That's gotta be Cape Henlopen."
He picked up the radio, but before he could speak Byron opened the channel. "Looks like were coming up on the cape. You see that structure off the starboard bow?"
Reese glanced to his left, as Tiberia sailed gently along next to Intrepid. The two boats were separated by maybe 15 yards. "Yeah, that a lighthouse?"
Byron laughed, his voice echoing across the distance. "Nah, it's an old fire control tower from World War II. There’s an artillery base there hidden in the sand dunes...or there was.”
"I think I see another one," Reese called out.
"Yeah there's ten or twelve of them along the coastline. Some of them are about 70 feet tall. But I'm not seeing all of them...probably lost a good number in the tsunami. We'll have to wait and see when we get closer."
They continued their sedate course, sailing straight across the mouth of Delaware Bay, and left Cape May, New Jersey behind them. Smoke still hung in the air where the remnants of New Jersey's coastal towns burned, two weeks after the tsunami destroyed everything in its path. They hadn't seen a single boat launch from the shore to investigate their presence the entire length of the garden state.
"This whole deserted coastline kinda creeps me out," Jo said. She peered north and south of their position. "When we stopped in Boston, there were other boats at least...same in Rhode Island.”
"New York, too," Reese added.
"Yeah, but down here? It's like everything got...erased."
Reese kept a firm grip on the wheel. "I know what you mean...it’s all so...gone."
They continued sailing, their speed reduced down to about 2 to 3 knots, thanks to Tiberia’s damaged hull. Reese didn't want to have to make another repair to the hull and had willingly agreed to reduce their speed. He reasoned it might add an extra day to their journey overall, but if it meant he didn't have to get in the water and swim with sharks the size of Buicks, he was all for it.
As they crossed Delaware Bay and came within a mile of Cape Henlopen, the damage along the Delaware seashore appeared trivial compared to the densely populated areas along New Jersey and further north in New England. Where wreckage had choked the coastline everywhere from Maine to New Jersey, along the Delaware coast, hardly anything floated in the water. A few boats had washed ashore, and one burned out hull of a freighter lay beached near the base of a severely leaning fire control tower, but for the most part everything looked peaceful and unaffected.
Reese pulled Intrepid closer to Tiberia, if for no other reason than out of a general feeling of unease and disquiet. "You seein’ this?"
"Doesn't look too bad, does it?" Byron replied across the water.
"We’ve sailed these waters many times," Libby added wistfully. "All the beaches are gone...they used to be such nice beaches along here, wide white sand."
"Why are we stayin’ so far offshore, then?” Tony asked.
"Because looks can be deceiving,” Byron replied. “See the base of that tower over there?" He pointed to the tower directly to their starboard. It was the closest to their position, but Reese saw at least a half-dozen more scattered in the distance further south.
"Yeah," Tony replied warily.
"That tower there is Number 10. The beach used to be at least 500 feet from the base of that tower. See those windows there at the bottom?"
"They look like arrow slits in a castle," Reese replied.
"Yeah, those windows are there to let light inside the tower. They're a good 20 feet up from the ground.”
A shiver rippled down the backs of Reese's arms. "That means the beach is right over there," he said as he pointed to the right. "Under all that water."
"Right, and who knows what else is down there? Could be cars...or anything else that was dragged out when the water receded."
"I think we need to angle offshore a little, don't you?" Libby suggested.
"Probably wouldn't hurt," Byron replied. He turned the silver wheel and the wounded sailboat angled just a little further east. Reese gave Byron a moment to clear the area, then followed suit and adjusted course to match theirs. The two sailboats drifted slowly on the breeze until they were forced to tack and angle back toward the shore.
Reese looked at Byron. "You know a good spot around here we can land, make some repairs?"
Bryon frowned. "We’re not going to find a drydock..."
"I'm not worried about that," Reese replied. "But if we can get close to the shore—at least in the shallows—we can get down and take care of these holes without worrying about sharks."
"I never want to see another one of those things," Tony replied.
"You and me both!" Reese laughed.
They sailed on for another half hour, drifting slowly south, and had to tack back and forth at least three more times in the dying afternoon breeze.
At last, Byron pointed out Fire Control Towers 6 and 5. Or what was left of 5. As they angled toward the new, adjusted shoreline, Byron explained that the twin towers—which had stood the test of time and storms since World War II—were nowhere near safe enough to be around. Tower 5 had partially collapsed, and the base lay mostly submerged in the water after the tsunami. Tower 6 heeled at a drunken angle and reminded Reese of pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Nevertheless, as they approached the towers, they spotted what looked like a new inlet cut into what had once been a coastline. A very shallow, sandbar-like barrier island had taken the old coastline’s place.
Reese glanced at Byron. "What do you think? Is that channel deep enough for us with the keels?"
Byron shrugged. "Only one way to find out. I say we start the motors and see how close we can get. I don't see any other place that's going to give us shelter as much as this will."
Reese looked south along the empty shore. "Is there anything further south of here?"
"Well, there's Indian River Inlet...” replied Byron, "but it's still a good couple miles south of here, and this is all state park. There shouldn't be anybody around here for miles and miles. Even on a good day. Little further south, you start getting into residential areas. Who knows what kind of problems we’ll run into down there."
Reese nodded. He spun Intrepid’s wooden wheel to starboard and let the wind out of her sails. "Good enough for me, I think we have a shallower draft. I'll go first." He released the winch near the boat’s wheel, and the mainsail collapsed under its own weight. Then he lowered the outboard motor into the water and hit the ignition button.
"Hold on to your butts," Jo said as she adjusted her position on the bench and braced for impact.
"We don't know if there's anything down there or not," Reese said. "So we’re gonna take it nice
and slow. We'll see if we can just ghost in on the current.”
“And if we get stuck?” asked Jo as she eyed the treacherous waters ahead of them.
Reese shrugged. “If we get stuck, we’ll have to wait until high tide to get out."
Reese piloted Intrepid through the 20-yard channel and put the engine in neutral, allowing the sailboat to drift in with the ocean tide. They ghosted in, barely moving at all, and slowly slipped around a few scraggly, bare remains of trees that still reached the water’s surface. As they crossed the line of stumps and trees, Reese realized they had entered into an open lagoon. He spun the wheel to starboard and kicked the motor into gear until they came close to the largest of the trees that broke the surface.
The pine stump stuck up about three feet and had been sheared off by the force of the waves. Reese killed the motor and scrambled forward to secure Intrepid’s bow to the stump. Once the boat had been secured, he put his fingers to his lips and whistled, the shrill sound easily cleared the water and reached Byron, who waved back.
A few minutes later, Byron skillfully navigated Tiberia through the narrow channel and had parked next to Intrepid. "Well that was about a pucker factor of nine," Byron said as he wiped the sweat off his brow. "Heard the keel scraping against the sand as we went through the channel. I have no idea what the tide tables are for this area, but if I had to guess...I'd say the tides on its way out right now."
Once they tied the two ships together, Libby crossed over to Intrepid and made sure Jo got first pickings for the evening meal. Reese joined Tony and Byron and the three of them held a planning meeting in Tiberia’s cockpit. As they swatted at the marsh bugs that circled around them incessantly in the sweltering humidity, Byron unrolled a nautical map of coastal Delaware and spread it out before them on the bench.
"So here we are...there’s Fire Control Tower 6," he said as he put his finger on the map and slid it south a fraction of an inch. "And this is Fire Control Tower 5.” He turned and pointed with his free hand. "There’s 6...and that's the remains of 5 over there.” He turned back to the map. “That means this lagoon we’re in is what used to be Gordon's Pond.” He jabbed at the map. “Here."
"You’re tellin’ me the tsunami cut a 20-yard-wide channel right through this whole chunk of land here?" Reese said as he pointed at the map. He whistled softly. "What's the elevation around here?"
Tony spoke up. "Hard to tell from here, but it looks like there's hardly anything above sea level as far as I can see all the way to the horizon."
"Dollars to donuts,” Byron added, “that wave went all the way to Georgetown before it stopped," Byron said as he slid his finger across the map some 15 miles from the coast. "There's just nothing here but a few small towns, and a very slow rise. The Delmarva Peninsula isn't exactly known for being a mountain range."
Tony frowned at the map. "Uncle Byron, what's this up here?" He pointed at a roughly straight line that cut across the entire state of Delaware, far to the north, at the narrow end of Delaware Bay, where the bay turned into the Delaware River just south of Philadelphia.
Bryon leaned down and squinted at the map. "Map says it's the Chesapeake and Delaware canal. Looks like it's a man-made canal to connect the Delaware Bay with the Chesapeake Bay."
"Well, why don't we go that way, then you can cut straight across?
Reese nodded. “Looks like it would be a lot faster to get to Baltimore from the north end of the Chesapeake Bay," Reese said as he pointed at the map and slid his hand all the way down to the very tip of the Delmarva Peninsula, still a long day or two passage from their current position, “than it would be to go all the way down here.” He tapped the map at the tip of the Delmarva Peninsula. “It’ll take us a day and a half, maybe two days at the speeds we can manage to get just to the mouth of the Chesapeake, and you’ll have to double back and go all the way north to Baltimore."
Byron sucked air through his teeth. "As much as I'd like to go up to the canal and cut across—we’d be in Baltimore by tomorrow night—I don't want to take the chance. Tiberia’s already leaking. Who knows what that canal looks like? We have no idea how bad the destruction is further up Delaware Bay..."
"Yeah, but if it cuts off time—" began Tony.
"And if the canal’s choked with debris and boats, or survivors have set up some kind of world war zone in Baltimore like New York and Boston...we’re not that far from Philadelphia, here.” Byron crossed his arms and looked down at the map. “Most of northern Delaware is like one giant suburb of Philadelphia. It seems too risky to go up there with so many unknowns." He looked at Tony. "If we get up there and find out everything's clogged or we have to turn back, are you willing to waste two days on a hunch?"
Tony sighed. "I guess you're right."
By the time they finished making plans for the coming day, and how exactly to lower Reese into the water to repair Tiberia’s hull, Libby had returned from Intrepid with the remains of their dinner. Reese took his food and went back to Intrepid to hang with Jo, so she wasn't alone, and as he finished the last bite of his MRE, Tony called out an alarm.
"What's going on?” Reese said as he looked around. “Are you sinking again?"
A second later, a shudder rippled through Intrepid and Reese grabbed a railing line as the boat jerked and listed slightly to starboard. He turned and looked at Byron in Tiberia’s cockpit. "Tide’s definitely going out, the boats are settling."
Reese frowned as he put his MRE pouch down. “It’s shallower here than I thought.”
"The tide never really got this high before," Byron replied calmly. "I can’t imagine it’ll drop far enough to leave us beached.” He stood on the transom and held the staylines that kept the mast straight and frowned at the water like a sailing captain from a previous century.
Over the next hour, the water level continued to lower, inch by inch and the boats heeled more and more to starboard. A spit of land, muddy but free of the water, emerged on the other side of the tree stump to which Reese had tied Intrepid. He turned to Tony. "Hey, check the hull over there on the port side. How are those holes looking?"
Tony scrambled to the far side of Tiberia and leaned over. "I can see the football—it's about half out of the water!"
"We’ll have sunlight for another couple hours,” Byron observed. "Think that’s enough time?”
Reese nodded. “Should be. Let's see what we can get patched before the tide comes back in.” He made Jo as comfortable as possible, then returned to Tiberia and assisted Byron in adding fiberglass hull patching to fill in the cracks and gaps between the football and the hull itself.
While he had most of the football above the waterline, Reese restrung the net, to make it more secure and re-tightened the rope lashed around the hull to keep it in place. "Tony, can you go grab me a couple more spare lines? I want to shore this up while we have the chance."
"You got it, then I'm gonna go over the side there and see if I can gather some wood. Might be able to make us a fire."
"You think that's a good idea?" Reese asked over his shoulder. "Anybody that's around here will be able to see a fire for miles."
“I don’t think anybody can get to us without swimming or bringing a boat..." Byron said. “We should be safe enough.”
Reese looked at the utter devastation that surrounded them. For all intents and purposes, they had docked inside virgin marshland. The only solid ground visible for miles was the strip of land emerging from the tidal swamp between them and the ocean. What used to be a mile’s-long stretch of beach had been reduced to no more than a grandiose footpath that became a temporary barrier island when the tide ran out.
Reese grinned. "Good point."
Turning back to his work, he took the extra rope Tony gave him and as the water level dropped, he was able to loop around the bow and attach three more lines to the makeshift netting that kept the football in the hole. Byron joined him with a bosun chair harness—a piece of rip-stop fabric with straps similar to a rock climbing rig, that all
owed Reese to sit comfortably out over the water and work on the side of the boat. The mast groaned under his weight, and the rigging popped and warbled under the displaced load, but everything held.
"This isn’t gonna take much longer, how's Tony doing?" Reese asked as he applied another layer of waterproof epoxy and fiberglass repair sheets.
Byron leaned on the railing cable above Reese. "Doing pretty good, he's got a bunch of dead branches and some driftwood he's pulled up out of the water, I can see him working his way back now.
"I don't know how he plans to get the wood to light if it's soaking wet."
Byron scratched at a fly. "We’ve got some dry stuff here—the empty boxes left over from those MREs the Coast Guard gave us, and a few broken pieces of paneling. Might be able to get something going and use that to dry out the rest.”
“Fair enough," Reese said. He frowned and used a screwdriver to twist a particular line and tighten it far more than he could by hand. "There," he said a moment later as he put the final touch on the patch. "It is by far the ugliest thing I've ever done and looks like Tiberia’s got a giant wart sticking off her nose, but that's as good as it's gonna get. Until you can get her in drydock, I think she’ll hold."
Byron pulled on the block and tackle and raised Reese up. As the bosun’s chair rose, Reese walked up the hull until he could climb over the railing and join Byron on the tilted deck.
The two men shook hands and then Byron changed it into a hug and slapped Reese on the back. "I don’t know what we would've done without you—thank you."
"Well, you probably would've sunk," Reese said with a grin.
"Oh, he's got a fire going!" Libby said. She pointed across the two sailboats at the little spit of land that continued to grow as the tide retreated.
Broken Tide | Book 4 | Backflow Page 14