Two
“I HEAR A BOAT coming,” Shauna said. “That was quick!”
Bart couldn’t hear it at all, but that didn’t surprise him in the least. His hearing wasn’t what it used to be, but he trusted Shauna’s was better and he saw that Andrew and Daniel noticed the sound too. The four of them were down below in the main cabin of the schooner, cleaning up the galley and doing some last minute organization, securing everything in the storage lockers in preparation for the upcoming offshore voyage. They expected at least a half hour wait while Eric and Jonathan ran downriver in the skiff to see what the deal was with the blockade.
“It’s too quick,” Bart said, as he got up and grabbed his M1-A. “They haven’t even had time to get down there, much less down there and back.”
He mounted the companionway steps and made his way to the deck, followed closely by Shauna. As soon as he was half way up the ladder, he could hear the motor too, and he knew it was bigger than the 50-horsepower Yamaha on his skiff. He was also quite certain the boat was approaching from upstream, rather then down. A minute later and he saw that he was right as a 20-foot center console fishing boat rounded the bend. There were two men aboard, and when the one at the helm saw the sailboat anchored there mid river, he immediately slowed and made a slight turn, steering straight for it. Bart glanced over his shoulder and saw that Shauna was standing there behind him, already zeroing in on the strangers with the binoculars she’d grabbed from the shelf over the Nav station.
“Can you tell anything about them?” Bart asked.
“They look like a couple of regular guys, I guess. No uniforms or anything. I don’t see any weapons on them.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing though, and you know it,” Bart said. He made it a policy to assume anyone he met was armed these days, either openly or concealed. It was foolish not to be, of course, but dangerous too if the rumors they’d heard were true about how the authorities in some areas were dealing with armed civilians. Dreamtime was certainly carrying plenty of weapons and ammo, and Bart could only hope that any law enforcement officers they encountered wouldn’t search the boat before they could leave Florida. Once they were offshore on the high seas he hoped the schooner would be considered a sovereign vessel and not subject to local restrictions. That was all theoretical, of course, because no one knew to what extent laws had been changed or new ones created. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of situation, but they had certainly favored the ‘if you do side’ and were willing to accept the risks that entailed.
When he was fairly certain that the two men in the skiff were not law enforcement officers, but a potential threat approaching the schooner, Bart stepped up to the rail on the side nearest them, making sure they could see the rifle without brandishing it directly. He wanted them to understand that he was armed and ready to defend his ship and her crew, and apparently, it worked. Whatever the two men may have wanted, they seemed to have suddenly reconsidered. The helmsman made a sharp turn in the direction of the farthest bank, giving them as much room as possible before speeding up again and continuing downriver to wherever the two of them had been going. That was a huge relief as far as Bart was concerned, because the last thing he wanted to do was engage in a firefight while anchored here in the middle of a wide-open river with only his former daughter-in-law for backup. Daniel and Andrew still had no experience with firearms other than practicing safe handling. Neither had even fired live rounds, much less at targets that might shoot back. Bart knew Shauna could do her part, but still….
“What do you think they wanted?” she asked.
“Who knows? Maybe they thought they’d come over and ask if we had any extra supplies or something we could spare. Or maybe they were going to ask where we came from.”
“Well whatever it was, they sure changed their minds, seeing you standing there looking like you would just as soon shoot them as not.”
“Better that than encourage them to get too close. I hate sitting here in the open like this.”
Bart turned to see Andrew step on deck, followed by his father.
“Who was it, Shauna?” Daniel asked.
“Just a couple of guys in a boat. They went on. I don’t suppose they meant any harm.”
Bart didn’t know what to think of a fellow that would wait down below while his wife went out to greet a possible threat. Of course he wasn’t surprised by it now after getting to know the man over the course of several weeks. Daniel Hartfield simply wasn’t cut out for the dangers of the harsh new reality in which he found himself suddenly immersed. It was a wonder he was here on board the boat at all, after all the arguing back and forth with Shauna about what they should do next. Daniel had wanted to go back to their home in North Palm Beach since the day after the catastrophic hurricane ripped across south Florida. He was convinced that things would soon return to normal and that they could all resume life as they knew it before, despite the fact that rioting and anarchy had begun long before the storm arrived. It took Eric’s arrival with a firsthand report of the conditions there to convince Daniel that going back to his old neighborhood wasn’t an option. Even with that information, he wasn’t ready to give up Florida entirely. He’d been miserable during their stay in Bart’s isolated riverside bungalow, but nevertheless, would have preferred that they all stay there rather than leave the state on a sailboat.
Bart wouldn’t have minded if Daniel had stayed behind, and in fact would have gladly given him his house that he had no more use for just to be rid of him and his complaining. But Daniel had a son who needed his father, no matter how incompetent, and leaving the two of them there alone was unfair to the boy. Daniel couldn’t protect him, and staying would surely amount to a death sentence for both sooner or later. Shauna was too close to Andrew to even hear of it, and besides, Andrew wanted to leave on the boat as much as the rest of them. In the end, Daniel was simply outnumbered and outvoted, and had finally relented and agreed to do the sensible thing and go with them. That didn’t mean he’d agreed not to complain though, and Bart knew it was going to get old fast. He or Eric would end up putting a stop to it, of that Bart had no doubt; he just wasn’t ready to deal with it now. He had more pressing things on his mind at the moment, mainly the prospect of a nearly 500-mile voyage across the Gulf of Mexico.
The 42-foot schooner was as ready for sea as she could be given the time frame Bart had to work with, and he wasn’t particularly worried about the crossing from a seaworthiness standpoint. The Canadian couple that had owned her since she was built and launched as Tropicbird had been quite meticulous about staying on top of the maintenance, and over the years the pros working in Bart’s yard had completed the tasks they couldn’t handle themselves. In addition, because the owners used the Colvin-designed schooner as it was intended, for long cruises among the islands of the Bahamas and other nearby tropical escapes, the vessel was well equipped for sustained periods off-grid in remote anchorages.
The 50-horse Perkins auxiliary diesel was as reliable as a stone axe and the tools and spares to maintain it were already on board. With both of the built-in fuel tanks full and another 60 gallons of fuel in jerry cans lashed to the decks, they had enough diesel to motor all the way across to the Louisiana coast and back if need be. That they would need to was highly unlikely though. Even this time of year there would be enough wind to sail once they reached open water, and the schooner-rigged Colvin Gazelle had the capacity to fly plenty of canvas to take advantage of light breezes.
Once Bart had made the decision to take the vessel, knowing full well that her elderly owners would never return to south Florida, he had set to work creating checklists of tasks to be done and stores to load. Eric and Jonathan did most of the heavy work, but Shauna and Andrew certainly did their part too, and even Daniel made a half-hearted attempt to appear helpful. The bottom was repainted and the wooden spars got three fresh coats of varnish before they were remounted in the tabernacles that would enable the crew to step them without a crane.
Both masts were standing and fully rigged now, as all the remaining bridges between them and the Gulf had a minimum 55-foot vertical clearance, giving them room to spare. The relatively low rig was one of the things Bart liked so much about the gaff-rigged schooner. It had been designed and built here on this very river with those clearances in mind.
Between what he already had stored in his house and what they rounded up from among all the vessels stored in his boatyard, Bart compiled enough non-perishable foods to last the six of them four to six months. What they would do when that ran out, he wasn’t sure, but in the world they found themselves in now, six months was so far out it was hardly worth considering. For now, the only goal was getting across the Gulf so they could ascend the Atchafalaya River and get to his younger son’s place if possible. From there, Eric would find a way to continue overland to Colorado, but that was something he would work out after getting more intel on the overall situation from Keith.
The passage to Louisiana was doable in a matter of days in ideal conditions, but Bart knew anything could happen along the way to delay them, and he’d warned the others to figure on a week or more. None of them had any idea what they might find when they reached the northern Gulf coast, and they could only hope that the river would still be navigable in the aftermath of the hurricane that had struck there after leaving Florida in ruins.
Regardless of any storm damage, Bart already knew that Keith had been dealing with the insurrection that had swept the nation. Despite his rural south Louisiana location, he’d inevitably been drawn into it as a deputy sheriff in a jurisdiction within easy reach of Baton Rouge. It had been several weeks since Bart’s last conversation with him via ham radio, and until they got there, it would be impossible to know whether Keith and his wife Lynn were still there or even alive. Bart knew Keith would do everything within reason to fulfill his duties as a sworn law enforcement officer, but in the current conditions, survival and taking care of his family would eventually take priority. Living where they did, Bart figured the two of them might be as well off as anyone could be, at least if his youngest boy didn’t throw away his life in some misguided attempt to save a hopeless city.
Bart certainly wasn’t planning to get involved in the fighting, but he was as ready as he could reasonably be to respond to the threats he knew they were bound to face. He’d had a small collection of choice rifles and handguns since long before the country began unraveling. Raised in rural Arkansas in a time when most everyone still hunted, Bart had been a crack shot with his .22 a decade before he was old enough to join the Marines and ship off with his unit to southeast Asia in 1969 He certainly hadn’t craved more war after what he saw in the jungles of Vietnam, but the experience made a permanent imprint on his perceptions of society and civilizations. Bart knew that peace and security was an illusion, and that it could be taken away in short order. Over there, he saw women and children pressed into combat as a matter of survival. He also saw entire villages massacred because the residents were unarmed and defenseless. Bart vowed that he would never let himself be in that situation, and when he returned home he’d kept up his shooting and combat fitness despite decades of civilian life. He’d been right about needing both the skills and the weapons someday, and he’d also been right to pass on as much of that knowledge as he could to his two sons. Both of them had ended up in careers that put those skills to the test quite frequently—especially Eric. If anybody had what it was going to take to cross half a continent in the current conditions and find Megan, it was her father, Eric. And Bart would do whatever it took to help him, no matter what the risk, which they all knew was considerable.
“I’m getting worried about them,” Shauna said, when another twenty minutes passed after the sound of the strangers’ boat had faded away in the distance. “They should have had time to get there and back by now.”
“Yeah, but you know they probably had some talking to do. I don’t think it’s been long enough to worry just yet.”
Bart wouldn’t admit it to Shauna, but of course he was worried too. There was no way of knowing what Eric and Jonathan would encounter at that river blockade. They could be simply turned away, or they could be detained or shot on sight. It was a risk the two of them were well aware of before they left, and one they had discussed at length with Bart while all this was in the planning stages. The meeting with whoever was in charge of that blockade could go either way, and when Eric and Jonathan left the schooner to go on ahead in the skiff, Bart knew it might be the last time he ever saw either of them. The question they’d all had to consider beforehand was the ‘what if?’ and ‘what next?’ if for whatever reason they didn’t come back. They had discussed this beforehand too, and Eric had made Bart promise he wouldn’t come looking for them if they weren’t back in a reasonable amount of time. Eric assured him that if they couldn’t return on their own, there was probably nothing anyone could do to help them. Jonathan’s participation in all this was strictly voluntary of course, but the kid had insisted on going along to help after Shauna suggested it might help Eric’s case.
“If they think he’s your son, that’ll be more convincing than just some lone stranger telling them he’s seeking passage through the blockade for his family,” she’d said.
“Maybe, but he needs a haircut if he’s going to pass for any son of mine!”
Jonathan balked at that idea, but he’d already agreed to go and help Eric, so he consented to letting Bart give him a military buzz with his clippers before they’d left the bungalow.
“That’s a lot better,” Eric had said, as Jonathan sat there feeling his newly peeled head. “You wanna learn how to do this commando stuff, the first step is to look like one!” Eric said.
“A lot of those Special Forces dudes I’ve seen on TV let their hair grow out. And look at that freakin’ thick beard you’ve got!” Jonathan grumbled. His own beard was too thin and patchy to ever fill out like Eric’s.
Shauna assured him that he looked much more manly and sexy with his new hairstyle, and beaming at her compliment, Jonathan stopped his complaining. Before the two of them left, Bart had agreed to Eric’s conditions and had promised he would turn back and do what he could to look after Shauna and her family if it came to that. Maybe they could make their way to the Atlantic coast through the waterway going east or maybe they couldn’t, but if Eric and Jonathan failed to return, they would know leaving by way of the Gulf wasn’t an option. Every minute that passed gave Bart more time to ponder what he would actually do in that worst-case scenario. It would be hard, turning away and not knowing what had become of his eldest son when he had arrived here just days ago and Bart didn’t want to think about it. When Andrew suddenly pointed downriver and shouted that they were coming, Bart was relieved to no longer have to. Eric and Jonathan were both in the skiff, speeding around the last bend to where Dreamtime was waiting.
Bart put down his rifle and stood at the rail as he watched them approach. Eric and Jonathan had returned unharmed, but had they accomplished what they set out to do? Soon, he would know.
Three
“I DIDN’T PUSH THEM with any unnecessary questions,” Eric said, as the rest of the crew gathered around when he and Jonathan were back on board, “but it appears that the men running the blockade are just local citizens. Some of them were obviously commercial fishermen before; their boats are anchored just inside the line of barges. I don’t think we have to worry about being searched or arrested, but they do want to see proof that we didn’t steal the boat.”
“So there goes the whole plan, right out the window,” Daniel said, “because the boat is stolen. You don’t know that some of those men aren’t former police officers just because they aren’t in uniform. If they look closely enough, the fake papers and changed name aren’t going to fool them. Then we will all be arrested or shot. It sounds too risky to me.”
Eric ignored Daniel’s comments and continued with what had he to say to Bart and Shauna. “As long as they believe we’re not looters
or boat thieves, I don’t think they could care less where we’re going or why, or what we have on board. They do want a rather exorbitant price to let us through though.”
“Figures,” Bart said. “Maybe you shouldn’t have shown them any gold after all,” Bart said. “We probably could have traded a couple of rifles and pistols instead.”
“Probably, but it’s too late for that now. I left the half-Krugerrand for a deposit. The man agreed to take the skiff and outboard in exchange for it when we get there. If you’d rather not, I’ll give him the gold. It’s up to you, Dad. It’s your boat.”
“I reckon that’s just as well with me. That motor alone is worth a lot more than the time it’ll take those fellows to move a barge, but I guess it’s their gate and they’re the gatekeepers, so they get to name their price. We’d probably have to cut the skiff loose out there in the Gulf anyway.”
Eric knew his father would prefer to keep the little runabout if it were feasible. They had agreed to tow it behind Dreamtime as long as the conditions allowed, and there was a chance they could get it all the way to Louisiana on a long towline if the seas were smooth enough not to swamp it or slam it into the hull of the schooner. Of course they would have to cut it loose at the first sign of trouble and Bart knew that as well as Eric, so giving it up now to get through that river blockade was a reasonable alternative to paying with a coin that would surely come in handy later. Besides, they had an inflatable Zodiac dinghy lashed to the coach roof of the schooner, along with a 15-horse Yamaha outboard to power it. Eric’s Klepper kayak that he’d used to approach the coast from offshore was also on board, lashed to the stanchions on the port rail forward. Between it and the dinghy they had the means to abandon ship in an emergency and to ferry the crew to and from shore when they made landfall.
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