The gulf grew choppier, the wind starting to blow us toward Mexico. We were too far out to swim to Cat or Ship. If we couldn't fix it, we'd have to radio for help.
“I don't see anything that stands out,” I said. “Could be a clogged fuel line, or maybe the fuel pump. Don't really know, though.”
“Piece of junk!” Leroy spat. “Good-fer-nothing piece of floating dry rot.”
Back up on deck I took deep, thirsty breaths of the breeze, a sweet-smelling kiss from heaven.
By now night was coming on. We'd been stuck there for close to an hour.
“Better break out the radio and get some help,” I said.
Leroy shook his head. “Ain't got one.”
“You got a boat with no radio?” Cobra said.
“I got a radio, but it's t'home.”
Cobra gaped.
“It had some problems,” Leroy said, opening his hands. “I was working on it.”
“How loud can you yell?” Shig said.
But it wasn't funny, because the two islands were fading away.
Leroy went back down to the engine room. We sat silently on the moving water, with the sound of Leroy's wrench clanking up the companionway.
In the west, the sun sank red into the wind-torn sea. The sky and water began to darken.
An hour later all daylight was gone.
Leroy gave up, came back, and rattled through a drawer for his flashlight. The battery leaked rusty acid. In a small hold he found a flare gun. With one flare.
He grinned. “This ought to get someone's attention.”
“If it works,” Cobra mumbled.
“Stand back.” Leroy held the flare gun high, ducking his head as if the thing might backfire on him.
Foonk!
The flare rocketed straight up, then arched over and fell slowly, parachuting into the sea. But we were a long way from anyone who might see it.
The small glowing ball poofed out when it hit water, just like the fire on Pop's sampan when it sank.
Back to full dark. Stars coming out.
“Let's just hope someone saw that,” Leroy said. “Or else tomorrow we might end up on some beach drinking Mexican beer.” He laughed, a small nervous sound that turned into a cough.
We sat rocking on the water.
Leroy went back down to work on the engine by the light of a gas lantern that made me nervous, it was so fumy down there.
PeeWee staggered over to the gunnel and leaned over the side. He didn't throw up, but he was close. And he wasn't the only one.
“We got to get back to dry land,” Chik said. “I starting to taste copper.”
“Shhh,” Cobra said. “Listen.”
Engines—a low grumbling.
Small boat lights, vague in the blackness.
“Hey, Leroy,” Shig called. “Someone saw that flare.”
Leroy came bounding up the companionway with the lantern. He stretched up to peer into the darkness. “Praise the Lord,” he said, waving the lantern back and forth above his head.
Chik groaned and bent over.
“Don't toss it in the boat,” Cobra said.
PeeWee sat back down, cradling his gut.
When the approaching boat was almost on us, a bright white searchlight burst to life, catching us like roaches. I shielded my eyes with my hand.
A U.S. Coast Guard picket boat, about twice the size of the Sugar Babe, throttled down and sat idling on our starboard side.
“Engine broke down,” Leroy called over to them, squinting into the brilliant white light. “Mind turning that thing off? We could use a tow.”
The light moved away, shooting into the water nearby, but it stayed on. Now we could see the picket boat—and the four men with rifles standing on deck, aiming our way. “Stand by,” someone called.
“We'll see if we can do that,” Leroy mumbled. “Jeese.”
Nothing happened.
The guys with the rifles never took their eyes off us.
“Hey,” Leroy called again. “What's the matter? We need a tow.”
“I said to stand by.”
“For what?”
There was no response.
“Good Lord almighty.” Leroy shook his head.
PeeWee groaned. He staggered up and dove for the gunnel.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Water spouted up as bullets thwacked into the side of the Sugar Babe. We hit the deck. PeeWee fell back into the boat with blood dripping down his face and a splinter the size of a pencil stuck in his cheek.
“No, no, no!” Leroy shouted, holding his hands above his head. “Stop! Don't shoot!”
“Hold your fire!” someone yelled on the picket boat.
We got up and hunched around PeeWee. “Ahhh,” he groaned. The splinter was stabbed all the way through his cheek into his mouth.
“Good God,” Leroy gasped. “What'd you shoot for?” he shouted. “These men are soldiers in the U.S. Army!”
I tore off my T-shirt and held it up to PeeWee's cheek to stop the blood, careful not to touch the splinter. “Hang on,” I said. “We'll get that thing out.” He was lucky it wasn't a bullet, or half his face would have disappeared.
Leroy sprang toward the companionway, his hands up so he wouldn't get shot. “I'm getting the first-aid kit,” he yelled to the guys on the picket boat.
North of us, coming from Gulfport or Biloxi, more lights raced our way.
Leroy came back and fumbled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He opened it with trembling fingers and poured half of it on PeeWee's wound. It bubbled up pink.
“Uhhhgh,” PeeWee gasped.
I ripped off my belt and folded it over. “Bite this,” I said, sticking it between his teeth. “I going pull that thing out of your cheek.”
PeeWee bit down on the belt and squeezed his eyes tight.
Slowly, I pulled the splinter out.
Cobra covered the hole with the T-shirt, now sopped with hydrogen peroxide. PeeWee spat the belt out. “Ahh, that hurts,” he squeaked.
When I looked up there were three picket boats surrounding us.
“You men hold your dang fire over there,” Leroy shouted.
Now Shig and Ricky had to throw up—they eased slowly to the gunnel, hands up for the rifle guys to see.
Finally, one of the picket boats maneuvered closer. “Heads up,” someone called.
Out of the blackness a loop of rope thumped on deck.
Leroy grabbed it and walked it forward to the bow. “What's the problem? Why you so trigger-happy?”
“No problem.”
“What do you mean, no problem? This kid is wounded! You've scared us half to death, and we've been waiting for over an hour. You call that no problem?”
The coast guard guy said, “You want a tow or not?”
Leroy shut up.
That night back in the barrack Ricky Kondo patched up PeeWee's face with gauze and tape. PeeWee could have used stitches, but he wasn't about to let Ricky stick him with a needle and thread.
We were all eerily quiet.
Because somebody could have died.
Maybe all of us.
Two days later, Leroy came back to Ship Island with the Sugar Babe running like a top. He was glad to see PeeWee up to his old self so quickly. “They got to give you a Purple Heart, son,” he said as he examined the bandage on PeeWee's cheek. “Only I wonder if they do that when you get wounded by your own guys.”
PeeWee grinned and said, “You play five-card stud, Leroy?”
“Are you kidding? Ain't nobody better.”
PeeWee wagged his eyebrows. “Come early sometime, we get a game up.”
“Hah! Good to see you doing so well,” Leroy said, tapping PeeWee's shoulder.
“So what was wrong with the boat?” I said.
“Fuel pump, like you thought. I had the army buy me a new one—and a radio.” Leroy grinned. “Found out why they made us wait, too. They thought they'd captured the whole Jap navy. Seems not even the coast guard knows about yo
u army dog guys. They took us for saboteurs.”
Leroy thought a moment. “I guess I'da figured that, too, if I was in their shoes.”
For another week, Smith had me dragging horsemeat through the jungles of Cat Island. I got to know my way around pretty well.
“Make it harder,” he said. “Hide like your life depends on it. Think of the dog as capable of ripping your throat out and causing you to bleed to death. Where would you hide then? Use your imagination.”
Man, I thought. Ripping my throat out? Where am I, in somebody's nightmare?
I hid in swampy bayous. I climbed up into trees. I hid upwind, behind a bushy rise. I lay flat and covered myself with leaves and sand.
Kooch found me every time.
Smith made a change. “Take off your T-shirt and drag that,” he said. “I want him on your scent, now. But he's still going to eat the meat off your throat, okay?”
“Sure.”
Kooch had such a good nose, it was impossible to fool him. Each time he found me I put the slimy meat on my throat, and as always, he'd savage it down, then lick my neck and face, almost like kissing me. And I'd whisper to him quick, before Smith ran up. “Hey, boy, you a good dog, yeah.”
But one time Smith heard me.
“Hey!” he shouted. “I told you not to make friends with him.”
“I'm not. I'm doing what you said. I can't help it if he likes me.”
“Oh yes you can.”
He poked around in his backpack and came up with a slingshot. He tested the rubber, then flung it at me.
“He's too friendly. That has to change. If it doesn't, then everything we're doing here won't be worth spit. Now, let's do this again. After he finds you and eats the meat, you put something in that slingshot and shoot it at him. Hurt him. Chase him away.”
I stared at Smith. “I…I can't do that.”
“What?”
“You want me to hurt Kooch?”
“That's what I just said, isn't it?”
I studied Smith's eyes, the slingshot dangling from my fingers.
Smith tossed me another jar of horsemeat. “Take off,” he said.
Fine.
At first, I hid in a tree. If I was up there, Kooch couldn't lick me, so I wouldn't have to shoot him with the slingshot. But that wasn't what Smith wanted.
I jumped down and squatted in a stand of thick marsh grass at the edge of a dark-water pond—after I'd poked a stick into it. In the mud I found five marble-sized stones. I jammed four of them into my pocket. The fifth went into the slingshot's leather webbing.
Kooch found me. Smith shot his air gun, and I fell back in the muddy grass. Kooch ran up and ate the meat off my throat. When he started to lick up the extra blood and water, I rolled away and drew the slingshot taut. I aimed at his hindquarters, where it would sting, but not hurt him.
My fingers trembled, the webbing wobbling in my hand.
I couldn't do it.
I could hear Smith running up behind me. “Shoot him!” he shouted. “What are you waiting for?”
Kooch yelped when the stone hit, and scurried off. He looked back, standing sideways, like saying, Hey, what'd you do that for?
“Hit him again,” Smith ordered.
Kooch yipped and jumped when my second shot hit his hip. But this time he growled and paced, his head low and the hair on his back prickled up. Keeping his distance.
I couldn't look him in the eye.
“Stand down,” Smith said.
I hid the slingshot from Kooch.
Smith called him back and leashed him. He ran his hand down Kooch's neck.
But the dog kept his eyes on me.
“Let's do this one more time, Kubo,” Smith said softly.
I hid.
Kooch found me.
I shot him with a stone.
And the whole thing made me sick.
Late one morning a few days later, we were on the boat heading over to Cat Island. Dark clouds were stacked up on the horizon in the southeast, smudging the line between sky and water.
“Don't like the look of that,” Leroy said.
Cobra sniffed the air. “Storm coming.”
“Maybe. But sometimes they veer off and go south.”
Cat Island came up off our port side, long and low. I'd come to like it, so rich with life.
“What're y'all doing over there in that jungle, anyway?” Leroy asked, swinging the boat in.
“You don't know?” I said.
Leroy humphed. “They don't tell me squat. Just when to pick y'alls up and to bring your mail when you got any.”
Was it okay to tell him? Probably not, or he'd already know.
“We teaching dogs to hate us,” Chik said, not even thinking about it.
Leroy gaped. “Say again?”
Chik started to say more, but Ricky Kondo stopped him with a slight shake of his head.
Chik shrugged and fell silent.
Leroy let us off with the cow rays. We waded ashore.
“Keep an eye on the weather,” Leroy called. “If it starts to get worse, y'all get back here quick as a wink so I can get you over to Ship and make it home my own self, you hear?”
“Right,” Ricky Kondo said.
The wind started to pick up some as we headed inland, enough to rattle the trees and rustle the long grasses. But the clouds were far to the east, and the sun still painted sharp shadows over the sandy trail.
The dogs were lying in the shade, each chained to a separate tree. Their handlers lounged around in a group a short distance behind them.
The dogs turned to look our way as we approached, but they didn't stand.
We stopped in the clearing.
The handlers stayed where they were, didn't come to greet us like usual.
Strange.
“What's going on?” PeeWee whispered.
I spat in the sand. Yeah, what?
Just past the handlers, two guys were working with a monster Irish wolfhound and a wooden dummy dressed in a Japanese army uniform. The dummy had a gap in its neck, where one guy was securing a hunk of horsemeat. The other guy stood with the wolfhound at his side. When the guy by the dummy got out of the way, the handler turned the wolfhound loose, shouting, “Kill! Kill!” and that huge dog flew straight for the throat. Bam! Flattened the dummy, ripped the meat out of the throat, and ate it.
“Jeese,” Chik said. “That's creepy.”
Something was changing—the mood, the way the handlers just stood there.
The two wolfhound guys started setting up the dummy again.
A few minutes later, the Swiss showed up carrying a bundle of empty burlap sacks. He dropped them at our feet. “Grab one, boys. Today, we agitate the dogs.”
Agitate?
I picked up a sack, rough and scratchy.
“Our purpose today is to start establishing you boys as the enemy,” the Swiss said.
He looked back at the two lines of dogs, all ten now standing ready. He nodded, and the handlers moved out to check the chains, test their strength.
The Swiss turned back to us. “Form a line.”
Shig was first. PeeWee, Cobra, me, and a line of guys behind me.
“Before we begin today's fieldwork, we're going to warm the dogs up, so to speak. I'm going to have you walk down the path between them, right down the middle, and when you do you'll slap at them with those sacks until they raise their lips and bare their teeth.”
Got to be kidding, I thought.
“Don't hold back. You are the enemy from here on out. They must know that.”
I waited for him to grin and say, Nah, just joking.
He motioned to Shig. “Come on, let's go!”
Shig glanced back at the rest of us, then slowly walked toward the line of dogs, trailing the sack like a whip.
He raised his arm. Then dropped it and looked at the Swiss. I rubbed Herbie's blue stone in my pocket, worrying for Shig.
“Go ahead,” the Swiss said. “Hit them.”
Shig pressed his lips tight and started in on the first dog—King, Cobra's Labrador.
At first King thought it was a game and tried to grab the sack and tug on it. “Hit him harder,” the Swiss called. “But not near the eyes, don't hit the eyes.”
Shig whapped the dog with increasing force.
The reaction was quick and terrifying.
Shig staggered back at King's raised lips and ugly snarl, deep, from way down inside. Shig quickly moved on to the next dog, and the next, each one leaping at him violently when he struck with the sack, trying to bite him. Only the chains yanked them back.
“Make them feel it,” the Swiss shouted, motioning for the rest of us to get moving. “Let's go! Let's go!”
We followed Shig like we were going to a funeral. Reluctantly, I wrapped the burlap around my fist.
I hit King weakly, faking it. I went after the next dog, and one more, slapping them lightly. To hit them any harder was impossible. How could I be doing such a thing?
Ahead, Kooch was snarling at Cobra, and Cobra was keeping his distance, whipping the sack at him, but barely close enough to hit.
Smith watched, his squinted face thin-lipped, his hands balled into fists. He hated this as much as I did.
“Move in! Get closer!” the Swiss shouted.
When I came to Kooch I whipped the burlap at his side. I hoped he'd recognize me and understand I was only doing this because I had to. But I knew dogs didn't think that way. A threat was a threat. Period. And Kooch was way too worked up by then; he had to defend himself.
Kooch lunged.
His yellowish teeth looked like sharpened bones. He snarled so hard he almost choked. This wasn't the dog I knew. Days earlier he'd been kissing my face. Now he wanted to kill.
Me.
“Hurt him!” the Swiss shouted.
I struck harder, trying to keep the burlap from his eyes. Kooch snagged the sack and pulled on it, shaking his head, the noise in him rising from some deep place a thousand years old.
I jerked until I got the sack back and quickly moved on to the next dog, a collie named Captain. My hands shook. My lip bled where I'd been biting on it.
Suddenly, my mind flipped off, replaced by a merciful blankness as I moved through the line of raging dogs. Don't think, don't think, don't think.
By the time the last of us had come through the line, the dogs were worked into a frenzy, all ten of them leaping, drooling, half insane. If a chain broke, someone would pay.
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