“You never mentioned her before.”
“Shit, boy, she’s blood, you think I’d throw her to the wolves?”
The missionaries sounded anything but robust. Aside from Rodney, none of them might be capable of surviving if the boat had capsized. But sometimes the least likely people have a survival instinct that kicks in when they’re faced with last call. I checked my watch, the heading indicator and chart.
“We’re coming up on where the Coast Guard’s searching.”
“What you want me to do?”
“Sit tight for now, we’re continuing on to the Cuban territorial line.”
“But if the Coast Guard’s—”
“They can search here. Unless the Carnival was trolling the whole way, my calculations have them damn close to Cuba when they called in that Mayday.”
Another ten minutes elapsed, with nothing to see besides water, waves, and whitecaps. Finally I pushed the yoke forward and we began a slow descent.
We leveled off at 50 feet and dropped the airspeed down to 100.
“The hell you doing, man? Why we so low?”
“We need to be wave-top skimming to spot anything small in the water, like someone clutching a life ring. Unbuckle yourself, pull the plug on your headset, and reattach both in the back. You’ll see better from the windows under the wings.”
Lenny hesitated, then did what I’d told him to.
“Time to focus on search and rescue. With any luck, we’ll find the Carnival floating with no power and your foxy cousin waving from the bow.”
I didn’t tell him if they got swamped in that storm, we’d be looking for bodies.
10
AFTER FLYING IN A grid pattern for three and a half hours, and exhausting six sheets of notepaper marking our coordinates on my knee board, I felt like I’d been in a whiteout during a blizzard. Like us, neither the Coast Guard cutter Mohawk nor their helicopter had found anything. The Mohawk and all its technological apparatus were scouring a twenty-square-mile grid but would only continue for another day unless they found something.
Lenny visibly vacillated between terrified and nauseous before stabilizing at bored. No matter how important the mission, the untrained eye can only concentrate on featureless water for so long. He tried drinking coffee, then Coke, then he ate his first sandwich, but his head moved around like a bobble doll with fluttering eyelids. The crystal-clear sky offered no distraction, and the seas were unusually calm for March, which is right in the middle of the windy season.
Boredom is contagious. On long flights I kept alert by calculating Betty’s remaining fuel capacity, and diligently tracking course and heading. I didn’t like to use autopilot in the cockpit, or in life. It’s too easy for routine to take over, and days to fall like rain drops. I had exchanged working sixty hour weeks with my entire focus on making money for living in the moment, but that was done in hindsight and as the result of many failures. But, holding on to the moment too tightly can also be destructive. I vowed to loosen my grip on the controls, later.
We started another search leg along a due easterly heading. Flying this low was exhausting because it left you with no margin for error—space out for a couple of seconds and you corkscrew into the drink, JFK, Jr.-style. I was good for maybe another hour but was starting to think we’d flown past the outside edge of where the current could have carried a powerless boat or anybody floating in a life jacket. I slid open my vent window.
Lenny was back to nodding off again. “We’ll never find squat if you don’t stay alert,” I said. “Keep talking if that’ll help.”
“Where the hell are we, anyway?”
“Skirting the Cuban territorial line, roughly seventy miles south of Key West.”
“Don’t get any crazy ideas about buzzing that Moron Castle you were talking about.” He sat up. “So how does a dude who went bankrupt still have his own plane and enough jack to live large?”
“I live in an old hotel, how’s that living large?”
“This plane can’t be cheap, even if it’s ancient, and unless you discovered sunken treasure and never told nobody, you ain’t found shit, least anything you could live off. You still getting some kind of corporate kick-back, or what?”
His question reminded me that I should be out in the Dry Tortugas, right now. “Let’s concentrate on finding your cousin, okay?”
“We’re just talking, right? To keep me alert. So, what about your look?”
“What look?”
“You got this whole grunge thing going, shaggy hair and that wild mustache? Ain’t seen one of them since reruns of Starsky and Hutch on Nick at Nite.”
“I’ve been told I look like Jimmy Buffett on the cover of Havana Daydreamin’.”
“That’s supposed to give me a picture? Last I saw, Buffett was bald.” Lenny snorted. “That cracker’s done as much damage as Hemingway around here. Damn island’s turned into a white man’s fountain of testosterone, everyone wanting to be big game fishermen, hunters, ladies’ men. It’s like a B-movie with him cackling the soundtrack. Between that and the damn cruise ships, no wonder locals can’t afford shit.”
“Not now, Lenny, we—”
“Thing is? Both those guys were tourists. Hemingway was hardly ever here, and Buffett was here just long enough to brand us Margaritaville. I mean, what kind of shit’s that? My family’s been here over a hundred years working our asses off rolling cigars, sponging, turtling, fishing, building freaking bridges, and every other damn thing to survive. This ain’t no vacation spot for us, man, this is our home.”
“Don’t forget bartending and talking shit.”
“Talking shit, huh? Be mayor of this town some day, trust me on that.”
“Conch Man goes to City Hall?”
“If Captain Tony can get elected? Damn straight, man. In case you didn’t notice, we got a brother in the White House now, and he ain’t the butler, neither. Home grown black man’ll be the ticket around here, you watch.”
I’d heard all this before many times at Blue Heaven. “God bless you, Lenny, but my days in the spotlight are over. All I want now is to live a quiet life of adventure, fight for what I believe in, and maybe rescue a beautiful woman, or two.”
“Adventure, huh? I know you’re talking about treasure hunting. So you can be the next Mel Fisher, right? Least you’re not an old drunk, yet. Then we going to see Buck Reilly plastered all over the damn place too, ‘Buck Reilly drank here, Buck Reilly slept there’”— A laugh interrupted his tirade. “I can see it now, man, the Conch Tour Train going by Blue Heaven and the announcer says, ‘And Buck Reilly got his ass kicked here by Bruiser Lewis.’”
My watch beeped and we began the turn south. When we leveled off I spotted a yellow object flash in the water. After a couple seconds’ hesitation I spun the plane back around in a tight turn.
“The hell you doing?”
“Keep watch out the port window. I just saw something flash on the water. Something yellow.”
Lenny fought gravity by clutching the handle above the window. We leveled off lower to the water. Where was that bit of yellow? Flotsam now dotted the rolling surface. A white plastic trash bag appeared, then another. The muscles in my neck tightened.
“Hey!” Lenny pointed. “What’s that, off to the left? There!”
I banked hard to port while pulling the yoke back to keep Betty’s nose up.
“Goddamn, Buck!”
The rhythmic pattern of waves made it hard to focus on the smaller pieces of trash. There! Something large rose on a wave and then dropped down. Was it a person?
I stabbed the “mark” button on the Garmin GPS, now Velcroed to the instrument panel. We flew for another minute before beginning a slow 180-degree turn, powering down, and adding ten degrees of flaps.
“The hell’s going on?”
“It’s called a water landing, Lenny.”
He dove back into the right seat, ramming my shoulder as he went. He fumbled with the harness, glanced out the window, a
nd let out an involuntary moan as his hands shot down to grab the edges of the seat frame.
The yellow figure again rose on the waves. I further decreased our airspeed and dropped the flaps to twenty degrees. We needed an angle free of debris, otherwise a crate of food could peel back Betty’s hull like the lid of a sardine can. The only indication of wind was a slight spray off the low waves—perfect landing conditions. We would overshoot the mark, but we’d taxi back.
“I can’t believe this shit!” Lenny’s voice boomed as we splashed down.
Water shot up the sides of the flight deck windows, but the Widgeon was firm in the water without any bouncing or skipping. A sweeping turn led us back toward where I’d spotted the yellow. The concern for floating rubbish had me holding my breath.
Lenny fidgeted as the wings bounced precariously above the large red and green bulbous floats skimming atop the water. I studied the seas ahead, worked the rudder with my feet, checked the proximity to the mark, and eyed the compass while trying to keep the floats from getting buried and cart-wheeling us over.
Lenny unbuckled and peered up over the nose to get a better view.
“There! Over to the left, ten o’clock.”
I looked where he was pointing. “I can’t see anything, guide me.”
“Straight ahead, fifty yards. You got it, Buck, just keep this bitch straight.”
Betty bucked atop a wave and the nose dipped down hard.
“I didn’t mean nothing, damnit,” Lenny said.
The target appeared during the dip and I mentally prepared our rescue checklist. No need to scare Lenny, but opening the hatch on the ocean is not a wise maneuver. One rogue wave hits you broadside and you’re toast, plus the flaps are inoperable with the hatch open, making you even more vulnerable.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” I said. “Go into the back and put on one of the life vests in the rear compartment, then lower the kayak. When I tell you to, open the hatch and latch it up halfway with a bungee cord.”
“Then what?”
“Uncoil the rope ladder, leave the hatch open, and hang the ladder outside. You’ll have to jump, get in the kayak and paddle over. You need to get out quick so I can keep Betty pointed into the waves. Whoever’s out there will be weak and you’ll probably have to push them onto the boat and drag them back. They might be unconscious or—”
“I get the picture.”
Lenny was a good swimmer and should be able to pull this off, but damn if I’d let him get hurt out here. We took off our headsets and Lenny crouched back into the main compartment. He crashed from side to side on his way to the rear hatch, falling to his knees and crawling the rest of the way.
“Shut the storage hatch when you’re done. The plane needs to be as watertight as possible if we get hit by a wave.”
When I turned to see Lenny, our heading shifted and the plane suddenly moved hard to the left, which sent Lenny crashing into the kayak. The green float on the port wing was submerged—I reduced power, and it popped back up. I could hear his cussing over the whine of the twin six-cylinder engines.
“I’ve got to watch where we’re going, yell out what you’re doing,” I said. Yellow again surfaced off the port side. “It’s a man, face up.”
“The boat’s unhooked, you ready?” Lenny said.
I glanced through the side windows. “I’ll run up past you, then swing back.”
I could hear him struggling but didn’t dare look back. Suddenly a whoosh of salt air blew my hair forward, and the sound of the engines roared through the cabin. The plane rocked under Lenny’s shifting weight when he threw the kayak out the hatch.
“Don’t leave my ass out here, man!”
11
THE WAVES WERE GENTLE, maybe two-foot swells, which out this far was a blessing. Going broadside into the swells with an open hatch wasn’t safe seaplane piloting, but failure wasn’t an option. My heart rate had accelerated, my senses were pinging and I was on the edge of my seat. Being on the brink of danger and discovery always did that to me, and I was drawn to it like a hawk on a field mouse.
I radioed the Coast Guard and gave them our coordinates. They promised to redirect the Mohawk toward us.
Okay, Lenny, where are you?
Come on, Conch Man….
There! I could see Lenny wrestling with a man. There was nothing to do but overshoot them and make another pass. I powered to the left to keep the open hatch in the lee of the waves.
You can do it, Lenny, come on!
Water splashed in at the apex of the turn, but the float didn’t catch, so I gunned the starboard engine and spun back into position. With a glance at the heading indicator and a minor adjustment to our course, I dodged another carton of floating food.
Seconds ticked off, and I couldn’t find them. I scanned the surface. Then suddenly, through my side window, I saw the orange kayak bound over a wave with the yellow man lying on top of it and Lenny behind, pushing them toward Betty. I slowed the engines to the bare minimum, stalling until they disappeared under the wing. A second later, a jarring clunk made Betty lurch to port.
My eyes darted from the waves to the main cabin just in time to see a stream of water with a yellow mass dump into the fuselage to the sound of coughing and sputtering. Lenny fell in after but had the presence of mind to withdraw the ladder.
“Shut the hatch!”
I grabbed the throttles. We’d be in a much better position to attend to the yellow man flying in stable air than while getting thrown around on the ocean’s surface. The waves ahead were steady, the wind direction good, and I imagined a runway. The familiar vibration of the hatch closing shook the plane.
“Hang on!” Betty rocked in the waves as we got up on plane, and after a 10-count the airspeed indicator touched 70. I hit the flaps, pulled back the stick, and we broke free of the water and into the air.
Lenny careened into my shoulder before collapsing into the co-pilot’s seat.
“Good job,” I said. “Damn good job. Now let’s—” His expression looked anything but happy, and his skin tone was changing before my eyes. “You okay?”
He said something unintelligible through his fingers. I moved the headset away from my ear. “What?”
“I said—” A hiccup interrupted him. “He’s dead.”
12
LENNY’S COAL-BLACK SKIN HAD a decidedly pale tinge.
“Open the sliding window!”
His chest heaved, and he slapped his hand over his mouth. I ripped off my seat belt, stretched across, and worked the handle on the window. Betty dove forward, then veered to the right while I fought with the latch, getting it open just in time for Lenny to empty his stomach all over the fuselage.
Our speed accelerated to 175, and it took all my strength to jerk back on the yoke to pull us out of the sharp descent. Lenny fell back into his seat, spittle-chinned and panting. He convulsed again but had hit empty. I thumbed back toward the yellow heap in the fuselage.
“Is it one of the missionaries?”
“J-three. Jo Jo.” A waft of vomit-breath hung in the cabin. Lenny shuddered. Conch Man had put his life on the line and damn near drowned.
With food cartons, crates, and loose clothing bobbing all over the area, it wasn’t certain how the boat had sunk. My arms suddenly felt like lead weights, and the emotional fatigue hit the way Bruiser Lewis likely would come Saturday.
“Kayak’s history, man. I just didn’t…couldn’t…”
“How are we supposed to—”
BOOM!
The sound rocked us as Betty jerked hard to the left amidst deafening backfires that blasted one after the other. The port engine was sputtering badly, its tachometer needle bouncing back and forth like a heart monitor on a dying patient. I danced on the pedals, jockeyed the yoke, reduced power on both engines, and tried to keep the wings level.
“Wh..at th..e fu..ck is hap..pen..ing?” Betty’s bouncing rattled Lenny’s shout out like Morse code.
The altimeter rea
d 1,250 feet above sea level but the needle was dropping fast, along with our airspeed. Adjustments to the fuel mixture and props did nothing, and the port engine continued to backfire and spew blue smoke. Something hit the back of my seat—the yellow-clad corpse.
Oh jeez.
“Lenny!” His eyes were wild. “Hook Jo Jo to the wall with one of the bungee cords before he makes us crash.”
Lenny lit out of his seat like an alley cat, smashed into the bulkhead, and stumbled over the body. Jo Jo disappeared from my peripheral vision and the weight shifted back to an operable center of gravity. Another loud boom sounded, and again Betty veered to the left, sending Lenny into the side wall. Our airspeed deteriorated, and the yoke went limp as we began a stall there wasn’t enough altitude to correct.
I fleetingly considered a water landing, but we’d never be able to take off with only one engine. The old girl bucked and rattled while I scanned the emergency checklist.
Lenny jumped back into the front seat. His eyes were no longer wild but determined. Something I’d seen in men facing inevitable death, financial ruin…or occasionally in the mirror.
“What’s the deal, Buck, we gonna make it?”
Our altitude was now at 600 feet, and I tried to remember the ditch procedure. “Come on, Betty!”
I pointed the nose down to regain some speed. Lenny’s eyes were shut tight and his knuckles white from clutching the seat frame. I killed the port engine, and the plane started to slide. I counted to four, hit the starter and the loudest backfire yet exploded with a huge puff of white smoke from the exhaust. The RPMs suddenly smoothed out and Betty leveled off and calmed down like an asthmatic after a coughing fit.
The altimeter indicated we were 60 feet above the ocean. Pulling back slowly on the yoke, I began a gradual climb, nervous at reactivating whatever ailment was lurking in the port engine. Moments passed in quiet. Lenny’s breathing finally slowed. He slumped forward with both hands clutching the wooden cross.
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