A Congress of Angels

by Jon Fore

  As if to describe her thoughts, some of the manufacturing turned to the processing for sea food. Trucks sat dark and cold, fish and crab tattooed on the sides of the small vehicles along with curved German writing. Within two blocks, the road dead-ended at a wharf.

  A broad expanse of concrete with affixed wooden piers run widthwise while wood docking ran out and into the water like fingers. There were vessels moored to just about every inch of dock and even some of the pier.

  Vega stopped the jeep and the milling throngs immediately surrounded them, on their way to nothing. She stood on the floor boards and looked along the wharf for a special kind of boat, the kind of boat that didn't need engines. There were fishing boats, tug boats, and pleasure boats, but it was some time before she found what she was looking for.

  It was moored far out on one of the docks and nearly impossible to see save for a barrel of burning debris close by. It was dark but long and sported two masts. It looked about forty feet, and more than large enough to cross the Atlantic. "There.” She said and pointed at the pier casually.

  Maria stood and leaned close to Vega, "How can you tell?"

  They both felt Jackson stand in his gigantic way.

  "It has sails, that’s the most important. The fact it has two masts tells me it’s a decent size boat."

  "I don't like boats, don't like them one bit.” Jackson mumbled and threw himself back into his seat.

  The jeep wobbled twice, "We can't drive down the dock, so we will get as close as we can, and then I will go see if I can book passage somehow."

  "I still have a lot of money," Maria said.

  "Good, we might need it," Vega said and sat back down, shifting the jeep into first again. She waited for Maria to sit before drifting forward, easing the jeep through the crowds. The smell of the sea got worse as they made the left and headed toward the dock. It was not the normal wind swept sea tang, more like spoiled fish mixed with trash and human waste. It was so rich it left a taste in her mouth.

  When Vega stopped the jeep at the end of the pier, they were again swallowed by the flood of human misery. She looked over her shoulder, "I think it would be best if Jackson stayed with the jeep. You can handle that, right?"

  "Well, sure. Don't like it none, though, boy-howdy." He rolled his eyes on toward Maria.

  "I'll be fine, Mister Jackson. I will have Vega to look out for me.” She leaned in quick and kissed the tip of his nose. Then she leaped out onto the street between vagrant pedestrians.

  "You'll take care of her, right?” He asked.

  The mixture of simple speak and dead flat expression almost made Vega chuckle, but she managed to wrestle it down. "I will take care of her, don't you worry... Mister Jackson."

  Vega eased herself into the flow of foot traffic and shouldered her way to the head of the pier where Maria waited. She spared a look back at the jeep to find Jackson sitting there enormously, brooding. She was sure that no one would try and grab something out of the jeep with Mr. Moody Monster sitting there, so she took Maria's hand and began down the pier.

  "If the owner isn't there, do we just take the boat?” Maria asked. The crowding on the pier was not nearly as bad as on the streets.

  "I can't sail a boat, Maria. Can you?"

  "No, not at all."

  "I'm willing to bet the owner lives on the thing. If not, he is out here somewhere looking out for his interests.

  They turned left onto the dock and approached the gangplank. It was stretched from the boats aft section to the pier, and there was nothing strung across it, blocking passage. Someone could just simply walk right onto the boat. But that isn't what Vega did. She knew she was supposed to ask permission to come aboard or something, so stopped at the foot of the gangplank.

  The boat was a large, two mast schooner, or she thought it was a schooner. She wasn't sure, but schooner seemed to fit. It was well maintained from what she could see, but then again, she probably wouldn't know the difference. It was a boat. That's what she did know, and that was about it.

  "Can I help you?" a gentle voice said behind Vega.

  Vega and Maria turned to find a good looking guy, somewhere in his mid-twenties. Vega pegged him instantly for a California surfer, but he certainly didn't talk like one. "We were looking for the owner of this boat.” Vega said.

  The guy gave Vega a smoldering glance, and then Maria an equal measure, "That would be me. Well, I'm not the owner, I'm the caretaker, you know?"

  Vega wasn't sure what a boat caretaker was supposed to do, "We want to buy passage to the States. Can you sail this all the way to the States?"

  The man dropped his backpack to his foot but didn't let go of the handle, "I am actually about to go to the states with her, but I don't have any permission to bring on passengers. I would need to clear that with Mr. Bell, only I can’t get a hold of him anymore."

  "Bell?” Vega asked, then looked at Maria.

  "Yeah, General Bell, U.S. Army."

  "You got to be kidding me," Vega said.

  "No, why's that?"

  "Listen, where are you taking the boat?"

  "To Key West. That's where his summer home's at."

  "He would let me ride if you could get a hold of him," Vega said as she rummaged around her breast pocket. "That, and we have our own provisions, least I think. We can also pay if you need that.” She took out a slip of paper and unfolded it before the man.

  "Well listen, I still can't just let you ride without the General's permission...."

  Vega offered him the paper and the guy read it from beginning to end, then again. "You got to be kidding me, you know? When did you get this?"

  How long ago was she at her apartment above Gertrude's? Two days? Had it only been two days? "Two days ago, when I got out of the hospital."

  He offered the sheet of paper back to Vega, looked at Maria for a second, then back at Vega. Then he jutted his hand out, "I'm William T. Blackwell, and I would love some company on the trip." He added his warm California surfer smile, only now Vega was sure it hadn't come from California.

  Vega returned the smile and shook his hand. "We have one more passenger and stores to bring onboard...."

  "Well, let me get the hand truck and we will make it one, you know? Wait right here.” William hefted his backpack over his shoulder and sauntered across the gangplank. Vega took the opportunity to appreciate his rear. She turned to Maria to find she was doing the same thing. This made her smile, honestly, for the first time in days if not weeks. "That was surprisingly simple.” Vega said.

  "He's cute, ain't he?” Maria said as she rolled her eyes beneath her forehead.

  "Yes, very. I just can't believe our luck, you know? He works for General Bell, and really, since when can Generals afford a boat this big?" Now that she said it, the suspicion rooted in her head and began to grow.

  "Are you alright?” Maria asked.

  I'm never going to get used to people reading me like this. "Yeah, it's just seems too lucky to just be a coincidence, you know?"

  "I guess. He is American though."

  "True."

  William appeared from the lower decks pulling alongside a hand truck that bounced and knocked against the stairwell. In moments he was walking down the gangplank, the hand truck tailing behind. "So, it's the jeep parked at the end of the peer, right?"

  "Yeah, come on," Vega said and began leading them towards the jeep.

  "So your friend, the other passenger, that's the big guy in the jeep?” William asked.

  "Yeah, that's him. His name is Jackson," Maria said in a perky voice.

  They pulled up to the jeep and Jackson raised his eyebrows at the new guy walking beside Maria.

  "Jackson, this is William, William, Jackson. We need to load up the hand truck before we get robbed." Vega headed around the back of the jeep to grab a box. She heard Jackson and William greet each other, possibly with a hand shake, then they both went around back to help offload the stores.

  "So, how long have you been working
for General Bell?" Vega had trouble not interrogating someone when she had a suspicion. Even in the face of bad luck like this, she couldn't help herself. It was her policing nature.

  "Well, actually, I kind of lied.” William said without pausing in his moving of boxes from jeep to hand truck. Jackson froze where he was, but Vega took the man's cue and forced herself to treat it nonchalantly. "I'm actually his son. I own the boat, Princess Kate, not him. I sell wind-jammer cruises from Key West to Amsterdam, and just finished one, well, when all hell broke loose. I bet you can see my problem, huh?"

  Vega thought only for a moment before she realized that William couldn't possibly handle the boat alone--at least not easily--all the way back to Key West. He needed a crew, maybe one or even three people to help with the sails and pulling rope and all that, so she said, "You need a crew, huh?"

  "Yeah. Most people hear that the boat belongs to an American Army General, and they stop bothering me about fleeing the mainland. For all I know, they want to take the boat once we leave the dock and go wherever they intended to go to get away from what's happening here."

  Without being asked he began to draw the hand truck, now full of provisions, back towards the boat.

  "The problem is, I don't speak the language, and people don't seem to understand that what is happening here is happening everywhere. There is no place to go. You know?"

  Vega walked on one side of the truck, looking for a box to dislodge itself. Maria was doing the same thing on the other side, and Jackson was behind the truck, pushing lightly on the too-tall stack. "I guess. I mean helping refugees is a good thing, but there are so many."

  "Right. And to help one and not another would be worse than helping the one, you know? It wouldn't be right, you know?"

  "Why not select a few to help you man the boat so you could get back to the States?” Vega asked.

  "You know, to tell you the truth, that was what I was about to do. I looked all over for English speakers, but you can't get anywhere in the city anymore. That and pick-pockets are thriving and there has been some fights and some deaths and I didn't want to get involved anymore."

  He stopped at the foot of the gangplank, and lifted the first box.

  "So I was about to go ahead and try and make it alone, in fact I was leaving now. Until you all showed up. Lucky for me, you know?"

  Vega and Jackson had both lifted a box and began carrying them across the gangplank behind William. Maria stayed with the rest of the supplies to make sure they didn't get burglarized.

  "Just put them there.” William said, pointing to the place next to the gangplank. "On a boat, you have to learn how to maximize your available space, and I can fit ten pounds in a five pound bag, you know?” With that, he vanished below, holding the box straight over his head.

  Vega and Jackson went back for more boxes.

  "Seems like a nice fella," Jackson said, but his voice held an odd timbre.

  "Yeah, I guess. Something doesn't seem right though. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't feel right."

  "Well, he ain't anything I couldn't handle, come to that, boy-howdy."

  "What about the guns?” Maria asked as they approached the hand truck.

  Jackson grabbed two boxes of M.R.Es off the top of the stack and headed back across the gangplank.

  "We take them. We will just unload them and store them separate from the ammunition, and in our room, not his." Vega said this, but also knew she was not about to give up her service pistol. William had not asked them to do anything like this, which made her feel silly about her suspicion, but it remained. It just felt kind of like a scam was all. Please help me get this money out of Tanzania kind of scam. She would have to keep herself focused until she could figure out why he made her so leery.

  She grabbed another box, and carried this aboard as Jackson passed her to grab more. In less than ten minutes, they had outpaced William and his expert stowing abilities, and stood next to the boxes to help hand them down.

  Unable to help, Vega began walking the topside deck, admiring the sleek and well maintained sail boat. All of the rope was neatly arranged, all of the chrome was clean and some even had macramé style string designs on their lengths. Woven knots embroidered the top of most of the handrails. It really began to sink in how much she didn't know about boats and sailing.

  When she made her circuit, Maria waved her to follow them below decks, down the ladder that William had used. She had three rifles on one shoulder, the clips still in the weapons. She vanished down the narrow steps, and Vega jogged the last few steps to follow.

  At the foot of the steps was a surprisingly wide sitting area, like a living room. it was easily as large as the living room in the apartment above Gertrude's. Unlike that puffy old world style, this space was sleek and mostly wood, accented with soft whites and chrome.

  William was standing in the center, and as soon as Vega stepped onto the floor, he pointed behind her, "That's the galley... uh, kitchen. Your staterooms are this way," he turned and pointed at a small passage with three doors, "The door on the left is a single, the door in the center is a double, and the door on the right is the head... sorry, bathroom."

  He gave this little speech as though he had given it too many times in the past.

  "Now on the other side of the galley, the door there, that is my stateroom. Over there, " he pointed to a nearly invisible ladder going down into the deck, "That's the ladder to the second floor, and that is storage, the line locker, bilge, and the engine room."

  "Does the engine work?” Vega asked before Jackson or Maria could. Actually, Jackson was beginning to look a little pale already.

  "Well, no, actually. Damn thing too, you know? It just kind of happened this morning. I turn it over every day or so, and for some reason, this morning, it wouldn't run. But don't worry about that. We have sails and can go at a pretty good clip with wind power alone, you know?"

  "How long will it take to get to America?” Maria asked.

  "Well, depends on the wind. That is unless we can get that engine going. But I suspect it needs a real mechanic, you know? So by wind power, if we get full sails, about a week to ten days. But, normally, it takes two to three weeks. Remember though, I run wind-jammer cruises, so I have never tried to make the trip direct, you know? Always cruising around the ocean." He finished with a smile that warmed the room.

  Maria grasped Vega's shoulder, "I’m going to go stow these rifles," and walked down the short hall and to the end cabin, what William called the double.

  William stepped into the galley, which was only two steps away, and opened the small refrigerator. "Beer?” He asked no one, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

  "That sounds good to me, boy-howdy.” Jackson said as he walked toward the kitchen.

  "You, um, Vega? Sorry, had trouble remembering your name there, you know. Why did you get named after a star?"

  "No, no beer for me thanks. It's a family name."

  "Ah. I don't know about you, shipmates, but I think it’s time to cast off and be on our way, you know?"

  "So soon?” Jackson looked pale, even under his dark skin.

  "What?” Maria asked, coming back from the stateroom without the rifles.

  "He wants to go. Now. Right now," Jackson nearly whimpered.

  To Vega, Jackson looked and sounded like a kid about to head to the dentist.

  William grinned a knowing grin, "Get a little seasick, do you?"

  "Boy-howdy, I do. I don't like boats. Not one small bit."

  "It's a Ketch, the boat I mean, and I got something for your seasickness." He turned in the small galley and opened a small cupboard and retrieved a white bottle. He tossed this to Jackson who caught it deftly in his left hand. "Ginger, you know? It does wonders for the stomach."

  "Really?” Jackson asked.

  "Really."

  "Let me ask you this, William.” Vega broke in, "If we leave now, how many people do you need to help you?"

  "Well, all of you would be best, y
ou know? Why?"

  "These two haven't slept in days. Can you and I do it?" Vega felt an immediate sensation of relief coming from her companions.

  "I suppose.” He slugged the beer back, his hair hanging long and tangled down his back in strands that seemed uncertain if they wanted to be bleach-blond or light brown. Then he smashed the can in his hand, "It's going to get busy on deck. We have to cast off, haul up the sails which ain't easy, you know? I won't be able to help either cause I got to be on the helm, steering."

  "Well, if you don't mind, I would like to give it a try and...."

  "No, no, no.” Jackson interrupted. "I can pull my share and Maria's too. I can sleep after that's done."

  Vega looked at him and found that same pale face, but now set in a stubborn expression. As if the last piece of a complicated jigsaw puzzle fell into place, Vega realized she loved this large man. "Are you sure, Jackson?"

  "Yes.” He said flatly, leaving no room for argument.

  "Well, you listen to me, Big Guy," Maria said, turning him slowly by the arm, an arm her hands couldn't get around, "You see that door down there?” She pointed down the passage to the double with a slow arm and a cocked hip. She turned her head up to him, eyes to one side, lip pinched gently between her teeth.

  "Well, yeah, sure.” Jackson swallowed visibly.

  "When you’re done playing sailor-man up there, you get yourself in there. No knocking, no arguing. You just come in there like it’s your room, cause, well, for this trip, it is your room. Got me? I been waiting for you too long." Her face was serious but somehow smoldered in that South American way.

  "Yes um. I mean, Yes ma'am. I get you, boy-howdy."

  Vega smiled broadly at this, helpless to do otherwise. The serious almost frightened look on Jackson's face was really just too much.

  Maria stared at him, sternly, her eyes steaming, then turned and walked slowly down the corridor, pulling her shirt over her head and bearing her back to everyone there before sliding through the door.