Voyage After the Collapse (The Pulse Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  By far the largest island in the Bahamas archipelago, Andros was even before the collapse one of the least visited of the Bahamian islands by outsiders. Larry knew of places in the bights that cut through the island that might make for suitably remote refuge as well, but that’s not where he and Scully had agreed they would go. Now that they had no possibility of a rendezvous in Florida, Larry had no intentions of making any unnecessary stops before they reached the Jumentos Cays or the Ragged Islands. That meant sailing north of Andros, on a more typical course taken by most sailboats crossing from the Keys to the Bahamas. The only difference was that they would not be calling at Bimini or Cat Cay or any of the other usual check-in ports on the edge of the banks. Larry hoped that considering the circumstances, they could slip into the island nation unnoticed and by avoiding the main ports such as Nassau, circumvent the need for clearing in at all. Once they were in the Jumentos, he doubted any authorities would bother them.

  He was still agitated and disappointed by the encounter with the navy boat. Not being able to enter his own country simply because he was traveling by sea was a real bummer, mainly because of the inconvenience and added worry that it was causing them and no doubt Artie and the others on the catamaran. Larry reflected on the chain of events that led them to where they were now, in the middle of the Gulf Stream without having touched land since leaving Cat Island. Rebecca’s stunt and the weather had together conspired to separate the two yachts, despite the fact that Larry himself had emphasized to everyone on board each vessel the utter importance of sticking together on the crossing, no matter what. Then, out of nowhere, the U.S. Navy was suddenly on the scene after a conspicuous absence of any kind of military or police presence whatsoever. If all this could happen in such a few short days, Larry wondered what would be next? He didn’t let the others know how worried he was, but he was beginning to think that the odds of all of them being reunited when he reached their destination might not be as good as they hoped.

  At least the tension aboard the boat had eased a bit, and Tara was talking to him again. The way things were going just few days ago, Larry was sure that their landfall at the Dry Tortugas was going to be the end of any further association with Tara and her daughter. If they had reached the harbor at that point and the Casey Nicole had not been there, she would have still probably put him and Casey ashore and sailed somewhere else. In a way, the blockade that prevented them from stopping there was a good thing, forcing them to reach a point of reasonable communication. Larry’s original infatuation with Tara was greatly subdued, but by no means finished simply because she had attacked him like a she tiger defending her cubs. He could forgive her for doing what a mother naturally does, if she could forgive him for being an ass that fell asleep on the job. Time would tell, but for now, at least, there was peace aboard the Sarah J.

  “How long will it take to get to the Jumentos and Ragged Islands after we pass north of Andros?” Casey asked, as she joined him in the cockpit to take the helm while he got his daily noon shot.

  “It’s hard to say. A few days, I imagine. We’re still going to be beating to windward, and we’re going to have to be really careful in the islands to avoid the reefs. A lot of those areas can’t be sailed at night, especially without electronics. But there are isolated spots on the banks and near the cays where we can anchor when needed.”

  “It sounds tricky,” Casey said. “I know you can manage, Uncle Larry, but what about Scully and my Dad? Dad doesn’t know much about sailing, and Grant and Jessica will be even less help. Is Scully going to be able to find his way through all that?” Casey was looking at the maze of small islands and reefs scattered through the Bahamas east and south of Andros.

  “Scully knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t ever sailed those waters, but the big advantage they have on the Casey Nicole is her extreme shallow draft. That boat is just so forgiving. As long as they don’t sail her onto a reef in the dark, they can get away with a lot more navigational errors than we can on the banks over there. I’m betting they’re gonna get there way ahead of us, if they haven’t already, and we’ll find them waiting when we get there.”

  “I sure hope so. I don’t like this separation. I thought we were done with that when we all finally made it to Cat Island.”

  “Yeah, me too. I know it was my idea, to help Tara and her kid out.” Larry kept his voice low, even though the companionway was closed. “I guess I just couldn’t help myself. She seemed perfect,” he whispered.

  “I don’t blame you one bit, Uncle Larry. She’s a beautiful lady, and wow, this really is a great boat, just like you said. We all need somebody. You did what most any man in your shoes would have done.”

  “I guess. I don’t know, maybe it’s just because of everything that’s happened. I’m usually pretty content on my own for the most part. But what’s up with you and Grant, Casey? Your dad said you talked about him all the time, even before. I can tell you like him too, and I can see why, from what little time I’ve been around him.”

  “Well yeah. What’s not to like? He’s cute, and smart and incredibly interesting, and I thought all that even before I saw how he’s handled himself in a crisis.”

  “It looks like Jessica thinks so too though, huh?”

  “Of course she does. She’d be all over him in a heartbeat, and maybe she is now.”

  “I think he likes you better. If not, he wouldn’t be able to turn Jessica down. I know I wouldn’t!”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t, would you, Uncle Larry. You’re almost old enough to be her dad though. You’re terrible!”

  “So what? I’m still good looking enough, right?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. She was checking you out pretty hard back there at Cat Island. You didn’t notice after Tara showed up though, did you?”

  “I noticed before, but yeah, I thought Tara was more my type. And I knew you’d get mad at me if I started hitting on your roommate.”

  “Not if it kept her away from Grant, I wouldn’t,” Casey said. “Jessica is used to getting what she wants, and if Grant hasn’t given in to her yet, she’s going to try harder, just for the challenge. If it happens, then so be it.”

  “It’ll be his loss if he goes for her instead of you, Casey.”

  “You’re sweet, Uncle Larry. But with all that we have to worry about, you’d think romance would be the last thing on anyone’s mind.”

  “Or maybe the first,” Larry said. “If it’s the end of the world as we know it, then we’ve got to start over somehow!”

  * * *

  With the wind out of the southeast, the passage across the Gulf Stream was uneventful. It was the best time of year to make the crossing of the potentially treacherous current—mostly too late for northerlies to reach that far south and too early for tropical storms and hurricanes. Most of the bad reputation of the Gulf Stream came from reports of mariners who had been caught out in it during strong winds from the north. Wind against current always made for nasty seas, and here, a band of three to four knot currents stretched most of the distance between Florida and the Great Bahama Bank.

  Once they were across, the transition onto the banks was easily discernible by the abrupt change in water color, from indigo blue out in the Stream to aquamarine over the white sand bottom that now was less than 30 feet beneath the keel of the Sarah J. It was still a long way to the north end of Andros from the edge of the banks, and with only two hours of daylight left, Larry planned to anchor well before they neared the big island.

  “This feels really weird,” Tara said, after they’d finally stopped and dropped the hook just after sunset.

  “Yeah, it takes some getting used to,” Larry agreed. “Anchoring out here on the banks, completely out of sight of land. Something about it just doesn’t feel right. But the water’s only 20 feet deep and the sand bottom makes for perfect holding. In settled weather like this, it’s perfectly safe.”

  “It sure doesn’t look 20 feet deep,” Tara said, staring over the rail. “It looks li
ke I could just reach down and touch the sand. I’ve never seen such beautiful water.”

  “There’s nothing like the water in the Bahamas. I’ve never found any that is prettier in any part of the world I’ve sailed.”

  “And that’s most parts, from what you said, right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’ve got to thank you for bringing us here, no matter what happened back there on that terrible night. Rebecca and I would have never made it this far on our own. I’m not sure I’d have had the nerve to try. I sure wouldn’t have known what to do if I’d been by myself back there when those navy men turned us away.”

  “There’s still a lot of uncertainty ahead of us, Tara. All we can do is deal with each challenge as it comes. I don’t know what we’re going to find in the Jumentos and Raggeds, but the important thing is to get there and join back up with my brother and my boat. We’ll figure out our next move from there, I guess. It’ll be up to you what you want to do from that point, but if we can find a good hideaway there, I don’t see any reason to be in a hurry to leave. I know the fishing is good, and with the summer squalls, we ought to be able to catch enough rainwater to keep our tanks full. Other than people threats, the only other thing we’ll have to worry about is hurricane season, but I’d rather deal with that than what we left behind back in the States.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  GRANT DYER LOOKED ASTERN at the dark shape of the receding coastline, feeling helpless at this turn of events. Finding Scully again and getting him back aboard the Casey Nicole seemed impossible now. Like Artie, Grant had believed that their encounter with the patrol boat was simply random bad luck and that once they’d obeyed the officer’s command and sailed away, that would be the end of it. The boat had shadowed them until they were a few miles from land, but then turned back and quickly disappeared. It had seemed reasonable at the time that it would then be working elsewhere and they could probably sneak back to the beach at Cape Sable and pick up Scully with no drama. But there had been drama aplenty in the form of machine gun fire coming out of the night, the hail of bullets striking the water in front of their bow way too close for comfort. They had no way of knowing for sure if the boat that fired the warning burst was the same one or another one like it. Was the lockdown of the Florida coast really so tight that more than one patrol was operating off such a remote section of shore? If it was a different boat, had they somehow been in radio contact with the crew of the first one, or had they gotten the message about the intruding catamaran after meeting the other boat on the water?

  “I don’t think it was a different boat,” Artie said, when Grant brought this up. “I think they circled back to where we were anchored out of curiosity. Maybe they decided there really was another one of our crew on the beach and they decided to go back for a closer look. Or maybe they were just trying to figure out what we were doing there. Either way, it seems obvious that they saw us coming back, so they fired the warning to let us know they weren’t playing games.”

  “If that’s why they went back, they may have arrested Scully then. That is, if he was still there.”

  “That would be stupid,” Jessica said. “Why didn’t they believe us in the first place when we said he was there? If they wanted to arrest him for not having a passport, they could have done it then. If they didn’t want to bother, then we could have just picked him up and still left the area like they wanted. It doesn’t make sense that they would go back for him later, does it?”

  “I doubt they’ve arrested him,” Artie said. “If he didn’t show his face when they were there questioning us and shining that light on the beach, why would he let them see him when they came back a second time? Scully’s a lot smarter than that. He had to have seen us leave and we know he’s got the kayak, like we already talked about. He would know better than to hang around there and he probably didn’t think we would be able to come back. Why would he, after seeing us escorted out to sea like that?”

  “Then maybe we can find him out on the water. If he’s heading for the Dry Tortugas, we can catch up to him easily on the catamaran.”

  “I don’t think so,” Grant said. “He wouldn’t be way offshore. He would follow the coast as far as he could and then island hop. In the kayak, he’s practically invisible on the water at night.”

  “Larry said a kayak is usually invisible even on radar, since it’s so low to the water and offers minimum reflectivity. We don’t know if these patrols somehow have working radar and radio communications or not, but it’s probably best to assume they do. Scully may be able to sneak through though. If he can get to the Keys, he can slip right along the edge of the mangroves in the shallows where they won’t even be looking for boats. We can’t do that in a 36-foot sailboat though. What happened back there just proved that, and I’m not interested in finding out if that was our last warning, are you?”

  “Heck no! We don’t have a chance against that kind of firepower and speed.”

  “What are we going to do then?” Jessica asked. “We can’t just leave without Scully!”

  “I feel the same way, Jessica, but I don’t see where we have a choice, either. We can’t get close enough to shore to look for him, even if we had a chance of finding him out there in the dark. And we don’t dare try to do it in the morning, because it’ll be even easier for them to spot us from miles away once it’s daylight, with our sails sticking up like giant flags waving at them.”

  “But if Scully doesn’t know what’s going on, and that all of the Florida coast is under this restriction, he’s going to paddle all that way to the Dry Tortugas only to find out Larry couldn’t get there and we couldn’t either. What will he do then? How will he ever find us?”

  “I don’t know, Jessica. But I do know I’ve got to find my daughter. I can’t do that if we run afoul of these patrol boats again. We could wind up getting shot to pieces or else locked up somewhere and the boat confiscated. Believe me, we need Scully as much as he needs us and I sure don’t want to leave him. If we have to sail to the Bahamas without him, it’s going to be one dicey passage without his experience. But I’m still holding out hope that we’ll find Larry first.

  “All we can do is sail in the direction of the Dry Tortugas, because we’ve got to go that way anyway to get around all of Florida’s coastal waters if we do have to sail to the Bahamas alone. We’ve just got to stay far enough away from the coast to avoid upsetting these trigger-happy police or soldiers or whatever they are. If the patrols really are working the Keys all the way out to the Dry Tortugas, and Larry really couldn’t enter the harbor there either, then maybe there’s a chance he’s still hanging around the area offshore somewhere, looking for us. Maybe we’ll find them that way. That’s all I know to do.

  “I feel bad about leaving Scully too, but Scully is a survivor and he can take care of himself. He’ll figure something out, and if we can find my brother, he’ll know what we ought to do next. Scully’s his best friend, and he’s not going to want to sail away without him. You can believe that.”

  * * *

  Artie’s logic may have calmed Jessica, but it did little to assuage his own fears of the challenges they now faced. Without Scully on board, Artie knew he was going to have a lot more questions than answers at every new decision they faced navigating and sailing the Casey Nicole. Scully knew far more than any of them about reading the weather, interpreting the nautical charts and setting and adjusting the sails. Without his knowledge and experience, every change in weather or wind strength and every approach to a harbor in the reef-strewn waters of the Keys or Bahamas could mean disaster. These things worried Artie, but they also made him angry as he thought back to what he now saw as his brother’s rash decision to split up the crew. Larry had succeeded in convincing them all that he could keep the two boats together on the long crossing of the Gulf. Artie himself was more outspoken against this idea than any of the others, but he had finally relented and let his younger brother have his way. After all, Larry was the professiona
l seaman who knew all about this stuff. But Larry had been wrong and now Artie wished he would have flat-out refused his brother’s proposal. If he had, he wouldn’t be wondering where Casey was right now, and Scully wouldn’t be abandoned and alone with no documents on an inhospitable shore that was under an enforced blockade.

  The biggest difference between Artie and Larry since they were kids was that Larry flew by the seat of his pants while Artie was a meticulous planner always thinking ahead and analyzing every decision. These different philosophies led the two of them to careers that couldn’t be farther apart, and although Artie sometimes envied his little brother’s carefree lifestyle, he knew he could never live like that even if he wanted to. It wasn’t that Larry was completely careless—he couldn’t be and survive long in the business of sailing boats long distances in the ocean. But he was certainly impulsive, and never more so than when a woman was involved. Artie knew from the moment he laid eyes on Tara Hancock that she was going to spell trouble for his little brother. She was a damned good-looking woman and Artie couldn’t help but appraise her charms as well, but in Larry’s place he would not have let Tara be the cause of their group splitting up again. That was just plain dumb, Artie knew now, just as he’d thought when Larry first mentioned it. He should have stuck with his first impression and put his foot down against his brother’s wishes. And even if he couldn’t stop him from sailing with Tara, he sure could have done more to stop Casey from going with them. Now, just like he had for the past four days and nights, he was living with the anguish of not knowing if she was safe or not, and there was not a damned thing he could do about it but keep sailing until he found her; either somewhere off Florida or in the Bahamas.