Just Different Devils

by Jinx Schwartz

  After talking with Jenks, I buttoned up the boat and went to bed with my Kindle and dug. I read a few minutes, heard a splash outside, got up and rechecked my locks, went back to my book, heard another splash, looked out again, and was back in bed when I realized Po Thang hadn't even twitched an ear. I trust his instincts and keen ears, so I read until I drifted off into a deep sleep.

  Which ended at six a.m. with the arrival of Bubbles.

  Po Thang was ecstatic, and spent a good two hours in the water with his aquatic buddy while I gave the boat a good cleaning, inside and out. We'd rinsed the boat with fresh water and squeegeed the windows when we'd arrived, but it was time for some boat soap and elbow grease. I consider it my boat aerobics.

  What I've never figured out is why, when you're floating in the water, miles from the nearest road, and there has been no wind, I get dirt all over the boat. I keep a fresh-water foot bath for dipping off sand and salt water when boarding, and a no-shoes rule past the entryway from the swim platform. Po Thang gets a wash down every time he goes in the water or on shore. And yet I found myself scrubbing, then rinsing, brownish tinted water all the way down from the flying bridge.

  Jan's radio call let me know they were on their way with an ETA around 11:30, so I wrapped up my boat chores, threw together a tuna noodle casserole, and popped it into the oven.

  Back on deck as I was hanging wipe-down rags over the rails to dry, the unique harmonic of a bagpipe gave me an emotional charge. I've always had a drippy response to the pipes, maybe leftover from hearing the incomparable version of the "Amazing Grace" melody played against that low drone, or something. Whatever, it gives me goose bumps, and sometimes makes me tear up. Mac and his pipes were becoming serious mind messer-uppers.

  Not everyone shared my fascination with Mac's pipes, for as soon as the bagpipe wailed, Bubbles performed a couple of high leaps and took off like a shot, out to sea, leaving Po Thang paddling in confused circles. He couldn't see her wake like I could from the boat, so he dog paddled around a bit, waiting, before giving up and launching himself onto the swim platform. He whined while I washed and rough dried him, then sat on his towel in the sun, gazing longingly out to sea. Love can be so cruel.

  "I know, Honey. Been there. There was this ski instructor—"

  Po Thang barked and thumped his tail, then Nacho's low rumbling engines preceded his entry into the anchorage. My new dinghy trailed behind him.

  Yippee. Wheels!

  Jan embraced my exuberant, but still damp dog while Nacho and I maneuvered my new dink alongside Raymond Johnson, and tied her off where I'd already deployed fenders.

  "Hetta, look at the transom," Jan told me.

  I walked aft where I could see the back of the pangita. In large black letters, I saw, Po Boy. I laughed and Jan asked, "So, you like the name?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Oh, good. I wanted to surprise you."

  "What if I didn't like it?"

  "We'll peel it off. It's only electrical tape, but I bought a vinyl lettering kit for the permanent name."

  Bagpipes piped and Jan spun around. "You are kidding me. I leave for one lousy night!"

  Nacho had also turned to listen. "Who is that?"

  "Hetta's boyfriend," Jan said.

  "Not so."

  "So."

  "Hetta has a boyfriend? I mean besides Jenks. And me?"

  I threw up my hands and stormed to the galley to check on the casserole. Jan followed, still laughing. "Jeez, Hetta, we were just kidding you. Why so touchy?"

  Letting out a long breath, I admitted, "I honestly do not know. Bagpipe music makes me cry, and he keeps on playing the damned thing."

  "He just quit, so you can dry those crocodile tears."

  I gave her shoulder a backhanded tap. "Oh, shut up. Let's put away the groceries and have lunch."

  Nacho made several trips to his boat and hauled in goodies for Jan and me to stow. We probably had enough on board now to provision the QEII for a transatlantic voyage.

  We'd just finished putting everything away when the timer dinged. "Let's eat! I'll bring the casserole, Jan you grab the salad. Nacho, get the plates, napkins, and silverware. Everyone get what you want to drink."

  "Aye, aye, capitán," Nacho said as he grabbed four plates. "Oh, I invited Mac to join us. Hope you don't mind."

  I was the last up on deck, carrying the heavy, still bubbling, Le Creuset casserole dish with both hot-pad covered hands. I'd tucked an ice cold Tecate under my arm and when Mac saw me coming, he rushed over and removed the beer from my freezing arm pit. His knuckles brushed my boob in the process.

  My cheeks flamed and I almost dropped our lunch.

  Jan, who was watching the whole thing with a smirk, asked, "Hetta. That new blush you're wearing?"

  "Hot dish!" I declared.

  "I couldn't agree more," she drawled.

  I plopped the casserole on a trivet in the middle of the table and tromped on Jan's bare toes under the table.

  "Ouch! Watch it, Hetta."

  "Oops, sorry," I crooned, looking down. "Hey, is that a new nail polish color? It's really good at covering up that fungus."

  Nacho intervened by pushing a chair seat into my knee backs, forcing me to sit. He threw a napkin in my lap and popped my beer tab. "Glass for madame?" he asked.

  I shook my head and took a long pull directly from the can.

  Nacho, still in his maitre d' mode, asked Mac what he wanted to drink.

  "Did we finish that great bottle of Burgundy last night, Hetta? If not, I''ll take a glass."

  Jan lowered her sunglasses and waggled her eyebrows at me.

  Nacho's mouth fell open.

  Mac waited for an answer.

  I chugged my beer.

  Chapter Twenty

  After an awkward silence when Mac spilled the beans about us sharing some wine the night before, the conversation became stilted and the meal was quickly over. Mac returned to Full Kilt Boogie and Nacho decided to knock the saltwater off his boat, and also volunteered to mount the motor on my new dink, Po Boy.

  "Awkward! Your Scot sure has a way of dumping cold water on polite conversation," Jan drawled as we washed the dishes. "But on the bright side, your casserole was a winner. Fresh tuna always makes the diff."

  "You didn't help matters, putting him on the spot like that. Whether he has a significant other is none of our bidness."

  "Maybe not, but he sidestepped the question and changed the subject in a hurry, didn't he? I'm just looking out for you."

  "I told you, nothing happened!"

  "I don't doubt it for a moment. I mean, you, alone with a handsome hunk who obviously has the hots for you? What on earth could possibly have happened?"

  I whacked her with the dish towel. "We shared a bottle of wine and talked. Then Jenks called on Skype, so I sent Mac packing."

  "Sounds like Jenks has excellent timing."

  "Oh, come on. Give me a little credit."

  "Surely you jest. I have known your ways for far too long. But, hey, anything you say." Then she giggled. "Did you see the look on Nacho's face when Mac brought up your little wine fest last night?"

  "Nope."

  "Bull. I think he's jealous."

  "Well, maybe that'll teach him to invite people for lunch."

  "Hello? He is the paying guest. I think that gives him some privileges."

  "I guess, but first he tells people I know from the dock that he's Jenks, and then invites Mac for lunch. I may have to cut those privileges. This is my boat."

  Jan snagged a piece of tuna from a plate and offered it to Po Thang. He took it, but not with his usual enthusiasm. "What's with him?"

  "He's pouting. Bubbles showed up today and they played for awhile, but then she took off like a shot when she heard Mac's bagpipe."

  "Interesting."

  "What's interesting?"

  "Out at the whale camp Chino and I have noticed that dolphins and whales are actually drawn to music, not scared off by it."

 
"Do you ever play bagpipe recordings? Maybe they don't like it for some reason."

  "They love those best of all. Maybe Bubbles just doesn't like your new boyfriend."

  "He's not…oh, never mind. Mac helped me save her life, how could she not like him?"

  "You're asking me? She's your dolphin."

  "My dolphin. My boyfriend. Cut it out."

  "Okay, okay." Then she grinned. "I have gossip, by the way."

  "Oooh, dish!"

  "Word has it there was another giant squid attack."

  "Crap, just when we thought it was safe to go back into the water. Where?"

  "East of here. Out in the Sea, and…wait for it. Wait for it. Wait—"

  I threatened her with my Grandma's iron skillet held high over my head.

  "Close to where Nacho has been running his grid. Coincidence? You be the judge."

  "Holy crap, that is way too close. No more swimming for you, Po Thang, that's for sure." Then a wash of dread made my stomach drop. "Do squid eat dolphins?"

  "Chino told me only sharks and Orcas feed on dolphins as a rule, but a giant Humboldt, especially a huge one almost the size of this boat? Any danged thing it can catch and shred."

  "Gee, thanks for that mental picture. I didn't need to sleep tonight anyhow. Who did the squid get this time?"

  "That's not clear. It was all over the radio that another diver had died, but no info on whether it was a gringo or a Mexican."

  "But it was near where Nacho goes almost every day? Could he possibly be looking for Humboldts? And if so, why? What did Nacho say about the attack?"

  "He's skeptical, but that's about it. He really didn't want to discuss it. Did you figure out what was on that thumb drive you copied from his room?"

  "Not really. Looks like an aerial shot. Not from a satellite, but maybe a small plane. With the coordinates, I know about where it was located, but all I can see is water, so who knows? One thing for sure, though. Nacho is getting an outside assist from someone in his search for whatever it is."

  She glanced out the hatch. "He's still washing his boat. Let's take a look at those photos."

  Down in my cabin, I locked the door and brought up what Nacho had on the thumb drive: a series of still shots of water, water and more water. No land identifiers, nada.

  Jan pointed to a spot of lighter blue. "Can you zoom in?"

  I did, but the only obvious clue was that the water was shallower in that spot. "Could be a reef," I speculated, "or a bajo; we know there's more than one sea mount out there, so that's what it is."

  "Are all the pictures like this?"

  "Pretty much. The last five look a little different." I fast forwarded through the photos until I hit one that was not like the first ten.

  "Those are underwater shots, so obviously not taken from a plane. I'll bet these were from Nacho's boat and he planned to use them as an overlay or something. Interesting, I guess, but—" I was rudely side-butted out of my chair by Jan.

  She grabbed the mouse, enlarged the picture in one spot, and whispered, "Bingo."

  "Bingo? What do you see?"

  Pointing to the screen, she drew some imaginary lines with her finger.

  I leaned in, and now that she said it, there did seem to be a brownish area with rectangular patterns not found in nature. "You're right. An anomaly. Just what Chino taught us to look for last summer when we were searching for that wreck site."

  "Field trip?"

  "For sure."

  Nacho had mounted the fifteen horsepower outboard on Po Boy, so I hooked it up to a red five-gallon gas container I'd filled back in La Paz before we left for Partida. My new nine-foot pangita was made from a mold originally designed by Malcolm Schroyer, a gringo credited with making the first fiberglass pangas in the Baja. I'd heard talk of this small panga, which was no longer in production. Not one to be put off when I want something badly enough, I tracked down the mold in a warehouse in La Paz and had a local panga factory make one just for me. And I wonder why I'm always broke?

  I took my new snazzy dink for a test run, then returned for Jan and a very annoyed dog who, like me, hates being left behind.

  After stowing a heavy duty fishing pole, my tackle box, a handheld radio in case we ran into trouble, and our life jackets aboard, we slowly motored out of the anchorage and then I opened Po Boy up. We were up on a plane on the smooth sea and whizzing along at a good thirty in no time. My new rig performed seamlessly. We reached the bajo using my handheld GPS coordinates and slowed to look for those anomalies we'd spotted on the photos.

  One thing for sure, we were not going into the water to look for them when there were reports of murderous Red Devils—not that a nine-foot panga was much protection against a thirty-foot monster—but I wanted to get a feel for the area. And Jan had a plan for snagging one of whatever those brown things were down there.

  Jan dug a huge treble hook out of my tackle box, and lowered it until it touched bottom, then reeled in. It came up clean.

  "Rats. Try again," I said, "but look at that wind line out there." I pointed out to sea at the white ripples that had suddenly raised on the surface. "We'd better not stay out here long."

  She gave the treble hook two more tries as I kept an eye on the seas, but no luck.

  A gust hit us. "We gotta make tracks, Chica, here comes the wind. Matter of fact, we're gonna have to take the shortcut from the east side of the island. Hang on, team!"

  Heading south with the wind and building seas at our back, my new pangita rode the chop like a champ, but we passengers got plenty wet. In no time we rounded into the cut and were completely, thankfully, protected from both wind and spray. The afternoon sun beat down on us and we quickly warmed up.

  I'd traveled through the shallow, winding channel that cut between the two islands several times, but only at high tide, and I was riding with someone in a rubber inflatable at the time. Even then, there was no more than three feet of water in the deep spots.

  The tide was going out fast and even though my new pangita had only a foot and a half draft, that was when unloaded. We were forced to get out of the boat and push and pull Po Boy through the cut.

  Po Thang, Parque Nacional rules notwithstanding, ran freely back and forth on the sand, splashing across the shallow, narrow pass in front and behind us as Jan and I, shuffling our feet in hopes of not stepping on a stingray, pulled the heavy dinghy with two lines. I cringed every time Po Thang splashed into the water, hoping he didn't get nailed with a barb. It had happened twice before, and the time it takes to get to the boat and heat a pot of very hot water for his paw—thereby stopping his pain—is nerve-wracking for both of us. I was going to have to write a letter to the Reef Runner manufacturers about maybe making doggie versions.

  Jan and I loudly hummed "The Song of the Volga Boatmen" and interspersed the only words we knew—"Yo, heave ho! Yo, heave ho!"—like the Russian barge haulers of bygone days. We also broke out into a lively version of "Chain Gang."

  With a bare six inches or so of water under her hull, Po Boy occasionally grounded on a lump of sand and we'd have to rock the gunwales to break her free.

  "I need a break," Jan declared. That sun didn't feel so grand anymore, and we were both fairly winded from slogging in the soft, wet sand bottom, pulling a barely afloat hundred and twenty-five pound dingy with a sixty-five pound outboard motor and thirty-five pounds of gasoline. "Can't we hook the danged dawg up and make him drag the boat?"

  "He's a retriever, not a huskie. Besides, we're almost there. Put yer back into it me matey! Heave ho!"

  "Yeah, well heave—hey, where's Nacho going, and why's he towing Full Kilt Boogie?

  We watched as Nacho's boat, with Mac's sailboat in tow, slowly motored out of the anchorage and turned northward.

  "Gee, Hetta, was it something you said?"

  "Very funny. Wonder where they're off to? Not that I care, but neither one of them mentioned leaving. This is weird." I reached into the dinghy, pulled out a waterproof pouch and removed my ha
ndheld VHF radio. "Nacho, Nacho, Po Boy."

  We waited. No reply.

  "Full Kilt Boogie, Po Boy."

  Nada.

  "Okay, let's get this puppy into deeper water and go after them,"

  Jan had her hands on her hips and was staring back at my dinghy. "Not unless you've got a shovel, Vladimir."

  Po Boy was sitting in a pool of water, but her bow chine was wedged in the sand in less than six inches of water. And, the tide definitely outgoing.

  "I'll remove the gas tank while you unload anything else that'll come out easily. We may have to dismount the outboard, as well. Gimme your earrings."

  "What? These earrings?" She fingered one of the bangles. "Chino gave me these. What do you want them for?"

  "Cuz I don't wear earrings?" I held out my hand and she reluctantly handed over the big shiny gold hoops. "Po Thang! Here boy!"

  Po Thang loped up to us and skidded to a halt with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and a silly grin on his face. He shared his coating of seawater laden sand with us and sat panting, waiting to see what was in the works.

  "Hold his collar, Auntie Jan."

  "Got him."

  I dangled the earrings in front of his nose, just out of lunge distance. He almost pulled Jan off her feet, but she recovered and dug her heels in while I scooped a hole in the sand barrier entrapping our pangita, then buried the shiny treasures in it.

  "Hey! I see what you're up to, and you better hope it works, or you're gonna be digging out here until you find 'em again."

  "Never fear. Let the beast go."

  Po Thang pounced on the earring burial ground and began an excavation surely to end up in China. He quickly unearthed one earring and tried to run with it, but Jan was ready for him. She snagged his collar and buried her heels again, commanding him to "Sit! And leave it." He gingerly deposited the earring on the sand, Jan jammed it into her pocket, and he went back for the other one. Several repeats of the retrieval game, and he'd cut a channel just deep enough so we could pull the boat forward.

  "Such a good dog!" we told him, and rewarded him with hugs.

  Finally afloat in the anchorage, we loaded our gear and ourselves back into Po Boy, but had lost at least three-quarters of an hour since we watched Nacho and Mac leave.