Although from another perspective, the scene on the dock might have seemed preposterous and forlorn—all the glory of Bobby’s place gone to this ragtag hunting party assembled behind Dennis’s boat. “Bobby Little wanted dead or alive,” the police sergeant stuttered again and again into the VHF radio. His men, out-of-work fishermen and town drunks, each of them owned by Dennis, were readying themselves beside a nearby palm tree, gripping bats and muttering curses.
“Wanted Dead or Alive” spread through the marina to each of the twenty-five boats. Grand fishing plans for the morning were hastily abandoned. Preparations were made by boaters to leave the island at first light when it would be safe to navigate the reef.
~
With the bucket of the excavator Bobby pushed a few boulders into his narrow driveway, making it difficult for Dennis and his men to follow in their vehicles. He drove the excavator up the hill toward his house, parked it behind a couple of tall trees. He was worried Dennis would burn it up but didn’t put much effort into hiding it. For some reason, Bobby felt like he was moving in slow motion.
Hannah was caring for the remaining female Lab that seemed to have gained a little strength. She was feeding her spoons of some kind of soft food and Hannah’s expression had turned peaceful, as though she were mothering her baby.
“Come on, we gotta go,” he urged.
“Why, Bobby?”
It seemed like too much to explain—too big and impossible to explain. Hannah was in another world, the dog licking her hand, an ethereal expression on her face that made Bobby feel grateful.
“While you were gone, I baked some banana muffins.” She gestured to the muffins on the counter.
“Maybe a little later, baby.”
Bobby had always been a great finisher but suddenly he felt exhausted, like he’d punched himself out in the third round. Bobby sat on a chair and watched his wife care for the surviving dog. He had an urge to take her hand, to sit beside her in a chair holding hands. He no longer cared about Dennis or the fishing boats in the marina. He wanted to sit a while, breathe the night air as if he were living in an entirely different book.
It wasn’t the right moment for such epiphanies. Bobby heard the shriek of a police siren coming from down the hill.
Bobby picked up the dog in his arms and started to pull Hannah out of the house, but she insisted on going back to the counter and putting her muffins in a paper bag.
“Why do we have to rush like this?”
She didn’t get it. All of Hannah’s demons lived inside her. They walked a hundred yards east to a neighbor’s house. Bobby asked if Hannah and their dog could spend the night. Bobby gave his wife a hug and said he’d call her in a few hours on her cell phone.
“Look, Bobby,” she said with an endearing smile. Hannah pointed at the female Lab that was now able to stand and walk a few steps. They could start over again with that dog. She looked at Bobby to say this.
~
Bobby wasn’t quite sure what to do next. He would have settled for a draw but that wasn’t in the rules.
He sprinted back to his place, grabbed his hunting bow, four arrows, and his satellite phone, threw a couple of bottles of water in a backpack, and stuffed a bandanna in his pocket. He always hunted with a bandanna.
By the time he was outside the house, he could see flashlights aiming up the driveway, four or five men from what he could tell. He could also make out the flashing light of the police car parked at the bottom of the hill. The police sergeant would be carrying a rifle.
They’d be on him in a minute.
Just to the southwest of Bobby’s property was a fifty-acre tract of land overgrown with thistles and bush. Bobby bolted into the briar patch. It was his only chance. He’d hunted goats in this rough terrain years earlier and still recalled the dips and ruts and a few paths that were long overgrown with high grass, and hurtful bushes and plants with inviting names like cuttlefish and wild powder puff. Bobby burrowed into it, one arm protecting his face. He could hear the men coming from the road, hear them breathing. He stumbled into a ditch and threw himself onto the ground, trying to cover himself with thorny bushes.
He was lying on his back and could see distorted beams of flashlights passing on both sides of him. His heart was banging in his chest. Could they hear this pounding? One of the men was swinging at trees or rocks with his bat. They were very poor men who had been paid well. They’d come to kill him. It was a sobering moment. There would be no talking or convincing them. He heard the men muttering about the thorny bushes. Bobby had the beginning of an idea. If he could survive.
When the men were no longer close, he started edging his way through the bush, heading west—that’s where he wanted to go, but he wasn’t really sure where he was going. Must get deeper into this forest where they couldn’t find him. Survive. Just trying to survive, until he crawled into one of the overgrown paths. This gave him a little confidence. It was home territory—at least in the daytime it was. He crawled ahead on his hands and knees, getting pricked every time he put his hands down. For a while, maybe twenty minutes, he didn’t hear any sounds of men. He felt like he could take a deep breath. Fuck you, Dennis. I’m still alive. Bobby continued to crawl ahead until he heard the sound of moving water.
Ten years earlier he and Rasta had built a series of narrow run-off canals from the west end of the lagoon leading to the ocean. Bobby was at a decisive corner in his journey, left into the canal toward the ocean, or straight ahead into the bush where he’d be more difficult to find. Which way, Bobby? Which way? He didn’t know. Something had changed in Bobby. Something basic he didn’t understand. Always he had been a decisive man, but now there was some hesitation. He wasn’t sure. As if he’d been infected by her journal of musing and worry. Which way, Bobby?
He climbed into the water up to his waist and headed for the ocean. For sure he might have lived the night in the forest of bushes and small trees, but what about the morning? They would get him then. They’d find him in the morning, club him to death, or maybe they’d do something to Hannah. If Bobby was able to kill Dennis, his men would disappear into the village, resume their quiet lives as conch fishermen and handymen, as if there had never been any Dennis with his mega bar and mansion on the beach. They would hail Bobby on the road when he drove by in his jeep as if this moonless night had never happened. If he could somehow kill Dennis.
The canal was also overgrown with bushes and small trees providing perfect cover. He moved more quickly here, confident they wouldn’t see him. It was more or less a mile to the ocean. The water was cool and he made the walk without much effort.
Bobby laid on his belly at the top of a sandy bluff looking out across the beach to the dark ocean. To the north Dennis’s beach house, lit up like a rock concert. To the south he could see lights on the towers of fishing boats. North or south? Was Dennis at his house or at the marina? No telling, fifty-fifty. Either way Bobby needed to get to the ocean.
But maybe he should have spent the night in the bush, hidden himself, waited a day or two until Dennis and his men grew weary of looking for him. Walking on the beach he’d be out in the open like a trapped rat. Maybe. Maybe.
Bobby walked back to the canal, waded back in, and plunged his hands into the soft muck on the side of the bank and smeared it all over his face and arms. He remembered to put on his bandanna. He went back onto the bluff and looked out across the beach. No one around. Then he made a soundless shriek, sprinted across the beach, and walked into the water.
North or south? Where was Dennis? If he had a coin he might have flipped it. He shook his head and started walking south toward the marina. The warm beach water was about chest high and Bobby held his bow and arrows over his head. He knew better than anyone that on the low tide the bull and tiger sharks from the marina left the lagoon to hunt along the inside reef just twenty or thirty yards offshore from where he was walking, big shark
s. He tried not to think about one of them pulling him under. He strained to walk without splashing, which was exhausting. It was about a half mile to the marina. He passed the five unlit guesthouses just north of the fuel depot.
Bobby crawled from the ocean on his belly, pulling the bow behind him on the sand heading for the big diesel tanks that loomed eerily against the dark sky. If any of Dennis’s men stepped out onto the beach to have a smoke, there would be no escape. But no one did.
The six rusty five-thousand-gallon tanks were sitting on a concrete slab soaked with leaked diesel fuel. Bobby crawled from one to the next until he was behind a tank closest to the marina dock. He stood for a better view. Most of the fishermen had retired to their boats for the night, but he could see the policeman sitting on the transom of Dennis’s boat. A couple of his men were hanging around nearby.
Dennis was seated in the imposing fighting chair of the boat, about a hundred yards from where Bobby was standing. Most of his body was obscured by the hamburger bar, but Bobby could see Dennis’s head and shoulders. He watched Dennis take a drink of something from a large red cup. He thought about taking his shot at Dennis’s head or neck. Thought about it. Then getting out of there. Calling Hannah. Escaping. No, no, too far away. If he missed, the men would chase him down and kill him.
Bobby crawled through the tanks until he was off the slab onto sandy grass and heading for the tiny laundry room where Flo did the wash. For about fifty feet, he was out in the open. He could hear the men slurring their words. That was good—they were drunk. He made it to the laundry room. Took a few deep breaths.
He was covered in sandy diesel fuel, tried to wipe his hands clean on his shorts. He needed to have dry hands.
Between the laundry room and Bobby’s clubhouse, there was a narrow corridor. Bobby slowly crawled between the buildings. He was close to the boats but couldn’t see them. Blocking his view was a covey of small palm trees, but he was close.
He crawled ahead toward the dock stinking of diesel fuel and terror. Bobby crawled forward until he was right behind the trees. He stood up, moved the leaves aside, and could see Dennis in his chair, his piggish squinting eyes. Again he wiped his right hand, this time on his bandanna. Dennis said a few words to the policeman. The bar was a few feet off to Bobby’s right. A clear shot. They were all drunk. Dennis was holding the sippy cup in his left hand.
Bobby’s shot was now about forty yards. This was about as close as he would be able to get. Bobby kept shifting his position, a foot here and there to find a crack in the palm leaves. He’d only have one shot at this. No, they kept snapping back in front of his face. No open spaces to take a shot from behind the trees.
Only one way. Bobby notched his arrow. Took four or five deep breaths and quietly walked out of the trees holding the bow. He was standing in the open now, clear as day.
Bobby drew down on Dennis in the chair, aiming for his chest, reminded himself to relax the fingers of his right hand, was about to let it go when the police sergeant passed in front of the chair.
Hold it, Bobby. Hold it. Hold it.
Bobby, standing alone in the yard like a statue, held the sixty-pound bow at full draw for about a half minute until he again had a clear shot at center chest, took notice of Dennis’s fat supercilious expression. Then, a moment seemingly devoid of all thought, all sense, Bobby’s archer’s eye fell on the sippy cup sitting in the holder just to the left of Dennis’s belly. Changed his aim just slightly, pulled the barb of the arrow firmly against the bow, relaxed the fingers again, and he let it go.
Dennis ducked and screamed like he’d been hit. The arrow had pierced the center of the cup and lodged in the mahogany door to Dennis’s salon. Everyone on the boat turned to look at the arrow. When they turned around, Bobby was gone.
~
Before dawn, Biggy came for Hannah. He led her through hidden paths in the small forest until they arrived at the salt pond, as Bobby had instructed him on the satellite phone. Biggy knew this terrain even better than Bobby. During hot summer days, when the shallow lake water evaporated, Biggy came here to collect salt off the bottom with a wooden rake. He made a few dollars selling three-pound bags of Bahamian sea salt to wives visiting the marina on fishing boats.
Bobby was waiting for them seated on a rock, covered in mud and diesel fuel. Hannah began to laugh at the sight and then caught herself.
“Why’d you leave me like that—without even a word?”
He shook his head. “How was your night, baby?”
“You can’t do that to me, Bobby. I couldn’t sleep two hours with that dog licking my hand. I’m exhausted and all pricked up from that walk.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
She leaned over to give him a kiss.
“Phew. You smell like gasoline.”
“Diesel fuel.”
“Oh, diesel fuel.”
Just then the small seaplane banked in from the southwest and landed at the far side of the lake. Bobby glanced at the plane idling toward them but mostly he was scanning the tree line.
Why was his pilot buddy, Grover, coming ahead so goddamned slowly? Bobby had a knot in his belly, watching the trees for the police sergeant and his goons to race in on them with baseball bats.
He smirked a little, thinking, he could have shot Dennis in the chest last night and ended it. Now it might never end.
“You must be starved,” she said.
Hannah held the muffin in front of him, so he wouldn’t have to touch it, and Bobby took famished bites.
“Can we come up here sometimes? It’s beautiful here.” She was looking at two egrets standing in the shallow water searching for crustaceans.
“Sure we can.”
Bobby looked at the tree line. Took Hannah’s hand and pulled her to the plane that had just eased up to them, pushed her into the back seat.
Grover didn’t even bother to ask, just moved over into the passenger seat. Bobby always did the piloting when he flew with Grover.
Before setting the autopilot to Nassau, Bobby headed the small plane back toward the marina. He came in low, passed over the docks, and could see a few men standing behind Dennis’s boat. All the other fishing boats had left the marina. The police car was parked nearby. Dennis was assembling his men.
Bobby couldn’t resist, circled back again, came in even lower, and this time he dipped the wing on his side so the men in the stern of Dennis’s boat would see him leaning out the window, offering a thumbs up.
~
Seven days later, Bobby and Hannah were flying back to Rum Cay in another seaplane. For this flight, Bobby sat in the copilot seat, Hannah was in the back beside a tall black man about fifty. She was writing in her journal. Bobby was looking down at the choppy ocean just north of Conception Island. He hadn’t seen a single boat headed in the direction of Rum Cay. Not one boat. Just open ocean. Senator Charles Saunders was piloting his own plane.
For the past week Bobby and Hannah had stayed at a small resort on Paradise Island. On their first day in Nassau, Bobby had made a phone call to an old marina client from years earlier, Charles Saunders, an attorney and presently a member of the Senate, an appointee of the prime minister. The following day they met in Saunders’s law office and Bobby described recent dire events on the island and how he’d been lucky to get off Rum Cay alive. Saunders listened trying to reconcile this unsettling story with his own pleasant memories of the marina. Finally, he said he wanted to see all this for himself.
Saunders offered to fly Bobby back to Rum Cay in his own plane. He suggested they should bring along a private detective he knew from Miami, a man who couldn’t be bought off and would know how to research Dennis’s mysterious Rum Cay real estate titles and building permits as well as his financial transactions with the local policeman and others on the island. Once they had this information, they could begin legal proceedings. And just in case, the retir
ed detective would be carrying a handgun.
Returning with the renowned senator made Bobby feel like the battle was already won. The police sergeant would cower and stutter searching for excuses, or he would try to hide in the village. Just a little mopping up, and life would return to normal. Bobby began thinking about his business, how many boats would be tied up at the dock when they got there, how many reservations had come in for the following months. He yawned, his mind going to his restaurant. He needed help there, for sure. He couldn’t get Flo to do a thing. He needed to find a few good people to work for him. Maybe if he called Rasta, he could talk him into coming back and helping. Why the hell had he fallen out with Rasta? Bobby could no longer summon a trace of the anger. Why do such things happen? He should have listened to his wife.
He fell asleep thinking about Hannah. They were so different, but she made him feel alive. Hannah understood sorrows and delights he had never slowed down to notice. Bobby had messed up so many relationships and marriages. He didn’t want to spoil things with her. He’d build the little arts and crafts store down by the dock where she could sell her books and other lovely island things. Why not?
~
The light seaplane came down hard in the choppy bay, skipped a couple of times, and threw water onto the windshield. Bobby thought the rough landing was part of a dream. He wiped his eyes, disoriented. The windshield was obscured with seawater. Bobby blinked a couple of times, bent over the senator to look out his side window.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Wake up, fella. Where do you think you are?”
Deep Water Blues Page 8