I’d showered and changed into comfortable Dockers and a white long-sleeved button down with the Gaspar’s Revenge Charter Service logo on the left breast pocket. Like most of my clothes, the shirt had seen better days. Since shoes and sand don’t mix, I opted for bare feet. I’m not what you’d call a fashionable guy.
Down on the beach, a few hundred yards from the marina, I could see people standing around something large and black. I couldn’t make out who any of them were, but two were women in bright-colored sundresses, which were snapping in the brisk breeze.
With Finn walking beside me, I made my way to the foot of the pier, where we turned and followed the shoreline around the point. Crossing the dune there, we reached the gathering place.
“You must be Jesse,” a man in a guayabera shirt said. He was next to what I now saw was a beat-up charcoal grill. He stepped toward me, extending a hand.
“Guilty as charged.”
He was about my age, with graying hair, and a slight build. Like me, he was also dressed for the cooler weather nightfall would bring. I noticed the women had blankets and sweaters stacked on a nearby log.
“Name’s McKay. Cory McKay.”
“Irish or Scott?”
“Irish, lad,” he replied, his blue eyes twinkling.
“What’s the craic?” I asked in my best Irish brogue. “Name’s McDermitt, of Clann Dalaigh.”
McKay’s grin broadened, his cheeks reddening. “Aye, the craic’s ninety, it is.”
He turned to the two women who were talking on the other side of the rusted-out grill. “Lea, come meet one of my kinsman.”
The two women were both younger than McKay; that was obvious. The light breeze pressed their flowered dresses to their bodies in all the right places. One was a blonde and the other had dark hair and even darker eyes.
McKay slipped an arm around the dark-haired woman’s waist. “Lea, meet Jesse McDermitt. His ancestors come from the same seaside town in Northern Ireland where mine are from. Jesse, this is my bride, Lea.”
Lea smiled and extended her hand. “Very nice to meet you, Jesse.” She turned to the other woman and introduced her as Carol Jessup.
I guessed Lea to be maybe a decade older than Carol. I shook hands with both women, then McKay put a beer in my fist.
“Y’all are recently married?” I asked him, taking the first pull.
“Depends on how you look at time,” McKay replied. “We tied the knot more than a year ago and have been honeymooning ever since.”
Another man approached, carrying a large bag of charcoal for the grill. Carol introduced him as her husband, Tommy.
“You staying long on Chub?” Tommy asked, tearing the bag open and pouring the briquettes into the grill. I was worried that the weight might collapse it, but it held together.
“A day or two,” I replied. “I’m on my way to the BVI.”
“That’s your ketch that came in during the downpour?”
“Yeah,” I replied without elaborating.
“Nice vessel,” Tommy said. “We’re in the cat, out in the anchorage. Cory and Lea are aboard the trawler, Eastwind.”
Two men approached the group, both in their early thirties, with long, dark blond hair. Between them, they carried a large cooler. Behind the two men came Kat, Macie, Brayden, and another young couple, who were holding hands.
I was introduced to Mayhew and Gaston Bourgeau, brothers from France, sailing together. The other couple was David Young and Carmen Novac. The couple looked to be the same age as Kat and obviously in love. Aside from McKay, I was older than the group by nearly two decades.
The grill was lit, and everyone moved away from it. “Just in case it falls apart,” McKay said.
“You should have brought your guitar, Jesse,” Kat said, moving over next to me and taking my arm in both hands.
It seemed an obvious ploy to distance herself from the French brothers. Three couples, three single men, and one single woman. I could see the dynamics easily enough. Kat was on the rebound and didn’t want anything to do with the younger Frenchmen, both shining physical examples of young male adulthood. Land sharks.
“I can barely play three chords,” I said, grinning. “But if you’d like to play, I’ll gladly fetch it for you.”
“I’ll go with you,” Kat said, turning me by my arm.
As we walked away from the group, I glanced down at her. Her hair was damp, and she smelled fresh from the shower. As we walked back up the beach toward the docks, she continued to hold my arm, bumping close with every step.
“The French guys seem to think they’re God’s gift to womankind.”
I patted her hand on my arm. “I kinda got that impression.”
She looked up and smiled. “I’m just going to use you to keep them away from me. Hope you don’t mind.” She wasn’t asking.
I’d only known the girl a day but felt close to her, nonetheless. Not in a romantic or sexual way, just sort of like travelers on the same ride. Which, in a way, was what we were.
“I remember that age,” I said. “I thought at the time that I was ten feet tall and bulletproof, and that the whole world existed for my own personal amusement.”
“What happened to that guy?”
I smiled down at her. “He got married, had kids, went to war, and survived. A lot of the world’s not a pretty place, and people aren’t always what they seem.”
Kat glanced down at my forearm. I’d rolled my sleeves slightly, and the lower half of my Force Recon tattoo was visible. “You were in a war? Vietnam?”
Laughing, I put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a fatherly kind of hug, “I’m not that old.”
When we reached the boat, I unlocked the hatch and we went below. “Think this crowd likes rum?” I asked, as she disappeared down into the lower salon.
“We’re all pirates,” she replied, coming back up with the guitar case. “In one way or another.”
Slipping down to my cabin, I opened the bottom drawer of the little dresser, and took out an unopened bottle of fifteen-year-old Pusser’s Royal Navy Rum. Though I’d only met these people, I felt that they, and certainly the setting, deserved the best.
Turning around, I almost collided with Kat at the hatch. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “This cabin is huge.”
I stepped back to allow her in. She went to the edge of the bunk, looking from one end to the other, before turning toward me. “This thing’s decadent, Jesse.”
I felt my face flush. “Well, yeah, it’s big, I guess.”
She shoved both my shoulders with her hands. “Big? A basketball team could fit up there.”
Then she looked down at the bottle. “Whatcha got there?”
“Pusser’s rum,” I replied. “The official rum of the Royal Navy.”
“Is that what you did in the war?”
“The Royal Navy?” I asked, chuckling, and herding her toward the hatch. “No, I’m not British. It’s just good rum.”
“So, what did you do?” she asked, once we got back up to the dock.
“When?”
“You said you went to war.”
“I retired from the Marines, almost ten years ago,” I replied. “The US Marines.”
“The Marines? Whoa…”
“Lots of guys do,” I said. “No big deal.”
“But retired? You’re not old enough to retire.”
“Thanks, but it’s only twenty years of service. And the pension isn’t enough to be completely retired. I own a charter service back home.”
As we walked back up the dock, Kat asked about the turtles that Brayden and I found. “He showed me the tag,” she added.
“I looked on the internet,” I said. “Those three shells probably netted the poacher six or seven thousand dollars on the black market. Other than that, Brayden probably knows
more about the poaching.”
Kat shuddered. “It’s awful that someone would do that to some defenseless animal just for the shell.”
“You get no argument from me on that,” I said, as we started along the shoreline.
Finn and the dog he’d been playing with came trotting toward us. Both dogs jumped and started around us, as if conveying the unabridged all-important news of the day in body language.
Kneeling, Kat took the other dog under the chin and lightly wrestled him to the ground for a belly rub.
“How’s my Bill?” she asked in baby-talk.
Finn barked, and the other dog wiggled and sprung to his feet. Then the two took off racing down the beach at a dead run.
“That’s Macie’s dog,” Kat said.
“Bill?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Just Bill. Simple name for a simple dog.”
She handed me the guitar case and trotted ahead, toward the cooler. I picked up my pace and when I reached her, Kat handed me an icy Heineken. “I’ll trade you.”
“Deal,” I said, opening the case and handing her the old Silvertone.
The group had moved away from the grill while waiting for the charcoal to get ready. A pile of driftwood stood at the ready inside a ring of rocks. The wood was dry, but the charred edges of the rocks and ashes below the wood told me this wasn’t the first beach fire here.
“Play that song you’re writing,” Macie said, moving over, and patting the log she was sitting on.
The others were sitting on similar logs, or in the case of the Bourgeau brothers, right on the sand. Cory and Lea McKay had brought their own, low-slung beach chairs. I took a knee next to Kat, then lowered myself into a semi-seated position, my right knee up and left leg curled under me. It’s the seated position for rifle target practice. Easy to get into and quick to get up from.
Kat spent a moment tuning the guitar, then began to play a few chords. The old guitar sounded like it had found itself a home here on the beach. The tone carried fluidly around the gathering, before being lifted and carried away on the breeze. She played effortlessly, as my mom had. But where mom’s singing voice was deeper and sort of sultry, Kat’s was bright, like a silver bell, as she began to sing about islands in the sea and a beach far away.
The chords she played were simple, but clever, as she strummed the guitar. I looked around, and the others seemed to have similar expressions, the sort I like to think Armstrong had after he stepped on the moon and looked around. Occasionally we all experience something for the first time, something bigger than life, that we’re certain nobody else has ever experienced. The brothers were speaking low to one another, and one of them, the younger one, glanced over at me for a moment.
To say that Kat was good would be putting all good singers on a pedestal they just didn’t rate. Her voice was clear, and each note she sang rang perfect to my ear. I’m not a musician or anything, I just know what sounds good to me.
Everyone clapped their hands as the song ended abruptly. Kat turned to me. “It’s not finished yet.”
“But, you’ve added more to it since last time,” Macie said, smiling brightly, and placing a hand on Kat’s bare knee. “I really like the new second verse.”
“I wrote it last night,” Kat said.
I remembered her playing the previous night and how I’d fallen asleep listening. At the time, I thought she was just learning, as she stopped and started over. She’d been writing her song.
Finn approached, Bill close on his heels. He dropped a clam at my feet, then the duo trotted back to the water’s edge.
The young girl, Carmen, leaned forward on her log, looking down at my feet. “What’d he bring you?”
“A clam,” I replied. “They’re probably not hungry anymore.”
“I love clams,” she said, elbowing her boyfriend.
“He’ll likely bring more,” I said. “It’s a game with him.”
While Kat played a couple more songs, Finn returned repeatedly, dropping little top neck clams at my feet. Soon, Bill began to bring some to me, as well. As the sun neared the horizon, there were nearly three dozen in a pile at my feet.
Kat stopped playing, as one by one, we all turned our eyes toward the setting sun. There was nothing between us and the horizon except a few gulls wheeling across the reddening sky above the dogs. The air was cool and clear, and even though it had rained buckets earlier in the day, the humidity was low.
Though I’m sure everyone there had seen it many times before, there was a collective gasp as the refracted light gave the impression of the water reaching up and grabbing the dark orange orb as it reached the horizon. The lower half of the sun began to flatten out in the ocean’s grasp, as if it were struggling to stay aloft.
Closing my eyes, just before the last instant, I wished for the same thing I always do. A long life and happiness for my kids.
Opening my eyes, I saw the last of the sun disappear in a pale green flash, and I smiled. It was the sixth time I’d seen this odd display of light, moisture, and air.
Brayden raised a chipped and faded conch shell to his lips and blew out a long, low note. Other horns, both natural and mechanical, joined in from the anchorage, each person celebrating the magnificent sunset in their own way.
“I think the grill’s ready,” Lea said to her husband.
Cory McKay rose from his chair, and Gaston Bourgeau joined him. The two walked toward the grill with the cooler of lobster tails.
“How long has everyone been here?” I asked, looking around the group.
“Macie and I for two years, like I said earlier,” Brayden began. “Lea and Cory got here about a year ago, with plans to sail the northern Bahamas right after their marriage.”
“Cory was a doctor,” Lea said. “When we dropped anchor here, it was only to stay a few days. After two weeks, he told me he was going to give up his practice. That was last summer. We cruise to other islands now and then, but always return here.”
“We sailed into Chub four months ago,” Carmen said.
David took her hand. “Probably the most memorable four months of my life.”
“We arrived two weeks ago,” Mayhew Bourgeau said, his accent heavy and speech uncertain. “We are sailing around the world.”
“Off and on since I crewed with Macie and Brayden,” Kat said. “I think I’ll stay a while now.”
“Carol and I have been here for three months this time.” Tommy said. “Last year we spent all winter here. Sure beats Buffalo. But we’re heading out in the morning to visit friends on Hoffman’s Cay.”
“This is an exceptionally beautiful island,” I said, uncorking the rum. I held it aloft. “To islands in the sea.”
Taking a swig, I passed the bottle to Kat. She did the same, and it went around the circle, as the night quickly grew darker. It wasn’t yet eighteen hundred, but it was the dead of winter.
“Give them about ten minutes,” Cory said, returning from the grill. Taking the bottle from Lea, he looked at it. “Fifteen-year-old rum? You do know how to win friends, McDermitt.” He took a sip and passed it to Gaston, who handed it to me without drinking.
Cory doused the bottom of the driftwood with a heavy dose of charcoal lighter and tossed a match in. Within seconds, the beach fire blazed forth, the pungent smell of the accelerant hanging in the air until the wind carried it off. The fuel burned off quickly, and the flames began to crackle and change color. Some driftwood pieces burned red and others blue or green. Different woods absorb salt and other trace elements in the water at different speeds, and it’s these things that create the vivid colors of a beach fire.
Excusing myself for a moment, I went over the dune to where a small palm tree stood. Two of the lower fronds were dying and looked to be perfect for my needs. Using a folding knife, I cut them away from the tree and cut the fronds from the petiole.
; Returning to the fire, I put the flattened sides of the petiole sticks together, and used them as makeshift tongs, putting a clam between the ends and placing it on a long piece of wood near the flames. As I was moving the last of the clams into place, the first ones were beginning to open, steam coming from the shells.
“You’re a handy pair to have around,” Carmen said, as Finn plopped down in the sand beside me.
He appeared to be more exhausted than hungry. He hadn’t had anyone to play with like this in a long time. Bill lay down behind Macie and looked to be equally worn out.
“Sometimes you have to improvise,” I replied, lifting the open clams away from the flames, one at a time, and placing them on a flat rock beside the fire. “Let these cool for a minute.”
The clams made for a good appetizer and disappeared quickly. Kat played another couple of songs before dinner was ready. The place settings were rustic: pieces of flat wood siding, with banana leaves covering them. The meal was a single lobster tail, served over a bed of rice Lea had cooked earlier and carried over in a heavy steel pot. The whole thing was garnished with several slices of fresh pineapple. Back in the States, people would pay fifty dollars a meal for the experience. We ate with our fingers.
Macie leaned across Kat conspiratorially. “Brayden said you’re looking for a woman who came through here last week.”
“A woman I used to know,” I replied earnestly. “It was many years ago. I let her go and often wish I hadn’t.”
“Was the boat called Sea Biscuit?”
“You remember her?”
“She only stayed a couple of days,” Macie said. “Waiting on weather. She shared a bottle of wine with me one night when I was waiting up for Brayden. He’d gone out fishing. Nice lady.”
“Yeah,” I replied, wistfully. “We got along well. I’d like to think we can again.”
“She’s on her way to Tortola,” Macie offered. “She said she wanted to be in Cane Garden Bay by the first of February, if I remember right.”
Rising Force Page 12
