Landfall: Islands in the Aftermath

by Scott B. Williams

  But the population at Fort Jefferson kept increasing and the anchorage had gotten crowded long before the U.S. Navy arrived and made them leave. Problems began to arise even among the boaters who had sailed there to avoid problems and violence. Disputes over anchoring spots and collisions and damage caused by the less experienced led to fistfights and brawls and even two fatal shootings. Thomas and Mindy had been frightened as the tensions grew worse, but aboard their little boat they were able to avoid most of it by anchoring in the shallows where larger vessels couldn’t. With no idea where else they could go, they’d made the best of the situation until the day the ship arrived, dispatching a boatload of armed commandos who informed everyone there they would have to leave.

  Some of the refugees aboard larger cruisers decided to set sail for horizons beyond U.S. waters, opting to cross the straits to Cuba or Mexico, or sail east directly to the Bahamas. Thomas and Mindy considered all those options, but the thought of Cuba or Mexico frightened them as much as Miami. How could it be any better in any densely populated nation if the conditions were as bad as they’d heard they were in south Florida? Because there were so many uninhabited islands there, the Bahamas seemed like the only safe alternative in the region. But instead of risking such a long direct passage from the Dry Tortugas, they decided to make their way east in that general direction by sailing back along the chain of the Keys as they worked up the nerve to cross the Stream from a closer jump-off point. They avoided all the islands connected to the Overseas Highway and anchored mostly in the remote wildlife refuges, the majority of which were clusters of mangrove islands with little or no dry land to be found. With their relatively short mast and shallow draft, they had been able to tuck into seldom-visited hideaways, and had so far managed to catch enough fish and collect enough rainwater to survive.

  They had encountered a few others in small boats living out among the mangroves, but until this encounter, no one had threatened them directly. It just so happened that the hidden anchorage where they were now was midway between Key West and the mainland, and less than a mile north of one of the most developed islands in the Middle Keys. They had seen no other boats when they approached it though, the tall mangroves completely obscuring their view of the land to the south and they hoped, hiding their presence from anyone still living there. With Intrepida anchored in waist-deep water just a few feet off the one little pocket beach, Thomas and Mindy had felt as safe there as anywhere else they’d stopped. What they didn’t know though, as they were settling in for the night and he was combing the nearby mangrove roots for pieces of driftwood to start a fire, was that their every move was being watched. Mindy had gone back to the boat to get a skillet out of the cabin when the two men stepped out of the dark mangroves. When she saw that they had guns, her first instinct was to hide, hoping they hadn’t seen her. When they saw that Thomas had nothing of value, maybe they would leave him alone. But they had seen her, and as it turned out, she was the one thing he had that they wanted.

  Thomas did nothing as he watched the other one pull her out of the cabin of their little boat by the hair. He knew that if he moved to help her, the one with the pistol pointed at his face would pull the trigger, so he didn’t. Mindy struggled but the man who had her was much bigger, and he slapped her before pushing her over the side into the water and jumping in after her to grab her again. When she got to her feet in the shallows, he had her by the upper arm and was forcing her with him to the beach. Thomas saw her look his way, the fear in her eyes visible in the firelight. She knew as well as he did that the two of them were as good as dead once these men had their fun. Thomas considered his almost non-existent options. Would it be better to jump up and try and grab the other man’s pistol, even if it resulted in getting shot dead immediately, or wait and be forced to watch what was coming and be shot anyway? The man who had Mindy had a gun too, not a pistol but a long one of some kind slung over his back. Thomas knew that even if he could grab the pistol from the nearer one, the other one would likely shoot him before he could figure out how to use it. He had about made up his mind to try anyway when out of nowhere a thunderous gunshot rang out, and the man standing over him suddenly collapsed into the sand.

  Thomas stared for a moment in disbelief before turning his attention back to Mindy. Two more shots sounded before either could speak and the man holding her fell too, his hand slipping from Mindy’s arm before he splashed face-first into the water. Mindy ran to the beach screaming, and Thomas jumped to his feet, his eyes straining into the dark for what new threat they now faced from somewhere unknown. He didn’t know who did the shooting, but he was certain that the man sprawled in front of him would never harm anyone again. A quick glance at the corpse was all Thomas could stomach before he had to look away. The bullet that took him out blew the man’s head apart, and something Thomas was sure could only be brain matter oozed from the opening and onto the bloody sand.

  Mindy ran straight into his arms despite the uncertainty of what was going to happen next. But as he embraced her for what he feared might be the last time ever, Thomas heard a voice calling out to him. The two dead attackers where white, but this was the West Indian lilt of an islander, unmistakable from his years in the Keys, where he encountered Jamaicans and Bahamians on a daily basis.

  “IT’S OKAY, MON! NOT GOING TO SHOOT! ONLY KILL DE BAD GUY TO HELP YOU OUT, MON!”

  Three

  WHEN LARRY DRAGER OPENED the companionway hatch and stuck his head out, he was not surprised to see that the sun was already well above the eastern horizon. He had gotten little sleep his second night on Green Cay after discovering the Casey Nicole aground on the surf-bound and reef strewn northern shore. The crews of both boats had worked for hours through the darkness doing the best they could to secure the 36-foot catamaran so that it wouldn’t be swept to sea or bashed to pieces against the rocks. Thankfully, the tide was falling, so that made their job easier. It would not have been feasible to try and get her back out through the surf in the dark and the rain, and the next high tide cycle would be in full daylight. Once he’d been reasonably sure the boat would still be there in the morning, Larry had turned in below, his first night aboard the catamaran he’d built in nearly two weeks. His brother, Artie gladly relinquished his bunk and followed his daughter, Casey back to Tara’s Sarah J., anchored across the island on the sheltered side. Jessica and Grant stayed aboard with Larry, like everyone else, too exhausted to move and in need of at least a couple hours of sleep.

  Larry knew Grant felt terrible, because he’d been the one at the helm when the Casey Nicole went aground. But Grant had never set foot on a sailboat before the voyage that brought them here, and Larry hadn’t expected him to learn the intricacies of seamanship overnight. His brother didn’t have much more experience than Grant, but Larry had trusted that the Casey Nicole was in good hands, because he’d left Scully, his first mate of many years in command. But Scully was missing. That thought hit Larry hard as he stepped on deck and had a look around. Scully had been left behind in Florida, and from what Artie and Grant and Jessica told him, it was not going be easy to go back and get him, even if they knew where to start looking.

  Larry already knew about the presence of the navy at the Dry Tortugas, as they too had been turned away as they tried to approach what had been their destination for the first leg of the voyage. He’d sailed on because there was little else he could do, but he’d expected to reach the Jumentos Cays and find Scully and the others on the faster catamaran already waiting there. Instead, they’d made this unplanned rendezvous on a seldom-visited cay at the edge of the Tongue of the Ocean. Though it would seem an unlikely coincidence to those unfamiliar with the islands that both boats could end up in the same remote place, to Larry it wasn’t surprising at all that it had happened that way. Sailing routes through the islands were determined by navigable channels through the banks and the prevailing winds. Both boats had left Florida to sail around the north end of Andros Island before turning south, and Green Cay
just happened to lie near the logical route from there to the Jumentos. If not for the water pump failure on the Sarah J., Larry would not have bothered to stop there, but because of that he did, and then his brother and the rest of the crew on the catamaran had chanced upon Green Cay simply because their navigation was off track enough that they literally ran into it!

  As best he could tell in the dark when he’d first checked, the Casey Nicole hadn’t suffered any major damage, but her hulls had been cracked in two or three places and she was taking on water into some of the lower compartments that were sealed by watertight bulkheads. It would take a lot more than a few minor breeches to completely flood her two hulls, but still, the cracks had to be taken care of before she could sail again. Larry knew they had their work cut out for them—probably days and possibly nearly a week of it. At least Green Cay was off the beaten path, and from what he’d seen of it since they’d been here, they had it all to themselves.

  He went back below to light the stove for a pot of coffee—a luxury they would be running out of soon, but one that he needed to face a day like the one before him. When the others were awake, they would start working. The first job was to offload as much gear and other stuff from the catamaran as possible to lighten the hulls, so they could winch her high and dry onto the beach. That alone would take half a day, and by then Larry knew the tide would be back and they would have to move fast to prepare for the next steps.

  * * *

  Artie Drager was so happy to see Casey again he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight for long. After they were done setting anchors and mooring lines to secure the catamaran, Artie followed her back to the Sarah J. and fell asleep on one of the quarter berths. When he woke to daylight streaming in the portlights of the cozy teak cabin he knew he probably hadn’t slept more than an hour or two. But he was well used to an erratic and often interrupted sleeping schedule after the long voyage from Cat Island. He couldn’t have slept longer if he’d wanted to, restless and worried as he was about what would happen to the Casey Nicole, and wondering how they would get her repaired and safely back beyond the reefs guarding the beach.

  Artie felt terrible about letting his brother’s pride and joy go aground. The catamaran could have been a total wreck if it had not narrowly missed the worst of the reefs by a turn of luck. The keels had certainly kissed rock in a few places and sustained some damage, but the boat had come to rest in an area of mostly sand bottom inside the reef.

  Grant had been at the helm simply because it was his turn to stand watch, but Artie knew it wouldn’t have mattered who was steering. None of them could have seen the dark outline of such a low island on a night like last night. The first warning Grant had that something was wrong was the roar of breaking surf. None of them had thought they were anywhere near land, as their dead-reckoning navigation had put them sailing southeast down the middle of the Tongue of the Ocean: the deepest channel in the entire Bahamas Archipelago. But dead reckoning was prone to error, as his brother had pointed out to him time and time again. Scully could have pulled it off without making such a mistake, but Scully had not been aboard. That they’d managed to end up on the same island where the other boat stopped seemed almost miraculous to Artie, but made more sense when Larry told him they had sailed the same route around the north end of Andros before the engine issue forced them to stop. Both boats would have passed within a few miles of the isolated cay anyway, if all had gone as planned.

  Before they’d hit it in the dark, Artie had never really noticed Green Cay on the chart. It was at the extreme end of a large area of shallow water extending west of the Exumas, which he’d intended to avoid, but his sights were set on the more distant Jumentos Cays and Ragged Islands. That was the only area in the Bahamas of interest to him, because that’s where Larry had said they should eventually go when they set sail from the northern coast of the Gulf. Getting the two boats separated at sea wasn’t in the plan, nor was the unexpected encounter with the U.S. Navy off the coast of Florida. But sticking to a plan in this new reality had proven difficult and once again, Artie found himself separated from his daughter after all he’d been through to sail to New Orleans to find her. He doubted that would have happened though if not for their chance meeting of Tara Hancock before they left. How could his single brother resist a good-looking, divorced woman who knew how to sail and had her own classic sailing yacht? He couldn’t, and he hadn’t, and because of her, their party had been split up, despite Larry’s best intentions to keep the two boats within sight of each other on the crossing. The weather and the whims of Tara’s depressed teenaged daughter derailed that plan, and no matter what Larry said now, Artie knew it was a bit of a miracle they were all back together again in such an improbable place. All of them, except for poor Scully, that is.

  Artie felt far worse about leaving Scully behind in Florida than he did about the grounding of the Casey Nicole. How in the world would he ever get here, left as he was on the wilderness coast of the Everglades with nothing but Larry’s sea kayak? With police or military gunboats like the one they’d encountered aggressively patrolling the coastline, had Scully already been arrested for remaining in the restricted zone? Or worse, had he been shot? If they found him and saw the AK-47 he was carrying, but no passport or any other form of I.D., they would likely assume he was just another looter or bandit out taking advantage of the lawless situation. Artie wondered if they would ever know, but he should have known that as soon as he told his brother what had happened, Larry would say he was going back for him. Of course he was. Scully was like another brother to him, and Artie agreed they needed to do everything they could to find him, but what Larry proposed didn’t involve any of them. Artie didn’t like the idea of splitting up again, but he agreed it didn’t make sense for all of them to risk arrest or worse. It was just that his dream of a safe refuge with all the people he loved together in one place had fallen apart again. And now he wondered if it would ever come true or forever remain just out of reach.

  Four

  THOMAS ALLEN WAS SO startled by the shooting and then the voice calling out to him from the dark that he didn’t even think to pick up the dead man’s pistol, lying there in the sand within easy reach. All that registered was that the two men who had attacked them were dead, and that Mindy was in his arms, safe for the moment. He had no way to know if whoever did this would be any less a threat than the two he had just killed, but hearing the unseen shooter’s voice assure him otherwise gave Thomas a bit of hope. Anything else would have been futile anyway. There was no escape other than to try and flee into the impenetrable mangroves. Whoever had done the shooting was approaching from the dark waters beyond their moored boat, leaving them no option to try and board it without making themselves easy targets if he wanted to stop them.

  But more shots never came, and momentarily, Thomas saw a long, sleek sea kayak emerge from the gloom. The sound of the paddle was barely perceptible and now he understood why neither they nor the two dead men had heard anything until the sudden gunshots. When the bow of the kayak slid up onto the little beach and stopped, Thomas saw that it was paddled by a shirtless, muscular black man with dreadlocks that hung all the way down to the deck behind him. Just as he’d known when he heard the man’s voice, Thomas could now see that the man was indeed a West Indian islander. His wild appearance might be frightening to many, but Thomas and Mindy saw guys like him every day in Key West, and his friendly smile and another greeting before he stepped out of the boat assured them he meant them no harm. After introducing himself as “Scully”, he checked to make sure the two men he’d shot were indeed no longer a threat to anyone. Then, he bent and picked up the fallen pistol, making Thomas feel stupid for leaving it there when he had no idea if they were still in danger or not.

  Pointing it away from them though, the stranger did something with it that Thomas correctly assumed involved removing the bullets to make it safe. Then he put the gun and the bullets in his pocket and dragged the man with the shattered skull
into the foliage where the body would be out of sight. This done, he was ready to talk, and after finding out Thomas and Mindy had been to the Dry Tortugas, told them that was exactly where he was headed.

  “You might as well forget about going there,” Thomas said, “The entire area around the anchorage and the fort is completely off-limits. But even if it wasn’t you couldn’t get there in that kayak.”

  Scully listened patiently and seemed to accept what Thomas was telling him about the restrictions. He told them of his own encounter with a gunboat on the coast to the north, and how he’d paddled here after his friends were forced to leave him on the beach. He said they were supposed to rendezvous with more friends in another sailboat at the Dry Tortugas, and he seemed undaunted by the prospects of paddling all the way out there in the kayak. But of course this news of the blockade left him doubting the wisdom of that plan now. If his friends couldn’t stop there, what would be the point?

  “They didn’t tell us much of anything, really. Except that the entire coast was under a naval blockade.”

  “Some of the other boat people out there were saying it was like they had essentially declared martial law,” Mindy said.

  “Whatever they are doing, all I know is that they made everyone leave. If your friends were already there, they won’t be now, and if they were still trying to get there, they would not have allowed them to enter the anchorage. They were serious about it.”

  “An’ de ship, dem U.S. Navy? Dat fo’ true, mon?”

  “Yes, they were U.S. Navy. At least they told us they were, and their small boats had Navy markings on them. But the men who came ashore looked liked soldiers.”

  “I think they were SEALs or Marines or something like that,” Mindy said.