Miguel was right. Zane was scared—so scared that his hands were trembling. His stomach wrung itself nauseous as he thought about the approaching threat. Both plans put Zane in far more danger than they did Miguel and he was certain that shooting a so-called “Fed,” or anyone else, was out of the question. Was there any way out? Any precaution he could take? He couldn’t think of anything. His hand found its way into his shirt and he kneaded the doubloon with more force than ever before.
He looked toward land. Buildings stretched on endlessly, packed together like headstones in an old cemetery. What would have normally been a gorgeous sunset now filled Zane with dread. The broad tongue of darkness that had emerged in the east now lapped away at the last puddle of daylight in the west, and, by instinct, Zane flicked the switch to turn on his boat’s lights. The red and green navigation lights radiated on the bow while the white anchor light blazed on the stern, altogether illuminating the deck with a dizzying patchwork of color.
“Are you an idiot?” shouted Miguel, turning off the lights and smacking Zane in the back of the head. “You’re as stupid as your father, aren’t you?”
“Sorry, I just thought—” Zane touched his head where Miguel had struck him, and then he looked up with sudden surprise. “You know my dad?”
Miguel studied Zane for a moment. “We’ll discuss that later.”
Zane stood there perplexed. His father had innumerable acquaintances, some of them shadier than others, but he could not recall ever hearing of Miguel before. Skip was no saint, but he was no hard criminal, either, and certainly not someone who would ever knowingly consort with a drug smuggler. Then Zane remembered that Skip had begun calling him not long after they picked up the bale, so many times that Zane’s cellular phone—safely enclosed in a Ziploc inside his shorts pocket, as usual—was nearly depleted of its battery power. Miguel had forbidden Zane to answer.
The succession of illumined hotels and condominiums—elaborate jack-o-lanterns adorning the coast for the last hundred miles—ended abruptly. Beyond them, as far as Zane could see, stretched a long dark shoreline blanketed by the silhouette of forest and a sprinkling of dim lights. The digital chart on Zane’s GPS showed that they were approaching Cape Canaveral. The lights, he now realized, sat atop launch pads, some of which were still used to hurl rockets carrying satellites—including the ones that provided GPS—into orbit; others were relics left undisturbed since the Space Race, decaying ruins that now sat as lifeless as most of the men who once worked on them.
Gemini. Mercury. Apollo. The Space Shuttle. At one time all had punctured the stratosphere above the Cape but now they were things of history. Some had failed dramatically, and Canaveral shrimpers still occasionally dredged up barnacle-encrusted pieces of the Challenger in their trawls. The rockets and vehicles that retired unscathed, on the other hand, had become tourist attractions in museums and visitor centers, their defunct metal controls now burnished by countless greasy fingers, their framework always creaking as if they longed for the thrill of the countdown, the furious shudder of the ignition, and the cold serenity of outer space.
“Three miles,” said Miguel after a quick glance at his tracking device. “And coming fast.”
Even though they were several miles offshore, Zane could see a swath of breaking waves in their path. Globs of white water would materialize, peak rapidly, and then disappear. He realized that they were coming upon the Canaveral Shoals, an undersea peninsula of shallow sandbars that jutted out many miles from shore. Some parts of it were only a few feet deep and his chart had the word DANGER inked in red across the entire area. Experienced mariners knew that the shoals had caused countless wrecks throughout history. Most of the vessels were swallowed so completely by the shifting sands that traces of debris were rarely found.
“We should go around the shoals,” said Zane. “We need to change course.”
Miguel shook his head. “No way in hell. We’d use too much fuel.”
“We could capsize.”
“You really are gutless, aren’t you? We go north and nothing else. Got it?”
Zane trembled. Behind them and before them peril was imminent. If by some miracle the authorities did not stop them, the sea surely would. He reached into his pocket and turned on his cellular phone, then snuck a peak at it. Both the low battery light and the voicemail indicator flashed. He yearned to pick it up and call his father, but he felt certain that Miguel was waiting for any excuse to kill him. He turned it off again and sealed the baggy.
As they reached the edge of the shoals, Zane felt a change in the sea. The waves were confused now; no longer traveling with the wind, they barreled in from every direction, slapping into each other and drubbing against the hull.
Zane watched the depth sounder readings fluctuate wildly. Twelve feet. Six feet. Ten feet. Four feet. He was trying to envision the immense humps and trenches of sand beneath the boat when a breaker came out of the darkness and reared up like a frothy warrior in front of him. It grabbed hold of the bow and lifted it into the air, but then, just as quickly, the wave lost its footing in a trench and collapsed. Zane let out a deep exhale as his boat cruised over its remains. He spent the next few minutes weaving in and out of the breakers while trying to maintain the same course.
“Here we go,” Miguel said. He had taken his position stooped in the stern, cradling the rifle. He peered over the gunwale. Zane followed his gaze to see a dark thing bounding over the chop in their direction. Fear coursed through Zane’s body like an injection. His breaths became short, his stomach tossed, and he wanted it all to end. But it would not end, for the boat was nearly upon them.
“Stop your vessel,” a voice boomed across the sea through a bullhorn.
“Do as they say,” said Miguel.
Zane pulled the throttle back and his boat slumped in the waves. He could see two men in the approaching center console but darkness veiled their features. He had expected the Coasties—dock talk for the US Coast Guard—but this looked nothing like their large orange cutters that usually patrolled the seaboard. This boat appeared smaller than Zane’s, but it did have four outboard engines on the stern compared to his two, which explained how it caught up so quickly.
Who were they, then? FBI? DEA? As the boat edged closer, Zane squinted to read the black lettering on the hull.
“I, R, S,” he read aloud. “IRS?”
“Death and taxes,” said Miguel, now lying on the deck, out of sight. “How many of the bastards are there?”
“Two, I think.” What, Zane wondered, would the IRS want with a drug runner?
“Are they packing?”
“Packing?”
Miguel scowled. “Do you see any damn guns.”
Zane studied the silhouetted figures on the approaching boat. His heart thudded when he saw that the man to the side of the driver was holding a gun. The shape of it looked similar to Miguel’s automatic rifle.
“Well, do you or not?” Miguel’s voice was tinged with anger.
“I can’t tell,” said Zane. “It’s dark.”
“We can’t take a chance. I’m gonna count down from three, and on one you grab that pistol and we take them out. Yours is the driver. Got it? Don’t answer—they might see you talking.”
Panic squeezed in on Zane. He tried to think of a solution. Should he warn them? Miguel would surely kill him if he tried. Could he try to evade them? That seemed impossible. Their boat was simply too fast.
“Three,” said Miguel, his finger stroking the trigger.
An idea hit Zane. He drew a deep breath, put his hand on the throttle, and clenched the steering wheel.
“Two.”
Zane looked at the IRS boat. Now only ten feet away, it idled alongside. The men onboard wore black uniforms and appeared to be in their thirties or forties. One of them had short black hair and a well-kept beard. The other had a clean-shaven scalp. Their faces were both stiff with anxiety.
“One!”
It all happened instantaneously: Migue
l sprang up with the rifle like a madman, his eyes blazing and his hair blown back by the wind, and the officer with the gun whirled around toward Miguel, and Zane slammed the throttle down as far as it would go and spun the steering wheel away from the other boat. His boat lurched upward and sideways with a tremendous jolt, causing Miguel to tumble backward off the stern and into the water, just as Zane had hoped. But Zane did not anticipate the towering breaker that suddenly charged in and put its shoulders beneath his boat. With the aide of the engine thrust, the wave lifted the boat skyward and slammed it down on top of the IRS boat. A deafening crack shot out and shards of fiberglass and splintered wood erupted all around Zane and he felt the deck crumple beneath his feet like wet cardboard. Only blackness and confusion and sloshing water remained.
Somewhere, a man moaned.
Chapter Five
The oaks shivered as a breeze whispered through them. Their spindly fingers permitted only the slightest streaks of dawn sunlight to trickle through and one beam found Dominic’s face. Still bound, he slept beside the waning fire. The light danced across his mouth, crawled up his cheek, and wiggled over his eyes. He woke with a gasp.
“Juan,” he said. His face filled with alarm, but despair soon took its place.
Francisco still sat on the stump. “The fear of the Lord leads to life,” he said, “so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil.”
Dominic tried to scratch his nose on an exposed root. “I am growing weary of your preaching, old man.”
“Weariness will be of no help on our journey.”
“Journey? You are mistaken if you believe that I would undertake a journey of any sort with some wild man from the woods.”
“Would you, then, with a dozen of us?”
“Please, retain some dignity, old man. We both know you’re the only person crazy enough to be out here, if you can even be called a person anymore.”
“Do you not feel their eyes on your skin?” Francisco looked into the distance where the woods melded into darkness. “Have no doubt they are there, observing from the fringes like spirits in wait.”
“I am sorry for you. Senility clearly has its grasp.”
Francisco stood. “Perhaps.” In the soft morning light he looked sickly. His head sat no higher on his body than his hunched shoulders and his lower back leaned askew, yet he moved with surprising agility when he reached down and picked up a sheathed sword. Dominic stirred. “My—”
“I took it off you before you woke on the beach. For your own safety.”
Dominic envisioned grabbing the sword from Francisco and dispatching the old man with one swing. If only he were not bound. Francisco studied the brown leather sheath and ran his fingers over it. To Dominic, it was like watching another man caress one of his lovers. Fiery anger scorched his insides. The old man ran his hand over an etched scene of Spanish countryside near the handle and, farther on, across a long row of crosses carved into the leather.
“Are these your victims?” asked Francisco.
“The memorable ones. I see room for one more.”
Francisco extracted the sword from its casing and, with all the precision and swiftness of a skilled swordsman, swung it down between Dominic’s ankles. The severed twine coiled back like a snake chopped in two. “Let us hope it’s not for you,” said Francisco. “On your feet.”
The old man plucked his robe from the crux of a nearby tree and cocooned himself inside of it. The hood of the robe created a dark void around his face.
“And what am I to wear?” asked Dominic. He stood shakily, his hands still bound.
“It already adorns you, my friend,” Francisco said. “I dressed you last night.”
Dominic looked down; his face hardened when he saw the dry mud caked on his body. His shirt was gone and his pants had been rolled up to the knee, yet no part of his skin was visible below the muck. He turned and saw the nearby pond in which he had almost drowned the night before, but it was smaller and dirtier than he envisioned during his blindness. More like a pit filled with sludge and algae, it was dark and stagnant and reeking of moist detritus. Insects flitted about the surface and a filthy turtle basked on the edge. A gloppy crater marked the place where Dominic had gone in and out.
“You’re making a mockery of me,” said Dominic.
“On the contrary, commander. We will be venturing through mosquito-infested wilderness. They cannot smell your blood through such grime.”
As they walked, Dominic studied the twine that bound his wrists, trying to follow the course of the knot and decipher its type. But he had never seen a knot so complex before. He tried to twist his hands free but the knot only tightened.
He could have used such a knot for the slaves; a few always managed to escape during the chaotic auctions and disorderly transfers to merchant ships. The girl never struggled, though. Standing alongside dozens of her brethren while merchants and landowners inspected her, she held a look of grace and resignation, as if she welcomed the humiliation. When she noticed ten-year-old Juan in the crowd of onlookers, however, her expression changed. Tears pooled in her eyes and she let out a long exhale, as if releasing her soul.
Juan, she mouthed. Juan. She quivered. She beckoned him with her eyes.
Dominic, sitting at a nearby desk with the auction records and treasury box, watched his son react with indifference. He had taught him well. But then Juan bit his lip. His mouth trembled and a tear seeped from his eye.
Oh, you stupid boy, Dominic thought. Do not dare.
Juan bolted toward her through the crowd. “Mama!”
Dominic erupted from his chair and flipped the desk over, sending papers scattering and coins clinking across the rocky ground. “Juan!” he shouted. “Stop!”
Juan collapsed at her feet when he reached her. He wrapped his arms around her shackled ankles. “Mama, why are you up here?”
“Oh, Juan.” She ran her hand across his hair. “I must go with our people.”
“Do not leave me, Mama. Take me with you.”
“Your father needs you, Juanito. You’re his last chance.”
“But I hate him, Mama.”
“Hatred only wounds the one who harbors it. Fight his anger with your love.”
“Silence, woman!” Dominic grabbed the chains from behind her and yanked them; her head whipped back and she fell away from Juan, wincing. “Remember who you are, Juanito. The Spaniards say we are not human. They are right. We are gods and they can never destroy what we have inside.”
Dominic backhanded her. Blood gushed from her nose. Later that day, she sold for half of her appraised value because of her battered face. But at least she was gone.
Dominic and Francisco had walked several miles and now trudged ankle deep in the black water of a cypress stand. Francisco had taken the lead for the first time. He used the tip of Dominic’s sword to test the depth in their path.
“I demand to know where we are going,” said Dominic.
Francisco pointed ahead. “North.”
“I asked you where, old man, not in what direction.”
“I will tell you when they want me to.”
“Who? Your imaginary army?”
“Yes. My imaginary army.”
“How far do you intend to walk?”
“Ten days, perhaps eleven.”
“You know I will kill you before then.”
“And never reach your destination? Never fulfill God’s plan? He does have a plan for you, commander. I am certain of it.”
“If he does, it’s a cruel one.”
Dominic studied the surrounding swamp and then looked at Francisco’s back. There seemed to be enough distance between them that, if he moved fast enough, he might be able to flee before the old man could wield the sword. “Nothing in this hellhole is worth spending another day with you,” Dominic said, and he bolted away.
Francisco did not even turn to investigate the splashing. “That, my friend, is not your decision to make.”
Dominic tore th
rough the swamp. Jagged cypress stumps protruded like the teeth of some fossilized beast. Bangs of moss hung from the branches above. Flying insects filled the air. It was hell on earth—a world unfit for humans and animals alike.
Where would he go? The coast could not be far. If he reached it, he could trek to San Agustín where his military superior would greet him as a hero and shower him with the hierarchal respect he deserved. As soon as he arrived, Dominic imagined, he would ask his superior to dispatch a unit that could track down and capture the old man. He smiled when he thought about getting his sword back and running it through Francisco’s bowels to ensure a slow, painful death, as every traitor deserved.
The water grew deeper as he slogged. It soon lapped against his stomach. He pushed a small log out of his path with his belly but something felt strange about it; he froze when he felt the log writhe. He looked down; his eyes grew large. What he mistook for a log was actually a water moccasin. Dominic shivered. The snake opened its mouth. A milky bead of venom dripped off one of its fangs.
“I will back up,” said Dominic, “and you will not bite me.”
Dominic twitched. The snake reared up and hissed. “You will not bite me.”
He jerked away but the snake puffed up and struck. A clawed hand shot out of the water and grabbed the snake’s neck, stopping its gaping mouth from within inches of Dominic’s skin.
“Good God.” Dominic’s mind could not grasp what was happening.
The hand, clasping the snake, continued rising from the black water and soon an elbow emerged and a shoulder and then an entire man. The man’s muscles stood erect on thin bones beneath dark, tattooed skin. Water and muck streamed off. His wet hair clung to his chest. His eyes shone as green and vivid as foliage after rain. He was clearly a native, but an extraordinarily large and formidable one. The native brought the moccasin to his mouth and bit into its neck; blood spurted out and the snake twisted into a ball and fell limp. The man looked down at Dominic and spit red saliva into the water.
The Sound of Many Waters Page 4
