Gulf coast girl: original title, Scorpion reef

by Charles Williams

  “Oh.” I really saw it at last. “So if Barclay and his men had managed to follow you down there, they’d give him up as dead, too. That was what he was after.”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe it gets easier as you go along,” I said.

  “He was scared. He’d been hunted too long, and I guess it does things to you.”

  “But running out on you? Deserting you, leaving you stranded in a foreign country?”

  “Not quite stranded, if you mean money,” she said. “You see, it wasn’t in the plane. I thought it was, but it was in a bag of his I was supposed to bring down with me. None of it’s clear-cut, Bill. He was leaving me, and he had to double-cross his friend who bought the plane, but he wanted me to have the money. Maybe he thought it was just sort of a ball game. I was being sacrificed to advance the runner to second.”

  And maybe the money was a way of buying off his conscience, I thought, but I said nothing. Macaulay was a little mixed up for me.

  Suddenly her eyes were full of tears and she was crying silently. “Does it make much sense to you that I still didn’t call and tell you, after that?”

  “Does it have to?” I asked.

  She put both hands alongside her face and said slowly, around the tightness in her throat, “I would like to explain it, but I don’t know how. When he told me that, I knew I would leave him, but I couldn’t run out on him until he was safe.”

  I tried to see Macaulay, and failed again. How could he inspire that kind of loyalty on one hand and be capable of the things he had done on the other? I said nothing about it because it might not have occurred to her and it would only hurt her, but he had killed that diver, or intended to until the airplane crash saved him the trouble. The way he had it planned, there couldn’t be any second person who knew he was still alive. He’d probably have killed him as soon as the poor devil brought up the box in that Mexican laguna. And he would have killed me, in some way.

  That was the only way it would add up. He didn’t want his wife to know what he was mixed up in. So when I went down into that plane he had to tell me what he was really after, and when he’d done that the chances were I’d have fallen overboard the next night. He was a great Macaulay, I thought. He’d started out with an itching palm and wound up itching all over.

  “How much chance do you think we have?” she asked.

  I tried to think of something to say. But what? They were going to kill us. Everything said they had to. Escape? At sea in a small boat with two of them watching us? And if we did get rid of them some way, what then? I was wanted by the police. In a very short time she would be, too. We had nowhere to go. The trap had double walls.

  Then I thought of something else, even worse. “Do you really know where that plane is?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. He told me very carefully. And I memorized everything he said.”

  I wondered. She thought she did. Barclay was convinced she did. But apparently I was the only one aboard who had any idea of the immensity of the Gulf of Mexico and the smallness of an airplane. If you didn’t know within a few hundred yards you could drag for a thousand years and never find it.

  Not that I cared if they found their damned diamonds or not. It was something else. If they didn’t, Barclay would think she was stalling, “—suppose she didn’t know,” he’d said softly. The implication was sickening.

  “He didn’t show you on a chart?” I asked. “Or make a drawing?”

  “No,” she said. “But it’s near a shoal. The shoal is about fifty miles north-northeast of Scorpion Reef, and is around a half mile long, running north and south. The plane sank two miles due east of it.”

  “Was there white water, or did he just see the shoal from the air before he crashed?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  It was silent in the cabin except for the swish of water across the deck above us. I didn’t say anything for a moment. It was pretty bad. You had to assume too many things. You had to assume, to begin with, that Macaulay had known where he was himself. Then you had to believe the water was shallow enough at that spot to cause surf, so we could find it. If he’d merely seen a difference in the coloration of the water from above, we didn’t have a chance. Then you had to have faith in his ability to estimate his bearing and distance from the shoal in the wild scramble to get out of the plane and launch the rubber raft before he went down.

  I tried to reassure myself. He could navigate, or he wouldn’t have tried to fly the Gulf in the first place. He gave the location in reference to Scorpion Reef, so he must have sighted Scorpion. Fifty miles was only a few minutes in a plane, so he couldn’t have gone far wrong in that distance. And there had to be visible white water. He’d been intending to go back to it in a boat, hadn’t he? He must have known what he was doing.

  Then something else struck me. “Wait,” I said. “Barclay told me to set a course to the west of Scorpion Reef. Are you sure you told him east?”

  “Yes. He must have misunderstood. I said north-northeast.”

  “Just a minute,” I said. I went out into the after part of the cabin and leaned over the chart. Barfield was still on deck. With the parallel rulers I laid down a line 22 degrees from Scorpion Reef, picked fifty miles off the edge of the chart with the dividers, and set them on the line. I stared. There was no shoal there. The only sounding in the vicinity was 45 fathoms. I grew more uneasy.

  Beyond, another 20 or 25 miles, lay the Northern Shelves, a wide area of shoaling water and one notation that three fathoms had been reported in 1907. Could he have meant that? But if he had, we didn’t have a chance. Not a chance in the world.

  In the first place, if he couldn’t fix his estimated position within 25 miles that short a time after having sighted Scorpion Reef, his navigation was so sloppy you had to throw it all out. There went your first assumption, the one you had to have even to start: that Macaulay had known where he was himself. And in the second place, that whole area was shoal. God knew how many places you might find white water at dead low tide with a heavy sea running. Trying to find an airplane with no more than that to go on was so absurd it was fantastic.

  Fumbling a little with nervousness, I swung the rulers around and ran out a line NNW from Scorpion Reef. Barclay had said she’d told him that direction. I looked at it and shook my head. That was out over the hundred-fathom curve. Nothing there at all. And if he’d been headed for the Florida coast he wouldn’t have been over there in the first place.

  I thought swiftly. We’d never find that plane. To anybody even remotely acquainted with salvage work the whole thing was farcical, except there was nothing funny about it here, under the circumstances. They were going to think she was stalling. She’d already contradicted herself once, or Barclay had misunderstood her.

  Three quarters of a million dollars was the prize. Brutality was their profession. I thought of it and felt chill along the back.

  I was still looking at the chart when the idea began to come to me. I hurriedly slid the parallel rulers over on our course and looked at my watch. It was just a little less than two hours since we’d cleared the sea buoy. Guessing our speed at five knots would put us ten miles down that line. Growing excited now, I marked the estimated position and spanned the distance to the beach westward of us with the dividers. I measured it off against the edge of the chart. It was a little less than nine miles.

  Hope surged up in me. We could do it. There was still enough glow in the sky over Sanport to guide us, and if there wasn’t, all we had to do was keep the sea behind us and go downwind. The water was warm. You could stay in it all day without losing too much body heat.

  Sure, the police would get me, and her, too. We wouldn’t have a chance, half clothed and with no money. But that was nothing compared to what lay ahead for us here. She might go free. If we could sell them the story soon enough, the Coast Guard might pick up the sloop and take them. There was a chance it would clear her. I’d go to prison, but that was better than going crazy out there w
hen they started getting rough with her.

  But we had to have a life belt. She probably couldn’t swim anything like that distance, and it was just a tossup whether I could or not. But how to get one out there on deck without their seeing it? They were big and bulky, and even down here in the cabin Barfield would notice it as she went by. I looked swiftly around the cabin and had an idea that might work. Taking one of the big, cork-slab belts from under the starboard settee, I put it on top of the icebox, which was right beside the companionway.

  I hurried back through the curtain and knelt beside her again. Leaning close, I whispered, “Can you swim?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, but when she replied her voice was low. “Just a little,” she said.

  “Good,” I whispered. “Listen. We’ve got to get off here. Now. There’s not a chance in the world of finding that plane with the information you’ve got, and when they begin to find it out it’s going to be murder. And even if we could locate it, they’d probably kill us anyway. So we’ve got to swim for it. Maybe we make it, maybe we drown; but it’s better than this. How about it?”

  “How far?” she asked quietly.

  “About nine miles.”

  “I can swim about a hundred yards, in calm water.”

  “That’s all right. I’m pretty good at it, and we’ll have a life belt. It’s our only chance.”

  The big eyes looked at me gravely, without fear. “All right,” she whispered.

  “Fine,” I said. “Now, I’m going back on deck. As soon as I’m up there, Barfield will probably come back down here and turn in. Wait about five minutes, and then come on deck yourself. If he tries to stop you, make a gagging sound and pretend to be seasick. Say you’ve got to have fresh air. Now look—” I pulled the curtain back a little so she could see straight through to the companionway. “There’s the life belt, on top of the icebox. He won’t see it, because I’ll turn the light out before I go back up. When you’re on the step, grab it fast and hug it to you and come on up in a hurry. Don’t try to put it on. Just hold it. The minute you step out onto the bridge deck, head for the rail, and go right over the side. By the time Barclay sees you’ve got a life belt it’ll be too late. Got it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good,” I whispered. “See you in the water. Better take your shoes off before you start up. And go for the lee rail.”

  “Which one is that?”

  I grinned. “The one downhill.”

  She nodded. “Thank you for everything,” she said softly. She thought we were going to drown.

  I put my hand against her cheek. “We’ll make it,” I said. Just touching her brought back that intense longing to take her in my arms. I stood up abruptly and turned away.

  I went back on deck after turning out the lamp over the chart table. It was very dark at first. Barfield growled something and I heard him going below. I sat down in the cockpit, on Barclay’s right and as near him as I dared.

  “Have a nice conference?” he asked with urbane humor.

  “Very nice,” I answered.

  “She really didn’t know what he was doing, did she?”

  “No.”

  “Curiously enough, I rather believe her. The possibility didn’t occur to me, however, until I was telling you about it. Macaulay was an odd one, and there was a good chance he didn’t want her to know about it. Or anyone else. Came from a rather prominent family.”

  “She did?”

  “No. Macaulay. She was a show girl. Danced in a cabaret.”

  My eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness now. I looked astern and could still see the faint glow over the city. Involuntarily, I shuddered. There was a lot of dark water between here and the shore.

  But we could make it. One life belt will support two people if they don’t try to stand on it or fight the water. We’d each hold an end of it and I could tow her, resting when I was tired. The sky was clear; even if we couldn’t see the glow of the city from down there in the water, we’d have Polaris to orient us until dawn and after that the sun. All we had to do, anyway, was go with the sea and wind and we’d hit the beach eventually.

  “You’d best stretch out and get some sleep,” Barclay said. “I should like to be relieved at six.”

  I had to be careful not to arouse suspicion. “All right,” I said. “In a minute.” If he got an inkling of what we were up to they wouldn’t let her on deck until we were a hundred miles at sea.

  I thought of the hours we’d be in the water and wished longingly for one last cigarette, but did not light it because it would momentarily destroy night vision. Things were going to happen fast, and I had to find her there in the water before she could become frightened and cry out. I waited, trying not to tense up. She should be coming up any moment now. Suppose Barfield stopped her?

  “Did she tell you where the plane was?” Barclay asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I repeated what she had said, and asked, “Where did you get the impression it was west of Scorpion Reef?”

  “From her, naturally,” Barclay answered. “I hope we aren’t going to have any of that. She distinctly said north-northwest.”

  “She was suffering from shock,” I said coldly. “I believe she had just seen her husband butchered in cold blood. And, anyway, it’s a cinch he wouldn’t have been to the westward of Scorpion Reef if he’d been heading for the Florida coast.”

  “True enough,” he said. “But we’ll take the matter up after breakfast. And I would advise you both not to attempt any evasiveness or lying. Unfortunately, we are quite in earnest about this.”

  I started to say something, but at that moment I heard voices in the cabin. She had started up.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Barfield’s voice growled.

  “I—I feel nauseated,” she said. I could barely hear her. “—fresh air—”

  “Hey, Joey,” Barfield called. “All right to let her up?”

  I waited, holding my breath.

  “No,” Barclay said. “Find her a pail and tell her to stay down there—”

  If she was beyond him we had no chance at all, but it was now or never. I swung. My fist crashed into the blurred whiteness of Barclay’s face, and at the same time I yelled, “Run!”

  Barclay fell back, clawing in his pocket for the gun. She came up through the hatch, moving fast, with Barfield shouting behind her. I could see her for a brief second, standing erect on the deck at the forward end of the cockpit with the bulky life preserver clutched to her breast. Then she was lunging and falling outward. I grabbed Barclay’s jacket and hauled, rolling him into the bottom of the cockpit. Barfield came lunging up out of the hatch. I heard her splash.

  Barclay grabbed my left leg and was trying to pull me down. Barfield jumped into the cockpit. The Ballerina rolled, and he lost his balance and came slamming into me. I lashed out at his jaw and felt the jolt as I connected. He was trying to get his arms around me. I kicked loose from Barclay and knew he was going for the gun again. I lunged backward, onto the seat, put a foot in Barfield’s chest, and shoved. He peeled off. I kicked backward once more, slid over the rail, and water closed over me.

  Even as I was going down I tried to keep myself oriented. I had to find her back there in the darkness with nothing to guide me except the spot I’d gone in and the direction I was facing. In a moment the Ballerina would come up into the wind, the continuity of its course shattered and all the angles gone. My head came out. I looked at her lights. She was swinging now.

  I started swimming back. I was hampered by my shoes and clothing, but there wasn’t time to shed them until I’d found her. A sea lifted me and broke over my head. I angled up against the next one, afraid of drifting below her.

  The sloop was 50 or 75 yards away now, broadside, as she came about. I could see only the port running light, glowing like a ruby in the darkness, swinging up and back as she rolled. I swung my head and looked about me. I should see the white of the life belt or the blond gleam of her head,
but the whitecaps all around were too confusing.

  I lifted my head and called out, not too loudly, “Shannon. Shannon!” There was no answer. I wondered if I had gone beyond her. I began to be afraid, and called out again.

  This time I heard her. “Here,” she said. “Over this—” The voice cut off as if she had strangled, and I knew she had gone under. She was off to the left, downwind. I turned.

  Another sea broke over me. Then I was floundering in the trough. The blond head broke surface right beside me. “Thank God,” I said silently, and grabbed her dress. She clasped her arms tightly about my neck and tried to pull herself up. We went under. I felt suddenly cold in water that was warm as tea. She had both arms about me.

  Our heads came out. I shook water from my face. “Shannon! Where’s the life belt?”

  She sputtered and fought for breath. “It—I—” she said, and gasped again. “I lost it.”

  Twelve

  Another sea broke over us. She clung to me, choking. “When I went under—” she said, “the water pulled it out of my hands. When I came up—I saw it once—a wave knocked it away.”

  I fought the sudden whisperings of panic and tried to think. It had to be near, probably within twenty feet. Downwind. Go downwind. It floated high and would drift faster than she had. We were pushed upward by a sea. I shook water from my face and looked wildly about. I saw nothing but whitecaps and foam, gleaming faintly in the darkness. She pulled us under again. I kicked upward.

  She was fighting the water, trying to climb out of it, the inevitable way to drown. I broke her grip around my neck and snapped, “Relax! Take hold of my belt and lie down in the water.”

  It worked. She got hold of herself and did as I told her. As soon as she was stretched out low in the water and buoyant I no longer had to support her. I turned on my side and kicked ahead, lifting my face every few seconds to peer desperately around in the darkness for the life belt.