Voyage After the Collapse (The Pulse Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  “And there are still a lot of surprises ahead,” Larry said. “Just wait until we get to the Jumentos and anchor near one of the coral reefs. You’re going to be amazed at the marine life.”

  “Can we swim there?”

  “Of course! I’m going to teach you how to snorkel and free dive. We’ll hunt grouper and lobster and pick up conch by the dinghy load.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever get to do anything like this. I thought everything just sucked and it was only going to suck worse when the lights went out. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you back there that night I was acting so stupid, Captain Larry.”

  “It’s okay, Rebecca. I’ve felt like that before too. I imagine just about everybody has at one time or another. Life can be hard sometimes, and sometimes we get so worried about our problems that it can seem hopeless. Sometimes it feels like there’s just no use even trying anymore. I know I’ve felt that way. I’ll bet Casey has too.”

  “Absolutely,” Casey said, a chill running through her as she remembered her ordeal in the Honey Island Swamp in the hands of that lunatic, Derek. In his hidden camp with no way in or out except by boat, she had been bound with ropes while he was away and constantly under his watchful eye when he was there. Escape had seemed impossible, yet she seized the opportunity when it presented itself and pulled it off, leaving Derek with his head split open by his own axe. “You’ve just got to remember, Rebecca, just like things can turn bad in a heartbeat, they can go the other way just as fast.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Larry said. “As long as you’re alive, there’s hope. That’s what you’ve always got to remember. That’s what we all have to remember—especially now. That’s how we’re going to get through all the challenges ahead, and it’s why were still alive now when a lot of others are not. And no matter what we’ve all been through, here we are on this beautiful boat, sailing on some of the finest waters in the world. Life is good, Rebecca. Remember that and you’ll always have a good reason to get through the hardest times. We’re going to get through this together, and things are going to get better. If not here, then wherever we have to go to find a place where they are.”

  Casey wondered if they would indeed be getting through all this together. Tara was below, sleeping while she could before her watch later, so she wasn’t part of this conversation. Would she still want Larry and the rest of them around once they reached the Jumentos or some other safe landfall? Or was she going to stick to her guns and tell them good-bye at the earliest opportunity? Casey kind of doubted she would choose the latter. Especially now that they were in another country, and among islands with which she was not familiar. How would she manage with just Rebecca to help her sail the boat? And how could she ever feel safe with just the two of them anchored somewhere remote alone, after what had happened at Cat Island? Casey didn’t know how they were going to work it all out, but she knew the time was soon coming when they would have to. The Casey Nicole would be waiting at the other end of this passage and all this would surely come up again then.

  Casey found out that once again though, she was wrong to assume anything in this new reality in which they found themselves. It happened not long after midnight, when she was sound asleep in her bunk and Larry was off watch as well. A piercing alarm from the cockpit woke them both and Casey sat up, confused and unsure of the source. Larry seemed to know immediately though, and he bolted up the companionway as fast as he could. Before Casey could join him, Larry had glanced over the stern at the exhaust, what he saw causing him to quickly kill the engine. The alarm had stopped when he did and in the quiet she could hear the waves slapping against the hull. Tara and Rebecca were both already on deck, where they were taking turns steering.

  “What is it?” Casey asked.

  “Just an engine temperature alarm,” Larry replied. “Apparently the raw water intake pump quit.”

  “Do you think it damaged the engine?” Tara asked.

  “No, but we can’t run it without the pump or it will. It’ll overheat and seize up.”

  “So, we’re back to pure sailing….” Casey said.

  “Not necessarily.” Larry looked around at the wind and sea state. It was blowing a good bit harder than it had been on his last watch. “With this wind directly on the nose, it’s going to be a tough beat to go another hundred miles dead into it. I’d like to try and get this sorted out so we don’t have to do that. Of course, it’s going to depend on what spares I can find in the lockers.” He was looking at the chart with his flashlight as he spoke, moving his finger over the rhumb line back to the last position he’d worked out before going off watch. “As it turns out, we’re pretty close to an island I’ve stopped at before. In fact, it’s the only island anywhere near this route until we reach the Jumentos. There’s an anchorage that’s pretty decent in settled weather. It’s right here: Green Cay,” Larry pointed to the chart.

  “That looks really close. Can we go there?” Rebecca asked.

  “We might as well. It’s hardly even out of our way. It would be a lot easier to fix this on the hook with some shelter than out here rolling around in these seas.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  ARTIE COULD NOT STAY awake any longer. When dawn broke over the Gulf, the Casey Nicole was somewhere north of the Keys and well to the west of Cape Sable. There had been no sign of pursuit from the boat that fired on them, but Artie had not tempted them by slowing down or deviating from the most direct course away from that beach as possible. They had been sailing this same course for about three hours, and guessing the boat was averaging eight or nine knots, Artie figured they were well outside the restricted zone, but of course he had no idea what kind of surveillance or patrols might be watching the waters to the south, near the Keys. The chart showed that the Dry Tortugas were on a west-southwest heading, but Artie didn’t dare over steer to the southwest for fear of passing too close to Key West and the other inhabited islands in the chain and running into more authorities. Now that it was daylight, he knew their sails would be visible from a long distance, and he was aware that they might already be on someone’s radar screen if these boats running the blockade had working radar.

  It was frustrating that the men in the boat had refused to talk or share any information. It would be nice to know something other than just speculation about the scope of the event that caused all this and what was being done about it. But those men had been anything but friendly. Artie wondered what they must have been through since taking on this duty, and he figured probably a lot. Considering what he had been through himself in his quest to find his daughter, there was simply no telling how bad things were on the Florida mainland, with a population many times greater than that of Louisiana and Mississippi combined. The grim-faced soldiers or cops or whatever they were must have encountered lots of violence already, and were simply in no mood for idle chitchat or answering the questions of civilians who were in their operating area without authorization. Artie realized now that he and his remaining crew had been lucky indeed that they had been given one more warning on their second approach. It would have been less trouble for those men to simply eliminate the nuisance and be done with it, but they had shown restraint regardless.

  He didn’t know if they what they said about the restriction including the Dry Tortugas was true or not, but he had to assume it was, and if so, that Larry and Casey had not been able to enter Florida waters either. It would take more than the entire day to reach those islands anyway, so he wouldn’t find out until sometime tonight or possibly tomorrow. He knocked on the starboard cabin roof to wake Grant and Jessica, and when they appeared on deck a few minutes later, he handed over the helm and went below to his bunk. Artie had missed so much sleep over the past several days that exhaustion finally caught up with him and he slept almost the entire day. When he finally woke again and sat upright in the cabin, remembering where he was, he looked out the port light and saw that it was already late afternoon. The sky was turning red in the direction they were s
ailing and it would soon be dark once more.

  “Have you seen anything?” he asked Grant, as he climbed out of the companionway.

  “No. Well, not anything moving anyway. We passed within a mile or so of some kind of tower earlier, but I don’t know what it was. Probably some kind of antennae that doesn’t work anymore.”

  Artie looked around in a full circle. Like Grant said, the horizon was empty. Jessica was asleep on the port side seat, curled up with her back to him and Grant. Grant looked worn out as well and ready for the change of the watch.

  “How’s our speed been today?”

  “Pretty steady, I’d say. About what we’re doing right now ever since you went below this morning.”

  “That’s good then. Still probably at least eight knots, I’d guess,” Artie said, looking at the v-shaped wakes streaming behind the twin rudders. He looked at the chart again and scribbled some calculations in the margins. “If we really have maintained at least an eight-knot average, we ought to be within 30 miles or so of the Dry Tortugas. We should be well past Key West, but I wish I knew just how far north of the islands our course was.”

  “I’ve been keeping our heading on about 255 degrees all day.”

  Artie looked at the chart again. “Larry made this look so easy. Even without the sextant his dead reckoning was so accurate. But that’s what you get after years at sea, I suppose.”

  “Yeah. I can see how even a slight deviation could really put us somewhere we don’t want to be over the course of a day or two. That’s what happened on the crossing. Scully did pretty good, considering that was more than four days of sailing with no sextant.”

  “He’s a lot better than I’ll ever hope to be, I know that.”

  “I’ve been thinking about him all day. It’s hard not to. I just hope he’s okay. He’s such a great guy.”

  “Yeah, Larry has talked about him for years. Sometimes I felt Larry saw him as more of a brother than me. They certainly had a lot more in common. From what he told me, there’s no telling how many sea miles the two of them have sailed together.”

  “They’ve both lived amazing lives. I can’t wait to spend more time with Larry. I could sure learn a lot from a guy like that; and Scully too.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll get the chance. We’ve just got to believe that all that experience will pay off for both of them. Look, why don’t you go get some sleep? I’m good now for a few hours, and Jessica can help me out when she wakes up.”

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight and Artie was getting tired again when he and Jessica suddenly saw the ship. Somehow, despite its great bulk, the huge navy ship appeared out of nowhere less than a mile off their port beam. The first indication they had of it was a searchlight that lit up the night like day when it suddenly powered on, its beam locked on the reflective white Dacron of their sails. Artie’s first reaction was to cringe and duck, and he grabbed Jessica by the arm and pulled her down to the cockpit sole with him, remembering their last encounter with the patrol boat in the dark. There was no gunfire this time, and Artie had not heard the sound of outboard motors, but until the light went off again, he’d assumed it was another boat similar to the one that had fired the warning burst off Cape Sable.

  But when their eyes recovered from the blinding light and readjusted to the darkness, he and Jessica both saw the massive, dark silhouette of a warship that could only be a navy vessel. So what those other men told them was true. This entire coast really was under a naval blockade. Artie wondered what was going to happen next, but he kept steering on the course they’d set, keeping his eyes locked on the menacing shape to port as he did.

  “Where did they come from?” Jessica asked. “I didn’t hear a thing and I didn’t see anything last time I looked back.”

  “Me either,” Artie said. “But those navy ships are fast.”

  “I hear a motor now,” she said.

  Artie strained to hear it. Jessica’s hearing was no doubt better than his, but after a few minutes he heard it too; the unmistakable sound of an outboard.

  “That’s not the ship, Jessica. I think they’ve dispatched a boat. You’d better go wake up Grant. We may need his help. They’re probably going to make us stop.”

  When Grant followed Jessica back up to the cockpit, Artie didn’t have to tell him what was going on. The smaller boat, which was similar to the one that had evicted them from Florida waters before, was now running alongside.

  “I’m not sure how to do this,” Artie told Grant and Jessica when a voice from the boat ordered them to heave-to. “I’ve helped Larry with it but I wasn’t sure exactly what we did. All I know is that we first need to head up into the wind to stop. The sails are going to flog when we do, so watch out!”

  Artie knew that his brother made this maneuver look smooth and easy. There was some way he set the sails so that they stayed full of wind, but didn’t drive the boat forward. He wished he’d taken more careful note of it when the main and jib started snapping and popping wildly and seemed in danger of ripping themselves apart in the stronger winds that had been blowing since dark.

  “Just pull the jib down!” He yelled at Grant. “No, the other one, that’s the foresail!”

  Grant fumbled with the halyard that was cleated at the base of the mast and it seemed to take forever, but at last he had it undone and the peak of the sail went slack. Then he sprang forward to the trampoline and started grabbing armfuls of the sagging Dacron, wrestling it down until it was completely empty of wind and piled in a heap.

  Artie then let out more slack in the mainsheet and foresail sheet so those two sails wouldn’t fill again. This was nothing like the way Larry did it, but at least they were no longer making forward motion. He then told Jessica to hold the tiller while he helped Grant pull the remaining two sails down to make sure. Artie wasn’t about to take any chances with disobeying another direct order from one of these gunboats. He didn’t care how big of a mess they would have to sort out later—if they were even allowed to continue.

  “You’re on the edge of a prohibited marine traffic zone,” the man who’d addressed them said as the boat came within a few yards off to port.

  “We were trying to find the other boat we were sailing with,” Artie replied. “My daughter and my brother are on it. It’s a 37-foot monohull named the Sarah J. We got separated crossing the Gulf from Mississippi but we’d planned to go to the Dry Tortugas so that’s where they’re supposed to be.”

  “You can’t go to the Dry Tortugas. All of the Keys are sealed off and restricted from any entering marine traffic. There are no recreational sailing vessels there. We have a command center set up at the park there and civilian personnel have been relocated.”

  This was just what Artie was afraid of. They were not going to be permitted to even look for Casey and Larry to see for themselves. Was the man even telling the truth about no boats being there? He saw them talking among themselves and then the man who seemed to be in charge shouted back with more information.

  “One of my men says he was on duty when another sailboat approached these waters a couple of days ago. He says the boat matched your description—about 35 to 40 feet long. One man and two or three women on board. They claimed they were heading to the Dry Tortugas to meet the rest of their party.”

  “That had to be them! What happened then? Where did they go?”

  “I don’t have the answer to that, Captain. All I can tell you is that they were intercepted by our crew and turned away. No unauthorized vessels are being allowed to enter Florida territorial waters—no exceptions. That’s why we’re here tonight, to tell you that you need to adjust your course to the north and continue west for at least another ten nautical miles before going any farther south.”

  “They must have gone on to the Bahamas then! That was our ultimate destination. That’s where we’re going too then!”

  “You can proceed to do so, Captain, after you have sailed the requisite distance west to stay clear of Florida waters
. Make your turn south after ten miles and make sure you’re well so the south of all the Keys before changing course back to the east for the islands.”

  “Ask him if he can tell us any news,” Jessica said. “Ask him how come they have ships that work and if there is anywhere we can go where things are normal.”

  Artie was already planning to do just that as soon as he found out that Casey and Larry had indeed been seen on Sara Hancock’s boat. But even as he yelled the first question, the big inflatable patrol boat turned away and sped back to the ship.

  THIRTY-TWO

  IT TOOK SIX MORE hours of paddling for Scully to reach the main islands of the Florida Keys after leaving the little mangrove clump where he’d slept and eaten the fish. The first indication that he’d arrived there was the outline of a long bridge spanning the gap between two dark islands on the horizon. As he drew nearer, he began to make out other manmade objects such as power line towers and the now useless wires that stretched between them.

  Scully steered for the island to his right, the westernmost one that would lead him along the chain to his destination, but he approached this new landfall with caution and stealth. He was ready to stop as soon as possible and get out of the kayak to stretch his legs, but with only a half hour of darkness before a new day dawned, he needed to find some place secluded to hole up. He was certain that there were dangers lurking on and around these inhabited islands. Had it not been the same everywhere he’d been where other people were found? He needed to follow the chain of islands in order to find the Dry Tortugas, but he had to remain unseen if at all possible. And that required staying put during the day.