Cross Current

by Christine Kling

  We were not far enough away from the little pier when I heard voices from the island. I didn’t dare waste the energy to turn around and look. My strength has always been in my arms, but my deltoids were burning already. Back when I was working the beach, I had pulled in guys who weighed four times as much as Solange. Tonight, I began to worry I wasn’t going to make it.

  The voices on shore multiplied, and I judged I was only about halfway to the boat. I hoped Rusty didn’t hear the ruckus and decide to lift anchor and split. I hoped the boat really was Rusty’s. The cool water was helping my wooziness, but I found the best thing was just to concentrate on that light and block out all other thoughts.

  My arms were starting to go numb. It should have been an easy swim – would have been had I been clearheaded and on my own, even wearing all the clothes that weighed me down. I didn’t want to think about the blood I might be losing from the wound on my arm. Or what it might attract. Not only was I fighting off some kind of poison in my system, but I was also trying to keep a low profile and hauling a kid on my back. Not that she weighed much of anything, but she kept trying to climb higher up my shoulders, almost onto my head, and that pushed me down, under the water. I’d gulped seawater a couple of times when I came up for air, and in her panicked state, she’d pushed me back down.

  I could make out the outline of the boat finally, but I couldn’t see any sign of a person in it. It sure looked like Rusty’s. From the sounds of the voices behind me, they seemed to be searching among the mangroves along the shore. I didn’t want to confirm my position for them, but I did want Rusty to get that anchor up and get ready to haul ass out of here.

  “Hey,” I tried calling out, not too loud, between panting breaths. “Rusty, hey, over here.” There was still no sign of anyone on board. I wondered if he was below in the bunk.

  Surely he couldn’t sleep out here, knowing that Solange and I were ashore with Malheur.

  When I reached the fiberglass hull, I banged on it to awaken him, then swam around to the stern to climb aboard. Where the hell was he? I pushed Solange onto the swim platform first, and then I crawled up. When I stood up and started to lift her over the transom onto the apparently deserted boat, I heard the first gunshot.

  “Shit. Stay down,” I said as I dragged her the rest of the way into the boat. “Get in the cabin.”

  The next bullet entered the water with a pfft noise just off our stern, a fraction of a second before the boom of the shot rang out. I spaced out for a few seconds, staring at it. Solange reached through the cabin doors and put her hand on my leg. I blinked, then slid into the helmsman’s seat and reached for the keys. I gave silent thanks when I found them in the ignition. I turned the key and the engines fired right up, still warm from having made the trip over here.

  “Stay here,” I told her as I leaned into the cabin and turned off the anchor light at the panel. Then I stepped up onto the foredeck cabin to retrieve the anchor. I heard two more gunshots from the shore, but thanks to the dark night, none came close.

  Maybe I should have waited around for Rusty to return, but with bullets hitting the water all around us, I pitched the little CQR into the foredeck anchor well, ran back to the helm, and shoved the outboards into gear. I tried to picture a chart of South Bimini. The island was roughly rectangular, running about two and a half miles long, east to west. We’d entered a canal on the northwest corner, and I was now on the north coast. The quickest way back to deep water and the straightest shot to Florida was to head west, back to the town and the harbor entrance. I’d also have to pass the canal entrance, and they might be heading out that canal right now in their boat. If I headed away from Alice Town, I would have to go a couple of miles in the opposite direction, and I knew there was very thin water over the coral.

  Knowing there was a good chance I’d kill us both if I ripped the bottom of this boat out doing twenty knots, I turned the wheel to head for the faint glow of Alice Town.

  We still had roughly half a mile of very shallow water to cover before we would reach the main channel and pass in front of the canal that led to Malheur’s camp. I’d sweat gallons along the way, hoping we had enough depth under the outboards, because on this dark night I couldn’t see a thing.

  I motioned for Solange to come closer. She wrapped her arms tightly around my waist and pressed the side of her face against my ribs, staring up at me. She opened her mouth as though to say something, but with the noise of the outboards and the constant jarring of the boat as it pounded across the flats, she closed her mouth again, gritting her teeth in a terrified grimace. Clearly, she did not like small boats, nor did she like the speed we were traveling. “Lifejackets?” I said. “Do you know what they are?”

  She answered me with a puzzled look.

  I lifted up the driver’s seat and found a big foam lifejacket in there. “Like this. Find a small one for you, okay?” She nodded and turned slowly, making her way back down into the cuddy cabin.

  After what seemed like an eternity, we reached the end of the island and the deeper channel. As we made our turn and passed in front of the entrance to Malheur’s canal, I saw the red and green of a pair of running lights far back in the canal. A boat was coming out.

  A little nudge to the throttles didn’t do much to change our speed. Rusty’s boat was giving it everything she had, and I just had to hope that it would be enough. I wondered if he was somewhere on the dark island, watching his boat speed off. I was confident he could take care of himself and find his way to the ferry and back to Alice Town, but I was also pretty sure he’d be pissed at my stealing his boat a second time.

  Bimini is not a harbor to go in or out of at night without local knowledge or a chart. The channel runs parallel to the island for about half a mile with a sandbar and reef between the channel and the open sea. In places, there was four feet of water over the reef, and I’d have no problem crossing over; in other spots, though, there was only inches over coral heads that on this dark night would be absolutely invisible. Though heat lightning now flashed intermittently on the horizon, and the pregnant-looking clouds overhead appeared about to burst, there was little wind and the surface of the sea in the lee of the island was oily smooth. There were no breakers to show me the end of the reef. I would have to guess.

  For some reason, the boat had not followed us out into the channel. I could see their lights behind us, and they were headed across to Alice Town.

  Solange came up from the cuddy cabin holding two life jackets. I quickly showed her how to step through the crotch straps, then snapped the front of her jacket.

  I slung the larger one onto the deck as I saw a house on the beach off to our left. I knew there were range markers somewhere around that house, but I’d never find them in the dark. I decided it was time to go for it.

  “Hold on tight,” I shouted over the roar of the engines, and I swung the wheel.

  I braced myself, waiting for the crunch, for the jarring stop that would send me through the windshield, but it didn’t come. We sailed on out into the dark sea.

  We had been on a course heading roughly due east for about ten minutes, making a good speed of about twenty knots, when we began to clear the lee of the island. The increase in the wind chop and swell wasn’t all that gradual. I was down in the cabin, digging out Rusty’s binoculars, when the boat became airborne and slammed nose first into a big swell. So much for a quick trip back. I tossed the binoculars out onto the deck and jumped to the helm. After I’d disengaged the autopilot, I lowered our speed and checked the gauges.

  “Shit.”

  Solange poked her head out the cabin door and looked up at me with alarm.

  “Hey, sorry. Just go back and lie down, okay?” There wasn’t any need to make her even more scared. I had no idea what the boat’s fuel tank capacity was, but I was pretty certain that a gauge reading less than a quarter of a tank meant we did not have enough fuel to get back across the Gulf Stream to Florida. That was probably why we had no pursuers—they were
at the fuel dock.

  Maybe we’d get within VHF range of the coast, and I could call for a tow. There would be a lot of charter and tow-boat captains who would find that highly amusing. I’d probably never live it down, but given that just an hour ago I was wondering if we were going to live at all, I guess it wasn’t so bad.

  I made a quick 360-degree check around the horizon. To the north, a nasty squall loomed like a black hole and seemed to suck what little light there was into its dark curtain of rain. I was running without lights, trying to make sure I saw any other boat traffic out here, because they sure as hell weren’t going to see me.

  I went below to dig around and see if I could find a chart. The mainland wasn’t all that hard a target to hit, but I was certain we didn’t have enough fuel to get there. I wanted to make sure we were in the most populated shipping lane when the tanks ran dry. Thinking about how this boat with no power would wallow in the swells, I knew we would need to get found pretty damn quick.

  When I came out of the cuddy cabin, the air temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees and the wind was starting to pick up. Ahead, the rain was visible, even on this dark night, and it looked like we were about to drive into a black wall. I checked the autopilot and the fuel gauge. We’d already used half of the fuel we’d had when we left Bimini. I didn’t know how much longer the boat would run, but hopefully, it would run long enough to get through this squall.

  The wind hit us about thirty seconds ahead of the rain. It was as though someone had turned on a hurricane-force wind machine. Some of the gusts must have been clocking at over forty-five knots, and when the rain hit, it felt like we were being attacked with an air stapler. The stinging raindrops made it nearly impossible to open my eyes, so I huddled behind the windscreen for cover. Within minutes, I was drenched down to my underwear, and the rain was so cold, I trembled uncontrollably. Solange opened the doors to the cuddy cabin and stuck her head out. I could see she was crying.

  “So much water,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s the rain,” I shouted over the noise of the storm. “It will be over soon.”

  The wind and rain had not yet let up when the outboards started to sputter. I throttled back, thinking I could keep the engines running a little longer at the lower speed, stretch out our fuel, but both engines immediately quit. The boat didn’t glide to a stop, she just lurched down, dead in the water, and immediately began to roll in a wild corkscrew motion driven by the waves kicked up from the squall. Solange opened the doors to the cuddy cabin, and when I saw the water sloshing over the cabin floor, I realized what she had been trying to tell me earlier.

  “Watch out,” I said as I pushed her aside and dove below. I located the electrical panel and tried the manual override on the electric bilge pump. Nothing happened. “Okay, Rusty, where’s your hand pump?” I started going through lockers and finally found a cheap little plastic pump under the bunk. Of all the things for him to cheap out on, I thought. I handed Solange the end of the hose and told her to hold it out the doors as I pumped the water out of the cabin, onto the deck, where I hoped it would drain through the aft drain holes—if they weren’t already underwater.

  I started strong, pumping like our lives depended on it, which of course they did. After about five minutes, I still couldn’t tell if I’d made any progress, and I had to switch arms. I stood for a second to shake out my shoulders, and I watched as a large green wave dumped across the boat and gallons of seawater sloshed through the companionway into the cabin. I shook my head. This was futile. She was going down.

  I went back to pumping, but I started directing Solange to put together a survival bag of things that we would need in Rusty’s life raft. She found bottles of water and a box of protein bars. I took a couple of the candy bars and stuffed them in the pockets of my jeans. I’d need to keep my strength up to keep going with this pumping.

  When she came across a diver’s buoyancy compensator, I had her hand it to me, and I put it on, checking to make sure the C02 cartridge was in the pocket. I hated life jackets, but with this less bulky vest, I could inflate it only if I needed it. I took the whistle and small strobe light off an adult life jacket and attached them to my buoyancy compensator.

  Sound travels better through water than through air. When you’re inside a boat, and another boat approaches, you will always hear the engine through the water first. I knew exactly what that rumbling noise meant the minute I heard it.

  From down below, it was impossible to tell what direction the boat was coming from. I told Solange to stay in the cabin, and I went out on deck. The squall had let up, and the gray light of morning had increased visibility tremendously, but the sky still hung very dark and low. When we rose to the top of a swell, I looked all around the horizon, but I didn’t spot the boat before we immediately plunged back into a trough. I tried the VHF radio at the helm but discovered that all the electronics on the boat were dead. I could see now how low Rusty’s boat was riding in the water, and I understood why the waves were breaking over the gunwales, swamping us. I remembered Rusty’s flare kit in the seat locker and dug it out, fitted a flare to the gun, and shot it into the air.

  I waited until we had crested an entire series of waves, and I still didn’t see anything. The noise was growing louder, though. I had just decided to try another flare when the approaching boat went from being a distant possibility to being right there, coming over the top of a wave, headed straight for us. Although I couldn’t see anyone on board, the high white fiberglass bow of what looked to me like an ocean racing boat seemed to appear out of nowhere. For an instant, I feared the captain didn’t see us, wasn’t slowing down, and he was going to run us over, slice our boat in two. At the last minute, the racing boat veered off, the stem swung around, and I saw the trademark name Donzi painted along the waterline. The boat looked to be about forty-five feet overall, and as it slowed and the engines went into neutral, a man stepped away from the helm and leaned over the side. I realized that I knew him.

  “Seychelle?”

  “Joe?”

  “Are you okay, honey? What the devil are you doing out here? Take this.” He tossed me a line, and I tied it off to a midships cleat on our sinking boat.

  “Man, am I ever glad to see you,” I said. “This boat’s taking on water, and we were getting ready to abandon ship.”

  Then I felt a small hand on my thigh. I reached down and pulled Solange up so that Joe could see her, too.

  I started to speak again when Solange called out at the top of her voice.

  “Papa!”

  I looked at him and then at her. “No, Solange, this is Joe,” I said. When I turned back to look at him, he wasn’t alone anymore. Gil Lynch stood to one side and the slender Haitian man who worked with Malheur stood to the other.

  Solange cried out, a plaintive wail so full of pain that I wrapped my arms around her and turned my back to the men on the big ocean racer. I stroked her head as she gulped for air.

  Joe D’Angelo was Gil’s boss? I wanted to cry out, too. There was nowhere left to go.

  Joe called out to her. “It’s okay, kid. Don’t worry. These are my guys. I won’t let them hurt you.” I watched over my shoulder as the Haitian man, lying on his belly on the stem of the ocean racer, reached for the side of our boat.

  Joe reached his arms out for Solange, and she buried her sobbing face in my neck. He handed the line to Gil, who shoved his handgun under his belt at the small of his back, then pulled our boat in tight alongside theirs. I saw the Haitian man tying us together at the stem as well.

  “Go to hell, D’Angelo,” I said. Gil stood back behind Joe, and his eyes flashed at me. He was trying to tell me not to push him, but I wasn’t going to give Joe the satisfaction of watching us just climb into his big ocean racer.

  Joe laughed even louder that time. “Hell? Isn’t that where all us smugglers go? Like Red?”

  I turned and opened my mouth, started to speak, when over Joe’s shoulder I saw Gil, franti
cally shaking his head.

  Then Joe was right there, holding his arms out in my face.

  “Hand her to me, Seychelle.”

  “I don’t get it. She’s your daughter? And you left her in Port-au-Prince all these years as a restavek?”

  Joe turned to the Haitian and pointed at the sinking boat. The man fired several rounds into the hull, only hurrying along the obvious.

  “I said give her to me,” Joe said. He had his hands on her shoulders, yet she held tight to me, screaming as he pulled at her. “Seychelle, now.”

  He was hurting her. “What do you want with her?” I yelled at him. “You left her once. Leave her again.” I struggled to hold on to the child, the water sloshing around my knees. I was sinking down, farther from his grasp, but he wasn’t letting go.

  “No,” he shouted, and then he enunciated very clearly: “She belongs to me.”

  In the end, he was stronger, and she was gone, yanked out of my arms, crying like a lost child, only she was in the arms of her father. I scrambled over the gunwale and across the upholstered white vinyl on the racer’s transom.

  “I go wherever she goes, Joe.”

  Gil and the Haitian untied the lines, and Rusty’s boat disappeared in a vortex of bubbles.

  Joe turned away from the sight and looked at me with a half smile, then looked at Gil. “Shoot her,” he said.

  Solange began kicking and screaming even louder as Joe tried to haul her toward the companionway leading to the cabin below decks.

  Joe shook her tiny body hard. “Shut up,” he yelled. Solange sobbed, even as her head flopped on her shoulders as he bounced her body back and forth. Then he turned to Gil, who was standing next to me in the stem, head lowered, eyes fixed on the gun in his hand. Joe yelled, “I said shoot her.” Gil looked up, and his handlebar mustache was twitching. “Boss, let’s just leave her out here.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Joe said, and nodded at the Haitian man, who had been watching the scene with a perplexed look. “Take this kid below and shut her up.” He handed the bawling child to the slender man, and the two disappeared below. Joe turned back to Gil. “When I tell you to do something, Gilbert Lynch, you damn well better do it.”