Cold Water Burning

by John Straley

  “I don’t know why you should be so worried about him, George,” Jonathan said.

  Doggy glared at the skinny wild man by the bench, then spoke to me with his old voice of authority. “These boys always think they are smarter than they are, Cecil.”

  “Uh, Cecil . . .” I heard Todd’s voice come up from the galley. “Cecil . . . I . . . I . . .” Todd’s voice was agitated.

  I turned to look down the passageway, and as I did I nearly bumped noses with Kevin Sands coming up the stairs.

  “Jonathan, what the fuck are you doing?” he asked. Kevin’s face was a mess. The raccoon bruises around his eyes had flared into a bright purple. His dirty hair spiked. He shouldered by me and stood in front of George Doggy. Kevin was holding Blossom tightly in his arms.

  “Listen to me,” Kevin said in a voice that was clear and urgent, “I do not want to hurt this baby. I just want the money from this crazy fuck.” He gestured toward Jonathan. Jonathan grinned and leaned back against the bulkhead, perfectly relaxed.

  “I dumped it, dude. It’s all gone,” he said, smiling.

  “All of it?” Kevin said, as if he were going to break into tears.

  “Every penny.”

  “George, listen.” Kevin gripped Blossom all the tighter and turned to Doggy. “This is not my fault. This is not my deal. He gave me the money, you know it’s true. Hell, I’ve lost my entire family. I’ve lost everybody. It makes sense that I should keep the money. I didn’t have a thing to do with your deal here.”

  George Doggy held up his hands to calm the young man down. He clearly wanted him to stop talking.

  Kevin swung around to talk to the rest of us. His eyes were wild and I could see the muscles tensing in his arms, clutching the baby as she began to squirm. “I need to talk to George here, in private. I promise you I will not hurt this child.” Then he backed toward the stern door to the back deck. Here he could see everyone on the boat. No one was at his back. Jane Marie walked steadily toward her child.

  Kevin looked straight at Jonathan. “I don’t believe you got rid of it all.”

  Jonathan spread his hands and smiled at Kevin. “It wasn’t mine. Never was, and it’s gone now. Don’t sweat it, dude. It’s for the best. Trust me.”

  “We’ll just see about the money. I don’t know what the fuck is keeping me from blowing you away, man.”

  Kevin looked at me. “I would never kill a child,” he said. “But George would, wouldn’t he?” He looked at Jane Marie and his ex­pression was pleading. “George shot Sean. He killed him.” Kevin was breathing hard, and the baby twisted in his arms. Her eyes lolled around the room.

  “He killed Sean. I raised him, you know. Ever since our parents died.” Kevin was breathing deeply from his chest. “I liked my brother. That sounds weird. But I liked Sean. He saw shit that would twist most people up into knots. He sucked it up. He never talked about it.” Kevin sagged as if he might drop the baby, then snapped back to attention. “He never talked about it . . . and still you shot him.”

  Kevin was staring at George Doggy. Blossom started to cry softly. Reflexively Kevin started rocking her back and forth in his arms, and the harder he rocked the more she quieted. “That money was for me and Sean. Richard Ewers gave it to us. I was going to take my little brother to California. I was going to let him go to Disneyland every single day if he wanted to. Now you fuckers are going to kill me. This is not fucking fair. I didn’t take the money. Neither of us did. But still you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” Kevin seemed to be addressing all of us.

  George Doggy leaned against the bulkhead, listening as he slowly put his leg high up on the captain’s chair. Jane Marie was looking at nothing but her child.

  Todd spoke. “Cecil, was I supposed to . . . detain him?”

  “No, that’s all right, buddy. Don’t worry now.”

  Todd turned and sat back down in the galley with his eyes staring straight ahead, his hands folded tidily in his lap.

  Jonathan spoke slowly and calmly to Kevin, in a tone wholly different from the way he had spoken to me or to George. His eyes stayed locked on Kevin’s. “You’re not alone, dude. Just keep it to­gether and remember you are not alone.”

  “Okay . . . okay . . .” I said. “Let’s just calm down a little and figure a few things out. Kevin, where is Richard Ewers?”

  A muscle in Kevin’s cheek twitched. He looked at me as if I were a great distance away. “I have no idea, Cecil. I had nothing to do with that. I wanted that money, I admit it, but I didn’t have any part in that.” He was speaking so fast I had a hard time believing he could be making it up.

  Blossom was starting to fight harder and harder against Kevin’s grip. She wiggled her shoulders and her face reddened. Jane Marie walked toward Kevin with her arms wide, offering to hold the baby. Kevin held the child tightly to his chin, his forearms cradling her bottom and around the back of her neck. He turned away from Jane Marie, and she stopped moving toward them.

  “Okay . . . okay . . .” A thin siren of panic blared in my ears; all I wanted to do was change the mood in the cabin. “Okay, Kevin, I believe you,” I lied. “What is it that George wants from you? If we come up with some money and work a deal, would you put the baby down?”

  Jonathan stepped between us. “Kevin, keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  George was scratching his leg and acting suspiciously casual. He spoke to me, but never took his eyes off Kevin, who stood sobbing with my daughter squirming in his arms.

  “They have the proof of what happened to Ewers,” George said softly, and he kept scratching his leg.

  “What was in Sean’s photo album, George?” I asked him.

  George waited before answering. “It was sick stuff, Cecil,” he said. “You don’t want to know.” George looked down at the deck and away from my eyes.

  Kevin gripped the baby so tightly it appeared he was closing off her airway. He was sobbing and rocking back and forth, snot and tears dripping down his face.

  “That’s a lie,” he sobbed. “He was a good sweet boy. I’m not going to listen to any more of this.” He was looking directly at Jonathan.

  George’s hand went to his leg, and he pulled the snub-nosed pistol from the holster strapped there. He pushed me away and in two steps had the gun to Kevin’s skull, straight in the center of his forehead. Kevin held Blossom up near enough to the gun so that she would have been burned and no doubt deafened by the muzzle blast.

  Jane Marie called out in a shaky voice, “For God’s sake, just give me my baby.”

  Blossom’s face was turning blue. Kevin was holding her so tightly up against his neck that she could not move. Without loos­ening his grip, Kevin said only, “George, can we step outside and have a talk?” He motioned toward the back deck.

  Jane Marie checked the autopilot, then motioned for Jonathan to stand closer to her. All of us in the cramped pilothouse moved awkwardly around the man with the gun. Kevin moved toward the door. George Doggy never let the gun drop and his arm swung in Kevin’s direction. As he did so Jane Marie stepped toward the door, her arms out for Blossom.

  “Jonathan, you stay here!” Jane Marie barked, her eyes still on her child. I could hear Todd rustling around down in the galley, but I didn’t turn to look, falling in behind George Doggy and be­side Jane Marie as we awkwardly squeezed through the narrow door to the back deck.

  Kevin Sands stood on the deck closest to the stern. Cold wind off the water whipped through Jane Marie’s hair. Engine noise blared out on deck. Behind Kevin, the wake of the Winning Hand frothed in a widening V. The Naked Horse tracked along behind. Blossom was crying helplessly now, her tiny arms twitching and jabbing the air near Kevin’s chin. Kevin appeared to be pleading with George Doggy. We could not make out his words over the engine noise and the sizzle of the wake.

  Jane Marie and I moved to either side of Kevin. I heard Kevin
say: “I’m not a fucking snitch . . .” His face was slick with tears. He was not arguing but pleading. George Doggy’s firearm was a large-caliber wheel gun with a three-inch barrel. It would be very loud and very messy at short range. The hammer was pulled back. George had his finger through the trigger guard and his knuckle was white on the outside of the trigger itself.

  “So, we have a deal, right?” Kevin asked Doggy.

  “Give the baby back.” George Doggy said it slowly and clearly.

  “George, when you didn’t give a fuck about my brother, why do you care about her?” Kevin whimpered.

  George Doggy pushed the barrel of the gun hard against Kevin’s temple. Kevin was leaning back over the bulwarks of the Winning Hand. He held Blossom higher to his chest. His shoulders were out over the prop wash. Jane Marie put her hands on Kevin’s shoulders.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jane Marie said softly. “You are not a monster.”

  “Hand the baby over and we will have an agreement, Kevin.” George’s voice was husky with tension now. “Hand the little girl over.”

  Kevin smiled at me. “He’s going to kill me anyway, Cecil. Either him or Jonathan. They’re going to kill me, don’t you see? Don’t listen to them. I’m alone in this now.”

  In my memory, the next seconds break down to a jerky silent movie. Kevin tries to slide down the bulwarks onto the deck, but George lunges forward with the gun and Jane Marie lunges for­ward to grab Blossom. I try to reach around behind Kevin’s back to keep him and Blossom on board, but gravity and momentum were doing their slippery work. Kevin began to fall backwards.

  The weight in Kevin’s face lifted, his eyes were wide open and he held Blossom out to Jane Marie. “Take her. Take her,” he mouthed as he went over the side.

  His legs flipped up and he bounced once against the sloping stern and then disappeared in the foaming wake. I watched his head come to the surface just as the hull of the Naked Horse overtook him. I threw a buoy out onto the water to mark the location, but I didn’t see his head come up again.

  The baby was screaming and squirming, like a tiny piglet. Jane Marie was shushing and kissing her, wiping her own tears away while stroking the baby’s cheek with her free hand.

  “We have to go back and look for him,” I said.

  She looked at Blossom, stroking the down of her hair. I put my hand on Jane Marie’s elbow and cupped my daughter’s snail-sized foot in my hand. Neither of us said a word nor did we make a move to turn the boat around.

  12

  Fifteen seconds passed. George Doggy put his revolver back into his ankle holster. “I wouldn’t worry. I doubt that I could have pulled him back on board, even if I had been able to keep my grip on him.”

  Jane Marie looked away from Blossom for the first time since she’d had her back in her arms. Blossom had stopped crying; her hands were tucked under her chin. Jane Marie’s voice was stiff with anger as she looked at Doggy but spoke to me.

  “Cecil, we have to go back and find him. Take her.”

  She shifted Blossom into my arms and ran to the stern, taking a sharp knife from her belt. She sawed through the two lines of the towing yoke. The second line popped free, and the Naked Horse fell away from the wake of the Winning Hand. Then Jane Marie ran to the pilothouse, pushing past Todd, who was standing in the doorway with his old super-8mm camera. As Jane Marie moved past him, Todd turned and went back into the cabin. I started to follow Jane Marie, but she came back quickly, handed me a pair of binoculars and pointed to the stern.

  “Here. Don’t take your eyes off the buoy you threw. Find it and don’t take your eyes off of it. Come up to the flying bridge. Stand next to me. I’ll swing her around. We’ve got to find him, Cecil.”

  I walked into the pilothouse with Doggy behind me. Jane Marie stopped him. “You stay off my bridge.” She jabbed her finger into Doggy’s chest. “You look for the buoy and you look for Kevin in the water but never lose sight of the buoy.” Her voice accused. She stood on the ladder one rung above George Doggy, holding his stare. This old man was not used to taking orders from a nursing mother. Jane Marie was about to say one more thing, but turned up the ladder instead. Doggy retreated to the stern.

  The flying bridge sits exposed to the air, without a roof or win­dows. From this steering station we had a much better view of the sea. I climbed the ladder with one hand and carried the baby with the other. Jane Marie had made a cradle out of a five-gallon plastic bucket cut in half the long way. She took Blossom and laid her down under the cover of a little plastic screen near her legs. Then she powered up both engines and put the Winning Hand into a sharp turn.

  “We can come back for the Naked Horse,” she yelled over the engine noise. “I hated cutting those lines but we’ve wasted too much time as it is.”

  Perhaps ninety seconds had passed since Kevin had gone over the stern. The buoy was now about three hundred yards to our stern. The wind would have blown the buoy to the west of the probable location of a person down in the water. I found the buoy easily and began to scan the sea around it. I saw nothing. No water-soaked head of hair, no waving arm. I saw a few floating shoes.

  “Don’t take your eyes off the buoy, Cecil.” Then she added, “I don’t mean to bark at you. Just keep your eyes on the buoy. That’s our only reference point. You’d be amazed how fast you can lose it. I can watch you and understand our position, and I can keep looking around for Kevin. Just don’t lose that buoy.”

  The bag buoy was a salmon-egg red. It rose and fell on the seas as if it were waving to us. Nothing swam near it. Nothing moved into the tunnel of the binoculars’ vision: nothing but the wind pushing ripples upon the surface of each lunging swell.

  When we were fifty yards directly to the east of the buoy, Jane Marie shut down the engines. She flipped switches to shut down pumps and electronics.

  “Listen . . .” she whispered. “We should listen. You can look around now. Scan and listen. I’m going up.”

  She climbed the mast that ran just to the stern of the flying bridge. From the crow’s nest, every angle of the view would be unobstructed.

  The absence of engine noise eased over the ship like snowfall. Gulls flew past, uninterested in our presence, and the Winning Hand wallowed on the water. In all directions I could see nothing but the scalloped edges of the waves: miles and miles of uninter­rupted plain, as if all the prairies of the Midwest were laid end to end. The wind buffeted my ears and it sang in the wire rigging. Waves slapped the hull with a predictable hushing sound, but there were no sharp human cries, no flailing arms against the water. The quiet began to feel like a burden.

  “I don’t see anything,” Jane Marie called down. “Wait. Wait. Wait.” Her voice grew urgent. “Down there, right next to the boat. To the right of the bow. Do you see it?” She was pointing with both hands.

  George Doggy walked down the outer deck. He unlashed a pike pole from the rail and fished down into the water. He came up with something and held it up as if it were a trophy fish.

  “A shoe,” he called up to the crow’s nest.

  We gathered in the pilothouse to decide what to do next. Todd had tried to engage Jonathan in conversation, but according to Todd, Jonathan Chevalier kept his wild-eyed grin, staring out over the compass to the horizon. Then without a word, Jonathan mo­tioned to Todd that he was headed below.

  In the wheelhouse, Jane Marie took the helm from Todd. I was holding the shoe. This was not one of the new shoes spilled from the container ship. The laces were in all the eyelets and the tread was worn. It was not waterlogged. This shoe had not been float­ing long.

  “What was he wearing?” I asked the room.

  “I didn’t notice. I never thought to look,” Jane Marie said softly, as she rocked Blossom against her breast.

  Todd cleared his throat. “That is unquestionably Mr. Sands’s shoe,” he said without emotion, as if the conversa
tion were really only about the shoe. “I had noticed earlier that he was wearing a conventional walking shoe intended not merely for court activity or athletic events but for walking. I had noticed this because of the presence of all the shoes in the ocean. I had been thinking how little use the floating shoes would be to a person who preferred another style.”

  “That’s it,” George said in a voice that intimated he was taking command. “We’ll just have to make a report back in town.”

  Jane Marie would have none of it. Kevin had been in forty-eight-degree water twenty minutes, without a survival suit; the chances of his survival were narrowing with each second, but I could tell she was not going to stop until his clock had long run out. She marked the location in her navigation gear and started the engines again so the Winning Hand could hold her position. Then Jane Marie called the Coast Guard and filed a report demanding an aerial search of the area.

  The next three hours were spent scanning the sea and listening to the crackling voices of the helicopter pilots on the radio as they beat the air around us with their rotors.

  We filed the report as a Passenger Overboard. We gave all the sketchy details we could come up with of what he was wearing and of his physical condition. We agreed to save the shoe in case the match could be used to identify a corpse if it washed up somewhere on the coast.

  Darkness came on, and the Coast Guard released us to return to town. We went back to the Naked Horse and got her under tow again. Jonathan continued to sleep; Todd sat quietly in the galley staring out the back port because looking through the range finder of his old movie camera was making him seasick. Jane Marie steered from the flying bridge, and George Doggy came into the pilothouse and touched my elbow.

  “Don’t worry about it, son. It couldn’t be helped. You were de­fending the child. No one could say you were to blame.”

  I looked at him a long time without speaking. I was starting to feel what countless suspects had felt at the beginning of a conver­sation with Doggy: I wanted to explain myself.