Every few minutes, I peered through the binoculars, scanning Rosario Strait and the eastern entrances to Peavine and Obstruction passes. Nothing moved over the dark, still waters.
I pulled out my cell phone again. When I opened it, a shaft of neon blue light arose from the screen. But the bars showed I didn’t have any better service than before. I pressed the key for Raven’s number, then I hit Send. The cell phone tried to make the connection, but after a few minutes it gave up. If Longhorn came into Smuggler’s Cove tonight, it looked like I’d be going after her alone.
Suddenly, a loud pop preceded a sharp splash, like the precision entry of a high diver into the water. The seal’s tail hit again. I trained the binoculars in the direction of the sound, past the green flashing buoy at Lydia Shoal toward Peavine Pass. A small yellow-green fountain of water erupted with the seal’s next tail slap. I held the glasses steady on the site. The seal never surfaced again, but the gossamer image of a boat slowly moved into view. I focused the binoculars on the entrance to Peavine Pass.
Once the full profile of the boat emerged from the shadows, I stripped the glasses from my eyes and tucked them in their case. I scooped up the thermos and twisted the flashlight on. I moved quickly through the woods, back to the dock.
I leapt aboard the Noble Lady. I snatched my gun and tucked it into the small of my back. Then I shoved my arms through my life vest, fastening it as I hurried out the cabin door. I jumped into the dinghy, untied it, and pushed myself away from the dock. The outboard motor started with the first pull of the cord.
I headed out toward Rosario Strait, and once clear of Doe Island I brought the motor to idle. I raised my binoculars to my eyes. The ghostly green silhouette still moved slowly across the water. I brought the motor’s speed back up and continued toward Smuggler’s Cove to intercept Longhorn.
A mile off the Cypress Island coast, I stopped the motor and drifted in the moonlit strait. Longhorn turned the corner and ducked into Smuggler’s Cove. The dim blue glow of instrument lights emanated from her helm windows. I raised the outboard motor from the water. Then I unhooked the oars from their holders. I set the oars in the oar-locks and sat facing the stern. I started rowing, using a fisherman’s row, pulling one oar through the water, followed by the other. I angled the dinghy east, away from the mouth of Smuggler’s Cove, ferrying across the ebb that pushed me west.
Half a mile away from the cove, I listened to chain rattling as Longhorn dropped her anchor. Her engines whined as she backed down on it, allowing it to bite into the seafloor. Suddenly, the engines cut off and a foreboding stillness gathered. I rowed hard through the ebb.
At times it seemed I made no headway, but I finally reached the coast of Cypress just as a loud splash announced that Longhorn had dropped a tender into the water. Voices floated in the darkness. Onshore, a flashlight pulsed on and off three times. Then three times again.
Washing away from the land, the ebb kept Longhorn’s bow pointed at the shore of Smuggler’s Cove. I spotted the tender against the starboard side of the boat. I pulled with my right oar, turning my dinghy toward Longhorn, rowing to her. Moments later, my inflatable bounced gently off the aft port side of her hull. I reached out for the edge of a porthole, holding on with a few fingers against the ebb.
“Bud, let’s do this, boy.” Anxiety infused the Texan’s drawl. “Coast Guard plucked Jim and Tommy Lee from the water. Let’s get these goddamned people off this boat, so if the Coast Guard stops us, there’ll be nothing for them to find.”
“I can only fit two at a time in the small inflatable. I’ll have to make several trips.” I recognized Bud Kincaid’s voice. He breathed hard. “Hey, this way. You, step down on that platform, then into the boat. You understand? Comprende? Habla English? Shit. I don’t speak Spanish, Jim does.”
“Just shove ’em into the damn boat,” the elder Kincaid said.
Bud grunted. “This way.”
Footsteps shuffled over the swim step. Spanish whispers wafted through the night air. A woman whimpered.
“In, dammit. Kneel down once you get in the boat.”
“Bud, you take ’em in and come right back. He’s waiting for you on shore. Don’t fuck with any of them young things. You got me, boy?”
“Going in, then coming back,” Bud said.
“Good, I’ll be waiting for you on the rear deck.”
“Untie me,” Bud said.
A moment later, an outboard motor whined. The light on shore flashed again. The Spanish whispers faded as the sound of the outboard disrupted the quiet of the night.
Since I wouldn’t be stepping aboard Longhorn from the swim step, I pulled myself forward against the current. Once the portholes ended, my fingers strained against the smooth hull.
From shore, an eighty-four-foot boat looks big. From the water, it looks even bigger. Longhorn’s bow towered over me. I stretched out for the anchor chain, but it plunged into the water beyond my fingertips. So, I pushed off from the bow and grabbed an oar. Instead of rowing, I rose onto my knees and paddled the inflatable like a canoe toward the anchor chain.
I grabbed the chain and twirled the dinghy’s painter around it in a quick hitch. Then I stood and reached high on the chain. One thing about a big yacht is that it usually carries big chain, which makes for good handholds. My hands wrapped around the cold metal links as I hoisted myself up the anchor chain, catching it between my feet as I went.
At the top of the anchor chain, I swung a leg onto Longhorn’s deck and locked my arm around a stanchion to haul my body aboard. The other thing about a big yacht that weighs a hundred tons or more is that it doesn’t sway much under the addition of a mere two hundred pounds. I doubted that Kincaid would realize that anyone had just boarded his boat.
I slid my pistol from the small of my back and tiptoed along the side deck. At Longhorn’s stern, I peeked around the corner. Kincaid’s tall frame leaned against the stainless steel railing. Light from inside the cabin reflected off his silver white hair. A few quick steps, and I stood behind him. I jammed the muzzle of my pistol into his back and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, then stiffened. I whispered in my best Texas drawl.
“Don’t y’all turn around or say anything. You got me, boy?”
Kincaid’s body trembled. “I’m a rich man. If it’s money you’re after, I’ll get you whatever you want. Just don’t shoot me.”
“The way I understand it, you’re broke. And if you don’t pay back your friends in Vegas, Reno, Juarez, or wherever they are, they’ll see to it that you’re dead broke.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Maybe we should step inside for a chat.”
I peeled Kincaid from the railing and pushed him toward the cabin door. I reached around him for the door handle and slid the large glass door open. Kincaid looked down at my hand and went rigid. Then he hissed, “You’re that goddamn nig—”
I slammed the butt of my pistol into the soft flesh between his neck and his shoulder. Kincaid groaned. His knees buckled. His head slumped forward. I shoved him into the cabin, then spun him around. I stiff-armed him down onto a couch. He sunk into the soft leather. I stood back with my gun pointed at his chest. A cold look set into his blue eyes.
“Maybe you need a history lesson,” I said. “You lost the Civil War. Slavery’s over. And you don’t use the N-word when you refer to African Americans like me.”
Kincaid squeezed his eyes closed tightly, accentuating his crow’s feet and the furrows traversing his brow. His hand went to his shoulder and he rubbed it. I dropped into a couch across from him. The soft leather swallowed me.
With his eyes still closed, Kincaid asked, “Look, what do you want?”
“To shut you down. Like I said, slavery’s over. Longhorn’s nothing more than a fiberglass slave ship.”
His eyes popped open. “Hell, son, this ain’t no slave ship.” He nodded toward the front of the boat. “These fucking wet—”
“Watch it.” I held up a finger and
thrust my gun at Kincaid. He reared back into the couch.
“These damn Mexicans,” he said. “They wanna come to this country. There’s nothing for them in that hellhole south of the border.”
“So you’re doing them a favor, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Taking their money. Transporting them like animals. Forcing them to work off debt. Turning young women into prostitutes. Welcome to America. Land of the free, home of the brave. Whatever happened to ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?’”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Bud yelled from outside the boat. “Hey, I need some help tying up.”
I looked at Kincaid and whispered. “Tell him to keep his voice down and tie up on his own. Tell him you’re in here doing something important.”
Then I leaned over and slid the cabin door open.
Kincaid yelled, “Bud, get the hell out of here, now. We got troub—”
I slammed a forearm into Kincaid’s throat. Then I cracked my pistol against the side of his skull. He crumpled to the carpeted cabin sole. I raced outside and leaned over the railing. Bud roared away in his dinghy. I blinked several times and squinted. I aimed my gun into the night. But by the time my eyes adjusted to the darkness, Bud had made it halfway to shore.
Kincaid groaned. I stepped back into the salon. Blood oozed from the side of his head, streaking his silver hair pink. From his fetal position, he looked up.
“My boy’ll be back.”
Kincaid winced, closing his eyes. But he opened them quickly and forced a grin. My leg twitched. I wanted to kick the grin off of his face. Instead, I stepped back outside and rummaged through a lazarette, looking for heavy line. I didn’t find any. But I did find something even better—a roll of duct tape. I yanked Kincaid’s arms behind him and spun the tape around his wrists and ankles. Finally, I tore off a piece and mashed it over his lips.
I raced from the salon down the side deck of Longhorn and forward to the bow pulpit. I swung my legs over the railing and dropped down the anchor chain into my dinghy. I unhitched the dinghy, then jerked the starter cord. The outboard motor sputtered. I took a deep breath and pulled the cord with a steady, easy motion. The motor coughed several times, but it finally engaged. I opened the throttle wide and sped to shore.
Close to the beach, I stopped the motor and rocked it up on its hinges. I let the inflatable glide onto the gravel of Smuggler’s Cove. I jumped out and grabbed the painter, tying it to the first piece of driftwood I found.
I stood in the darkness turning my head, listening, looking. Above me and to my right, a light flickered through the dense trees. Subdued voices floated my way. I twisted my flashlight on and found the remnants of Zoe Hardy’s cabin. I quickly twisted the flashlight off, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness while I tried to recall the location of the trail in relationship to the cabin.
I walked a few feet in the direction I remembered, but I tripped over a downed limb. I switched my flashlight on again. This time, two shots rang out and two bullets dived into the bark of nearby trees. I ducked low and dowsed the light. I’d only glimpsed the trailhead. I crouched, walking forward, swinging my arm down and out in front like a blind man with a cane, feeling for branches and large rocks.
I looked up at the night sky, barely able to make out the dark forms of treetops against the stars. I stumbled in the direction where, overhead, a wide swath of stars met with the edges of treetops on either side. Finally, I felt hard earth and small rocks under my feet instead of the spongy cushion of the forest floor.
I moved quickly up the trail, sharpening my senses, projecting them away from me out into my surroundings. The sound of my footsteps came at me differently when I walked straight down the middle of the trail, or veered off to the forest on either side. When I felt the rough edge of the trail under my feet, I moved back toward the center.
I must have looked like a drunk in a hurry, but I staggered along, doing my best to keep an open view of the sky over my head. Perhaps my imagination played tricks on me. I thought I could even smell a difference between the damp earth of the forest and the drier dirt of the trail. The hairpin switchbacks proved hardest to navigate, and several times my shoulder crashed into a rock wall as I careened off the trail. Occasionally, a flashlight flickered far ahead.
When I stumbled into a signpost, I walked my fingers over the pointed wooden signs. I didn’t dare switch on my flashlight. From the distance I’d already walked and the signs pointing in three directions, I realized I’d made it to the juncture of the Smuggler’s Cove, Pelican Beach, and Eagle Harbor trails. I continued straight ahead to Eagle Harbor.
That’s when I heard voices ahead of me, louder than before. It sounded like they were arguing. I moved faster. I wanted to get to Kincaid before he got the immigrants onto another boat.
Suddenly, the voices stopped and an eerie silence prevailed. An inner voice warned me to slow down, and I did. Off to my left, an occasional light from a distant island shone through wavering branches. Then, to my right, footsteps crashed in the forest. I froze in place. The footsteps neared. I sucked in a breath and held it. I reached for my pistol. A dark form leapt from the trees. The deer stopped and huffed once toward me before trotting across the trail and tromping through the woods on the other side.
I moved cautiously. My mind created monsters out of the dark boulders and rock faces on the right side of the trail. My leg muscles tightened. Under my feet, the ground angled down as the trail descended toward Eagle Harbor.
Small rocks clattered to my right. Suddenly, the air grew heavy. I turned to my right, but too late. Someone leapt on top of me, flattening me on my back on the ground. My pistol skittered away.
twenty-seven
My assailant held me down with one arm. Instinct told me to reach for his other arm. I grabbed his wrist and found his fingers wrapped around the hilt of a large knife. He leaned on my outstretched arm, locked at the elbow. I tried to move my other arm out from under his knee, but I couldn’t.
I held the knife away, but my arm quivered under the weight of his body. Then my elbow bent, and my arm quivered even more. I could only move one leg, so I bent my knee and brought it up hard under the man, catching him in the crotch. He groaned, and I used my knee and my arm to push him off my body.
I sprang to my feet in the darkness. I heard him jump to his feet as well. I whipped my flashlight from my pocket and shined it momentarily into his eyes, closing my eyes as I did. I got a glimpse of Ray Bob, dressed in blue jeans and a white hooded jacket, crouching with his knife drawn.
I jumped to the side of the trail. RB saw me, but I hoped that my eyes would adjust to the darkness before his did. RB moved toward me. His knife swished as he sliced wildly through the night air. I backed away from the sound of his blade, crouching low, a few yards down the embankment that plunged to the water.
RB must have heard me moving. He turned in my direction and headed blindly toward me. His dark outline hovered above me. He continued to strike out with his knife. He must not have realized that he’d come to the edge of the trail. He took another step. His foot slipped. I rolled out of the way. Branches snapped as he tumbled down the side of the trail.
Then, a blood-curdling scream rose from below me, echoing through the night. I shined my flashlight down the embankment. RB lay amidst a tangle of branches and downed limbs. He writhed in pain. A crimson stain soaked his white jacket. He moaned low. I couldn’t tell if he’d fatally wounded himself and I didn’t have time to find out. I scrambled back up to the trail. RB would have to wait. I needed to get to Bud Kincaid.
A brief flash from my flashlight revealed my pistol lying farther down the trail. On my hands and knees, I crawled toward it, sweeping my hand over the dewy earth until I found it. I slipped the gun into my pocket and moved as fast as I could in the darkness down the trail to Eagle Harbor.
Once I got to
the clearing at the head of the harbor, the soft glow of lights from Guemes Island helped guide me along the remainder of the trail. I went to the pocket beach where I guessed RB might have pulled his boat in to pick up Longhorn’s human cargo.
When I got there, I didn’t see Kincaid. I didn’t see the immigrants either. I shined my flashlight out into the harbor. It illuminated the numbers 3-4-7-4-2-8 on the side of a native fishing boat.
Farther out, anchor lights from pleasure craft swayed in the night. Closer in, my flashlight beam reflected off the small aluminum boat belonging to CJ, the park ranger, tied between the old wooden pilings. Then I scanned the beach. An inflatable had RB’s boat number stenciled on its side. CJ’s wooden dinghy rested higher up above the sand. I thought she said she’d be gone for several days.
Absent a boat, there aren’t many choices for getting off Cypress Island. In the middle of the night, I couldn’t see playboy Bud bush-whacking through the forest with frightened immigrants in tow.
I switched on my flashlight and headed up the road to Reed Lake, the road that also led to the compound where CJ worked and lived. My legs burned, climbing the steep grade after making the journey over from Smuggler’s Cove. The thought of Bud holding CJ hostage played in my mind. After all, those buildings provided the closest shelter. A place to hide out and regroup.
Near the park compound, the road flattened out. I stopped walking and leaned over. I propped my hands on my thighs and rested to catch my breath. Close by, a generator hummed. A bright green light shone through the trees. I rounded a corner and entered the compound. The green light hung from atop the garage in the center of the buildings. A dimmer, yellow light leaked from a crack where the garage’s large bay door had been rolled back slightly.
Precious Cargo Page 24
