68 Knots (41 page)

“It's going to be five hours more, at least,” she said. “The Coast Guard says it's one of the worst storms in the last ten years. It's all people are talking about on the radio—nothing about us right now.”

“Well, that's a relief, anyway,” Arthur said. But he knew that the silence would be temporary. If people on Matinicus had heard about these “pirates,” then it was just a matter of
time before the Coast Guard did, too. The source of the information was obviously Marietta, and Arthur knew she would turn them in before long.

He thought about Marietta, what she was doing right now. She's probably sitting in some hotel room, he thought, eating ice cream and watching TV. Her parents are probably on their way to get her, but she's enjoying her final night of freedom. He smirked. Hell, she might even go down to the hotel bar and sing a few catchy tunes.

The image of Marietta in a comfortable hotel, courtesy of the money she took from the
Dreadnought
, offered an interesting contrast to the dimly lit cabin of the stoic ship. As the waves outside pounded and thrashed, the ship rocked with a kind of strong grace. The lantern hanging from a hook overhead angled from side to side—or seemed to—as the ship was lifted and dropped by the swells.

Arthur looked around the table.

All in all, he thought, not a bad crew. Jesse gives us strength. BillFi gives us vision. Crystal brings toughness, Joy brings faith, and Logan brings a few laughs. And Dawn—Dawn brings passion, and beauty, and warmth, and depth, and love. He smiled, and he wondered why he hadn't recognized her extraordinary grace from the start. And I bring—

He stopped.

What do I bring to this crew? he wondered. A while ago, I would have said I brought leadership, and direction, and authority. But no one wanted any of that, and things have gone more smoothly since we started sharing the captain's job. So what do I give to the crew? If I'm not the leader, then what am I?

He didn't know. He couldn't answer his own questions. All he could sense were the gifts that the others had given to
him. He felt stronger, more relaxed, more sure of himself—and ironically, less desperate to be in charge. But he couldn't sense his own place in the crew.

Dawn squeezed his hand. “Pretty cool summer, wouldn't you say?” she asked.

Arthur smiled. “Why shouldn't it be?” he asked back.

“Are all summers this wonderful?”

“Aren't all summers as good as they can be?”

“Was last summer this great for you?”

Arthur shook his head. “No,” he said, “it wasn't.”

Crystal stood up. “Well, I don't know about you all,” she said, “but I'm beat. It's almost midnight. Let's work out a watch rotation and go to bed.”

“I'll stay up,” Arthur said.

“So will I,” Dawn volunteered.

“Okay,” Crystal said. “Then the rest of us—”

BillFi jumped to his feet. “She's going down!” he blurted out.

After a tense silence, Crystal spoke. “The
Dreadnought
? How?”

BillFi shook his head. “Not the
Dreadnought
,” he said. “The
Icarus
.”

The crew rushed to the starboard portholes. In the lightning flashes, they could see the decrepit ashen shell of the
Icarus
looming nearby once again, but this time listing sickeningly to port. A huge wave lifted her high into the air and sent her reeling down the other side. Another wave tossed her sideways onto a ledge; the
Dreadnought
crewmates could hear her ribs snap against the rock. Then she scraped off the granite, rose dizzyingly skyward on another wave, and settled slowly into the water. She was low and angled awkwardly, fat and clumsy in the water. Each new wave sent her into a lurching
tumble; it seemed like she would roll completely over soon. Then she thrust her bow high into the air, proud and tall and arrogant against the storm.

A moment later, she careened over, hit the waves hard—and was gone.

The crew was silent, staring at the spot where the
Icarus
had gone down.

“Godspeed,
Icarus
,” Joy said out loud. “May you finally rejoin your crew.”

The cabin was silent as everyone returned to their chairs around the table. The dim light of the galley seemed strangely peaceful in the midst of the howling storm outside. Logan passed around a bottle of rum, and a splash was poured into every glass but Crystal's and Joy's. They took straight apple juice—and so did Logan.

“To the captain and crew of the
Icarus
,” Logan said. “It takes, like, a really good ship to carry on, even after the loss of her crew. May Neptune keep them all safe from storms forevermore.”

“May God keep them safe forevermore,” Joy said.

“May the Goddesses keep them safe forevermore,” Dawn said with a grin.

“Forevermore,” chanted the crew. They lifted their glasses and drank.

The storm raged on, but the
Dreadnought
's anchors held fast to the ocean floor. Most of the crew settled in for some sleep, leaving Arthur and Dawn to monitor the radio and check the makeshift patch from time to time.

The two sat in the captain's quarters in comfortable silence, snug on the smartly made bed. The calendar rope that Arthur had fashioned at the start of the summer had dwindled down.

“It's all ending, isn't it?” Dawn asked. “I mean, we can't go on much longer. That copper patch is good, but it won't hold forever. Marietta's bound to tell the Coast Guard about us, if she hasn't already. And sooner or later, we'll get caught raiding somebody's yacht.”

Arthur nodded. “And I don't think we're going to head for international waters,” he said. “At least, I don't intend to.”

“But if we don't go away somewhere, how will we end all this?” Dawn asked. “How can we just stop all this and go home? We sank a dead body in the Gulf of Maine, and we're sailing a ship that doesn't belong to us. We can't just buzz into Portland harbor, tie up to a dock, and wander off. Sooner or later, someone's going to want to know what happened to McKinley.”

“I know,” Arthur said quietly. “I've been thinking about that. He left enough notes and journal entries that I think we can convince people that we didn't kill him. But they won't believe us at first. And even if we do convince them, we're probably going to have to explain the yacht raiding. That's bound to come out. Even if Marietta doesn't tell anyone about it, someone from the crew will surely let it slip somehow. And I don't know what we'll have to say about that.”

They sat on the bed for a while in silence, their arms around each other. The wind shrieked outside, but the noise only added to their sense of secrecy and promise—and sadness.

“Still,” Dawn said, “it's been such a great trip. We've seen some amazing things. We've crawled through caves looking
for treasure. We've gone skinny-dipping in a phosphorescent sea. We've sailed through the night, had cookouts on the beach, and weathered a lot of storms—this one included, I hope. I don't regret anything we've done. I just hope it all works out okay.”

“It will,” Arthur said. “We haven't come this far just to make it all end badly. Sooner or later, a path will become visible. BillFi said so. And we'll choose, maybe, to take it. And whatever path we choose will lead us out of this part of our lives and on to the next one. We'll be just fine.”

“I hope so,” Dawn said. “I don't want to look back on all this and feel sad, or guilty, or embarrassed.”

“What I'm wondering,” Arthur said, “is what will happen to us. You and me. One way or another, this summer is going to end, and we'll have to go home. I'd like to see you some more, even after all this is over. But how can we keep on seeing each other? We live almost four hours apart.”

“Yeah,” Dawn said, “but high school doesn't last forever. I'm thinking of going to the College of the Atlantic. It's a cool school in Bar Harbor, Maine—specializes in human ecology. How about you?”

Arthur sighed. “Dartmouth, if I'm lucky,” he said. “That would get us closer, but it's not like we'd see each other very often.”

“Maybe we could settle on a college we both like,” Dawn said.

“How about the University of Tasmania?” Arthur said with a grin.

“I love it,” Dawn said, a sparkle in her green eyes. “If we start sailing now, we might get there by the end of our senior year.”

“Or how about Fairbanks?” Arthur said. “You know, in Alaska? I hear they have a great—” He was interrupted by the squawking of the radio.

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is an emergency! We are caught in the storm, and we're taking on water. We're going down. Please help. Please help NOW. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! We're sinking, and we need immediate assistance. Repeat: We are sinking. If anyone can hear me, please help us.”

“I know that voice!” Arthur said. “That's Richard Turner!”

Dawn and Arthur awakened the crew and gathered everyone around the table. They had to speak loudly to be heard over the increasing howl of the storm outside.

“The
Elkhart
's in a lot of trouble,” Dawn explained. “It sounds like they were trying to get to Matinicus Island, but the storm pushed them onto the Foster Ledges. They've rolled completely over at least once, their mast is broken, and their diesel engine is dead. They're taking on water around the propeller shaft, and it's coming in pretty fast. I figure they have maybe twenty minutes before she sinks completely.”

“I think their radio was damaged when they rolled,” Arthur said. “Their signal faded a lot. We relayed the distress call to the Coast Guard station in Rockland, but I don't think their cutters can get here in time. I think we're the closest ship for miles around.”

“I think we should go get them,” Dawn said. “We can sail in close and send some people over in the dinghy. The
Elkhart
is going to sink, but we can at least rescue Turner and his crew.”

“What do you say?” Arthur said. Asking for input from the others was becoming more natural. “It's risky, and we
could get in a lot of trouble out there. Our patch is holding, but it won't stay tight forever. But we can't just sit here and let those people drown. We're good enough at sailing to handle almost anything. Should we go?”

There was a long silence.

“We could totally get killed out there,” Logan said, wiping his hair back.

Dawn nodded. “Yes, we could. But remember why we all came to the
Dreadnought
in the first place. We wanted to be stronger. More mature. More independent. We wanted to face challenges and overcome them. Well, right now we're facing the biggest challenge of our lives. Are we up for it?”

Joy reached for her Saints coin, then bowed her head when she remembered that it was no longer in her possession. She knew that Dawn was right; God wanted her to make her own decisions. She listened carefully for God's still voice, and then she nodded. “I'm here to help people,” she said. “So I'm going. Who else wants to join me?”

Six hands rose high.

“Okay,” Arthur said, “let's make it happen. Joy, how high are the winds out there?”

Joy looked at him solemnly. “They gust up to hurricane strength at times,” she said. “Sixty-eight knots.”