Landfall: Islands in the Aftermath (The Pulse Series Book 4) (28 page)
Read Landfall: Islands in the Aftermath (The Pulse Series Book 4) Online
Authors: Scott B. Williams
“The wind would have likely been too much on the nose for him to go straight down to Georgetown, on Great Exuma, but he may have ended up at one of the other cays between here and there. There are lots of anchorages that way, as you can see,” Larry pointed out at least a dozen on the chart.
“The best thing we can do is hit all of them one-by-one and hope we get lucky. If we don’t find him between here and Georgetown, I’ll think of another plan then.”
* * *
Their systematic search of Exumas anchorages had taken them to Darby Island by late the next afternoon. Larry was disappointed and a bit surprised they did not find the
Sarah J.
among any of those islands. He didn’t let Tara know it, but he felt the odds of finding it farther down the chain on the other side of Great Exuma were slim. Sure, Georgetown was a popular anchorage, but did Russell really have the ability to sail there without the use of the engine? Larry figured he might have used it anyway, without the water pump, but he would have had to motor quite a bit to work his way in there. It would have been so much easier for him to sail to one of these anchorages on the west side of the middle Exumas and Larry had really expected to find him there. But if he had come here he was gone now, and if they didn’t find him in Georgetown tomorrow, Larry wasn’t quite sure where to look next. He had more questions than answers but then everything changed and the answers all came in the most unexpected way possible. Artie spotted a sail coming in from the horizon to the southwest shortly after they dropped anchor to spend the night and wait for daylight to head to Georgetown.
The boat was apparently arriving at the Exumas from the open sea, and Larry was curious because of the direction from which it sailed. There was nothing to the south but the Jumentos Cays and Ragged Islands, where he’d been planning to go all along. If this boat was coming from there to the Exumas, he wondered if things might not be better there after all. It would be interesting to ask them, but he doubted he would get the chance. As it got closer to landfall, the boat began angling off a bit to the northwest. On that course it would pass fairly close by Darby Island and probably stop at one of the anchorages they had already searched. Larry had already dismissed it from his mind when Artie called out to him again:
“That’s weird. They’re towing something that looks longer than their boat.”
Larry had little interest really, but if he still had his binoculars, he might take a look out of curiosity. But like the shotgun, his expensive Steiners had been in the dinghy when it was stolen. He was ready to forget about the other boat as long as it kept enough distance from them, but that was not to be. When he looked out at it again, he saw the sails luff as the crew apparently spotted them anchored there, and then it tacked and turned directly towards them.
“Crap!” Larry was tired and aggravated and the last thing he needed now was another confrontation. He went below to get a rifle, getting mad all over again at being reminded he’d lost the binoculars and the shotgun along with the dinghy. And that was the second lost shotgun. Scully had already lost his personal Mossberg back in the Pearl River swamps of Mississippi.
As he stood there on the deck of the
Casey Nicole
with the rest of his crew and watched the boat approach, Larry soon realized that it was a
really
small vessel—a tiny pocket cruiser just a fraction of the size of a typical cruising boat. The crew must have seen that he was armed, because whoever was steering put the helm hard over to turn away when they were within a couple hundred yards. Larry saw a woman step up the cabin top, waving her arms back and forth and shouting something he could not quite make out, and that’s when he also saw and recognized what the little boat was towing.
Larry had his kayak back aboard the
Casey Nicole
and the anchor up and sails set within a half hour of meeting Thomas and Mindy at Darby Island. It would be dark within an hour but he wasn’t going to wait, even though a night passage would put them at the cays where the
Sarah J.
was grounded well before daylight. It was a clear night and Larry expected there would be enough moonlight at the time of their landfall to find it. If not, they would stop and wait for dawn, but he sure wasn’t going to wait here with Scully in need of Artie’s care. And learning that Rebecca was safe and Russell was gone, Tara wasn’t about to wait either.
He felt bad about leaving Thomas and Mindy behind after the risks they’d taken to come here and find them. But they were exhausted from all the sailing they’d done and their little boat couldn’t possibly keep up with the
Casey Nicole
anyway. They would stay in the anchorage at Darby Island and set out for the return trip to the Jumentos in the morning. Larry told Thomas to keep the AK until they got there and he gave him a couple more full magazines for it when he learned that they only had one. Casey and Jessica put together a small package of food from the galley stores to share with them as well.
* * *
Rebecca was awakened from a sound sleep in her sharply tilted bunk by what sounded like shouting from outside the boat. She was sure it was a dream, because that would be impossible for the voices to be real unless for some reason Thomas and Mindy had already returned aboard
Intrepida
. But the shouting was persistent and when she climbed out of the bunk she saw that Scully was awake too.
“Do you hear that? I thought I was dreaming?”
“I t’ink it’s a dream too. Sound like Larry, calling my name, an’ de woman, callin’ for you.”
Rebecca climbed the companionway and slid the hatch open. Right off the stern of the
Sarah J.
illuminated in the moonlight, was the most incredible sight she could have imagined. The
Casey Nicole’s
twin bows were pulled up around the stern of the
Sarah J.
so close that the front beam of the catamaran was almost touching her rail. Her mom was standing there on the beam and as soon as she saw Rebecca emerge from the cabin she leapt aboard into the cockpit and crushed her close in a frantic hug. As her mom held her, Rebecca was vaguely aware of Artie and Larry rushing past her and down into the cabin where Scully was still sitting up in his bunk.
Casey and the rest of the crew all joined them in the cockpit, but everyone stayed out of the way until Artie was finished with whatever he was doing for Scully. Daylight was breaking by then and when Artie finally came back on deck, everyone wanted to know about Scully’s leg.
“The good news is that I don’t think he’ll lose it. The bullet went all the way through, but it did a lot of damage on the way. Thomas and Mindy did the right thing to use the tourniquet and also to remove it when they did. I’m going to have to keep a close watch on it for infection, and he’ll probably always walk with a limp, but he’ll get through it. Scully’s a pretty tough hombre.”
Rebecca had been telling her mom over and over how sorry she was that she made such a mistake and ran the
Sarah J.
aground. And she had replied that they did the same exact thing in the catamaran, even though it draws even less water.
“I still feel stupid. I don’t know how we’ll ever get it off. Scully said it would be really hard.”
But when Captain Larry heard all this talk he had a different perspective. “Hey Rebecca, people have been running aground all over the Bahamas since the first ships ever sailed here. Cruising folk did it all the time before the blackout, and it was a lot easier to navigate then with the help of GPS and depth sounders and all that other fancy stuff. You did a great job keeping the
Sarah J.
safe. The main thing is that you got Russell off the boat before he hurt you or completely wrecked it in his stupidity. And, we’re right where we wanted to be, in the Jumentos Cays. Scully is here now, so everyone is accounted for and we have both boats. Now I don’t have to sail to Florida to look for him, so I have nothing better to do than figure out how to get the
Sarah J.
floating again. So don’t worry about it. I’ve got some ideas and I’ve seen far worse. We’ve got plenty of anchors between us and when Thomas and Mindy get back we’ll have even more help. I know a great little cay with a good anchorage not far from here where we can take all three boats once we’re sailing again. It will be the perfect place to hang out while we make a plan and figure out what we’re gonna do next.”
* * *
Thank you for reading
Landfall
.
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If you enjoyed
Landfall
, you may enjoy reading
The Darkness After Series
, set in the same grid-down world. Turn the page to read a sample excerpt from:
The Forge of Darkness
Book III of The Darkness After Series
Forge of Darkness Excerpt
C
OPYRIGHT
© 2016
BY
Scott B. Williams
Chapter One
Mitch Henley ignored the occasional drop of rain that splashed onto his forehead and face as he crouched there and watched. The dark clouds overhead muted the late afternoon light to a dreary gray that barely penetrated the dense river bottom forest, and Mitch knew the visibility would get worse as the rain picked up. This was the last chance to bring the day’s hunt to a successful conclusion, and it was up to Jason to pull it off.
The small whitetail buck was slowly working its way along the top of the creek bank, and was probably 35 to 40 yards from where Jason was kneeling behind the flared base of a large cypress tree. Sensing the change in the weather, the animal was focused on its feeding, stopping only occasionally to raise its head and look for danger. But there was no breeze to carry the scent of man to its nostrils and the light rain helped to muffle any sound the three hunters might have inadvertently made. The soft “twang” of a bowstring released reached his ears and Mitch held his breath as he watched the flight of his friend’s arrow streaking to its target. For him, this would be an easy shot; the kind he couldn’t miss. But it was Jason’s first attempt at a deer with the longbow. Mitch was glad to see him take the chance, because from where he watched, there was too much underbrush between him and the quarry for a shot of his own.
He grinned when he heard the satisfying “whack” of the arrow smacking flesh and saw the buck spin around and leap into the air just before it bounded off and disappeared into the gloom. Jason’s arrow had certainly connected, but from his point of view, Mitch couldn’t be sure where.
“It went too far to the right, dammit!” Jason said, when Mitch reached his side. “I think it hit him in the gut. It didn’t even seem to hurt him from the way he took off!”
“Let’s go see,” Mitch said. “It probably did more damage than you think. Just because he ran off like that doesn’t mean he’ll get far. We’ll be able to tell from the blood trail.”
As the two of them walked to the spot where the deer had been standing, Jason’s cousin, Corey joined them from where he’d been concealed near the bank even farther upstream.
“He ran right by me after Jason hit him and I got an arrow off, but didn’t even touch him!” Corey said.
“That’s not surprising, Corey. Not many people could hit a running deer with a bow, especially in thick woods on a rainy day like this when it’s hard enough to even see a deer.”
“You could,” Jason said. “But you wouldn’t have to because your first shot would have put him down.”
“Not necessarily, but that’s beside the point. You hit him, and we’ll get him eventually. We’ll just have to track him down. I think there’s going to be enough blood to follow, see?”
Mitch pointed to the scattered droplets of crimson on the leaves of the forest floor. Like many of his recent hunts, his purpose today was to teach. Though he was happy doing the bulk of the hunting for the group by himself, he was pleased that some of the others were now working on their skills under his guidance. Jason and Corey had become eager students of the longbow and were ready to put what they’d learned into practice. He’d started them with the basics on the same target range behind the house where he’d mastered archery himself before taking to the woods to hunt live game. But there was no substitute for this real-world experience, and Mitch knew misses and botched shots were inevitable. Though he hated to see an animal suffer needlessly, he was confident they could track down the wounded buck and finish the job. Chances were it wouldn’t run too far if they didn’t push it too closely, but on the other hand, with the rain picking up, Mitch didn’t want to risk losing the blood trail either.
They had just started moving, working from one splattering of blood to the next, when the faint crack of a rifle off in the far distance caused Mitch to pause. The sound came from the general direction of the farm, which was not entirely surprising, since there were no other human habitations within earshot of where they were. As he considered the possibilities, wondering who there might have fired it and why, two more closely spaced shots followed the first one, but some twenty or thirty seconds later.
“That was a high-powered rifle,” Mitch said to Jason and Corey as the faint echoes died away.
