Seize the Storm (7 page)

“Is your uncle serious about gaffing that shark?” asked Axel.

Martin smiled. Martin was what everyone would call a nice guy, and Axel knew that he himself was not. But Martin was not only nice. He was other things, too. Martin was knowing and uncompetitive, as though life had already held a speed trial and Martin had won.

“You never know with Uncle Leonard,” said Martin.

“Well, if you want the job done,” said Axel, “just tell Mr. Burgess to say the word.”

Martin just laughed. Not an all-out laugh, but a brainy chuckle.

“I mean it,” said Axel.

“Sure you do,” said Martin.

Martin was letting Axel know that he got the fact that Axel would love to show off, clubbing a sea predator to death. It was all about Susannah. But it was hard to get Susannah's attention, Axel knew too well.

She was one of those people completely wired up to their own nervous systems. Even now she was probably in her cabin, tapping her impression of the voyage into her computer. All about her feelings, and birds. No mention of me at all, probably, Axel thought.

As if that weren't bad enough, Axel was losing money in a big way, playing online Texas hold 'em right here on the yacht every night. He had an account at GamblingPlanet, gaming 24/7. He had already lost more than he would make on this voyage, and Leonard was a generous employer.

Plus, he had to eat Leonard's food, and the man could cook well enough to please his own family, but Axel had been a cook's mate on a freighter from Oakland to Vancouver. This had been one week after his sixteenth birthday, a fresh high school dropout working for a retired navy cook with no teeth and a glass eye, a man who could serve osso buco or bananas Foster right out of his cramped, neat little galley.

Axel had learned how to make mushrooms in white wine and Boeuf à la Catalane, and all the sauces from béchamel to curry, and the men on the
Brazos IV
loved it, scarfed it right up, a crew you'd think would be about equal to pizza.

He had learned how to tie a granny knot and a timber hitch and a dozen other knots, and he had learned how to act sober when he was drunk, returning to Oakland with a case of crab lice and a paycheck from DaCaspar Shipping. He found work steadily after that, too young to be legal but cheap as a result. He had worked up and down the Sacramento River on dredging barges, and troll and salmon fishing trips, crewing outside the Golden Gate with rich people, which was how he had met Mr. and Mrs. Burgess. He liked the Burgesses. He really did.

But even now he had to say, “What have you ever had to fight for, Martin?”

He knew he was acting like a macho jerk, but the challenge was in him and it had to come out somehow. Martin was destined to be a scientist or a TV personality and Axel could see himself standing at the helm of someone else's yacht for decades, until he was toothless and had a glass eye himself. Two glass eyes, probably. It rankled.

“What have I fought for?” said Martin. “Oh, I don't know. I think maybe fighting is overrated.”

He was not even troubled by the question, he was so unintimidated and so completely commonsensical. Axel recalled, a little too late, that Martin had witnessed a regrettable event on a BART platform, and maybe talking about combat was not a friendly course to take. Axel also recognized that although he had once nearly stomped a rat to death on Fruitvale Avenue, the rat had escaped—rats turned out to be acrobatic as well as tough. Axel was not really any more dangerous than the next person, although he would like to be thought so.

“How about you?” Martin went on to ask. “I bet you've been a terror up and down the West Coast.”

Joking about it, thought Alex. Rich people, they'd laugh about anything.

Axel's late father, Billy Owen, had been a gambler, playing pai gow card clubs all night and Golden Gate Fields horse racing all afternoon, and making money at it, too. His friends in Vegas had called him “Billy Owe 'em.” This had been a humorous name, rather than accurate—he had actually lived debt-free and had filed a tax return every year as a professional gambler.

His mom, Dixie Owen, played along, too, and successfully, until Billy dropped dead from heart failure holding a winning Trifecta ticket on California Derby Day. Dixie cashed in the ticket, married a man from El Centro who sold guns from the trunk of his vintage Trans Am. The man was named Sol Capo, and he was a good hand at restoring old weapons. Axel had liked Sol, and the experience of seeing how he made a living—showing guys how to blow targets to confetti with military surplus on full auto. But basically Mom had moved out of Axel's young life.

Axel decided to change the subject just as Martin was powering up his laptop and getting another good look at the weather map, shielding the computer from the salt spray. Another thing Axel had noticed about people with money: they were always checking their phones and their computers, staying connected.

“What do you hear from Susannah, Martin?” Axel hated the way he sounded, so needful. He had brought up the subject before, and Martin had usually offered his kindly silent laugh.

Martin said now, “I have to tell you, Axel, that I don't think she is really that crazy about you.”

His tone was sympathetic, reluctant. This was a man-to-man, gentle way of saying: give up on her. Martin was the sort of person who prefaced bad news with
I'm sorry, but
.

This hurt Axel's feelings. He would have to be tough—stoical. Axel had always prided himself on keeping his mouth shut and using few words. If Axel had bad news he would just say it. This was a good policy. Why was he talking so much this morning?

The sea was choppy, turning to swells. The coming storm made him nervous.

“Your uncle,” he said, “is out on the prow, doing something. I'm worried.”

This got Martin's attention.

The clouds had piled up to the west, layers of them. A piece of something swept past in the rough water, a slab of shipping container—a floating razor to a wooden hull.

At times the propellers were forced out of the water, and they made a determined whining noise until the yacht dropped back down into the sea. To be on deck was to be wet, and Axel and Martin had both donned bright yellow waterproof jackets and high black boots. Even so, salt water stung their eyes and lips.

Axel didn't bother to say anything more, just gazed out from the helm, keeping them as steady as possible at ten knots per hour, fast enough that seas crashed into and over the yacht, soaking every inch of rigging and making the scuppers overflow.

And the yacht was laboring. There was something slowing her, forcing her back. Moment by moment she was less nimble, less seaworthy. There was the faintest sensation of trouble communicated through the deck underfoot.

“You better go forward, Martin,” said Axel, “and see what's wrong.”

M
ARTIN MADE HIS WAY
along the yacht, clinging to the rail outside the cabins, heading toward the prow.

The sun was still bright, but the clouds ahead of them looked like a gigantic chunk of nighttime, ripped out and stuck against the blue.

“Don't come out here,” Leonard called into the wind. “Martin, it's not safe.”

A great wad of fishing net had plowed into the prow, looking like a giant, diaphanous amoeba that spun out tendrils. Leonard was grabbing at it, hauling at it, trying to free the yacht from the seaborne mess. Martin joined in the great effort, seizing the netting and trying to drag it to starboard.

The netting, which had floated in a tangled hairball of filament and sea slime all the way from Malaysia, as far as Martin could tell, was like a living thing determined to make the vessel its new purchase on life.

Leonard was struggling to stay where he was, hanging on to the rail along the ship's prow with his bright yellow waterproof gloves, the sea washing over him. He was wearing one of the waterproof jackets, too, and with the hood folded back it gave him a weather-soaked, heroic appearance.

Martin could see the aspiring football player in his uncle now, not good enough to be a starter but showing up for practice every day. He also looked a little crazy, as though if the water pounded him hard enough it might wash him off and drown him and he wouldn't mind.

The two of them attacked the great bolus of fishing filament once again, and this time they made progress. Part of the netting tore and released its grip on the prow. The yacht was still tangled, but the fight was no longer hopeless.

A wave broke across the prow, and Leonard had to get a fresh grip to keep from being swept away.

“What would the boat tell you to do?” asked Martin. “If she spoke to you—what would she say?”

“What?” called Leonard, either not understanding Martin's question, with the seas crashing, or not wanting to.

“What would she tell you?”

“I don't know,” said Leonard, blinking against the salt water that came from all directions.

“Ask her,” called Martin against the shriek of the wind.

Leonard gave a nod and squinted, readying his resolve for a serious inquiry. But what he said surprised Martin. “I never really believed all that, Martin. About talking to the spirit of the boat. I made that all up.”

Martin was relieved to hear that Leonard was not a superstitious nut, but he was a little disappointed, too. Some small part of him had wanted to believe in such things.

Leonard saw his nephew's distress.

“I could ask her anyway,” he suggested.

Martin gave a nod, his weatherproof gear creaking like plastic armor.

“What should I do?” called Leonard into the gale. “
Athena
, tell me how to act with everything in shreds, all the air and all the water, and my life with it.”

It had seemed like a wry joke at first, but now it was all too serious. His uncle was a little unhinged after all, Martin saw. Maybe Leonard was hoping a karate chop of water would knock him off the yacht and Claudette and Susannah could thrive on the proceeds of his life insurance policy.

His uncle cocked his head, and he looked like a man listening to a faint, nearly indistinct signal.

“Ship of mine,” he cried now, “beautiful vessel—what should I do?”

He held his head at another angle, and for an instant Martin had the uncanny sense that Leonard was listening to a communication meant only for his ears. Martin also had the impression that Leonard was not inviting simple advice about his own safety.

Maybe Leonard felt dread, too.

And he needed to know what would happen.

At that moment an enormous wave, laced with foam and simmering, heaved against the prow, and Leonard was nearly washed away. Martin seized his uncle, gripped him by the arm, his own glove squeaking against Leonard's nylon sleeve. He got a firm hold and pulled his uncle to his feet.

“Be careful,” gasped Leonard, “of my back.”

As they tried to make their way to the stern, the two of them had to stop more than once and hang on to the main cabin rail. When they had almost returned to relative safety, another unexpected swell struck even harder.

The yacht gave a heave, and without warning Leonard slipped, tried to find a handhold, and failed. He cried out for help. Martin grabbed him again, just in time. Leonard careened off the edge of the vessel, and Martin barely kept a grip on his uncle's hand.

Leonard hung suspended in the wind, kept from the water only by Martin's grasp, yellow glove to yellow glove. But Leonard's glove was too big, the wrong fit, and he was slowly but inexorably slipping free.

M
ARTIN HELD ON TO
L
EONARD'S ARM
, to find, to his horror, that his uncle's body was suspended in midair, crashing heavily into the side of the vessel as the heavy seas increased. Leonard was calling out, something wordless and tormented.

Martin pulled hard, hauling Leonard back onto the yacht and handling him desperately, at last hurling him onto the deck beside the helm.

The rain began in earnest as Leonard lay there, even in his anguish trying to make some sort of quip. This precipitation was heavy, straight-down water. The downpour was warm as rain went, and yet it was so heavy that Martin shivered inside his waterproof jacket. One of his boots, with its top exposed beyond the skirt of his yellow jacket, was full of water in an instant.

The vessel was heaving. The helm was only a few strides away, but Martin could not see it.

“I'm hurt,” said Leonard, as though this did not happen to be obvious.

Claudette hurried from the cabin, staggering with the motion of the vessel, and knelt beside him.

“Martin saved my life!” said Leonard.

Claudette touched only the rain-lanced air over his body, afraid to cause him more pain.

“How did this happen?” she asked.

“A bunch of fishing net,” laughed Leonard, although his laugh sounded more like a wheeze. “A wad of filament about the size of Oakland.”

Susannah was at Martin's side, gazing down at her father.

She sighed, shaking her head.

“Not only is Dad hurt,” she said, forgetting or deliberately choosing not to call him Leonard, “the galley just exploded.”

*   *   *

Axel remained at the helm as Martin and Susannah carried Leonard into the cabin he shared with his wife.

Leonard was a stout man, but not very tall, and yet he felt much heavier than Martin would have thought possible. “I'm OK, perfectly all right,” Leonard sang out. “No, don't stop, keep going.”

They stretched him out in the bunk, surrounded by his books, histories of ancient Greece and paperbacks about sailing, book jackets featuring racing yachts and sunset-gilded sails.

“I just need to rest for a little while,” said Leonard.

“What medication do we have?” asked Susannah.

“We have a terrific first aid kit,” said Leonard. “From the maritime supply in Alameda, and Claudette got Dr. Tang across the street to write us some prescriptions.”