Summer at Forsaken Lake (23 page)

Nicholas couldn’t help admiring the guy for maintaining his sense of humor after all that. “I think we can squeeze you in. We’ll make another pass and try to get as close as we can.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Okay, Hayley,” said Nicholas, sheeting in the main. “Hard to port!”

The twins pulled hard on the tiller, with Hetty letting out a scream as the wind filled the sail, heeling them over at a precarious angle.

Nicholas eased the sheet and
Goblin
leveled off a bit. “Get her moving, and we’ll tack around and make another pass. But this time, you’re going to have to get really close, so he can jump aboard. Think you can handle that?”

“Piece of cake,” said Hayley.

“How do we know this guy isn’t a pirate?” Hetty asked. “He could be faking this whole thing just to steal Uncle Nick’s boat.”

“He breaks his mast and sinks his own boat so he can
steal this one? Pretty good plan,” marveled Nicholas. “You know, Hetty, I think you might be right. Maybe we should just go back to shore and wait for Uncle Nick. This guy looks kind of dangerous.”

“Really?” Hetty’s eyes grew wider and wider.

Nicholas counted to three. “Gotcha!”

C
harlie checked her watch for the umpteenth time, her eyes straining to read the hands in the dark barn. Twenty minutes to eleven, and still no power, and no Nick. The rain had slowed considerably, but not the wind; its velocity had increased quite dramatically. The trees shook violently, littering the yard with small branches. When she thought about trying to row the inflatable dinghy around the point to the waiting
Goblin
in those conditions, she cringed.

“I have to see what’s going on out there,” she said aloud, half to herself and half to the cows. “I’ll be back.”

Her foul-weather gear zipped, tied, and Velcro-ed in every conceivable way, Charlie bolted out the barn door
for the lake. She followed the shoreline, stumbling on rocks and tripping over pieces of driftwood in the blackness, until she reached the point of land that marked the start of the cove where
Goblin
was anchored. With the thick layer of low-flying clouds, the rain, and the power outage working against her, visibility was almost zero. Only the now-distant lightning provided her an occasional glimpse into the void.

Charlie stood perfectly still, letting her eyes adjust to the dark, and waited for the next opportunity. Finally, the sky before her flickered on and off like a dying fluorescent bulb. She saw the yellow house, a dock with a pontoon boat tied alongside, and an overturned dinghy on the shore.

She waited for the next three flashes to confirm her suspicions:
Goblin
simply wasn’t there.

* * *

On the first rescue attempt,
Goblin
never got close enough for the stranded sailor to jump aboard, even with Nicholas standing on the deck—one hand on the shroud, the other reaching out to help.

“That’s okay, Hayley,” he said. “Take her around one more time, just like that. You’re doing great. Don’t be afraid to get close; I have all the bumpers out. The second he’s on board, pull like mad on the tiller to get us away.”

Hayley, growing more confident by the minute, brought
Goblin
around for her second run, and this time, she did her job perfectly, pointing the bow right at the stern of the floundering boat. Nicholas was ready to shout that they were
too
close when she turned just enough to slide by,
Goblin
passing within two feet of the other craft’s hull. The sailor stepped aboard, taking Nicholas’s hand and then glancing backward at his own boat, which sagged lower and lower in the water.

“Thank you. Would have been a long swim. She’s going down fast. I’m Teddy, by the way.”

“I’m Nicholas. And those two are Hayley and Hetty. And I guess you already know Pistol.”

“Very nice job of handling this yacht, young lady,” said Teddy.

“Thank you,” Hayley said. “I just did what Nicholas told me.”

“Well, I owe you kids.”

Nicholas took one last look at Teddy’s boat as they took a seat in the cockpit. “Are you sure you don’t want to try to tow it in?”

“No—it’s too dangerous. I don’t want you taking any more chances with your own boat.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I have to be the first person in history to sink two boats on this silly lake. Now, if you don’t mind my asking, what in the world are you kids doing out on a night like this?”

As they circled the sinking
Maguffin
, Nicholas explained the sequence of events that had occurred since leaving Nick and Charlie at the Kuerners’ farm.

“Well, I’ll be. So Nick’s your uncle.
Everybody
on Godforsaken Lake knows Nick Mettleson.”

“What were
you
doing out there?” Hayley asked. “How do we know you’re not a pirate or something?”

Teddy’s head tilted back as he roared with laughter. “Fair enough, since you answered my question. I’m not a pirate, although I’ve been told I bear a certain resemblance to Blackbeard. No, it’s nothing sinister, I promise. I was trying to make it up to the cove on the north side of Onion Island. It’s pretty well protected. Figured I’d ride out the storm there.”

“Look,” cried Hetty, pointing at
Maguffin II
. “It’s almost gone—kind of like the
Titanic
.”

Once
Maguffin
’s decks were completely awash, the end came quickly. Her bow and stern lights continued to glow as the hull slipped beneath the angry waves. The stump of the mast tilted toward them, then away, and then was gone.

No one said anything for a long time.

Finally, Hayley turned to Hetty. “That was so sad—like watching somebody die. It seems like we ought to say a prayer or something.”

Goblin
dug her nose into wave after wave as the wind grew stronger by the minute. Hetty was taking a turn at
the tiller, but the conditions were just too much for the twins. It was well past their bedtime, so Nicholas suggested that they go below and crawl into their sleeping bags.

“But do it fast,” he warned. “Otherwise, you’ll probably get seasick down there. Just get into bed and keep your eyes closed. And take Pistol with you. He’ll be safer—and happier—down there.”

Surprisingly, they didn’t argue with him; Hetty handed him the tiller and followed Hayley into the cabin.

“Thanks again, girls. Great job,” Teddy said before turning to Nicholas. “You want me to take her for a spell? You look like you could use a break yourself.”

Nicholas gladly turned the tiller over to him and stood in the cockpit, his eyes scanning the distance for anything recognizable. There was nothing to see but more darkness, no matter what direction he turned. The power remained out all around the lake, and the lightning had passed them by, its distant flickering no longer helpful.

“What do you think we should do?” Nicholas asked. “I mean, with the wind blowing like this, and no lights onshore, I doubt if we could even find the house where we were anchored.”

“Safest thing to do right now is stay out here in the middle, away from shore. We’ll be able to see car headlights if anybody’s crossing the causeway—that’ll help us keep our bearings. The good news is, we can just reach
back and forth until the wind dies down, or the power comes on, or the sun rises—whichever comes first. You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee in the galley, would you?”

“Yeah, Uncle Nick had some this morning. It’s funny, that seems like a
long
time ago. It’s instant coffee—is that all right?” He knew his parents would rather have old motor oil than the instant stuff, but in the current circumstances, it was the best he could do.

Teddy nodded. “Good man. If it’s hot and strong, I’ll take it. And I’ll keep
Goblin
here straight and true. Even I couldn’t sink two boats in one night.” He smiled, adding, “Maybe I shouldn’t say that. Might be tempting fate a little too much.”

Nicholas slid down the stairs to the galley, where he filled the kettle with water and lit the stove, bracing himself between the stairs and a bulkhead as
Goblin
rocked and rolled under his feet. Hayley and Hetty had wedged themselves into the port-side pilot berth, and were, to his surprise, actually sleeping. Pistol raised his head, his tail thumping against the floorboards in greeting. But as Nicholas waited in the bouncing, stuffy cabin for the water to boil, something unexpected occurred: he began to feel a little queasy. He had never been seasick before, and seemed to be suffering in equal proportions from nausea and shame. He was certain that
real
sailors didn’t get seasick, especially in front of their ten-year-old twin sisters, who, he was equally certain, would
never
let him forget
it. Climbing back up the companionway stairs, he stuck his head up out of the cabin, suddenly desperate for some fresh air.

“Duck!” cried Teddy as
Goblin
slammed into a wave, sending spray over the entire deck.

Nicholas had time only to spin his head around; rather than a full bucket of water hitting his face, a good half bucket ran down the back of his neck.

“Hooooo! That’s cold!” he said, hopping up and down in an attempt to make the water run faster. The good news? The symptoms that had driven him out of the cabin in the first place had disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.

He wiped the water from his face with his sleeve and turned toward
Goblin
’s bow, happy that the queasiness was gone. Leaving his hood down, he leaned forward, watching the bow dive into wave after wave, and listening to the wind howling through the rigging above. Suddenly, he stiffened and turned his head; there was sound coming from somewhere other than
Goblin
, a sound that didn’t quite belong. The source of the noise seemed to be off the starboard bow, but his vision in that direction was completely blocked by the staysail, which they had raised to make steering easier. When the bow rose on an especially large wave, he got a quick glimpse under the sail, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“Everything okay?” Teddy asked, noticing that Nicholas was looking around anxiously.

“Uh, yeah. I thought I heard something, but it must be the wind.”

Teddy checked his bearings to port and then to starboard, making certain that
Goblin
was still basically in the middle of the lake.

“We’re a good mile, mile and a half offshore,” he said.

Nicholas, reassured, nodded at Teddy. “I’m sure it was the wind and the waves hitting the hull.”

As he turned to face forward again, he gasped.

“Look out!” he screamed at Teddy as the sleek, pointy bow of another sailboat, slicing silently through the waves, suddenly appeared from behind the staysail.

As Teddy threw the tiller over, Nicholas braced himself against the side of the companionway, waiting for the inevitable collision, and immediately wondered how he was going to explain
this
to Uncle Nick.

But the collision never happened; the other boat glided past
Goblin
’s bow with only inches to spare.

“Hey!” Teddy shouted at the other boat. “Who’s there? Get some lights on!”

No response.

A break in the clouds let slip a sliver of moonlight, allowing Nicholas and Teddy—their hearts still pounding—to watch the other boat charge off into the distance, under full sail and still without running lights.

“Who
was
that?” Nicholas asked, finally able to breathe normally.

“No idea. Never seen the boat before. And I know
every
boat on the lake. Or thought I did.”

“They were
flying
. What kind of boat was that, anyway?”

“Long and lean. Musta been thirty feet, maybe a little more. Narrow beam. And you’re right—
fast
.”

“You know, I only saw it for a second, and it’s dark and everything, but I, uh …”

“Didn’t see any people?” Teddy said. “I know. Very strange. I suppose it’s possible that whoever it was just tied off the tiller for a minute so they could take care of something else, but you’d think they’d’a stuck their head up when I yelled. Well, what do you say we take down that stays’l so we have a little better visibility. One good thing about all that: I’m wide-awake now! But hot coffee still sounds good.”

“The water should be boiling. I’ll go make it.”

After lowering and tying off the staysail on the bouncing foredeck, Nicholas went below and poured the hot water into two mugs, stirring two heaping spoonfuls of instant coffee into each.

His mind drifted back to that mysterious boat he’d seen from the tower room—the one that seemed to disappear into thin air. He was certain the boat that had nearly cut
Goblin
in two was the same boat. “That’s twice,” he said aloud.

“What’s twice?” Hayley asked, poking her head out from under the covers.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Climbing the stairs with two mugs of steaming coffee while being tossed this way and that by waves was no picnic, but he did it somehow—without spilling a drop.

Teddy took a mug, thanking him again for the rescue and the hospitality. “Hoo-boy!” he shouted into the wind after his first sip. “That’ll put hair on your chest!”