The New Madrid Run (8 page)

Travis had to smile when he thought of Cody. What a character. But damned if it didn’t look like he may have been right.

He glided toward the bottom in the cold water and studied the area for the items they needed. There was no determining departments in the store anymore. Everything was scrambled and strewn everywhere. He’d just have to work fast and cover as much ground as possible. After five minutes of precious time, he had worked his way back to the partially existing wall when he began to recognize sports equipment. Soon he found two good fishing rods and reels, a couple of raincoats, a hunting knife and, under an overturned display rack, packages of hooks, sinkers, and lures. Travis dragged the load back and tied it to the rope, which the sensei promptly pulled up. Then he was off again.

It appeared that the sporting goods department must have been near the surviving wall, as much of it was piled against that crumbling barricade. He rummaged through the debris, eventually coming to a smashed display case. Remembering that weapons at K-Mart were kept in such cases, he began to dig around and, sure enough, there in the wreckage lay a Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter pistol. Moments later, a few feet away, he found a .38 revolver with a four-inch barrel. Travis stowed the guns in his bag, then swam over to the remains of the display case. The glass was scattered all about, but the solid lower compartment was still intact. He pried open the sliding door, and was rewarded with the sight of ammunition cartons.
Thank God for sealed plastic boxes.
He found six boxes for each weapon, which he added to the catch bag, then continued on.

Making his way back to the boat, he picked up a spear gun and some lubricating oil. He also found a small gas-operated Hibachi, but no propane gas. When that load had been transferred to the boat, Travis checked his pressure gauge. The remaining two hundred and fifty pounds was enough for one more run. He worked quickly now, gathering such miscellaneous items as fishing line, suntan lotion, oil for lanterns, etc. He was about one hundred feet from the boat when he saw the barrel of a rifle protruding from beneath a huge display rack. The metal rack lay tilted on its side, supported by surrounding debris, creating a cave-like effect. The gun lay in the back, wedged beneath the base. Travis, excited by the prospect of having a more powerful weapon to add to his arsenal, quickly swam under the metal shelving, grabbed the barrel and pulled. The rifle broke free with a lurch, but in doing so disturbed the delicate balance of the structure above him.

There was a grating sound and a shift in the rack as the surrounding supports gave way and it fell. Travis had just enough time to turn around and begin to move out, head first, when the entire unit came crashing down on his waist and legs, pinning him painfully to the bottom.

For a moment he was stunned, but as the realization of his predicament set in, the pain in his legs was far overshadowed by the cold, knife-like fear gripping him. He struggled maniacally to free himself. Most of the weight was centered on the back of his legs. There was no way he could reach around, or gain any leverage to lift it off. He was trapped. He looked at his pressure gauge—fifty pounds, and fading fast. He struggled again, so violently that he could feel the flesh of his ankles tearing against the metal. Fear and the exertion were rapidly depleting the last of his air. The tank was already becoming harder to draw on. He shifted again and frantically glanced at a gauge that no longer offered any hope. He had only moments left.

The air faded as he struggled madly, his tortured lungs screaming for oxygen. Then, inhale as he might, there was nothing more coming through the regulator. Terror gradually faded to surrender, and his struggles were reduced to feeble, helpless movements. He was dying. As everything dimmed to shades of gray and black, he thought he saw a large shadow pass above him. His last cognizant thought was:
Probably a shark—not bad enough I have to die like
this, I have to get eaten as well.

Then suddenly, as the darkness began to overtake him, he felt something grab him and roughly drag him out from under the heavy metal frame. He was beyond caring. The next thing he remembered was being pulled across the surface of the water, throwing up saltwater and trying desperately to inhale the sweet, life-giving air into his lungs.

As the sensei pushed Travis up to the boat, Carlos dragged him on board and unceremoniously dumped him on the deck. “Hey, Travees, Travees. Chu okay, man? Chu no look so
bueno
, man.”

Travis couldn’t move. He lay on the deck gasping, incredibly thankful just to be alive. The sensei slipped up and over the rail of the boat in nothing but his birthday suit, knelt next to Travis and quickly examined him. He nodded a curt approval, then went to get his clothes.

Ten minutes later they were all gathered in the cabin. Travis had recovered sufficiently to speak again, and the color of his skin was no longer gray and mottled.

He turned to the sensei. “How’d you know? How’d you find me?”

The Japanese looked at him, “You say to watch bubbles. When there was no more, and you had not surfaced, I swam over to last bubbles and dove down.”

Travis shook his head in grudging admiration. “Not a bad free dive, considering you had to deal with lifting that rack off me and getting me to the surface.”

“Japan is surrounded by water,” said the sensei. “Part of training at Dojo is daily ocean swim.”

With new respect in his eyes, Travis stared at the Oriental. “Well, Higado Sensei, the first port we reach, I owe you the best bottle of saki in town. I’m in your debt.” He stood and bowed slightly to the sensei.

The Japanese smiled, and returned the bow. “The debt is already paid. You forget that it was you who rescued me from my sinking ship.”

“Then we’ll just split that bottle of saki when we find it,” Travis replied.

Carlos, who was sitting next to Travis, shook his head. “All this talk ’bout drinkin’ and not one stinkin’ Bud-a-wiser for Carlos.”

Everyone laughed—everyone except the boy.

CHAPTER 6

The sun descended slowly into the sea, piercing the evening sky with fiery daggers, surrounding the gray storm clouds on the horizon with a crimson luminescence.

They all sat together on the deck, watching nature’s light show, each lost in his own thoughts for the moment. Memories of other times, friends and lovers, other places, flashed through their minds in pinwheel fashion. Their lives had been changed forever. There was no going back. The past no longer existed, and the future—who knew what that held? They were embarking on a journey into the new world, as if they were ancient mariners, setting out in search of uncharted lands.

Aside from the tragedy that had brought him to that point in time, Travis couldn’t help but once again find himself excited, intrigued by the possibilities and uncertainty of the trek ahead.
Born
once more to adventure on the sea
, he thought as he watched the last rays of the sun burnish the darkening waters. He smiled, remembering adventures he and Cody had shared on the ocean.

The first waft of the cool night breeze brought him from his reverie and he shivered.

“It getting
muy frio
,” Carlos muttered next to him as he stood, his arms wrapped around his skinny frame.

“Yeah,” replied Travis. “Time to head below.” As the others stood, Ra, who had been lying next to them, rose and led the way to the warmth of the cabin.

Carlos had stored all the goods they had found. He had also cleaned everything from the walls to the floor and laid out a cold dinner of beef, carrots, potatoes, and chocolate pudding for dessert. Ra devoured the couple of cans of dog food prepared for him, then lay contented by the cabin door—the ever faithful guardian.

During supper, they learned a little more about one another. Carlos began by telling them of his life in Cuba. The small, animated man with dark, curly hair and mischievous smile recounted working for the Cuban equivalent of the U.S. Department of Transportation. He had repaired their trucks, from engines to two-way radios. To hear him tell it, he was nearly a genius—forced to repair antiquated equipment with inadequate tools and very few spare parts, keeping most of the Cuban government running almost single-handedly. Carlos paused, almost self-consciously for a moment in his narrative and brought his hands up, palms out, in somewhat of a submissive gesture.

“But there be a little
problemo
—some confusion—about radios disappearing in trucks I fix. Carlos find out they think maybe he steal them—gonna be ’
investigacion
.’ Carlos innocent, of course, but he no gonna stick around to find out if they think so. In Cuba too many times you guilty ’til you proven guilty . . .”

Travis told them of his flight service and how he had survived the wave. The sensei listened quietly and interjected a question or a statement here and there. The boy seemed to be gradually shaking off his lethargy, but there was a heavy aura of sadness around him that was almost tangible. He did, however, begin to show interest in the conversation, and when dinner was over, he lay down beside Ra on the floor. His tentative strokes to the animal’s flanks were answered by a huge, sticky tongue licking his fingers—an exchange that appeared to please both participants.

The sensei retrieved his swords from behind his bunk and performed his ritual cleaning. He brought the cloth back and forth across each blade and spoke, for the first time, of his personal life in Japan. The boy and Carlos, fascinated by the swords, listened intently as the modern-day Samurai told of his school, his home, and, with a touch of sadness, his family. He had left a wife, two sons, and three grandchildren in Japan, hoping to return to them by late summer.

“Now,” he said, as he paused and his gaze fell away, “I must learn patience and practice faith while I await the judgment of powers greater than my own.”

An hour later, they extinguished the two oil lanterns and everyone retired to his berth.

While the occupants of the sailboat slept, two people fought a desperate, losing battle with rising water in a badly damaged 32-foot Chris Craft, ten miles to the north. The overworked, hand-operated bilge pump was failing and, with it, their chances of survival. They were bruised and bloodied, and weary to the point of collapse. Still, they refused to give up.

If not for the cuts and the grime, one would have said they were a handsome couple. Both of them were tall; he was six feet, and she, about five-nine. He was slim, with the well-defined muscles of a runner, or a racquetball player. He was in his early forties and wore his styled blond hair straight back. His aquiline nose and intense blue eyes gave him a handsome, sophisticated look—perhaps a little roguish
.

She was in her mid-thirties, nice tan, hair a tawny strawberry blonde, thick and long. She was, beyond a doubt, attractive, but it was more the overall appearance than the individual parts that made her beauty work. If one studied her, there was a sense of contradiction in her features. There was perhaps too much height to her cheekbones, which lent a superciliousness, an aloofness that wasn’t necessarily earned. Her hazel eyes countered that, offering a hint of wit and spirit, but her mouth turned downward just slightly, diminishing the softness of her smile. Still, it all worked, and it was complimented by a remarkable figure—something she had enjoyed
as a younger girl, but found distracting and appreciated less as she had grown up and entered the world of business.

They were well-tanned, well-endowed, and well-connected— yacht club material—equally at home at a cocktail party or on the tennis court, but as they struggled grimly in the water-filled cabin of a foundering boat, that life was a million miles behind them.

The engine was ruined, the electrical system down, radios broken. Their food and water were running low – the life raft was untied and ready.

He levered like a machine on the manual bilge pump. She bailed with a bucket, filling it from the cabin, taking it up to the deck, and dumping it overboard. They both knew the water was still rising, regardless of their efforts, but neither would be the first to admit defeat. That was the way they were with each other. It epitomized the time they had spent together for the past few months. There was always an underlying sense of competition: neither showing weakness to the other. It wasn’t that they didn’t care for one another—they did. In fact, the challenge that each represented made it all the more intriguing. The relationship had evolved into a pleasant contest of wills, generously seasoned with great sex, but neither had offered more—there had been no commitment given or received, or really desired at this point. They both recognized that they made an attractive couple, and in the world of business lunches and country clubs, looking the part had its advantages. But at that moment, the only advantage they had was that they were still alive, and that was waning.

A few hours later, near early morning, the man had just begun to work the bilge pump again after a few minutes rest when, with a sickening wrench, the valve in the pump gave out. The handle slid effortlessly up and down the pipe, and the stream of water ceased. He looked up at her.

“Well, Christina, the party on this yacht’s over. Time to move on to a less mechanized, more rubberized form of transportation.”

She gave him a somber smile. “You always did have a way with words.”

“I make my living with words, dear,” he replied. “Put the correct syllables in the proper sequence. Combine that with timing, which is the essence, from commando raids to orgasms, and you can elicit practically anything from anyone.”

“So now I guess you want me to get into that little rubber raft of yours—the one that looks like it came from a second-hand concession in Miami Beach, and slip into the water, God knows how far from civilization—if there is a civilization.” She paused, gazing at him as he shrugged and chuckled. “Well, Captain ’Commando Raids’ this sure isn’t the trip you promised me.”

“If you’re going to choose between the two I prefer to be called Captain Orgasm,” he said with that roguish grin.