“Please don’t slip and fall, Brogan.”
He went up nimbly, a man accustomed to masts, rigging, and the swing and dip of the sea. He sat up there and we could hear him singing.
“I don’t care what he tries to do to me,” Johnny said. “I don’t want him to hurt Nan. I think he’s crazy. I think he could do anything. I don’t think he knows what he’s going to do next. Nobody ever walked out on him before.”
“Whatever happens, you be good to her, Johnny.”
He stared at me, a decent, somewhat bovine young man. “Sure, Vince. You know I will. Sure.”
At a little after eleven we went in over the bar and into Bimini harbor. The upcoming tuna tournament had packed the place with sport fishermen. I moved the length of the harbor at dead slow and tucked it into my dock reservation, made my mooring and went to the office to check on my charter. There was a message for me saying my people wouldn’t arrive until noon of the next day. When I went back to the Faraway Gal, my three passengers were gone. I was hosing the salt off her when Brogan appeared.
“Where’d they go?” he demanded.
“Nan and Johnny? I haven’t the faintest idea.”
He gave me a long ugly look, then turned on his heel and walked away. I watched him walk to the next dock, and I recognized the Reefcomber in the second slip. He hopped aboard and disappeared.
Friends of mine started coming over to say hello and exchange gossip and trade news, but I was alone and eating a cheese sandwich when Yates Brogan came back, a little bit unsteady on his feet this time.
“You seen ’em yet?”
“No.”
“Their gear still aboard?”
“Yes.”
“Hand me up her stuff. I’ll take it aboard the Reefcomber.”
“That would be up to her.”
“Hand it up here, or I’m coming aboard and get it”
“You’ve got no permission to come aboard, Brogan. You hired a ride and the ride’s over. Come aboard, and I’ll heave you over the side.”
He looked so indecisive, I half turned away from him. I saw the movement out of the comer of my eye as he launched himself into the air, and I turned back in time to get such a monstrous thump in the mouth it spun the sky, blinded my eyes, and dropped me belly-down across the starboard rail. By the time I had rejoined reality, he was clambering up onto the dock with Nan’s kit I lurched and caught him by the ankle. He pulled free but fell sprawling. It gave me time to get up onto the dock as he came to his feet, and I settled into the business of knocking him loose from that white grin.
We attracted a large noisy audience, appreciative of this special entertainment. He hit me well a few times, enough to loosen my knees, but I shook the mists out of my head and kept my arms going and soon felt the sweet solidity of impact from knuckles to elbow. He went down with the grin and came up with the grin, and went down without it and came up without it, and then went sprawling back wildly and off the dock, missing the stem of the Faraway Gal as he went into that harbor water, so clear that you can read every word on the labels of the more recently jettisoned cans, nine feet deep. I saw him start to swim slowly toward a dock ladder. I sat on the edge of the dock and leaned forward to drip the random blood into the water, exploring damage with the tip of my tongue, gasping for air.
Nan was kneeling beside me, her hand sweet on my shoulder, her voice tender in my ear, “Oh, Vince. Vince, dear, he hurt you!”
“Wanted your gear,” I said thickly. “Tried to take it. Bring me the hose.”
She brought the nozzle and turned it on. I ran the water over my head. She brought me a towel from my boat, and I left some pink smears on it when I swabbed my face, but the bleeding was about over. I looked over and saw Brogan, sopping wet, boarding the Reefcomber. He didn’t hop aboard. He went aboard like an old old man, and I took a certain satisfaction in that.
Our audience dispersed. I stood up. Nan stood as tall as she could, and her eyes were that brighter blue that happens when she is angry. “This was the dumbest thing I ever did! I’m going to tell him right now, right this minute, that I wouldn’t go back to him if he... if he only had one more hour to live. And the only thing I want from him is to be left alone.”
She started marching toward the Reefcomber. Johnny started after her. I caught him by the arm.
“But he might hurt her!”
“Let her do it her way.”
“Don’t you give a damn, Vince?”
“Stay out of it, Johnny.”
“But this isn’t the way to do it. She should make him understand. People can... separate in a reasonable way.”
“Brogan isn’t a very reasonable guy.”
I think she was in the cabin of the Reefcomber for fifteen minutes, and I don’t think Johnny or I took our eyes off that boat for more than ten seconds at a time. I heard Johnny’s sigh when she reappeared and came walking back to us at a much slower pace.
She did not speak or focus on either of us as I helped her aboard. She sat and looked at nothing and said in a small voice, “This time he believed me.”
“About time,” I said.
“He took it very badly. He said I would be very very sorry, and Johnny would be very very sorry for doing this to him. His face is all banged up.”
I looked at my puffed fists. I was not surprised.
She looked up at me. “I will not run from him. We won’t take a plane back until tomorrow, Johnny. He’s started drinking already. He’ll either pass out or do something foolish. Johnny, you find a place ashore. I’ll stay aboard if I may, Vince.”
“Now wait a minute!” Johnny said.
“It’s okay with me. Nan. You can lock the cabin. I can use the forward hatch to the crew quarters. If that makes you nervous, Welch, you can bunk in with me.”
He looked uneasy. “No. No, that’s okay.”
Brogan didn’t appear again. Johnny found a place ashore and came back. The three of us had drinks aboard, and then in the blue Bimini dusk we walked down the narrow main street and had dinner at the Big Game Fishing Club. We were all trying to make the effort to be festive, but it didn’t quite come off. Johnny laughed too loudly at nothing. Nan seemed distracted. I kept wondering if it was worse to lose a girl the second time than the first time. I knew that after the tensions and cruelties of the relationship with Brogan, she felt she needed the quiet devotion of a Johnny Welch.
Johnny walked back to the dock with us. All the boats were in, and most of them were lighted. We heard the laughter of women, heard some amateur guitar, some slightly drunken harmony, and music from several radios. We had a nightcap beer under the stars and pointedly avoided mentioning Brogan. His motorsailer was dark. Nan said good night to us and closed herself into the cabin. Shortly after her lights went out, Johnny said good night and left. I sat with my dreary thoughts and outworn dreams for a little while, then went forward and lowered myself into the crew compartment. After I was in the bunk I was all too aware of her presence on the other side of the bulkhead, with her head perhaps ten inches from mine and her heart ten thousand miles from mine. As I was moving closer to sleep I heard the wind freshen and felt the increased motion of the boat and heard the creak of lines and chafing gear. It was out of the east and would grow stronger.
I could not guess how many people were awakened by her first scream. But by the third she must have had one hundred percent attention. I got to her a moment after the third spine-chilling scream. I was convinced Brogan had gotten to her and was killing her. I yanked on a pair of shorts, grabbed my sheath knife, and tried the intercabin door. It was locked on her side. I went up through the hatch so fast I gouged a piece of meat out of my shoulder. I erupted into a cool gray world that paled the dock lights. The sky was pink in the east. The screams had started roosters crowing, dogs barking.