“I’ll get it,” said Jerry.
“No,” said Macklin, suddenly pulling Jerry back from the rail. “There’s something wrong about all this. Go get the .22.”
“Suit yourself, fella,” Captain Olly said indifferently, switching off the flashlight, which left everyone only barely visible in the dim red glow of Vagabond’s portside running light. “I’ve made a lot of money today towing sailboats. If you—”
“Raise your hands and climb up here,” Macklin snapped, crouching with his gun aimed at Olly, his eyes flicking nervously over the length of Lucy Mae. Jerry returned with Jim’s .22 and stood beside Macklin.
“Now what you want me—” Olly had started to protest when the forward hatch cover clattered onto the foredeck. Macklin swung his gun around and fired past Jerry, and two shots exploded from Neil’s gun. Macklin and Jerry disappeared behind the combing of the cockpit.
After the three sudden explosions in the darkness a silence descended on the two boats, which rocked gently side by side in the small swells. Vagabond, left untended, began swinging up into the wind, her sails fluttering as they luffed.
“Jerry?” Macklin called hoarsely from the other side of the trimaran.
The only answer was the rough hum of Lucy Mae’s idling engine and the gentle slapping of the sails. For twenty seconds, then thirty, no one spoke. Olly was crouched in his cockpit peering up at the vacant space where Macklin and Jerry had been standing. Neil stood with his head and shoulders out of the hatch, his gun aimed at the wheelhouse entrance, which he could just make out in the darkness. A small stream of blood crept down his left arm—pierced by splinters from Lucy Mae’s shattered hatchway.
“Your friend’s dead, sonny,” Captain Olly finally shouted. “Better come over here and give up.”
The silence resumed. Neil, feeling certain he had hit Jerry, pulled himself quietly out onto the deck and crawled over onto the foredeck of the trimaran; he felt Macklin must be in the opposite cockpit. He crawled swiftly across Vagabond’s entire width forward of the cabins and crouched on the foredeck on the opposite side from Lucy Mae.
Olly had felt his boat rock as Neil’s weight shifted to Vagabond, so he called out again to draw Macklin’s attention.
“We got four men here with automatic rifles, sonny!” he shouted. “Better get on over here with your hands held high.”
Macklin again didn’t respond. Peering aft, Neil couldn’t see his dim bulk crouched in the starboard cockpit as he had expected. Macklin must be close to Frank’s cabin hatchway. He wondered where Jim and Jeanne were. If Macklin were to take them as hostages, they were in trouble, but even so he didn’t dare risk his life now by rushing him. He crouched and waited to see the effect of the old fisherman’s propaganda campaign.
“Three to one ain’t good odds, sonny,” Olly’s high-pitched voice called out through the darkness. “If you’re not over here in the next minute, we’re going to come after you.”
Neil could still see no sign of Macklin and suddenly had the unnerving conviction that Macklin wasn’t there, that he, Neil, had miscalculated again. He glanced down behind him into the water, then over to the other cockpit, but nothing moved. He strained his eyes again to see some sign of Macklin in the starboard cockpit, strained his ears to pick up the slightest movement.
“I surrender.”
The words, spoken quietly, reached Neil from the area he’d been so desperately searching.
“I’m throwing my gun across the top of the cabin,” Macklin continued. Something clattered across the cabin top.
“Come over here with your hands behind your head,” Olly shouted. A flashlight suddenly lit up the wheelhouse from Lucy Mae’s cockpit. Macklin abruptly appeared in the light, his empty hands behind his head, moving slowly. He had to step over something before he emerged into the center of Olly’s light in the cockpit near Lucy Mae. As Neil glided over the cabin tops Frank came up over Vagabond’s combing and picked up the .22.
“We’ve got him, Neil,” he called, holding the .22 on Macklin.
When Neil arrived, he saw Frank and Macklin staring down at Jerry, who lay in a pool of blood, his open eyes fixed.
“I told him not to do it,” Macklin said quietly. “But he said you were going to kick us off.”
Frank and Neil stared at him.
“I got that puller tool you asked for,” he said to Neil.
As Frank broke away to throw back the port hatch to search for Jeanne, Neil watched Macklin.
“Are any of our people hurt?” he asked coldly.
“Your people are all a lot healthier than Jerry.”
“They’d better be,” said Neil, and as he heard Jeanne’s voice, he began to feel relieved: Vagabond was theirs again.
An hour and a half later Vagabond lay at anchor, Lucy Mae still tied to her port side. After the initial exhilaration and the relief of being reunited, those aboard were in various states of disorientation and exhaustion. Jeanne, Jim, and Lisa had all been hurt resisting the taking of Vagabond, and Neil during its rescue. Jim had bruised ribs, a bloody nose, and cut and sore wrists where they had bound him.
Jeanne’s left cheek had a swollen and bluish bruise where Macklin had hit her when she’d tried to help Jim. When Lisa had begun pounding on Macklin’s back, Jerry had struck her on the side of the head with the butt of his gun. Neil had a two-inch-long, half-inch-wide wood sliver lodged in his left arm. Conrad Macklin had examined Lisa’s head right after her injury and again when Vagabond had been sailing away and had told Jeanne that Lisa probably had a minor concussion but no fracture. He offered now to pull out the splinters from Neil’s arm, but after first refusing, Neil soon concluded that Jeanne and Frank were being too gentle in their probing. He finally let Macklin coolly butcher the splinters out.
Later, after tying Macklin’s hands behind him and then to the mizzenmast and leaving Jim on guard, they buried Jerry at sea. Jeanne came up on deck and saw Neil, Frank, and Olly standing in the dim light of the wheelhouse with Neil reading in a low voice from the Bible. She stood momentarily mesmerized by the weird scene, which continued as Neil stopped reading and he and Olly lifted the body up and slid it overboard. The whole experience was so unreal, so disconnected from her previous life, that she staggered down the steps to the main cabin for the reassuring sight of pots, pans, a kitchen— anything to erase the eeriness of those three dim figures in the cockpit, like warlocks chanting some incantation, and then throwing a body into the sea.
She prepared coffee, not because anyone had asked her to, but to ground herself, to reestablish everyday reality. When Frank came down, he looked anxiously at Jeanne and came over to take her in his arms again. His white sport shirt was sweat-stained and grimy, his gray hair slick with sweat. He had embraced her after the initial rescue, and she had clung to him as a brother or father, a haven from the insane chaos that was raining down upon her.
“Coffee or scotch?” Jeanne now asked Frank. Captain Olly was already sipping at a cup full of scotch—caffeine being “bad for the teeth.”
“Both,” Frank replied and sat down with a great sigh on the settee opposite Olly, who had slumped over sideways and was soon snoring.
When Neil appeared, he paused with uncharacteristic uncertainty at the foot of the steps. He accepted a cup of coffee from Jeanne with a mechanical smile, his severe face showing none of the warm attentiveness that it had so often throughout the day.