“Tell the truth, for once.”
“I am telling the truth.”
He sighed. “The chartmaker was lying. The nearest sounding shown here is 45 fathoms.” He paused and nodded to Barfield. “George.”
I was too wild to be scared. “Listen, Barclay. This whole thing is going to come unzipped. If he hurts her, it’s you I’m coming for, and you’re going to have to use that gun to stop me. If you think you can find that reef without my help, go ahead.”
It hung poised, ready to go either way. “Don’t be a damned fool,” I went on. “If she were going to lie, would she give you a stupid position like that? Maybe there is a shoal there, or somewhere within fifteen miles or so. All that area hasn’t been sounded. Macaulay could have been off in his reckoning. The only thing to do is go there and see, and you’ll never get there unless I take you. You name it. Now.”
He saw I was right.
Barfield lounged on the seat with a cup of coffee in his hand. “The hero,” he said. “We’ve got a real, live hero aboard, Joey.”
The breeze held steady out of the northeast, day after day, and the miles ran behind us. I’d bought time for us, but I hadn’t bought much, and every day’s run was bringing us nearer the showdown. I knew what would happen when we got down there and couldn’t find any shoal. Something had to happen before then; we had to get a break. But they didn’t drop a stitch. When one was asleep the other was watching me, never letting me get too near. And there was always Shannon Macaulay. They had me tied, and they knew it. It was unique, a masterpiece in its own way; we were at sea in a 36-foot sloop, so all four of us had to be sitting right on top of the explosion if it came. I couldn’t hide her or get her out of the way.
It was noon, the fourth day out of Sanport. I was working out our position on the chart when an idea began to nudge me. We wouldn’t pass near enough to Scorpion Reef to sight it, so they had to take my word as to where we were. Barclay knew approximately, of course, because he checked the compass headings against each day’s position, but he had to accept my figures for the distance run.
I was thinking. It might work.
Twenty or twenty-five miles beyond the point where Macaulay was supposed to have crashed lay the beginnings of the Northern Shelves. If there were a shoal or reef in a hundred miles it would be out there. The chances were a thousand to one that it was somewhere in that vast shallow area that he had actually gone into the drink, even though they were about a hundred billion to one against our ever finding where. So if I put us out there when they thought we were on the location she had given them—
We might find a shoal. And any shoal would do.
I set the little cross down 15 miles to the westward and a little north of our actual position and tore up my work sheet. Take ten miles out tomorrow noon and I’d have it made without exciting Barclay’s suspicions. It was Wednesday. I told him we’d make it by Friday.
I didn’t say anything to Shannon. The object of the whole thing was to get her off the boat, and if she knew why I wanted her off she wouldn’t go. She’d have some foolish idea about not letting me face it alone, and I’d never convince her that alone was the only way I had a chance.
Barclay apparently suspected nothing as he checked positions with me the next day. In fact he seemed satisfied with the efforts I had been taking all that day. We kept looking for white water, listening for the sound of surf breaking; but no signs of shoal appeared.
Barclay had become more quiet, cold, and unapproachable as Friday wore on and we saw nothing.
Barfield’s face was ugly as he watched Shannon now, and several times I saw him glance questioningly at Barclay. We were all in the cockpit. I had the tiller.
“Listen,” I said harshly. “Both of you. Try to get it through your heads. We’re not looking for the corner of Third and Main. There are no street signs out here. We’re in the general area. But Macaulay could have been out ten miles in his reckoning. My figures could be from two to five miles out in any direction. Error adds up.”
He was listening, his face expressionless.
I went on. I had to make them see. “When Macaulay crashed, there was a heavy sea running. There’s not much now but a light groundswell. There could have been surf piled up that day high enough to see it five miles away, and now you might think it was just a tide-rip. We’ve got to criss-cross the whole area, back and forth. It may take two days, or even longer.”
He looked coldly at me. “Don’t take too long.”
Dawn came, the sea was empty and blue as far as the eye could see.
Barclay took the glasses and stood up, scanning the horizon all the way around. Then he said, “Make some coffee, George.”
Barfield grunted and went below. In a few minutes Barclay followed him. I could hear the low sound of their voices in the cabin. She sat across from me in the cockpit, her face stamped with weariness. When she saw me looking at her she tried to smile.
I turned and hurried back to her. “Go forward,” I said. “Lie down on deck, against the forward side of the cabin. Stay there. If anything happens to me, you can raise the jib alone. Just the jib. Keep running before the wind in a straight line and you’ll hit the coast of Mexico or Texas—”
“No,” she whispered fiercely.
I peeled her arms loose and pushed her. “Hurry!” She started to say something more, looked at my face, and turned, running forward. She stepped up from the cockpit and went along the starboard side of the cabin, stumbling once and almost falling.
I had to hurry. They’d be coming up any minute. I slipped forward and stood on the deck, looking down the hatch.
“Surf!” I yelled. “Surf, ho!”
Barclay came up fast, his head turning toward the direction of my arm. I hit him hard and he went sprawling over the side. I was falling too, on top of Barfield as he emerged from the hatch. He bulled his way up on deck, crashing us both down on the deck. A big fist beat at my face, as I groped for his throat. He got his gun out of his hip pocket. I chopped his hand hard enough, and it slid out of his hand along the grating.
He hit me on the temple and my head slammed back against the planks. He was coming to his knees, groping behind him for the gun. I tried to push myself up, and then beyond him I saw her. She ran along the deck and dropped into the cockpit. She picked up the gun and was swinging it at his head. He should have fallen, but it had no more effect on him than a dropped chocolate eclair. He heaved upward, lashing out behind him with one big arm. She fell, and her head struck the coaming at the forward end of the cockpit. I came to my feet and lunged at him and we fell over and beyond her onto the edge of the deck just as the sloop rolled again and we slid over the side into the water.
I came out into sunlight and sparkling blue, and sobbed for air. Seconds went by, and I knew he wasn’t coming up. He’d had the breath knocked out of him when we hit the deck, just before we slid overboard, and he’d drowned down there. I looked around again. There was no trace of Barclay.
I could hear the boat’s engine behind me, fainter now, and I turned to see which way it was circling. I stared. It wasn’t turning. It was two hundred yards away, going straight ahead for Yucatan with nobody at the helm. I didn’t see her anywhere. She’d been knocked out when she fell. And I had lashed the tiller.
I reached down mechanically and started taking off my dungarees and slippers.
Even when you don’t have anywhere to go, you keep swimming. I swam toward the boat, disappearing now, and toward the coast of Yucatan a hundred and twenty miles away. The sun was on my left. It climbed higher.
I didn’t panic, but I had to be careful about letting the loneliness and immensity of it get hold of me or thinking too much about how near we had been to winning at last. I wondered if she had been killed, or badly hurt, and saw in a moment that wasn’t safe either. I concentrated on swimming. One stroke, and then another stroke. Don’t think. Don’t think about anything.