Randy White - Gone

Hands shaking, I switched channels, then spent a frustrating several minutes shouting my location and describing my situation, at least some of which the Coast Guard radioman understood before our frail signal vanished. I tried a couple more times without success, then gave up.

Even so, I felt a hundred times better when I slipped into the water and pushed my skiff to the shell ridge, the mucky bottom trying to suction off my boat shoes with every step. The U.S. Coast Guard knew my name, where I was, and that I might need help! I dropped an anchor off the stern, then went to work, stopping every minute or so to sweep the area with my eyes, then listen for the distant whine of an approaching jon boat.

My engine’s tiny exhaust tubes were clogged with gray marl. I could see that right away, which gave me some hope. Clean the pisser holes, and my water pump would probably work just fine. In ten or fifteen minutes, I could be in clean Gulf air headed home!

It wasn’t that easy, though. I tried to drill through the marl (which is rough gray clay), using the monofilament. I made a quarter inch of headway before my plastic auger finally bent, so I used the other end. After another quarter inch, it snapped, too. Maybe I’d gone deep enough to get my engine running. Maybe water pressure inside the engine would kick the rest of the muck free, but it was better to do the job right than waste precious minutes on a failed test.

I stood and stretched, still confident but worried. A screwdriver was too thick, the shank of a fishhook wasn’t long enough. I needed a drilling tool as thin as the monofilament but stronger.

I turned and considered hunting through the storm detritus that settles at the rim of every mangrove swamp. Drake Key was different though. The shell ridge behind me rose ten or twelve feet above flotsam left by storms. Atop the ridge grew a gumbo-limbo tree, buttonwoods, and a thicket of Spanish bayonet plants, their leaves spiked with three-inch needles.

I didn’t have to think about it for long. Bayonet plant needles are as sharp and tough as darts, and I had hundreds to choose from. Exactly what I needed!

–

MOVING FAST but not rushing, I scampered up a cascade of shells, not stopping until I grabbed a buttonwood limb to steady myself at the top of the ridge. That’s when I noticed it-the air conditioner kick of a small generator, then a patch of blue canvas visible through vegetation that rimmed the bay below. Odd noises, too, were coming from the area. It was a garbled squawking, like parrots fighting… the grunt of what might have been a wild hog… and the feathered whap-whap-whap of a wounded bird trying to fly.

I felt my breath catch, then fought the temptation to turn and run. Instead, I took quiet steps down the back of the ridge, mangroves so thick that light faded, like slipping into a cave… then kept changing angles until I confirmed what I was seeing. The blue canvas was a sun shade on the flybridge of a boat-a low flybridge built atop the boat’s cabin. A Skipjack cruiser. Ricky Meeks had found a pocket of deep water way back in the mangroves and that’s where he had hidden.

As I looked on, the boat floated still as a painting, no one visible above deck. The dinghy that Cordial Pallet had described was missing from its brackets, I noted, but there was no sign of a fast jon boat that Meeks no doubt would have tied to the stern-a huge relief.

My chance to find out if Olivia was aboard! To finally meet the girl face-to-face and urge her to return home with me. The temptation was to call the girl’s name. Better yet, climb aboard the Skipjack in case Meeks had left her tied up or locked in a cabin.

But I didn’t. There was something else I saw now that I was closer… the source of the strange noises. Deep in shadows separating me from the boat, a gaggle of vultures were battling two feral hogs to get at something that lay in the bushes. The area being so dense with mangroves, the vultures were getting the worst of it because their wings kept tangling in vines. And one of the hogs was bigger than me, probably two hundred pounds of muscle and tusks. When it grunted, the sound was so coarse that the shell ridge vibrated beneath my feet.

Why didn’t you bring the damn pistol? That’s what I was thinking as I watched the animals squabble. My Great-great-aunt Hannah One had hunted hogs for meat and money, but I was more interested in self-defense. Boars didn’t often attack people on the islands, but it happened, and the prospect of being mauled by an animal that size was sickening. How would the hog react if I tried to detour around it to get to the boat? Or even heard my voice?

I don’t know why but into my head came the message from church that morning-the promise that guidance and protection belonged to those who had faith and behaved boldly. I’d been disgusted by my inability to control my shaking nerves and was sick to death of being scared. The bullying behavior of that boar hog, the mean way it strutted, was irksome, too. Maybe that’s why my attitude changed so abruptly. Whatever the reason, a mix of anger and cold calm settled into me, a change as solid as it was swift, and for the first time since leaving Fishermans Wharf I felt strong, not flighty and timid. Neither Ricky Meeks nor some damn feral pig was going to bully me!

Hands cupped to my mouth, I stood on my toes and yelled, “Olivia! Are you in there? I’m a friend!”

Startled, vultures squawked and thrashed their wings, trying to scatter, while the boar hog whirled to face me. The animal didn’t bother to drop what was in its mouth while sniffing the gloom for my scent-something long and thin, but rounded at one end. A piece of dead raccoon, possibly, or a bloated fish. I couldn’t be sure, and didn’t much care as long as the animal didn’t charge me.

“Olivia, don’t be scared! My name’s Hannah Smith and I want to talk! Olivia…? ” I took a few steps closer, straining to see. Was it my imagination or had the curtains inside the cabin moved? Hopeful it was true, I tried again. “Olivia! Please come out!”

This time the boar hog reacted by snorting and lunging stiff-leggedly in my direction, warning me to stay away. But the threat only sharpened my mood. In reply, I made myself bigger by waving my arms and yelling, “Shoo! I’ll fry you for breakfast! Scoot!” The pig backed away a step but was still glaring at me as its tusks cracked a bone inside the thing it was eating.

Now I was wondering whether I should get the pistol and shoot the boar or finish with my engine and approach the cruiser by water. But was it worth risking that shallow bay if Olivia wasn’t aboard? Had I really seen those curtains move? I needed a solid reason to keep me from heading straight home once my boat was started.

Squall clouds moving toward the island were still purple-pink with sunlight, but it was darkening in this swamp of tangled trees and sulfur. Dark enough that details of the cruiser and everything around me were becoming grainy. I remembered the powerful little LED flashlight in my pocket and used it, pointing the laser-sharp beam at the cabin.

“OLIVIAAAAA!” I yelled, loud as I could. Which was more than the hog could tolerate and caused the thing to trot toward me, crushing tree limbs with its weight. In a rush, I swung the light at the animal. Held the LED in both hands like a pistol, aiming at the boar’s eyes as it crashed through brush, closing the distance between us, coming faster, and growling… until its eyes strobed like flashbulbs when the light pierced them. Squealing, the hog flung what it was eating toward me, then spun away, taking the other hog with it into the bushes.

“That’ll teach you!” I hollered after it. Then, only mildly interested, I checked to see what had been in the animal’s mouth before I called for Olivia again. Several seconds later, though, I was only able to whisper, “Dear God above…”