LeRoy Clary - Humanaty's Blight

The wind or tide kept turning me. I nudged the boat ahead twice more before hearing faint paddling noises. Sue pulled up to the rear and handed up her shotgun, then my rifle, and then the arm of a shirt.

“Hold onto that,” she ordered as she groped for a handhold on the sailboat.

Instead of climbing aboard, she reached down and grabbed the bow of her kayak and pulled. I belatedly helped her pull it aboard, then we did the same with the other that she’d tied with the shirtsleeve. Their bows were positioned down in the bathtub area near our feet, the rudders high above the cabin. Smart girl.

She wore only her bra. She untied the shirt as I pushed the handle forward and the sailboat gently eased ahead. The end of the breakwater came into view as a black mass on our right side that ended, and I maintained our course. The water depth worried me—or the lack of it after what the old man had told me. We went around the far end and out into Puget Sound. I kept the speed as slow as the engine would allow and when I judged we were miles from any land, I cut it.

“Damn, dude,” Sue hissed in my direction. “You did it!”

That said it all.

We’d done it!The boat was ours. We didn’t know what brand name it was, what type of sailboat, how long it was, or even the color, let alone how to sail it. None of that diminished our enthusiasm.

No matter if we sank and died before dawn, the two of us had done the impossible. Sue’s words rang in my ears. Damn, dude! The feeling of accomplishment had my ego soaring and my feet were ready to dance until dawn.

Sue said, “So, let’s get a look at the rest of this beauty.”

She was already at the hatch. I heard her rattle it and then call, “Locked. Got the key?”

“I think the key is back here.”

Her footsteps thumped across the deck, her hand outstretched. In light, I’d have taken the cabin lock key off the chain instead of killing the engine, but in the dark, the right thing seemed to be what I did. I pulled the key from the ignition and said, “I need that right back.”

“No problem.”

She opened the padlock on the hatch and started inside, then called, “Hey, somebody was here first. They broke our window and got glass all over the damned place.”

Our window, she’d said, which made my grin grow even wider. Not wishing to admit I was the culprit, I said, “We’ll clean it up when we have more light in the morning when we have more light. Better hand the keys back.”

“Dude, this wicked stuff will slice our feet. You drive the boat. I don’t need light to get rid of the bigger pieces.” A tiny splash indicated where the first piece flew overboard. As for driving the boat, as she put it, we were drifting, no sails, no motor, and no cares until morning. More tiny splashes.

I said, “Hey, we can take care of that glass later. Right now, I need the key for the engine.”

“Engine? I thought you were going to get a sailboat.”

I laughed for the first time that day. “This one has both.”

I took the time to reload my gun’s magazine and reinsert it with a satisfying mechanical click. While I didn’t know much about guns, I did know that you have to clean them, or they get clogged up. I had no cleaning supplies and didn’t know how to do it. Just another thing to worry about. That, or steal another gun. Hell, I might steal one after that and never have to clean one. There were enough laying around to last me a hundred lifetimes.

Sue called softly, “Do you think it will hurt to have a little light in here? Just one of the cabin lights so I can see?”

I almost laughed again. One little light on the vastness of the dark water when there were no lights anywhere else would stand out like a lighthouse on a rocky coast. Anyone on land or on another boat would instantly be drawn to it. “Wait until dawn. We’ll have plenty of light then.”

“Okay, what about tonight? Sleeping, I mean? Anyhow, there are a few little lights in here so I can sort of see my way around.”

The tiny LEDs on the control panel with all the switches were what she meant. I’d forgotten them. I had another thought. What if there were alarms that sounded when water came in through a busted window? Or low fuel? I didn’t know how to turn any of them off, including the LEDs.

Fingernail polish would cover them. Then, perhaps a little scratch from the point of my knife in the polish to let me see the status. Now all I needed was fingernail polish. Besides learning to sail and how to run the engine, there was everything electric or electronic to consider.

I couldn’t drop the anchor because I didn’t know how, or if the boat had one. There were a thousand things I didn’t know. I felt helpless. My ignorance could easily sink the boat.

Her question about sleeping tonight was a good one. I didn’t foresee much sleeping for me. “Bring me a couple of blankets up here, will you? I’ll sleep out here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We snatched this boat so we wouldn’t have to sleep out in the rain.”

“You sleep inside.”

“With all the glass? Alone? Do you hate me?”

The tinkle of her laughter drew any sting from the comment. She climbed the short stairs to the cabin with an armful of bedding. “Nice night for sleeping outside.”

“It’s overcast.”

“But not raining. Did you know there’s another steering wheel down there? Inside? If it rains or if we have bad weather, we can steer from inside.”

I hadn’t known that. There hadn’t even been a chance to go into the cabin other than to find the key. I needed to inspect the boat. To illustrate how insane the situation was, I didn’t even know the color of the hull, and that seemed to really bother me. If it had all happened to someone else, I’d have laughed at them.

Sue had never once said we were going to steal the boat. The thought came unbidden. When the subject came up, she had accused me of stealing the motorcycle, yes, she had used that word when it applied to me. But when she was involved, we snatched, took, or she used another adjective. She never used the word steal when it referred to her.

“Sue, what do you think about the morals of stealing this boat? I mean, how do you justify us doing it in your mind?”

“The owner you stole it from is probably dead. So, there is no crime.”

“Maybe not. Is there anything else you’d like to steal?” I’d used the word intentionally.

“I don’t steal.” Her tone was flat as if that ended the conversation.

“The things in the cabin where we got the sleeping bags? We stole them, didn’t we?”

“They were left by the owners and besides, we needed the food and stuff we took in order to survive.”

“Isn’t that stealing?” I prompted.

She was quiet for a while. Then said, “If the rightful owners ask for it back, we’ll give it to them and add a little more for their inconvenience. Does that suit you?”

My reaction was to tease her a little further. My common sense told me to shut up. I’d found a button of hers to push, a sensitive area she felt strongly about. If possible, I should forget the word and use another.

She said, “Inside the cabin is like a camping trailer, only better. It’s like a grand palace, just smaller, and the floor is covered with bits of glass so be careful. Cleaning that will be my first job tomorrow while you learn to run the boat.”

I pulled a blanket over my shoulders and watched the clouds in front of the moon. They were thin and allowed light to filter through. A pinprick of light on the mainland drew my attention. “Who is stupid enough to have a lantern?”