LeRoy Clary - Humanaty's Blight

“It sounded like a small war.”

He settled back and asked, “Have you been listening to the air?”

“To what?” I asked.

“The radio?”

I ejected the magazine of the gun he had surrendered to me. It was empty. “Only Asian music and foreign talk are all that we can find. Do you know how to operate it?”

He seemed puzzled. “CB? Marine?”

I shook my head in confusion, then said, “Well, we did hear a little conversation just before you arrived, maybe a dozen words.” There had been talking on one of them, but with at least three radios to choose from, we needed common ground. His eyes went to the dead man. Mine followed.

He said, “Can we work out a few things between us?”

Sue growled; her shotgun still pointed at him. “Like what?”

“No matter what else we agree to, or what we decide to do in the future, that body needs to go over the side. I’ve never shot a person and can’t think with it laying there accusing me of murder. It will take two of us to lift him.” He stood and stepped to where he could grab the dead man under his arms. I took the feet. Without thinking about it, we lifted him slowly over the side. He barely made a splash.

Steve used his foot to slide Micky’s gun to the feet of Sue. I noticed it was another nine-millimeter semi-automatic, like ours. I realized we should have searched his body, and at least, taken the shoulder holster off him. He may have had other valuables.

Steve reached down and thumbed a compartment I hadn’t noticed. A flap opened. He pulled a small hose wound on some concealed spring-loaded reel out and pushed a rubber green button. A small stream of water flowed. He quickly washed the blood away. “Saltwater,” he said as he shut it off and let the nozzle follow the hose back into the storage space.

He said, “A boat this nice needs to be regularly washed with fresh water to keep the corrosion down, but we don’t want to waste the freshwater that’s in your tanks. No telling when you can replace it.”

Sue flashed me a stern look. She was not ready to give up her shotgun yet.

Steve ignored her. “Can we go inside and check out the radios?”

“You asked if we were listening. That meant something,” I said.

“The CB. Those boats ahead with the blockade have been chatting on it. That’s how we knew you were there. And how they knew.”

“They were waiting for us?”

“Wagering on when you’d make a break for the opening, is more like it. One group bet you’d try to run it in daylight, the other thought you’d wait until after midnight.”

I’d planned on making my run at three in the morning. The second group would have won. We’d have lost.

Sue lowered the shotgun. “Can you show us how to use it? The radio, I mean.”

Steve went into the cabin first.I picked up the other nine-millimeter and slipped it into my waistband. From the heft, it held a full magazine. He eyed everything appreciatively and turned directly to the desk area where the radios and electronics were. He stood and admired it all, then said, “Do you have any inkling of the kind of boat you’ve stolen?”

The word, stolen didn’t sound negative. I answered, “No.”

He waved a hand over the mounted electronics as if he was a priest blessing it. “This is my dream.”

He reached out and turned on a radio after pointing to the solar panel. “Thirteen-six volts charging, two batteries?”

“Four,” I answered.

He whistled softly in appreciation. Nothing came from the radio. He changed a dial, made an adjustment or two, and turned to the one above it. He said, “Nothing on that one. Not even the marine broadcast of weather. Tell me about the music.”

Sue pointed to the shortwave.

His eyes almost glowed when he realized what it was. He played with it and got snips and bursts of odd music, strange talking, and nothing else. The CB he’d turned on first, suddenly burst forth, “Where is it?”

“Went south with another sailboat,” a different voice answered.

“Send someone down there if they don’t show up by dark.”

Steve said, “They’re talking about us. We can try to hide or sail away. I doubt they’ll go too far south looking for us. Fuel will be a concern for them. Hard to replace.”

“Hiding our mast is hard,” I said. “Not many coves and sheltered places along the shore where we can pull in and hide.”

“Against the land, like we are, you’d be hard to see us at night. But better to go south where you’re out of their sight.”

Sue said, “They have those boats lined up in a row to force us to go past them on the left. They probably don’t even have people on them. Just anchored them and probably have chains from one boat to the next.”

Steve said, “The water there is about thirty fathoms. You’re right. They anchor or tie the boats together and leave them. Funnel any boats past the point of land where they have the ambush set up. The people on the radio are also talking with spotters on land and other boats, and their attack-boats are hidden around the point. Lying in wait. We think they were talking about your boat earlier. It’s worth ten of the others.”

“Fathoms?” I asked. The word was familiar, but I had no idea how much one was.

“Six feet,” Steve replied in a tone that sailors seem to use when they have to explain something to those of us who live on the land.

“Then just say it in feet. I don’t know why you sailor-types have to use language like that. The water is like a hundred and fifty feet deep.”

Sue cried. “Never mind that. What makes them want to ambush us?”

Steve faced her. “Think about it. They have fast motorboats, probably cruisers. They need fuel, food, water, and whatever. Lots of fuel to run those boats. Most people going up to the islands have those things required for survival. They prepared and filled their boats with all they need but can’t defend their boats against a fast cruiser with eight or ten armed men. It’s a lot safer to be a pirate than being on land and not knowing what’s waiting for them around the next corner.”

“If the boat going north has enough men and guns to protect themselves, they just speed away,” I said the words while thinking that a sea battle might be our only hope. “They prey on the small and the weak.”

“Exactly. They have set themselves up nicely to steal what they want. Eventually, they will probably run out of food or water, or patience, and kill each other while drinking whiskey. Or new leadership will cause internal strife and they will assassinate each other. Men in a group like that won’t last a month.” He almost spat the last words.

“We don’t have a month to wait,” I snapped in a harsher tone than intended.

His tone changed slightly, becoming mysterious. “Then, why not go to the islands another way? You seem so sure they are your sanctuary , right? Why try to go past the blockade and face them?”

That had my attention in several different ways. Reaching the islands where we wanted to hide meant passing the blockade, and I was not going to attempt going around on land. That was far too dangerous. Besides, we wanted to live on the boat. He also seemed to doubt our intentions as he had stressed the word, sanctuary. I decided to tell the truth. “We want to live on the boat until things settle down. Avoid others.”

He sat in the chair at the desk, his eyes roaming the displays, switches, readouts, and the like, most of which I knew nothing about. He seemed to recognize and understand most, if not all. Besides my inadequacies in sailing, he was a few years older and more at ease in the presence of others.