Scott Williams - The Pulse

“You oughta at least wait for daylight to sew it up,” Larry grunted. “You might be able to do a better job if you can see what you’re doing, Doc.”

“It’ll be less painful if we do it all in one go, little brother. We have enough of these battery-powered lanterns so I can see all I need to. Let’s get this arm bandaged up and make sure the bleeding has stopped, then we’ll get you up in your bunk. You can have a couple of shots of rum to ease the pain, and I’ll make it as quick as possible. It’s all gonna hurt right now, but if we get this over with now you can focus on healing after that.”

When Artie was finished, Larry was tucked into his sleeping bag in his bunk, his arm no longer bleeding and a row of fresh stitches closing the gash across his forehead and face. Dawn was breaking and the wind was calm, making the stuffy confines of the cabin stifling with all three of them down below. Artie told Larry they were going back up on deck, and that he would be checking on him every few minutes. He had been so focused on tending to his brother’s wounds that he temporarily forgot about the last of the attackers, the one fleeing in the rowboat that Scully had fired at with the shotgun. Looking around from the cockpit, Artie saw that the sea was calm and empty, with no trace of the rowboat or any other vessel. He looked at Scully and asked him what had happened after he fired.

“I t’ink I wounded ’im, mon, but he still pullin’ de oars and don’ fall out de boat. T’ink by de time I shot he too far away from de buckshot in dat Mossberg. Too bad I got no AK, or I kill him dead.”

“I don’t think he’ll be back, then, whether you wounded him or not. With two of his friends dead and no weapon but a machete, he would be stupid to try something else. I just can’t believe this happened though. Those guys were trying to kill us.”

“Want de boat, mon. Dem got not’ing to eat, no way to go someplace bettah. T’ree million people livin’ on dat Puerto Rico, dem got no hope wid no ship an’ no plane comin’. Dat be a dangerous place to be, mon. Lot a people from dat island happy to steal a boat like de Casey Nicole, loaded as she is wid food an’ watah an’ havin’ sails to go wid de wind.”

“Larry thought we’d be safe anchored off this little outlying island, but I guess he was wrong. I just wish we could get him to a doctor. He needs several days to recover from those wounds, and in a clean environment. He’s gonna need physical therapy too, and still may not get full use of his arm back. That machete cut a major nerve.”

“De Copt’n gonna be okay, mon. Rest on de boat while she sail. De Copt’n, he strong from livin’ on de sea an’ workin’ de boats. Not to worry, mon. We let him sleep an’ we do de work.”

“So you think we can continue on without his help?You know I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea how to navigate, or set the sails, or anything.”

“Navigation no problem, Doc. I an’ I sailin’ dis route wid de Copt’n many times. Deliver boats to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach…. Lots of time we sailin’ dis route. De islands, dem like steppin’ stones across de sea, mon. Hop to one, den cross to de next, all de way to Bobbylon. First Puerto Rico, den Dominican Republic, den Caicos, Exumas, Bimini…dem islands reachin’ all de way to Florida.”

“But Larry said we wouldn’t be stopping until we got to Florida. I thought we were going directly there instead of all those islands in the chain. And besides, we might get attacked again if we stop somewhere.”

“Not stoppin’, mon. Just pass ’em by. Dat way we be knowin’ de way. Wid de GPS dead we gotta sail de old way. Larry, he can use de sextant an’ get he position wid de stars, but I an’ I cannot cipher dat black magic. But wid de compass, de sun in de day and de North Star in de night, and passin’ close by some of de islands along de way, findin’ de way to Florida, no problem.”

“I guess he can help us if we do have a problem. He’ll probably feel like coming up on deck when the initial shock wears off and we know there’s no chance of the bleeding starting again. So which way do we go when we leave here? We’re obviously not going to stop in Puerto Rico,” Artie said, looking at the mountainous island to the west.

“No, we be sailin’ past de island on de north side. Got to stay maybe 10 mile off de coast, safe from the reef and safe from any mon in small boat tryin’ to cut us off an’ intercept. Puerto Rico ’bout a hundred mile long. Den we hop across de Mona Passage another hundred mile, den follow de coast of Dominican Republic same way. Dem got big mountains on dat island, and can see it maybe twenty mile from de ocean. No mon there he gonna catch de Casey Nicole, if de wind she hold and we stayin’ out dat far. An’ den we turnin’ north an’ pass through de Caicos an’ de Bahamas. Lot of little island in dem chain wid no mon livin’ on dem. Find good fishin’ an’ good divin’ for de lobstah if we stop for de break.”

“I don’t care about taking a break, Scully. I just want to get to New Orleans as fast as possible and make sure Casey’s okay.”

“Dat I understand, mon. Fo’ dat, we gonna need de Copt’n. I an’ I not knowin’ dat city or de way ’round anywhere in Bobbylon but dat east coast of Florida.”

“Well, I know enough to know that we’ve got to somehow sail around Florida to get to the Gulf of Mexico, I guess around the Florida Keys. And then we either follow the coast or cut straight across the Gulf to New Orleans. Larry will know which is best. After that, I don’t know how close we can get with the boat. I know people sail in Lake Pontchartrain, and there are marinas on the lakeshore, but I’ve never paid much attention to the water there. I’m always either driving or flying when I visit Casey.”

“De boat is de best way, mon. Jah nevah intend no mon to fly in de air like a fockin’ bird, and de car, dem always crashin’ on de road an’ killin’ de driver an’ de passenger too—an’ sometime killin’ some child walkin’ in de street. I an’ I t’ink dis de will of Jah to put a stop to dis madness an’ t’ink it’s why he send a mighty flash from heaven to put out de lights.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, Scully, but I do know that this has put a lot of people in a bind, and in real danger. Look what has happened already. I never dreamed I would sail through the wreckage of a plane crash, or that we would be attacked in the night by pirates with machetes. I certainly never dreamed I would be shooting at someone in the middle of the night when I went to bed, or that you would have to kill two men right here on the deck of this boat. And look at Larry…. I sure hate to think about what could happen next, and I’m worried to death about my daughter.”

“Jah he protect de righteous mon, Doc. Dem evildoers comin’ to justice now or later, and dem two pirate not de first I kill,” Scully said. “Lots of bad mon in de streets of Kingston when I growin’ up. A young mon got to fight to survive in dat place, but I leavin’ to find a bettah life in peace on de sea. Now I t’ink mehbe de peace it hard to find. I t’ink anyplace we goin’, an’ especially dat New Orleans, gonna be a dangerous place, mon.”

“All I want to do is get Casey out of there, and as soon as possible. I don’t know what we’ll do after that, but this won’t last forever, Scully. Whatever caused the lights to go out is probably over, and the grid will be rebuilt. Cars and planes and everything else will be fixed, but I know it might take some time—maybe even a lot of time—but it will be fixed, Jah or no Jah.”

An hour after dawn the tropical sun was already beating down on the decks and Artie was anxious to get underway. The trade wind had died down significantly overnight, but there was still a five-knot breeze out of the southeast, and Scully said that was all they would need to leave Isleta Palominito and sail for the open Atlantic north of Puerto Rico. Using a bucket to dip up seawater, Scully rinsed the forward decks where the blood of one of the slain assailants had stained the teak slats. Before he began his task of hauling in the anchor, Artie went below to make sure Larry was reasonably comfortable. He was relieved that his brother’s bleeding had stopped, and thankful that he was trained in what to do and that Larry’s medical kit contained what he needed to do it. A wound like his was certainly life-threatening. Things could have turned out much worse. A cloud of dark thoughts swept over him as he thought of all the people who would not be getting proper medical attention for all manner of ailments and accidents in the aftermath of this shutdown. Hospitals like the one where he worked would be flooded with people trying to get help, if they could even get to one, and then most, if not all, of them would be turned away. Some hospitals might have functioning generators that could provide basics such as lighting, but with so much dependence on electronic equipment for diagnostics, treatment, and life support, their ability to respond to the situation would be overwhelmed. If only he knew Casey was okay, he knew he wouldn’t hesitate to jump right in and do his part as he had sworn to do, and he was sure there would be opportunities later, but for now, sailing to New Orleans had to be the only goal.