Читать книгу Anne Bonny's Wake - Dick Elam - Страница 7

CHAPTER 1

I paid closer attention to the weathercast when I heard:

“North winds in Pamlico Sound today: blowing ten to fifteen miles per hour . . .”

“Possible thunderstorm activity forecast for the evening . . .”

With today’s predicted winds, today’s sail to Oriental would be no problem. I should dock long before dinner. An easy four- or five-hour sail.

When I hung up the Anne Bonny radio, my hand brushed the urn. I rubbed the brass. Missed her. For a week, I had cruised the North Carolina Intracoastal Waterway, docked at old anchorages, visited old friends. Same sailboat. But not the same, not without Annie. I’d discovered that you can’t, really, go home again.

Smelled for gas fumes. My nose read “all clear.” On damp mornings, when I light the stove to make coffee, I don’t want to spark a gasoline fire.

The screwdriver I inserted helped slide the hatch cover open. Before the sun dries the wood, the hatch wood runners swell. When we had owned the Anne Bonny, I’d rigged a rope handle to help open the hatch. Gone. Rotted after four years. This absent-minded professor remembered to enter a repair note into the “Log of the Anne Bonny.”

5/24/82 At anchor, sunrise, Bear Creek. To Oriental, Mon. buy stretch cord. new hatch rope

When I’d chartered the boat last week, the agent had complimented me: “You owned the sloop before I bought her. Well, you had fixed her up right much,” he said.

Scratches told me the Anne Bonny hadn’t seen many lovers since I sold her. When I tugged back the overhead hatch cover, the wood squeaked. I removed the three Plexiglas hatch covers, all scratched, the top panel still fairly clear. Climbed up into the cockpit. My toes squished the morning dew. I found the sponge and mopped a place to sit. One cruising-alone reward was to sail into a quiet cove, set your anchor, and enjoy nature’s silence.

Gray clouds rode at anchor off Anne Bonny’s beam. The clouds parted to allow a patch of blue sky. A hint of orange rose below the clouds. It would be sunrise in a couple of minutes.

When I went below to make instant coffee, I filled the dented, aluminum teapot with water, placed the whistle on the kettle spigot, lit the stove, and climbed back up the steps. Didn’t intend to wait below ten minutes until the pot boiled.

Sunrise reflected on still waters. Pine trees cloaked Bear Creek, but the rising sun backlighted the pines and cast shadows on the quiet waters. Nice May morning.

Circles in the water announced feeding fish. A gluttonous croaker, or maybe a bluefish, helped enlarge the concentric ripples. The ripples marched toward the Anne Bonny bow.

But the fish ripples never reached the front of the boat.

Small ripples met oncoming ripples, and surrendered. Advancing ripples marched, double-time, toward where I sat. I leaned to look. Saw nothing forward, so I leaned across the cockpit and peered into Anne Bonny’s shadow.

Flinched.

A swimmer. A visible face. Black eyes, framed by an ivory face.

Our eyes locked. I stared at dark eyebrows, brunette hair. The head moved along the port side, reached the back corner of the boat.

Hersh, I told myself, that’s a woman.

The woman glided in a “silent swim”—the stroke practiced by commandos, spies, and poachers. Curious, I thought. Why so mysterious? Doesn’t she see me looking at her?

She turned her mouth to catch air. She swam behind the stern, took another breath, curled her red lips. I saw white teeth, a slacked lower lip. I peered through the safety lines and watched her pull herself to the back of the boat. Long, wet hair clung to her bare shoulders.

When she pulled to the back of the boat, I saw she wore cut-off denim jeans that hugged her hips.

With one hand, the woman grasped the wire backstay that ran from the top of the mast to a stern strut extension. I saw supple arms, bent knees, toes that touched the stern.

Her eyes darted left, then right, and over her shoulder. When she looked back at me, her eyes smiled, her mouth corners laughed. I must have looked astounded more than perplexed.

I smiled. She smiled back. I moved aft, leaned over the transom, and remembered my manners:

“Hi. You want to come aboard?”

“Yes.” She spoke in a quiet, resonant, alto tone.

“I’ll get the boarding ladder. Just a minute.” I opened the seat cover and brought out the aluminum folding ladder. I hung the ladder over the stern. Wondered just how smart I had been to invite a total stranger aboard.

She raised her other hand and confirmed what I’d seen in the murky water. She was topless. I tried not to stare at her bare breasts. I diverted my eyes toward her foot on the second rung.

I grabbed her hand and pulled.

She rose from the water, an Aphrodite emerging from her lover Poseidon’s ocean parlor. Both feet on the transom, she balanced above me, looked down into my eyes. My jaw dropped. I hadn’t seen an exposed female chest for over three years.

She ended the dance, grabbed a metal stanchion, and stepped into the cockpit. She turned her back to me. I retreated as she brushed water off her shoulders, down her jeans. With her toes, she mopped water into the cockpit drain. She shook her hair. Then repeated her brushing.

Watched. Asked myself: What do you say to a half-naked beauty? Produce a towel? Offer clothes? I decided to introduce myself.

“Welcome aboard. I’m—” I began. Then quit when she placed an index finger over her lips. She listened intently. I listened, then followed her look toward the Sound.

I recognized the distant noise as an outboard motor. The motor whined, then diminished to a purr. Then, I heard the sound increase.

She pushed past me, placed her arms atop the hatch, and swung down into the cabin. Reaching back, she lifted the three opaque hatch panels and inserted the boards into their slot. She pulled on the cabin hatch top. When it didn’t budge, she shrugged her shoulders.

We listened to the motor sound coming closer. I looked at her crouched below the open hatch. She frowned, then went forward into the head and closed the bathroom door behind her.

The sun rose on the Pamlico Sound as a motorboat entered Bear Creek. The driver revved the engine and aimed toward my anchored Anne Bonny.