Читать книгу Topsail Island - Paul Boardman - Страница 3

The bow of the twenty-five foot fishing boat lifted as its sole occupant slammed the throttle forward but as the boat began to plane his frustration subsided and he backed it off to a cruising speed of thirty-five knots. He was forty miles off shore, on the edge of the Gulf Stream, no place to abuse his boat and risk a breakdown.

The vague haze of land on the horizon became clearer and soon he could begin to distinguish the shapes of trees and houses, still miles away. Ahead he noticed a forty-foot cruiser floating calmly in the gentle swells. As he passed, he saw a middle aged woman waving at him and casually raised his hand to return the friendly gesture. The woman continued waving. It was a call for assistance, not just a friendly wave.

Maritime law dictated that it was unlawful to refuse to help a stranded vessel. It was also against the man’s nature.

Langdon immediately eased off the throttle and swung his boat within thirty feet of the cruiser.

The woman called out to him through microphone-like cupped hands. “My boat stalled and I can’t start it. I ran the batteries dead trying. I’m alone on board.”

Langdon quickly assessed the situation. Boats ran into trouble all the time but they usually called Sea Tow. Still, the woman was definitely too old and overweight to be seductive bait for any self-respecting criminal. Her boat looked in reasonable shape but was just dirty enough to indicate a lack of regular maintenance. The woman dropped her hands to her side. Even from a distance her face and body language suggested that her sense of defeat was totally sincere.

“Hang tight, I’ll circle around,” he called back.

Langdon pulled away from the cruiser and let his boat drift while he extracted a large pair of fenders from under the seats. He looked up and saw the woman securing dock lines on her starboard side and tied his fenders off to port. As he pulled alongside and shifted the transmission into neutral, the woman tossed her lines down to the lower, smaller fishing boat. Langdon tied off with quick release knots, just in case he had to make a fast get-away. When the boat was secure he looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see the woman holding a frosty glass over the rail.

“Thank you so much for stopping,” she said. “I suppose I could have radioed for a tow but I didn’t get that far. I thought I could get this damn thing started if I waited a while.”

“I’m already glad I stopped,” said Langdon, accepting the frozen Margarita.

“Would you mind coming aboard and taking a quick look at things?” the woman asked tentatively. “There’s a generator somewhere but I’ve never used it.” Then she seemed to remember her manners and introduced herself. “My name is Cynthia.”

Langdon took a sip of his drink and assessed the situation. It was odd that the middle-aged woman was alone off-shore with apparently very little experience. He rejected that idea with a degree of nautical cynicism toward land-lubbers he deemed appropriate. A lot of people thought that if they could drive a car they could handle a boat and Cynthia was no exception. But she didn’t appear to pose much of a threat and she mixed a good drink so Langdon decided to cut her a bit of slack. He passed the glass back and in one quick motion he put both hands on the cruiser’s rail, swung a foot onto the gunwale and hoisted himself up and over the rail. The woman had to look up nearly a foot to meet Langdon’s eyes as she handed his drink back to him.

“Langdon Sykes. I’m pleased to meet you Cynthia.”

“Come sit in the shade and finish your drink, Langdon. The boat can wait a few minutes.” She eased past him between the rail and the cabin and sat down on a padded seat on the stern deck under the large canvas awning. She motioned to another seat in the opposite corner but still in the shade.

“Fishing or just out for a cruise?” asked Cynthia, politely. She was trying to appear relaxed but there seemed to be an underlying tension. Probably she was on her second or third libation.

“A bit of both. The fish refused my bait. I motored up from Wilmington off-shore but decided to go home on the ICW and not bounce around so much. What do you think is wrong with your boat?”

“It was running just fine. Then it coughed and died. I tried to start it but the batteries finally gave up.” Her reply was listless, lacking the anger most people attribute to machines that break down.

Langdon took a deep swallow and finished off his drink. “Let’s take a look.”

The wheelhouse was like the rest of the boat. Everything was orderly but it had not seen a cleaning rag in months. Langdon turned on the key and studied the gauges. A light blinked on the dashboard but the fuel gauges didn’t move. There were two sets of controls for the twin engines. He let the exhaust fan run for a minute, then tried the starter button and was rewarded with nothing more than a clicking sound. Cynthia hovered in the background leaning against the doorway to the stern deck.

“I think I found the problem. You are a bit low on fuel. Empty, in fact.”

“I thought that might be the case,” Cynthia admitted.

“When did you last fill up?”

“I’ve never done that,” she answered.

There was a wet bar in the salon and Cynthia began to make another pitcher of Margaritas. Her actions were automatic, lacking in enthusiasm. Langdon watched her, wondering what was coming next.

“My husband died a few months ago. I never did that sort of thing. He would always fill up the water and fuel tanks. I should probably sell the boat.”

Langdon quickly expressed his condolences, noting the slump in Cynthia’s shoulders and the way she refused to look him in the eye.

“He was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. He always knew it would come back. The end was quick and merciful. He died at home. That’s the way he wanted it. This was the first time I took the boat out since he died. It’s the first time I ever took it out alone. I really never drove the thing myself. We had an arrangement, though. When we were docking I would drive so Bob could throw the ropes or jump onto the dock if he had to. I’m pretty damn good at docking but I don’t even know where the fuel gauge is.”

Suddenly she remembered her manners. Her back straightened and she forced a lame smile and went back to the task at hand, mixing, pouring. She looked directly into his eyes as she passed a drink to Langdon, which he accepted gratefully.

“I have a couple of jerry cans,” he said. “Enough to get you to the nearest fuel dock. You said you had a generator, so that should be fine to charge the batteries.”

For the time being Langdon decided he would be much happier getting the engines running rather than trying to console a recent widow. Without asking questions he headed to the engine room where he expected to find the generator. He was rewarded by finding not only the generator but fifty gallons of spare fuel as well. He was nearly finished transferring the fuel when Cynthia came up behind him. Her face was brighter and it looked like she had scrubbed it to wash away a round of tears.

“You probably think I’m a bit of an idiot, don’t you? First running out of gas, then draining the batteries.”

Langdon stumbled around for a positive rejoinder. “You made it out here and you said you were comfortable docking. That’s the hardest part of running a boat. If you can dock this cruiser, then I can point out where the fuel gauges are. You already had enough gas on board to get back home. It just wasn’t in the tank. By the way, where did you come out?”

“I came out the north side of Topsail Island. New River Inlet. I’ll go back the same way.”

“Not for a few hours you won’t. What time did you come out?” asked Langdon.

“About eleven. The boat conked out an hour before you arrived.”

“Well you shouldn’t even try heading back before eight or nine o’clock tonight. That’s the next high tide. New River is tricky. It’s a narrow inlet. I haven’t been through it for a couple of years but that’s where I was headed. As I recall, the channel snakes around a pretty nasty sandbar.”

“You remember correctly. I was frightened by something. I just ran down to the boat and turned the key. I never even checked the tide. I just raced out the inlet. It must have been full tide because that was the only time my husband would dare to go out.”

“The good news is that gives plenty of time to charge the batteries. All I have to do is start the generator. Everything else is good to go.”

Moments later, Langdon had the generator running and the gauges indicated that the batteries were charging. He met Cynthia on the stern deck to report the good news and discovered that his glass was again full. There was an odd assortment of snacks laid out on a table.

“Lunch is somewhat limited. There were a few tin goods and a fresh bag of peanuts in the galley so the lunch menu is limited to sardines and nuts. The bar however, is fully stocked and with the generator running we should have ice again soon.”

Part of Langdon was telling him to get back on his boat ASAP but the other part was telling him that he had a six hour layover before escorting Cynthia back to a gas dock. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. He also knew it was impossible for him to ignore both his upbringing and his conscience, so he might as well accept the fact that he was committed to helping this damsel in distress. He just wished she was thirty years younger.

“What frightened you?” Langdon asked as he reached for a handful of nuts.

“Oh that’s a very long story,” said Cynthia. “It goes all the way back to Blackbeard, himself.”

“Really!” That caught Langdon by surprise but he was immediately intrigued. “Okay, now that you’ve got my attention, I guess I’m not going to leave you here all alone for the next six hours. I’ll sit back and you can explain what Blackbeard has to do with you being out here today.”

“Oh I couldn’t ask you to babysit an old woman until the next tide,” said Cynthia.

“You didn’t ask. Go ahead, tell your story.”