Chapter 45 - BUOY

Cyr and Walker were sitting in BALI's cockpit, silently smoking cigars and drinking designer coffee in the blowing mist, when the whaler full of gunmen and hostages buzzed in out of the fog. The sailors jumped up to watch the sudden flight of Caldwell and Liz, and the abortive pursuit by Monk and Bobo. When Dunk got Sumner's motor running again, coughing and sputtering, he steered the whaler up to the side of the Concordia.

"You fucked up bigtime, Cowboy," were Monk's first words.

"Ah see y'all been roundin up the strays fo us, Mistah Monk," Walker replied, "An ahm raght preciative."

"Shut it wid the Coonass, asshole," Bobo put in.

"Y'all doane like mah native tongue?" Walker persisted.

"I'll cut yo native tongue outa yo native head, if you fuck wid us again," Bobo snarled.

"Well DO come aboard, Mistah Bo," Walker drawled, unrepentant, "an enjoy our native hospitality."

Something had happened to Walker in the night. Maybe it was that glimpse of himself in the porthole glass, or the litany of his confessions, or the pain of the slash across his face. Whatever it was, he'd woken clear-headed and unafraid.. and ready for some diversion. He didn't even feel like tooting up, or having some brandy with his coffee.

"This time I've screwed up about as bad as I can," he'd been thinking, "and I've got nothing left to prove. So.. we've made our play, now let's enjoy it." At rock bottom all Walker had left with was a deep reserve of good humor. It's what got him through that snotty prep school and the high-faluting university, and maybe it could get him out of this mess. As Bobo threatened him, the cowboy grinned silently, without a hint of nervous smirk.

Cyr noticed the resurrection of the old Walker with relief. Walker's face radiated mischief. The curtain was up, let the play begin. "Miss Marianne, I do believe," Cyr said to the dark-haired anthropologist in the whaler. " May I offer you a mid-morning repast."

"Frig it wid the repast, Schnozzo," Bobo snapped. "Get the fuck onna boat," he gestured at Marianne and Dunk with his shotgun. Marianne picked up Jesse, and handed him over the safety-line to Cyr's offering hands. Dunk tied the whaler's bow line to a stanchion, and followed Marianne onto BALI. The two gunmen awkwardly climbed aboard.

"Cigars, gentlemen?" Walker offered.

"What the fuck izzit wid you?" Bobo asked, shoving the sawed-off into Walker's gut. But the cowboy didn't even back up. He just silently tipped his Stetson to the huge thug.

"I could blow dat smile offa your face, scumbag," Bobo warned. But he wasn't real sure how Chinetti or Mainardi would take that. The mobsters had some kinda funny thing about Walker. Like you could kick him around, but you couldn't kill him. Didn't make much sense to Bobo.

Marianne and Jesse were trying to stay as far away from the violent men as they could in the confines of the sailboat. Dunk had helped them onto the starboard side deck, and Marianne was sitting on the cabin top with Jesse standing between her knees. Dunk had positioned himself blocking easy access to that section of deck.

Cyr, standing inthe companionway, said, "Coffee, anyone?"

Bobo was rattled. Here he was terrorizing these snots, and they were acting like it was a picnic. He spun away from Walker and fired a blast over Cyr's head, spooking the birds feeding on the shore. The blast echoed off the islands. In the ensuing silence, the bawling of seagulls seemed very loud.

"OK," Monk said, hoping to calm Bobo before he went berserk. "Make us some coffee, asshole. An the rest of youse shaddap." Walker winked at Cyr from behind Bobo's back. Cyr gladly went below to fire the stove.

But Bobo wasn't to be calmed that easy. He'd been at a low boil since Sidearm and that Amazon had outsmarted them yesterday, and having to take orders from Rizzo, who was just a penny ante hustler next to Mainardi, hadn't made it any better. Now he and Monk were in charge, and he had some steam to blow off.

Bobo glanced around at his hostages. That boy, Dunk, was still white from getting punched in the gut, and wouldn't meet his eye. Good. And the little kid was shaking with tears in his eyes. What about the girl?

Marianne was staring into the fog with her jaw set and her eyes narrowed. When she looked briefly over her shoulder, her angry eyes met Bobo's, and she didn't look away quick enough.

"What izzit sweetheart?" Bobo asked. "Never seen a real man in action?" Marianne stared silently into the fog, trying not to get engaged. But now Bobo was fixated on her. His eyes ran up and down her body, covered as it was by jeans and a jacket.

"How would you like to have a real man inside you? Huh? A real BIG man?" Bobo was warming to the idea. "Wouldn't that feel good?"

"I think I know where the drugs are," Dunk spoke into the tense silence.

"What?" Monk asked, startled.

Bobo turned his attention to Dunk. "You little shit," he snarled. "You knew all along.."

"No," Dunk said softly. "I just figured it out." The honesty of his answer rang true. Dunk had, in fact, just realized the barrel was at the end of that unmarked buoy line.

"All right, Dinkface, " Bobo said, finally distracted from a little mid-day rape. "Where izzit?"

"Over there," Dunk said, raising his hand and pointing at the unmarked bouy 30 yards astern of the sailboat.

Dunk had been staring at the buoy for the past few minutes, trying to remember what was nagging him about it. When he'd grabbed it last evening he'd been too intent on what was happening to Liz on the other whaler to pay it any mind, but now he wondered what an unpainted buoy was doing out here. It was illegal to set any gear attached to an unmarked float, and foolish, to boot. It would be fair game for anyone else to pick up. And there was something else.. o yes. When he'd grabbed the buoy line there'd been baling twine knotted onto it, and something dragging just below surface. It had smelled.. yes.. it smelled like burlap. Dunk knew the old poacher's trick too. Somebody had sunk that buoy with salt. And Dunk had heard a boat like the SUZY-Q in the Hole the night before.

"I think that's where Sonny hid the barrel," he said. While everyone else stared at the buoy, Dunk took a quick glimpse over his shoulder at Marianne. There were tears in her eyes, and she mouthed, "I love you." Dunk quickly looked back at Bobo.

"All right, Dinkhead," Bobo said. "Show us."

Bobo and Monk and Dunk got back into the whaler. Dunk switched on the ignition and the outboard fired, then sputtered at a low idle. Dunk went forward to untie the painter. As he did so he stared straight at Mary. "Cut and run," he ventriloquized in a projecting whisper. She nodded. Dunk looked quickly at the gunmen, but they'd heard nothing.

Dunk ran Bobo and Monk down to the buoy, and made a great show of hauling up the barrel. As soon as it came off the bottom, the tide began to carry EQUAL'S away from BALI, and soon the Concordia was fading in the fog.

Marianne set Jesse on the companionway steps, and told him to hang on. She and the two sailors conferred quickly in the cockpit. "Can you get us under sail?" Marianne demanded, looking at Walker, then at Cyr.

The men looked at each other. Cyr shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe enough to get away. You can sail?" He asked Marianne.

"I've sailed," she said simply.

They could see Dunk was letting the whaler drift into the fog. It became more obscure. Then faded away.

"OK," Walker said. "Let's do it."

"You steer," Cyr said to Marianne. "Come with me, he said to Walker, leaping onto the cabintop and hastily undoing the sailcover. Marianne saw what he was doing and loosened the section over her head.

"Go forward and bring up a sail," Cyr told Walker, and while the big cowboy dove into the forward hatch, Cyr grabbed the halyard winch handle and cranked up the mainsail as fast as he could. He knew he was forgetting steps, but the sooner there was canvas up, the better.

Marianne hadn't done that much big yacht sailing, but she'd crewed a couple times, and done some dingy racing. She knew the basic idea, and tried to think her way through the necessary steps. She saw the mainsheet was all coiled and tied, holding the boom amidships, and she quickly undid the knots and freed the blocks so it could swing.

The wind in Bunker's Hole was erratic, but mostly it was blowing from the southwest, more or less with the tide. To get away without running down on the gunmen, they would have to sail, or motor, out through the passage Dunk had brought the gangsters in. But to turn on the motor was a dead giveaway. Maybe real dead. They would have to sail very close to windward.

As the mainsail rose it shook and flapped, making what seemed like a terrible racket, but there were no cries from the whaler. Marianne saw the boom crutch was jamming the works, and not knowing about the topping lift, she jumped onto the cabintop, and jerked the boom up out of the crutch with brute force. The boom swung out to port, banging on the cabin top until Cyr got it raised to the peak, at which point the sail and boom swung free. Marianne took down the crutch. With the anchor still set, the flooding tide had BALI pointed toward the door they wanted, out to sea.

Walker was making a hash of getting a jib hanked on, but there was no time for it. Cyr grabbed the anchor line and hauled for dear life, hand over hand. As the anchor broke ground, BALI started to backslide, and Marianne pulled in the mainsheet as fast as she could. The big Concordia leaned gently, and was underway. Headed straight for the sheer cliffs of Big Spruce, a looming shadow in the fog.

"Hold that," Cyr ordered Walker, pushing the anchor rode into his hands. The hook was barely off the ground, and they could drop it again if necessary. Cyr had the tail end of the jib halyard over his shoulder, and as soon as the other end was snapshackled to the peak of the jib, Cyr ran up five or six feet of sail, snapped a passing clip on the forestay, yarded up another ten feet, snapped another clip, and so on, until the sail was flapping wildly all the way up the stay, but secured enough to draw. Walker had brought up the big jenney, which was a bit of luck. Cyr dove on the coiled sheets just before they went over the port rail. Then he pulled the peak up tight, secured the halyard to the nearest cleat, and ran aft along the port rail, pulling the clew of the jib with him.

The big jenny filled out, and the Concordia dug in deeper, pointed higher into the wind. Marianne had never sailed a machine like this before, but BALI was light to the touch, and the young woman knew enough to keep her off the wind and her sails drawing. Now the granite bluffs of Big Spruce were clarifying out of the mist ahead.

Cyr was standing on the port rail beside the cockpit, untangling the jib sheets with one hand, the other holding the sail taut, his knees wedged under the safety line. "OK," he grinned at her, "Ready about." He hissed. She nodded. "Hard alee."

Marianne threw the tiller over, and Cyr ran forward along the port rail pulling the corner of the sail with him. As he passed between the mast and the forestay he spoke softly to Walker, "Pull that sucker up." Walker brought up the anchor line in great jerks.

BALI came up into the wind, her mainsail fluttering, and Marianne realized she should shorten the main sheet, but before she could do more than grab the line, the Concordia swung through stays, and the main filled on the other side with a soft report. Marianne corrected her course and pulled the sheet tight, jamming it in the cleat.

Cyr was now beside her on the starboard side, with the jib sheets uncoiled. He took a quick turn around the winch head with one, and pulled it hand-tight, tying the end to a cleat.

"O you beauty," he whispered. Marianne didn't know if he meant her or BALI. All their eyes were glittering with the thrill of it. The Big Concordia dug in and tacked across the Hole toward Little Spruce. The cliffs disappeared behind them.

Cyr ran round the foredeck with the other jibsheet, reeving it though the proper blocks on deck, and bringing it aft on the port side. It didn't seem but a moment and the ledges on Little Spruce started to appear ahead. Cyr whispered, "Ready about... Hard alee." Marianne cast off the starboard jib sheet and put BALI on the other tack, as though she'd done it all her life. Cyr hauled his sheet, winched the jib tight, and made it fast. BALI was heeled down and racing through the water. Close hauled on this course they might just make it out the other door, and get away.They grinned foolishly at one another.

Walker had stowed and secured the anchor and anchor rode, and was clipping on as many of the jib clips on the forestay as he could reach. Cyr quickly rove the starboard jibsheet properly, in case they had to tack again. The he began uncovering the mizzen sail to set it.

Behind them in the fog, they heard a sudden shouting, and the sound of the whaler outboard revving, and coughing, and revving again. But the sound was fading, and they began to feel the rise and fall of seas humping into the mouth of the passage.

Marianne suddenly broke into tears. "Dunk," she cried. " O Dunk." Cyr took the tiller out of her hands, and she collapsed on the cockpit seats, crying desperately.

BALI heeled down hard as she came out of the lee of Little Spruce, and she bucked into the slopping seas, going full tilt boogie.

Walker stood on the foredeck, holding the forestay with his left hand, waving his Stetson with his right. "Ridem Cowboy," he said quietly to himself.