Chapter 56 - OLD PORT

Cyr and Walker saw the whaler racing out from a break in the island wall, followed quickly by the fishing boat in hot pursuit.

"Y'all thank dis da chase scene, skeepair?" Walker drawled, looking up from working the manual pump.

But it didn't seem so funny when the faint reports of gunshots came down the wind toward them. Cyr continued to hug the island side of the passage, taking the seas on BALI's port bow. The Concordia was riding deep with another bellyful of water, and the actor hoped to find a way out of the chop to ease her.

It hadn't been until they clawed off the cliffs that they discovered the yawl had spewed her caulking again, or at least was taking on water forward. They had a frantic half hour or so bailing, while Cyr held BALI's nose to the seas with the engine just giving her steerage. Finally they seemed to be gaining on the leaks. Now they were motoring slowly toward shelter, they hoped. The wind and seas would have carried her outside the islands, and to one kind of safety, but they decided they'd rather risk the mobsters than the mysteries of the deep. At least now the drugs had turned up.

"Sahds which,' Walker had suggested, "we maght ack as de-livery boys yet."

"I rather mistrust the evil Chinetti has found other minions to masticate," Cyr said.

"He does have a bone to pick with usins, howevah, an ol bones make the bes gnawin," Walker observed.

"I guess I'm confabulated, Silvertoes," Cyr confessed. "I thought we were taking flight to avoid the vile toils of the Mad Monk and the Dodo. Now we're going to embrace them?"

Walker was silent. In fact he wasn't quite sure why he'd conspired in the getaway in the fog. Was it just the adventure, the delight in outfoxing the thugs? Was it to ride a fear-driven rush of adrenaline? But he and Cyr really didn't have anything to fear from Chinetti, did they? So long as the dope got delivered, Rizzo was only on their case about the 50K, and there were always other deals. Or was this the last deal he'd be offered?

Walker wasn't big on self-analysis. He tended to do what he felt like, and work out the kinks later. What niggled at the back of his mind, however, was the image of himself as some kind of monster. He'd seen the look in Liz's eye after he'd slapped her, and the joy of his coked-up anger had risen in his throat when he saw the dead puppy drifting into the fog. Had he really done that? Planned to rape the girl? Terrorized the kid? It was a monster's face he'd seen in the portlight.

Maybe he'd helped Marianne escape from the thugs as some kind of penance. An act of redemption? Was his willingness to face Rizzo more of the same? A facing up to things? To himself? Walker's thoughts shied away from such introspection.

"Maghts well dance wid em, long's they brung us," was all Walker said.

As BALI worked her way slowly up against the white-capped seas, to where the boats had appeared, the sailors began to see into the narrow passageway they'd exited. Beyond it was a sheltered anchorage between high islands. Never having seen Bunker's Hole in clear daylight, they couldn't be sure this was where they'd been anchored, but.. any port in a storm. Cyr conned them into the Hole, and they dropped the hook out of the wind and seas.

It was astonishingly beautiful in the quite waters between the islands. A mature bald eagle was perched on a dead tree above the cliff wall of Big Spruce, making a subtle pattern of blacks and whites. Cyr shut off the engine. BALI streamed backwards with the tide and fetched up on her anchor. A puff of wind downdrafted across the Hole, ruffled up to the yawl, and snapped her mizzen like shaking a rug. The eagle jumped, swooping toward them until its wings lifted, then rose up with a few great beats, until it met the moving air tossing the tree tops, and sailed off downwind.

Now BALI's hull wasn't working in the waves, the leaks had slackened, and the electric pump was draining the last of the bilge. Down below, the Concordia was a shambles. The triple knockdown had emptied every cupboard and storage bin, shaking everything together on the floor, then drowning it in seawater. Neither Walker nor Cyr had the energy to face it yet, but the cowboy, without his hat, did go below long enough to rescue a bottle of old port. He couldn't find the corkscrew, but came up with a steak knife. Walker savaged the cork until he could shove it down into the bottle.

"To arh continued good forchun, mah fren," Walker said, tilting the bottle Cyr's way, then taking a slug from the neck. Cyr toasted Walker silently, in turn. The leaned back on the bare cockpit seats.. the cushions had gone overboard in the knockdowns, and basked inthe summer sun. Passed the port back and forth. Cotton puffballs of clouds raced overhead.