“Hard to port,” he yelled down at the old fisherman, and leapt back onto the foredeck and then into the cockpit.
“Our boat’s at about east southeast,” he said.
Captain Olly squinted through his dirty wheelhouse window and scowled.
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said.
“Get these groceries out of sight, Frank,” Neil said. As Frank began to maneuver the cart down below, Neil could see to his right a spectacular wash of red spreading across the horizon, the great gray mass from the explosion now an incongruously glorious crimson. Only the undersides of a few cumulus clouds were still touched with light, and then they too turned to pink. Lucy Mae chugged forward at only about six knots.
“You fellows got a plan?” the old man asked.
Neil and Frank looked at each other, and when Olly saw that they didn’t, he shook his head.
“You ain’t got a plan,” he said, frowning at them like a disappointed father.
“If they’re becalmed, we can offer to give them a tow,” Neil mused aloud.
“I don’t think they’s gonna be too trustful when they sees the men whose boat they just stole.”
“The two of us will hide below,” Neil went on. “Captain, you offer them a tow or to sell them some food, and bring Lucy Mae alongside the trimaran. Have one of them come aboard to make their towline fast or to check your food supplies. It’ll be fairly dark by the time we overtake them. When one comes aboard Lucy Mae, I’ll go out the forward hatch and rush the one who’s still on board Vagabond. You and Frank jump the man who’s here on Lucy Mae.”
“Sounds good, sonny.”
“Can we go any faster?” Neil asked.
“Maybe, but those fellas may have binoculars. You fellas better lie low.”
“Frank,” Neil said, “get a big bag of groceries and leave it out in plain sight. Stow the rest in the cabin.”
Neil looked forward. The sun had set, but in the early twilight they could still see for almost a mile. Lucy Mae chugged steadily east southeast. Neil could no longer see Vagabond.
“I don’t see it,” Frank said from beside him.
“Where?” Neil asked urgently, misunderstanding what he’d said.
“I said I don’t see anything!” Frank shouted at Neil.
Cobble Island was still to their left, some shoals to their right and dead ahead…
“There she is!” Neil said, pointing, and there, barely visible a mile away in the dusk, her three hulls silhouetted now against the distant shore, was Vagabond. Captain Olly slowed down his boat and squinted into the distance. All three of them were straining forward in the dusk as Lucy Mae chugged ahead loudly.
“Get below!” Olly shouted, and just then the bright white flash of a spotlight from Vagabond swept over Lucy Mae.
Frank and Neil ducked their heads and scrambled forward into the little cabin. The old man opened up the throttle some to increase speed back to eight knots. He switched on his running lights.
“What are you going to do?” Neil shouted over the hammering of the engine. He was peering up at the old man from the cabin entrance way.
“Same plan, sonny!” the captain yelled back and then motioned for them to be quiet. His hand trembling, Captain Olly’s face was pale. With his lips drawn back exposing his gums and his few remaining teeth, his face had a slightly mad expression. He kept his little craft throbbing steadily forward, and the strange three-hulled, insectlike trimaran loomed up slowly out of the darkness. For ten minutes the two boats drew closer, Neil and Frank straightening up the grocery mess below, Captain Olly eventually singing softly to himself.
“Ain’t gonna sink her till the sun sets low,” he began in a low, cracking voice. “Don’t care how much the wind does blow, I got a few fishies still to stow, so… ain’t gonna sink her till the sun sets low… Ahoy, spaceship!” he suddenly shouted and Neil took out his pistol and crawled forward to undo the forward hatch cover.
Lucy Mae was only fifty feet behind and slightly to port of Vagabond when the old man hailed her. He slowed down slightly while he waited for an answer. There were two men in the unlit wheelhouse of the trimaran, and one of them moved into the port cockpit.
“What do you want?” Jerry shouted.
“You fellas want me to give you a tow?” Olly shouted back. “Do it pretty cheap.” He slowed Lucy Mae down until she was going at the same speed as the trimaran, now only thirty feet away. Jerry turned back to the man at the helm.
“No, thanks,” he finally shouted back.
“You fellas stay on this course and in another two minutes you’ll run aground,” Olly said amiably. The two men looked at each other and Macklin went forward to check the instrument panel.
“Our depthmeter shows twelve feet of water,” he said loudly.
“Well, then, I reckon I must be sixteen feet tall,” the old fisherman said. “’Cause I get in my high boots and go clammin’ right here every Saturday low tide and four feet of me sticks outa the water.”
Macklin stared back at Vagabond’s instrument panel.
“Get the boat hook,” he ordered Jerry.
Olly slipped Lucy Mae’s throttle forward and eased the boat slowly ahead, against the tide and toward the left side of the big trimaran. It was almost dark.
“Careful of the sharks,” Captain Olly suggested quietly.
“What sharks?” Jerry asked nervously as he approached the side of the trimaran to test the depth.
“School of small sharks feedin’ here in the shoals. Better not put your hand too near the water.”
Lucy Mae was moving slowly ahead only a foot or two from Vagabond. Jerry looked uncertainly at the boat hook and then back at Macklin.
“You fellas sure you don’t want me to give you a tow out of here? Only cost you fifty bucks an hour.”
“Who the hell are you?” Macklin burst out and turned the spotlight on, sweeping the length of Lucy Mae and then holding it steady for a moment on the old man.
“Cap’n Oliver Mann,” the old man answered, flashing a toothless grin up into the light. “Cap’n Olly, they calls me. Just an old geezer tryin’ to earn a crooked buck. You want some Colombian pot? Or 1 can sell you this here bag of groceries cheap too. Cost only forty.”
“That’s twice what it must have cost you,” Macklin barked back, turning off the spotlight.
“Cost me yesterday,” the old man replied, still smiling. “Price tripled today. Be eight times that tomorrow, I reckon.” Lucy Mae bumped the side of Vagabond. “Hold this line, will ya, young fella?” Captain Olly tossed a mooring line to Jerry, who instinctively grabbed it and made it fast to a cleat on the forepart of Vagabond’s port cockpit.
“Let’s see your groceries,” Macklin said, coming over to stand beside Jerry, his big gun clenched in his right hand.
“It’s right here, sonny,” the old man said amiably, turning on his flashlight and pointing it at the bag of groceries.
“Hand it up here and let us have a look,” Macklin said.
“I ain’t got enough strength in my back to lift a teacup off a saucer,” Captain Olly said. “One of you young fellas’ll have to come aboard and haul it out.”
“Hand it up here,” Macklin repeated.
“I tell you, sonny, my back won’t take it.”