“You’re crazy,” Ted screamed. “The whole damn bunch of you are crazy.”
The first bullet from the Luger grazed his right shoulder. He turned and ran toward the railing. As he jumped overboard a second bullet struck him on the left arm.
Two more struck the water at the same time that Ted did. Cleo began screaming with excitement and jumping up and down until she tripped on the hem of the white nightgown that was her bridal costume. The .22 fell out of her hand and slid across the deck in Aragon’s direction.
“Don’t move,” Donny told Aragon. “It’s a bad year for heroes.” And to Ocho, who was turning the boat around and heading back toward Ted, “Keep on course. Let the bastard drown.”
“Throw him a life jacket,” Aragon said.
“Why? A dip in the ocean will cool him off. Maybe he’ll have a change of heart and decide Cleo isn’t so bad after all.”
“He might be seriously injured. And if there are any sharks in the area, the blood will attract them.”
“I bet those sharks would be pleasantly surprised to find two guys instead of one,” Donny said. “Suppose you go in after him, amigo.”
“We’re at least a mile from shore. I can’t swim very well.”
“Learn by experience. That’s what they’re always telling us at school — learn by experience.”
“Give us a sporting chance,” Aragon said. “We need two life jackets.”
Donny took two life jackets from a forward hatch and threw them at Aragon. After removing his shoes and pants Aragon put one of the life jackets on over his shirt. Then, holding the other jacket in his hand, he jumped into the water.
Ted was some hundred yards from the boat, not yelling for help or trying to swim. His eyes were closed and Aragon thought he was unconscious until he saw that Ted’s legs were moving slightly to keep him from rolling over on his stomach.
The water temperature at this distance from shore and beyond the thick kelp beds that paralleled the coast was still well below sixty degrees. This might be low enough to slow the bleeding of Ted’s arm and help numb his pain. But it might also be low enough to cause both men to suffer from exposure unless they were picked up within an hour or so. Even without the complication of Ted’s wounds, hypothermia could be fatal without quick treatment.
The Spindrift was turning away, its engine accelerating as it headed southwest. Watching it pull away, Aragon had a moment of panic. He knew he would be unable to drag Ted over the kelp beds and in to shore, and their only hope was to be spotted by a passing boat or one of the low-flying helicopters that serviced the oil platforms.
Both were possible. The sea was calm, with a long smooth swell and no whitecaps to hide any floating object.
This was Aragon’s first attempt to swim while wearing a life jacket and he found it difficult to move his arms. He rolled over on his back and used his legs as propellants.
He shouted, “Ted, can you hear me?”
Ted opened his eyes. He looked dazed and terrified. “Shot me — arm—”
“I want you to help me get this life jacket on you.”
Ted kept saying, “Shot me — shot me—” as if he was more overcome by surprise than by a sense of danger or by pain.
“Put your injured arm through here first. Then I’ll pull the jacket around your back and get the other arm through. It may hurt but it has to be done.”
“Shot me — shot me—”
“Stop that. You have to cooperate. Understand?”
It took several minutes for the life jacket to be put on and fastened. Ted was gradually becoming more rational and more aware of the danger they were in. He asked about the Spindrift.
“It’s gone,” Aragon said. “Move your right arm and your legs as much as possible to keep your blood circulating.”
“Didn’t know — had any left.”
“You have lots left.” He wasn’t sure whether this was true or even whether he’d given the correct advice to Ted to keep moving. He only knew that the water was incredibly cold. His original estimate of being able to survive an hour or two without much damage now seemed ridiculous. He was already numb below the ankles and suffering from what was called in his boyhood an ice-cream headache. He’d never taken a lifesaving course or even one in first aid, and he wished now he had paid more attention to some of his wife’s lectures on practical medicine.
Ted said, “You shot?”
“No.”
“‘What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to cool off.”
“You got it.”
A great blue heron flew overhead, his neck folded, his long legs stretched out stiffly behind him like a defeathered tail.
Ted had closed his eyes again and the wind was picking up. These were both bad omens. The rougher the sea, the more difficult it would be for anyone to spot them, and the greater the chances of Ted choking on salt water.
“Ted, keep moving.”
“Can’t — tired.”
“A boat will come along any minute.”
“Tired. Leave me alone.”
Ted’s youth was a plus factor. But there were too many minuses. Before he was shot he’d spoken of a party on board, and it was obvious then that he was suffering a hangover from alcohol or drugs or both. Also, he probably hadn’t eaten in many hours and his resistance was lowered.
“A boat will come along any minute,” Aragon repeated. “We’ll be rescued. Do you hear me, Ted?”
If Ted heard, he didn’t believe it or didn’t care enough to open his eyes.
“Are you listening, Ted? By this time Whitfield will have gone back to the harbor and found his boat missing. He’ll send the Coast Guard out after it right away. They should be passing us any minute. Hear that, Ted? Any minute. Hang on. Don’t give up, Ted. Move. Try harder. Move.”
He kept saying the same things over and over like a coach pep-talking one of his players during a game.
The wind was still rising, and now and then his voice was choked off as a wave slapped his face. The increase in wind velocity would have the effect of luring the Lasers and Mercuries and Lidos and Victories, the Hobie Cats and Alpha Cats and Nacras. But these smaller craft usually stayed inside the kelp line. The larger craft, like the fishing fleet, had departed much earlier in the day, going out under power, some as far as the Island twenty-five miles offshore, to return in the afternoon under sail.
Aragon continued talking, using both his hands to hold Ted’s head as far out of the water as possible. The numbness had spread through his whole body and he was feeling hardly any discomfort. He remembered reading that people who froze to death didn’t suffer pain the way people did who burned to death.
He heard his own voice coaxing, ordering, questioning, demanding, and he wondered if it was all being wasted on a dead man.
“Cut it out, Ted. Now open your eyes. You’ve got to cooperate. Get in there and pitch. Keep kicking your legs. We’re going to be rescued. Any minute. Any minute. You hear? Open your eyes, dammit, open your eyes.”
But his voice was getting weaker and the numbness seemed to have reached his brain like a dose of Pentothal. When he finally heard the engine he was only mildly interested, and the men yelling at him seemed to be making a fuss over nothing. One of them had orange hair and looked a little like some woman, someone he’d known a long time ago. A long long time ago...
The orange hair emerged from the fog like a sunrise. It had a face in the middle, not a young face or a pretty one, but familiar and reassuring.
“You really blew it this time, junior,” Charity Nelson said. “I brought you some carnations. That’s how I know you’re awake. I put one under your nose and your nostrils twitched.”