Humanaty's Blight

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sue hooked a salmon in the late afternoon, near Fort Casey, an old military installation built around nineteen-hundred that had served through two world wars. Huge guns were positioned to fire across a narrow channel to sink ships on their way to Seattle from the Pacific Ocean. Any enemy ships would have had to pass it. Just in case, there were two more forts located across the channel. Ships sailing past would be pounded by huge guns from both sides.

The salmon bent the pole in half, taking the tip nearly down to touch the water, the barrel of the reel screamed in protest as line fed out. At the time, we were both napping in the rare sunshine, me trying to remain awake enough to keep the Truant on course after a nearly sleepless night. We leaped to our feet and Sue started reeling in her fishing line.

“What can I do?” I asked.

“I got this,” she cried, as more line stripped out.

I hit the button to furl the jib half-way. That slowed the boat to a crawl, so she was not contending with the speed of the boat while dragging the fish. She fought the salmon for ten minutes until it tired enough to allow itself to come nearer the boat. Once she had it at the side of the boat, she hesitated. The thing was close to two-feet long. “We need a net.”

She had the still struggling fish on the line right next to us. Lifting it free of the water would probably break the line or the fish would flip off. I kept the wind in the sail and waited, not knowing what to do. My job was to keep the boat going steadily forward.

“I said, we need a net!”

“You want me to go get one?” I had no idea what she wanted or where to get it.

“A dip net, silly. With a long handle. In the storeroom, the one on the right side.”

I let the wheel go, felt the change in the motion of the boat instantly, but rushed below. Inside the door to what had been a bedroom were racks and shelves like in a library, repair parts, spares, oil cans, supplies, clothing, and hundreds of other things. In one corner stood a pole with a net a yard wide.

Back beside Sue, she guided the fish that had ideas of its own about entering my net. Finally, her efforts and my frustrated scoops met with success. We brought a fish aboard that weighed an easy ten pounds.

“Salmon for dinner,” she shouted as she tried to dance, despite standing beside me in the confined area of the cockpit.

For her, it was the culmination of selecting the lure, setting the pole, letting out the right amount of line, and reeling in the fish. For me, it took on a more esoteric victory. For the first time since the flu struck, we were not consumers of the leavings of those who came before us. We had provided for ourselves, much as the original settlers of the area had done for thousands of years.

Before she carried her catch inside, Sue used her knife to cut the head off the fish, which meant sawing through the backbone, then cutting the belly open and scooping out the insides with her bare hand. She threw it over the side. In no time, she had twenty seagulls feasting and calling for more. She tossed stringy pieces high into the air and the birds caught them.

After adjusting the wheel to turn the boat and catch the wind in the jib as I let it back out. The boat reacted as if I’d hit the throttle on the engine. The exhilarating feeling was one of total success. With nothing but the breeze that made a few small whitecaps on the water propelled us faster than the engine. I was a sailor. Sort of.

I skipped the complicated or confusing pages and went to the meat of the lessons. I didn’t need the details, just the main information. As I studied how the wind caught a jib sail and could carry a boat almost directly into the wind, odd music sounded. I stood up and found no other boats nearby.

The door to the cabin opened and Sue stuck her head out as the strange sounds became louder with the opening of the door. “Can you help me?”

The music was music unlike any I’d ever heard. It was also filled with wavering static. I let the wheel go, felt the boat swerve and stop again, and followed her inside. The music was louder, with flutes, odd twangs, and other alien sounds among the hisses and scratches. It sounded Japanese or Chinese. Asian, of one kind or another.

She went to the desk and gauges and pointed to a radio mounted to the wall. “The only music I can get is that crap. It’s on all the channels that work. Either that or gibberish talk.”

Stunned, I stood aside as she spun a large dial and moved from one static-filled station to another. She was on the AM band, but only got static or Asian talking and music. That was odd because American stations were much closer. The radio dial said, “short wave” and I’d heard of that phrase but didn’t know exactly what it meant except it was used in emergencies. What I did know, was the AM radio frequencies on the dial were what should be American stations if there were others broadcasting.

The idea that the radio picked up stations halfway around the world suggested that there were no working stations in America. However, if that was true, there shouldn’t be stations in Asia, either. Not if they also faced the same flu that had killed so many of us.

A chill worked its way up my back. That last thought was cold. If radio stations in Asia still broadcast, did that mean they were immune to the flu? Or, was I misreading everything?

“Can’t you find a real station for us to listen to? Even if it has only country music?” Sue whined.

While music hadn’t ever been important to me, the music we heard suddenly felt very significant. I didn’t want to alarm Sue or jump to incorrect conclusions. “Later. Finish with the salmon and then play with the radio. Move the dial slowly and see if you can find any American stations. Maybe on another band.”

I went out onto the deck, took hold of the wheel, my hands shaking. The men who hunted us at the mining tunnels had scared me, the motorcycle gang in Darrington had done the same. Even the men who attacked the old man’s house at Priest Point had scared me. They were familiar foes in one way or another. None of the past instances gave me the kind of fear that listening to the strange music on the radio did.

The Internet had said the flu was universal. I’d believed that.

Now I didn’t.

What about French, German, or Italian? Were others broadcasting?

With trembling hands, I turned the wheel and let the jib find the wind again. It filled and pulled us ahead. But my mind was not on the sail or on the boat. It was across an ocean where strange-sounding music was being transmitted.

How was it being transmitted if many people of their people had died of the flu, and their power grid failed as ours had? If they had died by the hundreds of millions, who were the radio broadcasts being aimed at? It didn’t make sense. Automation? Could the broadcasts be recorded, the power from batteries that hadn’t yet run down?

A sailboat with a white sail emerged from the clutter of the coastline of Whidbey Island and It sailed parallel to us. That in itself was not too surprising. We were not the only ones to realize the importance of a sailboat as a floating home for the future or the relative safety of the San Juan Islands. What was upsetting was that it didn’t pull away or outpace us.

Any sailor in any boat should have easily outrun us and our jib. The fact that it hadn’t concerned me as I soul-searched to find a possible reason. It sailed no faster or slower as if it was waiting for dark, so it could sneak up and attack us.

“Sue, have you seen a spyglass or telescope down there?”

“Binoculars. Will they do?” She emerged with them in hand. They were larger than any I’d ever seen. When I put them to my eyes and focused, the white sailboat leaped into view. There were only three people on deck. They were not acting strange and I saw no weapons.

All of that meant nothing.

Sue went below again, off on another pursuit of her own. It seemed we’d divided the ship to above decks and below. Her domain was keeping her busy.

We had several miles of nothing but open water to our left. I expanded the view on the GPS and found we were heading for the edge of the Salish Sea, a name I hadn’t known existed. What it did, was go all the way from our location out to the Pacific Ocean, which I estimated was sixty miles away.

My plan had been to continue sailing north to Orcas, Lopez, and San Juan Islands, where I hoped to find a safe place to anchor. There were many inlets and smaller islands. The sailboat on my right still worried me. I hit the button to roll in the jib slightly, reducing the amount of sail and slowing us a little as a test to see if the other boat slowed. Then I slowed us again, a half-hour later. We were barely making progress.

The other boat remained in the same relative location, right off our side, the same distance away. I’d slowed again, taking in nearly half our remaining sail so we only had forward progress enough to steer. I then let the jib full out. All of it. The brisk breeze scooted us ahead like a dry leaf on a road in the fall.

Either they were following us, or they were not. What had happened so far might be a coincidence or have another explanation. The abrupt change in our speed would tell me for sure. It made no difference in some ways because I couldn’t outrun them. My knowledge of sailing was only enough to go a few miles an hour and be satisfied. We might have to defend ourselves with our guns.

The other boat obviously knew where we were. We might even show up on their radar, so besides outrunning us, they would know right where we were—even after dark. We wouldn’t know where it was. The one thing that became evident was that it was lurking and watching as it increased its speed to match ours again. Waiting for something.

Waiting for darkness? That seemed the most likely answer. But how did they know we didn’t have radar and might evade them in the dark? Maybe Truant did have radar. We had GPS, so maybe we also had radar and I hadn’t found it. But the point was that they didn’t know. Those people on the other boat couldn’t know.

They were too far away to see how many people we had on our boat, and we couldn’t tell how many were on it. Maybe we had a platoon of sharpshooters to repel boarders. Or two or three expert snipers. The fact was, they knew about as much of us and our capabilities as we knew about them.

A flash from an old army movie came to mind. The hero said something like, “You never pick a fight you’re going to lose, and it’s stupid to enter a fight when things are even. Even means you’re going to lose half your battles.”

He was right. You choose to fight only when you believe the odds are in your favor. For some reason, that sailboat had the belief that if they came for us, they would win. I chose to believe they were right.

All we had to do was avoid them. Not trust them. It didn’t make sense. Maybe they were looking to join up with us and be friends. If so, they were not convincing me to be friendly.

I called, “Hey, when you have a minute, come up here.”

Sue emerged with a smile.

I said, “Sit down and listen.” In a few words, I described what was happening and what I suspected, then waited for her assessment, which was generally far better than mine.

She turned to stare at the other boat as if that would help her decide on a response. Then she studied the GPS. Finally, she said, “Besides what you’ve already found out, we have only a few choices. Go past the end of the land on our left and turn that way and run for the Pacific. Head for the ocean or continue sailing north are the obvious choices. We could turn around, but that seems silly. The last option is to turn and sail right at them and when we get there, ask them what the hell is going on.”

“At them?” I blurted. “We’re trying to get away from them.”

“I know that is what your gut says. But think about this. If we turn to the ocean, they’re better sailors and probably their boat is faster, so they’ll catch up with us if that is their intent. Same thing if we sail north or south. But if we turn right at them, what happens?”

“They attack and kill us sooner?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes you can’t control it all, but what happens if you confront a bully?”

“He punches you in the nose or worse.”

She smirked. “Sometimes. At others, the bully wonders if you know karate, or if you wrestle on the school team. He looks at your hands to see if you have a knife. If you don’t back down, he will. Not always, but sometimes. If he charges, you try to defend yourself, but he was going to beat the crap out of you anyhow, so now it is more on your terms.”

“Have you ever done that?” I asked, not really buying into what she was saying.

“Yes. There was this girl. Bigger than me but she thought I was after her ugly boyfriend. I heard she was telling everyone she was going to jump me on the way home. I knew she could beat me, and we heard she had a knife.”

“What’d you do?”

“I saw her in the hallway between classes. She was walking behind two coaches and another teacher. First, I slipped up behind her and put a knife into the pocket of her backpack. Then I jumped on her back and got her in a chokehold while I screamed and yelled that she had a knife. The teachers broke us up and took us both to the principal’s office.”

“What happened?”

“She got suspended when they found the knife. She said it wasn’t hers, but who’d believe that? She got warned that any fights with me in the future would get her put in juvie for the rest of the school year.”

Sue had made good points in our situation. After a wry look at her, I turned the Truant directly at the other boat. Actually, with my new seamanship skills, I aimed at a point well ahead of the white boat, a place where our paths would come together. “Get your shotgun and my rifle. Bring me my pistol, too.”

The distance closed between us for ten minutes. I counted the shells left in the rifle, double-checked the pistol, and waited. My breath came faster. We were going to meet the bully but had nobody to call for help. Still, we were not defenseless.

As we sailed closer, I made another determination to try and find better weapons and more ammunition. The binoculars revealed the outline of the sailboat better as we approached, one larger than ours by at least ten feet. It had two masts.

I found two people on deck, and perhaps a third who had quickly ducked out of sight. That furtive action didn’t sit well. Sue appeared from below with a baseball cap in her hand. She had a shirt that had been tied into a ball with stuffing. She placed it near the railing, put the cap on it, facing outward as if it was a person.

She placed three more in the next few minutes. To anyone on the other boat, it would look like there were six of us, with four hiding. She moved them a few feet now and then, and she sat up near the roof in clear sight, her shotgun always visible.

I started the engine. If nothing else, it pushed the boat faster and if we needed to escape, it might help. I gently increased the throttle until the engine roared and the boat raced ahead at twice the speed we had been going, which was eight or nine miles an hour.

That was one thing I was learning. On the water, in a sailboat, things tend to take a while to happen. You turn the wheel and the boat takes time to respond. The wind pushes the boat, but not always as fast as the tide. It’s like slow motion.

It gives you plenty of time to correct mistakes. That was what I was thinking as we sailed directly on course to intercept the other boat. Maybe we were making a mistake.

The mail sail on the other boat appeared as if by magic. It filled with wind, the boat turned and fled to the south as it leaned over at almost forty-five degrees. It used the wind to maximum advantage. A half-hour later we couldn’t see it.

But it might have radar and still keep track of us and attack when we were not prepared. We were not safe, not yet. Maybe never again. I shut down the engine and turned north again, still worried.

“Take the wheel?” I asked.

“What do I do?”

“Just keep us pointed that way and call me if you see anything or have a question.” I headed down to the desk and the stack of manuals in the rack.

I took the entire pile and started sorting through them, everything from automatic bilge pumps and HAM radio operations, jib furler, anchor windlass, and toilet operation and pump-out procedures. I put that one aside. We’d need to pump out the septic tanks sooner or later and needed to know how. There was a manual with red bold printing at the top that said, radar.

The image on the cover was a picture of a round hub I’d noticed high on the mast. A short while later, a small flat screen at the desk displayed images, colors, and symbols. I didn’t know what any of it meant, so with the manual open, I studied.

I gathered it could share the screen with the GPS outside, but I didn’t feel confident in losing it if something went wrong. I looked at the coastline ahead. There was a row of blips in front of us. The blips were boats, the manual said.

That meant a string of boats was lined up from Fort Ebby south, a natural choke-point where the route was the narrowest. The sailboat had been spying on us, and as long as we sailed directly at the line of boats ahead, it stayed clear of us—but it was probably in communication with the other boats the entire time. The boats ahead knew when we were arriving and where.

There were not enough boats to blockade the entire opening. Across from Fort Ebby was the state park of Fort Warden, both built because ships in wartime had to pass by them to reach Seattle. If the blockade ahead had been set five miles further south, we would have sailed right into them. If there were more boats, the blockade would have been completed. The radar revealed a possible way to sail past, especially in the dark.

In daylight, they would still see our sail as we slipped past them near Fort Warden or follow us on their radar. That gave me pause, and I changed that to maybe. Maybe they would see us. The jib was like a big white sheet on a blue sea. Lowering it meant it would be harder to see us. Only a mast six or eight inches around would be there, and we had the engine.

Going past was possible. However, a blockade of any sort needed to be avoided. That was our bottom line. My bottom line.

I turned south and let the tide carry us in the direction we’d come for, as I furled most of the jib to hide us better and waited for dark. Not just dark, but early morning. People stay awake, some of them, until well after dark. The ideal time to attack was three A.M. because nearly everyone is asleep and the watches that came on at midnight are dead tired. That tidbit also came from an army movie and had been my plan when stealing the boat. It had worked out well at that time.

But it sounded true enough. We could race past the blockade after midnight when everyone was asleep.

There was a small city on the southern coast near the fort, and I wanted to remain far from it. A speedboat, fishing vessel, sailboat, or even a kayak could reach us from there. We’d keep a vigilant watch. I admitted to myself I was becoming paranoid. There seemed to be a thin line between vigilance and absurdity. I saw enemies and organized pirates everywhere.

We anchored near a rock outcrop in sight of the coast, but away from the city. Sue came to me carrying two plates of food. I’d forgotten about eating and the sight and smells of it almost knocked me down. She had thick slices of pink salmon—caught hours earlier, and mashed potatoes with gravy to go with it. A generous helping of peas rolled around as the boat shifted.

“That is a lot of food,” I said with hungry eyes. I hadn’t eaten that good in a year.

“You’re not worried about me wasting our supplies on making a full meal, I hope,” she said as she sat across from me and handed me a fork and a cold beer. “The potatoes and gravy are from dried powders and I probably should have saved them but thought just once, we should eat like kings.”

She was right. The dried food should be saved for when we had no other choices. Canned food needed to be eaten when the can was opened—although, since our refrigerator was working, that might not be true. Still, just once, we ate like kings.

Bottles of propane gas for the stove, heater, and fridge needed to be added to the growing list. I looked at the GPS for a small harbor or bay with only a few houses, thinking that might be a good place to pull in and try raiding an empty house. Then, I rejected the idea. Too much chance of a prepper, outcast, or survivor who would want those things for himself or herself. Better to wait as long as possible, meaning until more people killed each other while we hid.

Still, amongst the hundreds of other things we had to consider and find ways to obtain, we needed a plan. One where we could go ashore in relative safety and search for the things we needed. A glance at the roof of the cabin gave me the answer.

We could sail slowly along the coast and find houses isolated from others. The anchor would keep the Truant from drifting away long enough for us to make quick trips to the mainland. The kayaks would quickly get us there where one of us could search while the other stood watch.

That idea got rejected because there was nobody to protect our home: Our sailboat. One of us had to stay on board.

The kayaks wouldn’t hold much if we gathered things like canned goods and weapons. We needed to find a small rowboat we could tow behind the sailboat, and small enough to tow behind the kayaks. The smile inside must have revealed itself on my lips.

Sue said, “What?”

“I have part of our problems solved.”

“You said, you are a planner and were certainly telling the truth. So far, every problem we’ve had has been solved by you.”

“That’s not true. You contribute at least as much as me.”

“Explain.” She clipped the word as if she didn’t believe me. Her expression had turned stern.

She was actually interested in my answer. “Easy. In contrast, I tend to plan too much, too detailed before beginning a task and I know it. When action is required, or when things don’t go as planned, I’m poor at changing my direction. When I do, it’s often without thought or consequences and then it turns out wrong. You point out those things before they happen.”

“That’s not much.” She hung her chin to her chest and appeared totally defeated. “My only job is to correct you?”

“No, you don’t understand. This is how I see things with us. Where I’m strong, you are not. Where I’m weak, you are strong. I could give you a dozen instances to prove it. We are better together.”

She took my empty plate leaned far over the side and rinsed it in the seawater, then did the same for hers. Finished, she settled down and faced me. “You worry too much.”

“True.” I went inside and turned on the radar long enough to find the boats were still lined up and none were near us or coming this way. I turned it off again, not knowing how much power the unit consumed. The conversation sat heavily on my mind. I’d expressed my feelings but there still seemed things left unsaid.

Putting the conversation in the back of my mind, for now, a panel above the built-in desk drew my attention. Behind the cover, the myriad of dials, gauges, and switches confused me. I saw nothing that related directly to the solar panels. What I did know was that, especially in winter, there is day after day of heavy cloud cover in the northwest. Where there is no sun, there is no charge for the system. Learning about the solar cell charging system needed to be a higher priority than it was. We needed the GPS, radar, and pumps to expel water from the bilges, and to unfurl the jib. There was no telling what else was eating up our limited supply of electricity. I wondered if turning on the radar used enough power from the batteries that it would take a full day to recharge them to full.

There should be a simple formula for how much power is used and how long it takes to replenish it. I searched for that formula or a book that explained it in simple terms.

The point was that I didn’t know the answer and needed to, along with many other things.

It was what we didn’t know that would probably kill us someday, some silly little thing like not having a charged battery, lack of fuel or propane, a leak in the hull when the pumps failed, or expired food. My goal was to put that day off as long as possible.

It was a depressing thought.

Finally, I found a brochure for the solar cell storage system stapled to a thin manual that constantly suggested the reader use the Internet web site for up to date information and clear, easy to follow instructions. It would have been nice if we could do that.

In simple language, it explained we had three hundred watts of flexible panels mounted on our roof. That assured me that the system produced more electricity than we would need—if the sun came out. The brochure said two twelve-volt batteries would be more than enough to supply our needs for two or three days if we didn’t waste electricity. It also said the system accommodated four batteries, at an additional cost, of course.

I found the controller unit. The digital display on the face told me we had it charging at 13.6 volts, which was optimal. Below the charger was a square seat mounted on the floor. I moved the cushion and found a thumbhole for a removable panel. Below that were four large batteries bigger than those in a car.

If two supplied the typical boat user enough power for a couple of days of frugal use, we had double that. Enough for at least four days after a full charge, longer if we took it easy on things that use electricity. And I was right about the engine producing more electricity. Running the engine charged the batteries ten times as fast as the solar panels.

My mind went back to Asian music, now that we had all the power we needed—and understood that what we used would be replaced the following day. The Internet was down, and the radio should supply us with news if we could find a station that broadcasts in English. We needed to find a waveband that had American stations.

Turning it on, I watched the voltage meter to see if there was any change. There was not. I rotated the old-fashioned dial slowly. For much of the cycle, there was nothing. When there was, it had static, faded in and out, and was always Asian music or talk.

I switched to the FM band and found nothing. Not even static. Then SW, which I assumed was short-wave. Snippets of English crackled from the speaker, not enough to make out much, and what I did seemed to have accents. After an hour, I snapped it off and noticed a marine radio, and another similar unit was stacked on the shelf above, microphones in the holders, coiled cords drooping. A dial on one indicated forty stations.

I turned it on and was instantly greeted with squeals and howls. I changed stations slowly and waited a short time at each station to listen. On one channel we heard a man talking. He seemed to be instructing or ordering someone in a gruff tone. He spoke in English, his voice clipped and harsh, but I didn’t understand the direction he gave. A new voice, one much louder and clearer replied, “We’re in position.”

“What are you waiting for?” The reply was sneering with contempt. “Go get them.”

Sue called out, “Something’s going on, better come up here.”

I ran up the ladder and looked where she pointed. The small city on the shore crackled with gunfire. An explosion sounded and a plume of gray smoke rose into the air. More gunfire, not just ten or twenty shots, but hundreds, from many different weapons.

We stood transfixed. Another explosion, then another. More smoke. More gunfire.

Sue hissed, “They’re killing each other. It’s a war. The people still alive are trying to kill everyone else. What are they thinking? Has the whole world gone crazy?”

I turned on the radar and found we were still alone. That last radio message bothered me, and my mind returned to it time and again. Could we be what they were supposed to go get? It was late in the day. My plan of waiting until three in the morning didn’t seem as good as it had a while ago. The gunfire continued, sporadic at best, broken often by either silence or bursts of shots. I estimated several hundred rounds had been fired by an unknown number of weapons.

“It’s a war,” I said in agreement. “They should be pulling together instead of killing each other.”

“There’s crazy people over there if you ask me,” she said in a voice that was almost a sob. “Don’t take us near them.”

She was right about them, and probably there were dozens of them, judging from the amount of gunfire. No telling what or who the sighting of our boat might attract. In my experience with the flu so far, a few hundred survivors would account for nearly all the people alive in the town we watched, and it seemed every one of them was busy trying to reduce that number by half. It was depressing. Soon, there would be fewer people everywhere. Darrington, Marysville, Everett and probably everywhere else.

My experience also said to stay away from people. All of them. I was about to tell Sue to start the engine and get us away.

However, another glance at the radar showed the line of boats hadn’t shifted and a sweep with the binoculars confirmed no boats from the city were coming our way. However, a new blip on the screen was approaching us from the front. I looked up and found a small white sailboat, maybe twenty feet long, with no sail raised, using its outboard motor to steer directly at us. It did nothing to hide its approach.

“What do we do?” Sue asked in a hushed voice.

“Nothing. Keep our guns where we can get to them. In fact, let them see the shotgun, that should keep them from coming too close.”

“Why not run?”

“To where? Besides, it’s small, big enough for maybe four people, at most. If they were planning an attack of some sort, they wouldn’t be coming right at us like that, and it looks like the man at the helm is waving to us. Let’s just see what this is all about.”

She placed my rifle on the seat beside me, and her shotgun cradled in her arms. The boat slowed as it approached, then came to a stop a hundred feet away in a non-threatening sort of way. It matched our speed to remain stationary. A man in a tank top waved empty hands and called, “Can we talk?”

His voice was friendly, his actions conservative and cautious. He hadn’t dropped his anchor but used the engine to maintain his distance. I called, “How many of you are there?”

After a slight hesitation, he answered, “Two.”

Either he was hiding the true number, or there were two and he was reluctant to admit how few there were to defend his boat if needed. It was that simple. Or, he might not wish to announce he was alone, or he might have five armed pirated in his cabin. I called back, “Talk about what?”

“That blockade up ahead. What’s your take on it?”

Another sailor term, one I was familiar with, but instantly I knew he was talking about the line of boats across the channel. “I don’t like it.”

He seemed to accept my answer. The man was in his thirties, tall, looked fit, and had an air of financial success about him. He probably owned the boat he was on.

And he didn’t trust me any more than I trusted him. He looked into the boat’s cabin where we suspected the other person lurked. His actions were stiff and awkward as if following the directions of another person. He called, “I don’t mean to offend, but we’re scared to come closer, with the flu spreading and all the killing going on.”

“Makes sense,” I responded.

He said, “Were you going north to the San Juan Islands?”

It seemed silly not to tell the truth. “Yes. Same for you?”

He nodded, after glancing purposefully at the cabin again. If he was trying to hide the presence of the other person, he couldn’t have been more unsuccessful. It was as if he asked permission to speak.

I said as I tried to understand the situation, “We think maybe we can sneak past the blockade on the west end of that line at night. It does not extend all the way across the channel, but it seems too easy. Like a trap.”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, it is. We arrived here yesterday and found they have a couple of fast motor cruisers just around the point, out of sight. We watched two boats try to slip past. Neither made it. The blockade acts like a funnel and takes you right to the others that are waiting.”

Shouting across the distance was getting harder on my throat. It seemed the same for him. He said, “They sometimes come this far south in the speed boats, I’m surprised they haven’t come yet today. We were anchored at the south end of Marrowstone Island and watched you sail past. We’d have warned you but didn’t know if you were with them.”

“Marrowstone?” I shouted.

He pointed to the land almost beside us on the west side. I hadn’t realized it was an island, it looked like part of the mainland. The GPS would probably display it if I knew enough to enlarge or shrink the screen properly. We still didn’t want to mess with the settings too much for fear of losing what we had displayed. I’d made the choice to leave it alone since it showed what we wanted.

He pointed south where they had anchored and called, “Sheltered place to anchor down there, and out of sight of those blocking that passage. Interested?”

I was. Sue nodded her head eagerly. We turned and followed the other boat for five or six miles, then turned west where we were not exactly hidden but we were out of the main channel, and mostly out of sight. The trees and a tall hill helped hide the masts of both boats. The other boat anchored. I ran into the cabin, hit the power switch on the panel that said “anchor” and then went to the bow. Sue had the wheel and tried to keep us stationary.

The anchor went over the side and the up and down controller was on a lead so I could hold it and watch as the anchor went down. It splashed into the water and chain fed out, then rope. It went slack when it hit the bottom. I let out more and then touched the stop button. The boat swung with the tide as it pulled against the anchor rope.

We ended up closer to the other boat than intended. I wore my pistol but felt comfortable and most at ease with another boat and someone to talk with that knew the waters and how to sail. The same man called, “Can we come aboard?”

If he was an enemy, he could have pulled a rifle or shotgun on us. It was a chance we shouldn’t have taken, but I felt semi-confident—and Sue had her shotgun ready. Without asking her about it, we were prepared for a gunfight.

“Yes,” I called back. To Sue, I whispered, “Sneak into the bow cabin. Put your pistol between the seat cushions and make sure you sit there next to it. Wait inside, with your shotgun pointed out here and don’t be scared to use it. I will always stand to one side, so you won’t hit me.”

The man said, “We think we are immune to the plague. Are you sure about yourselves?”

That was a considerate statement and question for him to ask. The speed the flu had spread was incredible. One day it struck, and three days later nearly half the people in Arlington had been dead. After that… I reviewed what little I knew. It seemed that there hadn’t been any new people struck down after that first week.

By then, I’d been in my mine tunnel, so things became confused since I hadn’t seen any more get sick. The bodies I’d seen had all died at about the same time. There were no fresh ones unless they’d been shot. I called back, “People got sick and died for about a week, then no more new cases of the flu that I know of. Am I right?”

The man hesitated, then nodded. “No new cases after that for me either. I hadn’t thought of it until you mentioned it, but you’re right.”

I motioned for him to come over while calling, “Come aboard.”

On the other boat, he started to untie an inflatable. A small man joined him—the unseen partner from inside the cabin. While the tall man I’d spoken to seemed to be nautical in his movements, the shorter, wider man was giving the orders.

They let the rubber boat slide off the top of their cabin roof, telling me they didn’t have the solar panels we did, or the boat would have blocked the sunlight. It splashed, and the man that had done the talking got nimbly in first. He wore a gun at his hip.

The other man, the smaller of the two, wore a light jacket. When he tentatively attempted to step off the deck of the sailboat, the wind bloused out his jacket and revealed a shoulder holster. He awkwardly climbed into the inflatable and more fell than sat in his hurry to get in. The other took the oars and rowed.

One sailor. One landlubber like me. They pulled up to our stern and I tied the little rope off and received an odd look from the taller of the two, the sailor I’d talked with. A squint of his eyes and a furrow of his brow that quickly disappeared. I assumed I’d either not used an approved sailor-knot or had tied it to the wrong thing and he disapproved.

They came aboard, the taller man moving like a cat, the other almost falling into the saltwater with his awkwardness. Neither made a move to the cabin where Sue was hopefully in the bow sitting on the Vee-berth, the shotgun on her knees. I gestured at the seat across from me.

The seating was in a U shape, the stainless-steel helm in the center. I sat to one side to give Sue her line of fire and told them my name. They sat in the rear, together. The taller of the two pulled a semi-automatic from his waistband, using only his thumb and index finger. He held it out to me. I took it and placed it on the seat beside me. It was a gesture of sincerity and I appreciated it.

The sailor said as he jammed a thumb at his chest and then to the other, “Steve. That is Micky.”

“Friends before the flu?” I asked, puzzled because they didn’t seem to fit together at all. Steve was over six feet, mid-thirties, slender, and comfortable in boats. Micky was five inches shorter, heavy, and older. Maybe nearer fifty. Micky didn’t talk much, and his attitude was sullen.

And he had a hidden gun in a shoulder holster I’d seen under his windbreaker. One he hadn’t offered to me. For that, I distrusted him. And Steve hadn’t said anything about it, so again I wondered.

Steve said, “No. I found him two days ago floating out in the bay in an aluminum boat with a small outboard, out of gas, no oars. He had the right idea about getting away from others on land, just didn’t know how.”

The story made me think more of Steve, and less of Micky, who didn’t seem inclined to talk. Since Steve had surrendered his gun as a show of trust and was probably aware of Sue’s presence, I still waited for the other to offer the same, in which case I decided to refuse it and hand the other back to Steve. Trust must work both ways.

It didn’t happen. Micky glowered and peered inside the cabin a few times. Sue was in his line of sight but in the dim interior, he couldn’t see her. She had probably partially closed the door to the bow-berth, leaving only enough for the shotgun to poke out. I decided that small talk was not my thing. Never had been. I wasn’t feeling like it now. “What can I do for you?”

Steve said, “Maybe we can work together. There’s safety in numbers, and you may know things I don’t and the opposite.”

The offer made sense, if true. However, a few things bothered me. “What can you help us with?”

“May I be blunt?” Steve asked as Micky leaned back as if stretching, his eyes thoroughly searching the cabin without really trying to conceal his intent. It was insulting.

“Please, do,” I said, shifting my position slightly so I could reach my holstered gun easier and faster, and the movement put me more out of the line of fire from Sue.

“My boat is small and poorly provisioned. It was built for afternoon sails for my wife and me.” His voice choked when he mentioned his wife and his eyes watered. He went on, “I know how to sail. You don’t. I could teach you and you could share your boat and supplies with us. We’re out of water, food, and almost out of fuel.”

I didn’t like the idea of two strange men moving aboard the Truant. I was jealous that Steve knew how to sail, and I didn’t trust the other who was still more interested in finding out of there were others aboard than joining in the conversation. I looked at Mikey and said, “What do you bring to the party?”

“What?”

“Steve knows how to sail. I have a boat. You have offered nothing, and you seem distracted and unfriendly.”

“Who’s here with you? I saw you talking to someone,” he demanded. “A woman holding a rifle, right?”

My hand eased closer to my holster as I turned to better face him. “Listen, this is my boat. What right do you have coming here and talking to me like that?”

Before I could react, he reached under his jacket and pulled his gun free. He swung it to point at me as I fumbled for mine. A shot rang out, a sharp crack right next to me. Neither Sue nor I fired it.

Steve held a small gun dwarfed in his hand. A compact twenty-two or similar. He let it fall to the floor as he turned and barfed over the side. He was on his knees, his head puking into the water, his exposed back to me. My gun was in my hand.

I looked to Micky, who was now slumped on the seat, arms held at odd angles, eyes wide open and lifeless. A tiny red hole just above his ear. Sue crept outside; the shotgun ready to defend me. She silently took in the scene and waited, the barrel on Steve.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his bare arm and turned, not surprised to find Sue there. His complexion had faded under his tan.

I glanced meaningfully at the gun he’d surrendered to me when coming aboard, and then at the one he’d shot Micky with.

“About that. I didn’t trust him. I kept a second gun in an ankle holster and palmed it when we came aboard. I had a feeling.” He kicked it across the floor in Sue’s direction.

She remained stoic, her shotgun centered on his chest.

“He would have killed me?” I said to Steve.

Steve sighed. “Probably would have killed all three of us and lived aboard your boat right here until things quiet down. Plenty of supplies for one. As soon as I rescued him from that little outboard, he pulled a gun on me. He emptied the magazine of mine. Check it if you like. Did you hear all the gunfire earlier?”

“It sounded like a small war.”

He settled back and asked, “Have you been listening to the air?”

“To what?” I asked.

“The radio?”

I ejected the magazine of the gun he had surrendered to me. It was empty. “Only Asian music and foreign talk are all that we can find. Do you know how to operate it?”

He seemed puzzled. “CB? Marine?”

I shook my head in confusion, then said, “Well, we did hear a little conversation just before you arrived, maybe a dozen words.” There had been talking on one of them, but with at least three radios to choose from, we needed common ground. His eyes went to the dead man. Mine followed.

He said, “Can we work out a few things between us?”

Sue growled; her shotgun still pointed at him. “Like what?”

“No matter what else we agree to, or what we decide to do in the future, that body needs to go over the side. I’ve never shot a person and can’t think with it laying there accusing me of murder. It will take two of us to lift him.” He stood and stepped to where he could grab the dead man under his arms. I took the feet. Without thinking about it, we lifted him slowly over the side. He barely made a splash.

Steve used his foot to slide Micky’s gun to the feet of Sue. I noticed it was another nine-millimeter semi-automatic, like ours. I realized we should have searched his body, and at least, taken the shoulder holster off him. He may have had other valuables.

Steve reached down and thumbed a compartment I hadn’t noticed. A flap opened. He pulled a small hose wound on some concealed spring-loaded reel out and pushed a rubber green button. A small stream of water flowed. He quickly washed the blood away. “Saltwater,” he said as he shut it off and let the nozzle follow the hose back into the storage space.

He said, “A boat this nice needs to be regularly washed with fresh water to keep the corrosion down, but we don’t want to waste the freshwater that’s in your tanks. No telling when you can replace it.”

Sue flashed me a stern look. She was not ready to give up her shotgun yet.

Steve ignored her. “Can we go inside and check out the radios?”

“You asked if we were listening. That meant something,” I said.

“The CB. Those boats ahead with the blockade have been chatting on it. That’s how we knew you were there. And how they knew.”

“They were waiting for us?”

“Wagering on when you’d make a break for the opening, is more like it. One group bet you’d try to run it in daylight, the other thought you’d wait until after midnight.”

I’d planned on making my run at three in the morning. The second group would have won. We’d have lost.

Sue lowered the shotgun. “Can you show us how to use it? The radio, I mean.”