Dash in the Blue Pacific

Seattle, WA

Coffeetown Press

PO Box 70515

Seattle, WA 98127

For more information go to:
www.coffeetownpress.com

www.colealpaugh.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover design by Sabrina Sun

Dash in the Blue Pacific

Copyright © 2015 by Cole Alpaugh

ISBN: 978-1-60381-252-8 (Trade
Paper)

ISBN: 978-1-60381-253-5 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number:
2014951786

Produced in the United States of
America

* * *

For Kari and Decker

* * *

S
pecial thanks to Phillip
Vaiimene of Avarua, Rarotonga, for helping with so many small
details. Thanks to Tammy and Michael Winser who gave us a real
volcano we'll soon call home. My love and gratitude to Kat, Tylea,
Amy, and Regan for making me believe in invisible things. My deep
appreciation to Ellin O’Hora for teaching a special game that will
last a lifetime. And my thanks to Catherine Treadgold, the most
patient and gifted editor on this extraordinarily blue planet.

* * *

T
he volcano beckoned with
pale smoke that curled into slender fingers at its far reach. The
giant brown teat ascended from the blue sea, its milky ribbon
spilling across the late-day sky. It was irresistible, despite a
fuel needle dancing near the dead zone and a sun barely two fists
above the horizon.

“
We have time, mate. One pass ain’t
gonna hurt, but keep her nice and wide. I don’t wanna spoil the
surprise in case somebody’s home.” Red’s hands itched from nervous
energy, jagged knife scars turning crimson as he kneaded a shiny
spot into his soiled khakis. He lived for the hunt. Paydays were
sweet, but it was the hunt that got the blood pumping. It made the
hair over your collar stand up and put the taste of copper on your
tongue’s fat end.

The man at the helm steered through the heavy
rollers, white water kicking off the bow and spitting across the
windscreen. Wending in and out of the volcano’s shadow, they made
their way counterclockwise around the teardrop-shaped
island.

Red could sniff out a nest from twenty klicks,
and sure enough, he was right on target with this honey hole.
Rising and falling on the deep-water side of a protective reef were
four canoes.

“
We got savages,” he said, not
relinquishing the field glasses to the reaching hand of the man in
the helm seat. “I don’t see weapons, just bare-ass fishermen in
dugouts.”

Red glanced behind him to size up the western
sky. “They ain’t seen us. Leave the sun on our backs, and let ’em
show us where the reef break is. You feelin’ like a big bad wolf,
Slim?”

Slim chuckled. “You
know
I’m feeling
like a big bad wolf.”

“
I sure would like to find me a
Little Red Riding Hood. You think there’s a sweet young bird
stashed away in them trees?”

Slim drummed the boat’s metal steering wheel.
“Only one way to know, Boss.”

Binoculars back to his face, Red scanned the
treetops for signs of cook fires. Four boats meant a village of at
least a few dozen adults, which gave fair odds of finding
high-value quarry. He hocked through a side window and shook a
smoke between his teeth. The market for boys was bone dry, and that
was fine and dandy in his book. Boys were a pain in the arse,
always with half a mind to jump overboard when they weren’t trying
to sink their pointy teeth into anything you left close. And he
wanted to puke from dealing with ratbag Euro businessmen who
sweated like pigs and stank of perfume. He’d like to gut one or two
of those slimy fuckwits if not for the rep it would
cause.

Girls were a different enterprise, with their
easy fear and the way they clung, once land was out of sight. The
lost pups were ripe for training, and it was a wonder they got them
to port in one piece. More than one little sprog had fed the fish
after his boys got carried away, but that shit didn’t pay the bills
and he put his foot down hard.

Red watched the fishermen at work. In the
undulating waves, their narrow skiffs appeared and disappeared,
rocking tip to tail in what looked to be a dodgy spot. Too many
hungry tiger sharks to be out in heavy waters. Not in dinky,
hand-carved paddle boats, anyway. You had to be mighty brave or
mighty dumb.

A flock of circling gulls swooped in close when
the fishermen dropped to their knees. The four wiry torsos twisted
in fast rhythm, as if moving to the same music. “They’re hauling
lines,” Red hollered, then cleared his throat to calm himself.
“Let’s saddle up, but keep the hardware low. We’ll go in friendly
’til I’m sure what we got, but I don’t reckon anything more than
spears and arrows. I’ll take the wheel.”

Red flicked his cig and shimmied onto the
cracked vinyl. The engine was a low rumble as they came about, the
sea below the bow turning to soot in their hulking shadow. Less
than an hour until dark, and these backwater shithole folks were
known to get crafty with their home-field advantage once the sun
fell under.

“
Nice and easy, girl.” He inched the
throttle, feeding the engine and squeezing the gap. Three hundred
meters, give or take, and still out of earshot. No need for
introductions just yet. The sun kept them invisible as the
primitive crafts fell into a single line, paddling south and then
hooking a sharp turn through the reef opening. “Bingo. There’s the
front door, thank you very much.”

Red kept tabs on the depth finder as the skiffs
angled north to skirt the coast. There was plenty of draft, a
steady five meters after they sliced into the protected water.
Beyond the sagging whip aerial was a jetliner reflecting sun on the
cold highway ferrying Aussies and Yanks. The volcano’s upper third
remained visible over waving palms. Smoke above the cone blinked
orange, as though this might not be such a habitable place before
too long. “Hello, Mother,” he whispered. “I think you have a
present for me.”

Losing sight of the fishermen wasn’t a worry.
They’d beach in a cove or along the shallows, and he and his six
men would roll on up with how-do-you-do grins, like they were new
neighbors coming by with a plate of jelly slices. And it would be
damn fine to stretch his limbs on solid ground. The world tilted
off center when you hadn’t sent a soul to heaven or hell for too
long a stretch.

“
Let’s keep focus, boys, before the
good light gets scarce,” he called over his shoulder. The 44-foot
Waveney was American made, but outfitted for the Australian Coast
Guard. Its V6 Cummins growled like a bear, so there was no way of
truly sneaking up on anything with a pulse. “Shoulder your rifles
and tilt up your brims. I don’t wanna spook the natives and cause
any unnecessary bushwhacking.”

There was a decent enough channel twenty meters
out, although they took a nasty scrape coming up on the men hauling
their boats onto the sandy scrub. Each looked up, eyes narrow, skin
reflecting the late day glow. The fishermen stood frozen in
mid-heave as Red leaned the painted steel against the island’s
stone hip and throttled down. The engine cut out with a wet
belch.

“
Candy from a baby,” he sang under
his breath, turning from the instruments and shouldering the
Kalashnikov he kept racked in a dry spot over the visor.

One of his men already had wet knees tying them
off when Red stepped up to the gunwale and gave his best aw-shucks
shrug to the not-so-certain looking locals, two standing in
drooping, western-style underpants the color of their skin. Each
skiff sported a bloody mound of silver-bellied fish, but the only
cutting tool in sight was a rusty blade, nothing more than a pen
knife. And while some heavy-handed coercion was always
entertaining, the clock was ticking.

“
G’day, gents.” Red gave a cordial
wink, then pulled a handkerchief from a back pocket good and slow,
a magician beginning a well-practiced trick. He lifted his bush hat
and wiped away beaded sweat. He knew the effect his shock of red
hair had on these sorts. What once got his bum handed to him in the
schoolyard now made him a god. The thought was a hoot and a half,
but these simple fucks would bow down to a turd pile if it steamed
just so. “I was gonna ask how they was biting, but just looky
there. You sure got into them today.”

Red measured their faces as they turned toward
each other. The man on the far left—the tallest and broadest at the
shoulders—jabbered to the others in some dipshit bird talk. Good so
far. None looked ready to sprint off to their mud huts to scatter
the tribe into this godforsaken jungle. Red hefted a boot onto the
rail and rubbed his jaw whiskers, rifle butt tight against his
shoulder blades. It was a quiet spot away from the breakers
crashing out over the reef, and the night critters hadn’t started
their usual chatter. He turned his ear to the slight breeze coming
from a black opening in the canopy beyond the fishermen. It was a
tunnel hacked out of thick greenery. A lesser hunter might have
mistaken the high-pitched sounds for feral pigs or those quick
little giant-eyed monkeys. But Red recognized the distant clamor of
blissful children, a choir of ten or more angels engaged in some
game or sport.

The hunter’s mouth turned wet enough to wipe
one corner. He took a deep breath of salty air and leaned his
weight forward.

“
Maybe one of you blokes has a map
of these fine and lovely parts?” Red showed the four men a toothy
smile that he hoped wasn’t too wolf-like. Not quite yet. “To be
honest, we got a little lost on our way to Grandma’s
house.”

D
ash did calculations in his
head. He guessed they had about four minutes to live. Not that he
was an aeronautical expert—or any kind of expert, for that
matter—but sitting alone in the upright position, he had nothing
better to do after the engines went silent. When he’d attempted
small talk, the elderly woman in the aisle seat had responded with
an unfriendly grunt.

He shielded his eyes and craned for a view out
the oval window, searching for flames and sniffing the air for
trouble. Perfume and sweat. Someone close was a smoker. Setting
fire to model airplanes as a kid seemed less cool now that he was
aboard a full-size jetliner about to crash.

He had rubbed the fingertip pads that turned
rough from pungent glue those summer days, hands trembling as he
tied string to one wing and then held a lighter to the tail. He
turned fast circles, flaming goo spraying across the lawn, black
smoke curling into the trees.

The cabin speaker was full of static, and then
a mouth came close to the microphone.
“Cindy?”