The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay (34 page)

“Yeah, ain't it.” Clay grabbed the gunnel and pulled himself up. “You know, if we cross the Bay, we're gonna run right over our buried treasure. Our wreck.”

Byron stood up as well and looked across the water. “She's safe enough, I figure. Least till we can return. Better jacked. Then we'll
raise her. That will be a story there. Raisin' buried treasure from the Bay.”

“That, it will.”

“We find that treasure, we'll be fat.”

Clay chuckled. “Yeah. Fat city.”

“Okay. What's the plan again?”

“Yeah. The plan.”

Clay had moved back under the canopy top. “Okay. We're running for the bar off Windmill Point,” he said to Byron. “We'll test the depths. Try to lose them there, where the bar gets too shallow for them to follow.” He looked over the charcoal water. “We have to make this work. We have to lose them. Or at least put considerable distance between us. Then we'll aim east, across toward Tangier and Crisfield. If they still try to follow, I'll put you off and lead them up to Fishing Bay. If I can make the Hooper Strait, I might shake them there. They won't know that water, there.”

“Lotta ifs.”

“If I can't get that far, I'll slide off and let the
Miss Sarah
run on. By then, the Coast Guard ought to be close. Long as you don't forget to call 'em.”

Byron snorted. “I'll try to remember.”

“Yeah. Well, let's lose them right here,” Clay said. He set his face toward the shore. “For now try to find that flare gun in the cabin,” he added. “I might need it later. And make me a gas cocktail. Use your empty whiskey bottle. I knew your drinking would come in
handy. Rag at the top. You know. Siphon the gas. And give me your lighter.”

Byron handed it to him. “Thought you were slidin' off.”

“I am. But just in case.”

“No hero shit, Clay.”

“No.”

“For real.”

“For real.”

“Yeah.”

Clay checked the heat of the straining engine with his hand. It was hot but running steady. He went to Kate and had her release the wheel and led her back to the tiller post and controls at midship.

“How are we doing?” Kate asked. She leaned up against him.

“You've done perfect,” he told her. “We've got some breathing room. Just keep an eye behind us. Anything changes, tell me quick.”

“I'm scared,” she said.

Clay held his hand out.

She took his hand, looking back behind them. “Will your plan work?”

“It should,” he answered. “Just keep a good watch.”

Clay had been pointing the workboat toward the shore below Windmill Point, the northern spit jutting down off the Virginia coastline and marking the entrance to the wide mouth of the Rappahannock. The
Vena Lee
followed every change of course. Off Windmill Point, a mile-long shoal extended out toward the channel. The chart showed much of it at three feet. It was across this shallow water Clay hoped he could skim the
Miss Sarah,
but the closer he got, the more worried he was about the accuracy of the depths on the chart. And, he realized, Pickett might know the shoal better than he did. And Pickett had a working depth finder.

The lights from the distant shoreline appeared as a maze of indecipherable
sparks on the edge of the wide, watery black plain. Clay tried to read them to know where he was. The boat was now running crosswise to the waves, which rolled the bateau for a while, though the rollers diminished as they got closer to shore. The wind stayed calm. Studying the shoreline and channel markers and then the chart, Clay realized he couldn't pinpoint his position as closely as he had expected. If the
Miss Sarah
hit bottom first, they would be caught. He asked Byron to begin the depth soundings with the plumb line. At the place where he thought he was, judging from the blinking buoys around them and his course and speed, the chart read five feet. Byron got four from his plumb. He took other soundings. They were all different from the ones on the chart. Clay knew his position. Not with total precision, but close enough. The chart was off. The bottom was too uncertain. The water was too shallow already, and they weren't yet on the shoal. To continue was to move forward blindly. He decided he couldn't risk it. But they were already far up, no longer in a position to cut across deep water in a northeast course. There was no choice but to turn back out, more easterly, toward Tangier Island. Since Clay had sacrificed his pots, Pickett had narrowed the distance between them. And he'd make up more of the gap with this turn. Clay knew if he ran straight for Tangier Island without any advantage he'd be caught. He swerved the
Miss Sarah
back out. With the change in course, Byron came up to stand next to him. He checked the shoreline and the chart and timed out loud the four-second green off their port side, knowing what was going on. He lay the chart down, saying nothing. He went and retrieved the flare gun from the cabin. Then he started making the gasoline bomb with the empty whiskey bottle.

Heading east, back into the Bay, Pickett closer now, Clay studied the southern horizon, peering into the darkness, focusing on each light that shone across the wide expanse. He asked Byron to get the binoculars from the cabin locker. Through the lenses he could see
little against the Bay's huge darkness. But he could see the timed reds and greens blinking on the channel buoys, as well as the running lights of other ships or boats. And the lights dotting the shoreline—he should have used these earlier, he thought. He watched, and waited, and watched. He was in dire trouble. The chase was closing as the
Miss Sarah
pounded out her rhythm, out toward the open Bay. He considered turning back, toward shore, and running the
Miss Sarah
right onto the shoal, and taking his chances with Byron and Kate swimming or wading. But Pickett might intercept him first. And with his depth finder, Pickett might get close enough on the uneven shoal to pick them off.

Then he thought he saw what he needed. An unusual configuration of running lights was way to the southeast, moving north. He concentrated on the movement of the lights for a while, watching through the binoculars. Then he adjusted course, slightly more to the north, handing the binoculars to Byron. Anxiously he glanced back at the boat behind them.

“They're going to catch us, aren't they?” Kate whispered.

Byron found what Clay had been studying.

“What is it?” Kate asked.

Byron handed her the binoculars and frowned. “Timin' that'd be right touchy.”

“It's a big tug,” Clay answered. “Pulling a barge up north. It's moving fast. It must be an oceangoing tug and the barge must be empty.”

“Oh,” she said. “They could help us?”

Byron put his hand on her shoulder. “Those tugs won't stop for nobody. Can't. Those barges don't have breaks.”

“What, then?”

“You really thinkin' what I think you are?” Byron whispered.

“It's already happening in my mind.”

“Can we intercept it in time?”

“If I judge it right. Dangerous, though.”

Byron chewed his lip. “Well, this ain't exactly a safety zone we're in now.”

“Please tell me,” Kate asked again.

“It's a tugboat,” Byron said. “With a long cable towing a barge or scow behind it.”

“Yes?”

Then Clay spoke: “Byron, keep your eye on the tug. Kate, keep your eye on that boat behind us. Call out its every move. That tug you see is moving fast. Eight or nine knots, I'd say. The cable's a quarter mile long, maybe more. Tug needs that distance for the barge to slow down and stop. And to separate the barge from the tug's wake and backward propeller wash. Anyway, I aim to keep Pickett behind me and to cut in front of that tug. Close. Real close. Too close for Pickett to make it. If it works, he'll have to run alongside the tug and cable, or turn back behind it. We won't lose him, but we'll put more space between us. Probably double our lead. Give us what we need to round Tangier light. I can pick up more distance there, as well as off Smith Island. I know those shallows.”

Kate nodded, taking in what he was saying. “Will it work?”

“Might work.”

“The man's in his zone,” Byron muttered under his breath. “It'll work.”

Clay stayed on the tiller, keeping track of the steady progress of the tug and the water and waves. He felt the wind and tide, and sensed the distance, and gauged with his deeper instinct the time and point of conjunction, and pushed forward, angling, adjusting course with imperceptible pressures of his hand, moving north now more than east. He had less than thirty minutes, he believed, before Pickett would have him in range. Less than thirty minutes to intersect and cross in front of the tug, which would crush the
Miss Sarah
into pieces if he came too close. He pushed on.

Byron watched the tug with the binoculars, reporting her progress in a steady stream of talk. They rode the waves, and time
seemed to pass quickly. They could see the Tangier light directly off their bow, though it was still far away. The moon moved with them overhead. But Clay's attention remained on the tug, its lights becoming brighter as it drew closer, its turbine now clanging eerily in the distance, mixing with the other sounds of the night. It would keep to the center of the deep channel, he was sure, and he knew where the channel veered. He plotted the tug's course in his mind and marked the place where he would meet it. Kate reported periodically that Pickett was gaining but remained directly astern. Clay knew that Pickett was gaining, but he also knew that Pickett had no way to stop this from working. If he could time it right. That was what mattered.

He ran northeasterly until the lights of the tugboat were bright and the outline of its smokestacks rose against the sky to starboard. He came abreast of it and knew its wake would be huge if the
Vena Lee
got behind it. The barge had running lights that showed its presence, seemingly so far behind the tug that pulled it. They looked like Christmas lights moving on the water. A novice would never know the cable was there, in the dark, low on the water, until it was too late. But that was too much to hope for with Pickett.

Byron and Kate sat mesmerized as Clay took them closer to the path of the oncoming tugboat, the giant powerhouse looming just off their starboard bow, its engine's roar now blotting out all other sounds, churning on a collision course with them, the black-bladed hull cutting like a monstrous chisel through the inky water, sending out a seething white wake of spume and spray. Clay ran with his lights off, doing nothing to cause the tug to change course. But behind them, realizing Clay's maneuver, Pickett was flashing the spotlight, running with his lights on, and sounding his horn—which was all but drowned out by the boom of the approaching turbine—hoping to cause the tug to fall off and give him a chance to get across its path as well. But the tug never
flinched, moving inexorably forward as they watched, and Clay took the
Miss Sarah
across its path not three boat lengths from its iron-girded bow. It rose above them sharp like an ax blade and bore down on them without pause or mercy. Clay prayed that his bateau would hold steady, and she did and was in and across the tug's path and running past while he angled easterly to escape its wake. The tugboat sliced by and just behind them close enough to almost touch, and its wake hit the stern like a wave rolling in off a reef, lifting the bateau high and sending her bow crashing down and then up, then sending water cascading over the stern rail and onto her floor. Clay steadied her while Byron vented a whoop of relief, nearly drowned out by the turbine, and Kate clung to Clay as he watched the
Vena Lee
bouncing in the wake on the other side of the cable, unable, at least for the moment, to follow them.

With his lead regained, Clay set a course northeasterly, inside the Tangier light toward waters he knew, and where he knew it was too shallow for Pickett to follow. Pickett would have to circumnavigate the island's shoal, losing more distance. Once Clay cleared the point, he would head north and skirt the shallows off Smith Island, again where Pickett wouldn't follow. Clay was confident he could now maintain his lead past Crisfield and up off the southwestern edge of Deal Island, where he could slip Kate and Byron off at the shoal and they could wade or crawl to land near the town of Wenona. He watched Pickett's boat maneuvering to go behind the barge. The
Vena Lee
was momentarily moving south and falling farther away.

Kate had her hand on Clay's shoulder. She was watching his face as he turned away from his pursuers, studying the waters ahead. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

Clay motioned to Byron, who took the tiller. “I'm thinking what I want is to get you to a safe place. I'm also thinking about Matty.”

“I was thinking of him too.” She let her hand drop, brushing down his arm. “He told me why he fought with his father.” She
eased slightly closer, concern filling her eyes. “I'm sorry, Clay. They fought over your wharf.”

“Ah, Kate. Jesus.”

“Clay, it's not your fault.” She pressed her forehead against him and kissed his shoulder. “He's probably worried, though. Right now.”

“At least he doesn't know enough about this whole thing with Pickett to be really worried. Or, unfortunately, to call the police. He may still be sitting in your cottage waiting for you.”

“Or looking for me.”

“You can tell him I'm sorry. When all this is over.”

Kate searched his face. “That's something we can tell him together.”

She reached to touch him again, and he pulled her against him and felt her warmth. He held her and then sat with her on the washboard, his arm tight around her, and none of the three spoke as they continued running east.

When they neared the southern spit of Tangier Island, Clay retook the helm, and studying the landmarks and remembering the distances and depths, he ran a straight course inside the light, transecting the long shoal where the chart showed only three to four feet of water. He slowed enough for Byron to drop the plumb several times, and the line consistently measured three and a half feet.