Rumble on the Bayou (17 page)

"Joe's waiting at the office, right?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about backup. Joe will stick. He's not going anywhere if he thinks I might need him."

He nodded, apparently satisfied. "Then let's go take a look, shall we?"

She started the boat and headed down the bayou toward the camp. They were about twenty yards from the pier when the first shots rang out. Reacting immediately, they bailed over the side of the boat and dove under water to avoid the spray of bullets as they hit the metal hull.

Richard dove underwater and swam directly for the bottom of the bayou. The bullets passed around him like angry mosquitoes, and he thanked God that he had gone without the life jacket that day. Otherwise, he would have been a floating target.

It couldn't have taken more than a minute to reach bottom, but it felt like hours. The faint whiz of bullets still sounded, but it was distant, and he no longer felt any moving around him. He tried to see in the murky water, but it was impossible. Knowing he had dove straight behind the boat when the shooting started, he figured the pier couldn't be too far. He hoped Dorie had the same idea since finding her in the inky sludge was impossible.

Hands in front of him, he started swimming across the bottom, searching for one of the giant pylons that the pier was built on. At least that would give him some cover in order to surface.

He hoped.

He made it twenty, maybe twenty-five yards, before his air ran out completely and he surfaced, looking frantically around him, gasping for air. He felt a momentary surge of relief when he realized he was underneath the pier and behind the seawall. For the moment, he had a hiding place. Gunfire no longer rang through the bayou but that didn't mean the shooter was gone. He might be waiting for movement.

Peering out between the boards of the pier, Richard studied the terrain but couldn't see a thing in the marsh across from him. The last remnant of Dorie's boat sank rapidly, the current churning around it as it sucked the vessel under. He scanned the surface of the bayou, looking for bubbles or any other sign of life. He prayed that Dorie made her way to safety, knowing without a doubt the chances of finding her in this murky water were practically nil.

He wondered how long he had to wait before he could safely move, and hoped against hope that one of those reptiles from hell hadn't found this pier a good place to set up house.

***

As soon as she hit the water, Dorie dove for the bottom of the bayou, her mind frantically racing with the nightmare of the situation. The whizzing bullets cutting through the water sounded around her as she opened her eyes, scanning for a sign of Richard, but the inky liquid was too dirty to see anything at all. She reached out one hand in front of her and it sank quickly in the mud at the bottom. Stretching her arms as wide as possible she swept them through the water but felt nothing.

The pressure was building in her chest, so she released a little air and continued to swim slowly on the bottom, searching for Richard with her hands while straining to keep her mind focused and calm. She had been under for at least a full minute already. She had maybe another minute of air if she conserved, but after that, she had to surface. Picking what she hoped was the right direction, she started a slow swim for the pier.

A minute or so later, her left hand hit a chunk of wood and she felt a thin slice across her palm. Reaching out with her other hand, she carefully felt around the object. It was definitely a pylon. But was it one of the pier's pylons or one of the many hundreds of old ones sunk below the bayou's surface?

There was only one way to find out.

Touching the pylon with her nails in order to avoid the razor-edged barnacles, she began a slow assent to the surface, hoping all the while that her last gasp of air wouldn't be in the face of a killer.

Seconds later, she broke the surface, releasing the last of the air from her lungs, and sucked in a deep breath. A hand reached out and grabbed her and she stifled a scream.

"It's me," Richard said.

She swallowed the cry in her throat and wiped her eyes, trying to clear her vision from the saltwater. It was still blurry, but Dorie could make out Richard and saw that they were underneath the pier and behind the seawall.

"Is he gone?" she gasped, still trying to breathe normally. Why was it that her chest felt more constricted now than it had under the water? Her arms and legs tingled and she knew they were going numb.

"I don't know," he replied and looked back out between the boards. "I never heard a boat, but he could have left before I surfaced."

"Or he could still be out there."

Richard nodded, his expression grim. "Yeah, but we're sitting ducks here as well. I think I should-"

Suddenly, she raised one hand to silence him. "Listen," she whispered.

***

Richard cocked one ear toward the front of the pier and heard the distant sound of an approaching boat. They peered between the boards, looking in both directions for the source of the noise, and Richard was sure neither one of them breathed. Finally, on the west side of the bayou, two boats full of fishermen rounded the corner. They continued a short distance past the camp and anchored just east of them on a bend in the bayou.

He heard Dorie let out of breath of apparent relief. "He must be gone, right?" she asked. "It's not like he'd hesitate to kill a group of fishermen."

Richard took another look at the boats anchored on the point. "No. He wouldn't hesitate. I think it's safe to get the hell out of here." He turned to look at Dorie and was frightened by what he saw.

Her tanned face was as white as paper, absolutely no color left at all. Her arms were draped by her side and she swayed with the motion of the water, seemingly unable to keep herself still. "Dorie?"

He reached out to touch her and her body went slack.

Shocked, he rushed to put his arms underneath her and struggled to keep his balance. Once steady, he pushed through the water toward the bank on the far side of the pier, where he hoped, the fishermen would not see what was going on and come to investigate. He wasn't sure that the shooter was gone, and he didn't want to put a bunch of innocent people in the middle of the situation.

Bad enough he'd gotten them there by wanting to look at the camp again. He laid Dorie down on the edge of the bank where she would be sheltered by the end of the pier then crept slowly up the bank and scanned the marsh on the other side of the bayou. He waited several seconds, but when no shots came, he figured it was as clear as it was going to get. Moving Dorie inside where he could examine her couldn't wait any longer. He returned to Dorie, put his arms underneath her limp form and carried her up the bank, cursing himself the entire way.

This is all your fault. You want to get Roland so bad that you're compromising your instincts. Even worse, you're taking other people with you. Glancing over his shoulder, he checked the fishermen, but apparently they hadn't noticed the activity at the pier. He hurried to the camp, checking Dorie every few seconds, and desperately hoped she would be all right.

He was a little surprised to find the front door open, but walked inside anyway, certain the shots had not come from the camp. He laid Dorie on the couch just inside the door and made a hasty scan of the remainder of the tiny cabin, just in case anyone was still lurking.

The camp was clear.

Letting out a huge sigh of relief, he returned to the couch to see if he could bring Dorie around. He knelt beside her lifeless body and put two fingers to her neck. Her pulse was good. Steady. But he would have sworn it was racing earlier. Her breathing was still rapid, but not labored. Richard couldn't figure out what in the world had happened to her. Shaking her gently, he called her name. She moved slightly and tried to open her eyes.

He called her name again, and her eyes popped open, staring wildly at him. She sprang to a sitting position and he grabbed her before she could stand. "Dorie, it's me, Richard. Dick," he said, trying to calm her.

Her eyes began to lose some of their frantic glare and became more subdued, but still troubled. “Are you all right?" Richard asked. "Please say something."

"Yeah," Dorie said, clearly confused. "At least, I think so." She looked around at her surroundings in obvious surprise. "How did I get here?"

Richard let out a breath when she spoke, unaware that he had been holding it. "You blacked out under the pier right after the fishermen went by. I carried you up here."

"I blacked out?" Dorie asked, sounding offended at the thought. "I never black out. Never." Her expression grew more irritated. "I thought I could handle it." She looked down at her quivering hands then crossed her arms in front of her, covering her hands with her arms as if angry with their lapse of strength.

"Handle what?" Richard asked. "You know, it's all right to be afraid of being shot at. It's happened several times to me and every time, it takes weeks to get over it. Minimum."

"It's not the shooting," Dorie said, her voice barely a whisper. "I've been shot at before. It's the water. I reacted fine, until I had time to think about where I was. I hate water!"

Richard stared at her in complete amazement, unable to believe what she'd said. "How in the world can that be?" he asked. "You work on the water every day. Hell, you live on a boat."

"That's different. I can be on top of water. I can't be in water. It makes me claustrophobic. I feel like giant weights are pressing me from every angle."

He shook his head. "What are the odds? And you living in a place like Gator Bait all of your life. Where everything is about water."

"One of life's little ironies, I guess. And such fun for me" She settled back on the couch and drew her knees up to her chest, shivering. "Look, Dick," she said softly. "I'd really appreciate it if we could keep this between the two of us. No one else but my dad knows ... well, and Joe. It would kill my ability to enforce the law around here."

He made the Boy Scouts sign. "I promise, I won't say a word."

“
Thanks."

He put one hand on her arm and noted her skin felt cold and clammy. Taking a good look at her eyes, he realized that despite her fairly normal ability to converse, they weren't out of the woods just yet. He rose from the floor and headed for the bedroom.

"You're still in shock," he said as he left the living room. "We need to warm you up before you black out again"

He returned with a blanket and a couple of towels. "You need to get out of those wet clothes and wrap up in this blanket. At least until your temperature returns to normal" He set the blankets on the couch next to Dorie. "I'll be in the other room. I need to get out of these wet things myself so maybe they'll be dry by the time Joe comes looking for us. I figure we got at least an hour to wait unless you want to flag down the fishermen."

"No. I don't want anyone in Gator Bait to know what happened here. We don't want to tip our hand. It's bad enough that Roland already knows we're on to him." She stared at him. "I'm assuming Roland was the shooter."

"Unless you know anyone in Gator Bait who has a big grudge against you and a supplier for heavy artillery, I would say that's a safe bet. That was an automatic weapon he fired at us. They're not that easy to obtain."

"Not just any automatic weapon, Dick," Dorie said. "That was an M16, military issue."

Richard stared at her, momentarily surprised by her statement. "You sure?"

Dorie gave him a weak nod. "There's no other sound like it. I'm absolutely certain."

"Does anyone in Gator Bait have that kind of firepower?"

"Only my dad," Dorie replied, "but I doubt Roland dropped by to borrow a gun from the sheriff." She shook her head. "We're lucky your criminal isn't a good shot. We wouldn't have stood a chance with a professional marksman."

Richard nodded in agreement, certain that someone had been watching over them, someone with the power to make a spray of bullets from an automatic weapon miss two large targets. He looked closely at Dorie, who still hadn't made a move to change out of her wet clothes, and grew more concerned. "Do you need some help getting up?"

"What?" she asked, obviously miles away, then shook her head. "No. I'll be fine."

"Okay," he said, not sure whether to believe her or not. "I'll be in the next room. Yell if you need me."

***

Dorie waited until Richard closed the bedroom door behind him and struggled to rise from the couch, still unsteady. She unbuttoned her jeans and tugged them and her underwear off her wet body, hanging the garments over the plastic dining chairs. So much for doing laundry. This was not an event requiring clean underwear.
Next time, I’ll save my quarters.