The New Madrid Run (25 page)

Travis grasped him tighter and lashed back, “You ain’t getting out of this life that easily, Preacher. You hang tight and keep breathing.”

Ignoring the gunfire from the ships, the sensei slowed the boat to buy more time for Travis. The stern line was out and trailing. It all came down to timing, and luck.

Travis started back with the preacher as the stern of the sailboat was passing them about twenty feet away; but there was only a hundred and fifty feet of stern line. He kicked and swam like a madman, pulling the dead weight of the preacher with him. He could no longer see the line; it had sunk below the surface. In a frenzy of determination, he swam on. When he reached the wake of the sailboat, there was still nothing. He could see the anxiety-ridden faces of the sensei and Christina looking back at him from the stern of the boat. He swam, toward the center of the wake, hoping against hope . . .

At the last moment, when Travis was certain his cause was lost, he felt the rasping of the rope against his waist as it played past him. In a panic, he grabbed for it with his free hand, almost losing the preacher in the process. Before he could exert enough pressure to stop it, the first six feet ran through his hand, taking the skin from his palm. He clenched his jaw against the pain and bore down. They were being towed, but the water was rushing up and over his face and head, nearly drowning him. He turned his head from the flow, gasped for air, and held on.

Bullets slapped into the surface of the water around him with smacking sounds. Another two feet of rope slipped through his palm, and his torn and bloodied hand throbbed in agony. The water continued to inundate him, depleting his oxygen and sapping his strength. The strain of holding onto the preacher while being towed was all but wrenching his arm out of the socket. The pain and the lack of oxygen were beginning to overwhelm him. It would be so easy, just to let go of the rope . . .

Many a man who lives occasionally on the edge, has found himself in a struggle that puts him at the crossroads of life and death. In that supreme challenge for survival, there sometimes comes a point when giving up is easier than going on. Some reach that point and succumb; they accept and endure the final darkness of submission over the suffering of survival. There are, however, those individuals whose spirits cannot abide a defeat by death, whose minds simply cannot entertain surrender to that ultimate adversary, and they force themselves beyond the wall of human endurance—past ordinary physical capabilities and continue to grasp at that which appears unattainable. Not always, but sometimes they are rewarded for their efforts.

Travis felt the line slip again and another two feet ran through his mangled hand before he could gather the strength to stop it. In minutes they would be out of range and safe, but every minute had become a terrible eternity of misery and faltering will. He began to contemplate the pleasures of release when, once again, the rope ripped through his hand, and this time he felt the end of it slip past his waist. He cried out with the realization that unless he stopped it there and then, he was lost.

At that moment his decision to survive was made. All thought of giving up dissipated, dissolved like snow under the sun. Galvanized by fear of losing the rope, he bore down on his grip to stop it. He was not going to die there, and he was not going to let his friend go. As the last few inches of the line neared, Travis felt a large knot the sensei had tied at the end. He grasped it with a single-minded tenacity found only at the gates of death, and held on. Moments later he felt his forward motion slow, then stop, as the sensei cut the engine. He was being pulled gently forward. In seconds there were hands on him, dragging him and the preacher aboard.

While Travis was slumped on deck, gasping, the sensei and Christina carried the preacher below. Suddenly Carlos rushed over to Travis, who was propped up against the cabin. “
Jefe
!
Jefe
! They come!” he said as he pointed with his gun toward the mouth of the harbor.

Through the flames, came a big sports-fishing boat. Travis could just make out Chad Lafont with half a dozen men on the bow. He was sure that Henry was in the wheelhouse. Shaking his head to clear his fatigued brain, he stood up, took one more look at the oncoming boat, then turned to the Cuban.

“Get me one of those anti-tank guns, Carlos. We don’t have to worry about blocking the channel now.” In a minute Carlos was back with the weapon. Kneeling on the deck, they armed it, and as the boat behind them closed the gap to seventy-five yards, Travis lifted it onto his shoulder and aimed.

“Goodbye, Mister Lafont,” he whispered as he pulled the trigger.

The explosion lit the darkness as the craft disappeared in a fiery mass of flying debris. Huge pieces of the ship’s flaming hull soared though the night like comets, striking the water all around them and sizzling into silence. Travis watched for a moment, then, exhausted, dropped the weapon, fell into the seat of the cockpit, and closed his eyes. The sensei took the wheel and piloted them into the still, fog-shrouded night while behind them the docks of Monroe burned to the waterline.

CHAPTER 16

After an almost sleepless night, the first rays of a cold, red sun crept across the misty waters and touched the ragged, battle-scarred sailboat. The sensei and Travis had spent the night in the cockpit, to watch for further pursuit. The skin on Travis’ face and arms was oil-smeared and burned, his hair was singed, and his muscles ached. He stood up slowly and stretched. The sensei followed suit. Travis looked over at him. “The preacher?”

“He was alive last time I checked,” answered the sensei, his eyes offering little promise. Travis reached for the hatch door, and they both went down into the cabin.

Christina, kneeling by the preacher’s bunk, looked up. Her face was tired and drawn, her eyes worried. Todd stood next to her, as he had most of the night. Ra, who had been locked in the front cabin during the firefight, lay at his feet. Carlos had a fresh bandage on his arm, and was slumped against the far bunk, hollow-eyed and pale from loss of blood.

As Travis came down the stairs Christina turned her attention back to the old shrimper. She spoke as she wiped his ashen face with a damp cloth. “We’ve cleaned and bandaged the wounds as best we can. He was hit in the shoulder, the leg, and the left side. Carlos says he has a good chance, since none of the bullets struck anything vital. The side is more of a flesh wound, and all the bullets passed through. The problem is loss of blood and shock. From here on, it’s up to the Lord that he prays to so much.”

Suddenly the preacher raised his head in delirium, his unfocused eyes staring upward. “Open the gates wide!” he cried. I’m a comin’, Lord, and I’m a big man!”

Travis quickly eased him down. “Take it easy, friend. Easy now. Heaven’s not ready for you yet and I’m certain the devil’s afraid you’d take over, so you may have to stay a while.”

For a moment, the preacher’s eyes focused as he looked up at Travis. “Travis, son! We made it out?”

“We made it. Everybody’s fine. Thanks to you.”

“Yeah, me and Moses,” mumbled the preacher with a weary smile.

“Hell, more like you and Rambo,” Travis said. “Now you get some rest and heal, my friend. We may need you again. The woods are still full of Philistines.”

“Yeah, tired,” muttered the preacher wearily as his eyes closed again. “Real tired . . .”

Travis turned to Christina. “You’ve been here all night, haven’t you?”

She stood up, stifling a yawn. “Yes, I couldn’t leave him. I was afraid—”

“Yeah,” Travis said. “You and Todd go get some sleep. We’ll watch over him and keep things on course.”

She nodded, gratefully.

“And how are you,
amigo
?” Travis asked Carlos.

The Cuban offered a tired smile. “I be okay,
Jefe
. I hurt, but I be okay.”

“Good man, Carlos.
Fuiste un hombre bueno anoche
. I was proud of you.”

Carlos perked up noticeably at the compliment from Travis in his own language. “
Gracias, Jefe
,” he replied, head up, proud.

The sensei and Carlos went topside to assess damages, and Todd slipped away to his bunk after a quick hug from Travis.

Christina turned to do the same, but Travis reached out for her and turned her towards him. “Christina, you are the most remarkable woman I have ever known.”

“And you,” she said, “look like a cross between a chimney sweep and an out-patient at a five-alarm fire, but I think I might be falling for you anyway.”

Travis smiled warmly and pulled her close, and they kissed with the passion of a first-love romance. Todd, who had peeked around the bulkhead of his bunk, grinned, very satisfied, then pulled the covers up around him and went to sleep.

After a few hours of motoring, they anchored in a small cove about fifty yards from shore, somewhere near the Louisiana– Arkansas border. There they made breakfast, then cleaned and patched the bullet-ridden hull and sails as best they could.

Travis continually monitored the preacher, wiping his forehead and face with a cool cloth and checking his bandages. There was no change in the man’s condition—he still held on.

If the coastline continued its northward recession, the sailing part of their journey would end in a few days. They had ample food and water, so they decided to hole up and rest for a while—hopefully, to give the preacher a chance to recover.

They spent the next three days in the cove. By the second day the preacher’s fever had subsided and, though in considerable pain, he was beginning to sleep normally. He was going to make it.

That afternoon, Travis and Christina took Todd and Ra ashore in the
Amazing Avon
, which once again, had miraculously survived. There they spread a blanket and picnicked in the woods. Ra chased squirrels and frolicked with Todd like a puppy.

Gazing across the blanket at Christina, Travis suddenly realized that although he’d just been through one of the most traumatic periods of his life, he couldn’t remember being happier. He felt as if every inch of his being was alive, and Christina brought out feelings in him that he thought had died and been buried forever.

The afternoon wore on and Todd, displaying more intuition than was common for a twelve-year-old, took Ra back to the boat, promising to return for them later. Christina smiled at Travis as Todd paddled away. “I feel like we’re being ‘handled’ a little bit by him, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I think he likes this situation between you and me, but then, that’s okay, because so do I.”

Christina chuckled and caressed him with her eyes. “Me, too.” For a moment they both watched Todd paddling in the distance, then, almost as one, they turned and their eyes locked again. Without a word, Christina moved across the blanket and into his arms.

Slowly their lips touched, caressing with promise then melding into full passion. Hands charted new courses of pleasure across unfamiliar but intoxicating seas as the tempo of their breathing rose in unison. Yet the heat of their desire was tempered by a new, pure, depth of emotion that demanded the moment be savored, not rushed. They languished in the pleasure of passion, and like the slowly rising torrent of a rain-swollen river, it cascaded down around them, lifting them up, and sweeping them away. When clothes were finally torn away with trembling hands and their bodies touched, white-hot emotions drowned their senses in a wave of uncontrollable passion, and in the final moment of union, so intense that its pleasure bordered on pain, their cries startled the creatures of the cove.

By the fourth day, the preacher was able to sit up and was sounding like his old self. He leaned back in his bunk and took a glass of water from Christina. “Got so many gal-derned holes in me you could stick a hose in my ass, set me on the lawn, and use me for a sprinkler.”

Travis descended the cabin steps and looked over at the two of them smiling. “Amazing what a pretty nurse will do for a man.” He walked over, put his arm around Christina’s waist and looked down at the preacher. “Well, buddy, looks to me like hell got all panicky for nothing. The nurse here tells me you’re going to live.”

“And it’s a damned good thing, son, ’cause somebody’s got to keep you out of trouble.” The preacher paused for a moment. He looked up at Travis, his face becoming serious. “Son, I want to thank you for what you did back there—comin’ after me like that.”

“Forget it, you’d have done the same for me.”

“Maybe I would’ve—maybe I wouldn’t. You never know for sure ’til the chips are down, and there ain’t no more cards to turn. All I know for certain is that I’m here now because of you. When it comes to things like this, thanks ain’t much of a word, but you got my thanks and my friendship for as long as you want it.”

Travis reached out and touched the older man’s good shoulder. “That’s good enough for me, Preacher. Now I’m going topside and get this ol’ girl moving, so we can get to Arkansas and I can start my vegetable garden.” He winked at Christina as he turned to leave.

The winds had calmed, so they motored along the new coast of Arkansas for the next three days. The evening of the third day found them in a little bay about fifty miles southeast of Little Rock. By GPS reading and the new coastline, that seemed the best place to strike out across land for the Ouachita Mountains and their new home, so there they anchored
The Odyssey
for the last time. The matter of new transportation became an issue.

They would no longer need the sailboat, so the plan was to find someone with a land vehicle who would perhaps trade with them. The following morning, Travis and the sensei decided they would hike into the nearest town and find someone who would like to make a deal. The rest of the group stayed in the boat.

After going ashore in the
Avon
, Travis and the sensei took a road that virtually ran into the water near the sailboat, and headed inland. They had been walking for almost two hours when they saw several spirals of chimney smoke curling up in the distance. Fifteen minutes later they found themselves on the outskirts of Humnoke; population 385, read the sign, but there appeared to be considerably fewer occupants. Like most of the towns near the New Madrid fault, it had sustained significant damage. Those who had stayed were in the midst of reorganization and reconstruction and, just like a hundred and fifty years ago, they carried guns and were wary.