The Passage (38 page)

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Authors: David Poyer

BOOK: The Passage
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It had crossed his mind that maybe in Miami the doctors could do something. Perhaps one of the metal claws, or a plastic hand? But
mierda
, he was lucky to be kicking around at all. Too many guys had died there. And for what? Once he'd believed it, that they were fighting for the poor and starving of the world.
“
Mierda,
” he whispered again, and his thoughts left his missing hand and moved remorselessly ahead. It was a miracle they'd found cover in time. If they made it to sea tonight, it would be another miracle. If they could find Miami, yet a third.
He hoped old Aracelia had done her ceremonies right. They were asking an awful lot of the gods.
Colon came climbing over the huddled, waiting women and children, his cheeks quivering like jelly. He levered himself over the side, splashed into the water, and waded back to join Guzman. “That was close. They almost saw us,” he muttered, looking curiously at the skiff.
“Yeah. But they didn't.”
“Who you putting in here?” he asked, adjusting the pistol holster around his paunch.
“Whoever wants extra room. You?”
“Fuck no, not us. That's all you want, get us in there, then cut the rope some night! What's wrong with the big boat? Get rid of the cement, it'll ride better.”
Tomás said patiently, “We need it for ballast, but this boat will not stay afloat with fifteen people in it. You hear that wind. It'll be rough out there. We'll just turn over and sink, and the fucking sharks will eat everybody.
¿Entiendes?”
“Maybe we can't take everybody,” said Colon, fingering the holster. “We don't have much food.”
“I figured you'd come up with that sooner or later,
compañero.
That's why I got the skiff fixed. And speaking of food, let's not forget, you didn't bring a fig, not one mouthful of rice, not one bottle of
cerveza
. You didn't bring a thing but that gun and your big mouth, and you want us to abandon somebody else so we can take you? You're an asshole, a
culo.
Get out of my sight.”
“My family's staying in the big boat,” Colon repeated.
Tomás shrugged. He waded over and looked in. The old woman sat staring at the twins, who were playing with a lizard they'd caught, making it run around inside the hull. It could not escape, and so darted here and there in frantic silence. It had already lost its tail. Graciela lay with her eyes closed, sweat shining on her face like a coat of varnish. He gnawed his lip. She couldn't take much of this. And the way she looked, the kid could arrive any second.
Augustín straightened and wiped his hands on a piece of rag, grimacing at the motor. “Will it run now?” Tomás asked him.
“Think so. But it used a lot more gas than it should last night. Half of what we brought … in only three hours. These Russian machines are shit.”
“We can put the sail up once we're out of sight of land. Okay, listen, everybody: Some of us are going to get in the
chalanita.
We'll tow it astern. That will give us more room and be safer.” He glanced at Colon. The fat man shook his head, scowling. “Okay … Gustavo, you patched it. Get in. You can fix the plugs if they work loose. Uh, Tia Graciela, do you want to stay where you are?”
She opened her eyes slowly. “I can if you want me to, Tomás.” “Yes, but you have a choice, okay?”
“Room to stretch out would be nice.”
“You can lie on the bottom; it's flat.”
“Maybe it would be better there. Yes.”
“Help her up, Miguelito. That means you go, too, and Julio—he's the best swimmer we've got. That's four—no, five. I want Aracelia with her, in case the baby … Give them a bottle of water, food, a paddle. Hand me the rope. Is this all we have? Okay, tie it tight; we don't want it to slip.”
All at once, it was dark, like a great eyelid closing on the world. Tomás swallowed again, wishing the lump in his gut would dissolve. Looking at the dead bones had made him afraid. Those bones had dreamed of freedom, too. Had come the same way, across the Bahía
Jigüey. Only the patrol had caught them. No burial, nothing. Just shot them like dogs, like animals.
How many thousands lay along the shores of their country, at the bottom of the sea, buried in mass graves, victims, victims? … One man had aborted the glorious revolution into bloody tyranny. And then like an infection, it had spread. Bolivia, Venezuela, Zaire, Angola, Somalia, Nicaragua. “One, two, many Vietnams,” Castro had ranted. And darkness and terror, murder and war had stretched their shadows from Havana across the world. How long would it last? He'd given up asking. It was time for him to go, that was all he knew.
“Okay, let's get moving,” he said.
They emerged with a clatter and rustle, a scrape and bump. Paddles splashed. Then they were afloat, and the wind came gusty and faintly chill. Blowing from the east, he thought. That would help.
During the day he'd memorized the chart. He didn't know the ocean, but he could read a map and judge distances. He figured they were three or four kilometers from a passage between Cayo Romano and Cayo Coco. It was narrow; on the map, the two almost touched. There had to be guard posts there. So he didn't dare use the motor. He didn't dare put up the sail, either. It would be too easy to spot through binoculars or a night-vision device.
No, they'd have to paddle.
They moved through the darkness, helped by a wind that felt heavy, cold, stronger than he'd expected. The boat was pitching already. The skiff was a black wedge astern. He worried again about Graciela, then put it out of his mind. He couldn't help, if this was her time. He didn't see how women stood it, blood, pain … . All he had to do was get them through. If they could just do that … if they could only do that.
He figured they had about an even chance.
 
 
THREE hours later, hours of paddling and drifting and anxious peering through the dark, he figured they must be near the passage. The sea had smoothed, which meant they were in the shelter of land. He clambered up onto the corrugated-metal roof of the cabin and balanced there, opening his eyes wide.
He gradually became aware of two darker masses hemming in the black of the water: two points of land, stretching out to meet ahead of them. Only the map convinced him they didn't, that there had to be a way through, however narrow.
Suddenly, a light stabbed out, swept around ahead of them. A string of red balls arched up, hung in the sky, then went out. Finally,
the searchlight went out, too, slowly, fading gradually back into the somber, chill darkness. Only then did the tap-tap-tap of the gun reach them.
He stood there for a long time, watching, listening. Tracers, but what were they firing at? Was someone else trying to get through? If so, they'd send out a boat to check for survivors, no? But the only sound was a muffled
thunk
as a paddle, thrust by tiring arms, knocked against the hull. Then came a whisper that might be the wind in palm trees off to the right. The searchlight stabbed out again, scribed a semicircle across the black water, the beam clearly visible in the humid air; then it faded out. He wished desperately that he could run the engine. But that would be fatal. They'd be out after them in minutes. No, they had to paddle. Too bad he had only one arm.
But looking back and down, he could tell even in the dark that one man wasn't rowing. He leaned down and grabbed. Colón's shoulder quivered under his grip.
“You son of a bitch! Why aren't you rowing?”
“I'm tired. Let the others row!”
“
Gordo hijo de puta
,” Guzman said in his most intimate exsergeant tone. “I don't give a fuck who you used to be; you're a worm now, a
gusano,
just like me. And if you don't put your back to that paddle, I'm going to kick your ass overboard and let you swim in to your border guard buddies. And I don't give a fuck if you shoot me or not.” He shook him. “Grab that paddle,
cabrón
!”
 
 
FIFTY feet behind, in the skiff, Graciela lay sprawled under the thwarts. Her back lay flat against the bottom. It felt good, being able to lie down. But she felt so huge, so swollen, as if she were ready to split apart. She was barely aware of the cold hand of the old woman gripping hers.
 
 
AHEAD of her, Miguelito stared into the darkness. His hands hurt where they clenched the wood. He wished he was in the bigger boat. But Tomás had told him to stay with Tia Graciela. But what if they started firing? All he had was a machete. Maybe he could cover her with his body … . Would that stop the bullets? He shivered in the cold wind.
 
 
A drop went
spat
, then, sometime later, another.
It began to rain, gently at first, then with increasing force. And gradually the two boats started going up and down, only a little at first, a suggestion. Then they began to roll.
Tomás swung himself down from atop the cabin. He crouched behind it, squinting out as the rain stung his eyes like cold wasps. He couldn't see what was ahead, only that it was black. The boat rolled harder, a strange heavy motion, and someone screamed as a wave broke over the side and showered them all. “Start throwing the blocks over,” he ordered. “Hurry. Hurry! Not all, about half of them. Not you, you men keep paddling!”
“We can't, Tomás. We're exhausted.”
“Can't we put up the sail?”
“Not yet. This wind'll push us right back on the shore. Just keep paddling, damn it!”
“We really can't,” Julio said. “Tomás, we really can't. It's really hard; we're finished.”
Tomás didn't answer him. It was too dangerous. But in the end, he couldn't think of anything else to do.
“Okay, Augustín, start the engine.”
The clatter when it kicked over was incredibly loud. Tomás felt cold sweat wring out all along his body. The wind would blow the sound west. If the border troops heard them, they'd either fire or else send out a boat. It wouldn't be that hard to find them. They couldn't evade. They could still end up like that other boat, only on the sea beach instead of the bay. Like those skeletons …
After a long time, the light stabbed out again. Only this time, it had crept aft a little.
“How far out do the patrols extend?”
“I don't know,” Tomás said. “Rámon, you know that?”
“Ten miles?”
“And after that?”
“We're clear, I think.”
“There they come,” said Julio quietly.
Tomás whipped his head around and saw the lights come out from the shore. Red and green and white, startlingly bright against the black land, they moved rapidly out across the water. The light smeared off the waves in long trails. They could hear the motor, too, a deep grumbling song of power.
“What do we do, Tomás?”
“Guzman? Now what?”
“Shut up. Just keep going,” he shouted at them, but his bowels felt loose. They'd gambled and they'd lost. No chance of fighting them off out here. The patrol would stand off and shoot them to
pieces. If they surrendered, they might save the children's lives, at least.
The motor ran and ran. The boat rolled dizzyingly in the dark. Clutching the top of the cabin, Tomás stared alternately into the lightless gulf ahead and back at the lights behind. They grew steadily brighter. They were gaining. He couldn't think of anything else that he could do, though. Just hope Augustín could keep their worthless motor running, that some current wasn't pushing them backward, that they wouldn't capsize or smash themselves on some reef unmarked on the rudimentary map they sailed by. And that the beasts that guarded the perimeter of their cage would blink or yawn or look away.
After a long time, it started to rain again. The lights of the other boat stopped closing. They dimmed, then faded as the rain pelted down.
Staring into the darkness, he listened tensely to the uneven, faltering throb and hum from aft.
 
 
BUT when the sky grew light at last, the motor was still running, and they saw that they were surrounded by the open sea. When a wave lifted them, they could glimpse a dark low line astern. That was all that remained of the cays, of the border guards, of Cuba. Looking at each other, they tried tentative haggard smiles. They'd made it. They'd escaped.
Then, as the light increased, they looked out to the east, to the north, at the low, sullen, tumultuous sky. And their smiles faded to horrified stares.
From the east, from the north, waves beyond anything they'd ever conceived in nightmare toppled in endless ranks. The boat rolled with sickening jerks, slamming down with a hollow metallic thunder. Already vomit stained the gunwales, and the fragile boards and plywood and nailed tin that cupped them groaned as they worked.

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