A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [22]
Edward tried to help Sam step over the bulkhead, but she slapped his forearm viciously and he shrank back, yelped and rubbed the welt that leaped to the surface of his skin. “Touch me again, Edward. Go on. I dare you.”
After she slinked into a seat on the raft, Edward threw a meaty, hairy leg over the gunwale to follow, but Flanagan pulled him back onto deck. His pate reddened and his jowls shook in confusion, his pig eyes glazing in fear.
“It’s ‘women and children first’, Mr. Timmerman.” Flanagan gestured to Kelly with his eyes.
“Oh … right,” Timmerman stepped aside, rubbing sweat from his forehead. Kelly took Willy’s calloused hand and almost fell into the dinghy, her legs too short to extend over the bulkhead and down onto the bobbing raft in a single motion. When Jurgen caught her, he pressed her into his chest for a split second, and smiled a filthy grin of lust at her. She turned away and pulled from his grasp, losing her ability to be subtle with the force required to break his hold.
Edward gave a panicky, inquisitive look to Flanagan, who responded with a tired nod, and the butterball bolted over the side before Willy could help. Edward toppled face-first onto the pliable deck of the raft, let out an explosive expulsion of air when his considerable gut crashed onto the bench of the raft, and his thighs slapped against the inflated sides. Flanagan shook his head, grabbed a denim shirt and pulled it on, fumbled in a cargo hold and pulled up a second oar, then dropped with far more grace onto the dinghy as Edward crawled gasping to a spot next to Sam, who rolled her eyes in undisguised disgust. Once Flanagan and Jurgen settled into position, they nodded across the craft to one another and began rowing toward the vanishing shadow of the ship.
The looming dark blotch began materializing, and in moments the lapping subtle of waves against the slicing hull drifted through the fog, an ethereal background score to the damp quiet. Kelly reached for something, gave a soft gasp and Sam glanced at her.
“What’s wrong?”
“My journal. I left it on the boat.” Her eyes locked on Flanagan’s, pleading. Flanagan shot a look over his shoulder, but the boat was out of sight, lost in the dense murk. He shook his head, face heavy.
Kelly shrank back.
“We can get everything after we get some help,” he said.
Kelly nodded, but stared aft, into the gloom. The paddles pressed the water behind them.
“Hey, Mr. Beaushants?” Jurgen’s sudden call startled them all. “Mr. Beaushants?”
“It’s Beaushanks,” Flanagan corrected. “CHARLES? YOU THERE?” His voice deadpanned on the black water.
No response.
“Sonuva … he was supposed to wait on deck.” Jurgen cupped his hand beside his mouth. “CHARLES! AHOY, CHARLES!”
Kelly and the others turned. The ship seemed to appear from the wisps of cloudy gray, and they could make out the weathered, wooden sides, the tops of the masts vanishing out of site above them.
“CHARLES! YOU THERE?” Flanagan shot Willy another look of concern, but Jurgen could only shrug.
The ship rose above the raft as they came alongside, but no human shape waited along the gunwale. The deck seemed to rise some twenty feet above the water, and Kelly felt a knotting in her middle as she thought of scampering up some rope hand-over-hand like an action hero to reach the top while the swirling black waters waited below.
“She’s gained speed, Skip,” Jurgen said, panting as he pressed harder with the oar to gain on the gliding vessel.
Flanagan nodded, sweat forming on his weathered brow. “Gotta … catch her. How’d you board her?”
“There’s a … line dragging … just aft.” Willy gestured with his head, and Kelly turned to see a fat line of rope, knotted at intervals, trailing behind the ship. “But there was a … rope ladder on … deck, and we tossed it over … so I could get back on the … dinghy. Should still … be down unless … Charles reeled ‘er in.”
Flanagan squinted through the wafting fog. “Nah, I … I see it, hanging. Make for it ‘fore … she gets any faster. There a … current … driving her?”
“Can’t say … but she’s … moving true