A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [23]
Flanagan nodded and they pulled alongside the vessel. A rope ladder clattered soft and eerie on the bulkhead with wooden rungs clunking on the planking. The knot in Kelly’s midsection tightened. She worried for an instant she might vomit, and drew a deep breath through her nose, letting it out slow through her mouth.
“All right?” Flanagan stared at her with brows knit, worry on his face.
Kelly tried a smile, failed, nodded. “I’m … none too fond of heights. Or being stranded on the open ocean.” She shrugged. She sure was glad to have been lucky caller seven.
Flanagan crooked one side of his mouth in a mischievous grin. “You’re sharp,” he puffed, pushing hard with the oar. “You’ll be … all right. I’d bet … on it.”
The two sailors dripped with perspiration as they heaved water behind the tiny raft and gained on the vessel, moving in swift lunges past it. Jurgen gave a final rake of his oar, then stood and leaned as far as he could, his fingertips brushing the bottom rung of the ladder as it slipped away. Flanagan rowed in desperate slaps, and glared at Edward.
“Could … use a … hand … Mr. Timmerman,” he gasped, exertion taking its toll on him.
“Me?” Edward pointed a meaty forefinger into his chest.
“Grab the goddamn oar and row, you little pussy!” Sam snapped, and shoved Edward off the bench. He landed on his hindquarters and toppled, flailing arms and legs before regaining his balance. “Hurry up, you pathetic pantywaist! It’s getting away and we’ll be fucked for sure then!”
Edward scrambled and took the oar from Jurgen, and tried to keep up with Flanagan’s strokes. But his stubby arms didn’t reach the water over the dinghy’s fat roll of air-filled rubber and canvas sides, and his ineffectual slapping cost them precious distance as the ship started outdistancing them.
“C’mon, Eddie, harder!” Jurgen chided, and stretched for the ladder again. Edward whined and whimpered frantic gasps, his face turning an angry beet red as his heart labored in his chest to drive oxygen to his flagging arms. He teetered on his bulging gut on the side of the raft to stab at the water with the oar and pulled, but the water’s weight knocked him off balance and he fell backward into the stern with a simpering cry.
“Goddamn you, you fat fucking asshole, give it to me!” Sam snatched the oar from Edward and elbowed him aside, stabbed the oar into the water and matched Flanagan stroke for stroke, driving the dinghy back alongside the ladder.
“I … got it!” Jurgen held the nylon rope running around the top perimeter of the life raft with his free hand, pulling the dinghy into the bulkhead of the schooner. Flanagan set down his oar and waded toward Jurgen to help.
“Everybody else get on the port side! Get to port!” Sam and Edward crawled for the other side, and Sam shook her head with a snarl on her lips at the fat man, still huffing gulps of air. Kelly shifted to balance the weight in the raft to the opposite side of the bench, while Flanagan attached the rope on the dinghy to the bottom rung of the ladder.
“Got ‘er!” he called, and Willy fell back into the raft, panting and dripping sweat.
“Damn, Skip … didn’t think we’d make it for a minute,” he said, grinning at Flanagan.
Flanagan smiled. “Me too. I was ‘bout outta gas. Thanks for your help … Ms. Whitaker.” He nodded at Sam once.
“What the hell,” she said, and glared bald hatred at Edward, “someone’s gotta be a man and help out. Glad to do it.” She turned away from Edward and he flushed, eyes averted from everyone else’s.
Kelly blushed with him. For a moment, she burned with envy for Sam’s courage and commanding presence in the moment of need, and wished she had enough in her own character to be counted on. She was fine on the charter, but here … in the middle of the ocean chasing a mysterious, seemingly dead ship in what amounted to an inner tube with a canvas bottom, she was scared. And her fear paralyzed her.
Sam caught her expression and came beside her. “How’re you holding up?” She took