Read Online Ocean Burning by Henry Carver - Free Book Online Page B

Carlos?”
    “Si,” Carlos said, his face blank.
    “How long were you planning on being out here, anyway?”
    “Oh, a couple more days,” Ben said.
    “Let’s compromise,” Rigger said. “Maybe you could put up with two stowaways for the rest of the trip, and just drop us off on your way home. What do you say?”
    Ben looked at Carmen. Carmen shrugged a kind of permission, and he looked excitedly back at the two men. “It would be our pleasure. I mean, what a story,” he said.
    I watched Rigger make the appropriate thank yous, but it was Carlos’s face that worried me. It had gone dead as stone, and privately I thought he looked like a man dreading something but trying to hide it. Like a man resigned to it—whatever “it” was.
    I shoveled the rest my eggs, pushed the chair back, declared I would be getting a drink on the sundeck in front of the bridge. “Sorry about your boat,” I said to Carlos.
    He couldn’t look at me, but his face didn’t even flinch.

Chapter 8
    WE SPENT THE day sunning ourselves, drinking cold beers out of the cooler, and talking. Rigger and Ben traded stories of the Australian outback and Las Vegas respectively. I listened to them laugh, fast friends already, and fished off the stern.
    For lunch I presented las delicias del mar—delights from the sea—cabrilla, a kind of sea bass, grilled with new potatoes and asparagus. Ben revealed a hidden cache of expensive, chilled white wine. We ate and drank, and afterward I cracked the seal on one of my bottles of cheap scotch.
    The storm had blown away some of the covers and awnings, and eventually the heat of midday drove us below decks. The chart table was the perfect place to talk and do belts of liquor. After the third one I reached into the overhead compartment and dug through dusty rolls of paper, came out with a map of the Islas Marias and the surrounding area. It refused to smooth out, always curling, until finally we had to weight down the corners with shot glasses.
    Carmen picked an inlet off the map, one marked as having a sandy beach. I went above decks and motored in that direction, located the gap in the rocks, a natural breakwater, and anchored the Purple twenty yards off of a white sandy beach backed by swaying palms.
    The boat horn blared at the touch of a button and everyone made their way above decks to see where we’d ended up. I could hear the oohs and ahhs from my chair on the bridge.
    The day passed. Between the five of us, the level of amber fluid in my scotch bottle descended like an elevator.
    Four in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, hit everyone hard. Carmen and Ben were stretched on the beach. Carlos had disappeared into the palms half an hour before, muttering that only gringos would stay in the sun during siesta. Rigger was propped up in my dirty canvas deck chair, injured arm elevated, snoring loudly.
    I had carefully tapered my drinking starting during lunch. I’d had only a glass of white wine, then filled it again and again with cold water. Likewise, my scotches had been light on the scotch side of things, though I kept insisting on toasts and heavy pours for anyone around me.
    The past few hours had passed with me sitting in my chair at the helm, studying the inlets of Carmen’s sweating body through a pair of heavy, military surplus binoculars. I glanced from her to Ben, checked the treeline for any sign of Carlos.
    Nothing. Rigger still snored.
    The moment seemed right.
    I placed each foot carefully, making my way down the ladder, skipping one rung I knew would squeak. I ended up on the stern, right next to the head of the stairs, and made a quick few steps around the superstructure to get a look at Rigger. He hadn’t moved, and his snoring was loud as ever.
    I crept back around the white fiberglass walls and down the stairs, stopping just below deck and glancing around once more. The sink was stacked with lunch debris, the chart table laid with maps, glasses, the empty scotch bottle. The