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To the left of the sailboat, the west was a tangled checkerboard sky
of bright white clouds on a field of black.
"Wow. That's weird. It was blue a minute ago."
Ahead the sky was bright blue. To the right, the low coast of the inside
of Cape Antonia was almost invisible. Shannon looked back. "There's
a yellow boat following us."
"Yeah, I've been watching him."
It was catching up, probably making a third again their speed. Already
he could distinguish its round bluff bow and boxy cabin in back. When
he got the storm sail hanked onto the jack stay and its sheets led back
to the cockpit, the shore behind had disappeared in haze. He thought he
could make out Punta Rasa lighthouse at the tip of Cape Antonio. But the
yellow boat was close enough to see it had a stubby mast.
"Soon as we clear that lighthouse we can swing east into the ocean."
"You'd think," said Shannon, "that with that sky looking
that way he would turn around and head home."
"If he was just going fishing."
The yellow boat's bluff bow was throwing clouds of spray.
A mile or so ahead, on a line with the light house,
he could see white caps where the wind and the east setting waves were
no longer blocked by Punta Rosa. He looked again at the western sky. A
curtain of black descended to the estuary and it seemed to be curling
ahead of them, too.
"The boat's catching up," said Shannon. "Do you want to
steer?"
"You're doing fine. I'm going raise the main."
He raised it only high enough for a double reef. Hustle didn't move much
faster, but when whatever was making that sky crashed into them it would
be too late to reef. Now with both sails pulling, he took the wheel and
nursed a little more speed out of her.
The yellow boat was heaving entire waves, smashing the water with a sullen
boom. But it was still catching up and Jim realized with a start that
less than two hundred yards separated the two boats. There was no one
on deck, but he could see several forms though the wheelhouse glass. Yard
by yard it drew near.
Suddenly the wind stopped.
Hustle staggered and for a second he thought she had struck a sandbar.
But her sails hung slack and she lost two knots with only her engine to
drive her through the thickening seas. Two men dressed in sea boots and
slickers stepped out of the yellow boat's wheelhouse.
"Do you see any guns?"
"I can't see. Wait, what are they doing?"
They were twirling ropes, standing sure-footed on their pitching deck,
one moving toward the bow, the other toward the stern, glancing around
to make sure their ropes didn't foul the cabin or the mast.
"Look out! They're throwing grappling hooks."
Jim spun the wheel. Always slow to respond when driven by her propeller,
Hustle veered clumsily. The hooks lofted through the air. The forward
one splashed into the sea. The other crashed on the deck, a foot from
Shannon's hand, bounced wildly, banged against the back stay, clanged
on the aft-most safely line stanchion and miraculously failing to hook
it, fell into the water.
The yellow boat could turn tighter than Hustle. As Jim changed course,
it circled closer, sticking close as the fisherman, methodically coiling
their lines, hauled in their hooks. In unison, they began twirling them
again, while the yellow boat maneuvered.
The stern man threw. Jim slammed the wheel over and the hook splashed
harmlessly behind him. Only then, as the second hook came flying across
the water did he realize they had set him up. It was too late to turn,
too late to do anything but shove the wheel into Shannon's hands and run
forward pulling Will's bosun knife from his slicker.
The hook caught the bow pulpit. The yellow boat turned away. The rope
jumped taut as a steel bar, and Hustle lurched into a clumsy, wallowing
turn, dragged behind the fishing boat. Jim thought it would rip the pulpit
right off the deck, but when he reached the hook he discovered that one
of the barbs had fastened around the immensely strong forestay.
He braced his knees in the pulpit, opened Will's knife and frantically
sawed the rope. Hustle buried her bow, and a full sea nearly knocked him
overboard. The rope parted with a loud bang and knocked the knife out
of his hand. Will's lanyard saved it and he ran, untangling the lanyard
from his legs, back to the cockpit.
Shannon was fighting the wheel, trying to turn away from the high yellow
bow aimed at their stern. The diesel engine skipped a beat, coughed, and
revved back to full power. The propeller bit into the water at the last
second and Hustle shot free. The yellow boat pivoted into another tight
turned and circled back, both the fishermen twirling their hooks again.
Hustle's engine quit. The grinding rumble ceased abruptly. Jim and Shannon
looked at each other, horrified by the sudden deadly silence. "What"
"I don't know." He pressed the starter switch. The engine ground
but didn't start. "Maybe fuel."
"They're coming."
The yellow boat was so close that Jim could see the expressions on the
sun-tanned faces of the fisherman twirling the grappling hooks: intense
concentration, hope and triumph fired their eyes. This was it. They were
coming in like professionals, a well-oiled team doing their job. Instead
of a huge tuna or swordfish, they were going to hook a sailboat.
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