Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

endorphins began to release, the stiffness and pain faded as the muscles heated and loosened, and what had begun as misery inched towards pleasure. She turned her head at the end of her stroke and glanced back at Joseph in the stern. He stood with the steering paddle locked under his arm and rapped the rhythm out on the drum fastened to his waist. Behind him was Sinbad, looking aft over the transom and longing for pursuit. The cow had objected to having the dog on board that first time, but Joseph had taken her aside for a word and she’d returned to the boat blushing furiously and the matter was settled. Annie would like to have known what was said.

They passed under the bridge and were out of the inner harbour and into wind and a slight chop now. The occasional bit of spray was added to the rain, but the slap of the waves striking the hull and the surge and roll added spontaneity and freedom to what had previously been mere mechanical exercise, and the women bent forward and pulled and straightened, bent forward and pulled and straightened, and the beat increased and the canoe raced onwards and one of the Elders began to sing and Annie’s heart swelled as she joined in the old travelling songs and in that moment she could not imagine being anywhere else as the memories of kidnapping and police interviews faded and disappeared under the soothing rhythms of chant and drum.

Joseph steered in towards the shoreline for a few hundred feet, the big dugout canoe quick and responsive, and then he straightened it out again and they gradually disappeared into the rain and mist and only the distant drumbeats and windswept catches of song remained, and then these too faded and disappeared and the last sign of their passing was a faint trace of wake that thinned and spread and vanished under the hard beat of the rain.

“It’s them all right, I can just make out the old guy in the back of the boat,” the short slender man with the binoculars said to his companion as he peered out at the water through the window of the beat-up Dodge Ram 4x4 with the Arizona plates. A .308 hunting rifle with a scope lay in the back seat. “I might be able to touch the old guy up if they come back the same way but I can’t guarantee it. I’m never going to be able to pick out the woman. They all look the same to me.”

His partner said, “This was a dumb idea right from the start. I can’t believe we drove all the way out here for this. I know Karl owes Jeremiah for the girls and all, but this is just crazy. Never going to work. And why are we going after these two anyway? Isn’t it the grandson who inherits the property?”

They gazed morosely down at the ocean. They were from dry country and not comfortable with any of this maritime vengeance business.

“It seems those two are the closest thing Kane has to a family. If he’s made a will, they’d inherit. Jeremiah guaranteed his council that Kane’s farm will be coming to the commune and is in trouble if he doesn’t deliver. Could even lose his place as Prophet, so he can’t afford to take the chance of a will lying around. Karl says we need to help him out or the pipeline could dry up. No telling what his successor will decide. A lot of Plentiful’s members are against sending women to us no matter how much we pay for them.”

“We’ll just have to come up with a different plan then. One that doesn’t involve a dozen witnesses in a hollowed-out log,” his partner said.

“Travis said they live in a crappy old house in the East End. Not exactly your high-end neighbourhood with security patrols passing by every few minutes. How hard could it be to deal with them there?”

“You know, you’re right. Who cares how we get it done? Let’s just do it our way and tell them about it afterwards. I need to get back home. I heard a rumour that a new crop might be coming in from Utah next week, and I want to be there in time to get an early pick.”

Arrow lay at her berth near the marina entrance, gently rolling and tossing as the wind and currents acted upon her. Occasionally she’d bend to a harder gust and surge up against the dock bumpers before falling back into her irregular restless motion. Traffic was busy in the outside channel and wakes from passing boats added another variable to Arrow’s movements. Inside the cabin where Jared and Danny sat brooding over morning coffee there was the soft clink of glasses tapping and the occasional slither of something in a locker, poorly stowed and seeking freedom.

The Waterline was back onto the hard for repair. The berth where she’d been previously tied up had undergone significant fire damage, and upon her return from the yacht club she’d been assigned a transient mooring, which was more subject to the vagaries of wind, tide, and marine traffic. Jared could identify with Arrow’s unrest and felt that he and Danny were in similar circumstances, the three of them tossed to-and-fro by unknown and unpredictable forces over which they had no control. He expressed this thought to Danny.

“A sea of troubles,” Danny agreed. “If we knew who to oppose, I would be all for taking arms.”

Their search for Albright’s boat had proved futile. The party office said that any information regarding Albright’s private life was exactly that, private, and refused to give them any help. Cat had spent hours on the net looking for some connection between Albright and a specific motor yacht without success, while Danny and Jared had wasted two days walking the docks of every marina in and around the city looking for a boat resembling Cat’s