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

the boats I’m trying to contact. It’s as if Desolation Sound has suddenly become the Bermuda fucking Triangle. Boats and people are just vanishing into it.”

“Which is why we have to go up there and find them,” Thomas said. “And the sooner we leave, the better.”

Clarke knew they wouldn’t tell him the real reasons behind their concern, but it was clear they were worried. The three of them had that much in common anyway.

“Look, I’m not disagreeing with you. It’s just that Merlynn had to fly back east to help look after sick grandkids, and she’s out of touch for the next little while. It’s her boat, and I’m not comfortable taking it out in this weather. It’s still way too unsettled. Just take a look at that.” Clarke raised his head and pointed up at a particularly dense black cloud passing directly overhead. Spatters of rain fell upon his upturned face. And then a larger, mottled, more solid spatter.

“Fucking seagulls,” Clarke raged, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping the shit off his forehead. “I hate those fucking flying rats.”

“Actually, I think that one might have been a raven,” Thomas said.

Clarke looked up. He opened his mouth as if to speak and then thought better of it and closed it again.

Legalese departed the yacht club twenty minutes later. 3

Arrow

The black clouds rolled in from the southeast in a tumbled mass, piling up layer upon layer before spilling forward as the tops blew off and cascaded down the grey skies like foaming spindrift breakers. Far beneath the leaden skies, a tattered and beaten old wooden sailboat drifted and rolled on the angry seas and bent to the wind. She straightened and tilted, straightened and tilted, the main flapping wildly, the boom slamming from side to side against the shrouds, and the sail dragging down on the deck as it lurched back and forth from port to starboard and back again. The headsail was shredded and in tatters, large strips of it streaming over the bow like giant telltales pointing the way north.

In the cabin below, water coursed from side to side and fore and aft with every sway and roll and splashed up against the cupboards and settees. A shelf had given way and books and magazines floated for a time before they became waterlogged and sank. A galley cupboard sprung its latch and added its contents to the mix. A pulsing red light showed and a high-pitched whine sounded intermittently as the viscous mess found its way into the bilges. And now a sack of flour broke open and disseminated and the bilge water thickened further and the pump faltered then plugged and moaned in protest for a brief moment before it finally stopped altogether. And then there was only the sound of the rain bouncing off the decks and slanting below through the open companionway and the crashing of the boom and the slatting of the sails as Arrow writhed and twisted and continued on her tortuous path north. 4

Raven

The dugout canoe with the bird painted on the prow had been making good progress until the storm cells suddenly appeared out of nowhere. What had been a comfortable rolling swell that pushed it along and gave them an extra knot of speed quickly transformed into steep four to six footers with the tops blowing off that threatened to swamp their little craft at any moment. For the first minutes after the wind and heavy rain struck, they had attempted to hold their course, but as the waves increased in height and began to break at their crests, it became dangerous and they were flirting with a capsize. Turning back was out of the question; there was only one option left to them and that was a bad one for a fourteen-foot dugout canoe: bear off and run before the storm.

His companion stretched out in the bottom of the canoe to lower the centre of gravity, and the paddler crouched in the stern with the steering paddle and fought the canoe around onto the new course. It lay in the trough between the waves as if resting for a second, and then the first swell overtook her and broke against her stern and then it lifted her up and she began to soar. The rain was coming down so hard now visibility was down to less than fifty feet. They had passed increasing numbers of logs in the last few miles, some of them sun-blackened old derelicts lying nearly submerged in the water while numerous others were fresh with new cuts and rode higher. Under these conditions there was little chance of spotting any that lay in their path in time to avoid them. If they hit one, they were finished. It would be a matter of luck and the gods’ will.

The wind slacked off briefly, and the paddler took the opportunity to bail. He could keep up with the water in the lulls when the wind and the rain died down for a few beats, but when the full force of the storm returned it took all his strength and concentration to keep the dugout’s stern to the waves, and the water slopping about inside rose to dangerous levels. The canoe was teetering on the edge of control now, down in the water and beginning to surf as some of the bigger waves overtook them and cascaded through, the bow hanging suspended in space for long seconds and the waters hissing up alongside the gunwales in rainbow spray before the wave charged past and the canoe dropped back into the trough briefly, as if catching its breath before rising up again on another mad careen. If the canoe turned broadside to the waves, they would broach and overturn and die. Hypothermia followed by drowning in minutes.

Six inches of water sloshed back and forth inside the canoe now, and it was increasingly sluggish and slow to respond to his efforts. It would soon be impossible