Ragged Escape - Chris Gordon (short books to read TXT) 📗

Years later, whenever I was asked to tell this story, I always began with the day before the big rain. I was at Raccoon Cay, anchored in House Bay, on the banks side of the mostly uninhabited Ragged Island chain. They’re in the southern Bahamas, closer to Cuba than Nassau. There’s no house at House Bay, or anywhere else on the island, though there may have been at one time. There are no raccoons on Raccoon Cay either, though I understand there are some in Nassau and Freeport.

It’s amazing how this story has spread from boat to boat, always in person. Folks who know the story don’t talk about it over the radio, for good reasons. I’ve been asked to tell it so many times, in so many shared anchorages, that I decided to write it down to just hand out when someone new wanted it. So here it is.

I had been coming to the Ragged Islands ever since I retired, at at the young age of 54, from my job as a software engineer. It had been a rewarding career, both mentally and financially. When I determined that I had enough savings to last me until I turned 90, there was nothing holding me back. It had been years since my divorce. My adult children were off on their own. So I followed suit and left on my sailboat for parts unknown. So far, my projections of what this kind of life would cost have proven accurate enough. I don’t expect to be needing a job ever again. But that’s all history. You want to hear the story I promised.

I spent that day, the one before the rain, as I spent most days in the Raggeds, swimming or rowing my hard dinghy to the beach and back, hunting for a fish or lobster I could spear for dinner, hiking around the island or lazing in the cockpit with an easy book. It had been more than a month since the last rain and my water tanks were running low. I might need to return to civilization soon, an unappealing prospect. But the wind had come around to the south which usually meant a cold front with showers was approaching from the west.

I filled the two biggest bowls I had with tank water for the few dozen feral goats who were the island’s only permanent inhabitants. The shallow pond they used had gone completely dry and I was worried about them. I felt good about sharing my dwindling water supply with them but I could get more and they couldn't. Either it would rain or I’d return to Long Island to fill up.

I left the bowls at the edge of the dry pond, rowed back to Calypso, my old 38 foot Morgan sloop, and moved to Johnson Cay where I’d be better protected from the SW and west winds that were surely on the way. The next morning the sky turned black, the wind did indeed swing to the west and the rain poured down. I let it wash off my decks for the first few minutes then plugged the scuppers, opened up the deck fills and went below. Listening to that fresh water running down into my two tanks gave me a sweet feeling.

The rain squalls continued for two and a half hours, longer than usual but much needed. As soon as the sky cleared, I returned to House Bay knowing the wind would soon swing around to the north and northeast. Late that afternoon I rowed to the beach to see how the goats were making out. The pond now had several inches of water and the goats were looking much happier. I picked up one of the bowls I had left for them but the other had disappeared. It wasn’t at the edge of the pond where I knew I had left it. Could the goats have carried it off somewhere? That didn’t seem likely. Then I saw the footprints.

They were obviously made by a human. But I was the only human anywhere near the island and the footprints were definitely not mine. I wanted to follow them but it was getting dark. Feeling a bit like a modern day Robinson Crusoe, I rowed back to Calypso determined to solve this mystery in the morning.

#

I had no idea how long it might take to track down the mysterious stranger so I came prepared with a gallon jug of water, half a loaf of bread that I had baked the night before, a flashlight, a book to read, and a sheet that I could use for shade. At the pond the footprints were still there in the muck at the water’s edge. I followed them for a few yards but lost them in the goat tracks heading away from the pond. They were pointed across the island toward the ocean side so I followed one of the goat trails that looked to be going that way.

When I reached the cliff I called out “Hello.” and “Anyone there?” several times but got no answer. Whoever he was he had to be around there somewhere. It’s not that big an island. (Why did I assume it was a he? I couldn’t imagine that it would not be.) I would wait him out. On a sandy spot back from the edge of the cliff I set up camp, draping the sheet across a pair of palmettos, leaning back against my backpack and opening the book I had brought - a favorite Dortmunder story by Donald Westlake.

I sat there for hours, surviving on bread, water, shade and a good yarn. I was certain that if I waited long enough, he would have to appear. It was beginning to look like I might be wrong. Then my eye caught a glimpse of movement. When I looked that way there was nothing, but I felt certain something had moved at the edge of the cliff, disappearing behind it.

I stood on the edge calling out to him. “Hello? I don’t mean you any harm, I’m just curious is all. Are you down there?” No answer.

I started down the cliff and could see that a path had been worn into the limestone. Then I discovered the opening to a small cave halfway up the cliff face. I stood just outside the opening and called out again, in a normal voice this time. “My name is Wayne. I’m from the sailboat anchored on the other side. I thought you might need some help. Is it okay if I come in?” No response.

I peered inside and saw him, crouched as far back into the shallow cave as he could get. He had a knife in one had, it looked like a steak knife. He was brown skinned, extremely thin, wearing only a pair of dirty gray underpants. There were sores all over his body. He was clearly terrified of me.

I wanted to allay his fears somehow. I squatted down, showed him my empty hands in front of me, and spoke softly and calmly. “Do you speak English? Is there anything I can do for you? Are you hungry? I have some bread with me, up above.” At that his eyes betrayed him. “I’ll get the bread,” I told him him, “and be right back.”

I climbed back up the cliff, got what was left of the bread and returned to the cave. So he understood English, or at least the word bread. I squatted again in the same spot where I had been. He was in the same crouch, holding the same knife, but it was no longer pointed at me. I tossed the bread to him. He caught it and began devouring it with a hunger I had never seen in anyone before.

When he had finished, I told him I had more food on the boat. He was welcome to join me. “Would you like to do that?”

He asked “Who are you?” He spoke with an accent I couldn’t identify.

“I’m Wayne Simpson. I’m here on my boat. You must must have seen in anchored off the beach across the island. I come here a lot. I love this island. Now, I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here but I’ll try to help you if I can. There’s no one else here but us.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said and slowly stood up.

“Bring that bowl with you. I’m pretty sure that’s mine.”

#

We walked in silence back across the island to the beach where my dinghy was tied to a stake I had stuck in the sand. I rowed him out to Calypso and showed him the ladder for climbing aboard. He went up and I followed, tying off the painter and tossing my backpack into the cockpit. I said “Let’s go below, out of the sun.”

He followed me down the companionway, awkwardly. I pointed to the port settee, suggesting he sit there. He did, looking somewhat sheepish.

“I’m having a beer. Would you like one?”

“I am Muslim.”

I wasn’t sure but I guessed that meant no alcohol. “How about a glass of water?”

“Please.”

I handed him the water and said “Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?”

“Sir, my name is Ahmed Yasin. I am chemist, what you call pharmacist. My shop is in Kabul. My family is in Kabul. I hope they are.”

“You’re a long way from home,” said Wayne.

“I want much to go home.”

In broken English he went on to explain how he came to be on Raccoon Cay. I wish you could hear him tell the story in his own words. I’m sure you would be as moved by it as I was. What I’ll do, I’ll try to write it the way I remember it, not exactly in his words but the way I heard it. I’ll fix up his English to make it easier for you.

#

This is the story he told.

“Sir, you cannot imagine what it is like to have a brother like mine. He is my older brother, the one who should be looking out for me, but it has always been the other way around. He has never had a real job and is always asking me for money. I should tell him no but he is my brother. He gets involved in every crazy scheme that comes along. He goes from one extreme to another. He has been into politics, into gambling, into religion. Whatever he gets into he always gets in too deep.

“It is because of him that I was arrested. I have never done anything wrong in my life. I am an honest pharmacist. I have a good wife and two young children, who are the center of my life. But when my brother called and said he was desperate, that he needed me to bring him some money, that he had to have it, I did what I always do. I went to the bank, got the money he needed, and drove to where he was staying. He is my brother.

“When I got there he introduced me to some friends who were staying with him. They seemed even crazier than he is. I had only been there a few minutes when these guys in brown uniforms broke down the front door and burst in pointing guns at us, and yelling things we could not understand. My English was not so good then.

“I do not know what could be more frightening than facing armed men who look both enraged and scared at the same time. The veins in their foreheads were throbbing. Their eyes were darting everywhere. They were so intense, and yelling, yelling, furious that we were not doing what they wanted, but we did not know what they wanted.

“I told my brother and his friends to lie on the floor,