One Way or Another(3)

The boat was a hundred yards away by now, and picking up speed. Marco got to his feet, hitched up his baggy shorts, and picked up his binoculars. It was a modern yacht. This one, though, was bigger, smarter, faster.

As he watched, a woman emerged from the cabin and ran along the deck. Her long red hair caught in the wind that was coming with the storm, clouding around her in a coppery halo where the sun’s final gleam lit it momentarily. She was wearing a blue dress that, as she balanced at the very stern, whipped back from her slender body. She put a hand up to her head, her neck drooped in a gesture of what seemed to Marco to be pain. Shocked, he caught a glimpse of a gaping, bloody wound, her white skull. And that’s when he saw her fall.

Marco stared at the place where she had gone under, waiting for her to come back up. The yacht chugged on. There was no sign of her in its wake. No one had come running to help, no one on the yacht seemed to know she had gone. It had been maybe thirty seconds too long and Marco knew she was in trouble. He ran for the old orange inflatable, dropped it into the waves. The outboard started at first go. In a few minutes he was where he’d seen her go in. He circled, staring deep into the sea, but the water was less clear here, disturbed now by his boat. He stilled the engine and jumped over the side.

It was like falling off a cliff. He went so deep his lungs were bursting when he finally popped back up next to the dinghy. The sea was kicking up, the sky dark, the storm was getting closer. And then he saw her hair, long, copper hair floating upward toward him. He was there in a second.

But he could not find her. He dived, and dived again, but the storm had moved in and turbulence shifted the waves, shifted him. He had lost her.

And now the past came back at him, bringing memories he never wanted to relive.





2

The dog cowered in the dinghy, ears flattened by the rain coming down in a single sheet as Marco clambered back onboard. He could not see so much as a foot ahead. Cell phone reception, never good in this remote area, was impossible; he could not even call the coast guard station or the harbor. Thanking God he always put a life jacket on Em, he snapped on her lead and wrapped the end around his wrist. If the boat capsized he would be able to hang on to her.

Green waves sloshed them upward into a froth of foam, then slid them steeply back down again. The outboard sputtered then died. Marco scanned all around, searching for the horizon, for land, for anything but the sea that had already claimed one victim. He wondered if he and Em were going to be next. If so, nobody would ever know about the red-haired girl in the blue dress with the bloody wound on the side of her head. If they ever found her, that is. Nobody would know that wound had been made before she fell, that someone on that big black-hulled gulet had struck that blow. It was something only Marco knew. Now, though, was not the time to think of that; he just prayed he could get himself and his dog out of there.

With a final quick flick of lightning and a diminishing boom of thunder the sky began dramatically to change. In minutes a blade of sunlight shone through and the sea fell back into a blue-green swell, lifting them smoothly toward land.

Marco unwrapped the dog leash from his fingers. Water dripped off the points of Em’s ears, dripped off Marco’s head, ran down his chest. He put a hand over his eyes, searching all around, but did not see the girl.

Other boats appeared, heading fast for the harbor. Marco flagged down a small fishing boat and hitched a lift, hunkering down amongst the scaly catch as they towed his disabled dinghy to the wharf. Both he and Em smelled strongly of fish when they finally walked along the harbor to the coast guard office, something which pleased the dog more than it did Marco.

The office was a square room with two desks, each with a large leather chair, one of which was occupied by a self-important man in a gray uniform and heavy dark glasses which he did not remove as he inspected the still-dripping Marco, up, then down, then back up to his stubble-bearded face. The man’s glance swiveled to take in the wet dog, who proceeded to give a great rolling shake, sending drops of water flying all over him.

“Sorry,” Marco apologized. “It’s a bit wet out there.”

Giving him a disdainful look, the officer brushed off his uniform with a large, well-manicured hand and asked abruptly what he wanted. Marco got the impression he didn’t much care. He’d probably interrupted him on his way to the café for a glass of wine and a chat; soaking-wet vacationers and their even worse dogs who came in messing up his office and his outfit were unwelcome.

He smoothed back his hair and tried to arrange himself so he looked more presentable, difficult when you were that wet and wearing only bathing shorts, but he had more on his mind than mere appearance. “I came to report a drowning.”

The officer gave him a quick glance from behind the dark glasses. “Who?”

“I don’t know. A woman. Young. She fell off a large yacht.”

“How do you know she fell?”

Marco resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “I saw her.”

The officer took off his glasses and stared at Marco. He obviously distrusted him. “So? Why did you not save her from this drowning?”

“Sir,” Marco knew politeness was the only way to success with bureaucracy, “I tried. I dived many times but the sea was in turmoil. I could not find her. All I know is she fell from a large yacht, black, and very fast. It took off, she was left in its wake.…”