Dark Moon Walking (29 page)

The three canoes crept around the point and slid in among the same rocks that had hidden Percy. They rested there for a minute or two, then one at a time moved out, each paddler watching the canoe before to see if it caused any sign of activity on the black-hulled ship that lay at anchor in the middle of the bay. Nothing stirred. No light showed in any of the windows. No sound drifted across the water. No shadow moved along the decks.

They joined up again on the far side of the crew boat. They had made the first move without a problem, but this was when they were most vulnerable and they could not afford even the slightest misstep. If they were discovered now, it would not only mean they had failed, it would also put them and the four brothers who were still over in Shoal Bay in jeopardy. And if Walker's guess was correct, maybe many others too—men they didn't know, people they had never cared about. White people. City people. People who had never cared about them and even some they may have robbed down there in the city they had left behind.

They were nervous, but it didn't show. This was exactly the kind of adrenalin rush they had lived by in the city and they knew how to control and direct it. They moved with speed and caution and, although few of them were ready to admit it, a kind of eager anticipation that they thought had been left far behind. These were, after all, the very same skills and actions that had gotten them into trouble just a few months ago, and it was bizarre and a little unsettling to be offered the opportunity to use them again, this time on the side of justice, to help others rather than themselves. The first man to silently scale the smooth metal surface of the hull reached the deck. He was grinning as he turned to help the next.

It took only moments for the two men to climb the rail and flatten themselves on the narrow side deck, where they blended into the darkness and the shadows. They lay there, motionless, until they were sure they had not been noticed and then one of them reached an arm back down to grasp a water-filled plastic bottle that was being passed up from the canoe below. He passed that to his partner and reached for another. More followed, until each man had three bottles. The smaller of the two men then eased his body over the cockpit coaming and dropped silently into the well. Again he waited, listening for the slightest sound, straining to detect any movement, but nothing stirred. Satisfied, he lifted his head till it was barely above the lip, then slid his hand forward along the deck until his fingers touched the raised metal of a filling cap. Perfect. He rubbed his fingertips lightly over the surface and felt the groove that ran across the center. The blade of the knife he carried in his jeans pocket was polished and honed, and in anything other than this pitch-dark night he would have worried about it throwing off a reflection, but that would not be a problem here. Sound, however, might be unless he took care to avoid it. He dug the knife out, opened it up, and reached his hand out along the deck again.

Twenty minutes after they had entered the bay, the three canoes were back out in the channel, heading home to the camp.

In Shoal Bay, four tiny vessels slipped quietly through the night. They approached from the west, hugging the shore, careful to maintain silence and stay out of the sight of any guard who might be sitting out on the point above them. One by one they slid past the rocks, then turned and sped across the open strip of water that stretched between them and the wharf, where they slid between the creosoted timbers to gather again in the heavy black shadow beneath. Silent and motionless, they peered out at the dark lodge at the top of the bay, searching for any sign of life. Above their heads they could see four canisters gleaming dully through gaps in the wood. One appeared to be open.

Two of the men left the group and guided their canoes up onto the shingles at the head of the wharf, using the deep shadow of the timbers overhead to stay hidden. One at a time they climbed out, lifted their small boats up to rest on the rocks, then crept into the open. Keeping their bodies low, they ran up the path and out along the top of the wharf until they reached the canisters. It took only seconds to realize that they were too heavy to pass down to the tiny canoes below, but locked containers were a challenge both men had dealt with many times before. Working silently, they opened each one and passed the contents down, one item at a time. Waiting hands received them, and there was a soft splash that blended with the restless slap of the waves as the men waiting below dropped each one into the water. A few items from each canister were carefully wrapped in a blanket and laid in the bottom of one of the canoes, just as Walker had asked.

TWENTY-FOUR

It was late when Dan woke up, much later than he had planned. The wind had not quit. In fact, he thought it might have strengthened and he could hear the rain drumming on the cabin roof. That and the rocking of the boat were probably what had kept him asleep long past the time he had wanted to be up and gone. It had kept everyone else asleep too. There were no sounds of life that he could hear and he knew he was not the only one who had had an exhausting day yesterday.

He pushed aside the quilt Annie had put over him and rolled off the settee. He had slept in the clothes he had been given, but there was no way he could wear them outside in the dinghy. In this weather, he would be hypothermic within half an hour. He needed to find where she had put his stuff and see if, by any miracle, it was dry. He glanced at his watch as he moved toward the galley. It was after seven o'clock, although the rain and clouds were holding back the daylight.

The galley was empty and the only sound was the occasional tick from the cooling wood stove. He guessed that Old Tom had left sometime in the night, but he wasn't about to go outside to see if his rowboat was gone. He would find out soon enough. He sat for a minute and looked around. No sign of his clothes, and he wasn't about to go exploring the boat. If he stumbled into Annie's stateroom and woke her, she would probably shoot him! So now what?

His eyes lit on the kettle. Coffee would be good—actually, more than good. Even tea would be okay. He stood up and moved across to the stove. There was a box of wood by the door and a cast-iron poker lying on the grate. Dan grinned. There was nothing like killing two birds with one stone, and he could certainly plead innocence if he just happened to make a lot of noise opening the stove door. After all, he had never used this stove before.

It didn't take long to get the firebox roaring and he really did have to struggle to get the wood in. In fact, it required much use of the long cast-iron poker, which clanged loudly every time it hit the heavy metal of the stove. Annie appeared just as he was closing the damper. Unlike him, she had changed before she went to bed, and it was hard to believe this was the same woman who had greeted him the night before. Gone were the boots and the heavy work pants. Now she wore a long pink flannel nightdress that she had covered with a faded robe, and her feet were pushed into a pair of ancient fleece slippers. With her face softened by sleep and her hair free to fall across her shoulders, she reminded him of a favorite aunt he and his mother used to visit: he could see the woman's face but couldn't remember her name, although he was pretty sure it started with an
H
—Holly, Hilary, Harriet . . .

Annie interrupted his reminiscence by grabbing the poker from his hand and replacing it none too gently on the grate.

“Lot of work to get that stove going.” Her eyes were fixed firmly on his face and he worked hard at looking innocent.

“Yeah. Guess I haven't done it for quite a while. I've got a Dickinson. Runs on diesel.” He looked away from her to glare at the offending wood stove. “Sorry for the noise. I didn't mean to wake you.”

“Huh.” She lifted the kettle and took it to the sink to fill.

Dan thought she was going to call his bluff, but instead she changed the subject.

“Guess Old Tom took off.”

Dan glanced at the now-vacant place at the table. “Guess so. He wasn't here when I came out. Think he'll be okay?”

Annie shrugged. “Should be. He's weird, but he seems to make out all right.” She set the kettle on the stove and leaned over to peer out the porthole. “Maybe the rain'll clean him up a bit. Sure did stink.”

Dan smiled. The sour odor Tom had brought with him still lingered in the cabin and he guessed Annie would be doing some cleaning of her own later on.

“At least he's going the right way. The wind will be pushing him. Like I said last night, I'm going to have to fight it pretty well all the way.”

Annie's head snapped around and she stared at him. “You still figuring to go out in this?”

“Don't have a choice. I've got to get back to my boat.”

“Yeah.” She snorted. “Don't think that's going to happen till this blows over. Look outside.”

Dan shrugged and tried to make light of it. He really didn't have a choice. “It's not that bad.”

Annie wasn't buying it. “Right. Why don't you step out onto the deck and say that?” She gave a harsh laugh. “And while you're out there, make sure you look right out into the channel. I'm protected by the point here. It'll be blowing twice as hard out there. You'd be lucky to get twenty feet.”

Dan leaned over to peer out past the whipping branches of the trees to the waters of the channel, where the tops of the waves were churning with white foam.

“Shit. How long you think it's going to last? You said last night it would quit by this morning.”

Annie shrugged. “So I was wrong. Up here you can never be certain of anything. Probably blow over by the end of the day. Maybe earlier. It ain't nothing serious.”

Well, maybe it wasn't to Annie, but it was to him.

“Think I could use your radio?”

“You're welcome to try. Not going to get much reception in this. Probably can't even reach Dawson's Landing.”

“Jesus. You're just full of good news this morning.”

She grinned at him. “Can't control the weather.”

There it was again—the control thing. First Walker, now Annie. Seemed like a theme was developing.