Last Resort (24 page)

Action shoves me back down. “You already did dat in your pants.”

The rest of the gang laughs.

“Hey, Action, did you ever see his woman?” Owen asks.

“She de one with de tight ass, right?”

“Aye, she de one,” Owen nods.

Action chuckles knowingly. “I remember dat one. I remember dat one well.”

My face grows hot. I look at the floor.

Action taps me on the head. “You say the Yankee man wants your woman. Whatcha tink he is doin’ to her right now? I bet I know,” Action leaps up and, with his hands in the air grabbing what are meant to be my wife’s ankles, thrust his hips obscenely. In a high pitched voice he coos, “Oh, dat’s it, Yankee man. Give it to me. Harder! Harder!”

Owen and the rest of the thugs convulse with hooting laughter. With my jaw clenched in silent fury, I glare at Action. Seeing my rage, Action’s smile slides away. He sits across from me once again. Sensing the tension, the others quiet down.

“Hey, tough guy, why didn’t you kill de Yankee man when you had de chance?” Action asks.

I swallow hard. “I should have.”

“You should have,” Action repeats and nods his head. “But you didn’t. “You tink I don’t know you. You were at de Jacuzzi. I remember. You scorned me.”

“No I didn—”

“Don bother lyin’, mon. I seen it in your eyes,” Action continues. “Maybe you thought you were better than Action. Not better than me now, are you? No, not now when you need me to get your woman back. You thought Action was your enemy and Yankee man was your friend. Now maybe you tink different. Maybe now you see de true lay of de land. Listen and understand me now. It is not white person or black person, islander or visitor. It is who has this,” he holds up a machete. “And what you’re willing to do with it.”

One of the men working the sails tells Action they are about to round the cape into the bay. Before I can blink, Action nods to the men around me—a signal they must have worked out in advance—and the men seize me.

“What are you do—” I try to holler, but one of the men clamps a hand over my mouth. They lift me off my feet and pass me along the side of the boat and below the deck. Light from the lantern swings erratically, allowing me only a brief glimpse of where they are taking me. I see the cramped quarters of a fisherman’s boat: counter tops, navigation charts, and non-working electric equipment. They open a narrow closet—not much bigger than a telephone booth—and shove me inside.

“Let me out!” I kick the door, but there is hardly enough room to lift my leg.

“You come out after we take de resort,” one of the men says.

Groping about blindly in the darkness, I feel wires and bits of insulation. I open the life vest, pull out the bottle of gasoline, and flick the lighter hidden inside the vest so that I can see. Fittingly for my predicament, the closet is as narrow and dark as the interior of a coffin.

My plan is simple: Get on the boat, sail it to the point where the current is strongest, and use my gasoline and lighter to set the boat on fire. Of the murdering thugs, those not burned in the fire will leap into the sea. The deadly current will sweep them away to Goat Island where they will starve to death, unable to swim back to the mainland, or the current will pull them past Goat Island to drown far out in the ocean. As for me, using the flippers and vest, I will swim back to the mainland as I had before. In one shot, I will wipe out the thugs, save the resort and protect Gwen. Up to this point, my plan worked perfectly, and it still can…if I am willing to sacrifice myself.

I start to hyperventilate, horrified at the choice that fate leads me to. Time! Time! I wish for more time, but there is none. Every second that passes brings us closer to the resort. Soon we will sail inside the bay, safely beyond the pull of the current. No matter what, I am a dead man, but if I set the boat aflame now my death will not be in vain. I want to be brave, head high in the face of death, but I cannot. I start to weep.

Gwen. I will never see her face again. She does love me, and she does want to be with me, above all others. I know that now. She proved that the night Conner drove me from the resort. Conner—so masculine and strong—offers her food and protection, but still she chose me. Gwen will never know what really happened to me. She will never know I died trying to protect her.

I yank one of the dangling wires out of the wall and fasten it around the doorknob so that no one will be able to open the door and extinguish the fire until it is beyond control. Fighting back the tears, I wear a rueful smile, realizing Action unwittingly put me in the best spot on the boat to enact my plan. The old wood and insulation that surround me will act as excellent tinder for the fire.

I pour the gasoline around the closet, grip the lighter in my trembling hand and pray that I will swiftly lose consciousness as the flames engulf me.

Chapter Twenty-One

In the pitch black of the closet, I give myself a moment for any last thoughts and as I do so, I press my back against the wall. The wall buckles behind me. That is odd. It is difficult to turn in the narrow closet, but I face the back wall and press on it. It is no more than thin plywood wedged in place. I rip it from the wall and feel what must be a layer of insulation. I tear it and put my hand into the opening, expecting to feel a hard wall, but instead I feel …nothing. Air. Open space. I tear the remaining insulation away and shine the lighter inside the opening. It is a crawl space running the length of the deck to the bow. The crawl space is exceedingly narrow, but I see right away that I am slender enough to squeeze into it. Does it even lead anywhere? For all I know it could take me to a dead end. There is only one way to find out.

I touch the open flame from the lighter to the closet wall. Whoosh, the flames spring to life, nearly singeing my eyebrows off. The heat is ferocious. I wriggle blindly into the crawl space, pushing the life vest before me. The clatter I make is horrendous, but there is no need for stealth. I hear shouts and sudden stamping feet above me. The thugs focus on the sudden fire raging below deck, ignoring the scuttling sound of my movement beneath their feet. Above the roar of the flames, I hear men pounding on the closet door, but they cannot open it and the fire spreads. Smoke pours into the crawl space. I look back to what appears to be an open furnace, flames curling into the opening near my feet. Moving in the tight space is hard. I wriggle like a worm. The shouts grow louder as the smoke thickens. Coughing furiously, I reach a wall and can go no further. I must get out of here. Holding my breath, my hands roam everywhere until I feel what seems like a hatch above my head. It will not open. I pound on it, once, twice and finally it flies open. Fresh air blasts my face, which I inhale greedily as I climb out of the crawl space and emerge at the bow.

A column of smoke, flecked with curling wisps of fire and red sparks, rises from below deck. The sparks dust the sails, smolder on the white fabric, and then catch fire. The thugs—having packed the boat in unsafe numbers—have nowhere to go in their haste to flee. They tumble over the rails into the ocean. The inferno casts a blood red glow upon the sea. Many men bob in the water, shouting to their comrades. Amidst the panic and commotion, I don the life vest and begin to untie the flippers from my belt.

“You!” Action points at me. He launches himself over the heads of his terrified gang, knocking several into the sea.

He crashes into me, knocking me down before I can dive overboard.

“I fuckin’ kill you,” he punches my face, but I tilt to the side and only catch a glancing blow.

His hands wrap around my throat, squeezing tight. My feet tuck underneath him, and with all my strength, I kick back, sending him flying. Before he regains his balance I strike him in the jaw, once, twice, and he reels. He stumbles back and crashes against the fire-weakened wall, and it splinters from his weight, collapsing behind him. With an expression frozen in panic, Action falls backward into the inferno, screaming and reaching for me as the flames swallow him.

The stern is a massive fireball now, blowing smoke and debris into my face. Clutching the flippers, I leap into the sea and hurriedly put them on. Some of the men in the water spot me and swim towards me, but with the flippers and life vest, I easily elude them. Those who survived the fire paddle helplessly, struggling in vain against the current. I swim for the mainland and leave them to their fate.

I reach the mainland at the same spot as before, and head straight for Nelson. The door to the house will not open. He must have propped the table against it. I knock.

“Is that you, Phillip?” Nelson practically yelps.

“Yeah, I’m back.”

I hear the table slide across the floor and the door opens. The light of a small votive candle falls on me.

“What happened?”

“Action and his men are all dead,” I step inside. “I killed them all. If they haven’t drowned or starved yet they soon will.”

I detail exactly how I disposed of the gang. Nelson listens in astonishment.

“Phillip! You’re amazing,” he embraces me. “In one stroke you eliminated the worst bunch of murderers on the island.”

I nod with pride. “Exactly. And you know what this means? No more skulking about in terror. We have to meet with the remaining islanders. They’ve probably been as afraid of Action’s gang as we were. Now we can work together, grow crops, work the seas, and survive. First thing tomorrow morning we’ll walk into town and explain to the remaining islanders what has happened. I can’t stay here tonight, though. I’ve got to get Gwen out of the resort, but first, there’s something I need your help with.”

Nelson agrees to accompany me back to the boathouse, though not without some trepidation. A lantern glows within the boathouse. I creep towards it and see the two young women lying together on a crude cot in their filthy bra and panties. Their sole guardian lounges in a nearby chair with a machete in his lap. I linger around the side of the boathouse and motion for Nelson to perform his part of my plan.

“Hello? Is anyone inside?” Nelson loudly calls and steps into the open space.

I hear movement within and motion for Nelson to repeat himself. The door opens and the lone thug steps out.

“Uh, hi,” Nelson stands his ground, forcing the man to come to him.

As the thug approaches Nelson—machete in hand—I creep behind him. The thug hears my steps and turns to confront me, but by then I am already upon him. I smash a rock to the side of his head and he crumples to the ground.

Nelson claps his hands and leaps into the air. “We did it! My God, we really did it!”

I nudge the fallen man with my foot; he is out cold.

“Let’s get a rope to tie him up,” I advise.

I turn to see the two bedraggled women standing in the doorway, saying nothing, absorbing the scene. Hand-in-hand, they slowly walk over, their faces drained off emotion, as lifeless as rag dolls.

“You’re safe now,” I say to them. “We’re going to tie him up.”

They ignore me as if I am not there. One of the women, drops to her knees, picks up the rock I used in my attack and slams it down on the thug’s face. I jump back in shock, as the woman slams the rock repeatedly, shrieking in rage, pulverizing his skull to a bloody pulp. The other woman watches dispassionately, hardly blinking.

Finally, the woman drops the rock. Her chests heaves from the sudden rage that overwhelmed her and her breath comes in ragged pants. I help her to her feet.

Nelson whispers in my ear, “I guess we won’t need to tie him up after all.”

We lead the young women to the home where we buried Curtis. Nelson hovers about them like a nervous mother, wiping their dirty faces with a wet cloth, wrapping them in blankets and hastily creating a meal for them. Assured they will be well looked after, I head to the shed.

Nelson joins me there.

“You think they’ll be ok?” He asks.

I place the rope around my shoulders. “They’ve got to be. I’m off to get my wife.”

“Good luck,” he shakes my hand.

“I’ll be back before dawn,” I reply, surprised by my own confidence.

It is after midnight. The climb up the backside of the cliff is gradual and made easier by well-worn goat paths leading to the top. Along with the rope coiled around my shoulder, I carry a lantern to see and a hatchet tucked in my pants. I look across the bay to where I last saw the burning sailboat, but nothing remains but black, endless sea. The fact that I—scrawny Phillip Crane—single handedly eliminated a small army of murderous thugs, still amazes me. I clench my jaw and re-focus on the task. Near the top of the cliff, I extinguish the lantern so that no one patrolling the resort will see the light. Proceeding without the lantern, however, is extremely dangerous. Without a moon in the sky, the stars yield hardly any light to help me see where I am walking. On the other hand, the added darkness will undoubtedly help me sneak into the resort. I move with extreme caution, grabbing hold of every scraggly bush or tree I can. Flat on my belly, I peer over the edge of the cliff down on the resort. From this vantage everything looks like a miniature set. Tiny spots of light indicate where torches burn. A few of the spots of light move from time to time. That would probably be Bob and Dean on their nightly patrol.

I tie one end of the rope around the base of a tree and tug on it several times to ensure it will support my weight and that the knot in the rope will hold. Lying flat on my belly, I inch to the edge. It is not a sheer drop, but rather an uneven precipice, with rocks and trees that jut into the void, and parts where the cliff pulls back like a man sucking in his gut. Gingerly, I turn around and crawl backwards down the cliff face, clinging to every tree, shrub, or stone along the way. Shirtless, sweat covers me. I cannot tell if it is from the strain of my exertion or my terror of falling. I uncoil the rope and climb down another few feet, dangling freely in the air for the first time. Taking a deep breath, I continue on, hand over hand, clinging to the cliff face when I can and hanging from the rope the rest of the time. Progress is slow and arduous. My hands ache. I reach a tree protruding from the cliff face. The tree trunk curves upward to catch the sun. The tree roots form a gnarled web fastening it to this precarious perch. I balance on the tree trunk, testing it first to ensure it will hold me, and gauge how far I descended. There is still so far to go. I am not even halfway down. I rest for a few minutes, and then resume the descent. I squint at my watch. An hour has gone by. This is taking much longer than I expected. Considering how difficult it is to descend the cliff, will I be able to climb back up? Furthermore, will Gwen be able to? I have serious doubts. What to do?