Then the mud pulled him down to make another grave.
****
“I’ve got him,” Lorali shouted. She had one hand on Mitch’s wrist and the other on the barrel of the shotgun as she strove to pull her lover back to the surface. But Mitch was heavier than she and the mud was a jealous suitor. She wasn’t going to be able to save him on her own.
Kit reached the same conclusion. He dropped Agnes Tharpe and plowed forward through the water so that he could grab Lorali by the pack on her back before she, too, could be pulled under. Joseph looked about wildly, then splashed over to Miss Tharpe and pulled her head back out of the water.
With a mighty heave, Kit pulled Lorali back to safer ground. Her hand slipped off Mitch’s wrist and she struggled to maintain her hold on the shotgun, knowing that if either of them lost their grip on it he was dead. For a moment, they held even, like a well-matched tug of war. Then all at once, Mitch popped free and erupted from the depths into Lorali’s arms.
Mitch coughed vigorously, trying to clear his lungs, hampered by Lorali’s arms around his neck. He was angry and embarrassed that he had let his mind wander and the gun had gotten wet. He had just soaked their best chance of dealing with Miguel Sanchez.
“I’m all right,” he assured his friends, trying to make Lorali let go of him. “Let’s just get moving and find this stupid raft.”
****
The raft was beached in a kind of hut which allowed it to be stored both off the ground and out of the water. The logs were remarkably sturdy, preserved from the worst damage caused by rot and insects. The ropes and vines binding them together were in far worse condition. It was not seaworthy, but with a little bit of work it might yet get them to the yacht.
“It seems to me,” Mitch announced as his friends collapsed against the floor of the hut, “that there are two reasons not to try to sail to the yacht tonight.” The swamp muck was drying in their hair and a horde of bloodsucking insects were looking for a free meal at their expense. “First, I don’t think this raft is ready to sail yet. And second, the a-cha-te are still out there. If they see us coming, we could have one hell of a time getting to the boat.”
Kit yawned. He was feeling almost comfortable sitting out of the water with his back to a wall. “What do you want to do?”
“Take some time to try and improve this raft. If we wait to sail until two or three hours before tomorrow’s sunset, we can maximize our chances of escaping detection. With luck we’ll board the yacht just before sunset. Then the most we should have to worry about is Miguel.”
Lorali had closed her eyes but she was still listening. “And if Derek moves the yacht tomorrow?”
Mitch was blunt. “Then I think we’re all dead. But I don’t think he’s going to do that. I think he knows we have to try for that yacht. I think he’s planning on us trying to get it. And I think he needs our dead bodies too much to let us get killed where he can’t use them.”
“Then why wait?” Kit asked again, his own follow up yawn answering the question.
“Because we’re exhausted,” Mitch admitted. “And tired people make mistakes.”
Mitch didn’t think they could survive anymore mistakes.
****
They spent the following afternoon improving the raft and cleaning the weapons as best they could. Fresh ropes and vines replaced the rotting remnants of the earlier effort. The logs were lashed tight to withstand the waves and current. Joseph’s brother had hoped to sail this craft to Florida. All Mitch wanted was to reach the yacht in the lagoon.
When they finished, the raft floated. The minimum Mitch hoped to accomplish. In addition, they had succeeded in wedging upright posts and thick sticks between the logs so that they would be able to cling to something as they paddled. They tied Miss Tharpe in a sitting position to the tallest post in the center of the structure and hoped the splashing water might cool her fever without cutting off her air.
“You realize if this flips over we won’t be able to save her,” Kit noted.
“If this flips over, we probably won’t be able to save ourselves,” Mitch answered.
****
It had been a bad couple of days, and the raft ride made matters worse. Accidents were bound to happen paddling around Lazarus Key with little control while the waves spun the raft and large fish bumped it in search of a meal.
Joseph fell off twice and without Kit’s strength, would doubtless have drowned or been eaten. The rest of them each succeeded in dropping something: Lorali her makeshift paddle, Mitch his shotgun, and Kit somehow lost the knapsack with Miss Tharpe’s a-cha-te skull in it.
Three hours was just about the right call for the journey. Two and a half would have been closer, but the survivors found themselves clinging to their raft and fighting to close with the yacht as the bottom rim of the sun touched the horizon.
It was not a beautiful sight. The oranges and reds of the setting sun were far too reminiscent of a-cha-te and blood. The dorsal fins, which occasionally broke surface, were too stark a reminder that feeding time was coming. But for all their troubles and nightmares, they did not hear a shout of warning or the firing of a gun as they inched their way toward the Sinclair yacht.
****
Kit struggled to the front of the raft as they approached the boat. It was larger than Captain Jack’s Lucky Lady, with a small low deck in the rear leading to a cabin, and a larger upper deck above the cabin in front of the wheel house. There was no sign of life on the deck. Matters couldn’t be working out more perfectly. Balancing himself as well as he could, he caught hold of the ladder at the rear of the boat and pulled himself onto the deck. In another moment, he had thrown down a mooring line and Lorali was struggling to hold the raft next to the yacht.
Mitch dropped his paddle and assisted Joseph to the ladder. Kit hauled the man up onto the deck beside him while Mitch went to free Miss Tharpe. The waves slapped the raft up and down while Lorali strained to keep the mooring line taut from her place on the raft. Mitch got one arm around Tharpe’s middle and caught the ladder with his left hand. Kit reached down to help.
“No, Miguel!”
One-handed, Joseph threw himself bodily against the Cuban as he stepped up behind Kit. The machete bit heavily into the wood of the gunwale. Kit never hesitated. He didn’t even think to use his gun. A lifetime of training took control of him as he rose to the challenge. Releasing his hold on Tharpe, Kit spun and drove his left fist into Miguel’s stomach. He lacked leverage, but Miguel had been thrown off balance by Joseph’s attack. The result was that both men had time to get to their feet again while Mitch and Miss Tharpe fell bodily off the raft. Lorali hesitated a moment, then released the mooring line to lunge after them. Half in the water herself, the fingers of her right hand found a handful of Tharpe’s hair while those of her left curled around a rung of the ladder. It was all she could do to hang on.
A startled yelp resonated from the fore deck as Kit recovered his balance and sought to draw Charlie’s .38 from his shoulder holster. Miguel’s machete flashed outward, knocking the pistol to the deck and forcing Kit to dance sideways away from it. His fists snapped into his old boxer’s form as Miguel stepped toward him. Kit feinted, ducking beneath the machete to land a glancing blow. Miguel slashed back, driving the boxer away from him. There wasn’t as much room as Kit would have liked, but he felt the old confidence growing.
In the water, Mitch felt a large body bump against him. He had no doubt that it did not belong to Agnes Tharpe. Somehow he was ten feet from the boat and getting farther away by the moment. The raft was drifting as well, and Lorali was clinging to the ladder with her arm around Miss Tharpe. Mitch was about to strike out toward them when a dorsal fin cut the water between them.
The engine of the yacht kicked to life and the propeller started churning. The yacht began to move. Away from Mitch, Kit realized. They were moving away and his friend was stranded in shark-infested waters.
Miguel also realized what was happening. The thought m
ade him happy. Perhaps the sharks would get Kit’s friends before he finished the boxer. Perhaps he should allow the Anglo to last long enough to hear them scream. He shifted his stance and considered the possibilities.
Lorali was even more aware of the sharks and the propeller. With a great show of strength and determination, she managed to switch her grip on Miss Tharpe from her hair to an arm around her torso. Then she pulled the woman and herself up an entire rung of the ladder. She couldn’t see Mitch; couldn’t help Mitch. All she could do was hold on to Miss Tharpe and the yacht and hope Kit or Joseph would come to help her before the sharks discovered this potential meal. Except she really couldn’t afford to wait because there was no guarantee that Kit or Joseph would survive to assist her. Gritting her teeth, Lorali muscled Miss Tharpe up onto her shoulder, before struggling to reach the next rung.
Kit danced right and jabbed left. He wasn’t even coming close anymore. Miguel had found his number. Kit had a nick above his eye and another on his shoulder, and Joseph had suffered a far more serious cut trying to help. There wasn’t enough room to move and Miguel made it too dangerous to close. Out of the corner of his eye, Kit saw Lorali’s hand reach the top of the gunwale.
Miguel noticed the hand, too.
The machete chopped down toward Lorali’s fingers and Kit Moran, the Bayonne Battler, struck for all he was worth. He landed two solid punches in Miguel’s face, cracking the bridge of the Cuban’s nose. Blood spattered everywhere and Kit followed up with such a thundering series of body blows he wondered why he had ever stopped fighting in the ring. He backed off of his victim and let him sway a moment on his unsteady feet. Then Kit landed a haymaker which drove Miguel flying over the gunwale and into the waves.
****
Mitch pulled himself back onto the raft and kicked himself into the center. The shark was playing with him. It was a husky, thick-bodied, all-too-hungry gray reef—a man-eater by any definition, and this one was at least twelve feet in length. Three times it had circled and once brushed against Mitch. He doubted that it was planning to wait much longer to eat.
Then Miguel hit the water and the sharks swarmed to feed.
Kit pulled Miss Tharpe and Lorali the rest of the way into the boat even as the frenzy began behind them. The sun had almost finished setting, but it was light enough to see the dark cloud billowing out of Miguel’s scattered remains. Lorali checked briefly on Joseph, but satisfied with his assurances, immediately set about scanning the water for Mitch. She found him clinging to the raft fifty yards behind them and pointed him out to Kit.
Kit recovered and holstered Charlie’s weapon while considering his friend’s predicament. Mitch was probably safe as long as he stayed on the raft. To rescue him, they needed control of the helm. “If you’ll follow me, Miss Sinclair,” he suggested, “I think it’s time this boat changed captains.”
Kit led the way to the open-air bridge. He made short work of the unarmed Hispanic piloting the vessel and after a moment’s consideration, threw the man bodily into the water after Miguel. The sharks hurried in to demonstrate their appreciation.
Lorali took the helm and began the slow and sweeping turn that would bring them back to Mitch.
****
From his vantage point on the raft, Mitch watched the cabin door open and Derek Sinclair and two a-cha-te emerge on deck. Kit and Lorali were oblivious to the danger, concentrating on the turn that would bring them back to him.
“Kit!” he shouted, going so far as to remove his hands from the raft to cup them around his mouth as he hollered his friend’s name. A shark bumped his craft, bringing his hands quickly back to the wood. “Kit! Behind you!” Mitch tried again.
His friends couldn’t hear him. Between the roar of the yacht’s engine and the noise of the waves, he couldn’t make them understand. Lorali waved to show him they were coming but neither she nor Kit looked behind them.
Mitch tried pointing, flagging and even a primitive mime to no avail. He could see the two a-cha-te silently circling toward the sides and could too readily imagine Derek moving in directly behind his unsuspecting friends.
He dug his hand into his pocket looking for something that would help him make noise. Among the now worthless shotgun shells, his fingers closed upon his derringer. One shot, if the wet gun would still fire.
He pointed it straight up into the air and nearly danced for joy when the weapon discharged.
****
Lorali kept her eyes on Mitch as she continued to ease the yacht toward him. He was waving his arms back and forth like he was already celebrating. She worried about him. For the first time in years, the future was beginning to look livable and if Mitch wasn’t careful, he would ruin it all by falling back into the water with the sharks.
“Why is he doing that?” she asked Kit. “Surely he knows we see him now.”
Kit glanced over to respond, but before he could speak a gunshot echoed across the lagoon.
Kit’s eyes flashed back to Mitch and watched as he threw the derringer toward the yacht. Mitch threw it so hard he almost lost his balance. “What could he—”
Kit drew Charlie’s pistol and spun to look behind him.
****
For a man who likes to say he thinks with his fists, Kit Moran was an excellent shot. He caught the a-cha-te on Lorali’s side of the bridge with two bullets, swiveled and caught Derek with a third, knocking him into the aft deck. Stepping forward to avoid the uninjured a-cha-te, Kit shot Derek three more times, emptying Charlie’s pistol even as Derek tried to bring his own gun to bear. The first a-cha-te howled in terror as it stumbled backwards and fell into the water. The second skidded forward and ran into its mostly human cousin at the helm.
Startled, Lorali released the controls and tried to push the creature away. They wrestled back and forth, erratically adjusting the course of the yacht as they fought. Kit hurried over to help her, spinning the monster away from her. His fists drove hard into its stomach and before it could adequately respond, he grabbed it by its tufts of hair and toppled it into the water.
****
Derek pulled himself up with the support of the gunwale while his cousins screamed and the sharks closed in. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and spattered onto his legs. Uncovered at last, the true legacy his father had left to him was clear to all. Not leprosy, but strangely bowed limbs with coarse tufts of hair ending in clawed, scarcely human feet. “Why, Lorali?” It was clear he really didn’t understand. “Why? He’s not one of us. You’re not one of them.”
Lorali looked with horror at her brother. It was all so senseless. Derek could have been as handsome as she was beautiful if their father had not been mad. Now Derek’s own insanity had brought their tortured family to its funeral.
“I’m not like you,” Lorali whispered, trying to convince herself as much as answer him.
“You think not?” Derek gasped. He wrenched himself up onto the top of the gunwale and balanced precariously where he could look down at the sharks swimming behind the boat. “Do you really think you’re not?”
He looked back up at his sister who had betrayed him for another man. “There’s someone waiting for you in the cabin,” Derek told her. “I wonder if your Mitchell Pembroke will still think you’re human when he meets him.”
Still looking into Lorali’s eyes, Derek let go of life and dropped back into the lagoon.
****
Mitch was much relieved to finally abandon the raft. Kit helped him up the ladder and gave him a reassuring pat on the back when both of Mitch’s feet were planted firmly on the deck. “Where’s Lorali?” Mitch asked him.
“I’m right here,” she answered, standing in front of the cabin. She let Mitch kiss her, even though she was no longer ready for his embrace. How could he understand?
“I love you,” Mitch swore. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find a way to spare your family. I wish there was another way.”
“They’re not all dead,” Lorali whispered. She was just beginning
to comprehend the extent of the horror her brother had left to her.
“Derek, has left me my son.”
####
Thank you for reading Lazarus Key. If you enjoyed this book, please take the time to review it at your favorite retailer. You might also enjoy reading the second volume of the Pembroke Steel series, Hearts of Ice and Other Storie,s and the third volume, The Shore and Other Stories.
Gilbert M. Stack
About Gilbert M. Stack
Gilbert M. Stack has been creating stories almost since he began speaking and publishing fiction and non-fiction since 2006. A professional historian, Gilbert delights in bringing the past to life in his fiction, depicting characters who are both true to their time and empathetic with modern sensibilities. His work has appeared in more than a dozen issues of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Michelle, and their son, Michael. You can find out more about Gilbert at www.gilbertstack.com.
Discover Other Works by Gilbert M. Stack
Novels:
Forever After
High Above the Waters
Panic Button
Ransom (Coming Soon)
The Pembroke Steel Series
Lazarus Key
Hearts of Ice and Other Stories
The Shore and Other Stories
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