The Living Gulf Coast by Charles Williams

Author:Charles Williams [Williams, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Nature
ISBN: 9780982967478
Publisher: INDIGO PR L C
Published: 2011-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

The moment for explosion had passed and he sat in the breeze-swept darkness. She heeled down a little and water hissed along the hull. I gave Barclay the corrected course, and he let her fall off another point.

“Now,” he said, off to my left, the faint glow of the binnacle light on his slender, handsome face, “watches. Have you ever handled a sailboat, George?”

“No,” Barfield replied, across from me. “But if your nipple-headed friend can do it, anybody can.”

“Well, it won’t be necessary, actually,” Barclay said. “Manning and I can take it watch-and-watch, but you’ll have to be on deck when he has it and I’m asleep. Mrs. Macaulay can have the forward part of the cabin; you, I, and Manning can get a little sleep in the two bunks in the after part from time to time, except that obviously he can’t go down there when one of us is asleep.”

He was utterly calm and matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing the seating arrangement at a dinner party rather than trying to work out a deathwatch over a condemned man they had to live with and keep prisoner until the hour came to kill him.

“It’s a little after twelve now,” he went on. “You’d best go below, George, and catch up on your sleep. Manning can stretch out here in the cockpit and I’ll take the first watch, until six. When Manning relieves me, you’ll have to come on deck.”

Barfield grunted something and went below, carrying the satchel.

When he had gone, Barclay said, “I’d advise you to be chary of provoking him, Manning. He’s quite dangerous.”

I sat down, as near him as I dared, and lit a cigarette. “It would be tragic, wouldn’t it?” I said. “I mean, if he blew his stack and killed me before I found your lousy plane for you and the two of you could take turns at it.”

“Why should we kill you?”

“Save it,” I said. “I knew all along you wouldn’t. But aren’t you going to give me a letter of recommendation? You know, something like: ‘This will introduce Mr. Manning, the only living witness to the fact that we killed Macaulay and that his widow is innocent—“

“Not necessarily,” he said. “You won’t go to the police. You can’t. You’re wanted for murder yourself.”

I wondered if he thought I would believe that. Certainly the chances were I wouldn’t go to them. I’d have everything to lose and nothing to gain. But if I were dead and lying on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico somewhere in two hundred fathoms of water, there was no chance at all. And .45 cartridges were cheap.

I moved a little nearer. Just a slight shift of the buttocks along the seat, almost imperceptible. I glanced at his face. It was calm and imperturbable in the faint glow from the binnacle. I stretched and slid another inch. I could almost reach him.

The eyes were suddenly full of a mocking humor. “Here,” he said. He took the .45 automatic out of the pocket of his jacket and held it out to me butt first.

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