Tides of Fortune by Steven Becker

Author:Steven Becker [Becker, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steven Becker

Chapter Seven

“Douse it now!” I yelled as we pushed through the brush and onto the beach. Rhames didn’t wait, he ran to the fire pit and hurled sand onto the flames. The men had killed and brought back a large loggerhead turtle which now lay on its back in the embers. Worried we might have been spotted, I sent two men with one of the boats to the mouth of the inlet to stand watch. The Navy ship lay less than a half-mile away and although we were screened by the island and brush they could still see the smoke.

The fire was smoldering now and we pulled the turtle out. “You want to eat now, it needs to be raw. Open up the belly and start butchering. We’ll take it with us, maybe get a hot meal tomorrow, but before that we have a long night ahead.” Several men pulled knives from their belts and I flinched for a second, thinking they were coming for me, but they went to work on the turtle. They sliced the belly and started cutting slabs of meat from the two hundred fifty pound animal. This would be enough food to see us for a week, if we were careful and able to preserve it. Within minutes all the meat was out of the shell, sitting on palm fronds cut from the brush. “Clean the shell too. We’ll need that.”

I caught a look from Rhames and followed him down the beach.

“You’re doing well, boy. They listen to you and what you say makes sense,” he paused and pulled on his braided beard. “You take the lead, but watch me.”

This was the most I had ever heard him speak. I grasped his meaning, and thought we could make a good team. He had let me know that I could lead, but he was in charge. I could live with this arrangement; it would keep me alive. Without Rhames behind me, the other men would soon turn against each other. With his menacing figure backing me up, the crew would fall in line. Red seemed to be the only dissenter among them and I knew from the past few years how he worked. He would whisper to the men, planting the seeds for unrest, then sit back and wait for them to blossom. We walked back to the makeshift camp.

I looked up at the sun, which was starting to sink in its low winter arc. I had planned on pushing off around midnight when the watches on the Navy boat would be less attentive. We had a long exposed row before we reached the cover of Pine Island and the protection of the clusters of islands along the shore and a good part of the journey would be in clear sight of the frigate anchored in the mouth of the harbor. I sent a relief party to replace the men on watch and lay back in the sand. Some of the men were eating raw turtle, but though my stomach rumbled, I was not ready for raw meat.

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