The orange-tinted ocean flooded through the arrow and bullet holes until the canoe looked like a bowl half filled with tomato soup. Eric kept paddling, gritting his teeth against the jagged pain in his chest. Fresh blood sopped the jersey bandages and dripped like icing down his flat hard stomach, winding along the corrugated muscles.
"What the hell was that all about?" Tracy asked.
Eric dug the paddle into the water, muscled the canoe ahead another few feet. "A setup."
"Yeah, but who was doing the setting?" Tracy was leaning on her left side, her legs stretched out and submerged in the cold water. Her right hand pressed a swath of her jersey sweat shirt against her bloody hip; the left hand bailed water with the Campbell's soup can.
The bullet had chomped through the hip and out the back of her thigh. Eric didn't like the nasty way it was looking, but there was nothing to do about it right now. They had to get to safety first. He could see the pain twisting through her, but she made no complaint. She nibbled her lip and bailed water. After a few minutes of silence, she sighed. "God, I'm tired of being wet."
Eric laughed.
Another explosion drowned his laughter.
They looked back at the two ships, watched a tower of flames spit high into the air along the Home Run's mast. The sails flapped in the breeze like fiery wings.
The Centurion had managed to free itself from the burning ship and was now backing away, its sails puffed with wind. The bow of the ship raged with fire, but Angel was directing several crew members as they battled the flames with buckets of water they hauled up from over the side. Someone was hosing the mainsail with a fire extinguisher, smothering the few flames that licked the edges there.
Two rowboats from the Home Run were splashing through the ocean, curving to the left, away from their abandoned ship. Three people sat in one, a single person in the other. Behind them a rubber life raft floated aimlessly with two of their comrades, each sprouting arrows from their backs. The rest of the bodies were unaccounted for.
One of the bodies on the rubber raft hung over the side, with head and arm dangling in the water as if trying to see something down deep. As Eric and Tracy watched, something tugged at the body once, then again, finally yanking it over the side and under the surface. The water boiled blood to mark the spot, then was calm. The body never reappeared.
Eric and Tracy didn't talk about it. Eric merely paddled the canoe in an arc that swung in the opposite direction.
"Where are they going?" Tracy asked, nodding at the two escaping dinghies.
"Looks like they're heading toward that building."
"Over there," she pointed. "There's a ship waiting behind that Transcontinental Insurance Building." As their canoe slid forward, they could see more of the ship, before hidden by the two protruding stories of the otherwise submerged building. The two surviving row-boats splashed energetically toward the ship, waving a greeting to the crew on board. "You were right, Eric. It was a setup. They wanted to sink The Centurion."
"They came damn close. And us with it."
"Wonder why they didn't attack with their ship too?" Tracy asked.
Eric shook his head. "No way. That's a Wellington 63 over there. Nice maxicruiser with NACA air-foil sections and a terrific aft cabin. The high sail area/displacement and sail area/wetted area ratios make it pretty fast. The sail area is nineteen hundred square feet and if it's got any fuel, it's got a two hundred ten horsepower Caterpillar diesel coupled to a variable pitch, three-bladed Hundested prop. But The Centurion is a seventy-three-foot staysail schooner with-"
"Stop it!" Tracy hollered and threw a canful of water into Eric's face. She threw the can too, but the string attaching it to the thwart snapped it back before it hit him. The sudden physical effort made Tracy wince with pain, but she kept her eyes boring into Eric's. He stared back, his face dripping with water, his expression merely surprise.
"I'm tired of feeling so goddamned helpless, Eric. Before all this I was an artist, a damn sketch artist for trials, but at least I was respected. I knew my way around the business like a professional." She shifted her hip so she could see him better. "But the kind of things you need to know here, I wasn't prepared for. What plants to eat, how to find drinking water, how to make weapons out of fingernail clippings. Christ, I feel like a baby. And you make it worse."
"Tracy, I didn't-"
"Wait," she interrupted, holding up her hand. "I'm not complaining. Not really. Considering the reality of the kind of world we now live in, that we may live in for the rest of our lives, I'm damned lucky to be with you. But you're damn lucky to be with me too, buster. I'm pretty smart, fairly athletic, and a lot sexier than you're likely to find for a long time. It's just that I get a little frustrated sometimes by the way you seem to know so much. How come you always know everything?"
He looked at her and shrugged. "I don't know."
And both burst out laughing at the same time. It was a long laugh that caused as much pain as pleasure. Both clutched their wounds as they shook with laughter. It was a communion of mirth, a lightening of spirits that seemed to even float free of the Long Beach Halo. Eric reached into the water at the bottom of the canoe, gripped Tracy's ankle to steady himself as he laughed. Tracy held onto the gunwales, causing the whole boat to rock precariously. Neither seemed to notice. Afterward, tears brimming in their eyes, smiles still stretching their lips, they fell silent.
Eric stared out over the ocean before him, the long square necks of buildings craning out of the water. Their laughter seemed to still echo across the ocean, perhaps bouncing around inside the buildings, and he thought what a strange sound it was. And how little of it they'd heard since the quakes. How little they'd done.
"You're looking kind of pale, Eric," Tracy said. "How about you doing the bailing and I'll paddle for a while."
"Can you sit up?"
"Sure," she said, but when she tried to curl her legs up, the hip jerked with pain. Her fingers dug into the gunwales until the knuckles glowed white. The jersey cloth fell from her wound and Eric leaned over to inspect.
Jesus, he cursed to himself, but kept an impassive face. The bullet hole had pounded through the hip like a dull nail, charring the flesh around the entry hole. He tore open her pants around the wound. The skin was puckered and the angry red glow of infection was spreading. The bullet had bored straight through and out the back of the thigh, so at least he wouldn't have to dig the slug out.
Eric opened the one half-filled backpack he'd managed to grab before jumping off the ship. A pair of thick socks, two rolls of duct tape, a stick of bee's wax he'd used on his bow string. No medical supplies, no compass, no knife, no food. And with Tracy's wound looking so bad, he'd have to do something quick.
"Reminds me of The Angry Red Planet," Tracy said, staring at the wound. "Remember that movie? The giant spider on Mars."
Eric nodded. "We'll paddle over to that building there, rest for the night. Tomorrow we head straight for land."
Tracy looked at him. For Eric to break off his search for Timmy meant that this was serious. "How bad is it? Am I going to lose my leg or what?"
"I don't know."
"Don't pull that crap on me now, Eric. Maybe part of the reason I sometimes feel so frustrated and helpless is that you keep things from me. We're in this together, right?"
"Right," Eric said. "It's too early to tell yet, but I've seen enough bullet wounds to know this one needs immediate attention. We're both too tired to make it to land today. Besides, we'd be idiots to travel during the day anyway. So we hole up in that building until dark and head straight for land, where I have a better chance of treating your leg with herbs and medicinal plants."
Tracy examined her pulpy hip, made a sour face. "What if we don't land near any of the plants you need?"
"Then I find something else."
"What?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes, damn it."
Eric hesitated. "Maggots."
"Oh Christ, Eric. I'm serious."
"So am I. Maggots ingest dead tissue. A common treatment of infected battle wounds during World War I. We just expose the wound to flies and pretty soon we'll have our maggots."
Tracy swallowed the thickness in her throat. "I've changed my mind about wanting to know everything."
Eric smiled. "Don't worry. I'll have you on your knees paddling this thing in no time."
"Some incentive."
Eric guided the canoe toward the nearest building. Only two and a half stories stuck out of the water, but that would be more than enough. At least a third of the reflective glass plating that encased the building like armor was shattered. Huge gaping holes stared out where floating debris had rammed through. As they neared the building, they could see that the tail of a small Piper plane stuck out of the building. The rest of the plane was lodged in the top floor where it had crashed.
"Rhino and your former playmate are hauling their butts out of here," Tracy said, pointing at The Centurion, sails full as it sped away. The Home Run still sat quietly in the middle of the ocean, flames engulfing the whole ship, hissing as falling boards touched water. "Did you really sleep with her one night and try to kill her in the morning?"
"Yes. It was the quickest way to get past her guards."
"But she knew who you were all the time."
"Thanks to Fallows. I should've known he'd find a way to turn some profit out of the war." He traced his finger along his scar, the scar that Fallows had given him back in Vietnam.
"Eric, they're coming toward us."
"What?"
"That ship. The one that picked up the passengers. They're sailing right at us."
Eric watched the sails being hauled up, the last of the survivors being pulled aboard, as the ship turned its bow toward them. He could see four or five armed archers standing at the railing, arrows already nocked into the strings.
He dug the paddle into the water, churning at the ocean until the canoe was closing in on the building. His wounded chest throbbed as if the ribs were poking through the skin, tearing at the muscles, but he had no other choice.
"As soon as we land, we search the place for anything we can turn into weapons."
"Fine, as long as it doesn't involve maggots."
"Check the plane first. See if there's any fuel left. Maybe we can mix a couple Molotov cocktails."
"Okay. But maybe they don't want to harm us. After all, they did try to destroy Rhino and that bunch."
"That doesn't necessarily make them our friends. It could have been a business dispute."
"Business dispute?"
"Look at the flag?"
Tracy shaded her eyes with her hand and peered across the water at the approaching ship. High atop the mast was a fluttering black flag-with a skull and crossbones.
"They've got to be kidding," she said. "It's too corny to be real. Pirates?"
Eric backwatered the paddle, easing the canoe up to one of the large holes in the glass. Tracy dragged herself through the hole, cutting her hand on a jagged piece of glass. Eric followed, hopping into the dark dusty room and hauling the canoe in after them.
They turned to face the room they'd entered. A steel filing cabinet stood against the wall, but otherwise the room was empty. The floor was wet and sticky with clumps of seaweed that the ocean washed in every few seconds as another wave lapped through the hole.
Eric anchored the canoe, wedging it behind the filing cabinet. Then he slipped an arm around Tracy's waist and helped her toward the room's only door, which was closed. "We'll find the stairs and climb to the next floor. That'll give us the upper ground advantage. We might even be able to block off the stairs after us."
Tracy reached for the doorknob, turned, and pulled it open.
The three men stood with weapons ready. There was an ax poised over one man's shoulder, another man thrust his makeshift spear against Tracy's stomach, a third man pressed a.22 automatic against Eric's temple. Behind them stood a tall woman with a red bandana tied around her forehead giving orders.
"Kill them now?" the brutish man with the ax asked her hopefully.