Chapter 24: I Come Get You

We crossed the strait low, with the sea throwing spray against the windscreen.

The pilot flew with his jaw locked and his hands light on the controls.

I sat in the open side door, clipped to the frame by a harness, with my boots on the skid.

The winch cable ran through my gloved fists.

The rain stung my face.

I could see nothing but black water and white tops, and then, far ahead, one small yellow light.

"There," I said into the headset.

"I see it."

The fishing boat was turning slowly in the shallows with her anchor dragging.

A line of pale foam showed the reef a hundred yards beyond her bow.

Four figures stood on her deck.

One of them was waving a torch, and one of them wore a yellow jacket.

"I can hold here," the pilot said. "Not for long. Whatever you're doing, do it fast."

"Lowering."

I let the cable run.

The hook swung wide in the gusts, and the pilot corrected, and corrected, and the line stayed close to the deck.

The first man to clip on was the oldest of the fishermen.

He was the one who had taken off his cap on the dock when I said no to Damon.

He rose through the rain with his legs kicking, and I caught the strap and hauled him in over the sill.

"Good girl," he said, with his teeth chattering.

"Sit down and hold on."

The second man came up the same way.

The third was a boy of twenty, and he was crying, and I told him he was doing very well.

Then the cable went down for the last time.

When it came back up there was a big man at the end of it, soaked to the skin, with his beard full of spray.

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