Fast Buck

‘If we don’t pul this off I’m ruined,’ he said miserably. ‘I don’t know what I shal do.’

‘Aw, shut up!’ Baird snapped. ‘Go to sleep. I don’t want to listen to your bel y-aching.’

Rico closed his eyes, but he knew he wasn’t going to sleep. He watched Baird through his eyelashes.

Baird stared thoughtfully at Hater while he nursed his aching wrist. His mind made plans.

IV

Around nine o’clock the light began to go quickly. For five hours the three men had lain in the boat, sweltering in the tropical heat, tormented by mosquitoes that buzzed above their heads in a thick cloud.

Only twice during the long wait for darkness had Hater moved. He seemed to hover on the edge of consciousness, but the slightest movement or effort to open his eyes drove him back again into a coma that made Rico nervous.

If Hater should die before he could be persuaded to talk! Rico kept thinking. This nightmare he was enduring would be for nothing. If he didn’t get that money his future would be something he dared not contemplate.

Rico had scarcely noticed the heat or the mosquitoes so engrossed was he in worrying about Hater.

Every now and then he would reach forward and touch Hater’s pulse to reassure himself that Hater was still alive. This bundle of skin and bones represented Rico’s future. There was nothing Rico wouldn’t have done for him if there had been anything to do. He kept urging Baird to get moving. Hater should see a doctor, he told Baird repeatedly. It was madness to let him lie in this awful heat without proper attention.

Baird wouldn’t listen. He lay in the stern of the boat, nursing his wrist. Rico was so busy fussing over Hater that he hadn’t noticed how red and angry looking Baird’s left arm had become. Long red streaks came from under the bandage and reached up as far as Baird’s elbow. Every so often Baird hung his arm over the side of the boat, keeping his burning forearm in the water.

He was worried about his arm. He knew it was infected, and he knew, too, he was growing feverish.

His head felt hot, and he experienced hot and cold chills up and down his spine. To be ill at a time like this! he thought savagely. To have to rely on a useless sonofabitch like Rico! If he told Rico how he was feeling, Rico would promptly lose his head. Would the darkness never come? He needed a doctor far more urgently than Hater did.

Rico said sullenly, ‘It’s dark enough now, isn’t it? It’s nearly nine.’

The sun had gone down behind the trees, but they could still see the far bank quite clearly. Sick of doing nothing and tormented by the pain in his arm, Baird decided to take the risk.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘let’s go. Think you can handle this tub?’

Rico looked startled.

‘Isn’t your arm al right now?’

‘It’s stiff,’ Baird said. ‘Maybe I’l take over in a while. We’re going with the stream. It won’t be hard work.’

Rico picked up the paddle. He shoved the boat away from the bank and began to paddle into midstream. The boat zigzagged through the water under his uneven strokes.

‘Keep by the bank,’ Baird said, ‘and don’t try so hard.’

After a few minutes Rico got the hang of the paddle, and managed to keep the boat fairly straight.

‘Should be dark in about ten minutes,’ Baird said, staring up at the cloudless sky. ‘There’l be a big moon in an hour, I’d say.’

It was almost dark when they heard the sound of an aircraft. Rico had allowed the boat to drift away from the bank, and they were away from the shelter of the overhanging trees.

Baird had been dozing. He was lying down in the boat now, his arm hanging over the side. The cool water made the throbbing and burning bearable. He opened his eyes and half sat up. Rico was staring up at the sky. Then realising the plane was heading towards them, he tried desperately to paddle the boat to the shelter of the trees. He got in such a panic he nearly capsized the boat, churning up the water and scooping water on to his legs and into the boat.

‘Steady, you crazy punk!’ Baird snarled, ‘or you’l have us over!’

Rico controlled himself and began to paddle more carefully. The boat swung towards the bank and the sheltering darkness of the trees. They were within three or four yards of cover when the aircraft went roaring overhead.

It was flying low, and the roar of its engine and the rush of wind from its slipstream made both men duck. It was gone as quickly as it had come.

‘Hel !’ Baird exclaimed. ‘Think they were looking for us?’

Rico wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand.

‘They couldn’t have seen us,’ he said uneasily. ‘It’s nearly dark, and at that speed…’

‘Bet er get going,’ Baird said. ‘Keep nearer to the bank, and put your back into it.’

Rico drove the boat forward. He was rapidly tiring. It was years since he had taken any exercise, and paddling a boat as heavy as this made his arms ache.

‘I can’t keep this up much longer,’ he panted. ‘Can’t you take a turn?’

‘You’re damn wel going to,’ Baird said. ‘Take a look at this,’ and he thrust his swol en arm at Rico.