The End Has Come

Don takes the binoculars from his son, and focuses on the horizon. It’s a small boat approaching fast. “Shit.” Don doesn’t need a closer look to know that it’s a performance speedboat. The rich kids in the fast boats were the worst. Heavily armed, they weren’t guarding the coast so much as hunting Americans. “What’s it doing this far out?” Don mutters as he hands the binoculars to Zack and adjusts the tack for them to sail dead East and back out to open ocean. “Speedboat,” Zack notes from behind the binoculars, “Two or three on board. Hard to tell with them bouncing over the waves.”

Don nods. “Reef the sails. We can’t outrun them, so I’ll have to scare them.”

“Why don’t I close haul, and beat us East?”

“No. We can’t outrun them. Just keep her steady.”

Zack slams his fist on his thigh. “If we make progress they may just leave. If we just float here we’re sitting ducks!” Before Don can reply, he adds, “Wait, you don’t think I can beat this, do you?”

Don stands up, and pauses before replying. He had been waiting weeks for his son to express any hope, and here it is, only expressed through desperation. He grabs Zack’s arm. “Listen. I know you can sail this boat, but I need us to appear like we’re not afraid. So just keep us steady. If it doesn’t work, you’ll know, and I trust you that you can beat us East.”

Zack nods, lips pursed. Don grabs the rifle and heads out to the stern.

The wind is strong, and the sea is choppy, but soon the boat is floating in relative calm. Zack is doing a good job working the sail. Supporting himself against the transom, Don lifts the rifle and hopes that the rich kids don’t expect them to be armed. Surprise is what he needs.

The yacht crests a wave, and the pursuing boat is much closer than he had expected. Damn, that’s a fast boat. There are three young men sitting behind a glass windshield. The boat drops over a crest, and Don thinks he can see weapons in the hands of two of them.

Wrapping the sling around his forearm, Don lifts the rifle and waits for a clear shot. He is good with a rifle, having spent nearly every summer hunting in South Texas with his grandfather. He is fairly certain he could take out at least one of the men before they consider the sailboat a threat.

Another crest, and he has his shot. The young men are close enough together that hitting one of them was possible even if his aim was off to the left or right.

Sudden inspiration hits, and Don fires to the right of the three men, shattering the windshield but not hitting anyone. Hitting the wide windshield is not only an easier shot, he hopes that the reality of shattered glass in their faces from an armed opponent would scare them without inciting any desire for revenge, the kind of revenge that would burn if he had killed one of them.

Don peers down the barrel, thankful for his Marksmanship merit badge. He looks for the boat. It takes a moment, and there it is. It breaks starboard and turns away from them.

Don stands, slings the rifle over his shoulder, and yells back to the cabin. “Time to close haul, Zack!”

As he steps down into the cabin, Zack asks, “Did you shoot one? They peeled off and turned away.”

Collapsing onto the padded bench, Don lets out a deep breath and lets his son work the controls. “Don’t let up. You’re doing good. We need to get out of here.”

Zack glances over his shoulder at his dad. “So you killed one?” His voice is shaky, and Don fears it’s from excitement.

“No,” he says. “Enough people have died already.”

* * *

Don is thirty-five. There are no longer bikini-clad women dancing in his dream. He had married and divorced Maria by then. He doesn’t know what went wrong, but it doesn’t matter — his dream has no room for the instability of relationships.

He traded the sway of tanned bodies on the beach for the gentle rocking of the Southern Cross, moored in a virgin bay, white sand nearly surrounding the boat. The water is so clear he can see manta rays gliding along the seabed.