upstream against the current. Grant had said that it was less than 10 miles by river from this bridge to the cabin, but it sure looked to her like it wouldn’t be easy to paddle that far going the wrong way. Grant had said the strongest current was usually in the middle and along the outside edge of bends, and that by sticking to the inside edges of the river’s curves they could play the eddies and patches of slack water to make progress. Looking upriver along the sandbar on which she stood, it
The sandbar narrowed as she went upstream, and in places tall river birch and sycamore trees leaned out of the forested top bank and forced her to duck under to pass. She could see now why Grant had said they couldn’t walk upstream following the river. The sandbars were not continuous, and in the places where there were none, this hardwood forest would be extremely difficult to travel through, as the understory beneath the trees was a choked tangle of vines and bushes forming a wall of greenery at the water’s edge. She looked at the river as she walked, fascinated by the counter-current and marveling at how much Grant knew about rivers and so many other things relevant to their situation. It felt liberating to be walking barefoot in such a pristine place after bathing naked in the river, and she imagined that Grant would feel right at home doing exactly that. Then she thought about what it would be like if he were here now, just the two of them, without Jessica. It was a momentary pleasant daydream, but she was suddenly startled out of it when she ducked under another big tree and was stopped in her tracks by what she saw just a short distance upstream, at the upper limit of the sandbar. Pulled halfway up on the bank ahead of her was an old aluminum canoe that clearly had not just washed up there on its own. A paddle was leaning against it, and a green canvas backpack and two large duffel bags were lashed down to the thwarts inside it. Casey felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable, not believing someone could have been this close all this time without her knowing it, especially when she was bathing naked in the river just around the bend. She took a faltering step backward, suddenly wishing she had not left the backpack and the gun that was in it behind. As she did, she backed into something solid that had not been there before, and faster than she could react, she felt an impossibly strong arm encircle her waist and a steely hand close over her mouth to stifle the instinctive cry of alarm that would have come next.
Before she could even struggle, she felt herself pulled backward and off her feet by her unseen assailant. The next thing she knew she was on the ground and belly down in the sand, both arms pinned behind her by an immovable weight that she soon realized was her attacker’s knee as he forced some kind of fabric in her mouth and used both hands to tie it tightly behind her head. She tried desperately to spit it out and scream, but it was no use. She couldn’t even turn her head to see what he looked like before she felt yet another piece of cloth being wrapped and tied over her eyes and forehead. The weight shifted and she felt hands working at her wrists, tying something around them, securing them behind her back so that she was totally helpless, blindfolded and gagged. She tried to use her feet to flip herself over and kick at her attacker, but when he had finished securing her hands, she felt her ankles locked together in a vise-like grip and then the constricting force of something being wrapped and tied around them as well. The next thing she knew, she was lifted from the sand in strong arms, carried a short distance, and put down on the sand again. She heard movement that she realized was the sound of the canoe sliding in the water, and then felt herself lifted again. Twisting and squirming did nothing to prevent her from being picked up and set down again, this time on a hard surface, with softer objects under her feet and head. She heard a crackling sound as something was pulled over her, and then could feel it being tucked around her and pulled tight as the other objects in the canoe were shifted around and positioned so that her movements were even further restricted. She realized that she being covered by something, as it shut out what little light she had seen before through the blindfold. She felt the canoe slide some more until it was free of the bank, then she could feel it floating free and tipping sharply to one side as someone stepped into it and sat down. She heard a paddle dip into the water, then felt the canoe surge beneath her, then pick up speed to the sound of rhythmic stroking as it moved into the river current.
Casey was terrified. She could not believe how suddenly and completely she had been subdued and abducted and was now being taken away. She was alone with this wordless stranger who had her in his canoe and had her completely and totally at his mercy. Grant and Jessica would have no way of knowing what had happened or where she was. How could anyone find her? She knew a canoe was silent, and, traveling the river, it would leave no tracks or trace of its passing. She would have to somehow get out of this fix on her own, but there was absolutely nothing she could do right now. She realized that, bound and gagged as she was, there was no way she could swim if the canoe tipped over, so it was best not to struggle at this point, because the idea of drowning with her hands tied behind her back was no more appealing than the thought of what this man might do to her. All she could do was lie there and think about how unfair it was that something like this could happen now, after they’d already been through so much in just three days.
She knew Grant and Jessica wouldn’t know what to do when they came back and she was gone. This would put them in more danger and keep them from getting to the cabin, because she was sure they would spend a lot of time looking for her around the bridge without success. She thought about her dad as well, knowing he must be terribly worried about her and would be going crazy by now, because he most likely would have no way to even get back to the United States mainland, much less New Orleans. But even if by some miracle he had made it there and found her note, and then set out for Grant’s cabin to look for her based on the directions in the note, she would not be there. If that happened, he would be in constant danger traveling there to look for her in vain.
The thought sickened her with worry and regret. Maybe she’d done the wrong thing after all to leave New Orleans with Grant. Now she’d gotten her best friend, Jessica, out here in the middle of nowhere too. Something bad could just as easily happen to them and she would be partially to blame. These dark thoughts filled her mind as she lay helpless in the canoe, like just another piece of baggage piled in the bottom as cargo to be taken wherever the owner intended to go.
NINE
WHEN ARTIE WOKE AGAIN it was because of the heat of the late-morning sun on his face. He had fallen asleep on one of the cockpit seats sometime before dawn while Scully was on watch. Sitting up, he saw that they were far out in the Gulf, surrounded by empty horizons in all directions. Scully was slumped against the starboard cabin side, dozing off as well, while the wind vane kept the
Not wanting to disturb Scully, Artie peeked though the port companionway hatch to check on his brother. Larry was asleep as well, undoubtedly exhausted from yesterday’s tense encounter on the Cay Sal Bank and the tricky passage through the middle of the Keys the evening before. It had been a long day and night for all of them, but now they all could relax a bit and let the wind do the work as it bore them to the northwest for at least another three, and possibly four days.
Artie looked at the fillets of fish spread out on the rear netting to dry and saw that they were still there. The swell was gentle and there was barely a chop and certainly no danger of any seas big enough to sweep them overboard, at least for now. After sailing this many miles on the
