“She lives in Houston,” Cash says.
“What about Bonny, then?”
Huck can see Cash’s neck growing flushed. “Bonny’s fine. I went on one date with her, she’s nice, but it wasn’t a love connection. Tilda means something to me.”
“She let you stay with her for weeks,” Irene says. “Do you feel like you have to repay the favor?”
“I want to be there for her,” Cash says. “She can’t stay over there alone.” He appeals again to Huck. “Can we go?”
“We can go,” Huck says.
First they stop at St. John Market, which has both registers open and ten people in each line, including—Huck gathers from eavesdropping—two couples who have only just arrived for a week’s vacation at the Westin and who are provisioning with things like Doritos and mango-flavored Cruzan rum. Huck wants to tell these people that their time would be better spent trying to book a flight back to where they came from. For years, there’ve been false alarms—cat 1 or 2 hurricanes that fell apart and made landfall as nothing more than forty-mile-per-hour winds and two inches of rain—but this storm is picking up power like a snowball rolling down a mountain. This isn’t going to be a “Let’s get drunk, play gin rummy, and listen to that Scorpion song on repeat” kind of hurricane.
Cash buys two cases of water, two loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, Cheez Whiz, pickles, a bag of apples, a carton of pineapple juice, and two bottles of Cruzan aged rum. He wants beer as well but Huck steers him toward toilet paper, candles, batteries, bug spray.
From their spot way back in line, Huck texts Irene. Fill the gas cans first, then get to the store. This place is packed already.
Huck drops Cash off at the Lovango dock; Tilda is waiting at the end in a John Deere Gator. The construction site seems to have been secured but there’s a trailer sitting on concrete blocks and all Huck can imagine is this bitch Inga picking it up like a toddler with a toy and tossing it into the sea.
“That’s not where you’re staying, is it?” Huck asks Tilda.
“No,” Tilda says. “There’s a cottage on the other side.” She and Cash load the provisions into the Gator. “Thank you for bringing him.”
“You two be smart,” Huck says. “Charge your phones. Do you have a generator?”
“Yes,” Tilda says. “And plenty of gas.”
“Your place is shuttered?”
“It is,” Tilda says.
Huck doesn’t like leaving Cash and Tilda all alone on an island, not one bit, but he realizes he doesn’t have any say in the situation and he needs to get out of there.
“Be safe,” Huck says.
Huck is taking his boat to Hurricane Hole, where he will secure it with three anchors, strip it of all valuable electronics, then hope for the best. When he pulls into the Hole, he sees Captains Stephen and Kelly of the Singing Dog heading out.
Where are they going? he wonders.
He sees a few boats prepping in the Hole but not nearly as many as he thought he would. He putters over to What a Catch! “Where is everyone?” he asks Captain Chris.
“Hurricane watch just turned to warning,” Chris says. “And they’re advising everyone to pull their boats. This storm is going to be a monster, worse than anything we’ve seen. Sustained winds of one fifty or higher.”
Huck swears under his breath. The Mississippi can’t handle winds like that. “Where’s the Singing Dog going?”
“They said the boat will be a goner on land or on sea,” Chris says. “So they’re going to try to outrun it.”
“For the love of Pete,” Huck says. “What are you doing, staying here or trailering up?”
“I was tempted to chance it here,” Chris says. “But now I’m having second thoughts.”
Yes, so is Huck—and the decision needs to be made immediately. He waves to Chris, spins his boat around, and heads back to Cruz Bay.
He calls Irene. “I need to trailer the boat,” he says. “Then I have to shutter my house.” Or should he shutter first, then deal with the boat? No, he can shutter in the dark if need be.
“What can I do to help?” Irene says.
“You and Baker are shuttering Hibiscus?”
“Yes,” Irene says. “I’m making clam chowder, white chicken chili, a Mississippi roast, and your favorite cookies. Ayers is here, and so is Floyd. Phil and Sunny are on their way. Maia is at the school.”
That’s right; Maia begged to be allowed to go to the Gifft Hill gymnasium to assemble and distribute hurricane survival kits, which include gallon jugs of water, flashlights, extra batteries, granola bars, and fudge that some of the mothers made (because who doesn’t need fudge in a hurricane?). All of Maia’s friends are doing it, she said. Plus, she wants to help.
“Can you pick up Maia?” Huck asks.
“Already planning on it,” Irene says. “Curfew is at eight. I figure I’ll get her around seven thirty.”
Huck breathes out a “Thank you” and marvels at how much better his life is with Irene Steele in it.
Huck hitches up his trailer and drives down to Chocolate Hole, where the boat is waiting. Getting the boat onto the trailer by himself isn’t something he would do under any but the most dire of circumstances. He should have called Rupert for help but Rupert is all the way out in Coral Bay and Huck doesn’t have time to waste. He has other friends but they all have their own boats to worry about. He considers driving back to Fish Bay to enlist Baker’s help, but again, there’s the issue of time.
There isn’t a dinghy for Huck to borrow so he wades into the water up to his chest in order to climb aboard. The air is as hot and heavy as a blanket; the water feels wonderful. The sky glows an ominous green color. It seems to portend danger. Destruction.
Or maybe that’s all in Huck’s head.
He gets the boat trailered. That ends up
