“What’s Hog Island?”
“Summer resort. Dancing pavilion, restaurants, bathhouses, carnival on the boardwalk.”
She looked ahead into the empty dark, looked back at the Cyclops eye of the searchlight catching up, and looked worriedly at her grandfather. His long hair was streaming in the wind. He had one gnarly hand draped casually on the tiller. The expression on his face was weirdly serene, considering they were being chased by something scarier than cops, and she wondered, with a stab of heartbreak, Had the black boat frightened the old man out of his wits?
“I don’t see any island, Grandpa.”
“Neither does he.”
“But where is it?”
“Hurricane washed it away.”
“What hurricane, Grandpa?”
“I don’t remember—back thirty, forty years ago. Before your mother was born, if I recall.”
“Where is Hog Island now?”
“About three feet under us.”
“Oh!” she burst out in relief. He was O.K. “A sandbar! But, Grandpa, we draw almost three feet.”
“He draws five.”
At that moment, behind them, they heard the big engines stop.
“They found it!” said Darbee. He slowed down and engaged his mufflers. In the near silence, they listened to men shouting in fear and anger.
“What language is that, Grandpa?”
“Hell knows, but I can tell you what they’re yelling: We’re hard aground on a sandbar, the tide is going out, and if we don’t get off it right now we’ll be sitting ducks when the sun comes up.”
Darbee leaned on his tiller. They doubled back and listened from a distance. The black boat’s engines thundered and died, thundered and died, as they repeatedly risked their propellers trying to back her off. An engine suddenly revved so fast, it screamed.
“Busted a prop,” Darbee said cheerfully. “Or a shaft. Oops, there goes another one. He’s got one to go. Let’s hope he don’t bust that one, too.”
“Why? Let him bust all three and we’ll get out of here.”
A single engine churned cautiously, revved a little, and slowed.
“Hear that?” Darbee exulted. “He got off. Good.”
“Why good, Grandpa?”
“You just watch.”
• • •
THE BLACK BOAT limped east at ten knots.
Darbee followed. They passed Jones Inlet, but stayed in the inner passage, as he suspected they would. They did not dare go back out into the ocean with only one propeller, a propeller thumping from a bent shaft.
“Grandpa, what are we doing?”
“Gonna find out where he lives.”
“Why?”