“Why don’t you get out there and freeze your own ass off?”
Harley could have removed the gun that was strapped under his anorak and made his point that way, but he didn’t want to make things any worse than they were, and he didn’t want to resort to any extreme measures until he had to. Russell defiantly took another long slug from the beer can, and it occurred to Harley that having him out on deck as lookout was a bad idea, anyway. He’d probably fall off the boat.
“Fuck it,” he said, “I’ll do it myself.” Addressing Eddie, he said, “Take us around the west cliffs, then to the leeward side for a berth.”
“Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”
Harley slipped a pair of binoculars around his neck, put up the hood on his coat, and tightened the Velcro clasps at the sleeves, then stepped out on the slippery, ice-rimed deck. He hadn’t been out at sea since the wreck of the Neptune, and he found there was a new sense of anxiety in him. It shouldn’t have come as a shock. But now, when he looked around him at the rolling black waters, all he could think of was the night he’d been sure he would be swallowed up in them and lost forever. He thought about how close he’d come to winding up as just another one of those names inscribed on the plaque in the Lutheran church. His hands clenched the railings now, the same way they had clenched the top of that coffin. At first, he had kept the lid propped up in his trailer, next to the snake tank, like a trophy. But then it had spooked him, and he had stashed it under the bed.
Which only made things worse.
Finally, in desperation, he’d stuck it in the crawl space under the trailer where there was a bunch of other old timbers. He’d have just heaved the damn thing back into the sea if it weren’t for the fact that he was convinced it would be worth something, to someone, someday. When that Dr. Slater had told him he should return it to the island, he’d actually given it some serious thought; the main reason he couldn’t do it now was because it might give that asshole some satisfaction if he did.
The moon was out, which was a lucky thing, since the strait was choppy that night and huge chunks of ice were grinding and rolling through the channel. Off in the distance, the two black slabs of Big and Little Diomede lay like watchdogs at the gateway to Siberia. There wasn’t another boat in sight, but the sky was speckled with stars as sharp and bright as needles. Looking up, Harley’s eyes filled with tears, not because he was overwhelmed with emotion but because the wind was so cold and so relentless. He wiped them away with the back of one glove, but they sprang right back. He made his way to the bow and took hold of the search lamp there. The boat rose and fell on the swells, spray flying up and freezing on his lips and cheeks. He spread his legs on the deck to keep his balance and peered into the blackness, following the beam of the light.
Were there other coffins out there, carrying their awful cargo up and down the waves, bumping up against the ice floes? If there were, he prayed he wouldn’t see them. He’d had enough trouble since finding the first one.
“Coming up on the starboard side,” Eddie announced over the bullhorn, as if he was some tour guide. “Welcome to St. Peter’s Island.”
Shit. Harley wanted to brain him for making so much noise. The whole idea had been to stay under the radar. What if the Coast Guard was already lying low in some cove?
He waved up at the wheelhouse, gesturing for Eddie to keep it down, and after a quick scan of the waters ahead, turned off the bow light. They were just beyond the breakers, and if Eddie didn’t do something stupid—which was always a possibility—they’d be okay.