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Summer mornings were Alexander Christian’s favorite time. He would wake early, make a pot of coffee, sit on his deck, and watch the sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico. The weather was humid but cool – at least as cool as summer in southeast Texas could be. He would sip coffee and use binoculars to scan the gulf for signs of the annual tarpon run.
That all changed when the beachfront lot in front of Alexander’s house was bought and someone built a McMansion blocking eighty percent of his view. Alexander had considered burning the house down as it was being built, but all signs would point to him as the arsonist. Even without his twenty years of FBI service, he knew the authorities would be looking at him if anything heinous happened to the megastructure going up between his deck and the Gulf of Mexico.
His house sat on the road to the beach. A gap remained where he could still get a decent view of the gulf from the far end of the deck that wrapped three-quarters around his house. His view was maybe twenty percent of what it was before the house was built catawampus to his. He could still scan the ocean looking for the tell-tail signs of large silver kings rolling along the surface.
The flash of white caught Alexander’s eye. He did a double-take and focused on the object in the water quite a distance offshore, but he knew it was not a big tarpon. Most likely, it was another plastic bag or other trash discarded by lazy tourists or thrown overboard by uncouth boaters.
Alexander watched the debris in the water longer than normal, pondering the amount of junk filling the oceans and threatening marine life when an odd movement caught his eye. Plastic bags don’t have arms. He pulled the zoom lever on the binoculars until he made out what appeared to be a human shape.
It soon became apparent that this was not a beach resident out for a morning swim. The body’s movements were subtle. It was either an experienced swimmer conserving energy or a tourist who had swum too far out and had gotten caught in a riptide. Either way, it looked to be a person in trouble.
Alexander lined up the mysterious floating object with the edge of the McMansion and the middle window of his two-bedroom beach house. He knew the body would drift, but this would at least give him some reference point. Grabbing the twenty-eight-inch orange lifeguard rescue can he kept hanging on the side of his house, he hurried to the water’s edge.
He high-stepped as far as he could through the water then lined himself up with the corner of the first house on the beach and his house’s second window. He skimmed the water, looking for movement. Being summer, the winds and ocean were calm. The lack of surf helped, and he soon spotted the floating object a good 150 yards out. He dove into the warm water, kicking as rapidly as he dared, holding the rescue can out front.
Alexander stopped swimming and rested on the float. He raised himself and scanned the ocean around him. Nothing. He turned around and looked for his beach house. He was still somewhat lined up with the behemoth house and his window. He did a 360-degree turn to make sure he had not swum past the object, or it had not floated past him. Again, nothing. Maybe it sunk. Alexander worried that the shape was likely a person, and now it was gone. He was too late.
Unsure of how far he had gone, he pressed on. Something was out here. Maybe it was just a plastic bag, but he was sure the movement was consistent with a human being. Every few minutes, he would stop, get as high in the water as possible, and look around. On his third try, he spotted something. It was now parallel to him, about twenty yards away. He turned and swam in that direction, keeping his head high out of the water and an eye on the object.
It seemed like an eternity, but he closed the gap and confirmed his fears. The shape was human. A boy. He was large for a kid who appeared to be around sixteen years old. He had black hair, cut short on the sides, longer on top and the longer hair floated on the water framing his face. He didn’t look old enough to shave. Alexander slowed his approach as not to startle the boy.
“Hey,” Alexander yelled as he got close. He was surprised when the boy opened his lifeless eyes. Alexander kicked hard and quickly closed the gap between them.
“Are you all right?” A stupid question, but what else does one ask a person who, by the look of their skin, had been in the ocean for a very long time?
The boy reached for his rescuer. Raising his arm caused his head to dip underwater. He surfaced, spit, and reached toward Alexander. This time, he managed to grab hold of the floatation device.
“You’re okay,” Alexander said, thinking that assurance was better than asking him if he was okay.
When the young boy nodded Alexander wrapped his arm around him. “Hang on.”
The swim back to the beach was arduous and slow. Alexander’s technique wasn’t textbook, but he was making progress. He paused to test the depth of the water as he approached the beach. At six feet four inches tall, he could have touched the bottom and pulled the boy ashore, but walking in chest-deep water is no easier than a one-armed backstroke, so he kept swimming until he was waist-deep.
Alexander picked up the boy. “We’re almost to the beach.”
The boy, finally able to breathe without risking a mouth full of seawater, heaved a deep breath.
Exhausted, Alexander took slow, deliberate steps back to his house. The boy seemed okay – alive and at no risk of dying. The few extra minutes it took to get back to the house were not a concern. Alexander regularly walked or jogged on the beach and tried to do at least fifty pushups several times a week but, even so, the heft of the boy taxed his endurance.
As the two approached the beach house, Alexander noticed the boy’s left hand. It was extremely swollen and close to twice the size of the boy’s right hand. Alexander gently rotated the boy’s arm and found a four-aught treble hook stuck entirely through the muscle between the thumb and forefinger.
Alexander laid the boy on an Adirondack chair. “I’m going upstairs to get my phone. Just rest a minute and I’ll will be right back. I need to get you an ambulance.”
“No, por favor. No, please don’t. I’m okay. Can I have some water?”
The boy did not look particularly Hispanic to Alexander, but his first words were in Spanish. When he spoke English, Alexander detected only a slight accent.
“You should see a doctor. You’ve been in the water for a long time.”
“Please, no doctor. No police. Just water. I will leave.”
“You aren’t going anywhere. I’ll take care of you, and we’ll discuss calling the police. You don’t look like you were out for a morning swim.”
Alexander pulled a pair of large diagonal cutter pliers from his toolbox and slid them into the pocket of his shorts. “We need to get you taken care of.” He carried the boy up the steps and into his beach house. He sat the boy on a wicker bar stool and leaned him on the kitchen island.
Alexander pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator, opened it, and handed it to the boy. “Try to sip it. I have to get that hook out of you, I’ll be right back.”
Alexander returned with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Unrolling several sheets of paper towels, he gently took the boy’s hand in his. It was so swollen that the barb of the hook barely protruded through the skin.
“This will hurt a little.”
The boy took another sip of water and closed his eyes. Alexander gently pressed the meat of the boy’s hand to expose as much of the hook below the barb as possible. He cut the barb off in one quick, easy squeeze. With the barb gone, the hook effortlessly backed out of the boy’s hand. Alexander wondered why fishermen still insisted on using treble hooks. One hook is enough.
The bigger question the retired FBI agent had was where and how the kid got a treble hook stuck in his hand. Alexander dabbed the wounds with the peroxide and decided the answer to that question, and the others he had, would have to wait.
“That should heal nicely, but we need to watch it.” Alexander paused. “I need to get you cleaned up. You need a shower. I think you’re too weak to do it by yourself. I know it’s awkward, but I’m going to have to help you.”
The boy only nodded, likely embarrassed by either an older man taking his clothes off or afraid of what the man might have in mind once he was naked.
Alexander carried the boy and a small stool into the master bath. The oversized shower – a special order when the house was built – left plenty of room for Alexander to position the stool. He adjusted the water temperature to lukewarm and took a deep breath. Undressing young boys was outside his comfort zone.
The boy wore a double-extra-large men’s T-shirt which, Alexander believed, was likely what made him easier to spot in the water. When Alexander slowly pulled the T-shirt up and over the boy’s head he was surprised to find a partially inflated life jacket around the boy’s chest.
“This is why you were light in the water, and likely how you survived such a long time in the sea. That answers one question, but I’m going to have some more questions for you.”
In his weakened state, the boy had difficulty sitting upright by himself, so Alexander gently held the back of his neck while spraying him.
“We’ve got to get these off too.” Alexander raised the boy slightly and removed his shorts. Working from behind allowed the kid some dignity, although he wasn’t sure if the boy cared at this point. “Do you think you can wash yourself?”
The boy slowly shook his head. His shoulders drooped, and his hands hung limp at his sides.
“Damn.” Alexander began rubbing soap on the boy’s back and across his chest. “I need to wash your legs. You have lots of cuts. I need to make sure they’re clean.”
The boy allowed Alexander to turn him so he could reach the boy’s legs. Rather than using his hands, Alexander decided a washcloth would be the wiser choice. He now wished he’d grabbed a pair of disposable nitrile gloves when he grabbed the wire cutters. They would have been handy. The washcloth would have to do.
Beginning at the boy’s feet, Alexander lathered and rinsed, inspecting each cut as he washed the boy’s legs. The boy’s thighs were not too badly cut up. Instinctively, or maybe out of curiosity, he took a glance between the boy’s legs.
“What the hell?” Alexander recoiled. “Christ! I’m so sorry. I thought you were a boy. But you needed a bath, and it’s done now.”
The young girl attempted a grin. Her lips were dried and cracked from the saltwater. “Thank you, sir,” she whispered.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to finish getting you cleaned up. I think I have some soup. You need to try and eat. When you’ve eaten, I’m putting you to bed. Hopefully, when you wake up, you’ll feel better. I have a few questions for you.”
The girl only nodded.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
“Mayte. Mayte Diaz. With an ‘E’. I am called May.” Her voice, deep and raspy, may have been partially to blame for Alexander’s misperception of her gender.
“My name is Alexander. My friends call me Alex.” He turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. “Can you stand?”
“I don’t think so.”
Alexander dried her the best he could without touching any female body parts, but he took another harder look at the girl’s breasts. They were small and not much bigger than those an overweight boy might have.
He pulled a dry towel off the rack, wrapped May in it, carried her to the bed, and laid her on top. “I’m going to get the peroxide for your cuts. I’ll be right back. I’ll bring more water too.”
When Alexander returned to the bedroom, the young girl was asleep. He wanted to let her sleep, but he needed to address the cuts. Those were open sores that had been in the ocean for a long time. The gulf contains enormous amounts of strange bacteria, many of which can be deadly if not treated. He poured the hydrogen peroxide onto a paper towel until it was soaked and gently patted the wounds on May’s body. She did not wake. Her breathing was heavy but regular.
Alexander lifted May and slid the bedspread and sheet out from under her. He removed the towel and slid her feet under the sheet. Her legs and arms were covered with cuts and bruises, her hand swollen from the fish hook.
“What happened to you, dear?” he whispered.