As they’d planned the night before, Gina and Tate each took different forks in the road at the end of the Rebeccaville driveway. And as planned, Gina took the loop path that followed the island’s coastline, then cut across the island to meet Tate at the spot she’d followed him to the night before.
The sky was a dull gray this morning, and there was not a hint of a breeze to dispel the damp, sticky humidity that seemed to close in around her body as she bumped over the oyster-shell cart path. She could feel her energy starting to flag, but shook her head violently, as though to shake off any doubts about the day’s outcome.
Ten minutes later, she arrived at the palm tree with the shorn-off top, and two minutes after that, she saw Tate standing beside his parked cart, unloading his fishing equipment. Moonpie stood at the edge of the marsh grass, nose in the air, tail erect.
“He saw a heron,” Tate said as a greeting to her. “Talk about an incurable optimist, he actually thinks he’s gonna flush and fetch me a three-foot-tall blue heron.”
Gina leaned over and rubbed Moonpie’s ears. “Go get ’em, boy.”
Tate made a face and started down the shell bank. He looked back at Gina, who stood motionless, her cheap plastic spinning reel in one hand, her cooler in the other.
“Come on, then, if you’re coming,” he said, glancing up at the clouds. “I think we may be in store for some rain.”
“Did you check the boat to see if there are any leaks?” she asked, stepping daintily down into the mud before getting in.
“It’s floating,” he said, handing her a weathered oak oar. “It probably has a little seepage, but nothing major.”
Tate stepped out of the boat, whistled, and Moonpie jumped in. He shoved the boat’s bow off the shell bank, and waded it out until the water was nearly waist high before climbing in and taking a seat at the front.
“You know how to row, right?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said indignantly. “Did you say something about seepage?”
“It’s an old boat,” he said, dipping his oar into the water and pulling it forward with one fluid motion. “The rivets are probably a little loose. But if it wasn’t seaworthy, it would have sunk long ago. I pulled all kind of gunk out of it before you got here. It’s been sitting on that snag for some time now.”
Gina dipped her own oar into the water on the other side of where Tate’s was. “So, this boat probably belongs to somebody. Somebody who’d probably consider us as thieves, since we’re taking it without their permission.”
“You could always hop out,” he suggested. “Before you become an accessory to grand theft, boat.”
Instead, she kept rowing, working to get her strokes in rhythm with his. She hadn’t rowed a boat in years. She could already feel blisters rising on the palms of her hands, and after fifteen minutes, the muscles in her shoulders were protesting.
They didn’t talk. The dark water flashed by, and red-winged blackbirds rose out of the tall marsh grass as they glided along. She could see shrimp popping at the point where the water met shell banks, and occasionally a mullet would jump and slap the water, causing Moonpie much excitement.
“Hey, we’re getting pretty good at this,” she said at one point, marveling at their relative speed.
“Tide’s going out,” he said, deliberately bursting her little bubble.
In thirty minutes, when she turned around, she could barely see the point in the marsh where they’d left the carts. They were out of the creek, she thought, and in the ocean. The thought made her pulse race again.
“Do you actually know where you’re going?” she asked anxiously. “I mean, this creek just seems to curve and meander, and it all starts to look the same to me.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he said simply.
Her feet were wet. There was half an inch of water in the boat.
“Uh, Tate,” she said.
“It’s just a little water. You won’t drown.”
“I was just saying…”
He grunted and kept rowing, so she did the same. She could feel beads of sweat rolling down her face, and her shirt was damp with perspiration. She wanted to take a break, have a sip from the bottled water she’d stowed in her cooler, but she didn’t want Tate Moody to think she was a slacker. Or worse, a girl.
Thirty minutes later, he put his oar down and frowned. They could see the dark green shape of Eutaw Island behind them. The sky had darkened to a pale pewter shade, and the wind whipped little whitecaps on the dark green sea. “This looks like the place Iris told me about.”
“Inez told me about a place too. Where her daddy used to take her to catch spot-tail bass. But if it’s the place, why are you frowning?”
“No anchor,” he said, slapping his thigh in disgust. “How could I not have thought of that?”
She hadn’t thought of it either, but she didn’t intend to volunteer that information.
“We’ve got that rope up in the bow,” she said. “Could we tie up to something?”
He gestured toward the creek bank, which seemed half a mile away. “You see anything we can tie up to?”
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Go back?”
“Hell, no,” Tate said. “We’ll just have to take turns. One can fish, while the other keeps rowing us back toward the island.”
“What do we use for bait? I’m used to fishing with shrimp. Or minnows.”
“There’s that we thing again,” he said, reaching for the plastic tackle box. He pawed through the contents. “Most of this stuff is worthless,” he said. “But there’s a couple halfway decent jigs in here. It’s better than nothing.”
He busied himself rigging his fishing line, and in a moment, he’d cast out in the direction of the creek.
“I take it that means I’m on rowing duty first?”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off the water. “Keep trying to move us back toward the island. You’ll have to work at it too, the way the tide’s moving.”
She had just put her oar in the water when Tate grunted. His rod tip bent. He jerked hard on it, then casually started reeling.
“Hey, fish!” he said happily. Moonpie gave a happy bark, and in what seemed like a very short time, Tate was reeling in a fish.
“Nice one,” he said. “Three pounds, easy.”
“What kind is it?” she asked, glancing down at the silvery fish flopping around on the bottom of the boat. Moonpie bent down, sniffed, and thumped his tail in approval.
“Spot-tail,” he said. “Redfish, you’d call it. Good eating.”
“Hope so,” she said, setting her oar down. “Now it’s my turn.”
She picked up the rod he’d just discarded.
“Hey,” he protested. “That’s mine. You can’t use my stuff. It’s against the rules.”
“Screw the rules,” she said, casting out in the same direction where he’d just caught the fish. But the wind had picked up, and it blew the light line right back toward the boat, landing almost beside it.
“Hah! You fish like a girl.”
She glared at him. “You deliberately turned the boat so that would happen. Come on. Play fair.”
He shook his head and dipped his oar in the water, rowing hard to turn the boat so the wind was at their back. It had picked up considerably, and twice she had to grab her baseball cap to keep it from sailing away. She cast out again, and this time her line landed right where she wanted it.
“Take the slack out of your line,” Tate instructed. “Reel in, then let the spinner drop, so the fish’ll think it’s a wounded minnow.”
“I know how to fish,” she said, insulted. But she did as he’d instructed, remembering it was the exact same advice her daddy had always given her on their fishing trips to the coast.
She felt something bump her hook and then, suddenly, give a sharp tug, bending her rod tip sharply downward.
“Got one,” she reported happily, watching the line unspool.
“Reel!” Tate called. “Come on, reel it in, Reggie.”
She propped her feet on the side of boat to give her leverage, and reeled for all she was worth.
“It’s a big one,” she gasped, struggling for control.
“Give it a little line,” he coached, reaching forward and flipping the bail on her reel.
Line zigged out, and the fish made a run for it.
“Now, set the hook,” he told her. “Jerk it hard, then reel like you mean it.”
She flipped the bail with her thumb and yanked for all she was worth. The fish responded by zooming away.
“Reel!” he called.
“I…am…reeling.” She propped her elbows on her hip bones, leaned back, and struggled to get control of the fish, which seemed to be zigzagging away, and then, suddenly, without warning, turning and running toward the boat.
“Reel fast now,” he instructed. “Bring in the slack.” With the fish coming toward her, she was able to bring in the line, and soon she saw a flash of silver beside the boat.
“Bluefish!” Tate called. “Can you boat it by yourself?”
“Got it.” She grunted and, with an effort, jerked the fish out of the water and into the boat, where it seemed to fill the whole vessel, thrashing violently against the aluminum hull.
Moonpie barked at the fish until Tate swung around in the seat and clamped a shoe on the fish to still it.
“Holy shit, Reggie,” he said, looking up in admiration. “That’s a big damn bluefish.”
She grinned, ridiculously pleased with herself. “It is, isn’t it? How big, do you think? Ten pounds?”
“Ten!” He guffawed. “Dream on, little girl. It’s maybe eight, but that’s still a huge bluefish. You ever caught one before?”
“Never,” she admitted. “I’ve had bluefish in restaurants, of course, but this is the first time I’ve ever even seen one alive.”
She bent down and studied the fish. Its vivid blue and silver coloring were in stark contrast to the mud-streaked boat bottom. “It’s really beautiful.”
“Good eating too,” he said. “Ideally, the best-tasting ones are much smaller, but fresh-caught, grilled or pan-fried, it’s hard to beat a bluefish.”
“Grilled,” Gina said, already envisioning her menu. “I’ll brush it with some olive oil, and—”
She felt a drop of water on her shoulder and looked up, surprised. The sky had darkened another shade, and the wind-whipped whitecaps rocked the boat.
“Damn,” Tate exclaimed. A sudden sheet of rain swept over them, and the wind caught Gina’s baseball cap and sent it sailing off.
“We better get back,” he said, picking up his oar.
Gina turned around and for the first time realized she could no longer see Eutaw.
“I screwed up,” Tate said grimly. “So busy telling you how to fish I didn’t notice how far out we’d drifted.”
“But we can get back—right?”
“We can try,” he said, swinging an oar into the water.
Five minutes of furious rowing got them exactly…nowhere. The tide and the wind drew them inexorably out and away from the shore. The rain slashed down on them, and Moonpie huddled in the bottom of the boat, his snout tucked under his paws, as though he were too afraid to look.
Gina hunched her shoulders against the rain. “Now what?” she asked, trying not to let Tate see her growing fear.
“We go where the tide takes us,” he said, letting his oar rest across his knees.
“Out to sea?” she asked, panicking. “In an open boat?”
“Look over there,” he said, turning around and pointing off into the murk.
She saw the faint outline of a faint grayish green hump off in the distance. “What’s that?”
“Rattlesnake Key,” he said. “We’ll let the wind take us there, beach the boat, and see if we can sit out the storm.”
“Good,” she said, her voice saying she did not really think this was so good. “An island, right?”
“A small one,” he said. “People come out on their boats sometimes and camp overnight.”
“Good,” she repeated. “That’s a good thing to know. But what I don’t want to know is why they call it Rattlesnake Key.”