Joni left the bridge to hoist the anchor and Gun cranked up the engines, then he steered with his feet out of the lagoon. A short time later I went astern and there was Joni again with a big smile on her face, gutting open a two-foot long fish from the butt-hole to the head in one single stroke. More large fish flapped around choking to death on deck. The slaughter might be a normal thing but it left me downhearted, almost taking some of the life out of me. Nothing felt familiar or desirable out here. Even the breathtaking vistas seemed barren, and a dark wispy cloud of exhaust fumes trailed a hundred feet behind the boat. I returned to the bridge.

“That woman,” I began, “she is something.”

“Joni, yeah,” Carl agreed. “She’s a good one.” He folded his arms, satisfied.

“How long you two are going out together?” Gun asked.

“A year now. She is great. She’s the top producing Realtor in Orlando.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” I said with little emotion. “She seems to have the real killer instinct.” Nothing here mattered to me—old Jimmy was patching his suit with duct tape, Killis was writing notes in a different language, then I mustered enough interest to explain something to Carl. “You know, I misread Joni’s bunk assignment as ‘Jonah and Caleb.’ But, that was ‘Joni and Carl.’ Not ‘Jonah and Caleb.’ Ask Gun, I was adamant about not getting in a tight bunk with a stranger. Especially a Jonah!”

“Well, I’m adamant about you not getting in a tight bunk with Joni, either!” Carl was quite amused. Such a cheerful fellow he was, a good match for Joni.

“Ca-leb, my belle,” Gun sang out. “Blah blah blah.” He laughed. “Ca-leb, mah belle, da da da, dada,” he continued to serenade me.

He sounded so inane I tried not to crack a smile. A few clouds were scattered across the bright blue sky and the waters seemed alive with sparkling highlights, leaping fish, and dive-bombing birds.

Jimmy and Killis didn’t jump into the conversation, so Gun and Carl traded stories of old Key West where they both lived. It turned out they knew many of the same people. They talked of wild characters and freewheeling hippie days.

“The Keys used to be a tight-knit community,” Carl said. “Not that long ago, God, I’m only forty-five. Yep, I still feel great, proud of myself,” he stated. “Push-ups, run, keep in good shape.” He also had a good jelly-belly with those big arms and legs and the energy to match. “It was pretty wild back then. You remember Barker, did you know Barker?” he asked Gun.

“He disappeared. Nobody’s seen him for fifteen years.”

Jimmy suddenly entered the discussion. “Didn’t the IRS take his boat?” Gun gave him a strong glare and Jimmy shrugged.

“I heard they came up on him and slit his throat with a razor,” Carl said. He began chewing his fingernail.

Gun stroked his beard in his thoughtful way. “No. I think he’s wearing the concrete shoes.”

“Really...” Carl tweaked off a piece of nail. “He was always living on the edge. Maybe he’s hiding out in Europe or Asia.” He spit the nail out and examined the next one.

“Na-ah,” Jimmy scoffed. “They say he got on the wrong side of the Cubans on some drug deal, down Andros Island way.”

“Andros Island? No, sir, you don’t want to get caught by those guys.” Gun glanced back at me.

Joni dumped a bucket of mutilated fish parts over the side and we locked eyes on each other a moment. Her bright ruddy face was so full of goodwill that it was beginning to rub off on me. At the other end of the spectrum was mysterious Killis, writing notes in squiggly letters that resembled a Middle Eastern language.

“Bad people around Andros Island?” I ventured to say. Joni popped up the ladder to join the rest of us on the bridge.

“Oh, those ones there, they are vicious,” Jim said. “For years they’d come up on boats like this, kill everyone and use the boat to run major drugs, then sink it.”

“No trace of anyone or anything left,” Gun added. “Groups of Bahamians and Cubans working for the drug cartels. That’s how they used to do it.”

“God.” My mouth dried up, and I swallowed. “That’s like…the pirates.”

“Oh, pirates are alive and well around here!” declared Joni. “Great place for fugitives, too. Barely any police force.”

New and worse perils seemed to come from nowhere and multiply out here!

Gun spoke in my direction, “They come up on the people in the middle of the night. Silently. Razors across the throat. But, hey, Carl, you remember that one gang? They were famous, can’t recall their name.” He nodded at Carl and Jim. “They were known for those daylight lagoon ambushes? None of these waters was safe for years.”

“Those ones were different. They did crazy stuff like that for kicks,” Jimmy said with a huff. “Yeah, that old pirate, what’s his name, Andros Red, him, one of his crews did all that.”

I saw Killis grinning out of the corner of my eye, and could not tell if it was because of our conversation or whatever he was writing in his foreign language, but I wanted to know.

“Yeah, Andros Red, wasn’t he the same guy that killed Barker?” asked Joni.

“Did someone say that?” Jim inquired. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”

Gun moved around in his chair as if uncomfortable.

Carl remarked, “Ain’t heard a thing about Andros Red for years now. Used to be whenever anything happened down here, It’s Andros Red, he’s the one did it. Maybe he’s wearing the concrete shoes, too.”

Dolphins bounded ahead while the sea spray flew backward.

“So, are these waters safe now?” I asked.

They all eyed each other, and grinned together. Joni answered, “Let’s put it this way. Not without a weapon. I have a weapon. I won’t tell you what it is.”

“I keep a forty-five under the mattress,” Gun told me. “Not everyone sleeps when we’re anchored.”

“Wow...” I stared ahead. Except for the blare of our engines it seemed so peaceful out here. But considering this limitless expanse of sea and sky it was also no place to be caught out alone at night, either.

Killis took the opportunity to leave again. Then, Joni did the same, saying, “Naïve young friend you got there, Gun.” She departed with another big smile for me.

Later on, I told Gun, “Look, I memorized these hand signals, what else do I need to know?”

“What else did I tell you?” he answered.

“Don’t stop breathing. But what about my ears, I always get water in them and can’t get it out. I even have trouble in pools with ear infections.”

“You equalize pressure every few feet by pinching your nose closed, and blowing it lightly.” He demonstrated by doing so.

“You mean I get water inside my ears? Can’t I use earplugs?”

Both Carl and Gun thought that was the funniest thing. “Sure!” Gun blurted out with laughter. “If you want the pressure to push the plugs right into your brain!” He steered onward with his feet, grinning at me and hands folded behind his head or scratching his blond hair. “Look, Caleb, do this...” He pinched his nostrils closed, and tried to blow his nose. “Doing that equalizes the pressure as you’re going down. And when you come up, the rule is never rise faster than your own bubbles.”

“Never faster than my own bubbles…don’t stop breathing…equalize pressure every few feet...I don’t know if I can do this. If I should do this.”

Carl got up. “I’m going to see how Joni is,” he said, heading astern.

Joni was tending several fishing lines that trailed the boat. Then her voice bellowed, “Slow the boat!”

Gun cut the engines.

“What happened?” I became scared.

“Joni’s got something,” said Gun.

“She’s hooked a ‘cuda!” Carl called back to Gun. “A big ‘cuda!”

I went astern, and there was Joni, her smile beaming as she reeled in a four-foot fighting barracuda. The colorful fish was like a missile.

“You going to eat that?” I wanted to find out.

“Oh, no! I’d love to eat him up. But, he’s just too big!” She laughed raucously like it was sexual. Then she unhooked the fish and heaved his wrangling torpedo of a body over the side.

“You can’t eat a ‘cuda over three feet,” Jim explained. “They’re poisonous.”

“I just love to fight it out with them!” Joni proclaimed with a big smirk.

I went back up to the bridge, so anxious about everything I could only stare at a large upcoming body of land. “Bimini?” I inquired.

“No. That’s Cat Cay. A much smaller island. We’ll clear customs here and head over to the secret lobster spot.” He smiled and clicked his cheek. “This’ll take a couple hours.”

“Does that mean that we weren’t supposed to be stopped at that other island this morning?”

“Technically...” He looked away. “If authorities found us in the water, it might be a problem.”

NEXT CHAPTER