He walked along just where the sand was firm from the dampness of the high tide and he saw the hermit crabs carrying their shells and the ghost crabs that slipped across the stretch of sand and into the water. To his right, in the shallow channel, he saw the grayness that a school of mullet made and their shadow on the sand bottom as they moved. He saw the shadow of a very big barracuda that was stalking the mullet and then he saw the lines of the fish, long, pale, and gray, and seeming not to move. He walked steadily and soon he was past the fish and was coming up on the heron again.
I’ll see if I can pass him without making him fly, he thought. But just when he was coming almost even with the heron, the school of mullet burst from the water jumping stiffly, big-eyed and blunt-headed, silvery in the sun but not beautiful. Thomas Hudson turned to watch them and to try to see the barracuda who was cutting into them. He could not see the predatory fish; only the wild leaping of the frightened mullet. Then he saw that the school was re-formed into a gray moving mass and when he turned his head the heron was gone. He saw him flying with his white wings over the green water and ahead was the yellow sand beach and the line of the trees along the point. The clouds were beginning to darken behind Romano and he walked faster to round the point and see where Ara had left the dinghy.
Walking faster gave him an erection and he thought there can’t be any Krauts around. That wouldn’t happen if there were any Krauts around. I don’t know, he thought. It could happen if you were wrong enough and didn’t know it.
At the end of the point there was a patch of bright white sand and he thought, I’d like to lie down here. This would be a good place. Then he saw the dinghy at the end of the long beach and he thought, the hell with it. I’ll sleep tonight and I will love the air mattress or the deck. I might as well love the deck. We have been around together long enough to get married. There is probably a lot of talk about you and the flying bridge now, he thought. You ought to do right by her. And all you do is step on her and stand on her. What sort of a way is that to act? And spill cold tea on her, too. That’s not nice. What are you saving her for anyway? To die on her? She would certainly appreciate that. Walk on her, stand on her, and die on her. Treat her really nice. One thing practical you can do now is cut out this crap and get this beach checked and pick up Ara.
He walked on down the beach and he tried not to think at all but only to notice things. He knew his duty very well and he had tried never to shirk it. But today he had come ashore when someone else could have done it just as well, but when he stayed aboard and they found nothing, he felt guilty. He watched everything. But he could not keep from thinking.
Maybe Willie’s side is hotter, he thought. Maybe Ara will have hit something. I know damn well this is where I would come if I were they. It is the first good place. They might have passed it and gone straight on. Or they might have turned in between Paredón and Cruz. But I don’t believe they would because somebody would see them from the light and they never could get in and through there at night, guide or no guide. I think they will have gone further down. Maybe we will find them down by Coco. Maybe we’ll find them right in behind here. There’s another key that we ought to work out. I must remember that they are always working on the chart. That is, unless they picked up a fisherman here. I haven’t seen any smoke from anybody burning charcoal. Well, I am glad we will get this key worked out before the rain. I love doing it, he thought. I just don’t like the end.
He shoved off the dinghy and stepped into her, washing the sand off his feet as he got in. He stowed the
Thomas Hudson steered along the beach but Ara was far ahead and he could not see him. He must be halfway to Willie, he thought. But when he saw him he was nearly to the mangrove bay where the sand stopped and the mangroves grew heavy and green into the water, their roots showing like tangled brown sticks.
Then he noticed the mast sticking up out of the mangroves. It was all he could see. But he could see Ara was lying behind a small sand dune so that he could just see over the top.
He could feel his scalp prickle as it does when you meet a car coming fast, suddenly, on the wrong side of the road. But Ara heard the motor and turned his head, and waved him in. Thomas came in on a tangent behind Ara.