Chapter 2—part 1

The next morning presented a grey sky with a slight rain falling that was predicted to last all day. The seas were choppy but manageable as Jerry headed the boat toward Haiti, where he would rest and refuel. If the weather cooperated, he expected the trip to take about nine hours. Behind him he could see a storm building.

It was dark when he arrived in Haiti. By now, the slight rain had stopped and there was just a whisper of wind. Jerry looked toward the east where the skies had darkened. “Is this damn storm going away?” he asked one of the men helping him refuel.

“Come and go,” the Haitian said, shrugging.

Another man was less ambivalent. “Bad storm coming soon,” he said as he pointed toward the sky.

“Which way?” It was at least four hundred miles to where he would pick up the marijuana. “Is it heading toward Jamaica?”

“Maybe,” the man said. Then he added, “Maybe not.”

Jerry asked if he could please be just a little more specific. “I’ve got my ass in a knot here,” he said.

The man seemed not to understand for a moment, then smiled. “Small boat, big problem.”

“You’ve been a great help,” Jerry said, cursing under his breath. He walked away and looked around to see if there was a place he could take shelter for the night. Finally, he decided he would sleep in the boat again. In the distance he saw a man walking toward him with a young girl by his side. She was hiding her face behind him, maybe twelve or thirteen.

The man said, “Take girl to America and she yours. She do good things to you.”

Jerry wasn’t sure he heard right. “What?”

“Girl yours―America. She do good…”

“I heard you the first time.” He stared at the man for a few seconds. “Get the hell out of here.”

The man trudged away with slumped shoulders.

“He just looking after girl,” a man standing nearby said. “America better place.” You going for marijuana?”

“What?”

“You want smoke, I got plenty. Good price, too.”

Jerry looked past him and walked back to the boat.

“Not big boat,” the man, looking at the Sea Ray. “Small water boat. You die in ocean when storm comes. I got weed, if you want. Good price, too.”

Yeah, tell me about it, Jerry thought.

Back at the boat, he once again stared at the sky and wondered what the hell

he was doing. When he had flown into Kingston and made the buy arrangement, everything had seemed simple. But out here, in a place he had only seen on a map, it was anything but simple. The man had talked so fast he was hard to understand. No problem, mon. We be there with the marijuana. Oh, you coming in small boat. Lots of storms this time of year but you be lucky, you see. Well, as he looked at the sky tonight, he didn’t think his luck was going to hold up.

He thought about Jones leaving him and cursed again. Thanks a lot, you son of a bitch. And he thought about being at home with Bonnie, maybe having a cup of coffee and watching television. It crossed his mind that he might be crazy.

It was early morning when he left the island. He studied the sky, now dark with danger, and feared what was going to happen. But he had a deadline to meet. Almost as soon as the land disappeared, the storm came with a fury. The pelting rain was like tiny needles on his face. One after another, they pummeled the small boat, tossing it from side to side like playing with a toy. The engine hesitated before catching its breath against the onslaught of the waves. To make matters worse, fog had surrounded the boat and all he could see was the light coming from the lighthouse on Navassa Island. The brightness of the light was startling and filled him with hope. Navassa was a small, uninhabited island about fifty miles from Haiti, and it was there Jerry planned to seek shelter from the storm. But first he had to get there.

It was like he had been warned; the Sea Ray wasn’t meant for such bad weather. He fought to keep the boat headed into the waves because he knew the first time one hit him sideways, it was over. Keeping the boat steady wasn’t easy with the wind trying to push him around.

The boat was being slammed so hard he wondered how much more punishment it could take. For nearly three hours the storm raged and the wind roared, but the light on Navassa was getting closer. The loudness of the wind made it nearly impossible to hear his voice.

An eternity passed before he reached the tiny island. He took the craft around the tip of the island, stopping when the wind was blocked and the waves calmed. He dropped the anchor and leaned back in the seat, praying he would never have to go through something like that again. Even sheltered, the sea was a violent churning of whitecaps, smashing against the boat.

He grabbed a bite to eat and waited until the storm let up before continuing to Jamaica. The travel was uneventful but all the delays had made him a day late for the appointment, and his fear was that the Jamaicans would be gone when he arrived at Point Morant.