Rescue

opening a shaken bottle of soda. They were milling around the boat, on my side of it now, and I got bumped hard by one of them from behind. I took another breath and went under again.
    I kicked with everything I had, away from the sound of the propellers idling in the water. I felt that dimness associated with blacking out, and swallowed some more salty water as I came up. Sixty yards away, Cody was holding Axel against the dash, yelling at him.
    Then both their heads turned away from me, Cody pointing first. They seemed to take another fast look near where I’d last been, Severn saying, “I still can’t see him,“ Cody adding, “He was all tied up, Ax, he’s already drown-did.“
    By then Severn was at the helm, giving the engine a lot of throttle. It soon grew quieter around me, the dolphins just circling and bumping once in a while. Some of them seemed fascinated by how close they could come without touching me, almost like a Sioux warrior charging on a pony, counting coup with a stick.
    As Axel’s boat faded into the night, the sound of another engine came over the water, getting louder and stronger. The dolphins didn’t seem to mind, but they did move off a little, in the direction of the oncoming boat rather than away from it.
    The jumpsuit and other clothes were more of a drag now, forcing me to lie low in the water and drown-proof. The motor noise was getting progressively louder, seeming to home in on the last position of Severn and Cody near me. As the new boat moved through a gap in the islands, it stood against the lights of the distant horizon, a tall superstructure amidships. In fact, it looked a lot like the Marine Patrol boat Howard Greenspan had pointed out at the Mercy Key basin.
    I tried to think things through. Unmolested, I could probably reach one of the small, treed islands and get at least my ankles, and maybe my hands, unstrapped. Even if I could get my hands free as well, though, I was too far from the inhabited Keys to swim for them. That meant I’d have to sit on the small island till I saw a fishing boat go by. Which might not be the next day, since presumably where Axel and Cody had lost me wasn’t exactly a popular spot. I had no food, but more importantly, no fresh water. If I wanted to live, turning myself in to some authority other than Whit Tidyman’s Sheriff’s Office and getting off a quick call to Justo Vega in Miami seemed the better bet.
    The new boat was approaching now, bow toward me from three or four hundred yards. It wasn’t showing lights or sounding sirens. Maybe I was in a smuggling channel, and they figured Severn and Cody for drug-runners who might make another try.
    When the boat was about a hundred yards off, a searchlight came on. As it swept the surface, I could see strobe shots of the dolphins, crisscrossing through the beam. The boat slowed to idle, swinging broadside to me now.
    Then a woman’s voice said, “Howard, I don’t see any wounded ones.“
    A man’s voice said, “If any got hit, there’d be a couple of them around it. Watch for a grouping, not individuals.“
    I recognized the man’s voice, even without the woman naming him.
    Calling out, my own voice cracked a little. “Hey, Howard? Howard! Over here.“
    Solemnly, the woman said, “Howard, if one of these creatures can talk, I’ll never question you again.“
    In a command voice, Greenspan shouted, “Who’s out there?“
    “John Francis. I met you at the marina last week.“
    “You’re in the water?“
    “Afraid so.“
    After a couple of seconds, the boat’s engines revved up. “Keep talking. We’ll come on you real slow.“

26

    D oris Greenspan said, “They’re called bottle-nosed dolphins.“
    I nodded, huddled in a woolen blanket on the deck of their boat, behind the cockpit area to be out of the wind, as Howard stood in front of the captain’s chair, racing us toward the Mercy Key Marina. He’d introduced me to his wife—a short woman with deep blue eyes, pixie-cut gray hair, and a ready smile—as he’d pulled the blanket from a storage locker under the gunwale.
    Doris sat on the seat next to me, her head only two feet above mine, speaking loudly. “The young males, they enter what the scientists call alliances, kind of street gangs in the Water, hanging out together for years, doing synchronized
    swimming— “
    Over the motor whining from the stem, Howard said,
    Sweetheart?“
    “‘Yes?“
    “This may not be the best time to tell John all