Page 13 of Touchdown
“Smart,” I said. “Fuck. Beyond smart. It's diabolical.”
The dugout had already vanished beyond the rocks. I didn't see it re-emerge.
How did it get out of sight so fast? I'd been hoping to see what direction it went. That would be the direction of the closest population center.
The direction of our best shot at freedom.
“Where did it go?” I asked.
“Away,” Noah said.
“When you first spotted incoming, where was he coming from?”
Noah sighed. He knew what I was asking. “Sorry, Slate. He was already in the rocks when I saw him.”
We dug into the backpack to check out the fresh supplies. Some items needed to be kept cool. Too bad, so sad. I was in no mood to haul ass back up that mountain just to unload the groceries into the fridge.
Opening the carton of orange juice, I passed it to Noah to give him the first swig. It wasn't very cold, but it would never be colder than it was right now.
“I could have kicked his ass,” I said. “Taken that boat. He wasn't a physical match for me.”
Noah drank deep and swallowed hard before he passed the carton back to me. “You know why you didn't.”
Did I?
I drank deep too. No use letting all that good vitamin C go to waste. We swapped the OJ back and forth until we emptied the carton.
Leaning forward, I wiped a bit of orange pulp off the side of Noah's mouth.
“Maybe I should have snatched it,” I said softly. “We need a boat.”
“Not that boat,” Noah said. “That guy needs that boat.”
He did, but still.
Had I made a terrible mistake? Had I chosen a stranger over Noah?
At the time, I couldn't make it sit right to grab a dugout canoe away from some shirtless, shoeless dude. It might be all he had to make his living with. Fuck, he'd probably carved it out himself with loving hands at home.
“We wouldn't have got too far in a dugout anyway.” Noah squeezed my knee.
“We need the real boat.”
Of course, the real boat would be the one with the armed security and alarms and...
I must have said some of that aloud because Noah interrupted. “The real boat would have motors. And decks. And cabins. Maybe even beds.”
He was right again. Paddling down the bayou was one thing. Paddling across an ocean was another.
“Also transponders,” I said. Tom Hanks forgot to tell us, but it's a good idea to show up on radar if you'd like to stop humongous automated tankers from running right over you.
Noah laughed and squeezed my knee again. “Yes. And transponders.” A pause. “Actually, if they're the bad guys, they might have removed the transponders. Why make it too easy for people to track them?”
I sighed. “Are you always right?”
“Are you always horny?” His hand was creeping up my thigh.
“The answer's yes,” I said.
