Chapter 20

I helped Erik lower our lifeboat/tender from the stern davits, and then he set the rope ladder in place. The big man quickly climbed down and started the outboard motor.

Unlike the cabin cruiser's tender, our lifeboat was a clinker-built wooden boat. It was a gleaming white on the outside, while the inside was natural varnished wood. It was a thing of real beauty.

I stood on the deck of Rum Runner watching Erik waste his time on those evil men. Erik had ordered me to stay aboard. I obeyed but was now in a foul and bitter mood.

I said to no one in particular, "Can't we get even a few days without all this drama?"

Adin, who was now standing by my side, silently rubbed my back in sympathy. As I was thinking nasty thoughts we could hear the sounds of one of the U.S. Coast Guard's patrol boats off in the distance. The sounds were rapidly drawing nearer. It was evident that they were coming at full throttle.

In the meantime, Erik was racing back and forth looking for someone to save. Sadly for him, all of the dead had sunk to the bottom. Finally, our Captain returned to the Rum Runner.

As he was hooking the davit lines up to the small boat he said to us, sadly, "Looks like no one made it off, alive."

Just as we finished raising the tender and had secured all of the lines, the USCG patrol boat arrived. The Coast Guard now uses rigid inflatable boats with two huge outboard motors for rapid response vessels. Though the sound reached us first, it was hard to miss the great big 'rooster tail' racing toward us. Just outside of the island's harbor the quick response patrol boat dropped off of plane, and then entered the harbor at a more sedate pace. They motored up and rafted with us. Once Erik and I had the patrol boat's lines secured, several members of the Coast Guard clambered aboard the Rum Runner. The Captain was drawn away from us and interrogated at length, and then Adin and I separately got our turn.

After all of my experiences with the police and the FBI I was in no mood to act like a normal, passive citizen. In fact I was not even going to act like a normal human! This time I immediately entered the mind of the Chief Petty Officer that was collecting statements, and forced his acceptance of the sanitized story about the other boat exploding as they were about to get under way.

We were soon cleared to leave.

As the USCG personnel left our vessel, I said to Erik, "Get us out of here!"

"Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere away from here, for now. We can talk about where, later," I said sourly.

Erik looked at me for a minute then said, "I'm sorry about all of this, Kade."

"Yeah, well it's not your fault, Erik. Let's just get underway."

Erik nodded and went to the stern while telling me to go to the bow. Erik yelled instructions to me on how to pull up the anchor while he powered up onto the anchor position. We got the anchor raised and were then underway. As we were headed out of the harbor, other USCG boats arrived.

We were twenty minutes out away from the island and all of the drama when Erik asked, "Well now that we're out of there, please tell me what you want to do."

I took a deep breath and looked out over the water trying to control my rage. I didn't want to take things out on this man.

After several more deep breaths I said, somewhat more calmly, "Look, Erik, we have been under a tremendous amount of stress and NEED some peace and quiet, even if it's only for a day or two. Therefore, Erik, please find us some peace."

"Okay. Then, can you stay a few more days?"

I thought for a couple of minutes and then said, "That depends ... we can stay for three more days if there is nothing pressing at home. I'll check and get back to you."

I then went below and retrieved my cell phone and made the call. I was told by Tony that things were quiet and that there were only a couple of messages. We talked for a bit and he gave me the messages. I told him how to handle them, and I went back on deck. I told Erik that it was a go, and we had the three days.

"Well, then, how does this sound? We sail further up the coast and spend this afternoon and tomorrow at Mark Island where we can do some good spear fishing. Then the next day, we'll turn south again, heading toward home, but we'll sail outside the bay. There is an island out there that is a small rocky place, but it has a great little harbor. From there we run north by northwest back home. I looked at the weather reports this morning and we should have fair weather and good winds. Does that sound good to you?"

I sat down wearily on one of the seats, near the helm. Adin immediately crawled onto my lap, put her head against my chest, and went instantly to sleep. I looked at Erik and just nodded. I was too tired to speak. That was the last thing I remembered; as I, too, fell asleep.

Four hours later Erik called to me, "Time to wake up, Kade. We need to drop sail, and then anchor."

It took Erik a couple of more times but I finally awoke and did the required duties.

Now that we were anchored, I took note of where we were. This island was very high at the northern end and sloped all the way to the water at the southern end to a largish harbor. The slope was wooded with fields scattered here and there, however the top part of the island was treeless. There appeared to be the remains of cabins in most of the fields, and at water's edge there had once been a small village. At the top of the island, there were the remains of a large stone house and a barn, just past the tree line—the view must have been spectacular. All of these areas were connected with a narrow twisting road from bottom to top.

"What is this place Erik?"

"This is Mark Island. It has an interesting history. Back around the 1870's three brothers named Mark and their families arrived from Holland. They had some strange beliefs and were persecuted to the point that they fled their homeland and came to America.

"They found this island and settled here rather than continue onto the mainland. It was a rich place with abundant timber, good stone for building, rich soil for farming and plenty of fresh spring fed water. Also there was wonderful grazing up there at the top where the wind stops the trees from growing.

"The families lived on their ship until some houses could be built. The need for food was met right away because there were several tidal pool areas within the harbor that go dry at low tide. The people were able to span the opening of one of the tidal pools with nets. When the nets were down on the incoming tide fish came in to the pool to feed. However, as the tide turned the nets would be raised and block the exit. Once the tide had gone out the women would walk out and harvest the fish.

"It was a remarkably good system, and provided enough protein for the families, until they could get some buildings up and then procure farm animals. During that first summer, the families went to the mainland for supplies. They procured seed, livestock, farming implements as well as enough food stuffs and whatever other needed supplies to get them through that first winter.

"The Marks prospered for fifty years, and the families grew. The thing was, though, the people on the mainland wondered how such a small group could become so wealthy out on this island. The Marks now had three ships but only one was for fishing. The other two were large freight vessels.

"Then around 1919, some sailors survived a ship wreck with the use of a life boat. They made it to the mainland under cover of heavy fog.

"It turns out that the Marks were ship wreckers. They would lure ships coming from Europe onto the rocks on the outside of the island, kill the survivors, and then salvage the cargo and even the ships themselves.

"What cargo they didn't need to use for themselves they loaded onto their own ships and sailed down the coast to Boston. There they sold their swag for great profit. Finally the materials of the wrecked ships would be salvaged—the wood to build with or to burn as fire wood, the metal to be reworked into what was needed on the island or sold on the next trip to the city.

"The survivors of that last ship put an end to the shipwrecking though. Shortly after that last wreck the Revenue Cutter Service caught the family's ship as it made a run to Boston, loaded to the gunnels with booty. Foolishly, the Marks put on more sail and tried to out run the government ship. The government ship was faster! Seeing that outrunning the authorities was out of the question the Marks decided to fight! There ensued a gun battle and the Mark's ship was sunk with all hands! Following the sinking a landing party was sent to the island, but was killed! The Captain of the Cutter then decided not to risk anymore of his men and shelled any buildings that they could reach with their canon. The gun action lasted half the day and totally leveled the little village at the water's edge.