68 Knots Read online

  68 KNOTS

  A NOVEL

  Michael Robert Evans

  Tanglewood • Terre Haute, IN

  Published by Tanglewood Press, LLC, 2007.

  Paperback published by Tanglewood Publishing, Inc., 2009.

  Text © Michael Robert Evans, 2007.

  All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover photo and design by Chris Stucker

  Interior design by Amy Perich

  Edited by Lisa Rojany Buccieri

  The Publisher would like to thank Laura Maschler for her assistance with this title.

  The Publisher would like to thank Gabriel Tierney and Angela Mascari for their help with the cover.

  Tanglewood Publishing

  P. O. Box 3009

  Terre Haute, IN 47803

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  ISBN 978-1-933718-24-8 (paperback)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Evans, Michael Robert.

  68 knots: a novel / by Michael Robert Evans.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When a group of teenagers arrives for a summer leadership program on board a sailing ship, the teens do not expect the counselors to bail out and the leader of the program to commit suicide, leaving them in command without money or supplies, needing to figure out how to survive on their own.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-933718-14-9

  ISBN-10: 1-933718-14-5

  [1. Sailing—Fiction. 2. Survival—Fiction. 3. Conduct of life—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Sixty-eight knots.

  PZ7.E89221Aae 2007

  [Fic]—dc22

  2007009891

  To my mother,

  Carolyn Ruth Robinson Evans,

  and to Joanna, Dylan, and Miles,

  my wonderful family.

  -MRE

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Arthur stared in disbelief at the dead body sprawled across the bed. The lanky seventeen-year-old sank down into a wooden desk chair and ran his hands through his hair.

  Oh shit, he thought. This could be real trouble.

  He shook his head. This summer was supposed to be exciting and fun, an adventure. But it started badly and got steadily worse. And now this, he thought. Now what are we going to do?

  He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm his nerves and clear his thoughts. I guess I’ll tell the others, he said to himself. They’ll freak out, but I’ll try to keep them focused. Someone has to step up and lead this crew, and it might as well be me.

  The summer was full of promise, back when the plan involved idyllic days sailing along the coast of Maine. Arthur’s father dropped him off at the docks and sped away in his black Lexus SUV. Arthur waved, but he could see that his father was already talking on his cell phone. The car cut its way into traffic and disappeared into a knot of angry drivers.

  Arthur was tall for 17, with hazel eyes, straight brown hair, and an unusually deep voice. With an eager smile, he turned away from the traffic and toward the sea. He could feel the elation swell up inside him. A whole summer lay ahead of him—a summer spent on a tall ship, learning leadership and discipline and the right way to give commands so other people would follow them. He had worked for each of the last three summers in his father’s law office, organizing papers and trying to absorb the intricacies of power. Now he would get a chance to sharpen his skills and show off a little on a ship off the coast of Maine.

  Arthur’s future seemed clear to him. Graduate from high school next year. Earn a government degree from Dartmouth. Get into law school at Harvard or Yale. Get hired by a prestigious law firm. Become a full partner by age thirty-eight. After that, who knew? With my determination and clear thinking, he said to himself, I might become a senator.

  Arthur grinned. First things first, he thought. He picked up his duffel bag and looked down the dock. Rising from the bevy of white sailboats was a large, wooden, two-masted ship, with ropes in the rigging and flags flying from the top.

  That must be it, he said to himself. The Dreadnought. My home for the summer. It looks like a pirate ship, he thought. He smiled as he shook his head. There aren’t any pirates anymore. Are there? Nah, I don’t think so. Besides, any adventure will be great. He started down the dock and toward the waiting ship.

  But then he stopped. A couple—a young man with short dark hair and a young woman with long blonde hair—stood off to one side of the dock, wrapped in a close embrace. They stared deeply into each other’s eyes. They didn’t move.

  Arthur was transfixed; he let his duffel fall to the dock. The couple seemed unaware of the dock, the boats, and Arthur’s stare. They didn’t kiss. They just absorbed each other into a profoundly intimate gaze.

  Arthur felt a pang of—of jealousy? These were strangers to him, but still he felt a wave of envy at their closeness. Arthur had never had that feeling with someone, and for an instant, he wanted it more than anything else.

  Then he shook his head. “My father says emotional attachments make you vulnerable, and vulnerability is dangerous,” he muttered to himself. “It’s lonely at the top for a reason—and I’m going to get to the top.”

  He picked up his duffel and continued down the dock toward the tall ship, looking over his shoulder one last time. The couple was still there, lost to the world in each other’s eyes.

  At the end of the dock, Arthur was greeted by three counselors in green T-shirts; they looked at bit frazzled despite their welcoming smiles. “I’m Hoon Yin,” said a thin young man with straight black hair. “That’s Greg Anderson, and this is Robin Merriman. On board the ship, though, we all go by nicknames. I’m called ‘Jet,’ Greg is called ‘Fred’—you remember Fred, the strong cool kid from the Scooby-Doo cartoons?—and Robin is called ‘Grille’ because she still wears braces at age twenty-two.” Hoon shrugged. “It’s supposed to build character. You’ll get your nickname soon.”

  Hoon told Arthur to put his duffel on the deck near the bow and get ready to shove off. The counselors dragged the gangplank onto the ship, separating the tiny camp from the rest of the world, and a moment later the Dreadnought was sailing out to sea.

  Arthur joined the seven other campers on a pile of vinyl mats in the middle of the boat. They introduced themselves to each other, but Arthur didn’t catch many of the names. His eyes were locked onto a young woman with an incredible body and expertly styled hair. He stuck out his hand.

  “Arthur Robinson,” he said with a nod. The girl glanced at him and then looked away with an annoyed expression. “I’m Marietta,” she said. She didn’t say anything more, and she didn’t shake his hand.

  The other campers chatted as the ship left the bay. Arthur began to sort out a few of the names. The big guy is Jesse, he noted to himself. And his little friend is Bill. That girl with the nice smile is Dawn. But he kept returning to Marietta, who gazed with a bored scowl at the sea.

  “Damn, she’s hot,” he whispered.

  Just a few hours later, on
the bow of the Dreadnought, Joy Orejuela held onto a steel cable for dear life and prayed to God for salvation, reciting Psalms in Spanish: “Jehova es mi pastor; nada me faltará,” she whispered. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” The ship was leaning sharply to the right in heavy winds, ten-foot swells causing the bow to swing up and down with dizzying intensity. It was as if the bow were tied to a yo-yo string, and some unseen hand overhead was tossing it down and yanking it up for amusement. Every time the ship reached the bottom of a wave, Joy was certain that unless she prayed hard she would be splattered against the glowering wall of water ahead. Every time the ship arched over a crest, Joy was certain she would be flung toward space in a wild flailing swan dive that might never end. She kept one leg locked around the bowsprit rigging on one side, and her other leg pressed hard against the slippery wood of the bowsprit itself. She gripped the steel guy wire with both hands and squeezed her eyes closed whenever possible. The counselors had sent her to the bow to watch for boats, lobster-pot floats, and other obstacles. She chose instead to concentrate on prayer.

  The Dreadnought had been underway for most of the day before the captain of the ship came up from below. The counselors had been showing the campers how to work the ropes and winches that adjusted the sails, but once they steered the ship into a quiet bay, they heard Captain McKinley stomp up the narrow stairs. The counselors dropped anchor and formed a green-shirted wall behind McKinley at the helm.

  McKinley stared at the campers, his belly straining against the buttons of his khaki shirt. He wore a black sailor’s cap and silvered sunglasses, and a pipe jutted out from the corner of his mouth. He smiled.

  “I am Howard McKinley,” he said in a booming voice. “Welcome to my Leadership Cruise. As you know, you’re here to learn how to lead. How to take charge. How to command respect. And I’m going to teach you. You’ve met the counselors—Jet, Grille, and Fred. They are here to help me. They will explain some things, but you are not to rely on them for things you can do yourselves. They are your guides, not your nannies. Any questions so far?”

  The campers stood in a loose cluster and blinked up at their so-called leader. They didn’t say anything.

  “Very well,” McKinley continued. “There are eight of you—four boys and four girls. It’s a tradition on board the Dreadnought that everybody goes by a nickname. You may call me ‘Commodore.’ Now stand in a straight line, and I’ll give each of you a brand-new Dreadnought nickname.”

  The teens shuffled into a lazy line. McKinley took a clipboard from Fred and made a show of consulting it. “Which one of you is Dawn FitzWilliam?” A girl with a ponytail and a red baseball cap raised her hand. McKinley marched over to her and looked her up and down. “Baseball cap, eh? From now on, you will be called ‘Shortstop.’” Dawn smiled awkwardly. She didn’t seem to love the new name.

  McKinley continued. “Who is Joy Orejuela?” The girl who had been praying on the bow lifted her hand. She had olive skin and dark hair. “Orejuela—that’s a Spanish name, isn’t it? Good. We’ll call you ‘Chiquita.’” Joy started to protest, but then she decided against it.

  “Who is Crystal Black?” McKinley asked. A girl with very short blond hair, a tight t-shirt, and no shoes looked him straight in the eye.

  “I am,” she said in a defiant tone. She crossed her arms.

  “Hmm,” McKinley said, looking her over. “Tight, wiry, probably good at physical stuff. We’ll call you ‘Spider.’”

  “Whatever,” the girl said, not dropping her gaze.

  “And the last girl,” McKinley said. “Marietta Mathis. Must be you.” He ogled the gorgeous girl that Arthur had noticed earlier. “Not bad. Not bad at all. We’ll call you ‘Bunny.’” Marietta just rolled her eyes.

  He went on to hand out nicknames to the boys. Jesse, a towering boy with rippling muscles, became “Hulk.” His little friend, Bill—a nervous, scrawny boy with large black glasses that kept slipping down his nose—was now “Squinty.” Logan, a chubby boy with a goofy grin, became “Marshmallow.” And Arthur’s clean-cut good looks earned him the nickname “Boy Scout.”

  “Now that you all have proper Dreadnought nicknames,” McKinley announced, “it’s time to get to work. We have another few hours of daylight left, and I suggest we make good use of it. Counselors, assume your positions. I will take the helm from here.”

  McKinley shouted some commands, and the counselors leapt to work. They pulled on ropes and showed the campers how to tighten the sails and fill them with wind. McKinley turned the ship’s wheel, and the Dreadnought once again nosed into the heavy waves.

  As Arthur struggled with a tight rope, pulling with all his strength against the stiff wind, he noticed that sailing was different with McKinley at the helm. The counselors had tried to teach them the basics of sailing, but McKinley simply shouted orders. It was as if he expected the campers to learn everything about sailing in one afternoon. Still, Arthur thought, I didn’t come here to be treated like a kid.

  “Spider! Let out the jib!” McKinley hollered. Crystal, still barefoot, jumped over to a rope and began to ease it out. McKinley sighed loudly enough to be heard over the wind. “Jet, show Spider what the hell the jib is. And you there! In the stupid shirt! Uh… Marshmallow.” He pointed to Logan McPhee, a pudgy sixteen-year-old who wore a tie-dyed T-shirt with the words “Bohemia Rules” across the chest. “Sheet in that main!” McKinley muttered a curse. “Do I have to spell out everything? Pull on that rope! P-U-L-L—oh, forget it. You there, Hulk, grab that rope and pull on it. Good. No, wait! Let it out! LET IT OUT!”

  The “Hulk”—Jesse Kowaleweski—was the muscle-bound sixteen-year-old Arthur had met earlier. Jesse had said little since the ship left the dock, but he had tried to follow instructions whenever they were given to him. When McKinley said “pull,” he hauled on the line so hard that the mainsail stiffened abruptly, and McKinley was caught heading too far downwind with a tight sail. As the Commodore cursed and pointed, the ship veered just a little bit, and the wind caught the other side of the sail from behind. The boom flew across the deck with enough force to smash a skull—and Jesse put up his hand. He caught the rocketing timber and froze it in midair. In one hand. The force would have shattered the bones of any other hand that rose in its path, but Jesse halted the boom without changing expression.

  Everyone on deck stopped what they were doing and stared at Jesse. “Shit,” Logan said. “I want that guy on my side.”

  McKinley blamed Jesse for the mishap, shouting in his face and “demoting” him from deck hand to cabin boy. “You’ll sit at the foot of the table tonight!” he shouted. “And don’t be so sloppy the next time!”

  Jesse shrugged. Sitting farther away from McKinley didn’t seem like much of a punishment.

  By dinnertime, Arthur was confused. He could not make sense of McKinley. The “Commodore” was charming at one moment and abusive the next, and during the late afternoon he had demoted more than half the crew to cabin boys and girls. Conversation in the dining room was taut and brief. Everyone crowded around a long rectangular table in the center of a large room near the stern of the ship. Built into the walls were a dozen bunks; most were filled with bags and boxes of gear, but three were left clear for the counselors to sleep on.

  The kitchen, or “galley,” was in the forward part of the ship, in a section that also contained the captain’s quarters and the only bathroom. McKinley kept the door to this section locked during the day—“You kids would just love a chance to raid the pantry, wouldn’t you?”—but he unlocked it at 5:30 to let two of the “deck hands” start cooking. He chose Arthur and Crystal for the task.

  “Have dinner ready and on the table at exactly eighteen-hundred hours,” he commanded. “That’s six o’clock to you landlubbers.” Then he smiled broadly and winked at them. “This is the first meal of the first-ever Howard McKinley Leadership Cruise, so do a great job. I’m counting on you!”

  Arthur and Crystal squeezed themselves into the dark kitchen,
which was barely larger than a small closet. It was crammed full of dented pots, bent utensils, and rusty canned goods. Crystal and Arthur looked at the tiny kerosene stove and the battered blackened pans that swung from the ceiling, and then they looked at each other.

  “This is crazy,” Arthur whispered, his low voice booming off the close walls. “Let’s make something quick and simple and get out of here.”

  “We’ll make some friggin’ spaghetti and hope McKinley chokes on it,” Crystal sneered. “Anyone who demotes me to ‘deck hand’ can take his pipe and—”

  “Spaghetti it is, then,” Arthur said with a smile.

  Along one wall was a set of shelves so deep that Crystal had to stick her head into the dark spaces to reach the back. The shelves were stuffed with cans of all shapes and conditions—shining, rusty, dented, tall and thin, short and squat, pop-top and flip-top and the kind you open with a key. Most of them wore tattered labels, but many were bare. Crystal could see sardines, Spam, canned chicken chunks, gourmet mushrooms (badly dented), tomato purée, cream of broccoli soup, Vienna sausage, chipped beef, corn, pears, and random other foods. She pulled out several cans and handed them to Arthur.

  Along another wall sagged a miniature sink with a hand pump, and next to it was the sheetmetal stove. Arthur read the faded instructions thumb-tacked to the wall and poured kerosene into the stove from a small oily can he found among several boxes of baking mix in an overhead cupboard. Then he opened a box of matches.

  “This will either light up the stove,” he said, smiling to his galley-mate, “or it will light up the ship.” He touched a lit match to the pool of kerosene in the stove. The kerosene caught fire, and with some work, Arthur coaxed the stove into an impressive display of heat. No explosion.

  “Oh, well,” Crystal said. “Maybe the next cooks will have better luck.” She smiled a tight, tough smile with thin lips and pointed teeth.

  With pushing and prodding and kicking and swearing, they persuaded the water pump to cooperate, and at last, Crystal and Arthur balanced a pot of water on the burner and willed it to boil. They threw in a lot of spaghetti, and when it was tender, they drained it and dumped in the reddish-brown goo they found in several jars of ready-made sauce.