All of them were sodden with seawater, but their clothing was rapidly starting to dry out in the heat of the sun.
Each person in the raft was silent, each one adrift physically, but also mentally in his or her own private thoughts and memories. Ryan could hear the calling of gulls, blown out to sea in the storm, now stuck hovering, far from land.
“Not quite ten o’clock,” J.B. said quietly after glancing at his chrono. “Going to be another hot one.”
Receiving no answer, he returned to tending his Uzi, taking the weapon apart to clean and dry it as best he could without the right supplies.
“At least it stopped raining,” Mildred noted softly, trying to pick up J.B.’s thread of conversation. The lapping of the waves was starting to slowly hypnotize her, so she was glad even for the sound of her own words. Talking to herself was better than returning to the stupor she’d been drifting into before the Armorer spoke.
Doc had finished draining the seawater from his bulky Le Mat and had returned the large pistol to its proper resting place in the holster tied down against his leg.
“How are the knees, Doc?” Dean asked.
“Better. I should be able to walk and skip once more if, or should I say when, we reach dry land. Between that horrible bloodsucker back in the swamps and my unfortunate fall last night, I could certainly use the steadying support of my walking stick.”
“Here, you babbling old fool,” Mildred said, handing Doc a long slender object she’d pulled from beneath her coat. “I was able to get this down the side of my jeans before the shit hit the fan…” Her voice trailed off as she caught a brief, almost unperceptible look of pain cross Ryan’s face.
The one-eyed man’s countenance quickly returned to its frozen, stoic calm.
Ryan was scared of what might happen once he did show emotion.
Doc didn’t notice Ryan’s discomfort in his momentary joy of recovering his beloved ebony-and-silver stick. “My walking stick! Woman, you have produced a feat of sleight of hand that even the greatest of stage illusionists could not hope to compete with! Perhaps I will allow you to win the next argument between the two of us.”
“Yeah, well, try not to poke yourself. Or the raft,” J.B. said as he continued to strip the Uzi.
“John Barrymore, I assure you, this finely hewn blade of Toledo steel will taste nothing but the rich ichor of our foes,” Doc replied in his most haughty voice.
“Who’d mine this stretch, J.B.? Doesn’t make sense,” Ryan said, the first words to come out of his mouth in hours.
“I know it doesn’t make any sense,” J.B. agreed, relieved to see his friend speaking again. “Naval mines are usually on the ocean floor or anchored to it. You keep the damned things floating around freely; they’re completely unpredictable. What hit us had to be a contact mine. Old ordnance.”
“Not that old. It still worked.”
“Hell, Ryan, it might have been floating out here since predark,” J.B. continued. “No telling what might have fallen overboard or been dredged up when the bombs fell. Once everything fell about, predictions went south. We’ve run into enough unexplained crap to prove that ourselves.”
“Shit, J.B. The coast of Georgia wasn’t exactly a strategic site. Were they trying to keep it safe for tourism?” Ryan said disgustedly.
“Didn’t say it was strategic,” the Armorer protested. “Just gave my theory why the fragger might have been out where it was when it detonated.”
There was no anger in J.B.’s voice. He’d seen Ryan in these moods before, and it didn’t pay to argue. He knew his friend was hurting over the casualties from the night before. Hell, they all were hurting. Jak and Krysty were family, and the sudden erasing of their presence still hadn’t fully sunk in.
Yet, out of everyone, J.B. had known Ryan the longest, and even he couldn’t gauge the extent of his grief this time. This loss cut deep. Krysty had been Ryan’s lifeline, his shining beacon in the darkness. Now, with that light extinguished, there was no telling what Ryan might do.