Odysseus was able to stick to a subject. Especially a subject he considered important. “About the goats . . . ”
* * *
Liz had been staring at the horizon while Jerry warbled on. She’d spent a fair number of years going to sea in small boats. When the horizon went bumpy like that—it was time to run for port. Especially when the horizon got that gray haze about it. “Jerry. Tell this lot that I’m predicting a hell of a blow.”
* * *
Jerry dug deep into his memories of the Odyssey. Had it been a wind from the north or the south that had kept them trapped on Thrinicia? “The Sorceress Liz says that the south wind and the storm are coming.”
That was enough for the seamen. They’d been watching the drama. Now they too looked for weather cues. A low moan swept the ship. Well. They had just survived a whirlpool and a monster . . . Now a wind that would drive them back that way was rising. “Row for the island!” shouted someone. But the offshore breeze was already strengthening.
Odysseus was a son of a bitch with an obsession about goats, but he was no fool. Within minutes the ship was bearing northwest—quartering the storm, looking for a haven, any haven but the channel that housed Scylla and Charybdis.
Jerry didn’t care that he’d successfully thwarted the myth. He was too busy being sick. Or trying to be. There was nothing left to come up.
11
Gambling with the lambs.
The bay was a deep cookie-cutter bite out of the limestone cliff. Rimmed with a thin white-sand beach, the water inside it was blissfully still. To the south the sky was black, but here above the refuge the last of the sun still burnished the cliffs. Odysseus edged the black ship warily into the channel. Jerry remembered the Laestrygonians’ slaughter of Odysseus’ squadron. By the way Odysseus and his crew scanned the cliff that wasn’t far from their minds either. But there was nothing more threatening to be seen than a silhouette of an umbrella pine clinging to the cliff edge.
“What happens now?” Lamont asked, looking warily at the scene.
Jerry shrugged. “Judging by other incidents mentioned in the Odyssey, they’ll pull up on the beach, make a fire, eat and drink.”
Liz scanned the cliff. “No water.”
“Wine. Water in those days was stuff that killed you,” said Jerry.
Cruz ground a fist into his palm. “That’s when the trouble will start,” he said grimly.
Jerry looked startled. “I thought we’d already dealt with that. I’ve convinced them that Liz—Dr. De Beer—is a sorceress.”
The stocky sergeant looked at him. Shook his head. “Dr. Lukacs. You know all about the history of these guys. And if you get a chance, I’d like you to fill the rest of us in. It might help. But I know troops. This bunch have as much discipline as a pack of wild dogs. That Odysseus guy has barely got them under control. Get them fed, rested, bored and with a few drinks in them—we’ve got trouble.”
McKenna nodded. “Always works like that.”
Jerry tugged his wispy beard. “That fits in with the myth, I’m afraid. Against the Cicones . . . ”
“In the meanwhile, we’re about to beach,” Liz snapped. “Jump over and make yourselves useful pulling the boat up.”
“Won’t they kill us if we aren’t all together in a defensive group?” asked Salinas warily.
Liz snorted derisively. “Not until the boat—I refuse to call this thing a ship—is pulled up. Believe me. The sergeant knows soldiers. I know seamen. Nobody is going to touch a hair on your little head until the work is over. Provided you put your back into it.”
Salinas bridled. “You don’t need to get smart, lady!” He swelled his chest. Alas, most of the swelling took place lower down. Salinas’ belt groaned in protest.
“I’m an experienced police officer—we’re talking about the tough side of Chicago, cookie—and I say—”
“We’re not in Chicago, prat!” snarled Liz. She swelled her own chest. It was a far more impressive sight. “And if you’re an example of a police officer, Chicago’s crooks have got it easy. I’m not taking orders from you! And that’s final!”