<< Go Back

Salt-Stung on Cape Hatteras

By Cindy M. Amos

Order Now!

The shoals running off cape pointe sucked the life out of terra firma, but no one ever came to Hatteras to gawk at underwater elevations. No, Jaima Delarie knew better. They came to fish. October ramped up angler excitability. Bluefish would start running the inlet any day now.
With the tide ebbing, the ocean pulled at her ankles as if to insist on her departure. One glance at the two shrimp left in her bait box argued against that brash tactic. Unfortunately, those thawing crustaceans would keep her brooding out in the intertidal zone through dead slack tide, most likely. If that yielded her one fresh fish to cook for dinner tonight, she could justify the time. C’mon. One measly Spanish mackerel, Lord.
The daring peninsula of sand chopped the oceanic currents like atmospheric turbulence battling for supremacy. Rising tide quelled the aqueous fight to encompass dry land, but an ebb tide lacked strength to sort out such matters. Her life had taken on the illusion of a falling tide lately. She reeled in her line to find her leader affixed with a dangling triangular weight and a bare hook. “Minus one shrimp and counting.”
As she baited the hook, a powder-blue motorboat passed heading inland. The crossing of Pamlico Sound took the better part of half an hour, even under mild winds. The channel markers would be blinking back darkness by then. Anguished at not having caught dinner, she wiped her hand dry and cocked the surf rod back to cast.
Instinctive, she checked the pole’s tip for a fouled line and caught a glimpse of the iconic Hatteras lighthouse, its shadow marking the dunes like a sundial. She let the cast rip from the strength of her shoulders. Told she bore a sturdy build by those who knew her best, she put her six-foot frame to work and cleared the shore break by twice the needed distance. A positive sign, the shrimp stayed connected to the bottom rig and made the plunge into the salty Atlantic.
The following lull snapped on a seagull’s cry and an odd throttling noise that ended in a hollow thump. A scan of the eastern shoreline yielded one slightly imperiled vessel listing to port and badly aligned for an emergency landing. No one in their right mind beached a watercraft along the shore, as ocean waves could swamp any rookie attempts at dry-land safety. To prove the point, a rolling swell crested against the bow of the boat, an enticing lick of disaster.
Her pulse elevating, she shoved the handle of the fishing pole into the nearby rod holder and sidestepped like a scuttling crab toward the disabled craft. The throttle noise repeated, followed by a metallic clank. When the boat captain threw his arms over his head, the icy drip of peril seized her chest. Graveyard of the Atlantic repeats its claim.
Underpowered to manually prevent the landing, she reasoned the last dune buggy had left the beach almost an hour ago. Maybe they should attempt to minimize the damage. She cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her message and feign a steady calm. “Can you throw your anchor and drag a line to slow down?”
“Dragging two anchors already,” the captain replied. “I’m jettisoning cargo. Watch for it.” A swell passed, crowning as it approached shore. Two red coolers soon bobbed in the gray-blue waters. Buoyant, they floated in when the next wave crashed onto the wreck scene.
Despite the resisting anchors, all else seemed to morph from impossible rescue to imminent salvage. Jaima drew her cell phone and pressed a familiar number for help. When the line opened, she made it quick. “I’ve got a boat in peril off cape pointe. She’s coming in and nothing’s gonna stop that collision. Can you bring the Suburban over?”
“Be right there,” a brusque voice replied. “You save the captain—I’ll get the boat.”
She shirked out of her windbreaker, knotted the sleeves around her phone, and tossed it onto the upper shore for safekeeping. “Sure, give me the easy-breezy job.” One glance at her stock-still rod yielded no further excuses. She had to lend aid.
Within seconds, the first cooler rode a breaker into the shallows, so she waded out to retrieve it. Riding low in the rushing water, she figured fish weighed the box, suggesting the captain might not be a total incompetent. The drag to shore strained her back muscles, but she bent her knees and gave the effort all she had. A repeat trip for the matching cooler proved equally arduous. She rested above the wrack line left by the earlier high tide and watched the captain toss the last of several smaller bundles into the ocean.
A cataclysmic battle ensued between twin-rigged anchors and Mother Nature. The vessel’s stern soon became ill-matched for the tidal influence of the moon’s gravitational pull. A large swell crested directly into the boat and emptied. Doomed, the craft sunk to half-mast.
A growl emanated from atop the far gunwale as the captain refused to go down with the ship. In a splash, the Atlantic swallowed the man whole. Its salt-gray waters turned murderous.
Jaima scanned the beachfront from the rolling swells to the shore break. The barrier islands of North Carolina wore the rescue of imperiled ships like a badge of folklore courage. Unfolding in live action, the perilous scene felt more like a tourniquet tightening around her throat. Twice she spotted a dark-haired crown in the surface chop, only to lose sight of the floundering man in the next frothy wave.
A handful of breakers swamped the boat, and its hull began scraping the sandy bottom. Kept from going broadside to the surf, the twin dragging anchors saved the boat, a fated twist of seamanship that kept the barrage of waves from outright demolishing the small vessel.
When a horn sounded from the dune crossing, her rescuer’s trip from Hatteras bight came full circle back to cape pointe. Only partially relieved, she crouched in the shallows to minimize the setting sun’s glare and tried to locate the victim while the Labrador Current chilled her legs. A dash of plaid shimmered close by, so she trotted out for immediate retrieval. Waiting out the next crashing wave, she waded deeper and squinted to remedy refraction at the water’s surface. This time when she spotted plaid, she lunged to make a frantic grab and connected.
A Herculean grasp responded to her touch as a roller broke with a roar. Enveloped in saltwater spray, his arms clutched her trunk and two figures became one under the wave’s thunderous christening. Toppled by the wave’s power, a confused sense of uprightness gave way to a flushing tumble toward shore. A mix of sand, icy water, and sea foam further convoluted her senses. Deprived of air, her lungs began to burn. At last the waters receded, allowing the upper shore to win.
Monte squatted over them with a belly-shaking chuckle. “That there’s one way to land ‘em, missy. Let’s get the boat out before it fills up with sand and strains my wench. Can one of you castaways find your land legs?”
A pair of mesmerizing hazel eyes shot open at the mention of the boat. His hand rubbed a plaster of wet sand off a tanned cheek. “Lord on earth. What just happened?”
She shoved out of his clasping arm and rolled back to retake her feet. In a squat, she regarded the wreck-prone captain as water dripped from her jeans. “You just missed Hatteras Inlet by approximately two hundred feet.”
He moaned and tried to sit upright in the sand. “Not sure if I ran out of gas or the engine failed. Either way, a miss is as good as a shipwrecked mile.”
Monte pointed at him. “You come up front and help keep the bow centered on the rollers. Del-doll, you take the bailer and rid excess weight from the hull as best you can.” He tossed her the scoop and made for the cab of the Suburban.
Jaima walked out on wet sand exposed by a dead slack tide and rued the happenstance. Bailing the almighty Atlantic out of a skiff’s hull stacked the deck toward impossible yet again. Behind the sulking hull, two taut anchor lines trailed seaward like contrails tracing some ill-chosen path. The men can fetch those tethered beasts. With a heave of her shoulders, the first scoop of sand and water regained its home off cape pointe.
~
Perry looked across the kitchen table and read the no-nonsense look in his brother’s eyes. A Manning had lived in this modest house for a century and a half, though he foundered lately to keep the heritage alive. “Think of some other way to make money. We have a month of fishing left, at most. Now we’re down one boat. It’s gonna take all winter to refurbish mine. Between the two of us, we need to come up with a profitable scheme.”
Dalton shrugged. “My family finances are covered, thanks to Beth’s dietician job over at the senior care home. If we have a humble Christmas, we don’t need much extra money.”
He intensified his stare. “That’s what you said last year, and my nephews had a pretty slim Christmas. We need to get the new guide business going. I’ll work on the flyer tonight. We may gain some interest at the RV show in New Bern. Let me check into that vendor booth cost.”
“Suit yourself. If we both book fishing outings this winter, then you’d better get dad’s boat fixed.”
“Yeah—with the stack of invisible money just waiting outside my reach. Thanks for your helpful insights. In a pinch, I could borrow Uncle Glenn’s boat.”
Dalton stood, making the chair scrape the floor. “Count on me to pull my weight out on Pamlico Sound. No worries. Grandpa taught us all the fishing holes between here and Stumpy Point.” He centered the back of his hand in front of eyes and faked a grin. “All too familiar.”
“Exactly what I thought until the boat motor sputtered and tried to end my last fishing trip in catastrophe.” He rose to follow Dalton to the door.
“Come over tomorrow and let me take a gander at your sales flyer.”
He swallowed the caustic comeback that floated to mind while the transom of his salvaged boat glided down the gravel drive like a magic trick. “Hey. Monte’s delivering my boat. What a nice guy.” He passed Dalton in the doorway, settling his favorite fishing hat in place. This delivery would save him valuable time, not to mention gas. He’d have to thank the old salt for his generous initiative.
Dalton flanked the vintage Suburban and headed for the passenger-side window. After taking a peek, he straightened with a look of astonishment on his face. With a hand clamped across his mouth, he retreated across the driveway to his house next door.
Undeterred, Perry approached the driver’s window as the glass cranked down. His pretty rescuer sat inside. Wow—talk about an outright blessing. After leaving her a mackerel that fated day, he hadn’t gotten a chance to express his gratitude. “Well, if it isn’t Ms. Del-doll. I’ll be.”
She snickered. “My real name is Jaima Delarie. Only Monte gets to call me Del-doll, and half the time he doesn’t really mean it as a term of affection.”
“First, nice job backing in the boat. Second, how on earth did you find me?”
She produced a wallet that creaked open with stiffened leather. “I combed the beach until nightfall made it too hard to see, but I managed to salvage some of your packages. Fourteen Back Sound Drive didn’t prove too tough to find—once I sniffed my way to Belhaven.”
“Ah, the sulfur salt marsh smell. Like salt spray and sand in your sheets, it’s just one more coastal perk a person learns to endure. Hey, if you have time, I can show you around. We have a dock on Pantego Creek that leads out to the Pungo River.”
“Sure, I’d like the tour. Plus, I promised Monte that I would cool the engine at least an hour before heading back to Manteo. Belhaven falls a little outside of his normal range.”
To hide his pleasure, he darted to the vehicle’s rear bumper and made quick work of unhitching the trailer. A host of bumper stickers touted the local fishing industry, but he favored the pink crustaceans on the crab spawning sanctuary sticker the most. Sensing Monte might make a good connector to possible tour gigs in the Hatteras area, he’d have to take him a flyer and ask for client referrals. As for Monte’s substitute today, the right angle remained unclear.
Maybe that’s why Dalton looked so stupefied. If Beth hadn’t acted on what she wanted, he might not have any nephews by now. Manning men approached romance like fish swimming toward a seine net, wide-eyed and unaware. He cranked the trailer’s jack down and straightened to find a tall, slender woman by his side. Dressed in an open-weave sweater the color lining a conch shell, her light brown hair mesmerized him for a dull-witted second.
She tipped down her sunglasses. “I have the other packages in the back floorboard, all dried out. Rest assured your first aid kit is ready to embark on the high seas again.”
He laughed at her tease. “Yeah, well. That gauze will sure come in handy if I need some extra salt to clean a wound. Let’s stroll back to the dock.”
“Looks like you might not be the first salt-stung victim here. Was this your dad’s?”
“Yeah, and his father before that. We all fished for a living, but I’m the only one who can claim being shipwrecked on Hatteras. The wiser men going before me respected that ominous marker and steered clear.” He tossed an empty oil can toward the garage and wondered why the yard appeared so cluttered. In such hot pursuit of a sustaining income, he’d grown a bit blind to keeping the place neat. That landed with a twinge of regret today for some reason.
“Who peeped in on me back there?”
“My brother Dalton who lives next door. He bought Aunt Sally’s house. It’s convenient so we can both use the family dock. He’s my fishing partner.”
The mown path down to the dock narrowed, putting them shoulder to shoulder. He watched a pair of dragonflies dance in the air before thinking clear enough. “This is a bit overdue, but thank you for pulling me out of the water the day I crashed the boat onto shore. I recall being a little shell-shocked afterward, but I wanted you to know how much I appreciate the rescue. Maybe leaving you a mackerel didn’t fully express my sentiments.”
“No regrets. I needed that fish.” A slight smile chased the comment. “I ran light on grocery money because I had to pay a one-time maintenance fee at my apartment complex in Manteo, so that fish fed me three days. I should be thanking you.”
He nodded. “Farmers and fishermen feed the world. Not only do I truly believe that truth, I live it every day. God gave me a black thumb for growing plants, so I stick with the fishing part.” He gestured to the planked dock and led her onto its broad width. “Here’s our attempt to suspend gravity over Pantego Creek. From here, I can make Pamlico Sound in ten minutes.”
Jaima scanned the dock. “Oh, what a great double kayak. Want to take me out?”
“Sure. Sounds like a perfect way to cool an overheated engine.” While reaching for two oars, he sensed a fine-mesh net strung up ahead. From the kayak’s stern, he’d stay plenty ready to duck any menacing entanglement.

Order Now!

<< Go Back