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"Get it clear, then get Mildred out. We have to try to get her warm soon as
possible," Ryan muttered in hoarse and urgent tones.
Krysty saved her sore throat and nodded, pulling hard on the ropes lining the
raft as her feet sought purchase in the soft sand, dragging her silver-tipped
Western boots from the water-and-sand mixture as each footfall sunk into the
surface.
Each inch seemed to pull and strain on muscles that protested with each
exertion, but before too long they had the raft on dry sand. Paradoxically,
the last few feet were the hardest, as there was no water to give the heavy
plastic, with Mildred's deadweight, even the slightest of buoyancy.
"Bastard sea," Ryan spit as he leaned into the raft and tried to lift Mildred
off the floor. His muscles protested once too often, the lactic acid forcing
him into a spasm of weakness.
"Come on, lover, it'll take two of us right now,"
Krysty said, coming to his aid.
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"Sure we can manage with just the two of us?"
Ryan questioned wryly as the woman joined him.
They heaved at Mildred's inert body with a pitiful weakness that would have
been embarrassing if it weren't so potentially dangerous.
Krysty allowed herself a short, bitter laugh and looked around to see if the
other raft had landed yet. "Figure we're going to have to," she rasped.
The other raft was still adrift. It hadn't caught the wave that had carried
Ryan and Krysty onto the sands and was awaiting a crest forceful enough to
carry that slight difference in weight onto the shore. Without the supplies
that had been lost during the short but eventful voyage, the fact that the
other raft carried four people was enough to make it just that much heavier,
its progress just that much slower.
From the raft, J.B. watched Ryan and Krysty land their craft and scanned
eagerly for any sign of Mildred. He was frustrated that his raft was still
adrift and waited for each breaking wave
with a growing impatience. Looking at his fellow travelers, he knew that Dean
and Jak could be woken in a moment to help him pull the raft in to shore, but
he was worried about Doc. There was a rattle in the older man's breathing as
he slept that could be the start of something dangerous. The sooner they were
ashore, the better-for everybody's sake.
Just when the Armorer felt that his patience had reached its limit, and that
he would have to jump over the side to try to pull the raft over the tide
himself, the craft hit a crest that carried it over the tide and he felt the
weighted bottom of the raft bump against sand.
"Jak, Dean, get moving. We've hit land!" J.B.
exclaimed, shaking the albino youth by the shoulder and prodding the younger
Cawdor-a little farther away- with the toe of his boot.
Both stirred and opened eyes still fogged by their nameless dreams.
"Dammit, let's get this bastard pulled in," J.B.
croaked, the words falling awkwardly from his salt-swollen tongue.
He was over the side and splashing in the
shallows before either of them were fully conscious or aware. But they were
alert enough to realize that the end of their voyage was in sight.
Leaving Doc asleep in the bottom of the raft, realizing that he was in no
condition to assist, Jak and Dean scrambled over the side of the raft, the icy
cold of the water barely registering as it swirled around limbs already numbed
by their soaking and subsequent drift.
"The other raft's already in-now pull," J.B.
implored, grabbing the rope and digging his feet into the soft, yielding sand
that lay beneath them.
The Armorer was on one side of the raft. Dean took the other and Jak moved to
the front, which faced the shore, and both grabbed a handful of the nylon rope
that was threaded around the inflated tubular structure and that had already
served them so well. Ignoring the burn of the fiber on their skin, softened
and wrinkled by contact with the water, all three began to pull, fighting for
footing on the treacherous sand beneath them.
Struggling to get enough air into lungs that were already hurting, they used
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