Part 68 (1/2)

He was hanging on with one leg and one arm, looking up blearily into the face of his killer, fighting the'rain, the wind, and a man twice as strong as he. He was almost over.

Then abruptly the man let out an unearthly bellow. A howl. A scream of anguish that belonged in a slaughter-house. The iron grip melted.

The power in the hands was gone.

Thomas blinked rapidly and peered through the rain. The man's eyes were bulging, inflated in the most undiluted anguish. He staggered and turned.

Thomas, clinging to the railing, gawked, almost sickened at the sight.

The broad back had been hacked open. Blood poured from a huge seven-inch gash that formed a diagonal cross against his upper backbone. The man staggered, trying to reach with his hands behind his back, trying to get to the source of the pain.

But he couldn't. He could only lurch.

Then Thomas saw. Leslie.

She was standing several feet from him, the fire ax gripped defiantly in her hands, hatred -and perhaps fear in her eyes. Blood, washed by rain, dripped from the blade of the ax.

The man howled obscenely. Thomas was transfixed by what he saw, almost forgetting to pull the part of him that was not on board back from over the rail.

The man lunged at Leslie, cursing her. She held the ax like a spear, thrusting the blunt handle end forward and thumping it with a loud crack against the man's upper chest bone. Then, slas.h.i.+ng with the wooden end, she crashed it against his head, sending him down against the wet floorboards.

She dropped the ax. She extended a hand to Thomas and pulled him back from the railing. His mind was a ma.s.s of confusion, his body still anguished in several parts.

”Help me,” was all she said.

Help her? he wondered.

The body was still writhing, still alive but bleeding profusely, ”Help me ” she repeated.

He didn't understand. He didn't know what she wanted.

She went to the body, lifted the struggling a.s.sa.s.sin by a shoulder, and motioned to Thomas. Motioned to the man's other shoulder.

And motioned to the rear of the deck.

He stood there. He knew what she wanted. He couldn't.

”Do it, d.a.m.n it!” she screamed.

”He tried to kill you! Don't you understand? Twice he tried to kill you!”

He grabbed the other shoulder, and with a quick motion across ten feet of wet deck they ran the man to the railing, using their momentum, the man's momentum and the s.h.i.+p's to send him hurtling against the railing, then up and over it.

Thomas expected to hear a splash.

He didn't. The rain, the wind, and the engines covered it.

They were both soaked, of course, and Thomas knew he was going to be sick. He looked at the wide wake left by the boat and tried to see the body.

He couldn't. The indeterminate mixture of sea and rain covered everything with gray. The man was gone. No visibility on Nantucket Sound in a squall. Fifty feet at best.