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“We did it,” Drayton said panting hard, touching a hand to his fluttering heart.
“That jackhole almost killed us,” Theodosia cried. She looked around, didn’t see a thing.
“Well, he didn’t. We survived.” Drayton gulped a mouthful of air, then said, “But can we please get out of here?”
Theodosia tried the motor. There was a grunt and a strangled cough, but the motor didn’t want to catch. After five minutes of struggling, of coaxing the motor, of trying again and again, she said, “That does it, the motor’s either broken or flooded.”
“Oars?” Drayton said.
Theodosia shook her head. “Cell phone.”
She called Riley’s line, found it was busy, and left a voice mail. “No luck,” she said to Drayton. “We’ll have to sit tight for a while.”
But as they sat there, Drayton cast a horrified look into the bottom of the boat, where water was starting to stream in. Within minutes, they were up to their ankles; in a few more minutes, water would be up to their knees.
“We’re sinking,” Drayton said.
“I think it’s too shallow for us to actually sink,” Theodosia said, trying to sound reassuring. “But we could sort of rescue ourselves if we jumped in the water and pulled the boat to shore. The bank is only, like, five or six feet away.”
“Okay, okay,” Drayton cried as he swung one leg over the edge of the boat. There was a splash and a ker-plop and he went into water up to his waist. Where he immediately started to struggle.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think there’s quicksand here. I can’t pull my feet up. I... I think I’m getting sucked down into this muck!” His arms thrashed the water as he fought to pull himself up from the soft bottom.
“Stop pedaling your feet,” Theodosia told him. She knew that pluff mud was notoriously similar to quicksand: the more you struggled, the faster you sank. And with pluff mud, the suction could be almost unbearable.
“What I’m going to do is...” She crept to the bow of the boat, hunted around, and came up with a white life ring. “Here. I’m going to toss this to you.” She held the life ring up, then flung it in Drayton’s direction. “Grab on to this and pull it down around your waist.”
Drayton reached out, managed to snag the life ring, then struggled to pull it over his head.
“Help!” He’d hit the panic button.
“No, you’re okay, you’ve got this. Get your shoulders through and then just shimmy it down to your hips.” She watched as Drayton struggled with the life ring. But he was following her instructions, moving it down around his body. “You okay now? Feeling more secure?”
The expression on his face said no, but he responded positively with, “I think so.”
“Now I’m going to toss you a rope. You hang on tight to your end while I take the other end.”
“What are you going to do?” Drayton asked.
“Make a shallow dive and swim to dry land. Then I’ll reel you in, okay?”
“Don’t touch the bottom or your feet will get stuck, too.”
“Not to worry, I’m going to swim over.”
“Okay, but...” The rest of Drayton’s words were completely drowned out by the loud bellow of a horn. Then a bright searchlight lit up the night. It flashed along the shore, searching the reed-covered bank, then readjusted its aim and settled on them.
“Ahoy,” someone called from the large boat that was slowly approaching them.
“Who’s there?” Theodosia called back.
“Coast Guard. You need help?”
“We need rescuing,” Drayton cried.
“Help would be good,” Theodosia called out, thanking her lucky stars that Riley had called the Coast Guard and they had immediately dispatched a cutter.
