I struggled upright and took another drink of coffee.

“It belongs to me and my friend Will Hayden. He is in Marseilles now. We had planned to sail her over to Europe together, but he got called away. That’s why I’m alone out here. Was alone, that is, until you dropped in.”

Her eyes were dark and lovely, and the fear in them had increased. I said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Where do you want to go? Bermuda?”

She wanted to slide further away from me, but there was nowhere to go and her grip on the blanket had become frantic. It made me angry. I said, “I didn’t risk my life saving you just so I could hurt you. I’ve told you you are safe. At least have the courtesy to pretend to believe me!”

I went forward to the drawers where Will’s things were stored. His clothing would be too big for her, but mine would swallow her completely. I brought her a pair of jeans, a wool shirt, a belt, and one of those plastic eggs like pantyhose come in.

I showed her the egg. “This is a one-size-fits-all string bikini. Some joker gave it to Will as a bon voyage present. It’s the closest thing I have to girls’ underwear. Pound on the hatch when you get dressed, but don’t take all day.”

The weather had gotten worse, but Wahini seemed to be happy with the sails as they were. I sat beside the lashed wheel and watched the compass card swing back and forth between east-north-east and east-south-east. The sky was darker than at sunrise. Behind us, there was no blue sky left. The sails were as hard and flat as boards, and the sheet trembled.

I was debating whether or not to dig out the storm trysail when Raven pushed back the hatch and stuck her head out. The wind grabbed her tangled hair and wrapped it around her face. She turned instinctively toward the wind to shake it out, and when she could see she said, “Oh, my God!”

For a moment I tried to see my world through her eyes. The southern sky was black, the sea was dead gray, and the wave tops were shattered, foaming infernos. Wahini was rail down, with water cascading alongside the cabin house and swirling around my sea boots. The mainsail was furled; the naked mainmast was cutting harsh circles against the low hanging clouds as Wahini plunged into troughs and corkscrewed her way up to the crests again. Only the tiny, reefed mizzen and a patch of canvas for a foresail were standing, slick with spray and hard as beaten copper.

She didn’t come on deck, but she didn’t retreat. She stood half in and half out of the cabin, drinking in the sight of the sea and the feel of the wind. I moved up beside her and shouted into her ear, “Don’t come any further out without a safety harness.”

Her eyes were glowing when she turned to me and she silently mouthed, “Magnificent!”

It was. So was she. more tomorrow

I had looked in on my mermaid several times during the night, and had tied up the restraints that would keep her from falling out of the bunk. Each time, she had been sleeping.

This time, she was awake. Her eyes were wide and dark, and frightened. I stood by her bunk and said, “Good morning. How long have you been awake.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I slipped in and out at first.”

“How do you feel?” She didn’t look good, but that may have been because Wahini’s new motion was something of a lift and wiggle, followed by a sick slide downward like a slow roller coaster. It seemed to have more effect here below than it had on deck.

She said, “Is this heaven or hell?”

“You be the judge. Coffee?”

She shook her head. I pumped up the stove and put a pot of water on to boil. Then I rummaged in the drawer that acted as medicine chest and returned to her.

“What is that?” she asked warily.

“A patch. I’ll put one behind your ear. It lets your skin slowly absorb a seasickness medicine. I’d give you a pill that works faster, but I’m afraid you might not be able to keep it down.”

She turned her head away and said, “You’re probably right.” I applied the patch.

I returned to making breakfast – a sailor’s eggnog of powdered milk, powdered egg, water, and a lot of sugar to kill the taste. I used it to wash down a couple of multi-vitamins, then rinsed the glass and moved up beside her again. I haven’t rescued many mermaids, but this one seemed awfully incurious.

And awfully scared.

I put my hand on hers and she flinched. I said, “You don’t have to be scared of me.” 

She said, “I’m naked.” Her hands clenched tighter on the blanket.

“Not quite.”

She blushed scarlet.

“Your nakedness is not my fault. You came to me that way. I just dragged you out of the water, dried you off, and put you to bed.”

I made coffee while she thought about it. Then I stuck my head out of the hatch for a look around. When I closed it again, the smell of coffee had filled up the little cabin.

She said, “That smells good.” I gave her a cup and loosened the canvas restraint that had kept her from flying out of the bunk in her sleep. She wedged herself into a corner formed by a locker, holding the blanket up with one hand, and took the coffee in the other.

I sat down across from her. She had reason to be scared. She didn’t know me, and she was about as vulnerable as anyone could ever be. No one knew she was here. I could rape her, kill her, and then drop her overboard. No one would know.

I wouldn’t, but she didn’t know that.

I said, “What’s your name?”

“Raven.”

“Raven what?”

“Just Raven.”

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. It had been a long night. After a while, she asked, “Who are you?”

“Ian Alisdair Gunn.” I didn’t volunteer anything more. I was giving her time. I was also falling asleep.

She said, “Is this your boat?”

I struggled upright and took another drink of coffee. more tomorrow

It was April. Ayatollah Kohmeni had a few months left to live, and no one had yet heard of Osama ben Ladin. There were still two Germanies, two Berlins, and a wall; I had had my dealings with that wall a few years earlier, in uniform, when the cold war was even colder. If my guest went with me to Europe, I could show her around.

The wind tore a handful of salt water off the crest of a wave and threw it into my face. It got my attention, and the next fifteen minutes were devoted to reefing down. By the time I got back to the wheel, Wahini was moving under half of her canvas and laboring heavily. I had to pay her off another point to ease her motion, and that put Bermuda still further off our course.

          *          *         *

Six hours later, Bermuda was out of the question.

I had tried. I had spent an exhausting night fighting to windward, first on one tack, then another, but it was no use.  Wahini was never meant to slug it out to windward.

When the watery sun came up, it found me huddled in oilskins, with Wahini plunging into rising waves. Northward, the stars faded to a clear blue day, but in the direction of Bermuda the sky was black with the oncoming storm. Once there was proper light to see, the ocean was a white froth on every side.

I sheeted the mizzen flat, shook the reefs out of the mainsail and furled it properly, then spun the wheel. On a new course due eastward, toward Europe again, with only jib and mizzen drawing, Wahini’s motion was easier. I watched her on her new course for a few minutes, then went below.

*****

As I explained earlier this month in A Writing Life, Raven’s Run was written in the early 90s about events which purportedly took place in 1989. I added the first paragraph above during a recent rewrite. In 1989 I hadn’t heard of Osama ben Ladin.

The origin of Raven’s Run was ironic.  After a long time of unsuccessfully trying to market science fiction and fantasy, I decided to write something contemporary to make a sale. Raven’s Run was the result.  When I sent it to the agent I was using at the time, he praised it highly, then said that he couldn’t sell it because the bottom had completely fallen out of the market for that kind of fiction. My luck!

The story is tied to its era. It could not take place in today’s cell phone and Google Earth world, nor in the Eurozone. Ian Gunn fits his times because he was written during his times – after the cold war but before 9/11, an era fraught with danger, but also full of hope. Raven’s Run was designed to be the first in a series.

The events of the story simply would not have occurred the same way today that they did in 1989. There is no way it could be rewritten as if it took place in 2016. Instead I made a few small changes, like the first paragraph above and the prolog, which will allow me to treat it as a recent historical novel. 

Chapter Two

I laid her out alongside the deckhouse, and checked her breathing and her pulse. Then I had to tend to the boat. Wahini was wallowing uneasily in the swells, heading up to the wind, losing way, and falling uncomfortably back again. I topped the mainsail again and sheeted it in. The wind was up to force four and freshening, and shifting around further to the south. I pointed Wahini a little higher than a broad reach. That would give her a reasonable motion while I tended to my unexpected guest, and would carry us more or less in the direction of Bermuda.

The cruise ship was below the horizon by now. If I strained my eyes, I could just make out a smudge of light where it had gone.

The girl had not stirred. She lay in a pool of salt water with her long hair knotted and tangled about her. I had been aware of her nakedness in the water, but I had been too busy keeping the two of us alive to think about it. Now, however . . .

Her hair was coarse, black, heavy, and long. Her cheekbones were wide and her nose arched slightly. Her mouth was just wide enough to balance the rest of her features. Her breasts and the muscles of her flanks and thighs were firm and resilient. She was wearing French-cut panties, soaked to absolute transparency. Her skin was coffee-and-cream with a lot of cream; the kind of color that comes at birth. No tan could be that perfect. When she woke and spoke, I would bet on an Hispanic accent. She looked to be in her early twenties.

You don’t get to rescue a mermaid every day. If the fates let you pull a girl out of the ocean, it would be unfair if she were less than beautiful. I did not feel cheated.

I untied the line from around her shoulders, but she didn’t respond. The cold water, the shock and fear, had sapped her strength. I slid the hatch back and hoisted her onto my shoulder, bracing awkwardly against the motion of the boat. She was a handful of slippery, sweet-smelling girl. I was breathing heavily for more than one reason by the time I got her toweled off and into a bunk. Her shoulders and sides were crisscrossed with angry welts where the rope had dug into her. She cried out when the rough towel hurt them, but she didn’t come to full consciousness.

I stuck my head out of the hatch to look for other ships. There was nothing in sight that wanted to run us down, so I stripped, toweled off, and put on dry clothes. 

On deck again, I hung my wet clothes and the towel from the shrouds. The wind had shifted another point to the south and Wahini was pinching. I eased the sheet and let her fall off. At this rate, Bermuda would be directly to windward in a few hours. 

I had gone to a lot of trouble to avoid Bermuda. Six weeks refitting in Jamaica had shown me as much island paradise as I cared to see for a while. Will Hayden was waiting in Marseille for me to deliver Wahini, so I had sailed through the Windward Passage and headed due north, picking up the Gulf Stream and swinging a big arc above Bermuda before lining out for Gibraltar. Now I was over a hundred miles northwest of Bermuda, and facing into a rising wind.

To judge from its course, the cruise ship had been heading for New York. I had no intention of making a thousand mile side-trip to deliver my mermaid back to whoever was waiting for her there. That left only two options. If I could make Bermuda, she could fly home. Otherwise, she would have to go on to Europe with me, and find her way home from there. more tomorrow

Then there was a disturbance in the water, too weak to be called a splash. I called out again, but there was no reply.

I saw her then. She was no longer struggling. I already had a life ring in hand, hanked onto thirty meters of line. I sailed it out beyond her. She made no response when it hit the surface and none when I dragged it back to within three feet of her. She was too far gone.

Wahini was drifting down upon her, but also slipping away by the stern. She would pass off the starboard bow, only yards from safety. By the time I maneuvered around again, it would be too late.

I unsnapped the lifeline from my safety harness and dove in. The water was as black as the inside of a whale. I came up swimming in a low, fast crawl. 

There had been no time to drop the mizzen. Behind me the Wahini would be slipping away. I porpoised to gain a foot of altitude, saw the girl, and corrected my direction. I caught the floating life ring as I passed. Then my fingers found the mass of her hair just as the line attached to the life ring tightened to drag me away. I dragged her after me.

The rope tightened and loosened with every surge as the yawl pitched in the rising seas. I brought my body up double and got a foot into the life ring. With the next loosening as Wahini’s bow came down, I straightened, dragging the girl along by a precarious grip on her hair. I nearly lost everything as the motion dragged me under. There was an eternity of blackness beneath the water with lungs caught unprepared, until the wave passed and I came to the surface again. In the moment of slack, I managed to attach my safety harness to the line and drag the girl closer.

She gave me nothing to hook on to. Somehow she had managed to get rid of the dress. She was eel-slick and hard to hold. I just got a breath and managed to get my arms around her waist before the next surge pulled us under.

She was too limp to still be living, but I could not give her up now.

We were tailing out like a fish on a line as the Wahini moved through the water. I put my ear to her mouth and heard the faint rasp of her breathing. I just managed to slap my hand over her mouth and nose before we were hauled under again, and when we came up, she began to struggle feebly.

I took her long hair in my teeth and pulled us up the rope hand over hand. We went under again, and I had no hand free to cover her mouth. The resistance of her body through the water nearly tore my head off. Up again, and repeat. Under. Black as hell. Cold tropical waters and desperation, with her twisting and turning like a hooked tuna on the strands of her hair. Then air and stars, only a little less black than the pit of waters.

Now I had fifteen feet of slack. I dragged the bobbing life ring to us, made a pillow of it under her head and looped the line packstrap fashion under her arms and across her upper chest. Then I let her go and went up the line hand over hand.

Five minutes later, I had her on board. more tomorrow