Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best way to read books txt) 📕

cotton cord with ornate knots every few turns, the whole covered in multiple layers of thick white paint. Jared closed his eyes and took a deep breath and held it until he centred and his breathing slowed and he could feel every separate beat of his heart. He exhaled and on the ebb of that long, drawn-out sigh he reached out and tapped the mast with his closed fist, his knuckles clenched and extended.

He moved in slow progressive harmony, caressing the pillar with his palm edges and fists as a loved thing known before gradually speeding up and extending his blows until there was a faint fleshy sound as he struck. Every few cycles he balanced on one foot and struck the post with the other, switching back and forth and striking at random heights along the post from the cabin sole to the cabin top. His breathing grew harsh and ragged as his pace increased and he exhaled as he struck, the sobbing hiss of his breath merging with the meaty sound of the blows.

He was sweating now as he worked and he felt the beginnings of the pain and he let it build and brought it inwards from his scourged hands and feet and centred it deep in the hidden place inside. The fog had followed him below into the cabin and in those elusive wraiths Jared summoned long-dead faces from the past: Jennie and Delaney, Laura and Summers, Justine and the man from Scarab; some of them loved and some of them hated and all of them dead now and gone. He squinted through the fog and found the ruddy post and struck harder, searching for the shaded messages patterned there, and saw the first faint suggestions of new outlines and needed more to fill in those unknown taunting visages, and he broke the old scars loose and the blood flowed freer and he saw Annie’s face and thought her dead. Another blackened, fire-devoured visage appeared, the flesh all gone and the grinning skull wore a Shaman’s headdress and spoke in an old dialect that he seemed to understand for the first time a split second before it changed into a gibbering mocking insanity and Jared struck it savagely and it faded under his blows and ran down the post in long bloody streaks.

The sweat was pouring off him now, merging with the streaked column as he laboured on, etching meaningless patterns of violence and despair with his bloodied fists, searching for that final knowledge that waited just beyond the last escalation of pain. Faster and faster he danced and struck the moving mocking half-seen faces until at last he sank breathless to the floor, his body running in sweat and flecked in blood. He thought he might cry now, but found his tears all vanished, sucked dry at the fire’s site, and what remained was a dusty, ashen despair and a white-hot flame of revenge that flickered and burned within him.

He lay gasping until his breath returned and then grasped the bloody pillar and pulled himself to his feet. He looked at his stinging knuckles and discovered them torn and bleeding and he took a pint mug and half filled it with brandy and carried it into the cockpit and plunged each fist into it in turn. The alcohol stung and burned and incarnadined in a blasphemous chalice of fire and blood, which he raised to his lips and drank from greedily.

Ahead of him a quarter mile distant, a flotilla of powerboats emerged from the fog into a sudden patch of sunshine and came proudly down the Strait towards him in a flying wedge, four of them strung out in array across Arrow’s course, their pennants flying, their horns sounding in arrogant imperious blasts. Jared stood indifferent, Arrow running straight against them with slight ticks of the autopilot holding her true. The cacophony increased as they closed in at twenty knots of combined speed, the central boat suddenly swerving towards his neighbour who juked in turn and flushed out his wingman, all of them standing on their bridge decks with raised fists cursing the red-spattered man who stared straight ahead but did not seem to see them.

Chapter 37

“Was his face painted blue?” Danny asked.

Clarke glared at him. “You think this is a joke?” he said.

The report had come in an hour earlier. Clarke had asked the Coast Guard to let him know if there was any word about Arrow. Small chance, but he’d covered all the bases just in case, and he’d gotten lucky. The report stated that Jared had tried to run down some powerboats. The complainants said he appeared drunk and was holding a pint mug containing a Bloody Mary or Caesar. “No lime wedge,” the boater’s blue-haired wife had snarled. Yes, he was that bloody close when they passed she could see.

“Think Mel in Braveheart,” Danny said. “I’ve seen this show before. He’s out of control and he’s going after the Blue Harp. He wouldn’t be pounding down the middle of the Strait if he was trying to hide. He’d be tight into the shoreline and dodging in behind the islands.”

“I checked with the Campbell River detachment,” Clarke said, “they say the Harp’s not in her berth. The police chief talked to the mayor who called his contacts in the party. They told him the boat is away with Albright for a few days, heading up through Desolation Sound and some of the northern fjords. He’s taking a few days off before the election push starts and will be out of touch, barring some major political catastrophe. They might be able to get hold of him if we give them a good enough reason. What could we say that wouldn’t sound crazy? We think there’s a man on an old wooden sailboat coming for him because he thinks Albright might be involved in the park bench assaults? There’s a fucking lawsuit for you, ready-made. If there’s any good news in all