Page 72 of Empire of Shadows

He looked up at the face in the stones like an old acquaintance that he wasn’t entirely happy to see.

“Hell with it,” he concluded, then killed the throttle and jumped over the side of the boat.

Ellie pressed herself to the rail with a burst of alarm and leaned out after him.

“Mr. Bates!” she cried.

“Toss me the rope,” he called back.

Ellie hefted the heavy coil and threw it over the side to where Bates stood chest deep in the black water. TheMary Lee, pushed by the current with her engine quietly idling, was already moving away from him.

Bates caught the rope, quickly wrapped it around his arm, and hauled back on it. The line went taut where it was still tied to the cleat at the bow. The boat halted and swung gently into the wall of the wave, bumping against it softly.

“What are you doing?” Ellie demanded.

“We’re exploring, aren’t we?” he replied. “I need someplace to tie us off.”

Bates leaned back against the pull of the boat, bracing his feet against the riverbed.

“Don’t you have an anchor?” she pressed.

“Ihadone,” he retorted a little crossly. “I lost it.”

“How does one lose an anchor?”

“There was this four-foot iguana, and a block of cheese, and—”

“Never mind,” Ellie cut in, certain that she did not want to hear any more.

She climbed out onto the edge of the bow where Bates had nailed in her plank, and raised the lantern high.

“Pull us forward—just six yards or so,” she ordered.

“Right,” Bates grumbled. He turned to slide the rope over his shoulder and across his chest. “Surely you can manage hauling one measly little steamboat upstream in the dark for a while. Can’t you, Mr. Bates?”

There was a distinct note of sarcasm to his words.

He dragged himself forward, gripping the wall of the cave with the hand that was not holding the rope in place. The current did not seem particularly strong, but he was still a single man, nearly submerged, trying to move an entire boat.

Ellie pushed herself out onto the plank.

“Would you like me to get in and help you?” she offered from above him.

He jumped as he glanced up at her.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “No—you’re half a foot shorter than me. The water’d be up to your neck.”

“A little more to the right,” she ordered instead, pointing out over the water. “I believe you will find a boulder there that will serve.”

The boulder was a truncated stalactite, which must have broken off in some other part of the cave and washed down when the water was higher. Bates managed to work the rope around it, then tied it off. TheMary Leepulled taut against the line.

“There,” Ellie said neatly as she sat back up on the plank. “That ought to hold us.”

“As long as nothing comes floating along to punch a hole in the hull,” Bates replied wryly. He extended his arm up toward her. “Gimmie the light.”

“Why should you have it?” Ellie replied a little defensively as she handed it over to him.

“Because you’re about to go for a swim,” he replied and neatly tugged her off the plank.

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