Brackish
By McDuffie Putnam
Chapter 1
The almost-three-hour drive from Wilmington had given him time to reflect on the past few years. How events had taken wild turns that he would have never imagined. Some good, some bad—real life was indeed stranger than any fiction he could conjure. He was reminded of the old saying, something like “God laughs while we make plans.” Damned if that wasn’t the truth.
Driving southbound over the Waccamaw River Bridge, he looked off to his right and thought about how the waters split into creeks and estuaries as you navigated inland from the mouth of the Waccamaw River. Back in there, you could just about disappear into the black water if you dove in. And you always kept an eye on the tide charts, so as not to run up on a shallow mud hill, or scrape the bottom of the boat on some craggy shoal.
This morning he would not be riding back into the tidal waterways, not the Black River, not Six Mile Creek. No floating around near the shores to toss a line in, going after Georgetown redfish. This was not a pleasure cruise or a fishing trip.
The sun would be a good two or three hours yet in getting up over the salty horizon. Still, he was not the only boater putting in at the marina. As he turned left off 17 South into the parking lot, he noted that there were three or four trucks with boat trailers that had already arrived. He parked by the ramp to get his bearings before backing down into the water.
Stepping out of the truck, he surveyed the area to see if any other fishermen or boaters were immediately about. It was silent, and there was a chill in the late spring air. The truck and trailer were lined up and ready to back down the launch ramp, so he walked around, loosening the tie-downs. He paused by the truck’s rear passenger side and relieved himself into a scruffy growth of pampas grass. Drank enough black coffee on the ride down to keep him up for the drive, and would probably do the same again on the way back up to Wilmington.
He slowly backed the trailer down the ramp, just deep enough so that he could get the boat loose and tie it into one of the temporary slips. He hopped in the front, and untied the last rope at the bow, then cranked the ancient but utterly reliable Mercury outboard motor. A full tank of gas would carry him out as far as necessary, and bring him back within an hour, with plenty to spare.
After securing the boat in a temporary slip, he hustled over to the truck, which he had left running, with the parking brake engaged. He popped the brake off, dropped the truck into drive, and pulled over amidst the handful of other early birds, pulling through a space and stopping next to a giant black four-wheel-drive with a confederate flag bumper sticker.
He stepped down and out of the pickup, and reached behind the driver’s side seat, feeling around for the pistol. Tucking it into the back waistband of his jeans, he pulled his sweatshirt down over the grip. Thinking about the chill, and the darkness and the wind that would be on him once he got the boat moving, he pulled a heavy camo hunting jacket from the truck’s utility box and zipped up about halfway.
Now he quickened his pace by a notch, wanting to wrap up his business and get back on the road. The parking lot gravel crunched under his Timberlands, and he went back to the slip where he had tied off. The old Tracker bumped lightly against the dock, and he unleashed it from the cleat, clambering in and pushing off all at once. He stepped into the front well, around the center console, and re-cranked the motor.
Easing back into the open water, he looked back over his right shoulder toward Georgetown and the Waccamaw. Then he turned forward toward the mouth of the river and the ocean. All was clear, no traffic. Pressing the release, he throttled forward and turned the wheel, pointing the twenty-foot flat-bottom Jon Boat out to the east.
Low tide wasn’t for another seventy-five minutes, but he figured so long as he got out plenty deep, there’d be no difference. And Mother Nature would do more than half the job for him before even a week passed.
The transition from the mouth of the river to the edge of the ocean was smooth as glass, and a calmness came over him as scanned around for a spot to cut the engine and drift a while. In the distance, perhaps a mile or more across the still of the water, he heard the buzzing of a much larger engine and accompanying boat, probably outfitted to the hilt with gear, enough to go out into the deeper sea, fishing for flounder or maybe tarpon.
There was no need to be a hero, and after about twenty minutes, odds were that the depth and the wildlife would be just right for his purposes. Cutting the engine, he steadied himself and walked to the back of the boat, where a blue tarp lay, rolled up onto itself, concealing the body. Getting more than a hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight into the boat had nearly exhausted him on Friday afternoon, and he was still running on a low-grade surge of adrenaline.
Killing had never been his thing. Which meant that, in turn, disposal of a body was the last thing he’d ever imagined. And yet, here he was. Best get to it and get it over with, he figured. Plenty of dark remained, but no point in taking chances.
Wrestling with the unhelpful corpse, the task was now compounded by its growing stiffness. Hadn’t thought about that. It is what it is.
He reached under the dead man’s arms from behind and dragged the body toward the rear, where the edge of the boat bobbed closer to the water line. The head bounced heavily against the side of the outboard engine as he heaved and tugged the body backward. The two gunshots in the chest cavity had killed him in maybe twenty seconds, so there had been no physical struggle. Not until now, anyway. Goddammit, why didn’t you just do like I said? We didn’t have to be here.
When he loaded the boat back in Wilmington, he had brought along two cinderblocks, a bunch of zip ties, and twenty-five feet of nylon rope. Now he placed one of the cinderblocks in the dead man’s lap, leaning it up into his chest. Forcing the rigid left forearm through the top hole of the block, he brought the right arm up from the side and pressed the wrists together. For good measure, he used three zip ties to hold the wrists together, hugging the cinderblock to the chest for the moment.
The way he figured it, the block would pull the arms down, and the body would go straight to the bottom, practically swimming itself down, headfirst. Even close to low tide, the boat was in forty feet of water. An inauspicious burial—he left the man in nothing but a pair of boxers. No clothing to keep hungry carnivores away from the skin, accelerating the process of disposal and returning the dead man to the food chain.
He gradually worked the head, shoulders, and cinderblock over the back edge of the boat, struggling, sweating, and breathing heavily. Finally, he let go, and it all went over. Water whooshed down around the mass as it sank toward the bottom, bubbles rising to the surface as the last gases and excretions escaped the cadaver. The surface was still again, but there was a slick sheen of death and muck across a space of eight or ten feet where it went down. That’ll wash away soon enough, just like all of this.
He placed the other cinderblock in the center of the tarp, and rolled it back up, as it had been only minutes before, this time weighed down by cement, instead of flesh and bone. Securing the tarp around the block with the rope and several zip ties, he tossed it overboard.
Watching it sink into the dark, he ticked off the materials now below him. The body would be gone in days or weeks, at most. The cinderblocks and tarp would probably remain for years, but any biological matter would be nibbled at by creatures, and cleaned up by the ocean. No way anybody was going to find breadcrumbs to lead a trail back up that coast.
There was maybe another forty-five minutes until sunrise. He cranked the boat and returned to the marina. Breathing deeply as he drove, he gazed into the black ahead of him, watching for other boats. Darkest before the dawn, a calm came over everything. It’ll all be okay, things will settle down now, he was sure of it.
When he glided back into a temporary slip at the marina, he quickly and steadily got everything back together. The trailer dipped back down the launch ramp, and he pulled the Tracker up into its slot, securing all the latches and tie-downs.
For good measure, he stopped at the clean-out station and rinsed the inside front and rear sections of the boat, leaving the rear plug out to drain the brackish wet that might remain. Like the body resting at the confluence of the Waccamaw River and the Atlantic Ocean, he would count on the elements to clean up any residue in the boat.
About then, a group of four fishermen pulled in and parked, preparing to put their boat in and go out to the deeper ocean for the day. They were cordial and laughing about what might be biting.
“Damn, son, you sure are an early riser on a Saturday morning! Anything jumping out there? You caught anything?”
Opening the door to the pickup, he turned back to them. “Oh, hell no, not a goddam thing jumping for me. Pissed off the side of the boat, so I guess I left more out there than I brought back. Y’all have a good one now.”
“Haha! We’ll sure do it, hell yeah. Let’s get to it, boys.”
As the sun peeked out of the ocean, throwing a dim orange light across the Atlantic and the Waccamaw, he pulled out of the marina. Turning right, onto 17 North, he drove back to Wilmington, stopping once to top off gas and grab a cup of coffee.
He was home before 10 a.m., showered, dressed, and dozing off on the couch. As he faded off to sleep, he thought to himself, Thank God, a peaceful start to the weekend.
