Diamond Bay Read Free

sea, and damned if it really made any
difference which one got him, but they would both have to work for it. He
didn't intend to make it easy for them. He took a deep breath and floated while he
struggled out of his shorts, but his twisting efforts
made him sink, and he had to fight his way back to the surface. He held the garment in his teeth while he considered the best
tactics to use. The denim was old, thin, almost threadbare; he should be able
to tear it. The problem was in staying afloat while he did it. He would have to
use his left arm and leg, or he'd never be able to manage it.
    He had no choice; he had to do what was necessary, despite the
pain.
    He thought he might pass out again
when he began treading water, but the moment passed, though the pain didn't
lessen. Grimly he chewed on the edge of the
shorts, trying to get a tear started in the fabric. He forced the pain out of
his mind as his teeth shredded the threads, and he hastily tore the garment up
to the waistband, where the reinforced fabric and double-stitching stopped his progress.
He began tearing again, until he had four loose strips of cloth attached to the
waistband; then he began chewing along the waistband. The first strip came
loose, and he held it in his fist while he freed the second strip.
    He rolled to his back and floated, groaning as his wounded leg
relaxed. Quickly he knotted the two strips together to get enough length to
wrap around his leg. Then he tied the makeshift tourniquet around his thigh,
making certain that the cloth covered both the entrance and exit wounds. He
pulled it as tightly as he could without cutting off circulation, but he had to
put pressure on the wounds to stop them from bleeding.
    His shoulder was going to be more difficult. He bit and pulled
until he tore the other two strips from the waistband, then knotted them
together. How was he going to position this makeshift bandage? He didn't even
know if he had an exit wound in his back, or if the bullet was still in his
shoulder. Slowly,
awkwardly, he moved his right hand and felt his back, but his
water-puckered fingers could find only smooth skin, which meant that the bullet
was still in him. The wound was high on his
shoulder, and bandaging it would be almost impossible with the materials he
had.
    Even tied together, the two strips weren't enough. He began
chewing again, tore off two more strips, then tied them to the other two. The best he could manage was to
sling the strip over his back, bring it around under his armpit and tie it in a
tight loop over his shoulder. Then he folded
the remnant of his cutoffs into a pad and slipped it under the loop,
positioning it over the wound. It was a clumsy bandage at best, but his head
was swimming, and deadly lethargy was creeping into his limbs. Grimly Sabin
pushed both sensations away, staring fixedly at the stars in an effort to
orient himself. He wasn't going to give up; he could float, and he could manage
to swim for short periods of time. It might take a while, but unless a shark
got him, he was damned well going to make it to shore. He rolled onto his back
and rested for a few minutes before he began the slow, agonizing process of
swimming to shore.
     
    It was a hot night, even for mid-July in central Florida. Rachel
Jones had automatically adjusted her habits to the weather, taking it easy,
either doing her chores early in the morning or putting them off until late
afternoon. She had been up at sunrise, hoeing the weeds out of her small
vegetable garden, feeding the geese, washing her car. When the temperature
soared into the nineties she moved inside and put a load of clothes in the
washer, then settled down for a few hours of research and planning for the
journalism course she had agreed to teach at night in Gainesville when the fall
quarter began. With
the ceiling fan whirring serenely overhead, her dark hair pinned on top of her
head, and wearing only a tank top and an old pair of shorts, Rachel was
comfortable