Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser Page A

all the occupants of the boat—“made it into some kind of challenge between the sexes.”
    Thad was tired of having to feel sorry for every third woman he met. “What is it you write in there?” He tapped the notebook.
    â€œI’m taking notes for a novel.” Her sunglasses tilted as if she expected him to laugh.
    â€œHey, Doc?” Bo Smith and three beers wove between a watermelon and a pile of diving gear. There was always one in a crowd who took pity on outsiders. Bo handed them each a bottle. “Dixie told us about your daddy? Hope you find him one way or the other. Hell not knowing.” He drew on his beer and then held it away to look at it. “Can’t get nothin’ cold down here. Sorry about the uh … the other, too.”
    â€œThe other” meaning Ricky. Funny how people could discuss anything but that.
    â€œNow, Martha, honey, don’t look so glum. We’ll bring you up a body for your book.”
    She was trying to hold the notebook out of the spray and keep the beer from sloshing out of the bottle as the boat dipped and rolled. The others were taking bets on how long the watermelons could tumble from stern to bow before breaking up, lifting their feet off the deck, moving coolers, laughing, shouting.
    â€œThese boys do have fun, don’t they? You two are going to have fun too, just wait. No fair kicking it there, Abrams. Damn cheat!”
    The Pazes just grinned. They’d have some great tales to tell at Roudan’s tonight. Mayan Cay was out of sight. The little boat was alone on a bright sun-washed sea. But there were clouds on the horizon.
    â€œDixie tells me that the Metnál is supposed to be Mayan for ‘graveyard.’” Bo nodded solemnly. “Bound to be some bodies for Martha’s book.”

9
    Sun streaks pierced water to illuminate one end of a metal pontoon tube and a giant anchor leaning upright against it, the anchor crusted onto the pontoon by coral growth.
    Sounds. The gurgled exhalation of air bubbles from Thad’s regulator. The high-pitched but subtle ringing in his ears as the ocean enclosed him with the sounds in his head. A distant roar that could be sea or the air trapped in his ears. Despite the combination of these minor sounds, it seemed a silent, eerie world underwater.
    The skin on the inside of his thighs felt the chill change to cold as he and his diving partner, Harry, who owned a “slew” of bakeries, descended toward the wreck on the bottom, the pitch of the sound of their bubbles rising as they sank. Harry was fast on his way to becoming bald, and he kept the few remaining hairs long. They waved in the water like fan coral.
    This area of the Metnál had odd-shaped coral heads that soared in mountain cliffs from the ocean floor and broad valleys of sea grass interspersed with barren patches of sand or what resembled piles of volcanic rock, but were instead coral clumps. The Metnál was known for the wrecked ships that littered its coral canyons. Ships of almost every age in history. No one had found the Spanish galleons filled with golden plunder known to be in these waters, but Thad had read recently of salvage crews bringing up pieces of what authorities thought to be a Mayan galley or coastal trader blown off course and out to sea.
    What was left of the giant pontoon boat lay in a meadow of sea grass, one end in sun and one in the shadow of a coral cliff.
    A blue parrot fish grazed on coral at the edge of a gaping hole in the pontoon. It twined away into the blackness of the hole as they drew closer. Light streaks highlighted waving chartreuse plant blades around the craft, tiny fish darting among them.
    Another diver floated down a light streak, and Thad thought of a peculiarly dressed angel descending a shimmery ladder from the skies. And that, for some reason, made him think of the Ambergris . Wouldn’t it be strange if he came across a sunken yacht by that name