BooksBarbecue
Back Low Country
Chapters (25)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. CHAPTER 1
  4. CHAPTER 2
  5. CHAPTER 3
  6. CHAPTER 4
  7. CHAPTER 5
  8. CHAPTER 6
  9. CHAPTER 7
  10. CHAPTER 8
  11. CHAPTER 9
  12. CHAPTER 10
  13. CHAPTER 11
  14. CHAPTER 12
  15. CHAPTER 13
  16. CHAPTER 14
  17. CHAPTER 15
  18. CHAPTER 16
  19. CHAPTER 17
  20. CHAPTER 18
  21. CHAPTER 19
  22. CHAPTER 20
  23. CHAPTER 21
  24. CHAPTER 22
  25. CHAPTER 23

Bob looked up and replied in a snappish tone, “It’s only ten minutes away, Tyrone.”

“I know where you live—but you call me anyway,” Big Tee growled. “I don’t want Fran on my ass if something happens to you while she’s gone.”

“All right, all right,” Bob replied in a voice of exasperation. And then, as he cleared the door, he muttered just loudly enough for Tyrone to hear him, “Two-hundred-forty-pound, black Jewish mother.”

“Ha!” was Tyrone’s snorted reply as he slammed the door behind us.

Bob looked at me with a wicked grin. “I don’t reckon any man could have a better friend than Tyrone, could he?”

I shook my head and laughed. “I don’t think so.”

We walked together to Bob’s car. After he drove away I ambled back to my dock where I checked Miss Rosalie’s lines before going aboard and walking the deck to make sure everything was shipshape and squared away for the night.

At the companionway to the cabin below, I stood with a foot on the first stair and gazed for a few moments across the marsh and out toward the eastern edge of the continent. I watched as the last of the sun’s rays disappeared from the tops of the tallest pines on Tybee Island, leaving the world in a gathering obscurity. And as the final pelicans of the day winged by on dark and silent wings, I followed their example and went below in search of an evening’s quiet rest.

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

A COLD WIND BLEW IN DURING THE night, dropping the temperature by twenty degrees and spreading a heavy gray drizzle over the Low Country. While scooping grounds into the coffeepot I peered out the portholes of the galley and saw that a thick mist hung over the water, blanketing the creek and river in a flowing stream of cottony white that ebbed and eddied on a faint and uncertain breeze.

Setting my cup of java aside for a moment, I opened the settee in the salon that served double duty as a clothes locker, found an old wool sweater and pulled it on. I slipped on a canvas jacket and, now snug against the inclement weather, went out on deck to check the boat lines and take a closer look at the day.

The sounds of the morning were muffled and distant, and even the seagulls muttered to themselves in lowered tones as they drifted through the haze on almost invisible wings. The sound of the cars, dribbling steadily over the Highway 80 bridge from Tybee, carrying commuters to their jobs in Savannah, was unnaturally hushed, and the vehicle headlamps cast wide halos of dim light in the vaporous atmosphere.