Soundkeeper by Michael Hervey Read Free Book Online Page B

cell phone not working were pretty slim, Hall guessed. He hoped the ocean that she loved and worked so hard to protect returned her affection. By the time Hall was under way in his own boat, Silas and the Native Son were a small speck on the water speeding across Port Royal sound. Hall checked his chart and found the area he was supposed to search. He prayed he didn’t find a body.

Chapter Eleven
    Hall slowed to avoid the wake of a rusty old barge as he crossed the sound. It was riding high in the water, telling Hall that it was empty. He waved to the captain and the captain waved back.
    Easing the throttle back to idle speed, he nosed his patrol boat into Cowen Creek. It had taken Hall a while to realize that these “creeks”, as they were called, were not the same type of creek he had grown up around in the piedmont of South Carolina. These bodies of water were tidal creeks, small fingers of water that filled with the rising tide and emptied with the ebb. Some were completely dry at low tide, while others were deep enough for a shrimp trawler at all stages of the tidal cycle. They created islands and inlets and brought life into the salt marsh. No two were the same and only the larger creeks or the ones where something significant happened had a name. Hall briefly wondered what or who Cowen Creek was named for.
    A dolphin surfaced next to his boat and exhaled loudly, startling him. The large mammal paced him for several hundred yards until she disappeared underneath the water. Far ahead Hall saw another dolphin, or perhaps the same one, chasing a school of fish. With his binoculars, Hall saw two dolphins and they were working together, herding mullet against the muddy shoreline. The dolphins swam into the tightly packed school of baitfish and chased them onto on the muddy shore coming almost completely out of the water. Hall thought that one of the dolphins had a scar near its blowhole and wondered if this was the dolphin he met yesterday. He watched them work for a while, impressed with their predatory skills. The water was too muddy for them to be able to see the mullet they were feeding on, and Hall knew they were using echolocation to track their prey and it was more precise than any man made sonar could ever hope to be. They moved with grace and precision and caught more fish in a few minutes than Hall caught in a year.
    The creek twisted and turned but maintained a broad width and good depth. He rounded a bend and caught sight of a boat and his heart beat faster, but only for a second. The two fishermen he spoke with had not heard about the missing boat but promised to keep an eye out for it. Hall continued back into the marsh, reasoning that Gale could have been at the terminus of the creek before the fishermen arrived.
    The end of Cowen Creek came into view, and Hall radioed his report to the Coast Guard. He checked the other creeks in his search area, and in the late afternoon he called the Coast Guard to see if there was somewhere else they wanted him to search. After he received his new instructions, someone else called him on the radio.
    “Hall, pick me up at the marina.” It was Jimmy Barnwell.
    Thankfully, Hall was able to pull into an empty boat slip next to Jimmy’s pristine sailboat. Jimmy hopped aboard in civilian clothes, and they left the marina before he spoke. Hall noticed he had his pistol in a holster underneath his life jacket.
    “I didn’t hear about Gale until this afternoon. Rebecca and I had to pick up a few more things for dinner tonight.” Jimmy finally said.
    Hall only nodded. They were in one of the smaller creeks near Parris Island when they heard the bad news on the radio.
    A Coast Guard helicopter crew found Gale’s boat adrift, seven miles offshore from Fripp Inlet. The helicopter crew didn’t see anyone aboard, but a state wildlife officer was close by and was en-route to recover the boat. Both Jimmy and Hall knew that Gale’s boat didn’t have a cabin. If she were on