Free And the Sea Will Tell by Vincent Bugliosi, Bruce Henderson

line that would keep her tethered to the Iola if she was swept overboard.
    The next instant, she was caught full in the face by sea spray from the raging waters. When she choked and gasped for breath, the wind smothered her mouth with a blast of air. It was like sticking her head out the window of a fast-moving car. She couldn’t breathe—she was suffocating! She swung away from the fierce wind, coughing, spitting out salt water. Her eyes stung; her feet and hands were wet and freezing. “ Buck ,” she cried out. The roiling sea rose vertiginously high, causing the Iola to swing wildly into the wind and tipping the vessel over at a crazy angle. Terror and amazement blanched Jennifer’s face as blinding billows of water burst upon the little boat. Over the maelstrom of howling wind and crashing seas, she cried out: “ Buck…goddammit! ”
    Buck, tossed from his bunk, struggled topside and grabbed the wheel. Straining desperately, with Jennifer huddled next to him, he slowly got the Iola turned downwind, straightening the Iola out. Minutes later, the squall dissipated completely, and the sky was as clear as black Baccarat crystal. The moon lay on the horizon like a lighthouse beacon, their course lying perpendicular to the path of its rippling reflection.
    They hugged each other long and hard, and Buck went back below to rest, Jennifer taking over the helm. She blew on her numbed red hands and vigorously rubbed them together.
    The isolation of being stuck on a leaky sailboat in the middle of the ocean was beginning to wear on both of the lovers. They found it unexpectedly and oppressively claustrophobic. Here they were upon the open expanses of the world’s largest ocean, yet they were feeling uncomfortably hemmed in. And with never the slightest break in the ruler-straight line of the distant horizon, all they could see in any direction—today, yesterday, tomorrow—was water, the vast, impervious Pacific Ocean. The creaking confines of the sailboat became their entire world. Their isolation together was complete.
    Day after day, they saw neither land, ship, nor plane. It was as if they had fallen off the earth into an endless waste of water, just as the maps of medieval Europe had predicted. The problems of the world no longer mattered. They were on their own either to conquer the elements or succumb.
    The finality of Jennifer’s action in sailing off with Buck to a deserted isle had finally hit home. “ Are you willing to abandon your family, leave this country with him on a sailboat, and stay away the rest of your life? ” Her brother Ted’s words flooded her head. Though at the time she had denied that she was deserting anyone or anything, she saw now that she was doing just that. She had left civilization behind. She couldn’t phone her mother and say, “You’re right, Mom, I want to come home and take over your business.” Nor could she change her mind and turn back. Buck would be caught and returned to prison. On the other hand, they didn’t know for sure what they would find once—or if— they reached their destination, yet they planned to make this place their home. And they had all of thirty dollars between them. The die was irrevocably cast. Jennifer wondered why she had never foreseen the consequences of her actions.
    To compound her fears and anxieties, Buck, without explanation, began to retreat into himself. For one thing, they hadn’t made love since leaving Hawaii a week before, an unusually long abstinence for them.
    Buck was the most adventuresome lover she had ever known. It was as if he’d created sexy scenarios in his mind during his years in prison and whenever he felt randy, wanted to act out every one of them. “Turn over this way.” “Let’s try it like this.” “You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” He was summa cum laude in eroticism.
    Had they not been alone on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, his lack of attention would have caused Jennifer to wonder if he