14. Camden
Camden
Camden crossed the rutted yard with an armful of storm wreckage pressed against his chest, boots sinking into mud the gale had left behind.
Uprooted seagrass hung from broken dock boards, and the whole place smelled of salt, soaked wood, and wet earth beginning to bake under the returning sun.
He adjusted the load and kept moving toward the debris pile near the service lane.
“Keep that lane open,” Sully called from the bait-shack railing. “Briggs has a truck coming through once he gets back.”
“I’m clearing it now.”
Steam lifted from the travel mug in Sully’s hand. Tess stood beside him with another mug cupped between both palms, her hair still rough from the storm, one hip resting against the railing while Sully said something Camden couldn’t make out.
The sight slowed his steps because neither of them was doing anything remarkable. That was the problem. They looked settled. Familiar. Tess tipped her head toward Sully, and the old man answered without turning the exchange into an order or an argument.
No handlers. No schedules. No one trying to sell the moment.
Camden shifted the debris higher in his arms and started walking again. A strip of wet palm frond slid from the pile and slapped into the mud.
Tess glanced down. “You’re dropping half of it behind you.”
“I noticed.”
“You want a second trip, or are you planning to leave a trail across the whole yard?”
He looked up at her. “I’ll survive the humiliation.”
Her lips twitched before she hid the expression behind the mug. That tiny almost-smile made him look away.
Camden bent, grabbed the fallen frond, and shoved it back on top of the wreckage. He had spent weeks begging for five minutes, one conversation, one opening. Now she stood ten yards away making fun of his cleanup job like the last three years had not happened.
He knew better than to mistake it for forgiveness.
Sully pointed toward the dry-dock lot. “Stack that mess clear of the stands. Ground’s still soft over there.”
“Got it.”
Camden turned toward the lot, but the sound tore across the yard before he took another step.
Steel screamed somewhere beyond the bait shack, long and ugly, followed by the scrape of something under strain. Camden spun toward the dry-dock lot.
The twenty-five-foot center console had shifted.
One side sat lower than it had that morning. Mud bulged around the base of the port-side stands, glossy with trapped water. Fiberglass dragged against steel again beneath the hull.
Sully’s mug hit the deck.
Coffee splashed across the boards as he came off the railing and ran.
Camden dumped the wreckage into the dirt.
“That port-side mud is giving way!” Sully shouted. “Stay on the porch, Tess!”
He was already cutting across the yard toward the boat.
Camden stared at the stands. One had started to cant beneath the hull, its base disappearing into the softened earth.
Sully kept running while Tess called his name from the deck. He ran empty-handed, with no second man beside him. Briggs was off the property.
The old man reached the edge of the dry-dock lot and dropped toward the mud, aiming for a loose wooden wedge near the stand.
Camden ran two steps forward and shouted across the yard.
“Sully, stop! Do not get under that hull.”
Sully hit the mud on one knee beside the port support and shoved the wooden wedge toward its base.
The ground gave beneath him at once, brown water squeezing up around his shin as he drove the block forward with both hands.
Above him, the entire boat tipped, forcing the massive hull hard against the remaining stands.
“Back out,” Camden shouted, already moving. “The stand’s going.”
“I can catch it.” Sully jammed the wedge harder beneath the steel foot. “Stay clear.”
The old man had spent months standing between Camden and Tess without asking for anything in return.
He had provided a job. A roof. A locked gate whenever Camden showed up demanding access he had not earned.
Now Sully was crouched under several tons of fiberglass because abandoning one of his boats apparently offended him more than common sense.
Camden slogged through the mud, his boots sliding in the torn ground. “Leave the wedge. Get out from under it.”
Another scrape ripped beneath the hull.
The stand shifted sideways.
Its square base sank at one edge, pivoted through the mud, and kicked free with enough force to throw the wedge from Sully’s hands. Steel struck dirt. The boat lurched toward port, fiberglass grinding against the supports still trapped beneath it.
“Port support’s gone!” Sully dropped both palms into the muck as the hull moved above him. “She’s rolling!”
“Sully!” Tess shouted across the yard. “Get out from under it!”
Camden broke into a run.
Mud dragged at his boots with every stride. The hull had listed further in seconds, lowering toward the exact patch of ground where Sully had gone down. One remaining stand leaned beneath the load, its top biting at an angle against the fiberglass instead of sitting square.
Sully tried to rise.
His boot slipped out behind him, dumping him onto his hands again.
“Stay down and move left!” Camden yelled. “Away from the stand!”
Sully crawled, but the mud swallowed his knees and slowed every push. The boat shifted again above him, followed by a crack from somewhere along the stressed hull.
Tess screamed his name from behind him.
He refused to look back.
There was no time to tell her to get inside. No time to hope Briggs was back from his parts run. No time to pretend Camden knew anything about dry-dock rigging beyond the obvious fact that the boat was coming down and Sully was still beneath it.
Move. Find something.
Camden cut around a collapsed stack of storm debris and closed on the hull. The gap beneath the chine shrank as the boat continued its slow roll. Sully flattened himself into the mud and dragged one leg clear of the crooked stand.
“Keep crawling!” Camden shouted. “Don’t try to stand.”
“I’m moving!”
Camden scanned the ground while he ran.
Broken blocks. A bent stand. Loose rope half buried in sludge. None of it could stop that hull.
A length of shoring lay near the stern, stout enough to reach from the ground to the descending chine if he could get it upright before the remaining supports gave way.
“Crawl clear! I’ve got something!”
Camden reached the timber as the hull shifted again above Sully.
He dropped into the mud beside it and wrapped both hands around the soaked wood.
The post was thicker than his forearm and long enough that lifting it clean off the ground would waste time he did not have.
He hauled one end upward instead, dragging the other through the muck as he turned toward the boat.
“Keep crawling,” he shouted. “I’ve got the post.”
Sully twisted onto one hip beneath the hull and shoved himself toward the stern. “Get the top under the chine. Don’t let the base skate out.”
He heard the warning a second before he discovered the problem for himself.
He drove the lower end into the mud and pushed.
It slid.
The ground had turned to soup after the gale. Every time Camden tried to set the timber, the bottom gouged a new path through the yard instead of biting into anything solid.
Above him, fiberglass scraped against steel.
“Camden!” Tess shouted from the deck. “The boat’s still moving!”
“I know.”
He pulled the timber free, shifted several feet toward a patch of packed gravel, and tried again. Mud coated his palms and made the wet grain slip beneath his grip. The hull lowered another few inches while Sully dragged himself toward daylight.
Come on. Give me something solid.
Camden kicked loose sludge away from the base and planted the timber against the firmer ground beneath it. The top still sat too low.
He had to raise it.
There was no clean way to do that with a post this size. Camden crouched beside the timber, shoved both hands beneath it, and pressed upward with his legs until the top scraped against the underside of the hull.
“Move!” he yelled at Sully. “Get clear.”
“I’m trying.”
Sully’s boot caught near the failed stand. He rolled onto his side, ripped his foot loose, and crawled again.
The timber slipped across Camden’s palms.
He caught it before the base escaped the shallow pocket he had made in the ground, then drove his shoulder against the wood to hold it upright. His boots sank into the mud as he widened his stance and shoved the top farther beneath the chine.
Football had taught him plenty of things that were useless off the field.
This wasn’t one of them.
When a defender came through the blind side, standing tall got a quarterback folded backward. Camden had spent half his life learning to get lower, keep his feet underneath him, and meet force without letting it carry him where it wanted.
He did the same now.
Not because he understood boats.
Because Sully was still beneath one.
“Hold that post!” Sully shouted. “If it slips, we’re both under her.”
“Then move. Get clear.”
Camden drove one boot farther into the mud and pushed his shoulder harder against the timber. The wood shifted beneath the hull, scraping for purchase along the fiberglass.
For one sick second, the lower end started to slide.
Camden kicked it back into the pocket and forced the top higher.
The timber caught beneath the chine, and Camden held it there.
The hull shifted before Camden could settle his footing.
The timber drove harder into his shoulder, its lower end grinding deeper into the mud. Rough grain dragged across both palms as he fought to keep his grip. His older cuts split wider, his hands smearing the wood with blood and brown water.
“It’s moving again!” Sully shouted from beneath the hull. “Keep that base under you!”
“Just keep crawling.”
The remaining stands groaned under the shifting load. One rocked against the mud, the timber bowing under the strain as the hull continued its descent.
Sully pulled himself backward on his elbows, boots carving trenches through the mud. He had cleared the failed stand, but the stern still hung above him.