Thinking he might crack the nut, Mitchell pulled up and turned. "You’re a quiet guy, Andy. Even Maggie says so."

"How would she know?" Andy’s face was perplexity. "I didn’t say ten words to her."

Christ, Mitchell thought, he’s serious. "So what’s the deal. Are you staying on or bailing out?"

Beads of sweat slid down Andy’s face and dripped from the end of his nose. "I’ll stay until we find a place for the boat," he said and lifted himself off the couch to help Mitchell get dressed.

Topside the heat was brutal. Mitchell closed one eye and squinted the other against sun-flashes off the harbor sea. My kingdom for a pair of sunglasses he thought. Or some shade, or a breeze. This is insane. He brushed his teeth and soaked his face and hair with water from the jug then pulled his hat visor to his eyebrows. Andy weighed anchor and with the wet ground tackle still heaped on deck he walked aft to shift and throttle the engine. Mitchell backed the sloop out from the crowded boats in the general anchorage and into the harbor road.

Motoring slow ahead into the emptiness and calm of the inner harbor they searched the black wharves and piers for an accessible dock. On a height to starboard a dry-docked Navy frigate rested like Gulliver encased in a maze of wooden scaffolding. Mitchell’s breathing labored, he drank and poured water on his chest and shoulders, soaking his tee shirt translucent. Water soaked his pants. His feet were sweltering but he needed his boots for the wheelchair. He steered the sloop past the white hull of a gargantuan cruise ship. "Do you see anything?"

Andy shook his head and they circled the inner harbor again. Mitchell emptied half a jug of water down the back of his neck, he struggled for inhalations.

"There’s a boat in there," Andy said, pointing to a recess overshadowed by the briny black pilings of a wharf that was taller and wider than the weathered warehouse on top of it.

"We’re going in there," Mitchell said.

Andy cut the engine and swung below, hurrying on deck again with the fenders and dock lines as the sloop glided into an alley of oily brown water toward a forty-foot cement dock that was level with the sloop’s rail. "It’s a goddamn miracle," Mitchell breathed.

Andy stepped onto the dock and tied the sloop off astern of a dilapidated wooden cabin cruiser loaded with lobster pots and gear. Mitchell took off his hat and poured more water over his head and the warm liquid soothed his scalp and streamed over his face and neck.

Andy dropped the lifeline and hauled the wheelchair from below decks onto the dock. "Are you ready?"

Mitchell looked up to the wharf for someone to help but there was only a tremendous heat-white silence over the harbor and the land. Andy lifted Mitchell and stepped carefully up onto the starboard bench and then the deck and onto the dock. Mitch found his balance in the wheelchair and placed his boots on the footrests. He checked the steepness of the ramp to the top of the pier. "Can you make that?"

"I’ll get it," Andy said.

"Get another jug of water, will you?"