Andy focused the binoculars on the other boat then leveled them on the markers. "We’re fine. That’s Cleveland Ledge Channel."

Land was closing fast on both beams. Mitchell wondered if they should head for the channel markers, he wanted to look at the chart but he didn’t ask. I have to believe in Andy, he thought. I have to have faith he won’t scatter us on an outcrop of ledge or in a grave of shallows.

"Come to twenty degrees," Andy said over his shoulder.

Mitchell steered onto the new heading as Andy leaned farther into the hatch opening with his arms stretched out on the cabin top. His torso seemed grown out of the sloop then, a sea creature bellying through the brine.

A small ship closed fast astern then steamed to their port. Eighty feet of rusting grey hull, the ship plowed into Hogs Head Channel, hollowing a huge trough of green sea.

Andy sat quickly to starboard to handle the main sheet, his feet were apart, his legs were braced as the trough rushed under. The sloop hung for an instant. Mitchell drove his hand onto the lifeline to lock his elbow and his body plunged sideways as the sloop fell hard-over on the port beam. The mast split the wake’s tall crest, wrenching the sails up violently, rolling the sloop like a toy hard-over to starboard and wagging the mast like a pointed finger. Mitchell looked straight down at Andy standing below him. Andy jerked the main sheet free then lunged upward for the tiller to stop from plunging overboard. The boom fell inches behind his head, emptying the sail. A terrific beam-to-beam shudder tore through the hull as the wake rolled away and the keel righted the boat.

"Don’t grab the tiller," Mitchell growled.

Andy glared. "I just saved our asses!"

"That’s your job."

"What’s yours?"

"Getting us to Portland. Change those jibs and take a second fix when I ask for it. That bullshit you gave me yesterday won’t fly. Get lazy out here and we’re dead."

Their eyes were locked, two bastions of opposing will, finally withdrawing. Andy trimmed the sheets and the sloop regained speed as Mitchell steered into Hogs Head Channel, four miles of short steep blue swells churning up whitecaps that pitched and rolled the sloop like a carnival ride. Ahead the other sailboat entered the channel and fell into the same crazy motion.

Andy climbed below. Why do I wonder what he’s thinking? Mitchell asked himself. Am I willing to lose his friendship? Do we have anything worth saying? Something worth listening to?

Grassy shallows in a small bay to port reflected the coastal woodlands and then the broad entrance of Cape Cod Canal opened beyond a channel entrance to a larger bay off to port. Half hidden behind the rusting yellow hull of an abandoned cargo ship Mitchell spied a small white Coast Guard station. He steered past the ship and the station and into the Canal’s fast black current. "Andy do you want to sail or motor?"

Andy climbed up and looked around but not at Mitchell. "The Tide Table says this current runs at five knots. It says vessels in the canal have to maintain at least that." He checked the knotmeter. "We’re doing six with the current so I’m for sailing. Why have a sailboat if you’re not going to sail it? What’s the hurry? If I had a boat I’d sail it all the time. I’m not even sure I’d have an engine. Maybe," he shrugged. "I don’t know."

Mitchell was wondering if Andy was about to break into song, it was the most he had heard him say at one time in all the years he had known him.

"Listen that was a hell of a move back at the approaches. You can really do it when the chips are down."