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by TLR
Plot: This time their weekend at the Dobey cabin includes the Dobeys, and all doesn't go well.
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Restful.
That was the word Hutch used on the drive up to Pine Lake. Restful. Fresh air, pine trees, no phones unless there was a real emergency, and no reason for either of them to think about Bay City for forty-eight hours. Even the lake had been widened by the officials to accommodate more visitors.
Starsky had gone along because Edith was a good cook and because Hutch looked like he needed the quiet more than he was letting on.
By Saturday afternoon the cabin had the scent of coffee, fried trout from lunch, and damp wood warming in the sun. The lake below the slope lay blue and wide between the trees, with a small dock, one aluminum skiff tied to it, and the low wash of evening wind just beginning to move across the surface.
Starsky stood near the front steps looking toward the water with a soda in one hand and suspicion in his face.
“I’m just sayin', why can’t a weekend in nature stay on land?”
Hutch came out the door behind him carrying a tackle box and a thermos. “Because Dobey specifically said the boat is here for our fishing pleasure.”
Starsky glanced over his shoulder. “You know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“I think you brought me up here because you wanted to watch me flounder in a boat, then teach me the right way to do it.”
“Who, me?”
Starsky shook his head and took another sip of rootbeer.
They had spent the morning helping their captain clean up brush behind the cabin, then eaten Edith's late breakfast, then done the kind of aimless loafing neither one of them got much of in Bay City.
Hutch had read half a fishing magazine. Starsky tried to nap in a hammock and almost fell out twice. It was a good day, the kind that passed without hurry and made them remember they had a life outside police work. Once or twice they spied Harold and Edith smooching behind the cabin.
Now the light was changing. The lake beyond the trees had gone darker blue, with streaks of copper where the lowering sun found it. Hutch looked toward it and said, “We could take it one good spin before dark. Come on, the lake is bigger now.”
Starsky let out a slow breath. “You wait 'til now to ask me?”
“Because now you’ve had food and root beer and you’re less likely to fight me on it.”
“I can still fight you on it. And win.”
“In your dreams.”
Starsky looked down at the skiff again. “How big is it?”
“Big enough.”
“Details.”
“It’s a fourteen-foot aluminum fishing boat with a ten-horse outboard and two life jackets under the seat, and if you start rocking it for fun to get my goat I’m tossing you overboard.”
“We'll see.”
They were still bantering about it five minutes later on their way down to the dock, and, Edith, who had stepped out onto the porch to shake a dish towel, called after them, “Be back before full dark!”
Hutch waved without turning around.
Starsky called back, “Tell your husband if I drown, I’m haunting him personally.”
Dobey’s shout came distantly from somewhere inside the cabin. “Then wear the life jacket!”
::
The boat was steadier than Starsky expected, which relieved him.
He sat in the bow seat with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled, one shoe braced against the ribbed floor, trying not to look like a man who'd spent more time on concrete than water. Hutch took the tiller at the stern and eased the skiff out from the dock with a genuine air of experience.
“Sea Scout, huh?” Starsky asked as the boat nosed out into the open lake. “You just love flirting with fish, don'tcha?”
Hutch smiled, because his partner wasn't wrong.
The engine buzzed low and steady as they crossed away from shore. Pine-covered slopes ringed the lake on the sides, with rock showing through in places and the thin gray line of county road far above. The water smelled clean and cold. Two other boats were visible in the distance, one near the north reeds and one much farther out, only a white shape and a wake.
Starsky looked around, then down into the dark water slipping under the hull.
“How deep?”
“Here? Probably forty feet.”
Starsky sat up straighter. “Terrific.”
“Just relax, darling.”
“I'm tryin'.”
Hutch kept the skiff moving easy along the western shore where the coves cut deeper and the water turned glassy in patches. They fished for a while without much luck.
Starsky lost a lure to a submerged snag and grumbled under his breath.
Hutch caught two perch too small to keep and put them back with regret. The evening dimmed around them and quieted down.
After a while Starsky stretched out his legs and let his rod rest across his lap.
“Not bad, Hutchinson.”
Hutch glanced at him. “Can't believe you're admitting it.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Believe me I won't.”
The bigger boat passed them the first time at a distance, a white fiberglass cabin cruiser, maybe twenty-six feet, too much chrome for a lake this size and too much speed for the near shore. It threw a wake that slapped under the skiff and rocked them harder than Starsky liked.
He twisted around to watch it go. “What! That guy in a hurry or somethin'?”
Hutch was already looking too. The cruiser cut a long arc across the lake toward the east end, engine loud in the deepening light.
“Just showing off, Starsk.”
“I think that rich dude's trying too hard to impress.”
“He probably doesn't care what you think.”
“Probably not.”
Starsky settled again, but neither friend completely forgot about that boat. It had a restless, careless feel certain drivers have on the open highways, like rules are for other people and physics negotiable.
By the time Hutch said they should head back, the sky over the trees turned from gold to a duller bronze and the lake surface was starting to chop under a freshening wind.
Starsky was all for returning to the cabin.
Hutch started the outboard again and turned them toward the dock. It was a longer run than Starsky had realized, maybe fifteen minutes in good light, and the light was not getting any better.
They had gone halfway when Hutch looked up and saw the swanky cabin cruiser again.
This time it was coming at an angle from the far side of the lake with its bow riding too high and its running lights not yet on, which on water at dusk was foolish at best. The wake behind it was bigger now, and harder.
Hutch's face went serious. “Hang on.”
Starsky looked back over his shoulder. “What’s he doing?”
Too much speed. Too little sense. The cruiser veered once, corrected, then kept coming.
Hutch cut right, trying to give it room.
The cruiser cut the same way.
For one startled second Hutch thought the driver hadn’t seen them at all. Maybe he was drunk, or high, or--
The bigger boat’s horn blared, Starsky shouted, then impact.
::
The cruiser’s port bow slammed into the skiff hard on Hutch’s side.
Metal screamed. The skiff rolled violently. Starsky was thrown against the middle bench and then out. Hutch hit the gunwale shoulder-first, saw sky and water trade places, and the little boat flipped over on top of them.
Cold.
Noise.
Then dark water closed over Starsky's head.
Hutch kicked hard, got up into air, and came up choking under the overturned hull with the lake hammering around him and the big cruiser already shearing away into deeper darkness.
“Starsky!”
No answer.
The skiff was upside down, one side still barely riding above water, the outboard dead, gear floating loose around it. A tackle box drifted open like a wound. One life jacket bobbed free near the stern.
The voice came weakly from farther off.
“Hutch...”
Hutch spun and found him ten yards away, face up, barely moving, one arm floating crookedly at the surface. There was blood in his wet curls above the right temple.
Hutch went through the water fast despite the drag of his boots.
“Starsk!”
Starsky’s eyes were open but dazed, mouth half open, trying to breathe around shock and lake water. When Hutch caught him, Starsky flinched as if he didn’t know him.
“Hey. It’s me.”
Starsky blinked once. “Wha... wha happ...”
“We got hit.” Hutch got the life jacket under his shoulders and wrestled it around him one-handed. “Hold still.”
The skiff behind them made a sucking sound and dipped lower.
Starsky tried to turn his head toward it, then winced and shut his eyes. “Boat?”
“Forget the boat.”
The bigger cruiser’s stern light came on then, much too late, and for one hopeful second Hutch thought it might be circling back to help, but it wasn't.
The light kept going and dwindled toward the east end of the lake.
Hutch breathed, “You son of a--”
Starsky’s head fell against him. “Me?”
“Not you. Them.”
The water was rougher now than it had looked from shore. Every swell slapped cold against them and every few seconds Starsky drifted or tried to help and only made it harder. Hutch got the jacket fastened at last and pulled him back toward the overturned skiff, using one arm and all the kick he had left.
By the time they reached it, Starsky was shivering and trying not to let his eyes close.
“You with me?” Hutch said.
“I'm tryin'.”
“Okay, keep tryin'.”
But Starsky’s face went slack again.
Hutch pushed him up against the exposed strip of hull and got both of Starsky’s arms over it. The skiff wouldn't support their full weight, but it was something to brace against and something bigger than two heads in the water.
Starsky swallowed hard. “I'm cold.”
“I know, buddy.”
His own right shoulder was beginning to throb deep now where the other boat had hit, and the side of his neck felt hot under the cold, which meant there was probably blood there too. None of that mattered.
Starsky said, “I’m sorry.”
Hutch looked at him sharply. “For what?”
“For... rockin’ the boat.”
Even dazed, he was trying.
Hutch put one hand behind Starsky’s neck and held him steadier against the hull. “Listen to me. You took a hit to the head. If you start getting sleepy, I’m gonna annoy you till sunrise.”
“Yeah.”
The lights at the cabin shore were visible if he twisted enough to see past Starsky’s shoulder. Tiny, warm, too far away.
Hutch guessed maybe three hundred yards. In flat water, with both of them whole, it would have been nothing. Like this, with Starsky concussed and the lake chopping harder by the minute, it might as well have been in another state.
Still, he kept watching them.
Somebody would notice they were late.
Somebody had to.
Starsky coughed, bent double, and nearly slid under. Hutch caught him and hauled him back up.
“Easy, Starsk.”
“M'head hurts.”
“Yeah.”
“Think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Don't do it on me.”
Starsky managed a weak grimace. “You’re a very bad friend.”
Hutch tightened his arm around him and kept talking because silence would let Starsky sink inward where he couldn’t follow.
He talked about the cabin, and Edith’s good food, and how Harold would say I told you so if he ever set eyes on the mess the wreck had made. Then he talked about how Rosie will come running with ointment and Bandaids, and he talked nonsense and weather and fish because the point was not what he said but that he kept on talking.
Once Starsky went frighteningly quiet and Hutch flipped water lightly at his cheek.
“Hey.”
Starsky’s eyes opened again. “What?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Leave me.”
Starsky looked at him a second, through pain and water and deepening dusk, and something in his face cleared.
“Not plannin’ to.”
Then he laid his head against the hull and kept breathing because Hutch kept telling him to.
It felt longer than it was and maybe shorter too. Time did strange things in cold water.
The first real sign of rescue wasn't a boat but a flashlight beam swinging wild through the trees from shore.
Then Dobey’s familiar voice, faint and booming over the water.
“Hutch! Starsky!”
Hutch turned his head and shouted with everything left in his chest and throat. “Out here!”
The light found them.
A miracle later another answered it from the dock, then the puttering roar of a small motor launch.
Starsky tried to lift his head. “That Cap'n?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t let him say I told you so.”
“No promises on that one.”
The launch reached them with Dobey in the bow, a life preserver already in his hands and a county ranger at the tiller. Edith was on the dock behind them, one hand to her mouth, Rosie and Cal held back behind her.
Dobey’s face when he saw them was something Hutch would never forget as the captain said, “Boys, boys.”
Then action took over.
They got Starsky first because he was worse, hauled half conscious and shaking into the launch while Hutch steadied him from below until Dobey leaned down and caught Hutch’s wrist too and pulled him upward.
“Come on, Hutch.”
Back at the dock, Edith wrapped Starsky in two blankets before the ambulance from town had even braked to a stop. “Here, David. You'll be all right now.”
Hutch finally climbed up and nearly fell when the solid wood moved under him like water. Dobey caught his elbow once and didn't let go until the medics took over. “Steady now, Hutch?”
Hutch nodded.
On the stretcher, Starsky found Hutch with glazed eyes and said, “You still here?”
“Yeah, buddy.”
“Good enough.”
Then they were both loaded, because Hutch’s shoulder was swelling, there was blood down his neck, and he wasn't about to be separated from his partner after getting him this far.
::
The county hospital several miles away was small and clean. Lakes and logging roads kept it busier than most people might imagine.
Starsky got X-rays, stitches, a long neurological exam, and strict orders for observation. Mild concussion, scalp laceration, bruised left shoulder, too much lake water swallowed, but no fracture. He hated every second of the penlight in his eyes and remembered only half of it later.
Hutch came away with a bad shoulder bruise, three stitches at the base of his skull where metal or glass had sliced him, and a lecture about delayed shock that he listened to with the patience of a man who had bigger concerns.
At two in the morning he was allowed into Starsky’s room.
Starsky lay propped against two pillows, head bandaged, one eye shadowed already with bruising. He looked washed out and tired and altogether too breakable.
Hutch stepped in quietly.
Starsky opened his eyes and saw him. “Hey partner.”
“Hey yourself.”
“You bleed through your shirt often?”
“Only on weekends.”
Starsky managed half a smile and stopped because it hurt his head.
“Ow.”
Hutch came to the bed and stood there looking at him until Starsky said, “I’m okay.”
“Yeah. Much better.”
Hutch sat down in the chair by the bed and let out a long breath.
A little later Dobey came in carrying coffee and wearing his own concern and fatigue like a second skin.
“The ranger found paint on the skiff,” he said. “White fiberglass. Sheriff’s department’s talking to every marina he knows by sunup.”
Starsky said, “He split.”
“Yeah.” Dobey stood at the end of the bed and looked at them both. “Could’ve been a drunk fool. Could’ve been worse. Either way, they’ll find him.” After a few beats of silence, he looked from one to the other. “Now I see how these things happen whenever you two come up here. I thought for sure this time you could manage to stay in one piece.”
Starsky looked over at Hutch, then both said together, “We're still in one piece.”
::
The sheriff found the cruiser the next afternoon moored at a private dock on the far east shore.
Dobey heard it all in the ranger's station.
Two young men in their early twenties had taken it out without permission from one boy’s father, mixed whiskey with speed, and spent the evening showing each other how fast they could run the lake. The driver claimed he never saw the skiff. His passenger admitted they hit something and kept going because they were scared and drunk.
::
Meanwhile, after discharge, Starsky slept most of the day at the cabin, waking only for Edith's broth, pain pills, and brief complaints. Rosie placed Bandaids while he slept, and Cal put extra root beer in the fridge. Hutch fared better but moved more carefully than usual and winced every time he forgot and used the wrong shoulder.
By Sunday evening the worst of the danger had passed.
The cabin had gone quiet again, but a different quiet now. Edith made chicken soup. Cal brought in wood. Rosie drew a picture of a tiny boat and two stick men wearing enormous life jackets. Dobey said very little and watched both detectives the way he watched his own two kids.
Starsky spent sunset in an outdoor lounger because he was getting a bit restless and bored. Hutch brought out two mugs of hot cocoa and sat in the lounger beside him.
The woods smelled of pine and cooling earth. Somewhere near the lake a bird called to another.
The Dobeys brought chairs out and Cal put some vinyl records on the turntable.
“Now just think,” Dobey said pointing between his two detectives. “If I hadn't been around to save you boys, I'd be looking for two new detectives right now.”
Starsky shook his head. “And I thought we were irreplaceable, didn't you, Hutch?”
end