As it turned out Cordy had a good reason to hurry the tow as fast as she could – they just barely made it across the sand bar at the mouth of the bayou when they got back. Both Ron and Amanda could feel the Rag Doll sigh and slow as it ran into the mud, although only lightly; Cordy kept the push boat’s throttle wide open, and in a minute or so they were into deeper water.

“Jesus,” Ron shook his head. “I don’t want to think about how pissed she’d be if we’d gotten stuck. It’d be well after dark before we could have gotten off.”

It took some fiddling to get the Rag Doll into the slip that Sid had pointed out earlier, but eventually they got it tied off. By then Cordy had gone somewhere with the push boat, and Amanda would have been willing to bet that she was already back under that boat up on shore with a paint scraper in her hand. It was a good bet that she was still probably pissed off from being taken from the job in the first place.

They were just finishing up getting the Rag Doll tied off when Sid wandered up. “I kin see what ya were sayin’ when you said you was gonna be all winter and then some,” he smiled. “You got a whole pot load of work to do on that thing.”

“The first step is to get all the stuff out of it and get it cleaned up a little,” Amanda told him. “Then I can see what’s really got to be done. Are you going to mind if we work on it tomorrow? Ron thinks maybe he can get some of his buddies over here to help.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Sid replied. “We don’t usually do a whole hell of a lot on Sundays but there always seems ta be somethin’.”

After a couple minutes of discussion Sid was able to tell them where she could rent a storage locker. “Best ya be getting’ over there, though,” he told them. “They’re probably gonna be closin’ up the office ’fore long.”

“All right, we’ll get moving,” Amanda told him. “I’ll probably see you tomorrow, whether I have Ron and his buddies here to help or not.”

“Be seein’ ya, then,” he said. “I’m gettin’ sorta interested in seein’ what you do with this thing.”

In a couple minutes Ron and Amanda were in her car, heading out of the place. “He seems to be a nice enough guy,” Amanda commented as she drove down the road into the marina.

“So long as you work like hell and don’t put on airs, anyway,” Ron smiled. “Not that you’re the kind of person who puts on airs anyway. But I’ll tell you what, that Cordy acts like she has all the capability of being a real pain in the ass. I’ll bet you have some trouble with her before this is all over with.”

“I’ll just try to stay out of her way,” Amanda said. “I suspect I’m going to have worse problems to deal with.”

The storage building was just a steel shed with a lot of doors, and a number of walled-off spaces. Amanda rented a small one, and told the owner that she would probably only be using it until early March. “That ought to be fine,” the guy said. “That’s about the time all the Yankees are gonna be headin’ home for the summer and will want some place to store their stuff.” He was also able to point them to a place up the road where they could rent a power washer for a couple days, so Amanda paid the storage fee, and the two of them went to see about the power washer.

“Aren’t you going to unload the car today?” he asked.

“Might later, but I think we’d better catch the guy with the power washer first. Besides, I’m going to have to get a lock for the storage shed, and while I’m shopping I’m going to need a few other things.”

“You’re not planning on staying on the boat tonight, are you?”

“No way,” she told him. “I want to get all that stuff out of the cabin and do something about all the crap in there. It smells a little too bad right now. It’ll probably be a couple days before I can stay there, but I don’t want to spend too much time in a motel. That’s pretty damn expensive for a place to crash for a few hours.”

“You might want to call home and let the folks know what’s happening,” he suggested.

“Yeah, that should go on the list. Besides, I want to get around a good dinner, especially after not having lunch.”

“Now that you mention it, that’s not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard you come up with. I think that maybe we ought to have planned that one out a little more than we did. I want to get back a little early to see if maybe I can recruit some extra hands to help out tomorrow.”

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s get an early dinner and do a little shopping. I’ll call the folks later, and then get a good night’s sleep. I want to get going early in the morning if I can.”

Dinner proved good – she was hungry, and so was he – and soon she was taking him back to his car where they’d met in the morning. There was a dollar store nearby that likely would have everything she’d need, and she found it all in a few minutes. It was still pretty early, so she drove back over to the storage shed and unloaded most of the stuff in the car into it, only keeping the things it seemed likely she’d need in the next few days. A cold beer sounded like a real good idea, but she had to give it a pass – she was still a couple months shy of her twenty-first birthday. Too damn bad I didn’t think of it in time, she thought. I could have had Ron buy me a six-pack. Maybe tomorrow.

Finally there was nothing to do but head back to her motel. It was a relatively cheap one, but she didn’t want to stay there any longer than she had to; the cost was coming out of her boat fund, like everything else, and money spent now wouldn’t be available later.

She’d been feeling grubby all day from poking around in the Rag Doll in the morning, and then just riding back on it in the afternoon, so the first thing she did was to strip off her clothes and head for the shower. Her hair, short though it was, really seemed like it needed washing.

It felt good to be clean; she pulled on a robe, wrapped her wet hair in one of the motel’s towels, then flopped down on the bed. Jesus, she thought, that is going to be a hell of a lot of work, but I ought to really have something when I’m done. I don’t see that there’s any way in hell I can get done with everything that’s needed this winter, but at least I won’t be freezing my ass off in Winchester Harbor.

Finally she remembered her promise to Ron to call her parents. They would probably be wondering what was happening with her, anyway. Fortunately her cell phone was within reach; right now she didn’t feel as if she had the energy to go any farther to get it.

Both her folks were in the snack bar, as was Adam, and it proved that all three of them were having a late dinner. “We’ve been wondering what happened with you,” her father said. “So what’s the deal on the boat?

“The boat doesn’t look real good, but it appears sound,” she reported. “Ron and this chief he knows went through it pretty well, and there’s a lot of work to do, but I can do most of it. Ron and a couple of his friends have offered to help me out with it when they can, so that’ll help with the heavy stuff. We found a slip in a small boatyard today, and had the boat towed over to it. We’re going to dig into it tomorrow and find out just what’s got to be done.”

“The engine is dead, I take it?”

“Deader than a doornail, some parts have been stripped off it. It may be repairable, but we don’t know yet. At least it can be turned over by hand, so maybe it’s not a hopeless cause, but boy, what a boat it’s going to be when I get done with it. And, oh, I love the name. It’s just dead solid perfect, and so right in so many ways. Rag Doll.” She was trying to sound a little more enthusiastic than perhaps she really was; after all, she wanted to be upbeat to her folks.

“Not having seen it, it sounds like it’s going to be a fit,” Jake grinned. “Have fun, honey, and be careful.”

“What I’m going to have is a lot of work,” she sighed. “I really doubt I can get it done this winter.”

“I suppose you’re going to want me to come down and help you with it.”

“Well, probably,” she admitted. “But there’s no point in you coming right away, not until I can dig into it and get a feel for what it needs. There’ll probably be tools or parts or something you could bring with you.”

“It’s not going to be for a while,” her father replied. “We’ve still got a few days of the season left, and then I’m going to have to be getting the boats on the hard for the winter. And I’m going to have to do some stuff on the Moonshadow, or else Adam is going to be standing over me with a shotgun.”

“You’re saying a month, then?”

“Probably more than that, and then I may not be able to stay for a long time with the holidays coming on. There’s some stuff up here that’s going to have to be done in that time period, although with both you and Ron down there it’s tempting to be down there for Christmas.”

“It’d have to be in a motel,” she pointed out. “There’s no way I’m going to have the Rag Doll far enough along to be able to cook a Christmas dinner there.”

“It probably won’t happen anyway,” he told her. “But there’s such a thing as my maybe being able to come back down there after the first of the year for a while. There might be something I could bring home and work on up here.”

“It’s just too early to tell,” she told him. “I should know a lot more in the next few days. I will say one thing, the boat is going to need a lot of interior woodwork. I don’t know how much yet, but I should know in a few days. Some of it is rotted, and I don’t know what I’m going to be able to save. I haven’t thought about it much, but I can see it’s set up to sleep six or more uncomfortably, so I might wind up doing a major redesign of the whole interior.”

“I can see that turning into a hell of a lot of work,” her father replied. “It might be I could do a lot of it up here, sort of prefab it. Don’t lose any existing wood, no matter how bad it is, and make a darn good record of where it is. If nothing else, it might be useful for templates to fit the hull.”

“I already figured that much,” she told him, explaining about the storage shed.

“Sounds like you’re off to a good start. Like I said, have fun and be careful. Keep us posted on what’s going on down there.”

“Will do, Dad.”

Amanda pushed the “End” button on her cell phone and laid her head down on the pillow, staring at the ceiling. There was no doubt that the Rag Doll was going to be a hell of a lot of work, but it seemed at the moment that if she were going to do the work, she might as well do what she wanted and get it right. If a real good offer came along she might be tempted to flip it for cash, but it seemed likely that the boat was going to be a part of her life for years to come.

The sun was just coming up when Amanda got moving in the morning. There was a lot to get done today, and she figured she might as well get an early start. However, she also thought that if Ron came with some buddies to help her out, there was a good chance lunch could be on the run, so she decided to get a good breakfast. That was her habit – a good solid breakfast at the snack bar was normal for her, since lunch often was a sandwich on the run.

She also decided to just take a few minutes to drive around in the general vicinity of the boat yard, just to see what was there. Things like the location of a nearby convenience store, a good hardware store, and things of that nature would be good to know, since there would probably be times she wouldn’t want to waste time hunting for them.

It was not a short drive over to the vicinity of the boat yard. She spotted the unmarked entrance road, but did a little more searching until she found a little restaurant that looked to be a small breakfast/lunch place, not unlike the snack bar. She was of the opinion that food in small, independently owned places was usually better than chain places – working in such a place had something to do with that opinion. The place was named “Earlene’s Kitchen,” and looked like just the kind of place where she’d be comfortable having a meal.

It was indeed a small place, no more than a couple dozen chairs, so smaller even than the snack bar. The waitress, a girl probably a little older than she was, brought coffee over without asking and asked what she wanted. Amanda told her two eggs over easy, home fries, and bacon, which ought to stick with her pretty well. It turned out to be just exactly what she wanted, and Amanda figured she’d be eating there again.

The sun was getting up by the time she finished breakfast; the change to winter time wasn’t far off, so it got light close to as late in the morning as it would all year. The sky was clear, and it was pleasantly warm compared to Winchester Harbor, enough so that Amanda just had on a T-shirt and jeans, although she noticed long-sleeved shirts and jackets on some of the people in the restaurant. She had no idea when Ron would be showing up, and how many of his friends he might be bringing with him, so she figured she’d better get over to the Rag Doll.

The boat yard was quiet when she pulled in, although, as Sid had told her, she found a couple of gators sunning themselves in the parking lot. They were well out of her way, but she wondered how long it would take her to get used to the sight of them, or knowing they were close by.

There was no sign of Ron or his friends yet, so she backed the Chevy as close as she could to the Rag Doll, and decided the best thing to do was to start cleaning out the cabin of things she wanted to move to the storage shed. Although the cabin was cluttered, there really wasn’t all that much that needed to be moved. The first things to go were the seat cushions; there were several of them, and all were mildewed and smelly. It probably wouldn’t be worth trying to save them, she thought; they were probably as old as the boat and were pretty lumpy. Making new ones would be a chore she might be able to do at home next summer, but they were headed for the storage shed for now.

The next obvious things to go were the sail bags, four of them; it looked like she had three jibs and a mainsail. One of the things she needed to do would be to find a grassy spot, maybe like a park, and lay them out to see what she really had, but that wasn’t something she needed to do today, either. They were just in the way and could go to the storage shed, too. By the time she got them in the car it was getting full.

There were several rather beat-up boxes full of odds and ends sitting around the cabin; the odds were that they were mostly junk, but there was no way of knowing without going through them. She was just getting started at that project when she heard a car pull up outside, so she stuck her head out of the hatch, to see that Ron had arrived, bringing a couple of guys with him. All were wearing jeans, T-shirts and jackets. “So,” he said, by way of greeting, “I see it’s got you burned out already.”

“No, just sorting through things,” she replied. “I see you managed to con a couple of your friends into helping.”

“It was that, or just sitting around waiting for the football game to start,” one of the guys replied. “And I don’t much care about football.”

“Guys, this is my sister, Amanda,” Ron said. “Sis,” he continued, pointing at one of his friends, a medium-height light-skinned thin black guy wearing wire-rimmed sunglasses, “This is Rayban Williams. We call him ‘Shades’ for some reason.”

“Nothing obvious,” she grinned.

“Well, no. And this is Zack Reeves. He’s on harbor patrol, while Shades works on navaids with me.”

She glanced up at Zack. He was clean-cut, with a military haircut – well, all of the guys were – with sandy hair, what there was of it. He was probably a little shorter than Ron, a little round in the face. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he smiled. “Your brother has told us a lot about you. Glad we could help you out today.”

“Glad you could come,” she smiled back. “I think your help is going to be welcome today.”

“Looks like you’ve got a lot of work here,” Shades said. “Where do you want us to start?”

“Now, there’s a good question,” she shook her head. “Ron, why don’t you and one of these guys take my car over to the storage building and unload what’s in it? Whoever stays back can help me unload more stuff out of the cabin and set it on shore so it can go over to storage later.”

They set to work. Ron and Shades were soon back with the car, while Amanda and Zack already had a carload waiting for them at the end of the pier. There was more stuff in boxes than she’d imagined, and she had only the mildest knowledge of what was in them – sorting through them was going to have to wait. There were lockers and cabinets that had things in them, things like pots and pans and silverware. They found several cans and boxes of food that looked like they’d been there for years – and probably had – so there was no point in keeping them. Fortunately they found some garbage bags.

By then they’d made enough progress to see that most of the wood in the interior of the Rag Doll was going to have to be replaced, but Amanda decided that there was no point in getting carried away with removing it just yet. At least some of it would have to be done carefully to preserve the fit of the wood to the boat.

Power-washing the interior of the boat, at least some of it, was an appealing idea, but they had no idea of whether the bilge pump was working or not, and right now Amanda wanted to minimize water being on the inside of the boat. But the boat’s battery was dead – and in fact, had been taken out and moved to the storage shed, although it seemed like a pointless exercise – but Shades figured out how to disconnect the pump and run it directly from the battery taken from Ron’s car.

By then power washing was going on in earnest, with Zack running the machine, while Ron and Amanda worked with scrub brushes to loosen up some of the more stubborn dirt. All in all, that part of it went fairly quickly, and the boat looked better, at least superficially. However, removing the dirt and crud meant that more serious problems were exposed. It was clear that Amanda was going to be facing many hours with sandpaper, filler and gelcoat to get things back where they should be.

Somewhere in there Ron broke away and took Amanda’s car to get a couple of pizzas; when he returned they took a break and sat around the cockpit eating them, discussing what needed to be done next. Somewhere in there the idea came up of running the masthead halyard over to a nearby dock to roll the boat to one side a little. That would allow them to work on at least some of the crud on the bottom, if no more than to see how bad that job was going to be. It didn’t take long to set up, and once exposed, the mess was even worse than expected, although the power washer and some stiff brushes helped to improve things. They had to turn the boat around in the slip to do the other side, but it was worth the effort.

By the late afternoon the Rag Doll looked a lot better than it had in the morning. It still clearly needed lots and lots of work, but at least they could see some progress had been made. The interior had been power-washed, at least some of it, and the bilge pump had moved a lot of really dirty water over the side. Again, there was going to be much more to be done on the interior, but it was worlds better than it had been in the morning.

Finally, they’d done what they could do with the power washer, at least for now. “I don’t know about anyone else,” Ron said. “But I think it’s getting to be about beer time. I’ve got a cooler in the trunk.”

Amanda was about as ready for his suggestion as anyone else. They plopped down in the cockpit, and soon were relaxing. “Sis,” Ron said, “it looks better, but I think you’ve got a lot of work here.”

“I know I do,” she told him. “I’m thinking that the next thing I need to think about doing is to start making a list of what needs to be done.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “The hell of it is that you’re going to be months, with the list getting longer each day, rather than shorter.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” she agreed. “I’m sure glad you guys were willing to come over and help me today. I think we got a lot done, but now the real work begins.”

“Well, I’ll get over here to help when I can,” Ron told her. “It’s not going to be every day, and maybe not every weekend since there are other things I have to do, too. But I’ll try to help you out when I can.”

“I may not be able to help out very often either,” Shades agreed. “But I’ll try to get over once in a while.”

“Me too,” Zack agreed. Over the course of the day he’d proved to be the quiet one of the group, but he seemed like a nice guy. “I think you’re going to have a real nice boat here when you get it done, Amanda. Maybe someday you can take us sailing on it.”

“It may be a while, not even this winter,” she replied. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

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