Feather for Hoonah Joe

by Marianne Schlegelmilch

  “Look, we’ve got our quota for the year already, so the rest is gravy anyway, man. Just call me after you straighten it out, okay?”

  “Sure. Do what you have to do, Derrk. I appreciate you getting the boats back in and finishing up with the catch you have on board.”

  “We should be coming in sometime tomorrow,” Derrk answered. “Into Juneau, I mean. We’ll offload there and I’ll tie the seiners up in their usual places.”

  “Okay, Derrk. I’ll get your pay out to you and the crew as soon as we tally things up.” “As much as I appreciate that,” Derrk said, “If you need the money to . . .”

  “I don’t need the money, Derrk,” Doug shot back, fighting to keep any tension from showing in his voice. “You and the crew will be paid on time.”

  “Thanks, friend,” Derrk said before ending the call.

  “Son of a . . .” Doug said out load, shoving his boot hard into a piece of rotted log that marked one of the parking places near Beachmoppers.

  The force of his kick sent pieces of wet, splintered wood flying in all directions, leaving a pile of debris in a five-foot radius around the log. He found a rake and cleaned it up, forcing himself to nod and smile at a passing tourist, before raking the splinters into the woods.

  He’d be talking to Dennis Connor Sr. first thing tomorrow. But right now it was 3 p.m. Alaska Time, which meant that Connor’s law offices would be closed.

  The seiners would be fine in Juneau. He had been thinking of pulling maintenance on them anyway.

  Dennis Connor Sr. had told him not to worry. He would try not to, but what the heck. Did he really need this right here and right now?

  Chapter Forty-One

  Had Enough

  Sal found Mara sitting in the dark lobby of Beachmoppers.

  “It’ll be dark during the day soon enough, Jane,” she barked. Mara turned slowly, her face drawn; her shoulders slumped.

  “They’re trying to take the seiners.”

  “Who’s ‘they,’” Sal bellowed.

  “Elzianne LaMonte and Dorland Kindle,” Mara answered. “I know you know about this.”

  “Ain’t no one takin’ nuthin’,” Sal said. “Now buck up, Jane, and let’s get this shop opened up.”

  Mara grabbed the arm of the sofa and stood up, tears streaming down her face.

  “I can’t take any more . . .”

  “Buck up, Jane,” Sal repeated. “No one likes a sniveler.”

  “Stop it!” Mara screamed. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  “Get a grip, Jane,” Sal shot back.

  “Did you hear me? I said stop it!” Mara repeated, her tears now flowing so hard that her body was wracked with sobs.

  Sal stepped back and said nothing. She had never seen Mara this way. She began uncovering tables in the gift shop, trying to think, while Mara sobbed uncontrollably.

  “Forget about this. Forget about these stupid tables, and this stupid junk, and all the stupid tourists,” Mara sobbed.

  “Now jest a danged minute here, Jane,” Sal said.

  “Did you not hear me?” Mara said, grabbing a cloth from Sal’s hands and throwing it in a heap onto the sofa. “I asked you to stop it.”

  Before Sal could say anything, Mara continued.

  “Stop it! Stop all of it! Stop acting like you don’t care about any of this, stop patronizing me, and most of all, stop the charade. Stop the charade and lose the Sal character while you’re at it.”

  “I don’t like seeing you this upset,” Sylvia LaMonte replied, forgoing her persona as Sal.

  “Really?” Mara screamed. “Really!”

  Sylvia LaMonte stepped back.

  “You don’t like seeing me this upset? You don’t like driving your loving husband Joe around the bend with trying to figure out who you are? You don’t like seeing my hardworking husband lose his livelihood? Is that what you don’t like, Sal—Sylvia—or whoever you are at any given moment?”

  “I’m not sure I deserve this, Mara.”

  “And I’m not sure I deserve this either, Sylvia. Nor does Doug, or Joe, or anyone else you’ve been lying to all this time.”

  “Is that what you think? That I lied to each of you?” Sylvia said softly.

  “What else do you call it?” Mara shot back. “Of course you lied. Your whole life’s been a lie from what I’ve seen.”

  Sylvia clutched one of the table covers to her breast, her face drawn, pale, and coldly real.

  “That’s enough, Mara,” Joe Michael said from the doorway.

  Mara sat down. In all the time she had known Joe Michael, he had never spoken to her this way.

  Joe Michael walked over to his wife and gently helped her to a chair, while Mara looked for a tissue with which to dry her eyes and blow her nose.

  For several minutes, no one spoke. Then Joe said, “We’re going to New York—all of us.”

  “What’s going on?” Doug Williams said as he walked into the room.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Shopping

  Mara sat back as the plane lifted off. Taking a commercial flight to Anchorage had been a snap decision she had made after calming down, getting a good night’s sleep, and agreeing with Doug that they should all think this through and be ready for the trip to New York.

  Even Joe had agreed in the end.

  “You’ve got the clothes we bought when you first came back,” she had heard Sylvia tell him, then adding, “and we can pick up some more when we get there.”

  “I’ll shop for Doug up in Anchorage,” Mara had said, and so off she had gone.

  Sarah had agreed to drive down from Palmer to meet her. Having worked for several years for a major fashion house in New York, she would know exactly what to pick out for her best friend to take on the trip.

  Meanwhile, as the plane lifted above the clouds, Mara reflected on her outburst of yesterday. She had been uncharacteristically hard on Sal and uncharacteristically open about her feelings. Strangely, though, she felt little regret.

  She had always tried to be a team player—to be the facilitator and to go with the flow. She had occasionally shown a feisty side, but the events of the past few years after her husband Brad’s death had made her more introverted.

  Even knowing that she had Doug’s love forever hadn’t seemed to be enough to bring her out of her shell. She had believed him when he told her that leaving her was the worst decision of his life, and she believed him now when he said he would never leave her again, but she had long ago learned that terms like “never” and “always” were sometimes relative to circumstances that no one could foresee, and so though she loved her husband with all her heart, she kept a small part of it hidden securely away from everyone just to protect it from being forever and irrevocably crushed.

  She was sure that Doug sensed this, just as she knew that it made him try harder to please her, but he had told her on more than one occasion that he understood and would spend the rest of his life regaining her trust.

  Even her friends had let her down, though she had long ago chosen to forgive them. They had been the best they could be under each and every circumstance, and she knew full well that she, too, had sometimes let others down, so she had chosen to move on from holding any grudges.

  Her dog, Thor, was her truest friend and confidante. He had been with her since she had first arrived in Alaska and their bond was tight and true. Even Doug, who was Thor’s original owner, had mentioned how close Thor was to her, but hadn’t it been Thor who had led him to Mara in the first place—on that stop in Wrangell, when she had first come up on the ferry? It was she who had insisted that Thor go with them to New York, no matter how inconvenient tending to him there would be. He was her dog and where she went, Thor went, and that was that. And so she ordered him a beautiful silk-covered collar from a place in New Jersey as well as a collapsible canvas crate in which he would be secure both during travel and while in hotel rooms. Then she got his paperwork in order, his immunizations up to snuff, and all this she
had accomplished before stepping on the plane to Anchorage this morning.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Anchorage

  For that one sunny day in Anchorage, Mara and Sarah shopped with the laughter and abandon that had been their norm in college.

  Mara tried on every possible combination of clothes in their effort to find the perfect look for her trip to New York and finally settled on a handful of outfits that were versatile enough to mix and match at will. Their biggest dilemma became shoes. She hadn’t worn anything but sensible shoes for years and totally resisted moving back into the discomfort of city shoes. She finally found some, though, and had to admit that they looked really good and weren’t really all that hard to walk in.

  Sarah made her stop at the make-up counter, too. Although Mara had a natural beauty, Sarah convinced her that she would seem out of place in the sophisticated world of New York if she were to dress too plainly. They also stopped at a high-end hair salon and were lucky, as they were able to get in with one of the top stylists, who had just had several cancellations due to an accident causing an unexpected closure of the highway north of town.

  The cut was flattering, leaving her hair between chin and shoulder length, and using a clever set of angles that made it look flattering whether she wore it straight or in its natural curly state.

  After stopping for lunch at a quaint little bistro by the Inlet, they made their way back through the shops at the Captain Cook Hotel, and then down 4th and 5th Avenues, stopping at the 5th Avenue Mall and then crossing over to Nordstrom.

  Mara picked out several pair of pants for Doug, as well as an array of dress shirts. He had a couple of nice sport coats that suited him well already.

  They stopped on the children’s floor to pick up some new things for B.D., too.

  “Anna’s babysitting him today,” Sarah said. “He’s almost too big for her to pick up, but she does a pretty good job of keeping tabs on him.”

  Mara smiled at the mental image that flashed of young Anna corralling the rambunctious B.D.

  “Couldn’t you just come up for tonight?” Sarah implored. “Ellie’s ready to pop. Her due date is next week. And Ben is waiting on her hand and foot. You’d smile if you could see how happy they are together.”

  “They both deserve it—to be so happy,” Mara said. “After all they’ve been through.”

  “Everyone misses you and Doug, Mara,” Sarah said. “We all love you both so much.”

  “I know,” Mara answered, a wistful glaze coming across her face. “I know, but right now I have to take care of my own life—and Doug’s, and Sal’s . . . and, of course, Joe’s. They need me now, but tell everyone we’ll see them all soon.”

  “I understand, Mara,” Sarah told her. “I guess I’d better head back to the Valley.”

  “And I’ve got a plane to catch,” Mara answered.

  Mara took a shuttle to the airport. There was no sense in making Sarah fight all the Anchorage traffic and it would help her get on the highway before rush hour stole an entire extra hour out of her day.

  “I’ll call soon,” Mara called as her friend drove off, “Promise.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Kismet

  The day in Anchorage had worked its magic and given Mara a chance to step outside of the furor that had once again enveloped her life. Why was there always something—and not insignificant somethings either? Was this perpetuation of chaos and unrest her new normal? Should she be afraid to ever relax and feel happy again for fear that some new crisis would emerge?

  Ever since receiving the feather on the ferry a few years ago—well, even before that, really—starting with Brad’s disappearance in the plane crash, her life had been one series of unexpected dramas after another. No, she couldn’t blame the feather. This had all started before the feather. And she couldn’t blame Alaska, or the people there, who were now her life. What, then, could she blame? Destiny? Karma? Both?

  She watched the shoreline as the plane began its descent into Hoonah. Thank God she had everyone here to lean on. What if she had been forced to go through all of this alone? It was true that some of her stress was because of events surrounding her new friends and loved ones, yet she had learned early on that her own life was already entwined with theirs. Coincidence? In retrospect, probably not. Just the fact that Brad had talked of Alaska so often now seemed like kismet that had brought her to where she was today.

  As the plane approached the runway, she thought she could see Joe’s dualie on the road leading to the airport, and was that Doug’s truck right behind him? It sure looked like it. If kismet had brought her to Alaska and if kismet had brought her the love of people like Joe, Sal, and Doug, then she trusted that this same kismet would continue to protect her and those she loved, no matter what circumstances life might toss her way.

  When she stepped off the plane, there they all were at the window of the terminal, Joe, Doug, Sal, and Thor. When she walked through the single door inside, they hurried to embrace her and help her with all the bags she had brought back from Anchorage.

  She had instantly noticed that Sal was there—kind of a surprise after the harsh way Mara had chastised her.

  “Sal,” she began, looking apologetically into her friend’s eyes.

  “Are ya gonna worry about somethin’ ya spewed from yer heart or are ya gonna just accept yerself and accept the love we all got fer ya and that nothin’ ya can do will ever drive away?” Sal whispered into her ear.

  Doug took the shopping bags from her arms as the two women shared a warm embrace.

  “How about some lunch?” he said.

  “That sounds like a pretty good idea to me, too,” Joe added.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Airborne

  When the four of them left for the Lower 48, even Doug had to admit that it was an ambitious undertaking to fly nearly three thousand miles to New York, especially for a novice pilot such as he. But Mara could fly, too, and would serve as a backup navigator. Joe was coming along, and he had plenty of flight experience, and so they had taken on the task, studying charts and maps for the month before leaving, equipping the plane with every possible navigation device and plenty of emergency supplies.

  They had shipped a lot of their supplies ahead of them to a friend of Sarah’s, who would store everything until they arrived. The biggest concern, actually, had been the wisdom of taking Thor, but Thor was as much a part of them as anyone, and so he came along.

  If New Yorkers didn’t like Thor, that was just going to have to be their problem as individuals. His travel crate would fit in the back of any rental vehicle they would choose, and Mara had bought a cooling pad for the crate to help offset the high temperatures there. She had also obtained a health certificate and some added immunizations for the trip—for things like parvo virus, kennel cough, and other contagious dog diseases, and of course, his travel certificate for Canada.

  And so, on a drizzly day in late August, Dennis Connor drove them to the airport and handed the luggage from Doug’s pickup over to him so he could load the plane, finishing with lifting Thor’s crate inside, where Doug strapped it to specialized hooks that he had installed in the floor of the tail section.

  After Thor had been lifted and secured inside his crate, Doug helped Joe and then Sal into the plane, making sure that they were comfortable and secure. Then he and Mara did one last walk-around before climbing in themselves.

  They had already decided to spend the first night in Ketchikan, which meant that when they had barely gotten going, it was time to stop again. It was a special stop just for Sal. She had some business regarding the deed to Beachmoppers that she wanted to finalize there. While she and Joe were gone, Doug and Mara walked Thor, gave him food and water, and then walked around town, stopping for a sandwich along the way.

  The ferry was in port, a sight that sent a mixture of chills and trepidation up Mara’s spine as she remembered the nearly one year that she had fled from port to port on the ferry system
.

  “Seems like a lot has gone by since then,” Doug mentioned, as if reading her thoughts.

  Mara smiled a half smile as Doug squeezed her hand. After they had finished eating, they untied Thor from a post outside the restaurant and continued on their way.

  By late afternoon, they had met up with Sal and Joe again. They found a motel room that would accept dogs and checked into their respective rooms before walking to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Once again, Doug tied Thor up outside, only this time the restaurant manager told him that he would have to take Thor around back because one of the tourists had complained about the restaurant allowing a dog by the outdoor eating area.

  “I’ll just take him back to our room,” Doug said. “He’s gonna have to get used to the crate life anyway.”

  When Doug returned about twenty minutes later, their order was just arriving. The food was good and well worth the wait. The thing with Thor—well, they were on the road, so they had better learn to adjust.

  They lingered over another glass of wine and then dessert before returning to their rooms. Doug and Mara found Thor sound asleep inside his crate, but he woke up readily when they walked in, so they took him for a stroll along the waterfront, enjoying the brightness of the moon against the water.

  “Once this is over, I think life is going to be just fine,” Doug told Mara. “We’ve been through worse than this. Pretty soon we’ll be taking walks like this every day. You’ll see. I’ve just got a feeling about it.”

  Mara didn’t answer as she leaned into her husband and walked along, while Thor circled around them and then ran ahead before coming back and circling again.

  After a hearty meal the next morning, they were in the air and on their way to Prince Rupert.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Prince Rupert

  It wasn’t often that the regulation stop at Canadian customs was tedious, but for reasons everyone privately hoped was not a portent of things to come on this trip, the officials on duty decided to empty the entire plane.