Driftfeather on the Alaska Seas

by Marianne Schlegelmilch

  She could see that from this vantage point, Stu had a bird’s eye view of all who came and went at this end of the harbor.

  “It’s quiet here, ‘cept when it ain’t,” Stu said matter–of-factly, sitting down in his chair at the table and tearing off a hunk of the steaming bread before passing the plate to her. “But mostly it’s quiet here and so I stay.”

  She furrowed her brow a bit before smiling, nodding, and thanking Stu for the hospitality.

  “Yep. It’s more’n quiet here most times. Well, that is if ya don’t consider runnin’ off the occasional sea lion a bother—though to be truthful with ya, I ain’t seen many in the harbor the last year or two.”

  “I was rather hoping for a quiet life,” she said, trying to assure him that she would be an acceptable neighbor and was of a like mind about solitude.

  She certainly was in no mood for any more drama in her life. Stu was an old sourdough and if he said he was managing all right, chances were good she would be able to as well.

  While Stu got up to heat more water for the tea, she started thinking again about her plan to buy a gun and take shooting lessons. It was as good a time as any to get started with that, especially in view of all the chaos that had come her way since moving to Alaska—and even before. Now that she was alone, it was more than ever a matter of security.

  What she wouldn’t do—couldn’t do—any longer was to depend on someone else to take care of her.

  “It’s good to know you’ll be around if I need some help,” she told the old man as she thanked him for the visit and made her way to the door, “but I think I should be all right.”

  Chapter Six

  Past Present—Again!

  On the advice of her new gun safety instructor, Mara picked out a 9mm semiautomatic pistol at the local gun shop. The information she provided would link all her names to anyone who had access to the information, but it was a privacy risk she would have to take. Fortunately her permit was approved without delay.

  She would continue to go by Jane Brown around town and address any confusion about who she was on a case-by-case basis. Eventually her identity as Mara Benson would become known—especially once she found a job, but she would try to live discreetly until everyone from her past had moved on with their lives and had given up looking for her.

  Right now a job was the furthest thing from her mind. At this point, after the reception she had received at the local OR&P office, as much as she had loved working at the Homer location, she had all but decided that this branch would not be her preferred place of employment.

  When she saw the red and blue flashing lights in her rear view mirror, she looked around to see who had broken the law. Realizing that she was the one being pulled over, she slowed her vehicle and eased it over to the shoulder of the road.

  “License and registration, please, ma’am,” a uniformed police officer said matter-of-factly.

  “What did I do?” she asked as she reached into her console for the documents.

  “I got you going 51 in a 45, ma’am.”

  “But—” she began, before he interrupted her.

  “I’ll check these out and be right back,” he said.

  She watched the officer in her side mirror as he walked back to the white SUV with the large law enforcement emblem on the doors. A few moments later he returned, handing her back her license and insurance papers along with a citation for speeding.

  “I could give you a warning, Ms. Benson, but I’ve decided that I’m going to give you a speeding ticket because I’ve been too easy on speeders recently and decided to crack down today.”

  “But I have a perfect record and—” she began, but the officer, whose nametag read K. Lessis, just shrugged and proceeded to tuck his clipboard under his arm.

  “Sorry, miss, just doing my job.”

  Officer Lessis’s forced smile failed to conceal his authority as she took the ticket from him.

  “One more thing, Ms. Benson. I saw in your profile that there was a missing person’s report lifted from you a couple of days ago.”

  A missing person’s report? Was Ken Tandry trying to find her? Darn Sarah, anyway. Hadn’t the phone message she left for her made it clear that she did not want to be found?

  “And I see you filed for a concealed weapons permit, too,” Officer Lessis continued.

  What was going on? How would he have access to that information already? Wasn’t that a federal matter?

  She sat uncomfortably while Officer Lessis stared at her for what seemed like a full minute before reaching into his shirt pocket and handing her his card.

  “If you need any assistance, Ms. Benson, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

  “I’m fine, officer. Thank you for your concern.”

  Why was he standing there staring at her again? Didn’t he believe her? How had he learned about the gun permit and why had he mentioned it? It was probably something to do with some new law or something. Who could keep up with these things? From what she had seen, gun ownership rules seemed to always be changing, depending on the political whims of the day.

  Finally, to her immense relief, Officer Lessis nodded and walked away.

  “You drive safe now, ma’am.”

  “Damn,” she muttered under her breath once he was out of earshot. “Juneau isn’t turning out to be much in the way of a trouble-free new start.”

  Chapter Seven

  Inside Scoop

  “I see ole Lessis got ya,” Stu said as he stood against his railing watching a seal swim around the harbor.

  “How’d you know about that?” Mara asked.

  “Saw ya pulled over on my way to the doctor,” Stu answered.

  She looked at him and smiled wryly.

  “Don’t worry about it too much—ya know, let it ruin yer day. Now that Lessis got ya once, he’ll leave ya alone. Word is he’s leavin’ the force anyway. Heard he’s goin’ to work for some group from Outside. Heard it had somethin’ to do with workin’ for his wife’s brother.”

  “Really,” She forced herself to respond. All she wanted to do was forget about the ticket and Lessis and the uneasy feeling he had left her with.

  “That’s right, Jane. It’s a true story—at least so the story goes,” Stu answered, his deadpan expression accompanied by a wink.

  “Well, it is what it is, Stu, so I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, wasn’t I?”

  Good grief! Now she was starting to talk in clichés, too.

  She laughed out loud at the thought, causing Stu to chuckle as well. There was just something comfortably familiar about Stu. Even in spite of his tendency to try to put his own suspicious spin on just about everything he took note of, she liked him. They should get along just fine—as long as she could learn to take whatever he said with a grain of salt.

  She had always done that—taken people at face value and trusted their inherent goodness. Stu was an old man and he had come from a generation with a different value system than today’s—one in which people carried a wryer sense of humor than did those in these more ominous modern times. She wouldn’t worry about him and would choose to enjoy knowing him with all his quirks instead. Lessis, though, seemed like a different breed and so she would heed her inner voice and give him a wide berth.

  Tomorrow she would pay the fine on the ticket and get on with her life. She had better things to do than worry about a minor traffic citation, although she would definitely be using her cruise control regularly from now on, leaving Officer Lessis and his counterparts time to fight more serious crime, and leaving her free to pursue her fresh start—hopefully without any more bumps in the road.

  Chapter Eight

  Home Sweet Home

  The next day, after paying the fine on her ticket, Mara went to the DMV and got her driver’s license changed to her new name and address. When she got home, she contacted her insurance company and updated them on her information. While she was at it, she changed the vanity plates she had been using
back to the standard Alaska plates of gold with dark blue lettering, and then, since there was no room to park it, took her camper to a local campground that offered storage.

  It would be easy enough to go pick it up if she decided to take a trip, but for now, there would be plenty to do exploring the waters around her new cabin in the new inflatable boat that she was supposed to pick up as soon as she bought a hitch for her pickup to haul it home on its trailer.

  “You’re gonna want a 12-footer with a fixed transom and a soft bottom if you think you might be using it out on the open ocean,” the salesman had told her, “and this 25-horse outboard should serve you well.”

  On his advice, she selected the boat he had recommended, which fortunately was on sale that week for 10 percent off its regular price, and came with an upgraded trailer, repair kit, and pump.

  She also purchased four Coast Guard-approved life preservers, although she more than likely would carry only one—maybe two—due to the size of the boat, unless she planned on having other passengers.

  “I’ll have our boatman splice a poly bowline to the boat for you and teach you how to tie it. We like to use polypropylene because it doesn’t absorb water and it floats. It’ll be more dependable that way.”

  She nodded in agreement, trying to look as though she thought the information was important. Well, it wasn’t that it wasn’t important, but shouldn’t all those tiny details be best left to those whose business it was to outfit her properly?

  “Uh-huh,” she nodded as he talked. “Yes, I see.”

  “You’ll see that the bowline’s pretty short, and the reason for that is so that it can’t reach the motor if it falls into the water,” the salesman said. “I’ll also have our man put an eye in the loose end. That way, if you ever need a longer line, you can connect it with a locking carabiner that you can pick up at any marine supply or hardware. I usually keep some around here just for that purpose, but we’re sold out right now.”

  Later, on the advice of the boatman, she also picked up a 5-gallon bucket for bailing, and a cement-filled 3-gallon bucket that had an eye hook sticking out of the center of the cement, and to which was attached 4 feet of heavy chain and then 100 feet of nylon rope. She had seen Doug and some of the other fishermen use this setup for anchoring, and so she chose them from the stock in the store instead of investing in a fancier anchor.

  Mostly she planned on tying the boat up under her cabin where she could access it through the trap door and climb down the ladder steps built onto one of the pilings under her cabin. Other than that, she would probably just beach it when she got to where she was going and float it out with the tide when she wanted to leave, so it was doubtful she would need an anchor all that often anyway. Still, you never knew, so she would carry one just in case.

  “I sure appreciate all you’ve done to outfit me,” she told the salesman.

  “Well, when you’re dealin’ with the ocean, it don’t make much sense to take shortcuts on your equipment,” he said. “Besides, you seem like a pretty determined and adventurous woman, and we’re happy to help ya out.”

  “Thanks again,” she told him before walking out the door.

  When she looked back, the salesman had stepped out the open back door of the shop and was filling a birdfeeder that she had watched a squirrel empty while he was explaining about the bowline. Thinking she might enjoy one, too, she picked up a bird feeder of her own on the way home, along with a bag of sunflower seeds to fill it with.

  By week’s end, all the modifications had been made and she accepted the store’s offer to have her boat delivered and launched for the cost of their nominal delivery fee, saving her the hassle of trying to find someone to help her do it on her own.

  The evening that it was delivered, she took a test run around the harbor with a technician, who showed her the finer points of operating the skiff before letting her bring it back in on her own while he stood by as back up.

  Over the next week, she made several trips to stores around town, glad that she had her pickup to haul home the grill, patio table, and four chairs she found on sale at a local home improvement store.

  One of her neighbors, a young fisherman named Alex, helped her unload them and haul them through the cabin and onto the deck out back. He even helped her hook up the propane tank to the grill and seemed more than happy when she offered him a sandwich and a beer for his efforts.

  While she went inside to get the food ready, Alex checked out the setup for the inflatable, calling up to her, “Everything looks fine down here.”

  Everything, it seemed, was finally moving along nicely in her new life in Juneau.

  Chapter Nine

  New Focus

  “Yeah, I’ve had my eye on that seiner across the harbor there for about two years now,” Alex told Mara later, as they lunched.

  Pointing to a fishing boat he described as the third one from the end, he said, “About six more months and I’ll be able to pay cash for her.”

  Mara looked in the direction Alex was pointing to. Sure enough, tied up along the third dock from the end was a light-blue seiner with a for sale sign in the window. Written in large green letters on both sides of the bow was the seiner’s name, Driftfeather.

  She listened as Alex described the particulars of the 48-foot seiner, including the fact that it came with a rebuilt Cat 365 horsepower diesel engine with only six hours on it, and a full complement of new or recently refurbished hydraulics and gear, three holds, and a recently remodeled cabin.

  All of a sudden, her budding new life’s path took an unexpected turn.

  “How much are they asking for her?” She blurted out, her tone suddenly serious and businesslike.

  “$325,000,” Alex answered, “but I think I could get them down to $287,500—especially for cash. That’s what I’d offer ‘em—two eighty-seven five—not a low ball, but enough for the convenience of a cash deal.”

  “And how much do you have saved?” she asked, prompting him to lean intently forward at the insistent way she had asked the question.

  “Close to $190,000.”

  Mara placed both elbows on the table, and looked Alex squarely in the eye.

  “Although I don’t have a lot of experience, I’m no stranger to purse seiners, Alex. And although I never met you until you were kind enough to help me haul my table and grill from my truck to this deck, for some reason I can’t explain, I feel as though I’ve known you a long time.”

  Alex blushed and sat back in his chair. Hadn’t he told her he was only twenty-four? She had already told him she was close to forty. He shot her a look of embarrassment as if to ask her what was going on here and if she was trying to hit on him or something?

  “Look—geez, I don’t even know your name, but—look, I’m not into …”

  “Look, Alex, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that what I am about to say is both forward and strange …”

  “Like I said—” Alex spat out, “I’m not …”

  “Alex, I’m not talking about anything strange here. What I’m trying to say is, how would you feel about having a little help with buying that seiner?”

  “But …” He stammered.

  “Look, I’m talking about this being strictly a business deal,” she said.

  Alex shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “I’ve got some money saved and I’ve been looking for a good investment,” she told him. “Not only that, but I’m at a point in my life when I would like to go out to sea once in a while to work on some of my research projects—I’m a biologist—and maybe even go out fishing once in a while.”

  Alex leaned forward, focusing on her words. Maybe this was the opportunity he had been looking for. The timing certainly couldn’t be any better. This was no time to act like a postpubescent manboy. He straightened himself in his chair and offered her his best businesslike demeanor.

  “What I’m not interested in doing,” Mara continued, “is assuming full responsibility for the upkeep, maintenance,
and all of the other details of running a boat. Having a partner who could do those things would be the perfect solution for me.”

  She paused to let Alex absorb her words. Despite his initial reluctance and cautious response, he leaned forward and let her expand on the idea that was forming in her head even as she spoke.

  “If, as you say, you’ve been longing for this seiner—and it sounds like you’ve checked it out thoroughly—then what I’m proposing is that I become a silent partner and that we each invest exactly 50 percent into the cost of the seiner. That will make us equal owners. You’ll manage the full operation of the seiner, while I’ll split full operating costs with you.”

  She watched Alex’s body language and knew that his interest was piqued.

  “We’ll also share equally in all liabilities, losses and gains, and I will expect to be advised as to the status of the operation via a quarterly report. I think anyone would agree that that is only fair. You can use the extra money you have saved for your other needs.”

  Mara went inside for another cup of coffee, returning minutes later with one for both herself and for Alex. Around them, a light mist had begun to fall, making the hot beverage a welcome comfort.

  “All of this, of course, will be spelled out in a business contract, which I would advise you to have your lawyer look over carefully before you commit.”

  Alex sipped his cup of hot coffee, apparently mulling the deal over in his head, while Mara pulled her sweater up close to her neck and slid her hands up into the sleeves for warmth. After a few minutes, she straightened herself, assuming a more businesslike pose.

  “Lastly, Alex, should you decide to take advantage of my offer, I will only ask you to swear in writing that you will not reveal my identity to anyone outside your own banking and legal representatives, because you’re soon going to learn that Jane is just a nickname I use to maintain my privacy.”

  “I don’t know what to say Miss—”

  “Just call me Jane for now, Alex. I’ll talk to you more about this once you think it over and decide if you want to pursue this. In the meantime, I’ll have my lawyer draw up a contract along with a background check on myself. I would only ask that you provide me with the same courtesy as far as a background check and credit report.”