Driftfeather on the Alaska Seas

by Marianne Schlegelmilch

  “Okay, Jane,” Alex said cautiously. “Do you mind if I sleep on this?”

  “Not at all,” Mara answered. “I know this all seems impulsive to you, and the fact of the matter is that it is—but something tells me to do this, something deep inside, and so let’s plan on meeting here on Friday with our lawyers and with an independent appraiser. If you decide not to take advantage of this offer, there’s a good chance I’ll just buy the seiner myself and look for someone to manage it for me. It’s your opportunity for now, though, so give it some careful thought.”

  “I’ll do that,” Alex answered, getting up and walking to the door. “I’ll definitely do that.”

  Chapter Ten

  Storm Roamer

  Doug Williams ran his hands along the bow of the Driftfeather. What a fine seiner she was.

  “Can I help you?” a young man called down from the cabin door.

  “I was just looking her over,” Doug answered. “Saw the for sale sign. I didn’t know anyone was here. Must’ve been you that just yanked it from the window.”

  “That it was. Name’s Alex Winron.”

  Alex reached down to Doug, extending his hand.

  “Doug Williams,” Doug replied.

  “I just closed the deal on buying the Driftfeather this morning,” Alex said. “Sorry, but you’re too late to buy this one.”

  “Not sure if I’m even looking,” Doug answered. “Just here in town for the fisherman’s lobby and thought I’d look around.”

  “Well, if you like what you see here, the Driftfeather’s sister boat is across the bridge at the Douglas harbor. It’s for sale, too. It’s called Storm Roamer.”

  “You don’t say? Maybe I’ll drive on over there and check her out.”

  “You won’t be disappointed if you do,” Alex answered. “If this deal didn’t pan out, she was going to be my next choice. They’re identical. Same upgrades, same everything but the paint color and the name. Only reason I chose this one is that things kind of fell into place for me on a good deal.”

  Alex Winron was as likable as any man Doug had ever met, and he was knowledgeable and keen about boats, too. He had tested him during their conversation and was sure of that. After chatting about some of the fine points of both seiners, he walked back along the docks and up to his truck, taking deep breaths of the familiar harbor scents that had long been such a major part of his life.

  When he got to the Douglas harbor, he located the Storm Roamer at the far side of the harbor and looked her over just as he had started to do with the Driftfeather. Many of the fine points were the same, just as Alex had pointed out. The seiner appeared to be identical except that his one was painted dark green and the vessel’s name was written in light blue on both sides of the bow and on the back panel right below the deck rail.

  When he was finished looking things over, he stood on the dock staring at the letters that spelled out Storm Roamer. Suddenly a flood of memories of his lost seiner, the Fire Ring Roamer rushed into his mind. This was weird. He hadn’t even seriously considered going back to sea just yet. It was almost as if something had led him to this place.

  The seiner looked sound, and at 48 feet it was just the right length. The price was steep, but not for the quality it bought. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he took a pen from his shirt pocket and jotted down the number listed on the for sale sign.

  By the next morning, he had contacted the seller and made arrangements to thoroughly inspect all parts of the vessel. He even hired a diver to go into the water and look underneath.

  The following day, he visited the bank and made arrangements for a loan, making a sizeable down payment with the insurance money he had received on the Fire Ring Roamer, money that Mara had refused to take her half of in their divorce. Using his last free afternoon in Juneau, he took the Storm Roamer over to Hoonah for a test run.

  When he sailed past the last totem in the row that lined the beach on Graveyard Island just outside Hoonah, he was unable to avoid the sight of the tall totem with the large feather that ran up one side, and upon which a red dot was painted on the outer edge of the feather about a third of the way down. Suddenly he was shivering. He pulled the collar on his jacket up tightly around his neck, but it did little to help the intense shivering. Maybe he was coming down with something, but he had felt fine when he left.

  It seemed like only yesterday, not two years ago, since the totem had been erected to honor a larger-than-life Native man named Joe Michael. Even now it was still a powerful connection to his life with Mara. The two of them had been there for the ceremony when it was erected. Shortly after that, they had gone to Sitka and gotten married. Now, just over one year since pledging to love each other forever—unbelievably—they were divorced.

  Mara’s face—smiling and beautiful—flashed into his consciousness, but despite his every attempt to keep it there, the image quickly faded. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the shivering stopped. The warm feeling lingered, though, until long after he had sailed past the Hoonah harbor and was headed back to Juneau.

  It had been a moment for sure—one in which, for the first time in a long while, everything felt right in this world. But his and Mara’s life had not had the magical ending they had both foreseen on the beach that day when they honored Joe. He had probably just been caught up in the memory, so he stopped at the pharmacy on the way home and got a flu shot—just in case.

  The next day, he phoned the seiner’s owner and made arrangements to finalize the purchase, closing the deal later that week.

  As the days went on, for whatever reason, he couldn’t shake the memory of Hoonah. He wasn’t sick and he knew it—unless being sick of aimless floundering counted. The traumas surrounding his brother’s death and the loss of his first seiner were firmly part of the past, and the past was exactly where they should stay.

  Now, with the purchase of the seiner, for the first time in a long time, Doug Williams felt like himself again. He was finally coming out of the black hole that he had fallen into. Suddenly he wanted to tell Mara. If ever he found her again he would. The chance was worth taking and he cast aside any thoughts of the possibility that she might not care. Life, it seemed, was finally returning to normal.

  In two days, when the conference on fishing was over, he would set out on the Storm Roamer for Homer. In the meantime, he stocked up on supplies, making sure the title and permits were all in order. He left a message for Derrk Stanley, asking him to fly in from Homer to make the run back home with him. When Derrk called, he told him that he would pay him twice what he was making now just to get the man he wanted to make the trip. The two had worked well together for years, and it was time for them to do so again.

  The old Doug Williams was back—the original version of the man he had been before circumstances beyond his control had derailed him. He stood there on the dock hardly able to contain his smile. Then he knocked on the wood of the Storm Roamer’s side just for good measure, and just for his good luck to continue.

  Chapter Eleven

  Settling In

  Now that it was winter, the days had shortened so much that everyone squinted on the rare days that the sun actually showed itself. Most days, though, it rained—except for the few when it snowed. There was no point in bemoaning the fact. Everyone was in the same situation.

  Mara had firmed up her decision to not go back to the Juneau office of Ocean Research and Preserve. The friendly and supportive atmosphere she had enjoyed at the Homer office was definitely not evident in the Juneau office. After careful thought and consultation with her bosses back in Soldotna and Homer, she set up her own independent research company with one employee—herself. Any other assistance she needed would be contracted out on an as-needed basis. And so she began her new life in Juneau as a very private woman, who owned a business named So Biological, one half of a fishing seiner, a well-equipped inflatable boat, a cabin on pilings at the Juneau harbor, and who most everyone in town knew only as Jane.

  Of c
ourse, Alex Winron knew who she was. She had shared that information with him early on, surprised when he revealed that he, too, was somewhat renowned. When he told her that he was the son of two Hollywood superstars, whose identity he swore her to protect, and whose trust fund he refused to tap into, Mara totally understood, just as she understood his wanting to prove to himself that he could be his own person.

  It wasn’t long before the two unlikely business partners became good friends, agreeing early on that their age difference was an instant deterrent to romance, and deciding that they would not consider themselves any more than friends—an agreement that took a lot of pressure and uncertainty away from their interactions and allowed them to form a solid friendship.

  She told Alex about Brad and she told him about Doug, although not mentioning him by name. In return, Alex told her about becoming engaged once and, upon learning that his fiancée was cheating on him, had vowed to never become deeply involved with a show business woman again. In fact, he had sworn off women, he assured her—at least until the right one came along, if there really was such a thing as a “right one.”

  Mara met his parents, too, once when they came up to Juneau to see the seiner and after Alex had decided that she could be trusted knowing their identity. She joined the three of them and another couple who they described as close friends when they went down to Sitka for a few days.

  She found them to be much different from their screen image and completely devoted to Alex, although to hear him talk one would have thought they were completely out of touch with the realities of everyday life. She enjoyed her time with them, and assured them that she would definitely call them the next time she found herself in the LA area or in Aspen, where they spent their winters.

  After seeing them off, she flew back to Juneau, leaving Alex to hire a crew and prepare for the Sitka herring fishery, for which he had received a permit for this coming spring. Although he said he had the cash in hand, he had decided to finance $90,000 of the seiner—this despite her offer to carry the loan for him. Fortunately, the maneuver did not alter the previous owner’s willingness to accept the reduced purchase price on the seiner.

  “I want to build credit in my own name,” Alex had told her. “For my whole life I’ve been living off my parents’ money and now, in a way, yours. I want to build my own credit. I’ll use the rest of the cash to get the seiner equipped and our business started up—like getting an inflatable boat for the seiner and having it equipped just like yours. Don’t worry, I paid ahead on the first six payments with the money I saved partnering with you, so I won’t feel any pressure financially or anything.”

  ~~~

  “Ain’t seen you around much this winter,” Stu said, as he leaned one elbow on the railing alongside the water and used his other hand to hold the cigar he was puffing on.

  “I guess I’ve been keeping a low profile,” Mara told him. “How have you been?”

  Stu coughed, his face taking on a deep purplish red color as he gasped to recover, all the while trying to act like he was fine.

  “Been alright. Been better and been worse, but still breathin’ and that’s what matters.”

  “You know, those stogies might not be the best thing for your cough, Stu.”

  “Yeah, I know what ya mean, young lady, and I’m gonna quit just as soon as I do, ya know?” Stu shrugged. “But until then, I’m choosin’ to enjoy the only vice I got left to dally in, and if one day it kills me, then I guess one day I’ll be dead.”

  She backed off, changing the subject.

  “Otherwise you okay? Eating okay and sleeping okay and all that?”

  “You bet I am. Sleep like a baby most every night—especially with the waves poundin’ hard like they do in the winter. Why some mornings, I have to pinch myself to see if I’m still here,” he said with a wink.

  “Well, you let me know if the day comes when you’re not,” she laughed.

  There was no sense trying to talk any sense into a man this set in his ways, and who looked to be well into his 70s and maybe even pushing 80.

  “Alex is a good kid,” Stu spurted out. “Ya made a good choice in puttin’ him in charge of the seiner.”

  She stood dumbfounded as Stu pushed open the door to his cabin, walked inside, and clicked the latch behind him. How had Stu found out about Alex and the seiner?

  Chapter Twelve

  Questions

  Alex denied having told anyone about their business arrangement when Mara emailed him that night. He swore he hadn’t and shared her concern that word had somehow gotten out.

  “Well, it’s a small town for sure,” she wrote back, speaking the words as she typed.

  Alex wrote back about meeting the guy who bought the Storm Roamer, mentioning that he thought it was quite the coincidence that the sister ships had sat idle for two years and were now both back on the Alaska seas.

  When he wrote that the new owner was a fisherman who lived in Homer, Doug’s face flashed into her consciousness before the exchange shifted to the latest plans for this coming spring’s Sitka herring fishery.

  “We should meet up and talk about it soon,” Mara wrote, and agreed to meet in person with him at her place the day after tomorrow at 9 a.m.

  Later, while standing in line at the bank, she shifted uncomfortably when a familiar- looking man walked out to the window from a back room to answer a question from the clerk on duty. What was Lessis doing here? On closer inspection, she could see that his nametag read: K. Lessis, Branch Manager.

  Interesting. Not only interesting, but enlightening. Was that how Stu had found out about her purchase of the seiner?

  “Why, good morning Ms. Benson … er, I’m so sorry … most everyone here knows you as Jane, don’t they?” Lessis said, feigning contriteness over violating her confidentiality.

  “Good morning to you, Mr. Lessis. My but you seem to be a multifaceted presence in Juneau. Didn’t I first meet you as one of the local police officials?”

  “Now, now Ms. Ben … Jane,” Lessis answered smugly. “I guess you hadn’t heard the news that my wife’s brother is president of this bank and needed somebody he felt was trustworthy to oversee things here in Juneau. There were some problems with the previous … Oh, let’s not discuss that. I’m happy to report that I’m the new branch manager here, and please let me know if I can ever be of assistance to you or regarding any of your accounts.”

  Mara reluctantly shook Lessis’s extended hand and forced herself to smile in spite of the misgivings she had about either the sincerity or helpfulness that he presented.

  “And please call me Ken,” he smiled without changing the impersonal expression in his eyes.

  “Yes, of course. Thank you …”she let her voice fade as she looked uncomfortably around at who was watching. “Thank you, er, Ken.”

  Once finished with her banking and a few other errands, she returned to her cabin.

  “Hi, Stu,” she called to her elderly neighbor who was having a smoke out on his front deck.

  “Jane!”

  “I know about Lessis,” she said flatly.

  “Figured you’d find out soon enough,” Stu answered, flicking his cigar into the harbor.

  “That’s environmentally bad, Stu,” she admonished him.

  “Yup. I suppose it is,” Stu said, eyeing her squarely. “You enjoy the evening, now.”

  Stu wasn’t one to keep chatting when he was done saying what he had to say. One day she’d press him for more on his relationship with Lessis, but for now she just nodded and watched him walk back inside.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kona Coffee on the Deck

  Heavy clouds hung low over Juneau as a light mist covered everything with the blanket of dampness that was the norm in Southeast Alaska.

  Mara liked it. It made everything seem cozy. It also made the flower colors more vibrant, while accenting the shapes and forms of houses, boats, and other man-made things as if they had been strategically placed onto the hazy canvas of t
he earth like some type of human-generated art. No sunny day could be this beautiful, a reality lost on city dwellers surrounded by the blackness of wet pavement, and who often saw rain as nothing more than a depressing annoyance.

  She went inside and poured some distilled water into the electric teapot, pressing the on button so that it would be ready the minute Alex arrived. When he got there minutes later, she put three scoops of espresso-grind Kona coffee into the double, brown filter paper-lined cone she had located after an intense Internet search and let the water trickle onto the dark powder, stirring it gently with the handle of a small brush as she watched the cups fill. Dancing amber beads forming on top of the brew assured her that the coffee was going to taste just right.

  Some might consider it pretentious to carry the genuine crystal mugs outside onto the deck table, but crystal enhanced the aroma and the taste of the coffee, a fact she had learned years ago. It was impossible to find real crystal coffee mugs anymore, but it was worth the risk of breaking one to actually use the ones she had. Brad had taught her the pleasure of indulging in a perfect cup of coffee—the drinking of which was as much an experience as it was the enjoying of a beverage.

  She had left the deck umbrella closed, too. The mist was fine and she wanted to savor it. A zip-up wool sweater, jeans, knee-high rubber boots that were regulation wear for the area, and a tight-fitting wool cap would keep her toasty and warm while they sat outside. Dressed similarly, Alex sat down at the table across from her.

  “I’ve got the report from last quarter here for you,” he said. “You can see that there’s some pretty hefty maintenance expenses this time, but I felt I should have everything gone over thoroughly at least once before we put the Driftfeather out to work. I also paid another six months ahead on my loan since I don’t want to forget any payments while I’m out working.”