by Tim Junkin
The freighter soon came into actual view. It came out of the south and gained in size and shape as it steamed up the Bay, passing eventually to the west, its screws churning a huge wake. Arabic letters were written across the stern, and Clay assumed they named her and gave her home port. A few pleasure yachts plied the channel, and an occasional sailboat passed by under power, there being so little breeze. Sometime around midmorning they passed the point off Hooper Island lighthouse, and Clay adjusted course to pass west of Smith Island and begin to cross the Bay for the western shore of Virginia. The day didn’t change, though out in the expanse of the southern Bay soft, rolling swells began to build, running from the southeast. After a while they lost sight of land altogether, and the white sheet of the world enveloped them completely.
Byron disappeared into the cabin and fell asleep. Clay opened a beer and sat back, content, steering the Miss Sarah with his foot on the tiller, his thoughts melting into the white universe around him.
The Miss Sarah held steady and sliced up and over the barrels of swells, mile after mile. At first it was just Smith Point that came into view, a distant mirage of trees, like an island in a white ocean, and then gradually other parts of the Virginia shore appeared, like separate islands, clumps of trees, south of the mouth of the Potomac. The lone workboat traversed the narrowed entrance of the Great Wicomico and angled to clear the shoal off Windmill Point. A breeze began to blow out of the southeast, and only then did Clay first notice a streak of blue sky above. Slowly making headway, crossing adjacent to Windmill Point, he surveyed the opening of the Rappahannock, a wide stretch of river running a strong incoming tide. The saltiness of the air was strong. The swells grew and sent spray off the sides of the bateau. Gwynn’s Island was just a glitter to the southwest, and he gave a wide berth to the land, studying the charts for the best approach into Mobjack Bay.
Byron slept for two hours before he came out of the cabin rubbing his eyes. Clay asked him to hold the tiller and went into the cabin to get the biscuits and sausage he had wrapped for lunch. He put them out on a plastic tray and cracked two beers, and they ate their meal.
Byron took the empty tray into the cabin and came back with two more beers. He sat on the rail across from Clay, who held the tiller. They were unfamiliar with the shoreline this far south in the Bay, and the distant trees, lee shore, and glassy horizon merged and unmerged in a mirage as the Miss Sarah traversed the swells and ran her course down toward her destination and new berth.
“I had this buddy,” Byron started. “He kinda reminded me of you.” He took some swallows from his beer. “His name was Peters. He was black. He helped me.” Byron took out a cigarette, walked back to the cabin to light it, and returned. He inhaled deeply, held it, then exhaled. “I remember the first night we were fired on. I had spent only two days in Danang, when we were sent to a forward area called Dong Ha. It was an airstrip, the largest that far north. The marines had complete control of what they called the I Corps Area, the northern part of Vietnam from the Demilitarized Zone to Danang. At least they did at that time. Dong Ha was the main source of supply for that area. It was an ammo dump and an airstrip and could land Phantoms and C-130 transports. It was supposed to be secure.”
Clay sat listening.
“My first night in, we all went to see dirty movies. The Marine Corps had bunkers where they would show skin flicks. After the movies, we all went back to our tent, and I fell asleep. I awoke about three in the morning from the sound of explosions. Everybody else, it seemed, had just jumped up and gone. They ran across my bed and knocked me over and knocked my medical pack over. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t find my boots or anything. Well, Peters was sitting there watching me. The whole place was deserted but for him and me. And he was very calm. He said, ‘Look, there’s incoming, let’s get in the trenches.’ I didn’t even know what ‘incoming’ was. I told him I was trying to find my boots, but he said not to worry about the boots, to just come on and get in the trenches. He helped me pick up my medical pack and led me to the trench. It was rockets they were firing on us, and as we shoved our way into the trench, one blew up our tent, where we had just been. I guess that’s when I started shakin’. They hit us all night. I think this was the first time I remember being totally afraid, Clay. I was panicked. In the bunker, there were maybe forty men, and we were all pressed in. Peters and I were the last two to get in, so we were damn near outside the door. The explosions would light up the night. You could see the company area and all the tents that were burning. Some men were screaming. They blew up the mess hall, they blew up the supply tent, and I wanted to run. I was trembling. But Peters held me and talked to me. He was talking in my ear. We were so close together, I guess he could feel me trembling. He had his arms around me tight, and he told me just to wait, wait and we’d be all right. And I was crying, sobbing. And he held me like that all night. At dawn the Phantoms came. They chased the gooks back.”
Byron stopped. He drank his beer, then studied the top of the can, as if it were a strange sight, one he had never seen before. After a while he continued. “Peters didn’t hardly know me. But that was just the first night. It went on. It was night after night. And I didn’t get much better. He stuck with me, though.” Byron paused. “Figures, he wouldn’t make it. Right in front of me. His rifle jammed. Up near a river called the Ben Hai. Some kind of experimental model M16, which had a flash compressor that worked the valves open, with three prongs on it. Peters thought it was defective. He’d already turned one back. He complained about the bolt action on the second one, and the major kept telling him to clean it. It wouldn’t eject the rounds. ‘Clean it, mister,’ the major would say. ‘Learn how to use your weapon, goddamn it.’ Peters knew more about weapons than that fuckhead will ever know.” Byron looked at Clay. “I was in trouble, pinned down, tryin’ to wrap the guts back inside a kid, and he was coming to get me. It was an ambush. A setup. And it jammed. And this gook just took his time. Firing into him. Firing and firing. Until Joe Armstrong came over and killed the bastard. I was supposed to be the corpsman, the medic. I couldn’t do nothin’. We carried Peters back in my poncho. His blood was sloshing over the sides.”
Byron’s cigarette had burned down. He flicked it overboard and, taking his time, walked back into the cabin and lit another. He came back out, took another long draw, and held it in his lungs before exhaling. “But I never got over being afraid. That was just the way it was. Funny thing. I wasn’t much more than a scared kid out there. And what they did to the men. Men I was supposed to help. Their bodies torn apart. And usually I was useless. And always scared. A waste. I mean, the whole thing was a waste, but I was a waste within a waste. And it got worse. Joe Armstrong, there”—he waved his hand—“he was the third one in the picture. The one that I showed you? He helped me after Peters. Helped me so often. Like he was my bodyguard. He would kneel over me when I’d try to stop some poor boy from bleeding his life out. And I know he saved me in the end. When I was shot. It was kind of a relief, really, as I lay there. That it would be over, one way or another. I didn’t know it was such a clean shot, through the flesh. But I remember him there, crouched over me, my protector, firing, until I went out. When I awoke, they told me.”
Byron put his head in his hands. When he looked up, his face was damp. “There were too many of ’em gettin’ split apart. And somewhere in there, I think I began to stop liking life, liking myself. And I still haven’t stopped. Being afraid too, that is . . .” Byron paused again.
They sat there for a while, silent. The water rolled past, smooth waves of reflection, the cool, blue-green deeper element below. Sea ducks, roused by the intruder boat, whirled off the surface and skimmed about. Gulls cried to the sky in circles over the water in the distance. There were no other boats in sight.
“You did what men do in war, Byron. You did right. You were a hero. And you ain’t no more or less afraid than the rest of us now. You just got enough guts to admit it.”
Byron s
queezed his empty beer can and slowly mashed it against the wooden coaming. “Don’t see you that way. Afraid, I mean.”
Clay hesitated. “Then look closer. I know I couldn’t’ve of done any more than you. Or done it any better.”
Byron shrugged.
“In my eyes you stand taller than most.” Clay motioned at the beer cans. “You’re strung tight right now. All this probably’s not helping so much,” he said quietly. “But I wouldn’t want anyone else for my partner.” He studied the water. “Time’ll help, Buck. Just give yourself some.”
Byron swept his gaze about them. “Well, time and space is what we got down here, don’t we?”
Clay didn’t answer. The two just stood side by side, staring trancelike at the shorelines appearing and disappearing beyond the running swells of the Bay, the steadily increasing breeze blowing the clouds apart and dissipating the aura of white that had girdled the day. The seascape was changing color, as though all along it had been viewed through a camera with a soft white filter over the lens, and that filter had just been removed.
“This here is what’ll renew. Feeling it. Breathing it. Always has. Just take some time. Let it open you up again to all that strength you got inside there.”
Byron wiped his brow and face on his sleeve. “That’s what I’m trying to be here for. I’m feelin’ it and I’m waiting. But I’m having a hard time moving forward. Like old Johnnydog. Like a deer in the headlights. Hoping I make it.” He kicked at a bushel basket.
“You’ll make it, Byron. You’re healing already.” Clay tilted his chin at the stacked wire cages. “And maybe you’ll pull in some crabs while you’re at it.”
They breathed the saltier air and pushed the bateau on, continuing until Gwynn’s Island was west of them and then nearly off their stern. They pushed on toward their point of destination. Passing the Milford Haven Spit, Clay angled the Miss Sarah due south, and after a while they both could make out the red buoy marked #4 on the chart off the island New Point Comfort and the stone lighthouse standing as a sentry marking the shoal. From there Clay set a northwesterly course for the entrance to Davis Creek, noting his direction as 342 degrees by the compass and realizing that they were entering Mobjack Bay.
It was even larger than they had expected. On the chart it resembled a giant hand stamped into the land, with the several rivers protruding into the western shore as the fingers. Davis Creek, their destination, was the first inlet on the northern side of Mobjack Bay, and the smallest providing safe harbor. It ran closely parallel to its longer but less hospitable neighbor, Pepper Creek, which was shallow at its entrance and, according to what Calvin had told them, required local knowledge to navigate. Well past Pepper Creek, and going around the bay, the larger tributaries of the East, North, Ware, and Severn Rivers, opened in a circle, the mouths of the latter two being across Mobjack Bay and indistinguishable in the afternoon haze, at a distance of about three miles, Clay guessed.
“What do you think?” Clay said.
“This here pond’s right broad in the beam, ain’t she?” Byron smiled.
Clay pointed forward to a black buoy in the distance. “That’s the entrance to the creek,” he said. “Easy enough to spot. Least on a day like this.” He pulled back on the tiller post, sending the bow of the Miss Sarah hard to starboard. “Plenty a daylight left. Let’s have a look around for a good spot to lay. What do you say?”
Byron pursed his lips, then nodded. “Shit. We got half the pots here. Let’s put ’em out.”
Reversing course, they headed back out, angling closer to the peninsula, a near perfect triangle jutting out into the Chesapeake. According to the chart, the bottom gently sloped from the edge of the sandy shoal to a wide channel. They were surprised that they saw no sign of crab pots or fishing nets. Continuing southeast, just adjacent to New Point Comfort, where the water deepened into the Bay’s channel, they saw a line of black-and-red pot buoys bobbing on the surface.
Clay ran along the pot line. “Laying kind of far down, I’d say,” he remarked. “Awfully deep.”
“Virginia crabs ain’t Maryland crabs,” Byron responded. “Don’t taste the same. Maybe don’t act the same.”
Clay rounded New Point Comfort and they pushed along the western edge of the shore, running north toward Horn Harbor. Several different pot lays were bunched along the shore in about fifteen to twenty feet of water, one red and white, another red and silver, and a third, orange and white.
“These make more sense, don’t they,” Byron said.
They turned around just south of Winter Harbor and retraced their course down the shoreline, around the island’s tip, and back inside Mobjack Bay, and then ran past the mouth of Davis Creek and then Pepper Creek, nearing the mouth of the East River. One lay of about two hundred pots was set out between Pepper Creek and the East River, the buoys tinted a faded yellow.
Clay again swung the bow of the Miss Sarah around.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Byron asked.
“Seems to be plenty of room between Davis Creek and the point, doesn’t there?”
“Like somebody made room for us right off our slip.”
They cruised back to the half-moon shoal and began reviewing various depths on the depth finder. They found the slope off the bank Clay was looking for and dropped the anchor several times to see what kind of sand-and-mud mixture lay on the bottom. They cruised the area once more, looking for pots, but there were none.
Clay then began to wander some in the general area, watching the water and tide, checking the depths, and feeling for what he wanted. After a while he seemed ready and brought the Miss Sarah to the outermost point where he wanted to start the pot lay, perhaps a quarter mile or so off the beach of New Point Comfort, out of sight of any other pots and in a position to work with the tide.
“About fourteen feet, here,” he said studying the water’s surface. “Let’s work ’em down toward the black buoy.”
But he needn’t have said anything, as Byron had already untied and unwrapped the pots and filled the cylinders on several with bait and was heaving the first one over the side.
They worked together for about an hour or so, carefully positioning their sixty-odd pots along the bank. As they were finishing, another workboat approached out of the east, the lighthouse on New Point Comfort looming behind it. The boat was slightly bigger, had a high, sharp bow, and was running fast, cutting a large wake and heading directly at the Miss Sarah. Clay and Byron watched as it approached without lessening its speed. Just before reaching them, not fifty feet away, it swerved parallel to them, turning back out in the direction of Pepper Creek. A barrel-built man was alone on deck. He seemed to be observing them closely. He wore jean overalls. A shaggy beard covered most of his face. Byron raised his hand. The man did not flinch or move but only watched them as he passed, never slowing, and rocking them with his wake. Clay tried to read the name of the boat, written across the stern, but it was half covered in sludge and he wasn’t sure he got it right. He thought he made out the word Vera, though the rest was obscured.
“Friendly,” Clay commented under his breath.
“He’s a potter, all right,” Byron said. “Got to be. You see that pulley rig he had? Not bad.”
“Heavy duty,” Clay responded, watching the workboat’s stern fly away from them. Without slowing, it cut across and past the mouth of Davis Creek. After a few minutes it began to turn into Pepper Creek, where for a few seconds more they could see the upper half of the workboat and its solitary captain moving above the tidal flats.
“Our turn, now,” said Clay. “Let’s take her in to her new home. Hope she finds it tidy.”
Clay centered the Miss Sarah in the opening to Davis Creek. The channel entrance was marked by a black spar, followed by two reds leading down the main cut. The channel was narrow and serpentine. Clay noticed some shoaling on the west edge. Expanding marsh bordered both sides of the creek, which he ran at half speed until they saw the town dock and, beyo
nd, the slips near the Waterman’s Hole. They located the one that Calvin had shown them, and Clay backed the Miss Sarah in without brushing the creosote-covered piling. Securing her, they took time in preparing her permanent lines. It was just past four. In the parking lot of the wharf sat Byron’s pickup, loaded down with the rest of the pots. Laura-Dez had left a note on it. She and her sister had decided not to wait, but to push on to Virginia Beach. Written at the bottom was the name and address of the hotel where they planned to stay.
Byron backed the rusty green truck around so that the truck bed was nearest to the slip pier. Then they unlashed the ropes tying down the wire pots and carried them onto the Miss Sarah. When they were finished, Clay grabbed his duffel bag from the boat’s cabin and threw it in the back of the truck.
“Long day,” said Byron.
“Good day,” answered Clay.
Byron told Clay that he was thinking he might want to find Laura-Dez in Virginia Beach. The note was a hint, he figured. Her way of inviting him.
“I think you got that right,” Clay agreed.
Byron drove Clay over to Matty and Kate’s. “I’ll meet you before sunup,” Byron offered.
“Like hell. No way. You enjoy yourself and stay with her all day tomorrow. You know how women are about their men loving and leaving.”
Byron hesitated.
Clay continued. “I could use a day off myself sometime, so we’ll swap. You’ll owe me one.”
Byron licked his dry lips. “How you gonna get to the boat?”
“I’ll manage. They got two cars.”
“Right. But okay,” Byron stammered. “I’ll see how it’s going. Maybe I’ll be here.” He grinned. “But don’t wait for me if I’m not.”
Clay patted Byron on the shoulder, opened the door, and got out of the truck. He grabbed his duffel bag from the back. “Tell her thanks again, for bringing our pots down.” He gave Byron a look. “Show her a waterman’s appreciation, now.”