The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay

by Tim Junkin

  “What do you think?”

  Clay reflected. “I think knowing and riding a horse like you do, feeling a bond there—that’s special. Being outside like that, with your father. Important to him, I’m sure.” He picked up some sand and let it sift through his fingers. “I don’t know. I hunt. I crab. Let it sit awhile. You’ll make the right choice.”

  Kate fastened her top. “Yes,” she said. “I guess.” Then, “Did you and Matthew and Byron have fun at the roast?”

  “Byron didn’t come. Laura-Dez surprised him on Saturday. He’s still with her.”

  “Oh. So it was just the two of you. Well, how about you?”

  “It was nice. Crowded. Great food. Music.”

  “What was it that you and Matty were talking about? In the note.”

  Clay brushed some sand off his leg. He looked up at Kate, who was looking at him. “Oh, you know, just talk. Relationships.”

  “What did he say about me?”

  Clay turned aside toward the horizon. “He said he loved you.”

  Kate hesitated. “Oh.” She shook her hair out. “You know I’ve never been with anyone but Matthew. Matty.” She hesitated. “Until you.”

  Clay was silent.

  “Matty and I’ve been together since tenth grade. I know you know that. I mean, I know that’s not the case with him. Not being with anyone else. Not even now. And I’m sure you also know that.” She looked down the beach. “And I wouldn’t want to know that from you, anyway.”

  After a while, Kate traced a line down his arm with her finger. “Clay?” she said. “Do you think a person can love two people at the same time? Really love them?”

  With the question, he began smoothing out the sand in front of him. He took his time, as though he were preparing a tablet and about to write the answer across it. “That’s a hard one,” he finally responded. “Yes. Maybe. But I’m not sure it would work if you tried to act on it.” He started to write something on the sand, then wiped it out.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She tilted her head. “Was Matthew’s model Rosa there last night?” she asked. Then, “Never mind,” she quickly said. “Never mind.” Standing up, she reached for his hand. “Come on. Let’s swim.”

  She took his hand and pulled him up. And then she was off for the water. She dove under a wave. Clay watched her in the surf. She was a pretty swimmer, with a long graceful stroke. He entered the water after her, pulling hard over the rollers, and was about to catch her when she turned and came back to him. When she reached him, she was out of breath. They were bobbing in about five feet of water, and each successive swell lifted them off their feet. She put her hands on his shoulders and let him hold her up. He held her waist with his hands. Then she was pointing at something in the water, about thirty yards off.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Clay saw something thrashing in the water. He couldn’t make it out at first. They both swam closer. It was struggling. “It’s a bird. A big one,” he said. “It looks hurt.”

  They both swam toward it. From its brown-gray plumage and long neck, it appeared to Clay to be a pelican, though he could not see its bill or pouch. It was entangled in something. “Can we help it?” asked Kate. “It looks bad.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Clay?”

  “We’ll need a blanket. Could you swim back and get it?”

  Kate worked her way ashore. Clay edged his way closer to the bird. He could see its trouble now. It was caught in a fishing line that was tangled around its neck and one wing. Its bill also seemed to be caught. The bird stopped struggling. It was low in the water. It flailed just to keep its head up.

  Kate returned, swimming on her back with the blanket held above her. She was breathing hard. Clay took it, asking her if she was okay and she nodded. He swam toward the bird. When he got close enough, he threw the blanket over its head and body and gathered the bundle, keeping it above the water. At first the pelican jerked, but Clay held firm, and as he kicked toward Kate, it soon gave up and was still.

  She helped him get the bundle ashore, holding one side up as they swam. They walked up the beach to their towels. Kate sat down. “Hold it tight,” Clay cautioned, handing it to her. They folded the blanket back from the bird’s head, talking to it softly. It did not struggle. Clay took a linen napkin and wrapped its beak closed lightly, and Kate held its beak and petted its neck and whispered to the bird in a calming voice. The fishing line was cutting into its flesh. A rusty hook was embedded in its plumage at the base of one wing.

  “I’ll get the knife we used with lunch,” Clay said. As he cut the line away, Kate stroked the animal and talked to it, watching him as he worked. He unwound the line from around the beak. On the neck, the skin was broken, but the line had not deeply embedded itself. He cut below and above it and pulled the nylon line free. Some other people, walking by, saw what was happening and stopped to watch and offer help. One woman went back to her car for some antiseptic. Clay worked methodically until he got to the buried hook. He looked at Kate and told her to hold tight. He worked it loose and then pulled it free. It came out with some blood and specks of flesh. The bird twitched but never made a sound.

  “When you’re done, will it be able to fly?” a little girl who had come over and was watching asked.

  Clay looked up at the question. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” he answered. Kate’s eyes asked the same thing.

  “I should have been a doctor,” he muttered.

  “I think your bedside manner needs a little work,” she whispered.

  Clay took the antiseptic and poured it where the line had cut the flesh and where the hook had been caught. The last piece of line was knotted around the wing. He worked the knife inside the tight loop and cut through it.

  “I wish we could take it home with us, Clay,” Kate said softly. She continued to stroke its head and neck. The feathers were soft and iridescent silver brown. Its pinkish eyes seemed more alert now, and it turned its head in small, quick motions. There were furry yellow feathers atop its long, slim neck and angular head and bill.

  “Talk about a double chin,” Clay remarked. He probed around its body for any additional line or any sign of injury. “That’s all we can do, I think. I don’t feel anything broken.”

  Kate continued to pet the bird. She whispered to it in such a low, soft voice, Clay couldn’t hear what she said. Everyone watching kept talking about how beautiful it was. Then Kate turned to Clay. “Well?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Kate tried to stand, and Clay helped her, since she was holding the pelican. They walked down to the edge of the beach with the bird still wrapped in the blanket in Kate’s arms. They stopped on the wet sand, just above the leading line of surf. “I know you still can,” she said, kneeling down. She put the bird down, carefully unwrapped the napkin and blanket, and stepped back. The crowd had stayed up by the cooler, but all were watching. The pelican jerked once, twice, freeing its legs, and then riffled its feathers. For several seconds it stood motionless. It seemed grand, even larger than it had in the blanket. It stretched its neck, with a long rippling effect, then its wings, throwing them back as a man does his arms when he yawns. Finally, in a rush of wing and power, it burst forward and up and was airborne in an instant, climbing against the breeze, up over the breaking waves, and beyond in long sweeps.

  Everyone on the beach began to cheer and clap their encouragement to the seabird. Kate was transfixed. Clay had seen her move only slightly when the bird had moved. She had risen with it, sort of pushing herself up with it, as high as she could, reaching for that lift that was needed. She was still standing on the tips of her toes.

  Clay watched the pelican fly straight away over the running sea, receding in the distance until it was a dot in the sky. And he watched Kate, who was watching too. And then she walked over to him and put her arms around him, laying her head on his chest.

  “Look,” he said to her, pointing over
the waves. She turned.

  “It’s coming back!” shouted the little girl.

  Everyone saw it there, growing larger, coming back toward them, perhaps a hundred yards out now, flying low toward the beach, effortlessly. Once it was above the rolling surf, it began to glide, fanning its wide wings out, flat and perfect. The bird came forward toward Kate and Clay, as if in perceptible slow motion, no higher than a child could throw a stone, until it was just above them. Then, wheeling in the air with a burst of power, it turned and flew back out to sea.

  They drove back with the sun falling behind an anvil of clouds. Kate sat close to Clay, her head resting on his shoulder. Clay helped her unload the beach gear in the dusk. She brought him a fresh towel and told him to take his shower first, while she started a few things in the kitchen. Then she rose up and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Thank you for today,” she said, and turned away. He reached his arm over her shoulder and around her front and drew her toward him, holding her there for a moment. Then he let her go and climbed the stairs.

  He heard her turn on the music. His mind was full of the light from the sea, and the images of her. He studied the photograph of Pappy and Sarah as he peeled off his clothes in his bedroom. He went out into the hall with a towel wrapped around him to turn into the bathroom. She had come up and was standing there, her shirt unbuttoned and open to him, her jeans unhooked, her hair falling around her neck. He shook his head but then found his hand in hers, and they were moving back, into his room, somehow, without saying a word, together, and her mouth and hands ran over his chest, and she knelt and buried her face in his stomach as she undid the towel around his waist, and he was unable to speak. She gently pushed him down on the bed and removed her shirt and was against him, gliding her jeans down off her long thighs.

  They lay together and she wouldn’t let him leave. She brought supper to the bed, and wine, and they ate and drank, and filled themselves with each other. They lay still, on their sides, whispering in the dark, touching each other, as the moon filled the room. They never slept. An hour before dawn, Clay got up. Kate stretched out her hand, reaching for him.

  “Do you love me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Will you keep loving me?”

  He took her hand. “I’ve loved you since the beginning. You know that. But I can’t stay.”

  “I’ve loved you from the beginning too,” she said.

  He sat down by the bed and rested his head against her knee and told her Matty was his friend. Kate said Matty was her friend too. She told Clay to wait before deciding anything. She made him promise to come back. He started to dress, telling her he was late meeting Byron. “There’s no time to pack now anyway,” he said.

  He tried to leave but couldn’t. She was there, pale against the sheets, her hair falling over the white pillows and around her breasts. They held each other until it was almost light. He pushed his feet out of the room and down the hallway, and then he somehow got out the door and into the pickup.

  24

  Byron was waiting for him by the wharf, sitting half asleep against a piling, a cold stogie stub dangling from his mouth. Clay gently kicked his leg. He opened one eye.

  “Early for coffee, you said?”

  “Got held up.”

  “What?”

  “How’d it go with Laura-Dez?”

  Byron slowly rose. He squinted up at Clay. “Great weekend. Best we’ve ever been together. We went to the circus.” He took the cigar out of his mouth, examined it, and threw it in the water.

  Clay started. “Let’s go.”

  “I also talked to Barker.”

  Clay stopped. “And?”

  “He said he’s gonna make a few calls. Said he’d come down if you want him. With a couple a boys.” Byron grinned. “To even up the negotiatin’.”

  “That’s all we need.”

  Clay began walking down the dock again. A stiff wind hit him broadside. “What is it?” Byron asked from behind him.

  “I’ll explain. It’s Kate.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I guess I’m in love with her.”

  They had reached the boat. “Who don’t know that? But I ain’t sayin’ a word.”

  Clay picked up the stern line of the Miss Sarah. “She says she feels the same.”

  Byron took this in. “Where’s Matty?”

  “Away.” Clay let the line drop. He pressed his palms over his temples. He saw her there. He could still feel her, smell her. “I want to see her already. I just left her. I’m gonna be sick.”

  Bending down, he unraveled the stern line from the dock cleat and pulled the bateau close. “Go on. Get in.”

  Byron hesitated. “We can pull these crabs up quick this morning. Get back early.” He looked out. “Might be some chop though.”

  Clay nodded again for him to step on board and then followed, and it was then that they noticed the cabin windshield. It was shattered. A spiderweb of cracks.

  “Holy shit!” said Byron.

  “The cabin,” said Clay. The door was knocked open. Inside, the marine radio’s face was bent in, and the mike ripped off and on the floor. “And the depth finder.” It was broken loose and cracked apart also.

  “Goddamn. That motherfucker.”

  Clay gripped the stanchion. “Open up the engine box,” he told Byron. They both looked in. It was clean. “See if she’ll start.” Clay went aft looking for more damage. He examined the freeboard and transom, cursing under his breath. Byron hit the key, and the engine started up and sounded normal. Leaning over the sides, Clay ran his hands along the lines of the boat. He checked the bilge. “No water,” he said. He looked around again. “He’s picking a fight, ain’t he.”

  “Let’s go find him.”

  “Tend our pots first, Byron.” Clay cast off. “Take us out.” Clay went back to the cabin, poured some water from the sink faucet into his hands, and splashed it onto his face. He dried his eyes on his sleeve. Sinking down onto the rail, he rested his head against the stanchion. He saw Byron’s fist, red and clenching the tiller post as he navigated down Davis Creek.

  Clay stared out across the mouth of Mobjack Bay, toward the Guinea Marshes and the smokestacks of the York River oil refineries. A crisp wind from the south was blowing the water up from the Bay, and the white manes of the waves were spilling over themselves. Across the eastern flats, out into the Bay, a freighter churned north, trailing black clouds from its two stacks. He looked in the cabin at the smashed radio and made himself a promise. Passing the black spar that marked the deeper channel, Byron made his turn. The Miss Sarah rolled with the breakers.

  After Byron had emptied about fifteen pots or so, Clay got up and started culling. The crabs were not as plentiful as they had been before, but neither spoke of it. After the last pot was pulled, Clay slumped back down on the floorboards as Byron set the course toward New Point Comfort, running well inside the double row of black-and-white nun buoys, the wind and waves holding steady. As they approached their lay, Byron called to Clay. Things just didn’t look right. Clay pulled himself up and looked over the gunnel. The buoys were bobbing in and out of sight in the waves. But there weren’t enough there. Part of the lay was missing.

  “Take us into it,” Clay said, scanning the water. “This wind isn’t that strong. The tide’s not so high as to be covering our warp.”

  Byron took them into the middle of their pots. Clay began counting them. Twenty or more were missing. He took the tiller and asked Byron when he had first noticed the southerly spring up. Byron shrugged. Feeling the tide, he sensed it was running. He headed for the north shore. At first, as they came close to the marsh flats, they didn’t see anything but spartina, driftwood, and foam catching in the stalks. Clay turned the Miss Sarah parallel to the marsh and was scanning the piles of blown seaweed when Byron spotted something and pointed.

  “There.”

  Clay looked and saw a buoy floating in a tidal pool. He took the bateau in, putting her in
to neutral in about three feet of water. He hopped over the side and carefully waded to the buoy. Examining it, he waded back to the boat.

  “It’s cut,” he said, throwing it to Byron. He pulled himself up and back inside. They looked at the buoy line, neatly sliced through a few inches below the knot.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “We’re pulling the pots, Byron.”

  “Clay.”

  “We’re pulling the pots, and we’ll find another creek. We’re protecting our operation.” Byron was angry and started to speak, but Clay interrupted him. “We’re pulling the pots, and then we’ll settle up this score.”

  “You want to pull the pots, we’ll pull the pots. It’s the settlin’ up I’m lookin’ to.”

  They worked through the New Point Comfort lay in silence, pulling each pot, dumping the crabs in the cull basin, and then stacking the pot in the bateau. They filled the boat with the pots, stacked to a man’s height. There was just room enough to maneuver. Clay said he wanted to run the pots and crabs in, move the pots to the pickup, and return for the East River lay. Byron didn’t speak but turned away.

  They brought the boat in. Calvin was out on the platform overseeing the buying of the crabs. He saw the stacked pots. Clay saw his eyes catch the windshield.